Evening star., 1925-07-14
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
i. C.. NJ.
THE ADVENTURE OF wRANGEL

ISLAND. Vilhjalmur Stefansson.
The Macmillan Company.
To Stefansson himself this adven.
tufe is, In its ultimate purpose, tden-
tical with those which, 400 years ago
and thereabout, sent European ex-
plorers out to find way to the East
shorter than the one around the
southern point of Africa. His final OBJ
Jectiye is, too, a shorter route to the
Far East-a still shorter route. North
west was the general course of those
earlier explorers. The plan of Stef'
ansson projects a north-and-south
course-over the top Of the world and
down again, so to speak-wtth the
Arctic Island of Wrangel as flying
base along greatly reduced mileage
between many points in the Northern
Hemisphere. BY the plan Northern Eu-
rope and America are to be brought
relatively close to Northern and Cen.
tral Asia.
A vision? Oh, yes, certainly that
much the same sort of vision as Allied
the days of Elizabeth with action that
turned the great dreams of that time
| to many of the realities Of the present.
| Here we have the same challenge to
! mans daring in the face of far un-
known, such as came out to meet
those Venturing men of the sixteenth
| century. Here, besides, a region
whose deepest nature Is all enmity
| to man. A menace. this, that serves
| only as invitation and urge to the
diminishing order of pioneers hasten
| ing to catch up with the last of a
rapidly vanishing frontier. A clear
Elizabethan quality of seafaring ex.
| plorations lies in this adventure Of
| Wrangel Island.
| X
Your atlas. unless it be of too an
cient vintage, shows you Wrangel
Island lying about 100 miles off the
northeast coast of Siberia, between
that country and Alaska. It's name
stands in honor Of a Russian explorer,
| Baron Wrangel.
| The immediate adventure-the one
| in hand-includes hardly a mention of
| Stefansson's dream CT the place
which is that some day-the air
routes Of the Northern Hemisphere
all charted and brought into practical
| use-Wrangel Island will stand as a
| myers way-station between, say, Lon
don and Toxic, or Paris and Peking
| No, this is an adventure of fact and
not OF dreams, even though under.
| taken by company of Ave dreamers
who would not believe what some
| told US that the romance of territorial
| expansion by discovery and COLOMBIA
ton Is now century out OF date. So
we planned exploits like those of
Drake and John Smith and Capt.
COOK. We saw no reason why such
| adventures should cease, for the world
stlll has an uncoloniZed fringe in the
| North, and beyond il lies the last
remnant of the geographically un-
| known"
This particular adventure. then, is
in the nature of Spying out the
land" 1t is the first step in a project
| whose second phase is TO be the plant
ing OF colony on Wrangel Island.
| According to the calculations of these
Adventures, this is place of good
economic promise. of clear political
significance and of high strategic i'm
poftance in that day when Arctic
land and sea obstacles may be, to a
degree, discounted by way of a we'll
| developed system of air travel "The
! Adventure of Wrangel Island" is a
| literal record of that initial expedi-
tion-that going on ahead 10 make
a way for settlers to follow. In large
part the story is Stefansson's own.
In other part it is sourced in the per
! sonal experiences of one or another
OF the little company-the journals
OF two of them, the torn and weather
| worn diary of Lorne knight, who
from Wrangel Island went out upon
the longest of all Journeys.
A story of hardship throughout
| rigors of the climate, isolation, lone.
illness, scarcity of proper food, sick
ness, death. All this part of a gal
liant effort to explore for coming set
| tiers the resources and promises of
| Wrangel Island. A poignant story
whose gloom is relieved only by the
gallant spirit of these heroic men.
"A glorious adventure" Stefansson
| still calls it, though it became a tragic
| one for some of the little band and
may easily become one of failure on
my part"
A vivid chapter in the long story
of Arctic exploration, In the longer
story of mans unconquerable will to
| tame the wild places of the earth, to
bring these to hand an offering to the
substance of civilization itself. A
pathetic personal story of pure
tragedy. And a glimpse, besides, of
that gift of vision without which no
progress can be made
| x
MY TRIP AROUND THE WORLD.
Dorothy Dix. The Penn Publish
ing Co.
A CHASTITY day - a n1ildewed
court a near wall on its other
side whose rows of windows were so
| many dull and vacant eyes
boredom sick of the great
city, sick of my work, sickest of all
of myself" And, being a sudden
lady"-Dorothy Dix still talking
with so little mind 1t never takes
me more than quarter of minute
to make it up on any subject, made
frantic raid on my closet for hat
and raincoat and umbrella, and in 10
minutes l was virtually on the first
lap of my JOY ride around the world,
for within an hour I had bought my
ticket for great adventure
| Then follows fairly bulky account
ISL pages make a siZable book
which ends as suddenly as the jaunt
itself commenced, Colombo, where
silence falls upon Dorothy Dix, being
not more than half of her circum.
navigatory adventure. The other halt
crowds into a little paragraph running
to the effect that I'VE sailed through
the Suez Canal past Suez
through the Mediterranean, by
frowning Gibraltar, all without pause
until at last we swung into the dock
at Boston and my long joy-ride was
over"
Hawaii. Japan, Korea. then up to
Manchuria and Peking down to
Hongkong and over to Manila, then
for Java and Singapore and Calcutta
A breathlesS transit of seemingly er.
ratio pattern, but fitted, one may be
sure, by the practiced hand of a
tourist agency to the art of getting
out of minimum of time the most
and best of the sights to be seen. A
kind of journey and q kind of traveller
that appear to have been made for
each other since a skimming off the
| top of things is the only method mar