27a COOK'S RETURN 



the calculation of the food supplies, too, on the basis that dog would eat dog. 

 Speaking of the land which he had discovered between latitude 84-85 and the 

 I02d meridian, Dr. Cook said that it was mountainous on the eastern coast. 

 He saw it at a distance of about forty miles. 



"Why didn't you explore it?" was one of the inquiries. 



"If I had," he answered, "I should have never found the pole." 



His attention was called to a quotation from one of his books on the 

 Antarctic, in which he referred to his taking a few observations himself, as 

 that work was distributed among the members of the party. 



Q. Do you think that on account of your lack of experience that your ob- 

 servations might be erroneous? 



A. A full investigation of those observations which are to be presented first 

 to the University of Copenhagen will show if that is the case. 



Dr. Cook recounted in graphic language his meeting with Mr. Whitney. 

 An Eskimo had sighted the explorer at a distance of five miles on the ice, and 

 Mr. Whitney had come two miles to meet him. Dr. Cook had then only half 

 a sledge. 



Referring to a dispatch in the Herald in which it was said that doubt had 

 been cast upon his trip to the North Pole on account of the condition of his 

 equipment when he returned, Dr. Cook at once replied : 



"I do not see what they could expect. We came back to Etah with half a 

 sledge. Our sleeping bags had been fed to the dogs. We were ourselves 

 dragging what was left of the sledge and the instruments and records. We 

 had come back to land from the pole with two sledges. 



Dr. Cook said he had with him a folding boat of canvas, by means of which 

 he was able to cross leads, and this he had carried with him to the pole. 



Speaking of the conversations he had with Mr. Whitney relative to his 

 discovery, he said that later he questioned Pritchard, one of the Peary sailors 

 and learned that he was about to send a letter to his mother telling of the dis- 

 covery of the pole. He had Pritchard leave out this paragraph for fear the 

 letter might by some chance get to civilization sooner than he did. The Danes 

 of Greenland, Dr. Cook explained, knew of the discovery four months ago, 

 but he felt reasonably sure that he could get back to civilization with the news 

 quicker than any rumor could reach. As to what Murphy, the boatswain of 

 the Roosevelt, might be able to communicate, Dr. Cook had no fear, as that 

 worthy could neither read nor write and he knew who pencilled his letters for 

 him. 



