;o6 



NA TURE 



[September 9, 1909 



phenomenon was at its brightest. (2) The complete con- 

 tinuity of the mock sun ring, the portion within the 22° 

 halo being quite distinct. (3) The fact that the arc of 

 upper contact had its concave side towards the sun, and 

 extended for more than 90° on either side of the point of 

 contact, gradually growing more diffuse and faint. This 

 seems to be quite a special characteristic. (4) The peculiar 

 shape of the mode suns and the positions of the two 

 n> nrer the sun. These were not on the 22° halo, but out- 

 side the arc of upper contact, as shown in the sketch, 

 iho arc bisecting the distances measured along the ring 

 between the mock suns and the halo. 



At 0.30 p.m. the sky again became overcast, nor could 

 any trace of the phenomenon be seen afterwards. In the 

 afternoon and evening the wind was very cold, and there 

 was a fair amount of cloud, but on the whole it was fine 

 and sunny. The night, however, was wet and stormy. 



W. McKeon. 



Stonyhurst College Observatory, August 30. 



Man a-id Environment. 



I AM under the impression that it is recorded somewhere 

 that Darwin expressed the following opinion : — He con- 

 sidered the fact that when man appears he appears, not 

 as a " blind " subject of his environments, but with power 

 to determine largely, not only his own environments, but 

 those of generations of men succeeding his own generation ; 

 and, faced by this fact, he expressed a doubt whether, 

 when man appears, some new factor may not come into 

 play in "natural selection" (c/. "The Descent of Man," 

 2nd ed., p. 613, lines 15 to end of paragraph). But I 

 cannot find the reference. Could any reader of Natl're 

 assist me? F. C. Constable. 



Wick Court, near Bristol. 



THE ATTAINMENT OF THE NORTH POLE. 

 TOURING the past week great attention has been 

 ■•-^ given to the announcement on September i that 

 Dr. F. A. Cook had returned from north polar re- 

 gions, having reached the North Pole on .April 21, 

 1908. The interest excited by this statement has 

 since been increased by a message, dated September 6, 

 received at New York from Commander Pearv, re- 

 porting that he reached the pole on April 6, 1909. 



Commander Peary departed for the north from 

 Sydney, Cape Breton, on July :;, 1908, his intention 

 being to proceed by the Smith Sound route to his 

 winter quarters on the northern shore of Grant Land. 

 He hoped to start for the pole with fully-loaded 

 sledges from the " Big head " he encountered in the 

 Polar Ocean in iqo6, to the north of Grant Land, in 

 about latitude 84° N. The last information concern- 

 ing him indicated that in the middle of August last 

 year his ship, the Roosevelt, was continuing her 

 voyage northwards from Etah, the expedition's base 

 of supplies on Smith Sound. He took sounding ap- 

 paratus with him. with the intention of obtaining a 

 line of soundings from Grant Land to the pole. When 

 he left last year he stated that, should he reach the 

 pole, news of his success might be expected between 

 August 15 and September 15, and the message received 

 on September 6 has justified his expectations. 



It is difficult yet to arrive at a satisfactory opinion 

 as to the value of the observations from which the 

 explorers conclude that they reached the North Pole, 

 but as both Dr. Cook and Commander Pearv are 

 responsible travellers, it must be assumed that thev 

 realise the difficulty of determining the position of 

 the pole, and took the necessary precautions to estab- 

 lish the validity of their claims. We have no right to 

 doubt their statements, but the publication of the ob- 

 servations at an early date is greatly to be desired, so 

 that the matter can be placed beyond question. In 

 ^the case of Commander Peary, his previous work in 

 •Arctic regions is so well known that geographers 

 NO. 20S0, VOL. 81] 



have accepted his announcement without hesitation, 

 and a congratulatory message has been sent to him 

 by the Royal Geographical Society. On the occasion 

 of his previous expedition in igob, he approached to 

 within two hundred miles of the pole, and there was 

 every reason to anticipate that this year he would reach 

 the pole itself. His plans were known, and his long 

 experience of Arctic conditions justified confidence in 

 their successful accomplishment. There has, however, 

 been much discussion upon Dr. Cook's jo»irney and 

 achievement, and as he claims to have reached the 

 North Pole nearly a ^ear before Commander Peary, 

 it is of interest to give a few particulars relating to 

 him and his expedition. 



Dr. Cook is an .Vmerican medical man, with varied 

 experience of exploring work in both the Arctic and 

 .Antarctic regions. He served as surgeon on Com- 

 mander Peary's second expedition to West Greenland 

 in iSqi, and was a member of the Belgian Antarctic 

 expedition under Commander De Gerlache, which 

 spent the .Antarctic winter of 1898 drifting about on 

 board the Belgica in the ice-covered seas to the south- 

 west of Graham Land. Both in 1903 and 1906 Dr. 

 Cook conducted expeditions to .Alaska, with the object 

 of achieving the ascent of .Mount McKinley, 20,390 feet 

 high, the loftiest mountain on the North .American 

 Continent, and after repeated failures reported that 

 he had succeeded in reaching the summit. Two years 

 ago it w-as announced that he was desirous of organis- 

 ing an expedition to the South Pole, and it came as 

 a surprise to most people to learn in the autumn of 

 1907 that he was encamped at Etah, on the north- 

 west coast of Greenland, and proposed to make a 

 " dash " for the North Pole. 



Briefly, Dr. Cook's story is that he left his base at 

 Etah on February 19 of last year, accompanied only 

 by a force of Eskimos, and dogs for pulling the 

 sledges. The route varied slightly from that adopted 

 by Commander Peary. Dr. Cook struck westwards 

 across Smith Sound to Ellesmere Land, and con- 

 tinued westwards across that island to Nansen Sound, 

 which separates Ellesmere Land from Axel Heiberg 

 Land, one of the new lands discovered by the Sverdrup 

 expedition on board the From in 1898-1902. From 

 Cape Hubbard, the northernmost point of Axel Hei- 

 berg Land, Dr. Cook pushed out over the polar ice 

 on March iS. Three days later the last of the support- 

 ing parties returned, and Dr. Cook continued his 

 march to the pole with only a couple of Eskimos. 

 Between the S4th and 85th parallels of north latitude, 

 he sighted land to the west, but " the urgent need 

 of rapid advance on our main mission did not permit 

 a detour to explore the coast." This, continues Dr. 

 Cook, in the narr.-itive which he has supplied to the 

 New York Herald, was the last sign of solid earth 

 seen on the northward march, though, " from the 

 87th to the 88th parallel much surprise was caused 

 by an indication of land ice. For two days we 

 travelled over ice which resembled a glacial surface. 

 . . . There was, however, no perceptible elevation, 

 and no positive sign of land or sea." Farther north, 

 Dr. Cook says, " signs of land w'ere still seen every 

 day, but they were deceptive illusions, or a mere 

 verdict of fancy. . . . The mirages turned things 

 topsy-turvy, inverted mountains, and queer objects 

 even rose and fell in shrouds of mystery ; but all of 

 this was due to the atmospheric magic of the mid- 

 night sun." 



Finally, to quote the words used by Dr. Cook on 

 September 7, in a lecture to the Royal Geographical 

 Society of Denmark ; — " On April 21 my observation 

 gave 89° sg' 40" — that is, 20" from the pole. We 

 advanced the 20" and I made another observation, and 

 several others that day and the next. I think there is 

 no doubt that these observations will prove that we 



