The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-10-21

"a bOAACs WALC Oek4CKS Win S10k y 6tpo&AC-
upon the back arc cutting OH the
deep great-coat of fat in which kind
II nature has wrapped up this most
overKrown Of her children. In few
hours all is slowed away in the
tanks. and a red ialet, with white
projecting bones, lies alongside, and
sinks like stone when the ropes
are loosed. Some years ago 3 man
still lingering upon the back. had the
misfortune to have his feot caught be-
tween the creatures ribs at the instant
when the tackles were ,undone. Some
cons hence those two skeleton. the one
hanging by the foot from the other.
may grace the museum of subtropical
Greenland. or astonish the students Of
the Spitzbergen institute of anatomy.
Apart from sport, there is glamour
shout those circumpolar regions which
must affect everyone who has pene-
trstcd 10 them. Ny heart goes out to
that old, gray-headed captain who,
having been left for an instant when at
deaths door, staggered of in his night
gear, and was found by his nurses far
from ehis house and still. as he
mumbled, pushing to the norrard."
So an Arctic fox which friend Of mine
endeavored to tame escaped, and was
caught many months afterward in a
game-keeper's trap in CaithnesA It also
WAS pushing "norrard." though who
can say BY what strange compass it
took its bearings7 II is . region Of
purity, Of white ice and blue water,
with no human dwelling within
thousand miles to sullv the freshness
Of the breese which blows across tho
icefieldA And then it is . region of
romance also. You stand on the
very brink Of the unknown. and every
duck that you shoot bears pebble In its
gizzard which comes from . land which
the maps know net
These whaling captains profess TO see
NO great difficulty in reaching the
pole. Some little margin must be
allowed. no doubt, for expansive talk
over pipe and a glass. but still there
is a striking unanimity in thier ideas
Briefly, they are these: What bars
the passage of the explorer as he
ascends between Greenland and
Spitzbergen is that huge Heating ice
reef which scientific explorers have
called ''the pal@ocrystic sea-" and the
whalers, with more expressive Angle
Saxon, ''the barrier" The ship
which has picked Its way among the
great ice foes finds itself, some
where about the slst degree, confronted
by a single mighty wall extern ding
right across from side to side, with no
chink or creek up which she can push
her bows. It is old ice. gnarled and
rugged. and Of an exceeding thickness.
impossible to pass, and nearly impossi-
bic to travel over, 50 cut and jagged is
its surface. Over this it was that the
gallant Parry struggled with his
sledges in 1897, reaching q latitude
(about 90 degrees 50 minutes if my re-
membsanee is correctly which for long
time was the record. As far a. he
could see, this old Joe extended right
away to the pole.
Such is the obstacle. Now for the
whaler's view of how it may be
surmounted. This ice, they say, solid
as It looks, h really. . Asating body.
ana At the mercy Of tho water upon
which it rests There Is in those seas
. perpetual southerly drift, which
weakens tho cohesion Of the huge
masA and when, in addition to this, the
prevailing winds happen to be from the
north, the barrier is all shredded out.
and great bays and quits appear in its
surface. A brisk, nertherly wind. long
continued, might at any time clear a
road. and has. according to their testi-
mony, frequently cleared road by
which a ship might slip through to the
pole. WhAlers fishing as far north a.
the SD degree have in an open season
seen no ice, and mere important still
no reflection of ice in the sky to the
north Of them. But they are in the
service Of q company. they are there to
catch whales, and there i no adequate
inducement - mako them risk them
selves, their vessels and their cargoes,
in . dash for tho north.-A. Conan
Doyle, in London Idler.