PROVED NON-EXISTENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 84, 6 October 1938, Page 9

PROVED NON-EXISTENT

LAND NAMED BY

PEARY

DID HE REACH THE POLE?

NEWARK (New Jersey), October 4.

"The land named Crockerland by Rear-Admiral Peary does not exist," declared Commander Isaac Schlossbaeh, when the MacGregor Arctic expedition returned after being away lor sixteen months. Commander Schlossbaeh added that he was satisfied of this after more than 20 flights in the region. This revelation again raises the question of whether Peary really reached the North Pole.. Several of hisalleged discoveries have "been discredited. Doubts about Peary's claims have risen frequently since his expedition. In 1909 his claims were accepted by the American Geographical Society, which examined his proofs and awarded him. a gold medal. Mr. J. Gordon Hayes, an Englishman who has made a special study of the Arctic, has concluded that Peary could not possibly have travelled at the pace he claimed to have maintained. He supports thi* conclusion by a careful examination of other Arctic journeys and of Peary's own previous journeys in the Arctic. Peary's average on his 113<nile dash to the Pole was 26 miles a day for five days. The average on his return journey to Cape Columbia was 29 miles a day for 16 days. Gunnar Isachsen, a member of the second Fram expedition to the Arctic, however, has pointed out that conditions in the north. vary greatly and that the Fram expedition several times made marches ot over 70 miles a day,

Crockerland has always been regard--ed as a "hypothetical" land, and expeditions by Mikkelsen in 1907 and D. B. MacMillan in 1914 in its direction practically proved the non-existence «f further land in the Beaufort Sea."