The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1896-02-19
Nansen and the Pole.

The reports of DR.. Nansen's dis.
covery of the North Pole make a
world wide sensation, worthy of so
supreme an achievement. It. IS not
too much to say that civilization
holds it's breath awaiting confirmation
of the news.
AS we said on Sunday. the proba-
bilities are strongly against it: Lit
tie Importance is to be attached t"
the report purporting to come from
Siberia, but the dispatch from the
British consul at Archangel his
government, asserting the CT .'hrma-
ton of the report, certainly carries
weight Yet why should no details
have been sent by that officer, nor
even a statement as to how the news
had reached Archangel. which is on
the White sea in northern Russia,
and a place of commercial conse-
ouence, in touch with the world
The New York Herald, which
ought to be an authority on arctic
exploration, disputes the judgment
of Gen. Greedy. Lieut.. Peary and
others, and is inclined to believe the
reports 1t says;
..This news goes very far to cor CO
roborate the rumors printed in The
Herald on Friday to the same effect,
bus which came to us by way OF
Kolimsk, on the extreme north
western coast of Siberia. Though
these two places are over 5000 miles
apart, they form the base OF trl,
angle, with the pole as the apex, and
the messengers would probably not
have had to come over thousand
miles if sent out by DR.. Nansen i'm
media,ely after his great discovery.
: "With few exceptions, our art'c
authorities refuse to believe in the
trnth of the rumors and the Nor
wegian explorers success. They
make the great mistake, however, in
imagining that winter is the wrong
season for travel in the arctic, where
as. as The Herald stated on Friday,
it is the very time when the Arctic
ocean is solid aud progress by sled
or ON foot is least impeded by the
breaks in the ice. Of course no one
exp cts that the Fran is now ap
preaching the Siberian coast out
midwinter is the time of times that
Nansen would send his messengers,
native or Norwegian, to announce
his discoveries to civilization.
..The further fact that these mes
sengers have reached civilized points
at,K Kolimsk and Archangel, though
5000 miles apart, shows that there
were thought and design in sending
ont the news. The Herald cannot,
of course, assert positively that Dr.
Nansen has discovered the pole. out
there is everything in favor of the
truth of the rumors that have reached
MS Such rumors do not spring from
nothing
For our part, the only theor. oy
which we can reconcile the two
statements, (1) that Nansen has dis
covered the pole and, (2) that he Is
returning the way he went, is tha'
the Fran, after drifting northwarc II
the pack ice. broke into that "oper
polar sea" which Dr.. Kane once saw
This would account for the unex
pectedly early return of Nansen, ane
for his abandonment of the route he
had determined upon following whel
coming back to civilization. l
might be that the Fran was lost lost
leaving the party to return on sledge'
on the more familiar route to tn
starting point.
But it is useless to speculate OF
the subject. The possibilities ar
too numerous, and we have as ye
not even one admitted fact to base
theory On The State.