Chapter XXXVI: How a Geographic Society Prostituted Its Name 541 (18)

My friends have criticised me for not sending the data given below and similar observations to Copenhagen to prove my claim, but I did not deem it worth while to present more, taking the ground that if in this there was not sufficient material to explain the movement step by step of the Polar quest, then no academic examination could be of any value. This viewpoint, as I see it at present, was a mistake. I am now presenting every scrap of paper and every isolated fact, not as proof but as part of the record of the expedition, with due after-thought, and the better perspective afforded by time. Every explorer does this. Upon such a record history has always given its verdict of the value of an explorer's work. It will do the same in estimating the relative merits of the Polar quest.

=Observation as figured out in original field paper for March 30, 1908=: Longitude 95.36. Bar. 30.10 had risen from 29.50 in 2 hours. Temp. -34 deg.. Wind 2. Mag. N. E. Clouds Mist W.-Water bands E.

----
951/2 Noon, 0 18--46--10
4 ---- 18--48--20
+--------- 0 +-------------
60 | 382 2 | 37--34--30
+--------- +-------------
6-22 18--47--15
I. E. +2
+-------------
2 | 18--49--15
+-------------
58 9--24--38
61/2 h. --16-- 2
---------- --------------
29 9-- 8--36
348 R. & P. -- 9
+----------- --------------
60 | 377 8--59--36
+----------- 90
6--17 --------------
3--43--15 81--00--24
------------- 3--49--32
3--49--32 --------------
84--49--56

Shadows 39 ft. (of tent pole 6 ft. above snow).
(Directions Magnetic.)

Because of the impossibility of making correct allowances for refraction, I have made a rough allowance of -9' for refraction and parallax in all my observations.

The tent pole was a hickory floor slat of one of the sledges. It was 6 ft. 6 ins. high, 2 ins. wide, and 1/2 in. thick. This stick was marked in feet and inches, to be used as a measuring stick. It also served as a paddle and steering oar for the boat.

By pressing this tent pole 6 ins. into the snow, it served as a 6 ft. pole to measure the shadows. These measurements were recorded on the observation blanks. Absolute accuracy for the measurements is not claimed, because of the difficulty of determining the line of demarcation in long, indistinct shadows; but future efforts will show that my shadow measurements are an important check on all sun observations by which latitude and longitude are determined.

[14] Peary claims to have seen life east of this position. This is perfectly possible, for Arctic explorers have often noted when game trails were abundant one year, none were seen the next. In these tracks of foxes and bears, as noted by Baldwin, are positive proofs of the position of Bradley Land--for such animals work only from a land base.

[15] Observation on April 8, from original field-papers. April 8, 1908, Longitude 94 deg.-2'. Bar. 29.80, rising. Temp. -31 deg.. Wind 2, Mag. N. E. Clouds St. 3.

---
0 21 deg.--59'--30''
0 21 --08 --20
94 deg. --- +----------------
4' 2 | 43 -- 7 --50
+------ +----------------
60 | 376' 21 --33 --55
+------ ----------------
6-16 I. E. +2
+----------------
56'' 2 | 21 --35 --50
x 61/4 +----------------
-------- 10 --47 --55
14 --9
336 ----------------
+-------- 10 --38 --55
60 | 350 90--
+-------- ----------------
5--50 79 --21 -- 5
7-- 9--33 7 --15 --23
----------- ----------------
7--15--23 86 --36 --28

Shadows 32 ft. (of pole 6
ft. above snow).

[16] After trying to explain this impression fifteen months later to a Swiss professor, who spoke little English, he quoted me as saying that the sun at night about the Pole was much lower than at noon. No such ridiculous remark was ever made. In reality the eye did not detect any difference in the distance between the sun and the horizon through the next twenty-four hours. There was no visible rise or set, the night dip of the nocturnal swing of the sun was entirely eliminated. We had, however, several ways of checking this important phenomena, which will be introduced later.

[17] _The Fall of Body Temperature_--The temperature of the body was frequently taken. Owing to the breathing of very cold air, the thermometer placed in the mouth gave unreliable results, but by placing the bulb in the armpits, when in the sleeping bag, fairly accurate records were kept. These proved that extreme cold had little influence on bodily heat; but when long-continued overwork was combined with insufficient food, the temperature gradually came down. On the route to the Pole the bodily temperature ranged from 97 deg. 5' to 98 deg. 4'. In returning, the subnormal temperature fell still lower. When the worry of being carried adrift and the danger of never being able to return became evident, then the mental anguish, combined as it was with prolonged overwork, continued thirst and food insufficiency, was strikingly noted by our clinical thermometer. During the last few weeks, before reaching land at Greenland in 1909, the subnormal temperature sank to the remarkable minimum of 96 deg. 2' F. The Eskimos usually remained about half a degree warmer. The respiration and heart action was at this time fast and irregular.

In the summer period of famine about Jones Sound the temperature was normal. At that time we had an abundance of water and an interesting occupation in quest of game, but we often felt the cold more severely than in the coldest season of winter.

[18] _The Tragedies of Cape Sabine._--Cape Sabine has been the scene of one of the saddest Arctic tragedies--the death by starvation of most of the members of the Greely Expedition. Several modern travelers, including Mr. Peary, have, in passing here, taken occasion to criticise adversely the management of this expedition. In his last series of articles in _Hampton's Magazine_, Peary has again attempted to throw discredit on General Greely. It is easy, after a lapse of forty years, to show the mistakes of our predecessors, and thereby attempt to belittle another's effort; but is it right? I have been at Cape Sabine in a half-starved condition, as General Greely was. I have watched the black seas of storm thunder the ice and rock walls, as he did; and I have looked longingly over the impassable stretches of death-dealing waters to a land of food and plenty, as he did. I did it, possessing the accumulated knowledge of the thirty years which have since passed, and I nearly succumbed in precisely the same manner as did the unfortunate victims of that expedition. The scientific results of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition were so carefully and so thoroughly gathered that no expedition to the Arctic since has given value of equal importance. Greely's published record is an absolute proof of his ability as a leader and a vindication of the unfair insinuations of later rivals.

In passing along this same coast, E-tuk-i-shook called my attention to several graves, some of which we opened. In other places we saw human bones which had been left unburied. They were scattered, and had been picked by the ravens, the foxes and the wolves. With a good deal of sorrow and reserve I then learned one of the darkest imprinted pages of Arctic history. When the steamer _Erie_ returned, in 1901, a large number of Eskimos were left with Mr. Peary near Cape Sabine. They soon after developed a disease which Mr. Peary's ship brought to them. There was no medicine and no doctor to save the dying victims. Dr. T. F. Dedrick, who had served Mr. Peary faithfully, was dismissed without the payment of his salary, because of a personal grudge, but Dedrick refused to go home and leave the expedition without medical help. He remained at Etah, living with the Eskimos in underground holes, as wild men do, sacrificing comfort and home interests for no other purpose except to maintain a clean record of helpfulness. As the winter and the night advanced, Dr. Dedrick got news that the Eskimos were sick and required medical assistance. He crossed the desperate reaches of Smith Sound at night, and offered Mr. Peary medical assistance to save the dying natives. Peary refused to allow Dedrick to attempt to cure the afflicted, crying people. Dedrick had been without civilized food for months, and was not well himself after the terrible journey over the storm-swept seas of ice. Before returning, he asked for some coffee, a little sugar and a few biscuits. These Mr. Peary refused him. Dr. Dedrick returned. The natives, in fever and pain, died. Theirs are the bones scattered by the wild beasts. Who is responsible for these deaths?

"_Peary-tiglipo-savigaxua_" (Peary has stolen the iron stone), was now repeated with bitterness by the Eskimos. In 1897 it occurred to Mr. Peary that the museums would be interested in the Eskimos, and also in the so-called "Star Stone," owned by the Eskimos. It had been passed down from generation to generation as a tribal property; from it the natives, from the Stone Age, had chipped metal for weapons. This "meteorite" was, without Eskimo consent, put by Mr. Peary on his ship; without their consent, also, were put a group of men and women and children on the ship. All were taken to New York for museum purposes. In New York the precious meteorite was sold, but the profits were not divided with the rightful owners. The men, women and children (merchandise of similar value) were placed in a cellar, awaiting a marketplace. Before the selling time arrived, all but one died of diseases directly arising out of inhuman carelessness, due to the dictates of commercialism. Who is responsible for the death of this group of innocent wild folk?

[19] These supplies had, fortunately, been left in the care of Mr. Whitney. In the months that followed, Murphy several times threatened to take these things, but Whitney's sense of justice was such that no further pilfering was allowed.

The unbrotherly tactics which Mr. Peary had shown to Sverdrup and other explorers were here copied by his representative. Captain Bernier was bound for the American coast, to explore and claim for Canada the land to the west. He desired a few native helpers. There were at Etah descendants of Eskimo emigrants from the very land which Bernier aimed to explore. These men were anxious to return to their fathers' land, and would have made splendid guides for Bernier. Murphy volunteered to ask the Eskimos if they would go. He went ashore, pretending that he would try to secure guides, but, in reality, he never asked a single Eskimo to join Bernier. Returning, he said that no one would go. Later he boasted to Whitney and Prichard of the intelligent way in which he had deceived Captain Bernier. Was this under Mr. Peary's instructions?

[20] I now learned, also, that the Eskimos had told their tribesmen of their arrival at the mysterious "Big Nail," which, of course, meant less to them than the hardship and unique methods of hunting.

Among themselves the Eskimos have an intimate way of conveying things, a method of expression and meaning which an outsider never grasps. At most, white men can understand only a selected and more simple language with which the Eskimos convey their thoughts. This partly accounts for the unreliability of any testimony which a white man extracts from them. There is also to be considered an innate desire on the part of these simple people to answer any question in a manner which they think will please. In all Indian races this desire to please is notoriously stronger than a sense of truth. The fact that my Eskimos, when later questioned as to my whereabouts, are reported to have answered that I had not gone far out of sight of land, was due partly to my instructions and partly to this inevitable wish to answer in a pleasing way.

While they spoke among themselves of having reached the "Big Nail," they also said--what they later repeated to Mr. Peary--that they had passed few days beyond the sight of land, a delusion caused by mirages, in which, to prevent any panic, I had with good intentions encouraged an artificial belief in a nearness to land.

But we were for weeks enshrouded in dense fogs, where nothing could be seen. The natives everywhere had heard of this, and inquired about it. Why has Mr. Peary suppressed this important information? We traveled and camped on the pack for "seven moons." Why was this omitted? We reached a place where the sun did not dip at night; where there was not enough difference in the height of the day and night sun to give the Eskimo his usual sense of direction. Why was this fact ignored?

[21] In appreciation of this kind helpfulness, the Danes later sent a special ship loaded with presents, which were left for distribution among the good-natured Eskimos who had helped Ericksen. Mr. Peary came along after the Danes had turned their backs, and picked from the Danish presents such things as appealed to his fancy, thus depriving the Eskimos of the merited return for their kindness. What right had Mr. Peary to take these things? The Danes, who have since placed a mission station here, in continuation of their policy to guard and protect the Eskimos, are awaiting an answer to this question to-day.

[22] When Captain Adams arrived off the haunts of the northernmost Eskimos, he sent ashore a letter to be passed along to Mr. Peary, as he was expected to return south during that summer. In his letter Captain Adams told of my attainment of the Pole. The letter got into Mr. Peary's hands before he returned to Labrador. With this letter in his pocket, Mr. Peary gave as his principal reason for doubting my success that nobody else had been told that I had reached the Pole. I told Whitney, I had told Pritchard--thus Peary's charge was proven false later. But why did he suppress the information which Captain Adams' letter contained? With this letter in his pocket, why did Mr. Peary say that no one had been told?

[23] Captain Robert A. Bartlett, of the Peary ship _Roosevelt_, has figured much in this controversy. Most of his reported statements, I am inclined to believe, are distorted. But he has allowed the words attributed to him to stand; therefore, the harm done is just as great as if the charges were true. He allowed Henry Rood, in _The Saturday Evening Post_, to say that my expedition was possible only through the advice of Bartlett. Every statement which Rood made, as Bartlett knows, is a lie. He has allowed this to stand, and he thereby stands convicted as party to a faked article written with the express purpose of inflicting an injury.

Bartlett cross-questioned my Eskimos about instruments. By showing them a sextant and other apparatus he learned that I not only had a full set, but he also learned how I used them. Peary, although having Bartlett's report on this, insinuated that I had no instruments, and that I made no observations. Bartlett knew this to be a lie, but he remained silent. He is therefore a party to a Peary lie.

In the early press reports Bartlett is credited with saying that "Cook had no instruments." A year later, after Bartlett returned from another trip north, faked pictures and faked news items were printed with the Bartlett interviews and reports. There was no protest, and at the same time Bartlett said that books, instruments, and things belonging to me had been destroyed. In the following year Bartlett announced that he was "going after Cook's instruments." Has the press lied, or has Bartlett lied? Next to Henson, Mr. Peary's colored servant, Captain Bartlett is Peary's star witness.

George Borup, in "A Tenderfoot With Peary," after repeating in his book many pro-Peary lies, tried to prove his assertion by an alleged study of my sledge (P. 300): "Except for its being shortened, the sledge was the same as when it had left Annoatok. It weighed perhaps thirty pounds, and was very flimsy."

This is a deliberate lie, for it was only a half-sled, reassembled and repaired by old bits of driftwood. After this first lie he says, in the same paragraph: "Yet it had only two cracks in it." The upstanders had been cracked in a dozen places, the runners were broken, and every part was cracked.

Borup shows by his orthography of Eskimo words that he knows almost nothing of the Eskimo language. Therefore he may be dismissed as incompetent where Eskimo reports are to be interpreted. He is committed to the Peary interests, which also eliminates him from the jury. But in his report of my sled he has stooped to lies which forever deprive him of being credited with any honest opinion on the Polar controversy.

[24] Professor Armbruster and Dr. Schwartz, of St. Louis, at a time when few papers had the courage to print articles in my defence, appealed to W. R. Reedy, of the _Mirror_, for space to uncover the unfair methods of the Pro-Peary conspiracy. This space was liberally granted, and the whole controversy was scientifically analyzed by the _Mirror_ in an unbiased manner. Here is shown an important phase of the Peary charges, from the _Mirror_, April 21, 1910. As it clearly reveals the facts, I present part of it as follows:

The point made by Dr. Schwartz, that there is a contradiction between Peary's statements of September 28 and October 13, is well taken. The statement of October 13 is a point-blank contradiction of the previous one. Dr. Schwartz notes that when Peary made, on September 28, what Peary called his strongest indictment of Dr. Cook, Peary must have had with him at Bar Harbor the chart with the trail of Cook's route, and infers that, as the later charge was by far the stronger indictment of the two, there must be some other explanation of the contradiction.

Analysis of this contradiction develops one of the most serious propositions of the whole Polar controversy. Mr. Peary might now say that he was holding his strongest point in reserve, but such explanation would not be sufficient, for he stated that the indictment of September 28 is "the strongest that has been advanced in Arctic exploration ever since the great expedition was sent there," and no child is so simple as to believe that the indictment of September 28 is at all comparable in magnitude to the one of October 13. Upon analysis, we find that there is indeed another explanation, and only one, and that is, that _when the indictment of September 28 was made, the one of October 13 had not been conceived or concocted_, and it will show that Peary, Bartlett, McMillan, Borup and Henson, _all_ who signed the statement of October 13, perpetrated a gross falsehood and imposition upon the public. All are caught in the one net.

If this coterie had received from the Eskimos such information as is claimed by them in their statement of October 13, then they must have received it from the Eskimos _before Peary and his party left Etah on their return to America_. If they had the information when they left the Eskimos at Etah, on their return to America, then they had it when they arrived at Indian Harbor, and before their statement of September 28 was made.

In their statement of October 13, 1909, Peary, Bartlett, McMillan, Borup and Henson state, and sign their names to the statement made to the world and copyrighted, that they had a map on which E-tuk-i-shook and Ah-we-lah, Dr. Cook's two Eskimos, had traced for them the route taken by Dr. Cook, and that this was also supported by the verbal statements of the two Eskimos, _that Dr. Cook had reached the northern point of Heiberg Land, or Cape Thomas Hubbard; that he had gone two sleeps north of it, had then turned to the west or southwest, and returned to the northern headland of Heiberg Land, but on the west or northwest side, and had sent back one of the Eskimos to the cache left on the headland, but on the east side of the point, and remained at this new place on the west side of the point for four or five sleeps_. Then, all the time that Peary was challenging and impugning that Dr. Cook had reached even the northern point of Heiberg Land, according to their own statement of October 13, _they had in their pockets the map and information from the Eskimos that Dr. Cook had not only reached the northern point of Heiberg Land, but traveled above it and turned around the point_. In so challenging that Dr. Cook had reached even the northern point of said land, and thereby discrediting Dr. Cook with all the force and influence at their command, when, according to their own later statement, they had then and at that time, and before such time (since they left Etah on their return to America), the statements, trail of route and testimony of the Eskimos entirely to the contrary, _Peary and his coterie deliberately and knowingly perpetrated on the public the grossest of falsehoods and impositions_.

There are several other contradictions in the statement of October 13. One is the statement that Pan-ic-pa (the father of E-tuk-i-shook), was familiar with the first third and last third of the journey of Dr. Cook and his two Eskimos. Pan-ic-pa may be familiar with the territory of the last third of the route, but not with the journey made by Dr. Cook and E-tuk-i-shook and Ah-we-lah over this part of the route, for these three alone made the journey from Cape Sparbo to Annoatok. Pan-ic-pa went only as far as the northern point of Heiberg Land, and returned from there nearly a year before Dr. Cook and his two Eskimos arrived from Cape Sparbo. This is shown by Peary and his party themselves in their statement that Pan-ic-pa, the father of E-tuk-i-shook, a very intelligent man, _who was in the party of Eskimos that came back from Dr. Cook from the northern end of Nansen's Strait_ (Sound), came in and indicated the same localities and details as the two boys. Of course Pan-ic-pa could only indicate the localities that he had himself journeyed to with Dr. Cook, and not any after he had left Dr. Cook and the two Eskimos at the northern point of Heiberg Land, or the northern end of Nansen's Sound, which is the same thing.

Another contradiction, a very serious one indeed, as important as the first of the foregoing contradictions is, that if Peary and his party had such information from the Eskimos as they claimed in their statement of October 13, then they knew that the little sledge of Dr. Cook which they saw at Etah was not the sledge that made the trip to the Pole. The printed reports show that long before October 13 Peary and all his henchmen were challenging and charging to the public that the little sled in question left with Whitney, could not possibly have made the trip to the Pole. In the statement of October 13, Peary and his party state that, according to the Eskimos, Dr. Cook and his two Eskimos started from the northern point of Heiberg Land with only two sledges. Further on in the statement, that the dogs and one sledge were abandoned in Jones Sound, and that at Cape Vera--western end of Jones Sound--Peary and his party say that E-tuk-i-shook and Ah-we-lah, Dr. Cook's two Eskimos, informed them that (quoting Peary and his party's statement verbatim), "here they cut the remaining sledge off--that is, shortened it, as it was awkward to transport with the boat, and near here they killed a walrus."

_During all the time then, before October 13, that Peary and his party were belittling this sled, and referring to its character as a positive proof that Dr. Cook could not have reached the Pole, and stating that it would have been knocked to pieces in a few days, they, according to their own statement of October 13, knew, even while using such argument against Dr. Cook, that the little sled was not the original sled, but only a part of one which the desperate and fearfully hard-pressed wanderers had themselves--having no dogs--dragged their food for three hundred miles over one of the roughest and most terrible stretches of the frozen zone, never before traveled by man._ According to their own statement of October 13, Peary and his clique convict themselves of boldly and deliberately perpetrating gross falsehoods against Dr. Cook and upon the people. Then shall we believe anything further from them?

There is only one rational view to take of their statement of October 13. That, knowing their first charges were certain to fail, the statement of October 13 was concocted for their own base purposes. _No sane person can believe that if they had had such exceedingly damaging information as is claimed by them in their statement of October 13, they could have instead made use of charges far less damaging and known to them to be false._

W. J. ARMBRUSTER.

ST. LOUIS, MO., April 13, 1910.

[25] One of the meanest and pettiest charges concocted for Mr. Peary at a time when personal veracity was regarded as the test of rival claims was that I had attempted to steal the scientific work of a missionary while I was on the Belgica Antarctic Expedition. Director Townsend, of the New York Aquarium, who, like Mr. Peary, was drawing a salary from the taxpayers while his energies were spent in another mission, declared I had taken a dictionary, compiled by Thos. Bridges, of Indian words, and had put it forth as my own work. Dalenbagh, of the American Geographical Society, and of the "Worm Diggers' Union," polly-like, also repeated this charge. "Of the other charges against Dr. Cook we are at sea," he said, "but here is something that we know about." By expending five cents in stamps, five minutes with the pen, both Townsend and Dalenbaugh might have learned that the dishonor which they were trying to attach to some one else was on themselves.

Under big headlines, "Dr. Cook Steals a Missionary's Work," the New York _Times_ and other pro-Peary papers printed columns of absolute lies in what purported to be interviews with Townsend. Dalenbaugh, pointing to this gleefully, said "Dr. Cook has been guilty of wrong-doing for many years."

Now what were the facts? Among the scientific collections of the Belgian Expedition, was a series of notes, embodying a Yahagan Indian Dictionary, made by the missionary, Thomas Bridges. Although this was of little use to anybody, it was a scientific record worthy of preservation. In a friendly spirit toward the late Mr. Bridges and his Indians, I persuaded the Belgians at great expense to publish the work. It was written in the old Ellis system of orthography, which is not generally understood. Working on this material for one year without pay, I changed it to ordinary English orthography, but made few other alterations. The book is not yet printed, but part of it is in press. The introduction was printed five years ago, and among the first paragraphs appear these words:

"My visit among the tribe of Fuegians was not of sufficient length to make a thorough study, nor had I the opportunity to collect much data from Indians, but I was singularly fortunate in being in the company of Mr. Thomas Bridges and Mr. John Lawrence, men who have made these people their life study. The credit of collecting and making this Yahagan Grammar and Vocabulary belongs solely to Mr. Bridges, who devoted most of his time during thirty-seven years to recording this material. My work is limited to a slight re-arrangement of the words, a few additions of notes and words, and a conversion of the Ellis phonetic characters in which the native words were written into ordinary English orthography. It is hoped that this study of Yahagan language, with a few of their tales and traditions, will, with a report of the French Expedition, make a fitting end to an important record of a vanishing people."

Then follows a short favorable biography of the man whose work I was accused of stealing.

[26] Letter from Barrill's associate:

MISSOULA, MONT., Oct. 12, 1909.

Friend Cook--I am sorry that I can't come at present. But will come and see you in about fifteen days if you will send me Three Hundred and Fifty ($350.00), and I will say that the report in the papers (that Dr. Cook did not ascend Mt. McKinley), from what I have, is not true.

Hoping to see you soon.

Your friend,
(Signed) FRED PRINTZ.

[27] While this book was going through the press, several chapters of the proof-sheets, stolen from the printers, Messrs. Lent & Graff, were found on the table of the Explorers' Club on June 27, 1911. It is important to note that this pro-Peary repository of bribed, faked and forged writings, which were issued to defame me, is also the den for stolen goods. Who are the thieves who congregate there to deposit their booty? Why the theft of a part of my book? What humbug has this club and its shameless president next to offer?

[28] Letter from an onlooker when Mt. McKinley was climbed:

To Dr. Cook's Friends:

Professor Parker says "regretfully" that Dr. Cook's evidence as to the ascent of Mt. McKinley was unconvincing.

I was located in the foothills of Mt. McKinley, and had been for about a year, when Dr. Cook, Professor H. C. Parker, Mr. Porter, the topographer of the party, and Mr. Miller, Fred Printz and the rest of the party, landed at the head-waters of the Yentna River, in the foothills of Mt. McKinley.

I met Professor Parker and the rest of the party, and saw a great deal of them while they were up there, as I had three mining camps in the foothills from which they made their try for the top of the mountain. I let Dr. Cook have one of my Indian hunters, who knew every foot of the country around there, for a guide. Dr. Cook also had some of his caches in my camps, leaving supplies which he did not take along with his pack-trains. Some of Dr. Cook's party were in our camps nearly every day or so, and consequently I became very well posted in regard to Dr. Cook's affairs, and very well acquainted with him. Dr. Parker should be the last one to say anything about mountain-climbing or anything else connected with the expedition, or anything where it takes a man and pluck to accomplish results--good results; as he showed himself to be the rankest kind of a tenderfoot while in the foothills of Mt. McKinley, and was the laughing stock of the country. Mt. McKinley and the country around there was too rough for him. He got "cold feet," and started back for the States, before he had even seen much of the country around there.

Looking over my memoranda, I find that Dr. Cook had given up his attempt to climb Mt. McKinley for the time being, and had sent Printz and Miller on a hunting expedition, and the rest of the party was scattered out to hunt up something new.

At that time I came into Youngstown, and the boys were getting ready to strike out on their different routes, and Dr. Cook was going down to Tyonic, in Cook's Inlet, with his launch, to meet a friend, Mr. Disston, who expected to go on a hunting trip with him. The friend did not arrive, so Dr. Cook returned to the head-waters of the Yentna River, to Youngstown, arriving there on Monday, August 27. On Sunday, August 28, he started down to the Sushitna River. I went down with him as far as the Sushitna Station, and he told me he was going to run up the river and strike Fish Creek, which ran up on another side of Mt. McKinley, and see what the chances were to make the top of the continent from that side. He made it. I was one of the last to see him start on the ascent, and one of the first to see him when he returned after he had made the ascent.

Dr. Cook proved to be a man in every respect, as unselfish as he was courageous, always giving the other fellow a thought before thinking of himself.

Upon his arrival from the ascent of the mountain, although tired and worn and in a bad physical condition himself, he gave his unlimited attention to a party of prospectors who had been picked up from a wreck in the river, and brought into camp in an almost dying condition just before his arrival. He spent hours working over these men, and did not give himself a thought until they were properly cared for.

_Evidence?_ No man who has known Dr. Cook, been with him, worked with him, and learned by personal experience of his courage, energy and perseverance, would ask for evidence beyond his word.

Dr. Cook is one of the most daring men, and can stand more hardships than any man I have ever met, and I believe I have met some of the most able men of the world when it comes to roughing it over the trails in Alaska and the North.

Dr. Cook climbed Mt. McKinley. Of course there are always skeptics--men who have a wishbone instead of a backbone, and who, when wishing has brought to them no good results, their last effort is pushed forth in criticism of the things which have been constructed or accomplished by men, their superiors.

If Professor Parker wants evidence to convince him, I think he can find it, provided he will put himself to as much trouble in looking for evidence as he has in criticising such evidence as he has obtained.

Respectfully yours,
J. A. MACDONALD.

VONTRIGGER, CALIFORNIA.

_Author's Note._--It is a curious fact that most men who have
assailed me are themselves sailing under false colors. Herschell
Parker was an assistant professor and instructor in the Department
of Physics in Columbia University. This gave him the advantage of
using the title, "Professor," but, like many others, his university
association was mostly for the prestige it gave him. His
professorship assumption was, therefore, a deception. Instead of
devoting himself conscientiously to university interests, he was,
like Peary, engaged in private enterprises--such as the Parker-Clark
light, and other ventures--and employed substitute instructors to do
the work for which he drew a salary, and for which he claimed the
honor and the prestige. A man who thus sails falsely under the
banner of a professorship is just the man to try to steal the honor
of other men. Here is a make-believe professor who is not a
professor; whose dwarfed conscience is eased by drippings from the
Arctic Trust; who has stooped to a photographic humbug. He is a
fitting exponent of the bribing pro-Peary propaganda.

[29] When Mr. Peary first returned from the North, and began his attacks upon me, he caused a demand for "proofs" through the New York _Times_ and its affiliated papers; he had them call for my instruments; he insinuated that I had had no instruments with me in the North (despite the fact that Captain Bartlett had informed him that my own Eskimos had testified that I had); he declared that any Polar claim must be established by an examination of observations and an examination of the explorer's instruments.

In view of the unwarranted newspaper call for "proofs," I was embarrassed by having left my instruments with Whitney. Mr. Peary had his, however. But were they carefully examined by the august body who so eagerly decided he reached the Pole? Was the verdict of the self-appointed arbiters of the so-called National Geographic Society based upon such examination as Mr. Peary--concerning my case--had declared necessary?

Testifying before the subcommittee of the Committee on Naval Affairs, when the move was on to have Peary made a Rear-Admiral, Henry Gannett, one of the three members of the National Geographic Society, who had passed on Peary's claim, admitted that their examination of Mr. Peary's instruments was casually and hastily made in the Pennsylvania Station at Washington. When Peary later appeared in person before the committee, he admitted having come to Washington from Portland, Maine, to consult with the members of the National Geographic Society who were to examine his proofs, and that he had brought his instruments with him in a trunk, which was left at the station. The following took place (See official Congressional Report, Private Calendar No. 733, Sixty-first Congress, Third Session, House of Representatives, Report No. 1961, pages 21 and 22):

"Mr. Roberts--How did the instruments come down?

"Captain Peary--They came in a trunk.

"Mr. Roberts--Your trunk?

"Captain Peary--Yes.

"Mr. Roberts--After you reached the station and found the trunk, what did you and the committee do regarding the instruments?

"Captain Peary--I should say that we opened the trunk there in the station.

"Mr. Roberts--That is, in the baggage-room of the station?

"Captain Peary--Yes.

"Mr. Roberts--Were the instruments all taken out?

"Captain Peary--_That I could not say. Members of the committee will probably remember better than I._

"Mr. Roberts--Well, do you not have any recollection of whether they took them out and examined them?

"Captain Peary--Some were taken out, I should say; whether all were taken out I could not say.

"Mr. Roberts--Was any test of those instruments made by any member of the committee to ascertain whether or not the instruments were inaccurate?

"Captain Peary--_That I could not say. I should imagine that it would not be possible to make tests there._

"Mr. Roberts--Were those instruments ever in the possession of the committee other than the inspection at the station?

"Captain Peary--NOT TO MY KNOWLEDGE."

NOTE.--This, then, was the basis of the glorious verdict of the packed jury which assailed me; which demanded as necessary instruments of me which had been left in the North, and which posed as a fair body of experts!

All important questions asked of Peary, Tittman and Gannett were hedged, their aim being to avoid publicity. In substance, they admitted that in the "Peary Proofs," passed upon a year before, there was no proof. They admitted that their favorable verdict was reached upon an examination of COPIES of Mr. Peary's observations, and that the examination and decision occurred at a sort of social gathering in the house of Admiral Chester, who had attacked me. Chairman Roberts, commenting on the testimony, wrote (see page 15):

"From these extracts from the testimony it will be seen that Mr. Gannett, after his careful examination of Captain Peary's proofs and records, did not know how many days it took Captain Peary from the time he left Bartlett to reach the Pole and return to the _Roosevelt_, that information being supplied by a Mr. Grosvenor. It will be also observed that Mr. Gannett, as a result of his careful examination of Captain Peary's proofs and records, gives Captain Peary, in his final dash to the Pole, the following equipment: Two sledges, 36 or 32 dogs, 2 Eskimos, and Henson. It will be seen later from Captain Peary's testimony, that he had on that final dash 40 dogs, 5 sledges, and a total of six men in his party. This discrepancy on so vital a point must seem quite conclusive that the examination of the Geographic Society's committee was anything but careful."

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