Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1898-01-16

indianapolis, Ind, January 10
Julius Frederick of the Greeley eXpe-
dition, who has heard Nansen's lee
ture, regards many of that eminent
explorers experiences in the arctic
regions as mythical. For instence,
says Frederick, The tells how he killed
polar bear with one load of birdshoL
No man was ever known to kill polar
bear with birdshot. Its fleece is very
of almost impenetrable FUR. Now, you
can stand a board up and fire birdshot
III 1t SO that the shot Will bury them
selves, but put even a slight coating
OF cotton batting on the board ana
the shots won't penetrate at all. 1t
is the same way with the skin of a
polar bear The birdshot that he tells
about would never penetrate the Skin
OF the bear, let alone the heart, and
the only way that he could hope to
kill polar bear would be to penetrate
MS heart.
Again he said in that incident that
tIio sun w eio lcsolICd " 1Ilo nay oh, "
canoe, and the bear, judging from his
story, must have been standing over
poor JOhansen, his companion, at least
twenty minutes While Nansen was get
ting his gun. Now, when polar bear
hits a man it is all over with him,
and the minute he knocks a man down
he goes for him without waiting for
kindly disposed companions to set
their guns. Poor Johansen, too, SGT
off without a scratch, but [ want TO
say to you that polar bears are MOI
built that way, and il a real polar bear
had been after him, there would have
been more Disagreement than the mere
scraping off OF the dirt that Nansen
tells about
DIGGING IN THE ARCTIC SOIL.
"Nansen tells how he made spade
out of the blade Of walrus,
and a pick out Of a walrus tusk and
how with those implements he and
Johansen dug winter quarters in the
ground from four to six feet deep and
eight by twelve feet in dimensions,
Now. | want to say that the soil there
is as hard as the granite on the side
walks of your city of Indianapolis, and
there is no pick or crowbar or spade
that will phase it. 1t is harder to drill
or chop into than the granite rock.
I'm order to imbed the two founda-
tions of our pendulum we had to dig
two holes each about foot deep and
twenty four inches square. These were
for the piers to support the frame work
upon which the pendulum was to
swing. Our large crew, composed OF
men, many OF whom had worked in the
iron mines and were men of Drawn and
muscle, and provided with crowbars,
picks and hatchets and the very best
of other implements, were two weeks
in digging these two holes. DR.. Nan
sen dug a hole many times that size
with the shculder-b blade of a walrus.
COULDN'T SWIM IN ICY WATER.
"One of the browning eXaggerations
was that story about the kayaks drift
ing away when the doctor swan, about
an hour one would judge, in the icy
water after them. Now | want to say
that on a midsummer day, the warm
est dav of the year, at a latitude of
81 A degrees north, George Rice and l.,
of our expedition, took a dip into a
shallow pool, and in a fraction of a
second both of us were seized with
cramps and in anothecb fraction Of a
second we were out asa6n. | tell you
that he could not possibly have per-
formed that swimming feat without
taking cramps.
"Then he said that for one whole
winter he and Johansen slept twenty
four hours out Of the twenty-four. That
is false No man can sleep over TOUR
honrs in those arctic regions