Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1923-06-17

why do you go?'
Because he has missed only two out
or the last fifteen years in the arctic;
beca use in 1908 he voluntarily re-
linXd ished his profession college
ptofessor at Worcester Academy to
Sail north with Peary on his memora-
. BILE dash to the pole, DR.. Donald b.
Macmillan seems TO stand forth pre-
cmincntly as the man TO answer the
question.
Even now he is Quitting his So
foot schooner Bowooin to sail for the
arctic. on June %. He will spend
months locked in the ice. .--
Here is DR.. MacMillans answer:
The average mans conception OF
the north is so forbidding that he is
naturally puzzled to know why the
expenditure of thousands of dollars
and the loss of men should not deter
the explorer
Drawing upon his imagination and
the narrowing accounts of our early
explorers. the reader pictures great
white land swept by drifting SHOWS.
driven by biting winds, void of all
animal and plant life, dead world
revolving beneath d long summers
sun and wrapped in the deathlike
stiffness and solitude of the long, dark
winter night.
What good or enjoyment can pos
sibly be derived from visit to such
:, land? Is the purpose a search for
mere adventure. for valuable mineral.
for lands rich in resources, for scien-
'tific knowledge or purely geographic
cal-that is an accurate plotting Of
all Ia nd - ..
Undoubtedly the Norsemen were
our first arctic explorers. Those
>.1szSIy mariners more than a thousand
years ago dared to turn the prows Of
their open boats northvard through
scattered ice foes toward the land
of the midnight sun. Eventually they
beheld stretching out before them
that apparently limitless and i'm
penetrable field of ice and wondered
what was beyond. Man has won
dered ever since and will continue
TO wonder just SO long as there is a
mountain that obstructs the vision or
a point of land around which he can
not see. IT IS the task Of the explorer
10 surmount the obstacles Of nature
and to learn the truth.
X X
"ITROM the earliest times various
u conjectures have been rife as to
what man would find at the top of
me world if he ever succeeded in
attaining that distant point. which
many of our best students OF arctic
history deemed impossible. In the
Gays of antiquity there were poetical
and mythical conceptions galore.
Such are always supplied where ig-
norance rules.
For years. prior to the discovery
Of the pole, our own scientists per-
. sisted in the belief Of an open polar
: sea. DR.. Elisha Kent Kane claimed
to have seen il. Dr. Isaac Israel
Hayes believed in II. Strong and
scientific reasons were advanced
for it.
For many years man believed that
II he would only persist In going on
over the ice pack at the periphery
Of the Arctic ocean. finally he would
be rewarded by the sight Of blue
water. over which no could joyfully
sail to the pole.
The British north poe expedition
OF 1875, deliberately equipped. had
<aith in this mythical open sea and
started bravely northward from the
shores of Grant Land. pulling their
heavy, boats through and over the
pressure ridges Of the polar basin.
One by one they dropped with
scurvy, brought on by exhaustion
with their heavy load Fortunately,
one man had strength to summon
relief.
There existed in this country for
several years Hollow Earth Club
men who believed that our earth was
2 cylinder in shape. BY sailing north