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The National Geographic Magazine 



all patrons of exploration. He has also 

 abundant company among foreign rulers 

 of the present time. The expeditions 

 of Scott, Drygalski, Nordenskjold, Nan- 

 sen, Sverdrup, and De Gerlache have 

 had respectively the strong personal 

 support and approval of Edward of 

 England, William of Germany, Oscar 

 of Sweden and Norway, and Leopold of 

 Belgium. Charcot's French expedition 

 has the lively support and approval of 

 President Loubet. 



It may possibly interest you to know 

 that up to the present time editorial com- 

 ment from over 500 different newspapers 

 throughout the country have come to 

 my eye, and there is not a hostile note 

 among them ; but two or three points 

 have been brought up in these notices 

 which it may be well to touch upon 

 briefly. I do not speak of them in a 

 captious mood, but with a desire to set 

 the points straight. 



One is the statement of the President 

 of the Royal Geographical Society of 

 London, that " after Nansen's voyage, 

 there is no longer any geographical ob- 

 ject in going to the North Pole, except 

 for the sake of deep-sea soundings, for 

 it is merely a point in the polar ocean, 

 the economy of which has been made 

 known by Nansen. That great explorer 

 finally removed the veil which concealed 

 the secret of the Arctic regions. ' ' 



The President of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society is a strong personal 

 friend of mine, but I cheerfully disagree 

 with him on some points, and particu- 

 larly the one which assumes that we 

 have practically reached the North Pole, 

 and, in substance, know all that is nec- 

 essary to know about it. I have never 

 been entirely in sympathy with the 

 claims put forth immediately after Nan- 

 sen's return from his voyage in the 

 Fram, that he had practically reached 

 the Pole; that we now knew ever}'thiug 

 that it was necessary to know in regard 

 to that region, and that any further 

 efforts were not worth while. 



A distance of 260 miles from the Pole 

 is a long ways from the actual attain- 

 ment of the Pole, and to assert that the 

 secret of the Pole has been penetrated 

 and the veil lifted, at a range of 260 

 miles, and that the economics of the 

 polar basin have been revealed, when 

 3,000,000 square miles of it have not 

 been trodden by human foot or seen by 

 human eye, is an enthusiastic view. 



ERRONEOUS THEORIES OF EXPLOR- 

 ERS AND GEOGRAPHERS 



There is no portion of the earth's sur- 

 face where it is more distinctly impossi- 

 ble to prophesy or forecast what is be- 

 yond the horizon of actual vision than 

 in the Arctic regions. The truth of this 

 statement has been most strikingly ex- 

 emplified in the past. 



In 1 8 18 Sir John Ross made a voyage 

 to Baffin Bay, and returning reported 

 that bod3 r of water to be a closed sea. 

 To the westward, at the head of an inlet 

 which he called Lancaster Sound, he 

 showed on his chart a striking range of 

 mountains. 



A few years later Parry entered the 

 Sound , and before a favoring wind went 

 spanking aw T ay to the westward beyond 

 the hundredth meridian, and never saw 

 these mountains. Later explorations 

 showed the great inlet of Smith Sound 

 extending, as we now know, to the cen- 

 tral polar basin, and Jones Sound pene- 

 trating far to the northwestward, also 

 leading from this ' ' closed sea. ' ' 



Again it was conclusively determined 

 theoretically, by geographers, that the 

 interior of Greenland was a fertile, or at 

 least an ice-free country, surrounded by 

 an ice barrier near the coast. Further 

 explorations show the interior to be ab- 

 solutely and completely buried under an 

 enormous ice-cap. 



Kane and Hayes stood upon the shores 

 of the open polar sea, as they supposed ; 

 yet that open polar sea has not only re- 

 treated but absolutely disappeared before 

 the footsteps of subsequent explorers. 



