ascent of the sun, which is about fifty seconds for each hour, or five
minutes for each six hours; but the uncertainties of error by refraction
and ice-drift do not permit such accuracy of observations. These figures
are submitted, therefore, not to establish the pin-point accuracy of our
position, but to show that we had approximately reached a spot where the
sun, throughout the twenty-four hours, circled the heavens in a line
nearly parallel to the horizon.
THE SUN'S TRUE CENTRAL ALTITUDE AT THE POLE.
April 21 and 22, 1908.
Seven successive observations, taken every six hours.
Each observation is reduced for an instrumental error of +2'.
For semi-diameter and also for refraction and parallax, -9'.
The seven reductions are each calculated from two sextant readings,
generally of an upper and lower limb.
(TAKEN FROM MY FIELD NOTES.)
April 21, 1908, 97th meridian local
time--12 o'clock noon--11 deg.--54'--40''
6 P. M. (same camp). 12--00--10
Moved camp 4 miles magnetic South
12 o'clock (midnight) 12-- 3--50
April 22nd, 6 A. M. 12-- 9--30
12 o'clock noon 12--14--20
6 P. M. 12--18--40
12 o'clock (midnight) 12--25--10
Temperature, -41. Barometer, 30.05.
Shadow 271/2 feet (of 6-foot pole).
With the use of the sextant, the artificial horizon, pocket
chronometers, and the usual instruments and methods of explorers, our
observations were continued and our positions were fixed with the most
painstakingly careful safeguards possible against inaccuracy. The value
of all such observations as proof of a Polar success, however, is open
to such interpretation as the future may determine. This applies, not
only to me, but to anyone who bases any claim upon them.
To me there were many seemingly insignificant facts noted in our
northward progress which left the imprint of milestones. Our footprints
marked a road ever onward into the unknown. Many of these almost
unconscious reckonings took the form of playful impressions, and were
not even at the time written down.
In the first press reports of my achievement there was not space to go
into minute details, nor did the presentation of the subject permit an
elaboration on all the data gathered. But now, in the light of a better
perspective, it seems important that every possible phase of the
minutest detail be presented. For only by a careful consideration of
every phase of every phenomena en route can a true verdict be obtained
upon this widely discussed subject of Polar attainment.
And now, right here, I want you to consider carefully with me one thing
which made me feel sure that we had reached the Pole. This is the
subject of shadows--our own shadows on the snow-covered ice. A seemingly
unimportant phenomenon which had often been a topic of discussion, and
so commonplace that I only rarely referred to it in my notebooks, our
own shadows on the snow-cushioned ice had told of northward movement,
and ultimately proved to my satisfaction that the Pole had been reached.
In our northward progress--to explain my shadow observations from the
beginning--for a long time after our start from Svartevoeg, our shadows
did not perceptibly shorten or brighten, to my eyes. The natives,
however, got from these shadows a never-ending variety of topics of
conversation. They foretold storms, located game and read the story of
home entanglements. Far from land, far from every sign of a cheering,
solid earth, wandering with our shadows over the hopeless desolation of
the moving seas of glitter, I, too, took a keen interest in the blue
blots that represented our bodies. At noon, by comparison with later
hours, they were sharp, short, of a dark, restful blue. At this time a
thick atmosphere of crystals rested upon the ice pack, and when the sun
sank the strongest purple rays could not penetrate the frosty haze.
Long before the time for sunset, even on clear days, the sun was lost in
low clouds of drifting needles.
[Illustration: SHADOW-CIRCLES INDICATING THE APPROACH TO THE POLE
Shadow-circle about 250 miles from the Pole. Circle from which extend
radiating shadow-lines mark position of man.
Shadow-circle when nearing the Pole, showing less difference in length
during the changing hours.
Shadow-circle at the Pole; standing on the same spot, at each hour,
one's shadow is always apparently of the same length.
Showing approximately the relative length of a man's shadow for each
hour of the twenty-four-hour day.]
After passing the eighty-eighth parallel there was a notable change in
our shadows. The night shadow lengthened; the day shadow, by comparison,
shortened. The boys saw in this something which they could not
understand. The positive blue grew to a permanent purple, and the sharp
outlines ran to vague, indeterminate edges.
Now at the Pole there was no longer any difference in length, color or
sharpness of outline between the shadow of the day or night.
"What does it all mean?" they asked. The Eskimos looked with eager eyes
at me to explain, but my vocabulary was not comprehensive enough to give
them a really scientific explanation, and also my brain was too weary
from the muscular poison of fatigue to frame words.
The shadows of midnight and those of midday were the same. The sun made
a circle about the heavens in which the eye detected no difference in
its height above the ice, either night or day. Throughout the
twenty-four hours there was no perceptible rise or set in the sun's
seeming movement. Now, at noon, the shadow represented in its length the
altitude of the sun--about twelve degrees. At six o'clock it was the
same. At midnight it was the same. At six o'clock in the morning it was
the same.
A picture of the snowhouse and ourselves, taken at the same time and
developed a year later, gives the same length of shadow. The compass
pointed south. The night drop of the thermometer had vanished. Let us,
for the sake of argument, grant that all our instrumental observations
are wrong. Here is a condition of things in which I believed, and still
believe, the eye, without instrumental assistance, places the sun at
about the same height for every hour of the day and night. It is only on
the earth's axis that such an observation is possible.
[Illustration: At a latitude about New York, a man's shadow lengthens
hour by hour as the sun descends toward the horizon at nightfall.]
[Illustration: At the North Pole, a man's shadow is of equal length
during the entire twenty-four hours, since the sun moves spirally around
the heavens at about the same apparent height above the horizon
throughout the twenty-four-hour day.]
There was about us no land. No fixed point. Absolutely nothing upon
which to rest the eye to give the sense of location or to judge
distance.
Here everything moves. The sea breathes, and lifts the crust of ice
which the wind stirs. The pack ever drifts in response to the pull of
the air and the drive of the water. Even the sun, the only fixed dot in
this stirring, restless world, where all you see is, without your seeing
it, moving like a ship at sea, seems to have a rapid movement in a
gold-flushed circle not far above endless fields of purple crystal; but
that movement is never higher, never lower--always in the same fixed
path. The instruments detect a slight spiral ascent, day after day, but
the eye detects no change.
Although I had measured our shadows at times on the northward march, at
the Pole these shadow notations were observed with the same care as the
measured altitude of the sun by the sextant. A series was made on April
22, after E-tuk-i-shook and I had left Ah-we-lah in charge of our first
camp at the Pole. We made a little circle for our feet in the snow.
E-tuk-i-shook stood in the foot circle. At midnight the first line was
cut in the snow to the end of his shadow, and then I struck a deep hole
with the ice-axe. Every hour a similar line was drawn out from his foot.
At the end of twenty-four hours, with the help of Ah-we-lah, a circle
was circumscribed along the points, which marked the end of the shadow
for each hour. The result is represented in the snow diagram on the next
page.
[Illustration: SHADOW DIAL AT THE POLE
At the Pole, a man's shadow is about the same length for every hour of
the double day. When a shadow line is drawn in the snow from a man's
foot in a marked dial, the human shadows take the place of the hands of
a clock and mark the time by compass bearing. The relative length of
these shadows also give the latitude or a man's position north or south
of the equator. When during two turns around the clock dial, the shadows
are all of about equal length, the position of the earth's axis is
positively reached--even if all other observations fail. This simple
demonstration is an indisputable proof of being on the North Pole.]
In the northward march we did not stay up all of bedtime to play with
shadow circles. But, at this time, to E-tuk-i-shook the thing had a
spiritual interest. To me it was a part of the act of proving that the
Pole had been attained. For only about the Pole, I argued, could all
shadows be of equal length. Because of this combination of keen
interests, we managed to find an excuse, even during sleep hours, to
draw a line on our shadow circle.
Here, then, I felt, was an important observation placing me with fair
accuracy at the Pole, and, unlike all other observations, it was not
based on the impossible dreams of absolutely accurate time or sure
corrections for refraction.
[Illustration: HOW THE ALTITUDE OF THE SUN ABOVE THE HORIZON FIXES THE
POSITION OF THE NORTH POLE
OBSERVED ALTITUDES, APRIL 22, 1908
6 A. M. NOON 6 P. M.
12 deg. 9' 30'' 12 deg. 14' 20'' 12 deg. 18' 40''
The exact altitude of the sun at noon of April 22, 1908, on the pole,
was 12 deg. 9' 16'', but owing to ice-drift--the impossibility of
accurate time--and unknown error by refraction, no such pin-point
accuracy can be recorded. At each hour the sun, circling about the
horizon, cast a shadow of uniform length.]
At the place where E-tuk-i-shook and I camped, four miles south of where
I had left Ah-we-lah with the dogs, only two big ice hummocks were in
sight. There were more spaces of open water than at our first camp.
After a midnight observation--of April 22--we returned to camp. When the
dogs saw us approaching in the distance they rose, and a chorus of howls
rang over the regions of the Pole--regions where dogs had never howled
before. All the scientific work being finished, we began hastily to make
final preparations for departure.
We had spent two days about the North Pole. After the first thrills of
victory, the glamor wore away as we rested and worked. Although I tried
to do so, I could get no sensation of novelty as we pitched our last
belongings on the sleds. The intoxication of success had gone. I suppose
intense emotions are invariably followed by reactions. Hungry, mentally
and physically exhausted, a sense of the utter uselessness of this
thing, of the empty reward of my endurance, followed my exhilaration. I
had grasped my _ignus fatuus_. It is a misfortune for any man when his
_ignus fatuus_ fails to elude him.
During those last hours I asked myself why this place had so aroused an
enthusiasm long-lasting through self-sacrificing years; why, for so many
centuries, men had sought this elusive spot? What a futile thing, I
thought, to die for! How tragically useless all those heroic
efforts--efforts, in themselves, a travesty, an ironic satire, on much
vainglorious human aspiration and endeavor! I thought of the enthusiasm
of the people who read of the spectacular efforts of men to reach this
vacant silver-shining goal of death. I thought, too, in that hour, of
the many men of science who were devoting their lives to the study of
germs, the making of toxins; to the saving of men from the grip of
disease--men who often lost their own lives in their experiments; whose
world and work existed in unpicturesque laboratories, and for whom the
laudations of people never rise. It occurred to me--and I felt the
bitterness of tears in my soul--that it is often the showy and futile
deeds of men which men praise; and that, after all, the only work worth
while, the only value of a human being's efforts, lie in deeds whereby
humanity benefits. Such work as noble bands of women accomplish who go
into the slums of great cities, who nurse the sick, who teach the
ignorant, who engage in social service humbly, patiently, unexpectant of
any reward! Such work as does the scientist who studies the depredations
of malignant germs, who straightens the body of the crippled child, who
precipitates a toxin which cleanses the blood of a frightful and
loathsome disease!
As my eye sought the silver and purple desert about me for some stable
object upon which to fasten itself, I experienced an abject abandon, an
intolerable loneliness. With my two companions I could not converse; in
my thoughts and emotions they could not share. I was alone. I was
victorious. But how desolate, how dreadful was this victory! About us
was no life, no spot to relieve the monotony of frost. We were the only
pulsating creatures in a dead world of ice.
A wild eagerness to get back to land seized me. It seemed as though some
new terror had arisen from the icy waters. Something huge, something
baneful ... invisible ... yet whose terror-inspiring, burning eyes I
felt ... the master genii of the goal, perhaps ... some vague, terrible,
disembodied spirit force, condemned for some unimaginable sin to
solitary prisonment here at the top of the world, and who wove its
malignant, awful spell, and had lured men on for centuries to their
destruction.... The desolation of the place was such that it was almost
palpable; it was a thing I felt I must touch and see. My companions felt
the heavy load of it upon them, and from the few words I overheard I
knew they were eagerly picturing to themselves the simple joys of
existence at Etah and Annoatok. I remember that to me came pictures of
my Long Island home. All this arose, naturally enough, from the reaction
following the strain of striving so long and so fiercely after the goal,
combined with the sense of the great and actual peril of our situation.
But what a cheerless spot this was, to have aroused the ambition of man
for so many ages!
There came forcibly, too, the thought that although the Pole was
discovered, it was not essentially discovered, that it could be
discovered, in the eyes of the world, unless we could return to
civilization and tell what we had done. Should we be lost in these
wastes or should we be frozen to death, or buried in the snow, or
drowned in a crevasse, it would never be known that we had been here. It
was, therefore, as vitally necessary to get back in touch with human
life, with our report, as it had been to get to the Pole.
Before leaving, I enclosed a note, written on the previous day, in a
metallic tube. This I buried in the surface of the Polar snows. I knew,
of course, that this would not remain long at the spot, as the ice was
in the grip of a slow-drifting movement. I felt the possibility of this
slow movement was more important than if it remained stationary; for, if
ever found in the south, the destination of the tube would indicate the
ice drift from the Pole. The following is an exact copy of the original
note, which is reproduced photographically on another page:
COPY OF NOTE IN TUBE.
April 21--at the North Pole.
Accompanied by the Eskimo boys Ah-we-lah and E-tuk-i-shuk I reached
at noon to-day 90 deg. N. a spot on the polar sea 520 miles north of
Svartevoeg. We were 35 days en route. Hope to return to-morrow on a
line slightly west of the northward track.
New land was discovered along the 102 M. between 84 and 85. The ice
proved fairly good, with few open leads, hard snow and little
pressure trouble. We are in good health, and have food for forty
days. This, with the meat of the dogs to be sacrificed, will keep
us alive for fifty or sixty days.
This note is deposited with a small American flag in a metallic
tube on the drifting ice.
Its return will be appreciated, to the International Bureau of
Polar Research at the Royal Observatory, Uccle, Belgium.
(Signed) FREDERICK A. COOK.
[Illustration: POLAR ADVANCE OF THE NATIONAL STANDARDS
Climax of four centuries of Arctic exploration--Stars and Stripes at the
Pole.]
THE RETURN--A BATTLE FOR LIFE AGAINST FAMINE AND FROST
TURNED BACKS TO THE POLE AND TO THE SUN--THE DOGS, SEEMINGLY GLAD AND
SEEMINGLY SENSIBLE THAT THEIR NOSES WERE POINTED HOMEWARD, BARKED
SHRILLY--SUFFERING FROM INTENSE DEPRESSION--THE DANGERS OF MOVING ICE,
OF STORMS AND SLOW STARVATION--THE THOUGHT OF FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY
MILES TO LAND CAUSES DESPAIR
XXI
SOUTHWARD OVER THE MID-POLAR SEA
With few glances backward, we continued the homeward run in haste,
crossing many new crevasses and bound on a course along the one
hundredth meridian.
The eagerness to solve the mystery had served its purpose. The memory of
the adventure for a time remained as a reminder of reckless daring. As
we now moved along, there came more and more strongly the realization of
the prospective difficulties of the return. Although the mercury was
still frozen and the sun's perpetual flush was lost in a frigid blue,
the time was at hand in lower latitudes for the ice to break and drift
southward.
With correct reasoning, all former expeditions had planned to return to
land and a secure line of retreat by May 1. We could not hope to do this
until early in June. It seemed probable, therefore, that the ice along
the outskirts of the Polar sea would be much disrupted and that open
water, small ice and rapid drifts would seriously interfere with our
return to a sure footing on the shores of Fridtjof Nansen Sound. This
and many other possible dangers had been carefully considered before,
but the conquest of the Pole was not possible without such risks.
We had started earlier than all other Polar expeditions and no time had
been lost en route. If misfortune came to us, it could not be because of
wasted energies or unnecessary delay. In the last days of the onward
rush to success there had been neither time nor opportunity to ponder
over future dangers, but now, facing the southern skies, under which lay
home and all for which we lived, the back trail seemed indescribably
long. In cold, sober thought, freed of the intoxication of Polar
enthusiasm, the difficulties increasingly darkened in color. We clearly
saw that the crucial stage of the campaign was not the taking of the
Pole. The test of our fitness as boreal conquerors was to be measured by
the outcome of a final battle for life against famine and frost.
Figuring out the difficulties and possibilities of our return, I came to
the conclusion that to endeavor to get back by our upward trail would
not afford great advantage. Much time would be lost seeking the trail.
The almost continuous low drift of snow during some part of nearly every
day would obliterate our tracks and render the trail useless as a
beaten track in making travel easier. The advantage of previously
constructed snow houses as camps did not appeal to us.
After one is accustomed to a new, clean, bright dome of snow every
night, as we were, the return to such a camp is gloomy and depressing.
The house is almost invariably left in such a shape that, for hygienic
reasons alone, it should not be occupied. Furthermore, the influence of
sun and storm absolutely destroys in a few days two out of three of all
such shelter places. Moreover, we were now camping in our silk tent and
did not require other shelter. At the season of the year in which we
were traveling, the activity of the pack farther south made
back-tracking impossible, because of irregular lateral drift of
individual fields. And to me the most important reason was an eager
desire to ascertain what might be discovered on a new trail farther
west. It was this eagerness which led to our being carried adrift and
held prisoners for a year.
The first days, however, passed rapidly. The ice fields became smoother.
On April 24 we crossed five crevasses. With fair weather and favorable
ice, long marches were made. On the 24th we made sixteen miles, on the
25th fifteen miles, on the 26th, 27th and 28th, fourteen miles a day.
The fire of the homing sentiment began to dispel our overbearing
fatigue. The dogs sniffed the air. The Eskimos sang songs of the chase.
To me also there came cheering thoughts of friends and loved ones to be
greeted. I thought of delightful dinners, of soul-stirring music. For
all of us, the good speed of the return chase brought a mental
atmosphere of dreams of the pleasures of another world. For a time we
were blinded to ultimate dangers, just as we had been in the northward
dash.
In our return along the one hundredth meridian, there were three
important objects to be gained by a route somewhat west of the northward
march. The increasing easterly drift would thus be counterbalanced. We
hoped to get near enough to the new lands to explore a part of the
coast. And a wider belt would be swept out of the unknown area. On April
30 the pedometer registered one hundred and twenty-one miles, and by our
system of dead reckoning, which was usually correct, we should have been
at latitude 87 deg., 59', longitude 100 deg.. The nautical observations gave
latitude 88 deg., 1', longitude 97 deg., 42'. We were drifting eastward,
therefore, with increasing speed. To counterbalance our being moved by
this drift, we turned and bounded southward in a more westerly course.
The never-changing sameness of the daily routine was again felt. The
novelty of success and the passion of the run for the goal were no
longer operative. The scenes of shivering blue wearied the eye, and
there was no inspiration in the moving sea of ice to gladden the heart.
The thermometer rose and fell between 30 and 40 deg. below zero, Fahrenheit,
with a ceaseless wind. The first of May was at hand, bringing to mind
the blossoms and smiles of a kindly world. But here all nature was
narrowed to lines of ice.
May 1 came with increasing color in the sunbursts, but without cheer.
The splendor of terrestrial fire was a cheat. Over the horizon, mirages
displayed celestial hysterics. The sun circled the skies in lines of
glory, but its heat was a sham, its light a torment. The ice was heavy
and smooth. On May 2, clouds obscured the sky, fog fell heavily over the
ice, we struck our course with difficulty but made nineteen miles. On
May 3 snow fell, but the end of the march brought clear skies, and, with
them, the longing for my land of blossoming cherry and apple trees.
With weary nerves, and with compass in hand, my lonely march ahead of
the sledges continued day by day. Progress was satisfactory. We had
passed the eighty-ninth and eighty-eighth parallels. The eighty-seventh
and the eighty-sixth would soon be under foot, and the sight of the new
lands should give encouragement. These hard-fought times were days long
to be remembered. The lack of cerebral stimulation and nutrition left no
cellular resource to aid the memory of those fateful hours of chill.
The long strain of the march had established a brotherly sympathy
amongst the trio of human strugglers. The dogs, though still possessing
the savage ferocity of the wolf, had taken us into their community. We
now moved among them without hearing a grunt of discord, and their
sympathetic eyes followed until we were made comfortable on the
cheerless snows. If they happened to be placed near enough, they edged
up and encircled us, giving the benefit of their animal heat. To remind
us of their presence, frost-covered noses were frequently pushed under
the sleeping bag, and occasionally a cold snout touched our warm skin
with a rude awakening.