SEEKING THE NORTH POLE

Mr. E. B. Baldwin addressed a large and interested audience on. "The Baldwin-Ziegler Polar Expedition and Plans for Future Polar Research" in the Living Room of the Union last evening. He outlined his plans for reaching the North Pole and showed the great advantages to be derived from Arctic Exploration. By means of lantern slides he showed some of the difficulties that had to be overcome in those regions.

Mr. Baldwin began his lecture by describing the conditions in the Arctic Sea. There exist vast ice-packs that move slowly along the course of least resistance. The obstruction of Greenland and America on one side and of Asia and the northern archipelago on the other keep the ice in the Arctic Sea. Much of it piles up on the shores in great packs; the rest is forced by the southern winds from Alaska in a narrow path across the polar regions. A cache set adrift at Point Barrow on the Alaskan coast by Captain Melville of the Jeannette, was picked up off the coast of Iceland five years later. It had been driven along by the moving ice-floes.

This gave Mr. Baldwin the idea of filling caches with provisions and fuel and then setting them adrift on the ice. The Jeannette had followed the idea of floating with the ice-packs, but it had to be abandoned because of lack of coal; the Fram, under Nansen, had started from the wrong point. Mr. Baldwin advocates starting during the summer, so that by the time the ice-floes have been reached, winter will have set in and the cold will freeze the open sea around the ship, forcing it to float with the current. The Arctic regions would provide innumerable opportunities for geographical studies and for the investigation of the upper air currents. New forms of life could be discovered. In addition to all this, the artist would be given a chance to paint the greatest beauty that the world provides. Young, energetic men are wanted for this search for the North Pole; and money is absolutely essential for its success. When both are at hand, we shall be ready for a final attempt.