PREPARATIONS 17 



for the prestige of the country, and he asked me to 

 come to see him, if I could make it convenient. I 

 could. I did. He gave a check for $10,000 and 

 promised to give more if it should be required. The 

 promise was kept, and a little later he accepted the 

 vice-presidency of the Club. What this $10,000 

 meant to me at that time would need the pen of 

 Shakespere to make entirely clear. 



From this time on the funds came in slowly but 

 steadily, to an amount that, combined with rigid 

 economy and thorough knowledge of what was and 

 what was not needed, permitted the purchase of the 

 necessary supplies and equipment. 



During all this time of waiting, a small flood of 

 "crank" letters poured in from all over the country. 

 There was an incredibly large number of persons who 

 were simply oozing with inventions and schemes, the 

 adoption of which would absolutely insure the discovery 

 of the Pole. Naturally, in view of the contemporaneous 

 drift of inventive thought, flying machines occupied 

 a high place on the list. Motor cars, guaranteed to 

 run over any kind of ice, came next. One man had a 

 submarine boat that he was sure would do the trick, 

 though he did not explain how we were to get up through 

 the ice after we had traveled to the Pole beneath it. 



Still another chap wanted to sell us a portable 

 sawmill. It was his enterprising idea that this should 

 be set up on the shore of the central polar sea and that 

 I was to use it for shaping lumber with which to build 

 a wooden tunnel over the ice of the polar sea all the 

 way to the Pole. Another chap proposed that a central 

 soup station be installed where the other man would 



