INDEX.
- ["Figures don't lie." ]
- [ Two men resolve to go picnicking.]
- [ Mrs. Jones offers some objections.]
- [ Mrs. Jones dictates terms.]
- [ The Government joins the picnickers.]
- [ Off on a shoreless sea.]
- [ A Gunpowder tea party.]
- [ Relating how the beautiful picnic progressed.]
- [ In the heart of Labrador.]
- [ A message from the skies. ]
- [ Is the world growing better?]
- [ Greenland's Icy Mountains and the Russian Bear.]
- [ Beauty and the Beast.]
- [ Doctor Jones commits treason. ]
- [ A model teacher and an ideal student.]
- [ The Count steps over the line.]
- [ Farewell to Beauty and the Beast. ]
- [ Woman locates the North Pole.]
- [ The planting of the Flagstaff.]
- [ Battle of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain.]
- [ Things material and spiritual.]
- [ Familiar scenes and faces.]
- [ The world at the feet of Doctor Jones.]
- [ Ho! for the SOUTH POLE! ]
DOCTOR JONES' PICNIC.
CHAPTER I.
"Figures Don't Lie."
The North Pole! That spot upon earth so environed with trackless fields of unbroken snow and mountains of ice; with an atmosphere so cold that none but the bravest and hardiest of mankind can breathe it and live. And yet these apparently insuperable obstacles have but stimulated men to do and dare all things, so that they might but reach that ultima thule. In vain have our utilitarians cried, "Qui bono?" God has planted within man the spirit of lordship and domination; and, true to that spirit, he will never rest until Nature shall have yielded up to him her last secret, and his restless foot shall have trodden the wildest and farthest spot of earth. Then, and not till then, will he stand crowned "Lord of Creation."
In this faithful history of the discovery and exact location of the North Pole, it is not necessary to bring before the reader in historical review the many illustrious names and grand heroisms of former explorers of Arctic regions. They did marvelous deeds, beyond the comprehension of those who did not actually participate in them. They sacrificed thousands of noble lives, and undoubtedly did all that could be done with the means at their command. Ah! there we have struck the keynote. The means at their command were inadequate, and nothing but failure and disaster could result from their best laid plans and efforts.
Dr. Jonathan Jones sat in his office in the populous, thriving city of R——, situated in one of our western states. He occupied an easy chair, heels upon a low, flat-topped writing desk, newspaper in hand, reading an account of the failure of Dr. Nansen to reach the North Pole. That renowned and hardy explorer proposed reaching the spot by floating on an ice floe. We are all familiar with the fact that he did actually get to within about three hundred miles of the coveted spot, but was obliged to turn back for want of dogs and sledges.