Weekly journal-miner., 1909-09-08
CUNIFF CONFIDENT COOK
 FOUND NORTH POLE
(From Fridays Daily)

that Mr. M. G. Cunniff, formerly managing editor of "World's Work, '' enjoyed a personal acquaintance with Dr. F. A. Cook, found that gentle man at the St. Michael hotel and ob- tained from him some interesting facts about the finder of the pole.
 Dr. Cook, according to MT. Cunniff, is solidly built man of grea5 strength, of round and full face, pale complexion, and an unusually phleg- matic manner. It is this phlegmat- ism that is chiefly responsible for his success as an explorer. Peary, Fiala and Cook have all said that the chief enemy of polar expe- dition is the deadly dreary mOnotOny of waiting in the darkness of a polar winter for the sun to appear Tn the spring to herald the chance of a dash for the pole, and of the "dash ' itself with its endless days of drag ging and pushing sledges over almost unreasonable ice-hummoeks.
 Nervousness, irritability, unsOciable- ness reveal themselves in their most biting aspects in the close companion ship of a Polar expedition. If a man has the smallest grain of mean ness in his disposition it shows itself and the largest part of the unwritten history of Polar expeditions has been the increasing bitterness that has grown up in the party, sometimes even disrupting it.
 Dr. Cook showed on his Antarctic expedition in '97 and '9S, when he approached closer to the South Pole than any expedition up to that time had penetrated-though later expedi- tions got closer-that his tempera- ment was the ideal one for exploring.
 "'He told me once,' said MT. Gun niff, "that some of the worst hard ships met on that trip did not come from the cold, the ice, or the wind, but from the biekerings and disagree ments of the party. But added Dr. Cook with a phlegmatie shrug, 'what z the use of talking about that. It didn't bother my own nerves any. Most of the troubles weren't impor tant enough to notice then, and they aren't important enough to notice now. But I do say that the chief re- quirements of an Arctic explorer are not strength, courage and enterprise, but endurance and patience.
 This was brought out strikingly iI Cook $ next expedition, which was not to either pole, but an attempt to clrmb Mt. Mckinley, in Alaska, the high est mountain on the American cOnti- nent. On this expedition, the head ship of the party was not definitely determined before the start. The party was organized by pr. Cook and Rob ert Dunn of New York jointly. The enterprise, according to Dunn s state mCllY hdo dh VI OA asperating disasters eliminating in q failure. The party claimbed an Outly ing shoulder of the mountain, but were barred from the main peak by an impossible chasm. The greater part of the journey Dunn was in a rage; there were squabbles and fights going on constantly, and Dunn ad- mitted with admiration at the end of the trip that Dr. Cook never lost his impurturbility for a mo ment. When things got too bad among the others, pr. Cook quieted the trouble calmly, briefly and de- cisively. When anyone else shirked, pr. Cook, without saying anything, of the expedition Cook said not a word of the almost unbearable per sonal relations and difficulties that had existed; and if it were not that Dunn told the story, it would never have come out Dunn's testimony stamped pr. Cook as a man who could stand almost anything and slug along with no thought in mind but his goal. He is a man of no nerves.
 After the failure of the first Mt Mckinley attempt, pr. Cook quietly organized another party. This tims neither Dunn nor the more irritable of his companions on the first trial was included. Only one of the first party went with him, his other asso- eiates being new men whom he sc lected himself. This time he was in absolute command, and he succeeded He is the first man to have ascended the highest peak on our continent, and he is the man who first accurately determined its height.
 Dr. Cook then, is no amateur, as one of the members of the Peary Are