The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1909-09-09

Was After the Goal-Each Started
from Etah-Cook Reached fhe Pole
First as He Did Civilization on His
return Home.
The New York Globe of September
7 says: That must have been great
race up in the arctic regions between
Lieutenant Commander Peary and DR..
Frederick Albert Cook. They had the
same starting point and the same goal.
1t is inevitable that they knew of each
others presence and it is entirely likely
that each knew the other claimed to
have discovered the pole.
Peary and Cook were, of course, con-
versant with all the facts attendant upon
each others start for the prize. They
had been comrades upon one expedi-
ton. Then they became enemies, be-
cause of a dispute over certain fox
skins. Cook started for the region OF
ice first from his home in Brooklyn.
A little later, with far more complete
expedition, Peary started on his eighth
attempt to get to the top of the world.
The first objective point for both men
was Etah, Greenland.
Peary's friends put forward the claim
that Etah was his particular hunting
ground and that Cook infringed upon
courtesy when he took the Eskimo
Peary had depended on and followed
the lines set down by Peary for his own
guidance. On the other hand, Cooks
friends will insist that the village Etah
was not invented, discovered and main
tanned by Peary for his exclusive use.
Whatever the truth of these asser-
tons may be, the fact remains that
Peary and Cook both started their polar
dash from Etah. The village gossip
must have made each explorer fully
cognizant of the others action the mo-
ment he reached this place Cook got
the first start from Etah. He left that
place in the winter of Ioo7-Ioo8 for the
POLE and returned to it after reaching
his objective, spending winter in
Ellsmere Land, living like an Eskimo
hudded in ice huts and eating frozen
food. When he got there he found Har-
ry Whitney, the New Haven man who
had accompanied Peary to the north
the year before and remained behind to
guard the Peary cache of supplies.
Whether Cook had learned from any
native source during the long winter of
Peary's movements can only be told by
Cook himself. On his return to Etah
it is certain that he at once started hot
foot for civilization. He entrusted the
greater part of his records to Whit
ney's keeping, and broke for the nearest
line of telegraph to get his discovery on
lrecord first. Cook got to Lerwick IN
the Shetland islands FIVE days ago and
sent out the dispatch that startled the
world Peary, treading close upon his
heels, hearing from Etah villagers that
Cook had beaten him in the first lap oil
the race, charged down the coast to
ward Labrador in the steamer Roose-
welt to get in touch with the wires for
the first time at Indian Harbor yester-
day. According to the records at pres
ent Cook beat Peary both on the dis
covery of the pole and on the making
the fact known.
The last dash must have been des-
perate one Cook was almost without
supplies, while Peary had vast ad
vantage in that fact. At the time that
the men must have learned of their
rival claim, less than 800 miles of the
icy Greenland coast separated them.
Cook had to wait for the Danish boat
Hans Egede TO leave Upernavik for
Denmark, while Peary had his own boat
to rely upon.