In response to a public clamor for a peep at these papers, a more detestable unfairness was forced on the public. The venerable director of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, who was one of Mr. Peary's jurors, instead of showing his hand, and thus freeing himself from a dishonest entanglement, asked his underlings, H. C. Mitchell and C. R. Duval, to stoop to a dishonor to veil the humbug previously perpetrated. Under the instruction of their chief, the first figures of Mr. Peary's sextant readings have been taken, and by manipulating these they have helped Mr. Peary by saying that their calculation placed Mr. Peary within two miles of the Pole.
Perhaps Mr. Peary was at the pin-point of the Pole, but when he allows his friends to use questionable methods to give a false security to his claim, then his claim is insecure indeed.
Mitchell and Duval took the sextant readings at face value. If Mr. Peary or his computers had frankly admitted the uncertainty of the grounds upon which these sextant readings rested, then one would be inclined to grant the benefit of doubt; but as was the case regarding the verdict of the National Geographic Society, the public was carefully excluded from a knowledge of the shaky grounds upon which these calculations are based. The impossibility of correct time and adequate allowance for refraction render such figures useless as proof of a position. But what about the image of the sun upon the artificial horizon?
An important observation demands that this should be sharp and clear, otherwise the observation is worthless. Mitchell and Duval have surely thought of this. Perhaps they have tried an experiment. As real scientific students they should have experimented with the figures with which they played. If the experiment has not been made they are incompetent. In either case a trick has been used to bolster up the deceptive verdict of the National Geographic Society.
A dish of molasses, a bull's eye lantern and a dark room are all that is necessary to prove how the public has been deceived by men in the Government pay as scientific computers. With the bull's eye as the sun, the molasses or any other reflecting surface as a horizon, with the light striking the surface at less than 7 degrees, as Mr. Peary's sun did, it will be found that the sun's image is an oblong streak of light with ill-defined edges. Such an image cannot be recorded on a sextant with sufficient accuracy to make it of any use as an observation. Mitchell and Duval must know this. If so, they are dishonest, for they did not tell the public about it. If they did not know it they are incompetent and should be dismissed from the Government service.
With all of these uncertainties a course which gives a workable plan of action can be laid over the blank charts, but there always remains the feebly guarded mystery of the ice drift. When the course is set, the daily run of distance can be checked by estimating speed and hourly progress with the watches. Against this there is the check of the pedometer or some other automatic measure for distance covered. The shortening night shadows and the gradual coming to a place where the night and day shadows are of about equal length is a positive conviction to him who is open to self-conviction, as a polar aspirant is likely to be. But frankly and candidly, when I now review one and all of these methods of fixing the North Pole, or the position of a traveler en route to it, I am bound to admit that all attempt at proof represented by figures is built on a foundation of possible and unknowable inaccuracy. Figures may convince an armchair geographer who has a preconceived opinion, but to the true scientist with the many chances for mistakes above indicated there is no real proof. The verdict on such data must always be "not proven" if the evidence rests on a true scientific examination of material which at best and in the very nature of things is not checked by the precision which science demands. The real proof—if proof is possible—is the continuity of the final printed book that gives all the data with the consequent variations.
FROM A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE POLAR CLAIMS IN A FORTHCOMING BOOK
By Captain Thomas F. Hall of Omaha, Neb.
DR. COOK'S VALID CLAIM.
Cook's narrative has been before the public nearly two years. It has been subject to the most minute scrutiny that invention, talent and money could give. It is to-day absolutely unscathed. Not one item in it from beginning to end has been truthfully discredited. It stands unimpeached. Mud enough has been thrown. Bribery and conspiracy have done their worst. A campaign of infamy has been waged, and spent its force; but not one solitary sentence has been proven wrong. Musk-ox fakes, starved dogs, fictitious astronomical or other calculations may have some effect on popular opinion; but they have none on the actual facts. They do not budge the truth a hair's breadth and they do not make history.
Cook's claim to the Discovery of the North Pole is as sound and as valid as the other claims of discovery, or the achievement of any one preceding him in the Arctic or the Antarctic.