D'

ETERMINATION of the scien

tific value of the work of the Crocker Land Expedition is for the future, but the Four Years in the White North' of its leader, Mr. Donald B. MacMillan, may be appraised at once as a human document, one of the most instructive and entertaining contributions to the literature of the North. It should not, however, be inferred that Mr. MacMillan evades or avoids the scientific inquest, which must later be held by specialists and experts on his work. On the contrary, he distinctly invites it by a detailed, itemized list of the expedition's records and achievements in which more than a score of distinct and comparatively independent pieces of work are set forth as if to aid in distributing the credit in a final and authoritative valuation of the whole. It may fairly be doubted whether any expedition which ever sought and wrought in the Arctic zone was more persistently dogged by ill luck than that whose adventures of chance or mischance are recounted in MacMillan's four years' absence; a term it may be well worth while to remark, never exceeded by any expedition in the eastern Arctic and equaled only by Admiral Peary's in 1898-1902, during which he accomplished his great journey around the northern end of Greenland and definitely eliminated that route to the North Pole from the possibilities.

Born in refraction and imagination, shadowed and delayed by George

1 Four Years in the White North, by Donald B. MacMillan. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1918.

Borup's tragic and untimely death, almost wrecked the second night out of port, navigation entrusted to a hesitant. and inexperienced master, a company which made up in enthusiasm what it lacked in training, its principal objective upon which rested name and existence, the very reason for its being, dissolved like the baseless fabric of a dream, with no sight or news of relief ships the first summer and none the second, incompetence of men and perversity of nature both conspiring to prevent the ships from breaking through the pack and reaching destination and effecting a rescue, the party gradually dwindling one by one, each taking chances and making the best of his way homeward, a disclosure of what must have been the low ebb of spirits and mental vitality, until at Christmas, 1916, only two of the original party remained all these incidents, and others like them which are obvious, and still others which must inevitably have existed, demonstrate a condition of things which, protracted through four long. years, must have meant a strain on nerves, temper, and mental and physical force which only the best equipped and most wisely conserved could withstand. That MacMillan endured the test and begged to be allowed to stay another year when Captain Robert A. Bartlett and the "Neptune" finally arrived at Etah and insisted that he return, shows that he is of the stuff of which explorers are made.

It is not perhaps worth while to attempt to re-state the narrative and experiences of the expedition. That has

already been done by Mr. MacMillan in magazine and other articles, although the Four Years does sensible and valuable service in bringing the whole story together from beginning to end. Here anyone by a little study can determine exactly the order, personnel, and time of the several field parties, and just where any member was and what he was doing on a certain date. It is no depreciation, either, of the work to say that the manner rather than the matter of the story will most surely arrest and hold the attention of the readers, a style and quality absolutely unique

among books of its class. A certain sort of optimism, not to say exuberance, soon impresses itself on the consciousness of the reader and, as he goes on, he is inclined to wonder whether MacMillan may be, not the original Mark Tapley, in which case he would be rather venerable, but his intensified and more highly developed reincarna

tion.

When Crocker Land "busted," to quote the street's expressive irreverent word, MacMillan took the whole experience philosophically. When he had retraced his steps to Peary's Cape

cause his dogs were "all in" and his food nearly "all out," he accepted the inevitable with the same good temper and quenchless optimism.

Apart from the narrative and its running accounts of the expedition, two chords dominate Four Years and give it a distinctive place among all books of its class. To these might be added a third, that of literary style, although it so fuses and intermingles itself with the more prominent and essential features that its presence is less readily recognized and appreciated.

First, in his understanding and sym

and fruitage of his years of association with that great leader.

MacMillan applied and enlarged the Peary method and the principles of his master, and demonstrated again that the support and loyalty of the Eskimos are indispensable to any explorer working in the eastern Arctic hemisphere. MacMillan, however, seems to have gained the good graces of the whole tribe, old and young, women and children, as well as of the men, the hunters and the sledge drivers of his field parties. It is no slight testimonial to his poise and control that he was able

to hold them all loval and attached throughout the expedition's long stay in the Arctic. Into all the Eskimos' domestic, even love affairs, the current of daily life and gossip, MacMillan entered with lively sympathy and keen appreciation. This is reflected on almost every page of his book and expressed in numberless instances of service and hospitality.

The other characteristic of Four Years rests in the fact that no lover of the tropics and their languor and luxury ever lost himself in "wonder, admiration and praise" more genuinely and unreservedly than MacMillan loses himself in his affection for and loyalty to the Arctic, its phenomena and environment. Torngak, the demon, had no terror for him. While of course it is admitted that there have been times and places more agreeable than the weather side of a pressure ridge in the blinding snow at 40° below, or on a toboggan in darkness rushing down a glacier to whatever may be at the bottom, or plunging along the ice foot on a ledge from which the dogs are occasionally pulled up to the trail again by main strength, or snowbound in an igloo, oil gone and food almost exhausted, nevertheless, all these are forgotten when summer and the million birds come, the waters are unloosed, the picturesque falls flow again, and the poppies carpet the scanty fields with their "cloths of gold." The transposition is complete and Mr. MacMillan has succeeded in transferring its spell to the pages of his book.

Less severe and nervous in style than Peary, less stately and scientific than Scott, less verbose and subjective, fortunately, than Nansen, MacMillan writes with a freedom, almost abandon, of appreciation, which strikes a distinctly new note in the annals of the Arctic and which will carry his Four Years to many readers for its own intrinsic charm and sympathetic exposition.

Two omissions, one more, the other less, important, may be noted. That no map should have been provided for a work which is so much almost all outdoors is inexplicable, possibly inexcusable. This is the more remarkable, as maps on which all the geographical outlines and the track charts have been located are readily available, and it would seem that the first duty of the publishers should have been to supply an edition which would contain a simple outline map by which the different parties and their relations to one another might be followed and understood. The caricature of a map used, which is notable mainly for misspelled names, in no degree answers the purpose and is not worthy author or publisher.

MacMillan wisely ignored the Cook controversy, or what the malicious and misguided tried to make a controversy, of ten years ago; but his faithful and loyal E-took-a-shoo remembers it all, identified the landmarks, the courses, distances, and locations. If MacMillan had chosen to have the testimony of an eyewitness, he could have given the finishing and conclusive blows to a foul thing, which, however, is rapidly receding from deserved contempt into merited oblivion. Sometime, possibly in the interest of the truth and for the help of future historians, MacMillan may give to the world from E-took-ashoo's lips the true and literal story of that extraordinary episode.

The seven appendixes to Four Years are all valuable and contain much supplemental and collateral information by the other members of the expedition. Ekblaw's nearly one hundred pages give the tale of his great traverse of Grant and Ellesmere lands in 1915, with other sledge excursions, and a study of the vegetation about Borup Lodge, the headquarters, while MacMillan contributes a detailed memorandum of the thirty-five species of Arctic birds with which he made personal acquaintance.