The Colorado statesman., 1909-09-11

evelt February 18th, while it was still
practically dark in that latitude. The
sun scarcely begins to peer above the
hills for few minutes day, even
several hundred miles to the south OF
the coast where the Roosevelt was
wintering. 1t comes into view a. lit
tie later in that more northern lati
tude, and the party made slow time
to the west, as it felt its way along.
The northern Grantland coast is
likely to be exceedingly difficult to
traverse. especially in the early
spring, on account of the masses of
sea ice that have been pressed on the
shore, or broken into great blocks and
stranded along the sea edge.
1t is no wonder that 1t took the par
ty fifteen days to travel westward as
far as Cape Columbia. 1t is very
likely, however, that Commander
Peary succeeded before winter set in
in cacheing supplies to the westward,
so as to accelerate a little the west
ward movement of the sledge party
before 1t struck out northward over
the sea.
March 18th, the sledges turned to the
north on the sea ice. The explorer
had laid much stress upon the fact
that he intended to travel much far
ther to the west than on his trip in
1906. His dispatch shows, however,
that he did not take to the sea any
farther to the west than he did on his
earlier trip. If, therefore, his route
was really much farther west than
that which he had traversed earlier.'
he must have travelled considerable
sea ice.
The sledging conditions could not
have been very unfavorable, for the
jorney both north and south, not
counting the detentions at water open.
| il IS, was made in very fast time for
| sledging on ice in the open polar sea.
1t is not at all unusual in sledge work
within forty of fifty miles of the land,
for the pressure of the ice on the
coast to result in breaking and piling
up of the ice into pressure ridges from
rs to 100 feet in height, and some,
times of great length, so that it is diff
ficult either to cross or circumvent
them.
Commander Peary says nothing in
his summary of being detained by
pressure ridges or hummocks, and it
is very certain that he met with no
impediments of this sort, such as
made his attempt to reach the pole
in 1902 a continuous and terrible
struggle.
A great obstacle and the one that
undoubtedly prevented him from
reaching the pole in 1906 was the
wide water lanes, or leads, some OF
them so iong that he could not get
around them. One of them kept his
party idle in camp for a week, ana
the total delay from this cause was
fatal to his plans.
Conditions were different last
spring, though he was held up by
leads on the northern march about
two weeks. He seems to have derived
two great advantages from his very
early start In the first place, it
would not be until much later in the
season that the water lanes would
develop so far as to threaten him
with defeat, and then his early start
gave him all the more time to carry
out his work before the widespread
breakup of the sea ice would make
sledging impossible on the polar
ocean
Peary's summary seems to show
that he was a little over thirty-fivc
days on the journey from the land to
the North pole. In this time he was
delayed about fourteen days by water
leads, leaving a little more than three
weeks for the actual sledging work.
We may get good idea of the av-
erage rate of travel by taking the first
sea and the North pole records. He
passed the British record on March 2
and reached the pole on April 6. The
distance between them is 4G0 statute
miles, and the time in making the
journey was thirty-four days, includ-
ing the time of detention by water
leads This is an average of a little
less than twelve miles day, which is
the best record ever attained for long
route sledging on the open polar sea