VOLUME XXIV

NUMBER I

T

HOUGH in days preeminent for man's conquest of Nature by science and engineering, Amundsen's journey to the South Pole, like Peary's to the North Pole, was made with only the appliances of previous generations. The poles were discovered by the endurance of dogs and men, spurred on by the old spirit of adventure and the lust for difficult and dangerous tasks that stirred the adventurers of old. In another century or two the era of the pole discoveries will be hailed as the good old times when men were still men and civilization had not made the world effete.

The twelve years ending with the discovery of the South Pole are as full of dramatic achievement as the days of Drake and Raleigh, for not even in those times was there a more extraordinary series of discoveries and conquests packed into a dozen years.

In 1900 only one man had been the length of Africa by land, and the Cape to Cairo railroad was but a dream. There was not a railroad across South America. A great part of Siberia was without rail or road except the old caravan trails.

China was practically without railroads. Lhassa was unknown, forbidden to the white man. During a century and a half men had tried to reach the South Pole and failed, and the North Pole had baffled the efforts of 400 years.

Within a dozen years white men have traveled over the great desert, visited Lake Chad, made a protectorate over Timbuctoo. The days of the Mahdi at Khartoum are ended and any tourist may travel there comfortably by rail. The Cape to Cairo railroad is an assured fact. The heart of Africa is now no more remote from the popular imagination than Oklahoma City was in 1900.

In South America the Trans-Andean railroad is in full operation across the continent as the Trans-Siberian is across Asia. Even China has her railroads. Lhassa has been visited by a British army and both poles are the common property of every fireside that boasts of books, magazines, or newspapers.

Such a record may justify a feeling of pride that the spirit of conquest and adventure is as alive as ever and accompanied with all the courage and hardihood that blessed any earlier generation.