THE RACE FOR THE NORTH POLE.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 17, Issue 59, 27 July 1906, Page 2

THE RACE FOR THE NORTH POLE.

By Prof. Garret P. Serviss. Over the ice and through the pack and under the night we go, AY here nothing shall stay us and naught can dainnt us, For the j*cril.and joy we know. The Artie King shall welcome nod, the floes shall pa-sage yield, With n’vcr a thought of retreat to haunt us,’ And the Pole of the world for field. American enterprise now attacks the North Pole on two lines and by two methods, and if within the coming twenty-four months the Stars and Stripes do not float from the boreal axis of the earth somebody will have to make Kuropatkin excuses in another field than that of war. Commander Peary, whose cheerful peisistenqe and unshaken confidence must excite universal admiration, proposes to go by his old route, but with improved equipments and to take the Pole by the dash of a storming party over the ice pack north of Grant Land. The party will have to travel SOO miles to reach the Pole, and 500 miles to get back again to its base. Dogs and sledges will be used, and Peary depends largely upon the Esquimaux for assistance. He knows them .well, and they 1 ,now him, and he argues that sin e they are the most northerly d mi:, on the earth and accust,o (> iti.dr lives to Arctic coni v must be better able to r privations and difficulties .. h a journey than white men brought from a temperate climate. The one thing that they lack he will have to supply— the force of brains and the inspiration of a great idea. Perhaps their very ignorance and lack of cultivation, may be an advantage as long as they have unquestioning faith in their leader. At any rate they can standi the climate and , the food, and that alone gives an immense start to the enterprise. The other attack comes nearly from the opposite side-, from the direction of Northern Europe and Asia. There arc none of Peary's well-trained Esquimaux there to assist, and the white mams nerve and brawn must do the work. This attack on the Pole differs widely from Peary’s in method. The first object of this expedition, which is backed- by the itoillionaire Mr. William Zeigler, is to discover and relieve the members of the former expedition sent out a couple of years ago by Mr, Ziegler under the command .of Anthony Fiala, and theft, if possible, to force a way to the Pole. An attempt will be made to break and blast a channel through the Arctic floes and pack as far north as practicable even to the Pole if it can be done. This, of course, is a very different proposition from riding over the ice in sledges. A RA( - WORTH WATCHING.

Bv. n x editions will have plenty of determin. .on behind them, and it will-'be ~ race • worth watching. Whichever wins, the American flag will be in the van.-

What are the comparitive chances on the two sides? Peary, to begin with, has the larger and wider experience. He has spent a large part of his time in the Artie, working his way north and gradually becoming familiar with the perils and difficulties, ever since 1892. He has led four expeditions by what may be called the Greenland route, and having gone over the sa,me ground again and again, it has become something like a home land to him. There is probably nobody who knows the Esquimaux and their ways of life as intimately as he does. His long experience furnishes him with a ready solution for any problem that is likely to arise. The Arctic can have few surprises for him, and he needs only health, strength arid obedient hands to aid him. .

There is a very wrong impression in the public mind concerning the nature of the obstacles that such an expedition must overcome. Most persons think principally of the supposed danger. In fact, with experienced men, the danger is probably less than that which many climbing parties on the steepest and iloftiest ice-clad mountains encounter. It is not the peril but the work that presents the chief difficulty. Commander Pdary himself points out this fact. The danger and perils, he says, "are largely a’ fiction of the popular mind.” The things that wear out and dishearten Arctic explorers are “the discomfort, the scant rations, the aches and weariness, and the countless ances and irritations of the work.”

Uhite men after months of struggl ng amid the Arctic ice and cold, lose their temper. They become changed men, growing jealous, suspicious, quarrelsome. This is why so many expeditions from which great results have been expected have ended in failure, disaster and even tragedy. By surrounding himself as far as possible only with the patient, acclimatised, enduring Esquimaux, Peary will unquestionably be free from many causes of failure that have beset former expeditions. The 600 miles that will have to be traversed over the ice are formidable, but not in themselves a very great obstacle. In an air line this distance is about the same as that from New York to Toledo, O. If there were solid and reasonable level groundi underfoot the explorers would have no great difficulty provided that th n y were warmly clothed well supplied with provisions. But what they really will have under foot will be a floor of floating ice, very rough and broken on the surface, cover ing a deep ocean and liable to break up, unless the time chosen for traversing it is wisely and fortunately selected. This kind of peril Peary’s long experience may be trusted to enable Min to avoid. He knows the Arctic ice as the farmer knows his fields.

PERHAPS ALL LAND ROUTE FOR

PEARY. ' A possibility which he has forseen is that the whole way from Grant Land to the Pole may not lie over the ocean, after all. He has been within 396 miles of the Pole, and has seen no land to the north.; the Duke of Abruzzi and Nansen have been within 287 and 261 miles of the Pole, respectively, on another side of it, Bind they saw no land. But within the space around the Polo more than 600 miles broad, which, no man has yet entered, there may, nevertheless, be a large island, or a group of islands. The Pole itseW may lie on land, and if this shoQld be the fact 'the Journey would be U* pasier wd mpr* I

nodule. Jt is even possible, though not probable, that a low flat island surrounding the Pole might contain a living world of plants and animals. The South Pole lies amid a mighty* continent, but the land there appears to be so elevated that it is above the limit of perpetual snow. A smaller land, of low elevation, about the North Pole, surrounded by, an ocean whose ice periodically breaks, would present a different state of affairs. Having continuous daylight, with the sun unceasingly above the horizon for six months at a time, a low land thus situated might possess a more favorable climate than Northern Greenland.

Another great point in favor of Commander Peary’s plan is that he will have a series of fixed stations connecting him with his base and with the outer world. By way of Greenland he can keep a more or less regular communication with the great centres of information by means of his wireless telegraph apparatus. Supposing him able to operate such apparatus from the Pole itself, with proper relay stations leading to Southern Greenland, the particulars of the crowning discovery could be known months before the return of the explorers to the edge of civilization. TO BLAST A ROAD THROUGH ICE. | The Ziegler plan to blast a way through the ice is a much bolder .method, and one that on the face of I it seems not so likely to succeed, j The blasting operations are in- , tended, to open the way from one lead of water to another when the ice fields are divided by lanes of open sea, and to demolish particularly obstructive masses of ice that may j lay in the path of the ship. But, of {course, it is not intended to blast a channel all the way to the Pole. 1 The discovery that a channel can I be made through very heavy ice by means of a strong steamer whose prow is so- shaped that the forward end of the vessel can be driven up on the ice, breaking it down with the weight, was developed by the late Admiral Makaroff, of the Russian navy, who perished last summer in a , sortie of his fleet from Port Arthur. I This is not the first time that rival expeditions under the same flag have set out nearly simultaneously for the Pole, but never before probably has the competition been so keen. Taken all in all, the chances for the discovery of the North Pole within the next two or three years are more favorable than they have ever been before, because greater skill, more complete knowledge, better outfits and larger capital are now engaged in the undertaking, and the rivalry of a race introduces an element that is always exceedingly effective in making a hard task easier to accomplish.—"N. Y. American."