COOK'S STORY OF HIS DISCOVERY OF NORTH POLE 41 



April 21, 1908. The temperature was minus 38 Fahrenheit; barom- 

 eter, 29.83; latitude, 90; as for the longitude, it was nothing; as it 

 was but a word. I knew when I reached the Pole by astronomical 

 observations. I am satisfied that any competent scientific explorer 

 can see it from these observations. I am sure I was within the 

 circle of the Pole where there was no north or east or west, but only 

 south. I do not claim to have put my finger on the exact spot ; I do 

 not claim to have put my foot on it, but personally I think we have 

 been at the spot. When the observations have been figured out again 

 it is possible that there will be found slight errors and differences, 

 but I am certain that a gunshot fired from where we were would 

 have passed over the Pole. 



"Although crazy with joy, our spirits began to undergo a feeling 

 of weariness. Next day, after taking all our observations, a sentiment 

 of intense solitude penetrated us while we looked at the horizon. 

 Was it possible that this desolate region, without a patch of earth, 

 had aroused the ambition of so many men for so many centuries? 

 There was no ground, only an immensity of dazzling white snow, 

 no living being, no point to break the frightful monotony. There 

 was nothing* to see but ice, ice, ice ; no water, only ice. Concerning 

 the ice around the Pole, so far as I could see, it was slightly more 

 active there than at one or two degrees south. It drifted somewhat 

 more to the south and east. Its general character was not very 

 different from that at other places. There were more holes here than 

 at the eighty-seventh degree, which shows there is more movement 

 and drift here, but this and other observations I made afterwards 

 when I got more settled. I stopped two days at the Pole, making 

 many observations, and I assure you it wasn't easy to say good-bye 

 to the spot. I should have stayed there longer had it not begun to 

 freeze us in our idleness. The Eskimos were uneasy and the dogs 

 howled fearfully. 



"At the Pole I did not leave the usual examples of currency, but 

 a tube, not a brass tube, containing a small silk flag and a very brief 



