HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1929-02-28, Page 7i leis active lino; the AmGriQ T) 1'oary,
$" 10 Peary had built so many hopes iiround
AP,' a f i T ^1®1111 crossing areeao,o, brat he actually
he read in the papers one =Olin,•
' A Career Of Achievement in that Nansen shad done this 'Wpm,
' perhaps, .on the whole,w s i;'ridtinI !Nansen; the Fain- few royal roads to greatness; but they
it°1� telt his lite in ruins about flim when.
iVlany Fields .Lies wired ibllhoi ng,
" T are comparatively nttmorout.3 In the
o•,^ 1E�•talcrrer Who is Now l
t
' field of exploration, Por •where else
L America and 1;`0, n aGhievoaaent,s
inbteed of Resting on His whlc btkte public believes to be ialh-
Laurels, Plans, at the Age possible or superlh.lunan but which
0 those oar. the "inside •know to be easy
O %i New Con iu stS iTl the public but who, as Cicero tells us,
the Polar Regions , usocl,to wink at each. otlhea in passing,
On this fortunate peculiarity of ex
ray y'ilb&atlmur• Stefansson, Noted Are- proration, the ease of its "tlkiileult
tic Explorer, Scientist and Author, I achievements, is based, too, that eye
-
in Newi stets: Hincluding
7'ribuno. 1 tdzn of 'ethics which makes it the.ala
Sevaral travelers, including ally if
aro, nada to being presented to audi-
ences (where no other well' known
traveler is present) as the "greatest
living exelorer.' But when no po-
tentially jealous explorer is present
and tvlien men of information and
judgment in the matter are gathered
together, the Mahe is always the
,Same -that of Frfiltjof Neilsen, that
bitizen of the world, born in Norway,
who leas just landed in New York for
a tour through the United States.
There are several explorers living
who are great in their own fields, if
you >~4gcede greatness at all to a craft
of this nature. But Nansen, so far as
We . tau judge, would have been' a
great, or at 'least a distinguished and
outstanding man, had he followed al-
most any other congenial occupation.
And many occupations are care fore Nausea's time, many high expres-
•geniai to hini, for he is et man of sions of lofty but ineffectual purpose
Varied tastes --and numerous talents. about "conquering the Arctic." There
He did not win the Nobel Prize, for had been, too, advat3ces by a few men
instance, through any achievement in of genius—by Eric the Red, by Pearry,
the line of exploration or through Rae, McClintock, and perhaps as'many
work where his previous distinctions others as you can count on the fingers
helped him materially. He won it in of two hands.
the humanitarian task of marshaling
the relief forces of the world against
that Russian famine which has been
,Trade, In our eyes, even more terrible
than it was by the propagandists who
Were trying to blame it exclusively on
Bolehovism. It was terrible enough
in reality, even it you believed it to
be wholly or chiefly the result of de-
ficient. rainfall and of other natural
anc� at present uncontrollable condi-
tions.
Nansen started in life as a biolo-
gist. 'FId had already won recognition
in this field and was curator of the
Bergen Natural History Museum when
only t»yenty-one years old. His In-
terest in human life on the sea was
natural, for the was a descendant of
those lords of the northern oceans, the
Vikings, who had dominated Europe
through their shiperaft a thousand
years. before.
His interest in the animal life of the
sea was equally natural, for the
wealth of Norway to -day and -her lead-
ing Occupations are dependent to a
great extent on fisheries. The plants
Of the sea would interer, him too, for
it is on them that the animals live,
Which give occupation and wealth to
the �peepie.
The, temperatures and currents and
other physical conditions of the water
must interest him as well, for upon
Visiting do you discover so many myself,
forgivable sin for an explorer to take
the public into his confidenc.s about
tow easy some,,, of the heralded feats
"really were. It is safe by now, !how-
ever, to tell the truth about the cross-
ing of Greenland, for both of the con-
tenders, Peary and Nausea, have since
risen to unassailable heights, recog-
nized as leaders in their craft by ex-
plorers as well as by the public, Their
reputations now rest safely on the do-
ing of really great and fundamentally
important as well as difficult things.
zlt is the mood of children to kick at
obstructions. The small and petulant
try to conquer nature and to bend her
forces to their will. They are driven
to magic and make-believe and to
thwarted struggles against the impos-
sible. On the part of such children of
a larger growth there had been, be -
Still none, even of these great ones,
had done more than to stop fighting with complete vindication of a theory Norway as Minister to London. He
natural tionsobStaas
to found
them l nd and of a method that were not only
tto condaheaditions as they found u and demonstrably new from the historical
basis. go aus with firstwstk on that point of view but were .so new from
latNansen was theplan bto forma• the scientific or logical point of view
so-calledc and carryt out a the A which the that most of the highest authorities
hostility of the Arctic could in the world had called them every -
be actually made to co-operate in a
plan for its -own subjugation. '
Even Pearry had been outright de-
feated by the circumstances that the
polar sea is not covered with one vast
expanse of ice which you can treat as
if it were solid land, but with multi-
tudes of cakes of ice which offer a con-
stant alternation between solid and
liquid, and which are, moreover, in
constant drift—constant only in that
they are moving, but not in the direc-
tion of their motion. Nansen was the
first to make planned use of this "clif-
ftculty."
There are predecessors to every in-
ventor, there are steps in every dis-
covey, even in such great ones as Nan-
sens, The Tegetthof, under the Aus-
trians, had drifted with the ice in
1872-'74, showing that it could be done
to ra time at least with comparative
safety and comfort. The Jeannette,
financed by Bennett, of "The New
York Herald," had drifted northwest-
ward through what was really water,
although it had been supposed to be
Happy in the Wiltle
ess of mtd.Ontarcio
rowew, runs
•
SNOW -BATHED WOODLANDS, KEEN Alf? AND HEALTH
The jolly week: end party, in the depths of the Muskoka' woods, is in high spirits with every nerve a -tingle to
the air's exhilaration. Neither are their four -legged companions wasting time.
Roy ..X Road
to L,xr a
Reading Aloud Boys and
Girls Called Easy Road
to Culture
,Recently Charles F. D. Belden,
director of the Boston •Public Library,
told the secretary of the rk rry
Burroetths Newsboys lt'o,aitl.tttea in
Boston that it would give hien pleas-
ure to come down and a eel :cloud one
evening to a group of boy'e in the
Foreulatiorl Library. "How many will
be thele?" h'l.i Belden inquired. "AS
many as you lake, from a dozen to
800," the secretary said. "iirht hun-
dred is too many," said Dir. Belden.
"I am not going to snake a speech.
I am going to read a story. Stories
are best read to small groups."
So, on a •certain evening, Mr. Bel-
den read Conrad's story called
"Youth" to about 30 boys. Later, in
'bis room at the library, Mr. Belden
explained what he had in mind in.
reading aloud to the boys himself, and
arranging for others to do so, too, at
intervals. He is a tall, spare man, of
preoise speech; his room is small ancV
dusky, with. a long, black table set'
i%e,genally on eta seerlet carpet agr'
the vaulting in the low ceiling is pick-;
ed out in the turquoise blue that an*
ent Egyptian princesses loved. Two
doors of the room stood open; be-
tween these Mr. Belden walked, back
and forth, back and forth, leaning
against the door for a moment 'when
he had turned, before crossing the
floor again.
"I took Ccinrad's story," Mr. Belden
said, "because 'm„g own four children
had been happy, hearing it read aloud.
At the time their ages were between
eight and seventeen; I believed the
ages of the boys at the Foundation
might vary. It was a long story to,
try thin on, but a good one; it shows
that there are beauties in literature
beyond the printed word. One 'would
not read It and, thereafter, find read-
ing unattractive....:'
Subsequently Mr. Belden arranged
for others to take turns at the read.
Ings. Professor Ross of the Emerson
College of Oratory, Mr. and Mrs. John
Cronin, the library's own story tellers,
and others. Mr, Belden spoke oi,
Professor Copeland, the famous
"Copey" as the ideal of all readers.
Mr. Belden, asked what he believed
lay in reading aloud that was more
provocative to boys and girls, said:
"Well, in my house the children
say 'And. now Mother, will you read
us a chapter after supper?' Mrs. Bel-
den does, "'Wind in the Willows' " or
"'Huckleberry Finn.' " Then it is
bedtime and she says 'We will go on
with this another time.' I am certain.
that the children will not wait for
someone to 'go on with it another
time,' but that they will go ou 'with it
for themselves. It takes very little of
that, you know, to establish a read-
ing habit that has nothing to do with
compulsion and everything to do with
the pure joy of investigating good
books."
Arctic basin was from the side of York and Peking, London and Tokio. nautical development as a thorough -
Alaska, Bering Strait and eastern. Si-} . Nansen does not retire, nor rest on fare • between Old World and New
beria toward the side of the Atlantic, this laurels. After becoming foremost World commercial centres. ' Santa
Norway and Iceland. among explorers, he took part in win- Claus, being the crystallization of an
He built the Frain. and put her in ning for Norway her independence idealistic dream, could as easily visit
the ice in 1893. She emerged in 1896 from Sweden, and later represented our kiddies from the moon as front
Lapland or Alaska,.
The importance of the coming Nan -
sen flights is essentially one of pub-
licity, or as we now euphemistically
say, public relations. He should,
therefore, employ the best of public
relations counsel, There must be a
liberal appropriation for an "educa-
tional" campaign and the publicists
must study every angle, especially, I
suggest, the personnel of the expedi-
tion. Girl Scouts Or debutantes should
accompany the flight, if the real in-
terest of the public is to be enlisted in
the venture,
At the very least we must know that
several of the members have gray-
haired mothers who are fond of them.
Cats should be taken, dogs and pig-
eons. Some of the crew should be
handsome, and others pleasantly home
ly with warts on their noses. There
might be a chaplain so broadminded
that we eoulcl be informed that he
secretly enjoyed the terrific oaths of
some sea -dog who might be taken
along with the flyers to do the swear-
ing. For on expeditions the public
would really notice, Queen Marie of
Rumania should be induced to go
along.
If some such program is followed,
the Nansen flight of 1930 will be like-
ly to succeed in calling to the atten-
tion of the public some of the out-
standing conclusions of his drift voy-
age in 1893-'96. Tho gacts he gather-
ed thea and the principles he estab-
lished would begin after thirty years
to fill the press dispatches if those
methods were followed, and might
even succeed in getting a footing as
low down as our common school text-
books. Nansen's ideas might begin
to move the world. -
But whether or not the public de-
cides to find out and understand what
Nansen has clone, let's treat him well
i natty case, now that he is among us.,
For the Nobel Prize and the gold
medals of scores of learned societies
certify that lie -is a great elan. And
we are used to worshiping great men,
even if we do not understand them ---
men like Einstein, for instance, It
does us lots of good, the thrill has
a tonic effect.
thee$ in the last analysis the plants land, and her commander, the Amore -
depend' can ' naval lieutenant DeLong, had
Bergen has been a seaport of copse- even formulated some plans that could
gttonce from the beginning of history,
Ebe based on that kind of drift,
verything conspired to interest Nan- Perhaps had DeLong lived he
sen In the ocean when once he had en- might have been the originator of the
tired the biological field and had set -grounded -out Nansen plan of budding a
tied lin Bergen as the place of his ship hat was peculiarly adapted to re -
It interest in the sea and know- sisting ice pressures, stocking her
ledge of it that led Nansen to contra- with wholesome food, planning to live
bate eetentuaily a new idea to the aboard .or near her en active open-air
thou •lit of the world. Tod lite through year after year, counting
really new idea is greatness,cve the on fresh meat secured by hunting to
foundation of greatness. maintain the health of the crew, and
Mon, ncla who can succeed in routine thus, as a well manned scientific lab
Work are numerous. There are sever oratory, drifting across the Arctic
al, no doubt, who couldhave handled basin Iry setting the vessel fast in the gram for use of the Arctic as an Why not transfer the residence of
tit
the e eco on tike side frown which the drift aerial highway .to fly by tale shortest Santa Claus to the moon, and most of
gran . faahine as well as Nan- appeared to come and expecting her, routes between such populous centres our folklore interest of the Arctic to
sen, though he did handle it well when enough years had passed, to of the north temperate zone as lie on owe
enough to Reserve the Nobel Prize.the moon along with hint. Then Arctic
emerge at the o]iposite side. opposite sides of the Arctic from each' would be free to promote the
But there were few in Europe or any- Nausea studied all the facts and other, as, for instance, Chicago and by truly modern methods and to be.
where, probably none, who had at concluded that. the drift across the Sockholm; Seattle and Berlin,New
T gin using it in line with current aero -
once the information upon which Nan -
carried on his oceanographic work
while he was a politician and diplo-
mat. He carried it on, too, while as a
statesman representing the League of
Nations, he administered the famine
relief in Russia.
thing from impractical through nisi- He is carrying on oceanography still
onary and suicidal to insane. and at sixty-seven is about to re-enter
Nansen is a man of rounded char- polar exploration, though on a basis
atter and balanced genius. Fitts drift, entirely different from his pioneer
accordingly, was no mere • triumph of
one theory but carried with it the
gathering of the largest body of ac-
curate and important knowledge that
has ever been brought together by a
single Arctic expedition.
One, sample from many will show
how novel the conclusions were in
some cases. Before that time even
scientists had commonly believed that
the Arctic was particularly stormy.
Nansen accumulated a mass of data
which enabled him to show that in uo
ara of equal site in the world are
storms so few and mild on the aver-
age.
I3ow novel this view was when he
set it forth, in 1897 you can convince
yourself if you look over the various
popular books about the Arctic. For
it is doubtful that you will find more
than one or two of them, even thirty
years later, that do not express or im-
ply the old belief in the prevalence of
violent storms, ignoring not only Nan-
sen's conclusion, itself based upon suf-
iicicut evidence, but all the mass of
corroborative testimony that has been
published since then including, for
iustanee, the reports of my own ex-
peditiOns which have covered an ag-
gregate of more than eleven years
within the Arctic Circle.
work of thirty-five years ago. He is
doing now nothing that is revolution-
ary, but instead, everything that auth-
orities agree is feasible and compara-
tively easy, but rick in promise of re-
sults. There is a broad scientific foun-
dation for his plan to engage the Ger-
man airship Graf Zeppelin and to
make with it several crossings of the
Arctic during the latter part of next
winter.
Whatever the scientific results of
this journey may really prove to be,
no one now expects then to be revolu-
tionary, but merely he continuation of
logical development. But if not re-
volutionary in science, these flights
will be revolutionary in the populari-
zation of that real knowledge of the
Arctic which Nansen has done more
than any one else to develop, but
which lie has been powerless, as all
others have been, to get the public to
accept.
Perhaps because the Arctic is the
home of Santa Claus, we seem nation-
ally and internationally unwilling that
any. realities shall prevail in our
thoughts of the Far North. Person-
ally fond of Santa Claus, I would be
the last to desire that any one should
handicap that benevolent saint ma-
terially. It seems to me I have found
a way around the apparent dilemma.
The time is just coming when the I have proposed it before, but want
world is to make practical us of tihs to propose it afresh in connection
Nansen finding. The rarity and aver with the visit of the greatest of ago mildness of stores in the Arctic ex-
plorers to the western side of the At -
is one of the cornerstones in the pro- lantic.
sen based his new idea and the orig- ea
finality to synthesize that information •
and bring out an idea from it:
Soulehow the public is usually un-
abl:o to perceive greatness in 'an ex-
ploree or imegine greatness in him un
loss he has really or supposedly per-
formed ,some deed of physical prowess..
Nausea began his career with that
sort of prowess, which nfay have been
accident or diplomacy. No one had
,crossed Greenland. ordinarily human
• rcasodilaag goes no farther than to as-
sume that what has not yet been done
is either inipoeeible, or at the least,
very- difficult.
Aliobt Greenland, indeed, many ]fad.
said .specifically that it could not be
crowed, 1:"easy lhnd climbed the west-
ern tllopee; and it is easy thoee now
from antilyi'is of this testimoey that
he foreelnulowed the crossing. More-
over, he tluTlurstood that it could be if
- demi and wauted to do it, No one
doubts today that .he could. have demi,
ei'lier'e is crest some reason to be-
lieve sprit. Pears' would hare done it
'snore eatily than Nansen, for certainly
he $shoWed in !Tis career a genius for
or anization and, for the develolmiont
til ne'`�+v' and good methods of snow ad''
n
act: th•avel which i\Tansen Hardly ttp
preached., Indeed, the tecitn.ielne ' of
veld:"weather living. and the method
of sledge travel were always Nansen's
weakest "'Wets,
'tle faet Wad, however, that Ne11se11
startled the world by crossing Greelt-
lalid, i'hei•eby incidentally, certainly
without premeditating it, probably
withtlft realizing it, lie broke, or
would have ht•okeiehad it been break-
tilde; the heart of the other great; 5».
plorer, tbe, ceif COM petitor 0!
.t',
• �y�nom,
i�,9RM.. -rw ,rww fs, ..�".,r ..,... ,. »q
ynh.-r�vr�
Will We Have
What We Want
Points to Be Considered in
Selecting Your Motor
Boat
A number of qualities should be
considered wilt% buying motor boat
:says I-lrury Clay Foster hl the March
issue of "Filed end Stream'. The
boat selected will probably not come
up to the ideal standards you have;
been thinking about lint bear in mind,
writes this boat editor, that aro one
boat is built to perform the duties of
all other kinds.
"When yoit want a boat far one
kind of use mainly," he rialtos, "you
get a boat which simply isn't suited
admirably for every other use. A
good, stoutly built fishing boat with
a fish well in it, and otherwise equip-
ped for rough usage, simply isnt a
sleek hnahogany runabout for sosie1
pui pOseS.
"There are certain qualities,
sea -worthiness in choppy water, speed
In rough water, speed in smooth we.
ter, comfort at anchor in rough water,
maneuverability under various condi.
tions, etc., which are paramount in
certain types o£ models, but wlion
these are sought by the designer in
unusual. degree he sacrifices other
things for it. We must r.:t'o 'nine
that specialized models 1 ave their
drawbacks as well tie their strong
P
oints,
"If you want a boat e Lichfnitls up,"
continues Foster, "do not expect it in u
be as stout or eaiinblo of ah orbiu�a
OA thuds tibus0 as a enlih'unn ,:ltl white
pine rota -boat about a etenri"t', lax an •
chorage. It won't 14(11)1'I it. .1 w'
that's no fault of the makerather.
If you neatly want a boar n bit h 1(,'d-
up and i:i easily transportable,- ase
want. it bad enoegli to take tore of it
• use it witltlta its limitations. and lv'rl'
it in good ebope. tai' the nest trip. it
you don't, give tip this idea.
".If • it. is seaworthi hro4s. that you
want, stop and thin.: Seaworthiness
ss
wheh•e?"lf it ie speed. what kind of
speed? and ulnare. If it is comfort.
remember that is also a eoanpnrattt'e
term; How laiuclt eohhhfoi't? Yon
can't have the comforts of a .".n.1 root
eruleer in a 1.0 -foci. rowboat."
Something in Sli'hmeze Sampans dk a Big W'ar Canoe Dove is no art that most he leo t
SIAMESE LAM 'RECORD LENGTH FOR THE CLAES OF WAR CANOES ed. Once learners, it is a '•t•ry ;l.,:r
.. .. , he wor'itl's son est craft o f its kind at tlao water carnival at Nml1 tlptn i, near 'T;-:t.ikt,ix, the alit ilting, tlwul h tlt,ct' at., ti:;
,ialuese paddlers, in pittnraariuc tt.tdltiu,ial garb, paddling the 1;
- SSherwood'+�,
capital et Siatlt. It carried gifts for the temple, f lalldi4