The Marble times and Crystal silver lance., 1901-04-26
TO FLOAT AT POLE.
OUR FLAG FIRST FOR THE Ex-
IRENE NORTH.
Evelyn Baldwin's Plans to Make n Dash
to the North Pole-He Will Take the
Confidence.

The vessel chosen by Evelyn B.
Baldwin for his proposed dash to the
north pole" has been named the Am
erica. The expedition will be distinct
ly American. If the dauntless captain
who has quietly and unostentatiously
devoted many months to preliminary
study and investigation before en-
barking upon what he feels will be
the voyage of his life, in more senses
than one, reaches his goal at latitude
80 degrees north and stands on the
spot beneath the north star, where
there is neither east nor west" it will
be the stars and stripes which will
there be first unrolled and frozen. Mr.
Baldwin is now in Washington re-
cruiting the party for his expedition,
says the Chicago Chronicle. His idea
of polar exploration is Numerically
opposed to that of Lieutenant Peary,
SO far as the personnel Of such party
is concerned. Peary has said the
greater the party the greater the dan
ger of accident, and necessarily of de-
lay. 1.-TWO men, the right two men,
can go north over the ice faster and
farther than 2,000,' he is said to have
asserted. Baldwin thinks that polar
exploration is like any exploration,
and that in the union of a moderate
number of strong, active, hardy men,
there is greater strength. He admits,
however, that like war fleet, such
a party is only SO strong and so fast
as its weakest and slowest member.
There will be about thirty in the Bald
W,n-Zlegler expedition, but there will
be none but the hardest. Mr.. Bald
win has been very reticent in regard
to his plans. After his return from a
three months visit in Europe ito
gather information of all Sorts" as
he said when he started out, he would
make no definite disclosures in regard
to the plan which the expedition had
adopted. 1t was only through the an
nouncement of Capt. Bernier, who has
been chosen to lead a Canadian ex-
pedition, that he was considering an
overland voyage by sledge from Franz
Josef Land, that it became known that
the Franz Josef Land route had been
chosen by Mr.. Baldwin. The English
and Scotch newspapers, in comment
ing upon Berniers change of plan,
censured the Canadian captain most
severely for what they termed an en-
croachment on the declared plans of
the Baldwin-Ziegler expedition. Since
this statement it has transpired that
Mr.. Baldwin, after a long and careful
study of all the known charts of ocean
erica to be frozen into the drift ice
somewhere in the neighborhood of
Franz Josef Land. The explorer has
a confidence which amounts almost to
certainty in his mind that the ship
will sooner or later be swept across
the unknown seas within striking dis
tance Of the pole. Mr.. Baldwin, hav-
ing settled in his mind the question
of reaching the pole, is now possessed
by fear that Lieut.. Peary will get
there before him.
The long list of efforts, with their
recorded failures or only partial sue
cess, is sure to arouse doubts in the
minds of even the most sanguine as to
the ultimate success of the Baldwin
Ziegler expedition in reaching the
long sought goal, but it is striking
commentary upon the character OF
Mr.. Baldwin that those who know
him most intimately, and have dis
cussed his plans with him with great
est care place implicit faith in the ex-
pedition to do all that is possible to
man.