FINDING THE NORTH POLE vii 



persevered down to our present day and generation where many of 

 these, both officers and men, laid down their lives on the altar of 

 science and Arctic discovery; not for money, but that the world 

 might know what was beyond the great unknown. 



But considering the present day, with the experience of men 

 still living, who have done heroic service in the Arctic, we can 

 with confidence quote the work done by Captain MacClintock, Royal 

 British Navy, one of the latest and best authorities on Arctic travel 

 or sledging in his search for relics of the ill-fated last Franklin 

 expedition. He made the best marches on record of one thousand 

 miles continuous sledging. This, it is true, was done by the aid of 

 supporting sledges laying out provision depots, and so well did Sir 

 Leopold MacClintock do his work and so well made were his sledges 

 that they have been copied ever since in all well-equipped Arctic 

 expeditions. Heretofore all great sledging was advisedly done in 

 the summer time, notwithstanding the handicap of snow blindness 

 and the difficulties of wading at times waist deep in water, from the 

 melting snows, that covers the floe. Such water cannot always run 

 off freely into the open lanes of water, both because of the depres- 

 sions in the center of the floe and also because the dike-like ridges, 

 thrown up through the crushing and grinding of the ice by the 

 immense pressure of the moving floes, make lakes in places, or a 

 series of them, from a mile or two to three miles in width. These 

 the sledging party must go through, as the detours would be inter- 

 minable. Herein lies the question, whether it is best to travel by 

 night or day, or during the winter season or summer season. Here- 

 tofore all Arctic travelers have preferred the summer, notwithstand- 

 ing its many drawbacks. It has been considered heretofore that it 

 was impossible to travel during the long winter night of cold and 

 darkness which seems to have been chosen in part by Dr. Cook. 



This was a serious question in one of the councils preceding the 

 loss of the "J eannet te" by Captain George W. DeLong, U. S. N., 

 of which council I had the honor of being a member. The ques- 



