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.