THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN COOK AND PEARY 201 



the committee concluded that he afforded no proof of having 

 reached the Pole. 



The documents handed the commission of the University of 

 Copenhagen for examination were: 



First A typewritten report prepared by Cook's secretary, 

 Walter Lonsdale, and covering sixty-one pages of foolscap. 



Second A typewritten copy made by Lonsdale from Cook's 

 notebooks. This occupied sixteen pages of foolscap and included 

 a description of the expedition during the period from March 18, 

 1908, to June 13, 1908, during which, according to the statement, 

 Cook journeyed from Svartevog to the North Pole and returned 

 to a point on the polar ice not specifically indicated, but west of the 

 Axel Heiberg Land. 



The papers were not accompanied by a private letter from Dr. 

 Cook, but Secretary Lonsdale declared verbally to the committee 

 that the original notebooks of the explorer, from which his copies 

 were made, had been sent to Europe by another route as a precau- 

 tionary measure and would be delivered to the University in the 

 course of a few days. In presenting the data, Lonsdale asserted 

 explicitly and repeatedly that copy No. 2 was a complete and accu- 

 rate duplication of the information contained in all of Cook's note- 

 books that could be of any importance to the University for the 

 purposes of this examination. In spite of the explorer's promise 

 and his secretary's assurance that they would be forthcoming, the 

 commission was not put in the possession of the original notebooks 

 and diaries before concluding its examination. 



After the members of the examining committee had made 

 themselves acquainted individually with the material delivered and 

 so convinced themselves of its utter worthlessness as a means of 

 determining whether Cook reached the Pole, the report to the 

 University was drawn up as follows: 



First The report of the expedition sent to the University by 

 Dr. Cook is the same as that printed in the New York Herald dur- 

 ing the months of September and October last. 



