Which was it: Cook or Peary? Who discovered the North Pole? Everybody thought the question had been settled long ago, but now comes an eminent geographer and explorer, who says, over his name, that both got to the "Big Nail," and that it was the Brooklyn doctor who did it first. And in defense of his belief he cites chapter and verse, and uses Peary's own story to prove that his hated rival it was who first stood at the top of the earth, "where every one of the cardinal points is South."
The intrepid defender of Cook is Edwin Swift Balch, fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Science, member of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, the Franklin Institute, American Philosophical, American Geographical and Royal Geographical Societies, writer on arctic, antarctic geographical and ethnological topics for the learned societies of the world. Dr. Balch lives at No. 1412 Spruce street, Philadelphia, and the title of his book, just published by Campion & Co., of Philadelphia, is "The North Pole and Bradley Land."
"All Travellers Called Liars"
"From time immemorial travellers have been called liars," says Mr. Balch in a chapter devoted to "travellers who were first doubted and afterward vindicated," and it is on this general assumption of their Munchausen-like proclivities that much of the weight of argument depends. But most of all the truthfulness of the doctor's assertion that on April 21, 1908, he and his two Eskimo boys, E-tuk-i-shook and Ah-we-lah, reached the goal and "were the only pulsating creatures in a dead world of ice," is shown by the fact that conditions reported by Cook as existing there were corroborated by Peary.
"The man who breaks into the unknown may say what he chooses and present such astronomical observations as he sees fit," says Mr. Balch, "but his proof rests on his word. But if the next traveller corroborated the discoverer, instantly the first man's statements are immeasurably strengthened.
"To solve such a problem as that of who discovered the North Pole, this comparative method seems to the writer the only one available. It is not a matter of belief, it is a matter of comparison and reasoning. It is not the evidence which Cook produces which in itself alone could prove Cook's claims. It is the geographical evidence offered by both Cook and Peary, which, when carefully compared, affords, in the writer's judgment, the only means of arriving at a conclusion. It is Peary's statements and observations which prove, as far as can be proved at present, Cook's statements."
All Discoverers First Doubted
The writer then mentions a score of the great discoverers and explorers of history who have been defamed and berated by their contemporaries, yet whose achievements have in time proved them to be truth tellers. Marco Polo, "greatest of mediaeval travellers, was generally discredited." Amerigo Vespucci "to this day remains under a cloud for things he did not do." Fernao Mendes Pinto, Nathaniel B. Palmer, Robert Johnson, James Weddell, von Drygalski, Nordenskjold, Bruce, Charcot, Dr. Krapf, Dr. Robmann, Du Chaillu, Stanley, Livingstone, Colter, all have been reviled as fabricators, yet all have been honored by those who came later, he says.
"There are three records of Dr. Cook's journey of 1908," says the writer. "Cook's first announcement was a long cablegram sent from Lerwick, Shetland Islands, and published in the 'New York Herald' of September 2, 1909. The full original narrative was sent immediately after this and published in the 'New York Herald' between September 15 and October 7, 1909, with the title 'The Conquest of the Pole.'
"Both of these were written and sent before Cook could, by any possibility, have seen or heard of any of the results of Peary's last expedition.