The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-09-09
NORTH POLE REFLECTIONS.
Remarks Called Forth by the Return OF
the Wellman Expedition.
From The Charleston News.

From the Charleston News.
When one reaches the north pole
there is no place to the north of him,
and no place east or west of it. Now, it
does not require great penetration to
understand the reason why so many
arctic expeditions have failed, since 1T
is clear that when the explorers passed
the magnetic pole they forgot to make
allowance for the vagaries of the COM
pass and kept on steering north to
wake up some fine morning and find
themselves just where they started
from. What better explanation can
we have of the fact that no explorer
ever succeeds in passing the S6.15 par
allel? First, he is hoodooed and should
sail south by his compass if he wishes
to go north, and not doing it, he gets
all mixed UP and comes back home
again. There is no longer any mys-
terry about Nansen and ever so many
others falling to go on when they were
within a few hundred miles of their
destination and when there could not
possibly have been anything worse to
fear In going ahead than in retreating.
Then, too, should the explorer when
he reaches the pole desire to return
to the south--though we do not be-
lieve he would be so foolish as to do
so when he could stake out a claim
right on the pole itself and then no one
in the world could get ahead" of him
would be fair one, since it must
inevitably blow him south, there being
no other direction for him to go.
Another remarkable popularity of
the north pole is that there is no time
there or, rather, 1t is all hours at once"
so that one has only to choose what
time he wishes 1t to be and 1t is ex-
actly that time. This is easily under
stood when we recollect that all the
meridians meet at the pole. Just think
what saving of annoyance it would
be not to have to trouble ourselves
about the time of day, but to make 1t
whatever hour suited us best! No one
would tell you in the morning it was
time to get up or breakfast time or
boat or train time; you could sleep as
long as you liked and still be in time
for everything necessary to do. Clocks,
watches, bells that chime the hour and
ROSTERS that crow for midnight and
daylight would all be superfuous.
There would be no school time nor
church time nor time for banks to
open and shut nor for your note to be
protested if 1t was not paid; it could
not even come due If there was no way
to distinguish the beginnings and end
ings of the days of the month. One
could never grow old there in the alb
surdly rapid way one does in these
ATTITUDES and il would be perfectly use
less for the old fellow with the scythe
and hour glass to come after you with
any disagreeable assertions of it be-
ing time for you to die" or that your
hour had come" for there would Meth
er be time nor hour in that delightful
place.
There would be yet another advan-
tage in living at the north pole, which
is that everything is heavier there than
elsewhere, the pole being thirteen miles
nearer the center of the earth than any
olnha-nyaant
south pole-there would be a corre-
spending difference in the attraction of
graVtation or weight. Your grocer
would have to give you down weight"
on everything, and so would the butch
er and coal merchant and the ice man.
NO, best of all, there would be no need
or an iceman there, and no competi-
ton between city and consumers COM
panies! All one would have to do would
be to put his meat and butter and
watermelons and other things right out
of doors on ice, and they would keep