THE WELLMAN POLAR EXPEDITION 487 



of stretching out a base of supplies, of a long campaign, or of 

 one organized on a sufficiently large scale to enable the flying 

 column at the front to be well supported from the rear. But 

 the polar explorer, like the mining engineer, the railway con- 

 structor, and the colonist, must take conditions as he finds. them 

 and adapt his methods to them. There are two main avenues 

 of approach to the Pole — one by North Greenland and the other 

 by Franz Josef Land. These are the two lands reaching nearest 

 to the Pole from lower latitudes, but neither extends, so far as 

 we now know, nearer than within 450 miles of that mathematical 

 point upon which it is the ambition of man to plant his feet. 



The aim of every pole-seeker is to get his base or his outpost 

 established as far north as possible upon the land, and to make 

 a dash beyond that point. Thus Mr Peary planned a depot of 

 supplies at the extreme northerly limits of Greenland, but has 

 not as yet been able to establish it. Abruzzi is wintering at 81°, 

 and we made our headquarters a little north of 80°, and estab- 

 lished an outpost about 81°. The explorer may use two or three 

 years in establishing his outposts upon the most northerly land 

 he can employ for this purpose, but when he once leaves the land 

 and takes to the frozen surface of the polar sea his journey must 

 be one of short duration — a dash — for these reasons : 



1. It is only in the spring of the year that he can travel ad. 

 vantageously over the ice-sheet, and this is so because the winter 

 is too dark, while in the summer the warmth of the sun makes 

 the snow soft and "sticky," fills the pockets with sludge and 

 water, and aids the winds and currents in breaking up the ice. 

 The favorable, practically the only, season for travel over this 

 drifting, shifting field of ice, is confined to March, April, and 

 May, with what little of February one is resolute enough to use 

 amid the darkness, and a part of June in which he may still do 

 something before the snow becomes too soft. Thus the pole- 

 seeker has at his command from 110 to 125 days, according to 

 the earliness of his start, in which to make his northerl}' jour- 

 ney and his return to the land. 



2. Everything he and his dogs eat, as well as the fuel for melt- 

 ing ice into drinking and cooking water, must be carried from 

 the land or the outmost depot, not onty for the advance journey, 

 l»ut for the return. Nothing can be had on the way. There is 

 a limit, of course, to the weight of load that may be carried, and 

 if the sledge party started with supplies for a six months' cam- 

 paign they would be so heavily burdened they could make no 



