LIEUTENANT PEARY AND THE NORTH POLE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2295, 24 February 1898, Page 49

LIEUTENANT PEARY AND THE NORTH POLE.

HIS PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. t Lieutenant P«ary, the American Arctic explorer, with his wife, arrived recently in London for the first time, and was, of course, interviewed. In the course of his remarks he said : — " Naturally I feel confidence in my own plan of accomplishing this. I believe it quite possible to reach the Pole. It is simply a matter of time, experience, and the necessary funds, I have been so busy with my. own work that I have not been able to pay much attention to the work of others. Nansen has done magnificent work, and my opinion is that the results of hiß and Jackson's expedition, in showing that there is no land in the Siberian segment of the Arctic region, suggest that the route on the other £i,de, the one I intend to follow next year, is the only practicable way of gettiDg to tbe Pole. I do not say tbis in any spirit of criticism— it is simply my opinion on the matter. " There has been a report in the States that Sverdrup Intends nexb year to go by that -route aud in pursuit of my object; but this •would be an unprecedented occurrence, and I cannot believe the story to be anything more than a rumour. With regard to Andree, I never thought he had one chance in a thousand of successfully carrying one h's plan. "In view of tbe experiences of others, and of improved methods oi transportation, and of obtaining proper compressed food, I believe the prospects of an fxplorer successfully reaching the Pole are batter to-day tban they ever have beeu before. ''Briefly, I intend going north with pro■visioua for four cr five years iv the same region where I have worked for six yoars, pushiDg my ship as far as possible on the Borth-west coast of Greenland, and landing there with my Eskimos. Then I shall cross the sea ice with dogs aud sledges in a bee line for tbe Pole, and having reached that poio\ feball come straight back. €- All details are not yet completed, bub my present plans are as follows : —I shall start from New York at the end of July next in a &bip which I have yeb to purchase. I shall take with me a surgeon and oae European. I have not yet decided on my companions, but there will only be three of us. I shall take the usual supply ot Arctic- scores, sufficient for five yaara, although I do not anticipate taking so long to acoomplish my object. Leaving New York, I sbail proceed to Sydney, Cape Breton. There I shall coal, and go north through Davis Strait, Baffin's Bay, Smith's Sound, and Robeson Channel to the farthest point I can reach by open water on the north-wesE shore of Greenland. I shall probably como to the place where I must leave my ship some tlmft isi September, Oa my voyage north I shall call at Whale Island, embark my E*kimoa, -who live in tha immediate neighbourhood, and whom I selected this summer. They are not only picked men, but personal friend* 1 , as I know every individual member of the tribe. They will be ready when I call for them. They will probably comprise eight couples, and will bring with them their arms, tents, and canoes, so that they will be a complete Arctic settlement. The ship will then return to New York, where she should arrive tbe same autumn. It will go out, tbe fellowJtg year, and continue to do co i'-. 1 51 nry work ib finished. After landing I f=!iaJl push along the coast with sledges, dogs, aud '.he whole of my Eskimos, and establish stations at regular intervals until the limit of land is reached. There I shall start with specially Hght loads, with my men and dogs, to cross the intervening district to the Pole. I cannot tell how far land extends. I hope to effect a landing from the ship in September, and to be ready to start Eorfch the following spring. " After leaving land the trip to the Pole will be one on which we cannot construct stations or caches ; therefore it will have to be made with the smallest amount of impedimenta and accomplished vrith all expedition ; yet jxnder most favourable circumstances I hops to do it in three months. " There may be open channels, or leads, as whalers call thorn. These we shall have to ferry across, but in that latitude I do not expect to find open water to any extent. Frankly, I do not believe '.n ibe talk of an opeo Polar sea. It is all nonsense. There r are portions of open water of limited extent, bub these are in. comparatively low Arctic latitudes. When the Poles is reached I 3hall return to tbe coast with all speed, and, if the ship is waiting, embark at once for home. If for any reason she fails v?, I shall return overland across the northern part of Greenland to Cape York. As I have already said, although I take five years' provision?, I hope to successfully achieve my object before that time." Lieutenant Peary had a small section of the enormous meteorite he brought home from the Arctic regions with him. It has fche look of highly polished steel, and has apparently finely eDgraved on the surface" the beautiful figures which characterise meteoric iron. In the composite mass is 92 per cent, of iron and 8 per cent, nickel. With regard to this meteorite Lieutenant Peary said : l< It has special interest for England, because the first knowledge of the possession of meteoric iron by the Eskimos of the Cape York region -was attained by Sir John Ross in 1818, when he discovered the existence of the people themselves. He found that they had iron knives and harpoon heads, which were said to have been obtained from iron mountains in Melville Bay. Efforts were made by every expedition to locate these, but I was the first white man to see them. In the spring of 1894 I found there were three great masses of meteoric iron, one weighing 200,0001b (100 tons), one 60001b, and a third 10001b. They had been used .for generations as a source of iron supply for the natives. In 1895 I brought two smaller ones back to America, and in 1896 I attempted to bring back the big one, but I had to retreat in order to Bave my ship. Last summer, however, I succeeded in getting it safely to America. It is by far the largest meteorite in the world, measuring, as it does, 12ft by Bft by 6ffc. According to Eakimo legend, these three masses were originally an

Eskimo woman, her dog, and tenfc, who had been hurled from Heaven for some impropriety and fell in that region." The lines on them cross each other at angles, forming a beautiful mosaic pattern, which may bo called the celestial trade mark of meteoric iron