would say, "I see no money in it for me." He believed that many
enthusiastic theories were the germs of great fortunes, but he always
said with a knowing smile, "You know it is never safe to be a pioneer
in anything. The pioneer usually gets killed in creating an
inheritance for his successors." It was a selfish policy which arose
from his financial experiences, that in proportion as a man was
selfish he was successful.

I was always of a totally different temperament to my father. I was
romantic, idealistic. I loved the marvellous, the magnificent, the
miraculous and the mysterious, qualities that I inherited from my
mother. I used to dream of exploring tropic islands, of visiting the
lands of Europe and the Orient, and of haunting temples and tombs,
palaces and pagodas. I wished to discover all that was weird and
wonderful on the earth, so that my experiences would be a description
of earth's girdle of gold, bringing within reach of the enslaved
multitudes of all nations ideas and experiences of surpassing novelty
and grandeur that would refresh their parched souls. I longed to
whisper in the ear of the laborer at the wheel that the world was not
wholly a blasted place, but that here and there oases made green its
barrenness. If he could not actually in person mingle with its joys,
his soul, that neither despot nor monopolist could chain, might spread
its wings and feast on such delights as my journeyings might furnish.

How seldom do we realize our fondest desires! Just at the time of my
father's death the entire world was shocked with the news of the
failure of another Arctic expedition, sent out by the United States,
to discover, if possible, the North Pole. The expedition leaving their
ship frozen up in Smith's Sound essayed to reach the pole by means of
a monster balloon and a favoring wind. The experiment might possibly
have succeeded had it not happened that the car of the balloon struck
the crest of an iceberg and dashed its occupants into a fearful
crevasse in the ice, where they miserably perished. This calamity
brought to recollection the ill-fated Sir John Franklin and _Jeanette_
expeditions; but, strange to say, in my mind at least, such disasters
produced no deterrent effect against the setting forth of still
another enterprise in Arctic research.

From the time the expedition I refer to sailed from New York until the
news of its dreadful fate reached the country, I had been reading
almost every nar