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Show Never-Never Land. Let me attempt to answer the question: ques-tion: What is the north pole? And in doing so I imagine that I shall give sone information that will be new. even to the oldest and best-informed of my readers. The north pole is the precise pre-cise center of the northern hemisphere, the hemisphere of land, of population, of civilization. It is the point where the axis of the earth cuts its surface. It is the spot where there is no longitude, longi-tude, no time, no north, no east, no west only south. It. is the place where every w ind that blows is a south wind. It is the place where there is buM one night and one day in every year; ( here two steps only separate astrono nical noon from astronomical midnight It is the spot from which all the heavenly bodies appear to move 11 horizontal hor-izontal courses, and a star just isible above the horizon never sets, bu t circles cir-cles forever, just grazing the horifcon. More than this, the north pole Is the last geographical prize which the J'worldJ has to offer to adventurous mail; thel prize fop which the best men .If the strongest, most enlightened. mo.It adventurous ad-venturous natious of the earth f have been struggling unsuccessful! I for nearly four centuries. I Perhaps I should say a word Br two in explanation of my statemeit that there is no time at the north pokl Wrhat is the point from which 1,, e estimate es-timate time here? Is is noon, Juat Is, I the moment when the sun crosses the . meridian where we are. or some fixed j meridian that has been selected. At the pole there are no meridians, or, father, all the meridians of the globe are gathered in one point, so there is "o starting point for time as we estimate esti-mate it here. Another point which should be made clear is one on which a great many. People have an incorrect idea. That is. that the north pole the geographical I'ole js an entirely different spot from the magnetic pole the center of magnetic mag-netic attraction, where the compass is I useful. The latter is some 1.600 miles j south of the true north pole, being lo- "iited on or near the peninsula of Beio- thia Felix, the most northerly main- j land of North America, about on the j meridian of Galveston. At the north pole the compass with j the proper corrections for variation is I as trustworthy as in oiher portions of j the earth's surface. The four things which, it mav be said, en to form the conception of the arctic regions in the niinds of most people, are the cold, the darkness, the silence and hunger. Almost Al-most invariably the first questions asked me--by strangers are in regard to these four things, and the questions are usjally in the order given above. Commander Com-mander Peary in Youth's Companion. |