THE AMUNDSEN-ELLSWORTH POLAR FLIGHT So long as the human ear can hark back to the breaking of waves over deep seas; so long as the human eye can follow the gleam of the Northern Lights over the silent snow fields; then so long, no doubt, will the lure of the unknown draw restless souls into those great Arctic wastes. I sit here about to set down a brief record of our late Polar experience, and I stop to try to recall when it was that my imagination was first captured by the lure of the Arctic. I must have been very young, because I cannot now recall when first it was. Doubtless somewhere in my ancestry there was a restless wanderer with an unappeasable desire to attain the furthest north. And, not attaining it, he passed it on with other sins and virtues to torment his descendants. The large blank spaces surrounding the North Pole have been a challenge to the daring since charts first were made. For nearly four generations that mysterious plain has been the ultimate quest of numberless adventurers. Before this adventure of ours explorers had depended upon ships and dogs. Andrée and Wellmann planned to reach the Pole with balloons, but theirs were hardly more than plans. Andrée met with disaster soon after leaving Spitzbergen. Wellmann’s expedition never left the ground. What days they were--those ship and dog days! What small returns came to those men for their vast spending of energy and toil and gold! I am filled with admiration for the courage and the hardihood of the men who cut adrift from civilization and set out with dogs or on foot over the tractless ice fields of the Far North. All honor to them! Yet now what utter neglect it seems of the resources of modern science! No doubt the men who have been through it best realize what a hopeless, heart-breaking quest it was. Peary’s land base at Camp Columbia was only 413 miles from the Pole; yet it took him twenty-three years to traverse that 413 miles. [Illustration: LINCOLN ELLSWORTH AND N 24 JUST BEFORE THE START] Curiously enough, Peary was the first man with whom I ever discussed the matter of using an airplane for polar work. That was shortly before his death, and he was enthusiastic about the project. Eight years later, in 1924, Captain Amundsen arrived in New York. He had already announced his belief that the Polar Sea could be crossed in a plane, and for those eight years my mind had not freed itself of the idea. We had a long talk and, as the result, I brought Amundsen and my father together. My father, too, became enthusiastic and agreed to buy us two flying boats. Thus the adventure began. [Illustration: THE POLAR SEA FROM THE SKY]