Iditarod pioneer., 1915-07-31
NOTED ALASKA CHURCHMAN
 ON CLAIMS OF DIR. COOK
(Archdeacon Stuck in New York Post)

(Archdeacon Stuck in New York Post)
 When l reached Fairbanks on my usual winter journey one of the newspapers ot that place had leading article referring to a book recently published by Edwin Swift Balch of Philadelphia, in which an attempt Is made to revive Dr. Cooks claim to have climbed to the top of Denall, or Mount Me kiney, and the paper was urgent that be interviewed on the subject But l had not seen the book, and cannot possibly see 1t until the summer, and 1 declined to say anything whatever. As 1 have travelled Clong since then and have revolVed the uatter in my mind, 1 have decided, how ever, to write a few lines for your paper, Ii see fit to publish them, in view of the many months that must elapse ere l can receive and examine this book.
 And first I would say that as my party was glad to bring down confirmation of the pioneer or "sourdough' ascent of the north peak. discerning the flagstaff that had had escaped the search of Professor Barker and BeImore Brown, so we would just as readily have announced any confirmation that had discovered itself to us of Dr. Cooks ascent I had read Dr. Cooks book when 1t first ap- peared, had read it again shortly before my ascent of the mountain and yet agaln, with special attention to the chapter in which he describes his attainment of the summit, upon my return therefrom.
 It must not be forgotten that Dr. Cook unuuestionably knows more about Denah up to an altitude of 10000 feet than any other man. He has crcumambulated the entire massive of the two great cOmpamon yeaks, Denali and Denah's Wife-the Mount Mckinley and Mount Foraker of the present maps-and he has attempted the ascent o1 the former from the south, from the north west and from the north. All that may be described of the upper regions from an ele- walton of about 10000 feet (at which the real difficulties of the ascent begin he has thus described from at least three different points of view And the descriptions in his book are clear and definite up to that limit. He may be followed camp by camp, almost step by step. But in the chapter in which the ascent to the summit Is narrated there Is nothing clear or definite at all-the whole chapter is a rhapsody of icy infernos" and "heaven- kissed granite" and l have forgot ten what extravagances of turgid rhetoric. The whole chapter is just such chapter as a man would write who knew the lower Levers, buy Was lSllOTdul Ol tlIt ilelSHtN, It could not be more definite without danger, his vagueness leaves a loophole for defense, When 1 reread that chapter on my return from the mountain 1 was positively con- vinced that it was not written by man who had climbed to its summit or had been much above the 10000 feet of it.
 If Dr. Cook, approaching the mountain from the south climbed to the summit by the northeast arreate although my recol- lection is that the book is vague even on this cardinal point, he must have crossed at least two and probably three lofty icy ridges. themselves high mountains, ascend ing to their crests, descending thousands of feet to the glaciers below, and ascending the opposite sides task the mere physical dis tance and labor of which would be utterly out of the question in the two or three days he gives to the whole ascent, He could not reach the northeast arreate at all save from one or other of the arms ot the MuldroW glacier and the northeast arreate IS the only path to the summit of the mountain.
 No one, the summer through, with the most powerful glasses, has ever detected the slightest sullying of the snows of the summit such as the presence of naked gran ite slabs would cause; thus the one definite statement touching the top of the mountain in which Dr. Cook commits himself would seem to betray him. We found what haC every appearance of everlasting snow not