INTRODUCTION 



"There's a flag on the mast, and it points to the north, 

 And the north holds the land that I love ; 

 I will steer back to northward, the heavenly course 

 Of the winds guiding sure from above." 



Frithjof's Saga. 



The North Pole is the centre of the Northern Hemi- 

 sphere. This hemisphere contains Europe, Asia, North 

 America, and a large part of Africa, yet no human 

 being reached its centre before the eighth year of the 

 twentieth century a.d. 



The North Pole is the point where the axis of the 

 earth cuts its surface. It is the point where, as Captain 

 Hall expressed it, there is no north, no east, no west. It 

 is the place where every wind that blows is a south wind. 

 It is a point where all the meridians meet, and there is 

 therefore no longitude. It is one of the two places on 

 the surface of the earth where there is but one night and 

 one day in every year. It is a point from which all the 

 heavenly bodies appear to move in horizontal courses, 

 and the stars never set. It is not to be confused with 

 the magnetic pole, which is situated about 1600 miles 

 south of it, near the mainland of North America. At the 

 North Pole the magnetic needle points due south. 



The North Pole is therefore a place of absorbing 

 interest, and until it was reached man never rested 

 satisfied. Ever since Robert Thorne, in the reign of 



