SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1436 



queneliable flame which here you have kindled 

 and which here will burn brighter and ever 

 brigihter in the coming years to iUumine the 

 path of women toward knowledge and wisdom, 

 toward the attainment of the largest and best 

 use of their intellectual and spiritual powers, 

 toward appreciation and enjoyment of the best 

 in life, in literature, in art, in science, in men 

 and women, toward understanding and further- 

 ing of the agencies and forces which make for 

 righteousness, peace and the betterment of man- 

 kind. 



"William H. Welch 

 The Johns Hopkins Univeesity 



"THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC" 



(Published by permission of the Deputy Min- 

 ister of Mines, Ottawa). 



Ant one who is in the slightest degree 

 familiar with the Ai-ctic, or even with the his- 

 tory of Arctic expeditions, must have been 

 amazed at the naive review of Mr. Stefansson's 

 book, "The Friendly Arctic," that appeared in 

 the March 24 issue of Science for the current 

 year. The writer of that review. Professor 

 Raymond Pearl, admits that he is "in no wise 

 a specialist in either geography or polar ex- 

 ploration." One may be permitted to wonder 

 why he undertook the task of reviewing a book 

 that is mainly concerned with those topics. His 

 review, indeed, would be unworthy of serious 

 notice were it not for the wide circulation of 

 the journal in which is appeared; but on that 

 account a reply seems called for. 



The reviewer states that the importance 

 which the history of science will attach to Mr. 

 Stefansson's work will rest primarily on his 

 application of a "new and strictly scientific 

 method" to the problem of Arctic exploration; 

 for, whereas earlier explorers depended for 

 food, heat, shelter and clothing mainly on the 

 supplies which they took in with them, Mr. 

 Stefansson, acting on scientific principles, 

 "carried through, over a long period of time 

 [nearly five years, we are told in another place] 

 and a wide range of area, travels in the polar 

 regions, living entirely off the country as the 

 Eskimos do." 



Now this statement is unjust not only to 

 earlier explorers, but to Mr. Stefansson him- 

 self. The practice of living off the country is 

 not a new one in polar exploration. To quote 

 but one example: Dr. John Rae, in 1846-7, 

 supported himself and his party for a whole 

 winter in Repulse Bay, although their only 

 weapons were old, muzzle-loading guns. The 

 method is really a very satisfactory one for a 

 quickly-moving traveler who can choose his own 

 hunting-grounds (e. p., David Hanbury in 

 1902), and even for a small stationary party in 

 certain well-favored regions; it is rarely satis- 

 factory in the ease of a large party working 

 for any length of time within a prescribed area, 

 because the game supply rapidly becomes ex- 

 hausted. Hence the necessity for bases, and 

 caches of food, employed not only by both the 

 northern and southern parties of the Canadian 

 Arctic Expedition, but by all polar expeditions. 

 Every reader of Arctic literature knows that 

 while game may be plentiful in certain places 

 and at certain seasons, it is very scarce in other 

 places and at other times of the year. All ex- 

 plorers, therefore, including Mr. Stefansson, 

 have been careful to take supplies with them 

 whenever possible, whether they are traveling 

 by ship or by sled, in order to have something 

 to fall back upon when the local supply of 

 game fails. To do otherwise would be the 

 sheerest folly. To take an example. One of 

 the almost gameless areas in the north at the 

 present time is the long stretch of coast be- 

 tween Barrow and the mouth of the Mackenzie 

 River during the winter months; caribou are 

 exceedingly scarce in this region and seals diffi- 

 cult to procure except in the spring and 

 summer. Mr. Stefansson, during his last expe- 

 dition, spent nearly a year in this portion of 

 the Arctic, but, despite his reviewer, he does 

 not claim to have lived off the country at this 

 time, or even to have attempted to do so. He 

 will probably himself admit that from Septem- 

 ber, 1913, when he first landed from his ship, 

 the Karluk, until March, 1914, when he started 

 on his ice trip, his rifle did not secure him a 

 single meal. Similarly, on his exploration trips 

 in the northern archipelago, where game is 

 more plentiful than in most places, he pru- 

 dently carried on his sleds all the supplies he 



