Arizona republican., 1911-04-24


of Hamptons labeled the articles my
| Confessions" This struck the pub
| lie as being a confession of some
! thing wrOng-as a retractiOn. Now
the intent of the articles was moth
ing Of the kind. The subject matter
did not warrant the use OF such a
head. One phase of the work l took
up in these articles was the matter
of the accurate determination of the
exact location Of the pole. This is
physical impossibility. to determine
it with pin point accuracy. for the
region about the pole is covered with
a moving sea of ice, and all Obser
vatiOns must be made on the altitude
of the sun. which cannot be recorded
with sufficient accuracy to determine
the exact location within several
miles. Ii was 50 in my case, il was
SO in Peary's, and it will be SO in
the case Of any other man who un
dertakes polar exploration
without entering into the scientific
questions involved in a complete
presentation Of his cause, DR.. Cook
gave a long and intensely interesting
description OF the circumstances
under which he had entered upon the
first expedition to the north.
Il graduated in medicine from the
University Of New York in 1890.
and like a good many other medical
students thought the peopie of the
country would be- fighting to get into
my office as soon as / put out my
shingle. Unfortunately this was not
the case, and l had a good deal of
spare time on my hands during the
first year of practice. Finally l saw
an article about Commodore Peary's
expedition leaving for the north, and
/ sent in my application for place
on the staff as physician. For sev-
eral months l received no reply and
at last a letter came advising me
to report at Philadelphia. I went
at once, and satisfactory arrange
ments were made. The next year.
1891 we left for the north. There is
one thing that is rarely mentioned
Dy the press and that is the fact
that during all my years Of polar
exploration l have never worked on
salary. / have always volunteered.
on that first expedition nearly every
body but myself was on a salary, but
l gave my services free. on this
first expedition we explored northern
Greenland. and had 4 pretty hard
time OF il all around. Peary broke
his leg. and we were all in a bad
way FOR awhile. We returned after
being out a year.
Again in 1898 l went to the Arc
tic waters IN the schooner Green
land. one year later / organized the
famous Miranda expedition which was
sent up for the benefit Of fifty
three college men who wanted to
make Investigations in the north. We
were shipwrecked four times on this
expedition during two months First
we ran into an iceberg. again we
ran on a sunken reef and made a
hole in the bottom Of the ship large
enough for a good sized man TO
crawl through Patching it up we
went ahead, but had two other ac-
cidents. both Of which were serious
During the voyage we made a fairly
complete study Of the waters about
western Greenland
In 1897 I volunteered for the
Belgian expedition to the Antarctic.
and was gone two years. This ex-
pedition was commanded by Adriene
de Gcrlache, and was the first Of
the modern series OF antarctic ex-
plorations. Our ship on this Bel
gian expedition was the first to
winter in the antarctic waters.
The ascent Of mount Mckinley con-
cerning which there has been so much
written. was attempted first in 1903
and actually made in 1906 when I
III. .
attempt was a failure because of the
unscalable cliffs We encountered on
the side on which we had begun TO
climb. The second we started from
the north, and the story of our
success is told in my book ITO the
Top of the Continent"
1t was in 1907 that 1 began the
dash for the pole and my experiences
on that expedition, and the reasons
l have for believing that / found the
pole before Peary or any other man,
will be told this evening in my lee
ture at the Elks theater | don't
know how much the people of the
west have been interested in this
controversy, but l consider il of vast
Importance to present the truth be-
fore them. and give them an op-
portunity to get at the facts of the
case.
Il viii only tell the way in which
came to undertake the last ex-
pedition. During a stay of several
months | had made in the east
was introduced to a western man
named John r. Bradley. whose one
aim in life was to hunt big game
He had covered the entire western
part Of the United States and wanted
to go To the arctic regions. / had
an ambition to discover the pole and
together We worked out the plans
for the arctic expedition. We left
the New England shores early in
1907 in a remodeled Gloucester fish
ing schooner and went north to the
west coast of Greenland. where Brad
ley found his big game in abund-
ance-walrus. caribou, bear and seal.
and then pushed still further north
to the limits of navigation. In
Etah. the northernmost harbor of
Greenland Bradley's ambition ended
and mine begun. for he had stated
himself on the game of the region
and | was beginning to feel hope that
l might have the honor of reaching
the pole. We found here that the
best hunters of the tribes had gath
cred there for the winter bear hunt