COOK CROSS-EXAMINED

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 318, 18 February 1910, Page 6

COOK CROSS-EXAMINED

BY DISGUISED EXPERT, AN AMAZING STORY.

The details of the charges brought against Dr. C'ook, tile first claimant to liie discovery 01 tile North Pole, reveal an extraordinary and disgraceful plot, either on the part of the explorer or of those who seek to discredit his claim. The statement of Captain Loose, retired navigator, of liis negotiations and relations with Dr. Cook reads like -a chapter out of a sensational novel or "criminal trial. Here are some extracts from his story:—* I saw Dr. Cook next at the hotel Craniatan on Ctli November, two days' after my first interview. Mr. Dunkle had told me that I was to call myself Andrew 11. Lewis, as the doctor couldn't afford to run any chances of having himself identified with Captain Loose, the navigator. So 1 went up there as Andrew Lewis. The doctor appeared to be glad to see me that day. I had some of the observations ready. They , were of stars winch he might have seen at Anoratok. He thanked me for them, and stuck tliem in his' pocket. DEPLORABLE IGNORANCE. At this interview I asked Dr. Cook I some more questions to satisfy myself j as to his knowledge or lack of know- | ledge of observations and exploration ia-j general. We were discussing the azi- ; muth, and 1 asked Dr. Cook what he understood t-Jiat to mean. 1 had taken 1 it from his! discussion that he hadn't j much' of an idea. "An azimuth'i" he repeated. "Well, just oti'hand, captain, I can't explain. it, although I have it somewhere in my [ ; books or papers." "Do you know how it is taken?" I j iasked him. He confessed that without, looking it up he was not prepared to | answer. j "Well, what do you understand by the true bearing of a heavenly body?" I asked him. "What sort of body?" he asked. ' : Arn- sort," 1 replied. Again he told me that he had not the information ready, but that lie could refresh his memory by looking in his books'. It was an astronomical point, he said, that could not be answered offhand except by a skilled astronomer. I told him it was absolutely necessary for an explorer to know these things if he wanted to know where he was going, "It seems strange to me that you could be certain that you discovered the North Pole if you didn't know how to take the observations that yould take you there," I ventured, and the doctor replied that he had been guided by the Nansen and Sverdrup charts, the same as he had said before. Dr. Cook kept telling me that it was quite important that I put temperatures in all the observations I had. I replied that I wouldn't give a rap for temperatures. "They won't prove anything," I told I him.

Well, that didn't seem to make any impression on the doctor, and he kept insisting Inat the temperatures go in. GETTING HIM TO THE NORTH POLE When I saw the doctor next it was on lGth November, when I went up to the Gramatan with Mr. Dunkle, and he was waiting for more observations. I had only a few to give him He said it would be quite necessary for me to stay at the hotel and be with him until he had completed his observations, as there was a great howl going up over them, and he had to get them to Copenhagen again right away. I told the doctor that it would not take long to complete the observations. I had succeeded in getting him almost to the Pole. He told me he wanted two sets of observations at the Pole, taken six hoursi apart for forty-eight hours, as that was the number he had stated in the Heral3 narrative he had taken. The

reason he wanted the two different sets was to see how they looked with the depression at the Pole taken into consideration. He had not yet made up his mind, Re said, whether there should be a depression. He was still puzzled about that. I went to work on the Pole observations', and sat up that night until 1 couldn't keep awake any more. I malle the sixteen observations just as the doctor had wanted. Eight gave a latitude of 90deg, "and eight gave 89deg, oOmin. I did not bother about the seconds. It was getting down to too fine a point to suit me. AND BACK AGAIN. The next day, in a talk with Dr. Cook, I spoke of the necessity of his being able to get the correct time in each of the observations, and I wanted him to be able to explain to the scientists) how,he did it. So I showed him how to make his observations, or sights, on stars. I gave him a plan for a crude transit, which he might have used in getting at the exact time and rate of his chronometer for the trip to the Pole. I showed him how to get the difference between local time and Greenwich mean time at any given latitude and longitude. When I submitted the latitude sights to Dr. Cook at the Gramatan they covered only the trip to the Pole and at the Pole. I remarked to the doctor that it would be a good very wise scheme—if he would s'end over to Copenhagen the latitude sights on his way down from the Pole. Dr. Cook looked stumped for a minute, and then I said to him: "Well, that'll be all right, doctor.' You can say that you got to the Pole,

and \tnat everybody knows ylou got back, and that you left the return ufaserrations in p. caelie somewhere. "Yes, that's right,' replied the doctor. "I did ieave t.hem in a cache at Etah, where my instruments are. I'm going to get tliem next spring if I can.'' II laughed, and said: ''Yes', if you can." PROCD OF THE FRAUD. | The last I saw of Dr. Cook was on Friday uiglit. l!)th November, when I j turned over to him the lust of the observations* I had made for him. I had covorert the whole trip from Anoratok to the role, and had paved the way for him, if lie used them, to have his records accepted by the University of Copenhagen. 1 don't think any polar explorer could ever have a more complete set of observations. There was nothing lacking that. I could think of, because it meant I.WO dollars bonus to Dunkle and me if he got them through, an 3 300 dollars' extra that the doctor had told me I. would get. And then I felt some natural pride in my own discovery of the Korth Pole. I wanted the proofs to be in such, shape that the Danish scientists could not shoot holes through them, as they certainly would have done through Dr. Cook's.