Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1907-04-30
ATTACKING THE POLE.
Peary and WelIman Prepared For New
Advances BY Ice and Air.

Peary and WelIman Prepared For New
Advances BY Ice and Air.
The navy department has granted
three years leave Of absence to
Commander Peary, to be employed in
new assault upon the pole.
The Peary Arctic club has ordered
the ice steamer Roosevelt to be put
into condition for service and tender
ed to Peary with a complete outfit.
The explorer Is to sail from New York
July 1, and the coming summer will
see the Peary party again camped up
on the shores Of the Arctic ocean
ready for a sledge dash over the ice
next spring. Commander Peary thinks
that the experience he gained on his
last expedition will make success al
most certain next time. He expects
to reach the ice-fields by the middle
Of July, with practically the same
equipment as on his former expedi-
ton. In Greenland he will buy two
hundred dogs. He intends to follow
| almost the same route as before. ut
will be the supreme effort Of my life" !"
he says, "and II am not successful
may be ready to say that the pole is
beyond the reach Of man."
Some ill-natured critics have COM
planned that the Navy Register records
only ten years and seven months Of
public service for Peary against four
teen years and seven months put down
under the head Of unemployed" They
ask how the Obscure and quiet gen.
tlemen" who have plodded on, per-
forming the prosaic duties Of civil en-
gineers in the navy. feel as they con-
template the meteoric rise Of one who
who has been unemployed" for near
ly fifteen years, and now receives
another leave Of absence for three. OF
course, the question is absurd. There
are plenty of capable civil engineers;
there are only a few born arctic ex-
plorers. If the government had de-
tailed Peary to command a Polar ex-
pedition Of it's own, as 1t detailed
Greely, and as Great Britain detailed
Mares 1t would have paid the whole
cost Of the enterprise, including full
salary to the leader, end everybody
would have admitted that the COM
mander's time had been we'll occupied
and the money well and brilliantly
earned. The fact that Peary and his
admirers have raised the whole cost
NJ bis expeditions without calling up
on the government for cent does not
in the least diminish the merit Of his
services or the folly Of wasting his
rare qualities on the ordinary routine
work that could be done just as well
by any graduate Of an engineering
school.
But there is a chance that when
Commander Peary gets to the pole ne
may find Mr.. Walter Wellman's card
already tackled upon 1t. Mr.. Wellmar
sailed for Europe on April II, ex.
pressing the belief that he would bt
at his headquarters in Spitzbergen BY
the middle Of June The trials Of hi:
airship are to begin in July, and hi
hopes to spread his wings for the pole
, by the end Of that month or the begin
ming of August. Then he Will either
succeed or fail within the ensuing few
days. Before the Roosevelt Is laid W
in the ice for the winter, Mr.. Well.
man will either have found the pole
or lost the chance for this year. He
says that he will not start on his flight
from Spitzbergen unless the conditions
are so favorable as to give good rea.
son to expect success. If the outlooE
seems bad, he will reserve himself and
the airship for another year.-Col.
lier's Weekly.