132 THE BATTLE OF THE HEROES 



he covered on his dash to the pole. "As a matter of fact," he declares, "we 

 nearly did this, covering regularly on our return journey five outward marches 

 in three return marches." 



It is easy to figure out the average rate of speed he made on his return 

 trip. He started back from the pole, he says, on April 7 and reached Cape 

 Columbia on April 23, covering the 450 miles in sixteen days. This is a 

 daily rate of 28.12 miles a day. 



Will the Arctic experts who declared it impossible for Cook to make fifteen 

 miles a day charge Peary with falsehood when he says he made forty ? 



In the matter of soundings what did Peary do ? Five miles from the pole, 

 he says, he made a hole in some new ice and took soundings. All his wire, 

 1,500 fathoms, he says, was sent down without finding bottom. In pulling 

 it up the wire parted and lead and wire were lost. Peary threw the rest of 

 his sounding apparatus away. 



We learn from Peary's story that he started for the pole earlier in the 

 season than Cook. He started in February, Cook in March. He reached 

 the pole fifteen days earlier in the season — ^Cook fixes the date as April 21 and 

 Peary as April 6. This would seem to dispel all doubt about Cook's ability 

 to travel in what is winter weather in the Arctic. 



Cook's references to "milling ice" and "purple snows" would seem unim- 

 portant, except that the doubting Thomases have seized upon it. Peary says 

 that as he approached the pole he found the ice in motion that was both visible 

 and audible. And, though he says nothing of "purple snows," he describes 

 the surface of the old floes as being "dotted with the sapphire ice of the previ- 

 ous summer's lakes." 



.So if we doubt Cook, why should we not doubt Peary? And if we 

 believe Peary, why should we not believe Cook? Peary's is the unemotional, 

 detailed, matter-of-fact story of a scientist. Cook's is the breathless and 

 exultant tale of a triumphant adventurer. 



If both Peary and Cook reached the pole — and there is, on the face of 

 things, no more reason to doubt one than to doubt the other — their expedi- 

 tions must remain distinct in purpose and character. The one was a scientific 

 achievement, the other a heroic adventure. 



