Charlevoix county herald., 1916-11-10
Veteran Arctic Explorer to Drift
Five Years Across Top of
Continent.
take COLLEGE MEN ALONG
Captain Robert A. Bartlett Tires OF
New York and Is Arranging to
Gather Scientific Data In the
Million Miles Yet Untouch-
ed by White Men.

New York.-Capt. Robert A. Bart
lett, who has been in arctic exploration
for Is years of his life, who has been
farther north than any other white
man with the exception of Peary, who
has suffered hardships in the frozen
regions, is afflicted with arctic nostal-
gia. He is homesick for ice peaks,
frozen seas, polar bear and seal meat
blubber and nights that last six
months. He wants to go to the far,
far north again, get frozen up in the
arctic ocean, and drift wherever the
currents may carry the ice pack and
his ship.
Captain Bartlett who is an Ameri-
can of English birth, forty years old,
tall. and straight as an arrow, but soft
spoken and almost difiident in his man.
ner. explained in detail his latest pro-
| jet for arctic exploration when | saw
him the other day at the Explorers
club, says a writer in the New York
Herald.
MY idea,7 he said, "is to superin-
tend the construction of wooden YES
sci of about $50 tons, especially de-
signed for arctic work; start in May,
1913, northward through Boring strait;
go eastward off the northern coast Of
Alaska to about 100 west longitude,
and latitude "a or 20, or even farther
north; let the vessel freeze up and go
with the ice drift through the great
uneXplored arctic regions. There are
more than a million square miles of
UNEMPLOYED territory in the Arctic
ocean.
81 would take only eight men with
me on the trip, preferably young col
lege men, not too scientific, but with
sufficient knowledge and brains to do
the scientific work necessary. While
we drifted we would take sOundings
and use deep-sea dredge to gather
the flora and fauna from the floor of
the ocean and keep a careful record
as well as specimens of what we found.
This work would be of the same char
acter as that undertaken by the prince
of Monaco, the late Sir John Murray
and, to some extent, by Nansen.
II believe that such an expedition,
while having little of the spectacular
about it, would add greatly to the
worlds scientific and geographical
knowledge. 1t has the moral support
Of the National Geographic society, at
Washington; the Philadelphia Geo
graphical society; Admirals Pillsbury,
Chester and Peary, the United States
coast and geodetic survey, the Explor-
ers' club and many other societies and
individuals of note.
Financial Assistance Pledged.
81 have pledges of financial assist
ance to the extent of $4,000 already,
and | will require about as much more.
am encouraged TO believe that the
full amount can be obtained without a
great deal of trouble, for there are
many public-spirited men who will sub
scribe to the project when they under
stand its nature and value.
Instead of regular steam engines
and boilers, requiring the consump-
ton of coal, / will install a Bollinger
crude oil engine, thus doing away with
the necessity of engineers and firemen.
'From my knowledge of the arctic
regions and the currents and general
drift of the ice l should say that we
would drift about five years before
reaching civilization again, but we
might do it in three years. / would
provision the ship for five or six years,
and that would be easy with only nine
men to provide for. The general drift
would be to the west, and L should say
that we would eventually come out
either between Greenland and Spitz-
bergen, or between SpitZbergen and
Franz Josef Land.
'It is possible that we would dis
cover new land during our travels. We
would take about a hundred dogs and
what sledges we required for explora-
ton. The dogs would be fed on bear
meat and fish, of both of which we
would have no difficulty in getting all
we required. Our own principal meat
diet would be bear and seal. OF course,
we would have canned meats with our
provisions, but l have never cared
much for them in arctic work. Seal
meat is delicious, and the polar bear
meat is good, too-very like pork.
IL have not the. slightest dou't that
we would find many new fishes, shell
fish and sea plants with our deep-sea
dredges, and would add greatly 10 the
scientific knowledge of the world. AS
I said, there will be nothing 'spectacu-
lar about the trip, like hunting for the
North Pole, but II will have a scientific
value, and may add greatly to geo.
graphical knowledge. 1 am pretty sure
that there is land somewhere in the I'M
explored regions, and 1 see no reason
why we should not find 1t and explore
1t on such trip"
Captain Bartlett ran away to sea
when boy, and has lived most of his
life since on sealers, whalers and in
arctic exploration. He was first with
Peary on the Windward in 1897 and