The North Pole Part 25

90 N. LAT., NORTH POLE, April 6, 1909.

Arrived here to-day, 27 marches from C. Columbia.

I have with me 5 men, Matthew Henson, colored, Ootah, Egingwah, Seegloo, and Ooqueah, Eskimos; 5 sledges and 38 dogs. My s.h.i.+p, the S. S.

_Roosevelt_, is in winter quarters at C. Sheridan, 90 miles east of Columbia.

The expedition under my command which has succeeded in reaching the Pole is under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club of New York City, and has been fitted out and sent north by the members and friends of the club for the purpose of securing this geographical prize, if possible, for the honor and prestige of the United States of America.

The officers of the club are Thomas H. Hubbard, of New York, President; Zenas Crane, of Ma.s.s., Vice-president; Herbert L. Bridgman, of New York, Secretary and Treasurer.

I start back for Cape Columbia to-morrow.

ROBERT E. PEARY, _United States Navy_.

90 N. LAT., NORTH POLE, April 6, 1909.

I have to-day hoisted the national ensign of the United States of America at this place, which my observations indicate to be the North Polar axis of the earth, and have formally taken possession of the entire region, and adjacent, for and in the name of the President of the United States of America.

I leave this record and United States flag in possession.

ROBERT E. PEARY, _United States Navy_.

If it were possible for a man to arrive at 90 north lat.i.tude without being utterly exhausted, body and brain, he would doubtless enjoy a series of unique sensations and reflections. But the attainment of the Pole was the culmination of days and weeks of forced marches, physical discomfort, insufficient sleep, and racking anxiety. It is a wise provision of nature that the human consciousness can grasp only such degree of intense feeling as the brain can endure, and the grim guardians of earth's remotest spot will accept no man as guest until he has been tried and tested by the severest ordeal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEMBERS OF THE PARTY CHEERING THE STARS AND STRIPES AT THE POLE, APRIL 7, 1909

From Left to Right; Ooqueah, Ootah, Henson, Egingwah and Seegloo]

Perhaps it ought not to have been so, but when I knew for a certainty that we had reached the goal, there was not a thing in the world I wanted but sleep. But after I had a few hours of it, there succeeded a condition of mental exaltation which made further rest impossible. For more than a score of years that point on the earth's surface had been the object of my every effort. To its attainment my whole being, physical, mental, and moral, had been dedicated. Many times my own life and the lives of those with me had been risked. My own material and forces and those of my friends had been devoted to this object. This journey was my eighth into the arctic wilderness. In that wilderness I had spent nearly twelve years out of the twenty-three between my thirtieth and my fifty-third year, and the intervening time spent in civilized communities during that period had been mainly occupied with preparations for returning to the wilderness. The determination to reach the Pole had become so much a part of my being that, strange as it may seem, I long ago ceased to think of myself save as an instrument for the attainment of that end. To the layman this may seem strange, but an inventor can understand it, or an artist, or anyone who has devoted himself for years upon years to the service of an idea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EGINGWAH SEARCHING THE HORIZON FOR LAND]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PEARY SEARCHING THE HORIZON FOR LAND]

From Top of Pressure Ridge Back of Igloos at Camp Jesup

But though my mind was busy at intervals during those thirty hours spent at the Pole with the exhilarating thought that my dream had come true, there was one recollection of other times that, now and then, intruded itself with startling distinctness. It was the recollection of a day three years before, April 21, 1906, when after making a fight with ice, open water, and storms, the expedition which I commanded had been forced to turn back from 87 6' north lat.i.tude because our supply of food would carry us no further. And the contrast between the terrible depression of that day and the exaltation of the present moment was not the least pleasant feature of our brief stay at the Pole. During the dark moments of that return journey in 1906, I had told myself that I was only one in a long list of arctic explorers, dating back through the centuries, all the way from Henry Hudson to the Duke of the Abruzzi, and including Franklin, Kane, and Melville--a long list of valiant men who had striven and failed. I told myself that I had only succeeded, at the price of the best years of my life, in adding a few links to the chain that led from the parallels of civilization towards the polar center, but that, after all, at the end the only word I had to write was failure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOKING TOWARD CAPE CHELYUSKIN]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOKING TOWARD SPITZBERGEN]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOKING TOWARD CAPE COLUMBIA]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOKING TOWARD BERING STRAIT]

(The Four Directions from the Pole)

But now, while quartering the ice in various directions from our camp, I tried to realize that, after twenty-three years of struggles and discouragement, I had at last succeeded in placing the flag of my country at the goal of the world's desire. It is not easy to write about such a thing, but I knew that we were going back to civilization with the last of the great adventure stories--a story the world had been waiting to hear for nearly four hundred years, a story which was to be told at last under the folds of the Stars and Stripes, the flag that during a lonely and isolated life had come to be for me the symbol of home and everything I loved--and might never see again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RETURNING TO CAMP WITH THE FLAGS, APRIL 7, 1909]

The thirty hours at the Pole, what with my marchings and countermarchings, together with the observations and records, were pretty well crowded. I found time, however, to write to Mrs. Peary on a United States postal card which I had found on the s.h.i.+p during the winter. It had been my custom at various important stages of the journey northward to write such a note in order that, if anything serious happened to me, these brief communications might ultimately reach her at the hands of survivors. This was the card, which later reached Mrs.

Peary at Sydney:--

"90 NORTH LAt.i.tUDE, April 7th.

"_My dear Jo_,

"I have won out at last. Have been here a day. I start for home and you in an hour. Love to the "kidsies."

"BERT."

In the afternoon of the 7th, after flying our flags and taking our photographs, we went into our igloos and tried to sleep a little, before starting south again.

I could not sleep and my two Eskimos, Seegloo and Egingwah, who occupied the igloo with me, seemed equally restless. They turned from side to side, and when they were quiet I could tell from their uneven breathing that they were not asleep. Though they had not been specially excited the day before when I told them that we had reached the goal, yet they also seemed to be under the same exhilarating influence which made sleep impossible for me.

Finally I rose, and telling my men and the three men in the other igloo, who were equally wakeful, that we would try to make our last camp, some thirty miles to the south, before we slept, I gave orders to hitch up the dogs and be off. It seemed unwise to waste such perfect traveling weather in tossing about on the sleeping platforms of our igloos.

Neither Henson nor the Eskimos required any urging to take to the trail again. They were naturally anxious to get back to the land as soon as possible--now that our work was done. And about four o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th of April we turned our backs upon the camp at the North Pole.

Though intensely conscious of what I was leaving, I did not wait for any lingering farewell of my life's goal. The event of human beings standing at the hitherto inaccessible summit of the earth was accomplished, and my work now lay to the south, where four hundred and thirteen nautical miles of ice-floes and possibly open leads still lay between us and the north coast of Grant Land. One backward glance I gave--then turned my face toward the south and toward the future.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The instruments used in taking observations for lat.i.tude may be either a s.e.xtant and an artificial horizon, or a small theodolite. Both these instruments were taken on the sledge journey; but the theodolite was not used, owing to the low alt.i.tude of the sun. Had the expedition been delayed on the return until May or June, the theodolite would then have been of value in determining position and variation of the compa.s.s.

The method of taking meridian observations with a s.e.xtant and an artificial horizon on a polar sledge journey is as follows: if there is any wind, a semi-circular wind-guard of snow blocks, two tiers high, is put up, opening to the south. If there is no wind, this is not necessary.

The instrument box is firmly bedded in the snow, which is packed down to a firm bearing and snow is packed around the box. Then something, usually a skin, is thrown over the snow, partly to prevent any possible warmth from the sun melting the snow and s.h.i.+fting the bearing of the box; partly to protect the eyes of the observer from the intense reflected glare of light from the snow.

The mercury trough of the artificial horizon is placed on top of the level box, and the mercury, which has been thoroughly warmed in the igloo, is poured into the trough until it is full. In the case of the special wooden trough devised and used on the last expedition, it was possible to bring the surface of the mercury level with the edges of the trough, thus enabling us to read angles very close to the horizon.

The mercury trough is covered with what is called the roof--a metal framework carrying two pieces of very accurately ground gla.s.s, set inclined, like the opposite sides of the roof of a house. The object of this roof is to prevent any slightest breath of wind disturbing the surface of the mercury and so distorting the sun's image in it, and also to keep out any fine snow or frost crystals that may be in the atmosphere. In placing the trough and the roof on the top of the instrument box, the trough is placed so that its longer diameter will be directed toward the sun.

A skin is then thrown down on the snow close to the box and north of it, and the observer lies down flat on his stomach on this, with his head to the south, and head and s.e.xtant close to the artificial horizon. He rests both elbows on the snow, holding the s.e.xtant firmly in both hands, and moving his head and the instrument until the image or part of the image of the sun is seen reflected on the surface of the mercury.

The principle on which the lat.i.tude of the observer is obtained from the alt.i.tude of the sun at noon is very simple. It is this: that the lat.i.tude of the observer is equal to the distance of the center of the sun from the zenith, plus the declination of the sun for that day and hour.

The declination of the sun for any place at any hour may be obtained from tables prepared for that purpose, which give the declination for noon of every day on the Greenwich meridian, and the hourly change in the declination.

Such tables for the months of February, March, April, May, June, and July, together with the ordinary tables for refraction to minus 10 Fahrenheit, I had with me on pages torn from the "Nautical Almanac and Navigator."

[2] Ignorance and misconception of all polar matters seem so widespread and comprehensive that it appears advisable to introduce here a few a b c paragraphs. Anyone interested can supplement these by reading the introductory parts of any good elementary school geography or astronomy.

The North Pole (that is, the geographical pole as distinguished from the magnetic pole, and this appears to be the first and most general stumbling block of the ignorant) is simply the point where that imaginary line known as the earth's axis--that is, the line on which the earth revolves in its daily motion--intersects the earth's surface.