The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-07-27
BOOKS ON POLAR DASH.
Peary win Plant Ameriean Set by the
 Flag.

Flag.
 New York, July 26.--Wtth the pros- pect of being the first printed. pages to penetrate the uppermost polar re- zion. two sets of American books are today sailing the northern seas. snugly set up in the hold of Lieutenant Peary's stout ship, Roosevelt.
 Reports that these two of their 5000 floating libraries were going into brisk circulation among the arctic explor- CTS when the party finally cast ofY for the pole have reached the headquarters of the American Seamen's Friend So- ciety In this city today. That some of this nations literary works may even- fuaIly be planted beside the flag at the sfarthest north" Is the object of the de- termfned crew who are to enjoy their soiace in the bitter solitude of the next two years.
 Months before the Roosevelt" was finally coImissioned for it's latest dash toward the pole, the preparation of these libraries. which were to occupy the minds of the men through the long polar night was carefully begun. From D list of the 61S,400 volumes which they have placed before 442,23o sail ors on every sea in the last fifty years. the officers of the American Sea- mems Friend Society chose two sets best calculated to supply the hungry brains of the isolated explorers. Those books of travel adventure. history. re- ligion. fiction and biography which have come back most thumbed from almost a hundred thousand fo'castles were finally selected. In two of the socie- tvs ehip-shape book chests the collec- tions were arranged and sent to be set up in the mess room of the Peary ship at Shooters Island. where 1t was being finally outftted. 4 dictionary, Bible, atlas and Pilgrims Progress were included with the fiction favor Ites of the seamon.
 It Is the more sober works that stand 1he men in best stead in the long test of the arctic night. Lieutenant Peary declared before leaving this city to fofn his ship. Tn his last 'Farthest North expedition the explorer found one of these American Seamen's Friend Society libraries a steady resource for his men, marooned in the ice packs. The books which served through that long night siege from October 12 to March 6 are today lying in their weath- er-beaten case at the headquarters of the society. The lighter fiction is much more free from the tell-tale dog ears which mark heavily the more se- rfous volumes that were thumbed over ana over in the frigid solitude.
 If Peary succeeds in planting these treasurer volumes beside the American flag at the pole. the 26,000 libraries which the American Seamens Frieno Society has kept affoat for half cen- tury. will have penetrated every re- zion on the globe known to the sea farer From almost every State 1n this country applications to set one of these hook chests on it's constant course have now been received. Each library is registered and regularly reported in its wanderings to any one who may nav $2O to launch and keep it afioat. To President Roosevelt. who as a boy os 10 presented one of these libraries for the society. the sight of the two bookchests on Peary's ship was as fa- nniIiar as 1t has now become to hum dreds of thousands of sailors the world over.