DRAMATIC ANNOUNCEMENTS OF COOK AND PEARY. 21 



of man had never been set. And apart from these, in the far north 

 and south, were two great regions, continental in extent, those of 

 the Arctic and Antarctic zones, almost as unknown as if they 

 belonged to the planet Mars instead of to the earth. Indeed, if we 

 may judge from the dicta of some astronomers, far more was known 

 about the general surface of the remote Mars than about the earth. 

 Thus great prizes remained for the discoverer, and on all sides he 

 went abroad to make the earth his own. 



It is not our intention here to go into the record of the work 

 of discovery here alluded to. It is that of polar research and the 

 significance of the recent results with which alone we are concerned. 

 Yet it is well to say that the activity of recent geographical research 

 and its brilliant results have been phenomenal. Within little more 

 than half a century the unknown center of Africa all Africa indeed 

 within a hundred miles or so of the sea-coast has been made known 

 and nearly all taken possession of by the nations of Europe. Civili- 

 zation has invaded the Dark Continent to its darkest recesses, and 

 the railway, man's distance destroyer, is fast threading it from 

 north to south, from east to west. Asia, too, has been traversed in 

 all directions and great part of it taken possession of by European 

 nations. These have introduced civilization where only barbarism 

 existed before and have awakened the long dormant empires of 

 China and Japan to reach out for a place among the leading nations 

 of the earth. As regards America, the hitherto untraveled areas 1 

 are fast becoming known. 



As may be seen from what has been said, the activity of the 

 traveler and discoverer has been extraordinary within the period 

 named, a period through all of which many now on the earth have 

 lived. The great prizes of the explorer were largely won, and little 

 of the earth's surface remained to be traversed except the icy regions 

 surrounding the North and South Poles. 



In these regions, and especially in that of the North Pole, man 

 had not been idle during the period in question. Indeed, for great 



