The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1886-09-04
HUNTING THE POLE,
ALocating Business Which Has Been Kept
Red Hot by Some of the Brightest
blinds of All Ages.

interest in what | may term the great
crra incognita, if l may be pardoned
Tor using a phrase from my own mother
ongINe.
Let us for a moment look back across
he bleak waste of years and see what
wonderful progress has been made in
he discovery of the pole We may
then ask ourselves, who will be first to
lack his location notice on the gnawed
and seasOned-cracked surface of the
pole itself, and what will he do with it
after he has so filed upon it?
Iceland, | presume, was discov-
cred about $50 A. d., OF l,026 years
ago, but the stampede to Iceland
has always been under control, and you
can get corner lots in the most desirable
cities Of Iceland and wear long, rick
city name with links in it like a rose
wood sausage to-day, at a low price.
Maddox. Norwegian viking, discov-
cred Iceland A. D. $50, but he did not
live to meet Lieutenant Greedy or any
of our most celebrated northern tour
lists. Why Maddox yearned to 90
north and discover q colder country
than his own, why he should seek to wet
his feet and get icices down his back
in order to bring to light more snow
banks and chiiblains, | can not at this
time understand. Why should a robust
and prosperous viking roam about in
the cold trying to nose out moro frost
bitten EsquimaIX, when he could re-
main at home and Yikep
But leave this to the thinking mind.
Let the thinking mind grapple with it.
1t has no charms for me. Moreover, |
haven't that kind of a mind
Octher, another Norwegian gentle
man, sailed around North cape and
crossed the Arctic circle in $50 A. D.,
but he crossed it in the night, and didn't
notice it at the time.
Two or three years later, Erik, the
Red, took large snow-shovel and dis
covered the east coast of Greenland.
Erik. the Red, was a Northman, and he
flourished along about the ninth CEN
Jury, and before the war. He sailed
around that country for several years
drinking bay rum and bears oil and
having a good time. He wore fur I'M
derclothes all the time, winter and sum-
mer, and evaded the poll tax for long
time Erik also established a settlement
on the southeast coast of Greenland in
about latitude 60 degrees north These
people remained here for some time
subSisting on shrimp salad sea-moss
farina and neat s-fOot oil. But finally
they became so bored with the quiet
country life and the backward springs
that they removed from there to land
that is fairer than day, to use the words
of another. They removed during the
holidays, leaving their axle grease and
all they held dear, including their re-
mains.
From that on down to 1880 we hear
or read varying and disconnected ac-
counts of people who have been up that
way, acquired a large red chilblain,
made an observation, and died. Rep
resentatives from almost every quarter
of the globe have been to the far North,
eaten their little bunch of jerled Polar
bear, and then the Polar bear has eaten
his little hunch of ierked explorer, and
so the good work went on. The Polar
bear, with his wonderful rctentiyo
faculties, has succeeded in retaining his
great secretregardng the pole, together
with the man who came out there to
find out about it. So up to 1880 a large
number of nameess explorers went tC
this celebrated watering place, shot 9
few pemmican, ate jerked whale
shuddercd few times, and died L
has been the history of Arctic eXplora
ton from the earliest ages. Men have
taken their lives and few doughnut
N their hands, wandered away into the
uncertain light Of the frozen North
made a few ObservatiOns-tO eaCl
other regarding the backward spring
and then cached their skeletons forever
In 1880 two Italians named Lem tool
load OF sun-kissed bananas and mad,
voyage to the extreme north, but TIT
historian says that the accounts are 81
conflicting, and rs the stories told by
the brothers did not agree and neithe
ever told it the same on two separate
occasions, the history of their voyage i
not used very much.
Years rolled on. Boys continued t.
90 to school and see in their geographic
onticing pictures of men in eXpensy
fur clothing, running sharp iron spear
and long, dangerous tab-knives int
ferocious white bears and snortin!
around on large cakes of cold ice an
having a good time. These inspire
the growing youth to rise up and d
likewise. So every nation meath tn
sun has contributed its assortments c
choice, white skeletons and second-han
clothes to the remorseless nav of tn
hungry and ravenous north.
And still the great pole continued t
squeak on through days that were 81
months long and nights thatmade break
fast seem almost useless.
In 1477 Columbus went up that way
but did not succeed in starving to dealt
He got bird eve view of large dc
post of dark-blue ice, got hungry an
came home
During the fifteenth and sixteent
centuries the northern nations of Europ,
and especially the Dutch, kept the di
covery business red-hot, but they d
e 41,., 81.