Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 302, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1911 — Dr. Cook. [ARTICLE]

Dr. Cook.

(By Bill Bat.)

I walked out the other evening And the way forthwith I took Up to the opera building To hear Frederick A. Cook, In his great and famous lecture In which with heart and soul He tells of all his troubles In a. journey to the pole; Wherein the wooly muskox, The walrus and the seal, The* polar bear and rabbit Made many a savory meal. How the ocean streams and glaciers Like rivers onward run And the paoks, the floes and icebergs Lay gleaming in the sun; That with arctic dogs and sledges They traveled day by day Until Zero minus eighty Stopped the explorers on their way. Here they pitched their camp for Winter V,. ■ Eating pemlcan and tea While the ice froze fathoms downward To the bottom of the sea. In spring 4hey resumed their journey O’er packs and crags and stones A hundred dogs lay down at night To rest their weary bones; At last they reached the axis Tired and short of breath The winds from o’er the Icefields Nearly froze them all to death. Then taking observations With the Instruments at hand 1 Tljpy found the sun was circling Twelve degrees above the land. And their shadows became no shorter Neither longer did they grow As they slowly passed around them On the ice and crusted snow. Tls the pole the doctor shouted As he seized the starry flag And here shall float this emblem , ’Til it tatters to a rag By the bitter winds of winter Which sweep the frigid zone. Here no band can remove it f Here shall lt ( wave alone But he turned like Lot’s wife in Sodom, And once more o’er plain be looked. This region, he said, in the future ‘ For the United State shall be booked. He then retraced his footsteps, 'Mid dangers thickly strewn Til at last he left the frigid And found a warmer zone. Then quickly came a message That terrified his soul, For Perry in his travels Had, found another pole. We admire Doctor Cook for the pains he took. And give credit to Perry also But which one was nearer the t**ue north pole The world will perhaps never know. j,