The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1877-08-02

II. w. Howgate, Washington. 800. 500
A. Symmes, Louisville ........... 500
A. A. Mccullough, Norfolk 1890. $50
G.. a. Williams, n. London. $500. 200
While hundreds of others have
given smaller amounts. Truly
yours, II. W HowGATE.
Mr.. Symmes has written the fol
lowing explanation of the Symmes
theory, which will be read with in
terest.
ITO the Editor of the Courier-JOurnal.l
In your paper of a late date 1 see
a piece headed "Howgate's Polar
Colony" in which is given his plan
of approaching the pole by slow APP
proaches-say five years, stopping
for the first year at about the eight
ieth degree of North latitude and
spending one year, and then going
say up to the eighty-fourth or fifth,
and remaining for another year, and
so on for three or four years until
the men will become hardened to
the cold that they may finally reach
the pole. He seems to have no
idea of the "Symmes theory" or if
he had he never alludes to the pos
sibility of its being worthy of no.
tice, although Captains Parry, Ross,
Hall, Tyson and DIR. Kane's explo-
rations in the extreme north go far
ther to prove theSymmes theory true
than that of Sir Isaac Newton. A
Mr.. Julius Payer has also written q
letter to the New York Herald Civ
ing his views of the best way to
"reach the pole" upon the supposi-
ton that the Newtonian theory is
the only correct one, and that it
must be one vast solitude of eternal
ice up tothe nineteenth degree north.
l wonder if either of the above men
toned persons ever read an account
of Capt. Parry's third voyage to the
north, in which he was told that in
bis voyage he ''must go to the pole"
and to prepare himself fully for the
purpose. He then said he must
have reindeer, as the EsquimauX
dogs were too slow to propel sledg
es from where he would have to
leave his vessel. So reindeer were
procured for him and the same kind
of sledges or small boats that the
Laplanders use, with bottoms
shaped as sled-runners, but made
water-tight, so that if they break
through the ice they will not sink.
He had plenty of food for the
deer put on board, and away he
sailed for the North Pole, and
forced his vessel as far as about the
eightieth or eighty-first degree of
north latitude, and then took to the
ice with his small boats or sledges.
He did not travel more than one de
gree northward before he came to a
space of open roater, so of course he
could not use his deer beyond that
point. He then told his men Che
had six men to each boat that they
must go on TO the pole, and the
deer were no more thought of; but
they padded their little boats
across the open water to the next
cake of ice and sent on northward,
and the farther they went the more
open aoater they found, mpca to
their astonishmens. They also
found the ice getting ''few and far
between" each cake, and as they
were in mid-ocean with only small
boats when a storm would arise,
they would pull the boats upon the
ice and thus outtride the storm;
but when they got up to SD they
measured the ice and found IT only
4 feet thick,and when up to s24d only
three feet, and when they got up to
sad they could find no ice strong
enough to bear the weight of their
little boats, and the sun so hot as to
melt the tar out of the seams Of
their boats and small flies came on
board; so they were obliged 70 re-
turn. Captain Parry says he had
three weeks of as fine sunshiny
weather as he ever saw, and it was
all open water before HIM"