IVORS--PEARY,
WELLMAN, AND BALDWIN.

A chapter in the story of the American sailor, which, though begun full an
hundred years ago, is not yet complete, is that which tells the narrative
of the search for the North Pole. It is a story of calm daring, of
indomitable pertinacity, of patient endurance of the most cruel suffering,
of heroic invitation to and acceptance of death. The story will be
completed only when the goal is won. Even as these words are being
written, American sailors are beleaguered in the frozen North, and others
are preparing to follow them thither, so that the narrative here set forth
must be accepted as only a partial story of a quest still being
prosecuted.

In the private office of the President of the United States at Washington,
stands a massive oaken desk. It has been a passive factor in the making of
history, for at it have eight presidents sat, and papers involving almost
the life of the nation, have received the executive signature upon its
smooth surface. The very timbers of which it is built were concerned in
the making of history of another sort, for they were part of the frame of
the stout British ship "Resolute," which, after a long search in the Polar
regions for the hapless Sir John Franklin--of whom more hereafter--was
deserted by her crew in the Arctic pack, drifted twelve hundred miles in
the ice, and was then discovered and brought back home as good as new by
Captain Buddington of the stanch American whaler, "George and Henry." The
sympathies of all civilized peoples, and particularly of English-speaking
races, were at that time strongly stirred by the fate of Franklin and his
brave companions, and so Congress appropriated $40,000 for the purchase of
the vessel from the salvors, and her repair. Refitted throughout, she was
sent to England and presented to the Queen in 1856. Years later, when
broken up, the desk was made from her timbers and presented by order of
Victoria to the President of the United States, who at that time was
Rutherford B. Hayes. It stands now in the executive mansion, an enduring
memorial of one of the romances of a long quest full of romance--the
search for the North Pole.

In all ages, the minds of men of the exploring and colonizing nations,
have turned toward the tropics as the region of fabulous wealth, the field
for profitable adventure. "The wealth of the Ind," has passed into
proverb. Though exploration has shown that, it is the flinty North that