The Colorado statesman., 1909-09-11

Adj uzA expedition, VINO made the
highest record till Peary beat It in
1906, made an average of only about
seven miles day on his great jour.
ney, and in ten days, on account OF
deep snow, they covered only forty
three and half miles to the north of
their ship. Cagni expressed the wish
the miles day. but said he knew
this was impossible.
Peary has not only reached the
pole, but he has attained 1t at an ear
ner date in the year than any of
the other high records in the Arctic
have been made. He was at the pole
one day earlier in the year than Nan
sen reached sc degrees minutes.
nineteen days earlier than Cagni
reached Sc degrees "a minutes, and
thlrty-seyen days earlier than Lock
wood and Brainard reached 83 de-
grees "a minutes. This is significant
OF the surprising achievement in
sledge work that Peary has accom-
plished, because all such endeavor is
necessarily limited ON one side, as far
as sea journeys are concerned, by
the time of sunrise.
For fifteen years Peary has been
known as the greatest of sledge trav-
elers; and last spring, on the last
sledge journey he is likely ever to
make, he has not only reached the
pole, but he has beaten the records
of himself and of all others in cover
ing, in the high latitudes, the great
est distance on the sea ice, in the
shortest time after sunrise. AS a
piece of pure sledge work, wholly
apart from the conquest of the geo
graphical goal of many ages, this last
Arctic work of Peary's beats all
achievements of it's kind by any ex-
plorer.
As some parts of the summary
may not be understood by many
readers unless explained, it should be
said that on the journey north Peary
crossed the British record Mares. SO
degrees 20 seconds) on March 2; the
Norwegian record (Nansen, sc de-
grees 5 seconds) on March %; the
Italian record (Cagni, Sc degrees "a
seconds) on March "a, and the Amer
lean record (Peary, 81 degrees 6 sec
onds) on March 81.
One of the remarkable features OF
the achievement is the fact that even
the supporting party advanced within
about seventy miles of the highest
north.
The summary says nothing about
the snow conditions. but the time
made on the journey makes it evi-
dent that the pace was not much i'm
peded by killing effort 10 struggle
through deep snow.
On the whole, natural conditions
seem to have been favorable TO the
Many times they have been Just as
favorable as they were last spring,
but the human conditions were never
seen before at their very best.
Rhen Peary was younger than
now he could not have achieved what
he has done this year. The conquest
of the pole was not the work merely
of last March and April. Every year
that Peary has been in the field he
has learned something new that
counted in the great elimination.
One year he found that he must
move his base OF operations at least
400 miles farther north; another.
that he must build a vessel that
would stand up under the terrible
ice presures of the Smith sound
channels; another, that he must
start from the Arctic coast at a point
farther west, to avoid in some de-
gree the almost impossible pressure
ridges;- another, that he should go
still farther west to counteract the
influence of the eastern ice drift, and
that an earlier start should be made
to reduce to a minimum the plague
of water leads. So 1t has gone from
year to year, till now, when the QuinL-
essence of experience and the quail
tiles of the masterful explorer have
united to reveal the pole, and put an
end to the quest of centuries.
Peary will now do what all com
petent explorers are expected to do.
He will show his records, tell how
his observations were made, and
with what instruments.
Perhaps some persons may have
the idea, from what they have re-
Gently read, that proofs of eXplora-
tory work are required only when it
is thought that there may be some
mistake about the accuracy of the
reported results. This is not the
case. All well-equipped explorers de-
sire and expect that competent
Judges will pass upon the value of
the scientific features of their work,
and as a matter of course they in
clude in their reports. or books, the
evidence on which their results are