CHAPTER I 



Dramatic Announcements of Cook and Peary 



THE world has been making history fast within the twentieth 

 century, and this has been especially the case in the matter 

 of polar research. In this regard the first week of Septem- 

 ber, 1909, was in its way the most extraordinary in the history of 

 mankind. In that one week there came to us from the frozen north 

 two of the most surprising announcements ever received by man. 

 The North Pole, the goal sought for centuries, the quest of which 

 had given rise to endless adventures and untold sufferings, with 

 little result except an unceasing tale of misfortune, misery, disap- 

 pointment and death, had been reached at last, and strangely enough 

 the honor of the discovery came from two separate sources and was 

 claimed by two men. 



On the first day of that eventful month the world was startled 

 by the undreamed of announcement, flashed over the electric wires 

 from the far-off Shetland Islands, that the long-sought goal had 

 been reached on April 21, 1908. And while the world was still 

 struggling in the throes of the astounding news, belief in the story 

 mingled with doubt and incredulity, there came five days afterwards 

 a similar claim, one received without doubt, that a second explorer 

 had reached the same goal, the date of discovery in this case being 

 April 6, 1909. 



The first to announce the great discovery was Dr. Frederick 

 A. Cook, a polar explorer of long experience, who for two years had 

 been lost to sight in the icy seas, so utterly removed from human ken 

 that men had given up the hope of ever seeing him again, fearing 

 that the demon king of the ice realm had made him its victim, and 

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