Note 13 — LAND DISCOVERED

After my return to Copenhagen I was widely quoted as declaring that I had discovered and traversed 30,000 square miles of new land. What I did report was that in my journey I had passed through an area wherein it was possible to declare 30,000 square miles—a terrestrial unknown of water and ice—cleared from the blank of our charts. I have been quoted as describing this land as "a paradise for hunters" and criticised on the ground that animal life does not exist so far north. Whether animal life existed there, I do not know, for the impetus of my quest left no time to investigate. I passed the last game at Heiberg Land.

In my diary of the day's doings, only the results of observations were written down. The detail calculations were made on loose sheets of paper and in other note books—wherein was recorded all instrumental data. Later all my observations were reduced in the form in which they were to be finally presented. Therefore, these field papers with their miscellaneous notes had served their purpose, as had the instruments; and for this reason most of the material was left with Harry Whitney. A few of the important calculations were kept more as a curiosity. These will be presented as we go along. Those left I thought might later be useful for a re-examination of the results; but it never occurred to me that Whitney would be forced to bury the material, as he was by Peary. I do not regard those buried notes as being proof or as being particularly valuable, except as proving Peary to be one of the most ungracious and selfish characters in history.

In the subsequent excitement, because Peary cried fraud on the very papers which he had buried for me, an agitated group of American armchair explorers came to the conclusion against the dictates of history that the proof of the Polar quest was to be found in the re-examination of the figures of the observations for position.

Part of mine were buried. Peary had his. Thus handicapped, because blocks of my field calculations were absent, with the instruments and chronometer corrections, I rested my case at Copenhagen on a report, the original notes giving the brief tabulations of the day's doings, and the complete set of reduced observations.

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°. Wind 2. Mag. N. E. Clouds Mist W.-Water bands E.

95½Noon, 0 18—46—10

4 0 18—48—20

60 | 382 2 | 37—34—30

6—22 18—47—15

I. E.+2

2 | 18—49—15

58 9—24—38

6½ h.—16— 2

29 9— 8—36

348 R. & P.— 9

60 | 377 8—59—36

6—17 90

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 -9ʹ 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.