The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-09-10
the Boston Globe.


 XNN N one thing we can all agree when kVJ we have read the various install ments of Dr. Cooks story of his trip to the north pole, namely. that he had an experience few men could have sustained in keeping up supply of what the frivolous in our comfortable urban life are prone to call 'the eats"
 Here is the one unscientific feature of the emplorer's narrative that we can all accept without argument It is the touch of nature that makes the whole word kin in reading about Dr. Cook. The unlet- tered may become sadly involved in de- bate about how the compass points when a man stands on the pole with one in lis hand. The more learned may wisely dis ouss the distance an explorer can make in a day over Arctic ice. Savants may say cruel things about the pole-fnder, and become peevish with each other over data of northern exploration, past and present. Yet when we leave all these matters and come down to the simple question of food supply and the fight with starvation, we speak In terms com mon to all mankind, the learned and H. literature alike, the scholar and the sav- age, the white man and the black.
 Each and every one of us knows some thing about food. A good many of us have theories regarding it's uses and values to mankind. Here and there is a dietist who believes in something not far removed, in the eyes of his neighbors, from corn cob soup or sawdust pudding. We go gaily along our way, thinking our selves wise in the matter of eating, until some such violent fact as the finding of the north pole brings us up with round turn, as they say on Cape Cod. Then we discover that We are wofully ignorant about the kinds and amount of food on which man may sustain life under the most trying circumstances. The jolt is given us in the statement that Dr. Cook lived, so long as his original provisions lasted, largely on pemmican. We be- tray ourselves by asking, What Is pemmican?" To us it sounds like an herb. Let us take up the dictionary. pri- vately, and fortify ourselves with knowl- edge. with which later to confound our neighbors. Here is the definition.
 Pemmican-Originally preparation made by the North American Indians. consisting of the lean parts of venison dried by the sun or wind and then pound- ed into a paste with melted fat, and tightly pressed into cakes. a few berries being sometimes added to improve the flavor. It is now made of beef. especially for use in Arctic expeditions. being an easily preserved food, which keeps for a long time and contains the largest amount of nutriment in the smallest space.
 Through the six months night of his Journey pole-ward Dr. Cook chewed his little cakes of pemmican-compressed beef and tallow. When that was gone. on his way home from the pole, he slew birds and ate their bleeding flesh.
 We weddings of civilization are so tender and squeamish of stomach that raw seabirds do not appeal to us. Yet we may believe that Dr. Cook, starving in the frozen waste. ate them with zest we shall never know when consuming Q thick .porterhouse with maitre d'hotel sauce and delmonico potatoes.
 Civilization has taught man a good many things. We have made progress in a thousand ways since we lived in caves
 
 hands and teeth as we ate. The porter house steak is evidence of that, and the fine linen, the silver, the cut glass and the shaded electric light on the table. But it hasn't advanced us step when some great thing is to be done. When pole Is to be found the man to find it must live on pemmican. compound we bor- rowed from the savages Failing that, he must eat raw birds, like cave dweller. 'I succeeded because I lived like an EsQuimaux," said Dr. Cook. A simple statement, but what commentary on the inscrutable ways of nature. To do a great thing-to climb a tall noun tain, to reach q pole. even to take g. great fortress, man must revert to tho simples terms of life those of period