Conquering the Poles by Airplane 



Shall we be able to skim to the north pole by 

 airplane? Read Admiral Peary's prediction 



"TN the very near future," says Rear- 

 I Admiral Robert E. Peary in a new 

 book, "Secretsof Polar Travel" (Cen- 

 tury Company), "the biting air above, 

 both the earth's poles will be stirred by 

 whirring airplane propellers. The last 

 three years of war abroad have advanced 

 the development of the airplane to such 

 a degree that the time is now very near 

 when airplanes will have such extended 

 radius of flight as will make the pre- 

 liminary reconnaissance of the unknown 

 areas in the north and south polar regions 

 a matter of a few weeks instead of several 

 years." 



The idea that aviators can now prob- 

 ably cover the ground to the poles in only 

 two or three days' actual flight is fascinat- 

 ing. The old way takes two or three 

 years and is attended with many hard- 

 ships. Admiral Peary tells many inter- 

 esting features about the country which 

 polar explorers will encounter. 



Arctic and Antarctic Are Unlike 



"North polar and south polar regions are very 

 unlike. Few people appreciate the differences. 

 The north pole is situated in an ocean some 

 fifteen hundred miles in diameter, surrounded hy 

 land. The south pole is on a continent twenly- 

 Ijve hundred miles in <liameter surrounded l)y 

 water. At the north pole I stood upon the 

 frozen siirface of an ocean more than ttro miles in 

 depth. At the south pole, Amundsen and Scott 

 stoo<l upon the surface of a great snow plateau 

 more than two milr.i ahorc xca level. Tlie lands 

 that surrounfl the north polar ocean have com- 

 paratively abundant life. Musk-oxen, reindeer, 

 polar bears, wolves, foxes, .\rctic hares, ermines, 

 anrl lemmings, together witii insects and flowers 

 are found within live hundre<l miles of the pole. 

 On the great south polar continent no form of 

 animal life appears to exist. The north pole, 

 being in an ocean, is much har<ler to get at than 

 the south pole. Arctic exploration goes back 

 four hundred years; .Antarctic one hundred and 

 forty years. Vet both should now >> ield without 

 great difficulty to tlic airi)Ian<'."' 



Greenland, Peary suggests, should be- 

 long to the United States if it can be 

 purchased. Like Alaska it is a valuable 

 property intrinsically because of coal and 

 mineral deposits. Also its bays and 

 harbors are of strategic value. But the 



expression "cold as Greenland" is all too 

 true. Probably the coldest regions in the 

 world are atop of its mountains of ice far 

 inland during the long Vvinter nights, 

 when neither sunlight nor the tempering 

 winds of the ocean reach the region. 



Greenland Is Buried in Snow 



"The interior of (ireenland," says Admiral 

 Peary, "is so cold that it gets virtually no rain, 

 and the snow does not have a chance to melt in 

 the long summer day. So the snow has ac- 

 cumulated century after century until it has 

 filled the valleys, and not only leveled them with 

 the tops of the qiountains, but the highest of these 

 mountain-tops have been gradually buried hun- 

 dreds and even thousands of feet deep in ice and 

 snow. Today the interior of Greenland, with its 

 fifteen hundred miles in length and some seven 

 hundred miles in maximum width, rising from 

 four thousand to nine thousand feet or more 

 above sea-level, is simply an elevated and un- 

 broken plateau of compacted snow. 



"On this great frozen Sahara of the North the 

 wind never ceases to blow. It invariably 

 radiates from the center of the ice-cap outward, 

 blowing perpendicularly to the nearest portion of 

 the coast land, except when storms of unusually 

 large proportions sweep across the country. So 

 regular are the winds of these regions, and so 

 closely do they follow the rvde of perpendicularity 

 to the coast, that it is always easy to determine 

 the direction of nearest land." 



Over such country as this will the air- 

 planes fly. In south polar regions much 

 the same conditions will exist, except that 

 aviators must fly at greater altitudes 

 because a continent rises high beneath 

 them. Many geographical facts about 

 polar regions are as yet undetermined. 

 Those last lands unreached by man may 

 be about to yield their secrets. 



What the lands may contain is problem- 

 atical. New races of men, perhaps, new 

 and valuable hunting-grounds for fur- 

 bearing animals, possibly, new coal de- 

 posits, new ore supplies; no one is sure 

 just what until explorations are made. 

 Alaska was considered a barren region 

 until its vast mineral and other resources 

 were discovered. Similarly we may be 

 mistaken in our concept of north-polar 

 regions and of the south-polar continent. 

 If Rear-Admiral Peary's ideas take shape 

 airplanes will find out. 



572 



