(534)
CONQUEST, COMMONPLACE
Even the conquest of the North Pole takes on an aspect of the commonplace, especially after many years of hard work. The New York Times quotes this entry from Peary’s journal:
The pole at last! The prize of three centuries, my dream and goal for twenty years, mine at last! I can not bring myself to realize it.
It all seems so simple and commonplace. As Bartlett said when turning back, when speaking of his being in these exclusive regions which no mortal had ever penetrated before:
“It is just like every day!”
(535)
Conquest, Peaceful—See [Emigration, Conquest by].
CONQUEST, SEVERE
Death Valley is the most barren part of the Great American Desert. More men have died in its arid wastes than on any other equal area of the world’s surface, barring the great battle-fields. It lies, a great sink in the sandy plain, about 250 miles north and east of Los Angeles, Cal., and within the boundaries of that State. The valley received its sinister name owing to the fact that in the early fifties a party of emigrants, some hundred and twenty in number, traveling overland by wagon from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Los Angeles, perished in its awful solitudes, barely a man escaping.