Arizona republican., 1905-07-21
PHOENIX. ARIZONA. JULY 21 1905.
VIII PearY Get There


 cess which will probably attend Com
 mander Peary's latest effort to reach
 the pole. it is necessary to take note
 of the two principal stages of his un-
 dertaking He wants. first. to take his
 ship up along the west coast of Green
 land to the so-caUed "open" polar sea,
 shift his course to the northwestward
 and westward until he is in the vicin-
 ity of Cape Hecla, the northernmost
 point of Grant Land. and establish his
 winter quarters there. The second
 feature of the program will not be
 carried out before early spring. It is
 proposed then to push out from the
 mainland with dogs and sledges over
 the ley covering of the Arctic ocean
 Hitherto his inability to accomplish
 the first of these objects has ham
 pered him unspeakably in beginning
 the second part of his campaign.
 Neither his own ship nor any of the
 supply ships that co-operated with
 him was able to go further north than the neighborhood of Cape Sabine.
 Hence the rations for his men and
 dogs were landed there and transport ed nearly three hundred miles further on four separate occasions. as a pre- liminary 10 the venture on the ice it. self. Three times Peary stayed well south over winter and conducted this transportation in February or March. Fort Conger being the point at which these laborious journeys terminated. Once he sledged his supplies up to that station in the fall, and stayed there over winter. Even then he was obliged to travel by a circuitous route fully a hundred miles more before at tempting to go out on the ice. If the Roosevelt reaches the vicinity of Cape Hecla by the middle of September. an enormous advantage will be secured. The explorer. the few men who ac- company him in his final venture and the dogs which draw the sledges ought to be in vastly better physical condi- tion for their work than has hitherto been possible.
 Navigation should not be attended with any special difficulties south of the 18th parallel of latitude. Above that limit the channel will be full of floating ice. more or less closely packed. The highway alternately widens and narrows for about four degrees thereafter, and then opens out on the polar sea, the coast line on one side trending to the northeastward and on the other to the northwest ward With Peary's last ship. the ! windward, it was not feasible to force l a passage above latitude 79, because her engines were too weak. The great | recommendation of the new vessel is | that she has greater power at her | command than any other ship ever | built for similar service. Hall, in 1871, | took the Polaris to a point further | north than latitude S2. Sir George went even further with the Alert in 1875, and there is no reason to believe that either of them had engines at all comparable to those of the Roosevelt. Along that part of Peary's route which is beset with the chief embarrass- ments, just as in other parts of the world one winter differs from anOth- CT in severity. The density of the Ice pack which is encountered Is greater one year than another. If the cold over Grant Land and northwestern Greenland was as abnormal last win ter as it was in this country, per haps the ice barrier in the adjacent waters will be corresDondingly for It is worth remembering, 1oRo in one quarter of the globe are usU- ally offset by temperature excesses In another. IL is quite as rational to hope that the conditions which the Roose- welt will be called upon to face in the next few weeks will be better than the average as 1t is to fear that they will be worse.
 Cape Hecla is about seven degrees (42O nautical miles) from the pole in 2 bee-Iine. Nansen's experience lends to the view that if ., Peary could once get fairly out on the ce pack beyond the continent he might be able to follow a reasonably straight course northward. On pre- ,ious occasions he has found appal- ing ridges and open leaps or canals i n his way at the beginning of this second part of his undertakinf. These him to deviate to the right md to the left in a most vexatious I ashion. To make seventy-five or t eighty miles Of real progress from t Cape Hecla in 1902 he was forced to 6 ravel three or four times as far, and r le spent fifteen days (from April to r April 2) in achieving so much. There T ,an be little doubt that f he could t