The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1902-11-19

Analysis of the Arctic Explorer.
Eighty-four. seventeen, Sil7.
Looked at in any way. written N
whatsoever fashion. they do not seem
to mean more OF to be more th1n just
eighty-four, seventeen-a common
combination of four figures which an
uptutored child might write over and
again upon slate. Juggle them this
way and that. as a conjuror would four
glass balls. and still they are Just eight
and four and one and seven. for aught
we know who have not been instructed
in their singular significance.
But the other day a man came out of
the north and stood on bleak aud for
,.-.ding hill at Cape Sabine. and shook
Mis- head. and said, "Eighty-four, seven
teen What he meant was this:
That pluck and intelligence and mon
ey had once more combined in vain:
that Lieut. Peary had made a northing
of only 81 degrees and Il minutes, and
had missed by $50 miles the goal of his
ambldon, and tnat the arctic still kept
its mystery safe within its cruel. white
and seductive bosom.
Whether all this should he set down
a. splendid romance or plain. ordinary
folly depends much upon the point of
view.
Like little Pcterkin. when he found q
skull in the cornfeld and wanted to
know what they killed each other for"
there are many very sensible people
who sanely live and die make love and
pay their taxes and do not Understand
at all this thing called arctic explora-
ton"
Indeed, there is so much of a haze
and holo around tie arctic explorer
that to find out the man and his mo-
lives is almost as difficult as 70 attain
to the pole itself No glorious knight
of the Table Round ever engaged in
more shadcwy. Intangible quest. with
less hope of what the world calls re-
ward, or earned the plaudits of more
thurderous, gaping audience. than
these knights errant of the SHOWS.
The truth is that the great arctic
motive is composed of many wants and
impulses-imaginations, thirst for
knowledge, love Of adventure, the am
bition to excel. and the mere eagerness
that men have to be doing something.
The Vikings were arctic explorers be-
cause they wanted to find Nivlheim,
the mythical land where the frost
giants played. Eric the Red loved the
cold spray on his check. Later. the
early Norwegians sailed into the un-
known north because new lands were
needed for the restless men who crowd
ed Norway.
Othar, Of Alfred's court, desiring to
know sailed around the North Cape
in $50, and told a fine yarn about it.
Likewise, Harold Hardrada, King of
the Mortimer sent his prows north
ward till they were gray with the
frozen spray, and he ran plump into
darkness and barely escaped Ginnuuga-
gap, the abyss of the worlds end-a
most excellent adventure, indeed, and
fine stun for grandfather tales and
minstrelsy for many and many day.
Then came the medieval dream of a
northwest passage by the open Polar
Sea to the wealth of India and Cathay.
The idea took firm hold upon the rich
fifteenth century Imagination; and
even as late as 1907 Henry Hudson
tried to find in TIE north an open wa
terway to the Pacific. Dreams. Yes,
But, says Nansen, England has to
thank these chimeras in no small de.
gree for the fact that she has become
the mightiest seafaring nation of the
world" Splendid dreams. indeed. Ul-
TINA Thule! The words fairly tingle
with the reiterated romance of the
centuries-bold voyages into uncharted
deeps where the blue berss held their
sway.
AS for modern motive. Nansen gives
the clew to it when he writes often and
again of wrestling the secret from
these unknown regions of ice," and
when he said of his proposed attempt
to drift across the pole from the New
Siberian Islands to The Greenland
coast. 1T is not to seek for the ex-
act mathematical point that forms the
northern extremity IF the earth's axis,
that we set out, for to reach this point
Is intrinsically of small moment Our
object is to investigate the great un-
known region that surrounds the pole"
Nansen reached S6.14.
All of which does not yet make clear
the bootless toiline. the useless sacri-
fice, the magnificent courage that arc
tic sacrifice, the magnificent courage
that arctic explorations exact To find
the true incentive, We shall have TO go
deeper yet, and touch those hidden
springs that tumble men headlong
into such mad, forlorn and futile do
ings as mystify the gods.
Only the other day a little dried up
man, with his face scorched to a crust,
like lava, returned to Algiers with
simple, brief story OF having Travelled
1000 miles among the Moroccan Ber-
bers, somewhat peculiar people, who
would have made fine but deplorably
ugly example of him, If they had pene-
trated his disguise. He had no partic-
ilar business in thus taking death by