Four individuals, from four nations, played key roles in the 1897-1899 Belgian Antarctic Expedition

AMUNDSEN	COOK	GERLACHE	ARCTOWSKI

‘For his part, Frederick A. Cook deserves to be remembered for his work on Gerlache’s expedition . . . the men of the Belgica survived in large part because of the expertise and character of Frederick Cook’ 

by Prof. T. H. Baughman 
Central Oklahoma University 

On October 18, 2007 Prof. T. H. Baughman of the History Department of the Central Oklahoma University gave the dinner address at the third annual Workshop on the History of Antarctic Research at the Byrd Polar Research Center at the Ohio State University.

The Workshop was supported by the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR), the Byrd Center and the German Antarctic Research Group. Dr. Baughman is the author of The Last Heroes and other works on Antarctica. His lecture was sponsored by the Frederick A. Cook Society as part of the 2007-2009 Centennial of the discovery of the North Pole. 

We all have friends who are less than perfect, but we care for them despite these shortcomings. We accept that they are not perfect but weigh in the balance their good qualities over their deficiencies. We do the same things with colleagues too. Almost as though we have some internal ability, some calculus formula that allows us to assess the benefits a person brings to the table contrasted with those detracting factors that are so annoying. Most people are in some way or another flawed individuals, but one hopes that in our own instances that our good qualities will outweigh the bad ones. In discussing the Belgica Expedition from 1897 to 1899, this paper will discuss four individuals who played key roles in the endeavor, focusing on two in particular who had significant polar careers beyond this one project. Next the context of the times of the voyage, the original plan of the expedition, and then note the scientific accomplishments of the men of the Belgica will be examined. Finally, I hope to reflect on the long-term assessment of the two principal individuals. This expedition was a significant milestone in the history of Antarctic science, and in particular that the two individuals were men who deserve praise and admiration even today. 

To begin, what happened to the four most important figures after the expedition? Pride of place goes to Adrian de Gerlache (1866-1934) who was the primogenitor of the whole endeavor. Having tried unsuccessfully to find a place on someone else’s expedition, he formed one of his own. The people who joined him were often those he knew before hand, and he set out a scientific program appropriate for his times. He led this generally successful campaign, and when he returned to Europe after the Belgica cruise he remained a marginal player in polar circles and made another attempt to go South with Jean Baptiste Charcot on the Français expedition, but backed out in the middle of the voyage and returned to his family.¹  He continued to be active in polar circles as Belgium’s outstanding Antarctic explorer and was honored later with a Belgian naval vessel named for him. For many people he was a footnote to one of the greatest adventures of the Heroic Era, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, by virtue of ordering the ship, Polaris, to be constructed to take tourists to the northern Polar Regions, but had to back out of the deal when faced with financial difficulties.² His loss was Shackleton’s gain, he bought the Polaris renamed it the Endurance and, as non-historians are want to characterize, the rest was history. 

Gerlache, too, deserves better than he has gotten. His expedition often has been given limited coverage, shunted-off in favor of endeavors from larger nations or because other leaders had more exciting adventures. At the distance of a hundred years, the image of this brave Belgian is clearer. Gerlache was a pioneer, a visionary, and a man of practical action who translated his dreams into the first serious Antarctic expedition in forty years, and whose actions on this effort both stimulated and inspired the next generation of explorers. 

Henryk Arctowski (1871-1958) was a real scientist, devoted to his craft, and yet still able to be mystified by Antarctica. As the geologist on the expedition, he was able to accomplish some significant work and returned to publish the scientific results of his labors. For the next fifteen years after the completion of the voyage of the Belgica, Arctowski was one of several people wandering around Europe trying to launch his own Antarctic expedition, but never quite able to do so. He was successful in beginning an organization for polar science and for the kind of cooperation that has characterized Antarctic science since the IGY of cooperation and sharing of data. But Arctowski’s efforts were not met with lasting success. After World War One, he worked in the newly independent Poland as a professor, and was lucky enough to be able to get to the U.S. at the outbreak of World War II, but unfortunate enough to lose all his notes and papers as a result of the destruction of that conflict. 

The third person was Roald Amundsen (1872-1928), by any reasonable standard the greatest explorer of his day—and that was an era of giants, not the least of whom was his own personal hero, Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930). The Belgica was his introduction to polar work, and he saw this voyage as a great opportunity for learning his craft as an explorer. His diary of the voyage, though more sparse than one might wish for, conveys the sense of his joy at gaining new skills and making the most of every adventure that came his way. Is it not somehow fitting that every time they landed and he had a chance to go off on his own, he headed for the highest peak he could see and if, on arriving there he found a still higher one, he moved on toward that one too? Polar survival was his keenest interest, and he had a great teacher on this voyage. 

The Belgica provides one with a glimpse of the young Amundsen, already a leader of men and a polar enthusiast of substance. His later devotion to serious science while engaged in geographical discovery, certainly was influenced by his work with the scientists on the Belgica. Amundsen’s treatment of scientific work compared favorably to at least one of his contemporaries, Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922), who regarded it as a necessary evil, rather than a substantive part of the adventure of exploration. Amundsen was an important contributor to Frederick A. Cook’s efforts to save the expedition. The Belgica expedition’s longterm influence extended both north and south in the case of Amundsen. His experience with Gerlache helped launch the Norwegian’s Northwest Passage voyage and, when he returned to Antarctica in 1910, his previous experience influenced his South Pole plans.³ 

Of course, Amundsen went on to earn the title of greatest explorer of his day with his accomplishments— first through the Northwest Passage, a goal that had thwarted the great adventurers of four centuries. Then he moved on to the North Pole but found himself forestalled by the apparent success of others and changed his direction and became the conqueror of the South Pole. Then came his flights over the North Pole and, as scholars such as Sir Wally Herbert and Rai Goerler have demonstrated, Amundsen became the first man to see both the north and south poles, along with his expedition member and friend, Oscar Wistling (1871-1936). Then he made his flight across the Arctic and finally, a tragic attempt to rescue a man he despised, that ended in Amundsen’s disappearance and death. 

Amundsen’s great teacher on this voyage was the fourth member of the expedition to be discussed, Frederick A. Cook (1865-1940) who was the most experienced polar traveler in the party when he joined the Belgica as the ship’s physician. He had traveled and explored widely in the Arctic, serving with Robert E. Peary (1856-1920) and saving the latter’s polar career by the excellence of Cook’s medical skills. He also had traveled and studied on other trips to the Arctic and, one is probably safe in saying that he knew more about the Polar Regions than the combined knowledge of the rest of the crew of the Belgica. 

After this voyage, Cook talked about leading his own Antarctic expedition but those plans never developed. Instead he worked again in the Arctic and branched out to working in Alaska. There in 1906 he declared that he had climbed Mount McKinley, a claim that has subsequently been disputed, although Cook’s book on the effort did well with the public and had a good sales. That fact alone, a successful publication, would have been enough to anger Peary whose own book on his attempt on the North Pole, which appeared at the same time, did not sell well. 

But in 1909-1910 these two men—and I avoid the term rivals, because I believe that implies a two-sided competition—became involved in one of the most unpleasant controversies of polar history. The story is well known so I shall keep this account to the bare details. From April to September 1909, Frederick A. Cook came out of the high arctic, arrived in Europe, and declared that he had reached the North Pole in April, 1908. He was immediately welcomed as the conqueror of the last place on earth. Danish scientific communities rushed to give him their gold medal and praise his efforts. Cook took it all in stride, for an overarching feature of his character was that he was a such a gentleman that people were often immediately taken with him. He was kind and generous, the kind of hero the public likes to find. 

Then, a few weeks later, Robert E. Peary arrived back at civilization and claimed that he had gotten to the North Pole in April, 1909, and he was the sole conqueror of the last spot on earth. Told of this news at a banquet, Cook’s reaction was welcoming, suggesting that there was enough glory in the North Pole for two to share. But no sentiment could be further from the mind of Peary than sharing the prize he had sought relentlessly all his life. Had Peary not written years earlier, “I must have fame!” and his whole life was an exercise in reaching that goal?⁴ 

At first the American people favored the claim of Cook over Peary. After all, even Peary’s supporters found his manner gruff at best. Nasty and brutish would have been chosen adjectives applied to Peary even by some of his supporters. Beau Riffenburgh described Peary as “perhaps the most self-serving, paranoid, arrogant, and mean-spirited of all nineteenth century explorers.”⁵ 

By comparison Cook was such a pleasant fellow, clearly too much of a gentleman to perpetrate such a hoax as this on the world. Then the full weight of Peary’s Arctic propaganda machine kicked in and the controversy became vile in its methods and intent. Peary claimed Cook was lying and Peary had the advantage of important backers including the National Geographic Society and The New York Times which could see a financial bonus for backing a winner.⁶ 

The tide of public opinion began to turn toward Peary. One of Peary’s supporters found people from Alaska willing to testify that Cook had faked the McKinley climb. As the evidence of this fraud mounted, Cook was more and more unable to mount an effective defense of his claim to have been first to the North Pole. He said his papers and charts that formed the proof of his arctic claim were left in Greenland for safe keeping. Now fewer believed him. Then an unscrupulous magazine editor— I try not to mention the names of villains—offered Cook a chance to defend himself. Cook foolishly failed to note the contract details allowed for extensive editing or rewriting and when the article appeared the editor, a Peary enthusiast, had changed the article to be a description of how Cook admitted he had faked the North Pole journey. Unable to counter the claims, Cook fled to Europe.⁷ 

The filthy battle waged by supporters on each side was enough to embarrass even a late twentieth century political operative. No one summarized the situation better than the Peary supporter who said—in one of the greatest left-handed compliments of the twentieth century—”Cook is a gentleman and a liar and Peary is neither.” 

Cook’s legacy was further complicated by his 1924 conviction for fraud regarding stock sales which resulted in him being sent to prison. The oil well involved eventually proved profitable but not in time to save Cook or his reputation which, for many people, is problematic. 

Turning now to the context of the Belgica. After the discovery of Antarctica in 1820-21 and the first actual scientist to work in Antarctica in the late 1820s, only in the 1840s did further scientific endeavors set sail south. The Challenger of the 1870s was hugely successful in its oceanographic work in high latitudes. Further attempts were stymied by a lack of interest from those who might have funded extensive scientific work in 1880s. Several people, including the Swedish explorer, Baron N. A. E. Nordenskïold (1869-1928) tried to launch a voyage south but was unable to do so. Nansen always hoped to make such an expedition after he returned from the Fram drift, but he became too involved in politics and other matters.⁸ Georg von Neumayer (1826-1909) tried to enlist others to open Antarctica to serious study but he had no luck before the 1890s. 

Turning to the plan for the expedition, to understand the Belgica expedition in context, one must assess what Gerlache hoped to accomplish. Gerlache intended to sail in the late summer of 1897 to South America and from there toward the ice.⁹ He called for exploring as far south as possible during the first summer, with the vessel returning to winter at Melbourne. The second season would involve an attempt to reach the South Magnetic Pole. At no time prior to launch was there a public statement about wintering in the Antarctic.¹⁰ 

Gerlache’s intentions have been the subject of much speculation, namely, that although he never stated so publicly, he intended all along to winter in Antarctic waters. Aboard ship some surmised that his goal was to overwinter. During the time that the expedition was overdue at Melbourne, the Geographical Journal reported that Colonel de Gerlache, father of the commander of the Belgica, suggested that some alteration of circumstances might have occurred, but that provisions were carried aboard for three years in any case. Aboard ship his fellow officers and scientists had strong suspicions that Gerlache intended from the beginning to overwinter. Henryk Arctowski complained that entire effort lacked an overall plan.¹¹  Most of the staff and crew were keenly eager to avoid spending a winter in Antarctica. Regardless, Gerlache carefully chose scientists who were capable of engaging in the original research and laid out an extensive program for the trip. 

The scientific results of the expedition were quite impressive. Besides being the first expedition to winter over, among the scientific results were bathymetric discoveries that included a basin on the south side of the Andes and a continental plateau on the ocean bottom west of Alexander Land. The meteorological observations recorded weather conditions inside the Antarctic Circle over the course of a year—a first for such data. Magnetic studies, while limited in scope, demonstrated the difficulties of working in the Antarctic and yielded only preliminary results. Geographical discoveries included the Belgica Strait (now Gerlache Strait) and several nearby islands. A portion of the Antarctic coastline was charted. Moreover, observations on shore yielded information about glaciers and rock formations. These significant accomplishments were lauded by the editor of the Nation: “The highest praise is due to the Belgica party for extracting from such an unfavorable environment all that their opportunities permitted, with persistent courage and endurance.”¹² Gerlache’s was a valiant pioneering effort. 

The Belgica compares quite favorably with other contemporaneous expeditions, especially if one gives credit to Gerlache for being the first in a largely unknown field. When Gerlache departed South America, he was as isolated in terms of contact with potential rescue resources, as Columbus had been four centuries earlier. He was sailing into largely uncharted waters attempting to do what few had attempted – to reach the Antarctic continent and explore the land.¹³ Gerlache cannot be so easily faulted for attempted to push south late in the season. In a different year, with better weather, he might have been able to sail further south and either reach land or return to an island to winter as did the men of the Scotia in 1902-04. Finally, Gerlache deserves great credit merely for launching the expedition when so many others were trying and failing. 

The Belgica influence in the Heroic Era extended not only to the later activities of the members of the expedition but also to those who had not been part of that expedition. Both William S. Bruce in his preparations for the Scotia voyage and the Français expedition of Jean-Baptiste Charcot (1867-1936) were clearly intended to continue the work begun by Gerlache’s party. By concentrating on science rather than adventure, Gerlache’s effort set a pattern which other expeditions, especially the non-British ones, that followed. The Scotia, Gauss, Otto Nordenskjöld’s (1869-1928) Antarctic, and both of Charcot’s expeditions eschewed pole seeking and adventure in favor of science. Had Arctowski been able to launch any of his several attempts at leading his own expedition, the strongest likelihood indicates that he, too, would have favored serious science over adventure. His efforts at establishing the International Polar Congress offers proof of his intentions. That the principal British expeditions followed another model was less the lack of influence of Gerlache and his party than the over-arching public interest in the Pole and Markham’s influence on that nation’s Antarctic work. Through the 1930s, all expeditions working in the region of the Antarctic Peninsula acknowledged the degree to which the Belgica was the forerunner of their efforts. 

Gerlache’s approach to preparation also reflected well on his expedition. Turning to the Scandinavians for expertise seems in retrospect an obvious decision, but the British were remarkably slow in adopting certain seemingly basic techniques like dog transport, expertise in skiing, and Nordic clothing. Subsequent non-Scandinavian expeditions followed Gerlache’s example. 

Having examined the context of the expedition and the scientific results, let us turn now the course of the expedition as it unfolded starting in the 1890s.

In Norway in February, 1896, Gerlache purchased a steam whaler, the Patria, which he refitted and rechristened the Belgica, a three-masted barque of twenty-five tons, thirty meters long and six meters abeam, powered by a 150-horsepower engine. A weakened market depressed prices and Gerlache was able to acquire the ship for only 50,000 kroner. Built in Drammen in 1884 and typical of the whalers of the time, the Belgica was constructed of oak with an outer covering of greenheart. Using sails supplemented by a small engine, the ship could make six to seven knots.¹⁴ 

Gerlache spent the winter of 1896-1897 in Norway preparing for the expedition, learning to ski, and gathering information about materials and equipment. In addition to the ship being refitted in Sandefjord, Norway was the natural locale for Gerlache’s training because of the Scandinavian climate and the superior Norwegian knowledge of skiing. As the preparations continued Gerlache received visits and suggestions from Markham, Nansen and others interested in polar affairs.¹⁵ 

The Belgica expedition was a fugue in seven voices. Although most of the communication was in French, other languages spoken included Flemish, Norwegian, Polish, Rumanian, Russian and English. Gerlache’s choice of staff was fortuitous. The crew served without pay.¹⁶ 

The story of the expedition can be briefly related. Sailing from Antwerp in August 1897, the ship arrived in Rio de Janerio on 22 October 1897. Cook joined the Belgica, which then sailed down the South American coast surveying the shoreline. The vessel departed from Punta Arenas on 14 December to make further charting. The expedition did not leave South America for Antarctic waters until mid-January – late in the season for exploring. Time was invested in surveying the Hughes Bay area, and the Belgica did not enter the Pacific en route to Antarctica until 12 February 1898.¹⁷ 

The men charted several islands off the coast of Grahamland – Brabant, Anvers and Liege Islands – and continued southward, crossing the Antarctic Circle on 15 February 1898. Even at this late date, Gerlache was determined to establish a new “furthest south” and pushed the tiny whaler into the ice pack. The scientists questioned the wisdom of this decision, preferring to use their time to explore nearby islands; nevertheless, the Belgica continued until 3 March 1898 when its path was blocked by ice. For one week the explorers attempted to extricate the ship, but by 10 March 1898, the men were trapped in the ice.¹⁸ 

The dangers of being beset in the Antarctic ice pack cannot be exaggerated. Captured by the ice, a vessel drifted with the pack until the spring, when the ice began to break up. As this occurred the ship faced grave danger. The shifting forces of many tons of pressure came to bear against the vessel. In such conditions timbers a foot thick have been crushed lengthwise. The loss of the Antarctic in 1903 or the Endurance in 1915 as a result of being crushed in the grip of the ice demonstrated the considerable danger.¹⁹ 

Realizing that the ship’s party would have to winter aboard, the crew prepared the vessel for the ordeal. All scientific observations were continued and studies were launched of the ice and remaining leads of open water. The ship was made as habitable as possible and all drafts were sealed to conserve heat.²⁰ 

The sun set on 17 May 1898 not be seen again until 23 July. As the Antarctic night set in, the crew become melancholy and despondent. During those dark weeks lethargy and illness exacerbated by poor diet threatened their lives. Their tinned food lacked vitamins, and the men grew tired of the soft, mushy meals. In July the Belgica lost a second member of its crew when Lieutenant Danco succumbed to heart failure. Previously, a sailor, Carl Wiencke, had been washed overboard and drowned in January 1898. 

As the winter wore on several men showed signs of insanity and most were incapacitated in one way or another. Amundsen had to accompany one insane sailor back to Norway after the expedition.21 

The situation was desperate. The entire crew—except for two men—were suffering in one degree or another illnesses—mental and physical—brought on by the winter, the darkness, and food supply. 

With a desperate situation at hand and the expeditIon leader, Gerlache, incapacitated himself, one man stepped forward. Frederick A. Cook saved the lives of the men. He exercised his authority as the medical officer and took over effective control of the expedition, assisted by the one other man who was standing up well under the strain, Roald Amundsen. Because Cook’s arctic experience had taught him the benefits of fresh meat, as medical officer he ordered a change in diet and forced Gerlache to comply, over the objections of the leader who had initially rejected such food as inedible. Early on, seal and penguin had been tried but rejected. Cook’s description of penguin reflected the crew’s feelings: “If it is possible to imagine a piece of beef, an odoriferous codfish, and a canvasback duck, roasted in a pot, with blood and cod-liver oil for sauce, the illustration would be complete.”²²  In fact, penguin and seal were considered good eating by the men of this era, if the cook knew how to prepare it. Cook persuaded Gerlache and the others to eat both seal and penguin and thus ingest needed vitamins even though, at the time, the term and their existence was unknown. 

Then, nearly a hundred years before physicians talked about seasonal affective disorder, Cook instinctively understood the problem and took action to solve it. Cook invented his “light cure” by which ailing members of the crew were forced to sit before the heat and light of open fires for several hours a day. Research in the early twenty-first century has demonstrated the value of moderate exercise over pharmacological solutions like Prozac. Cook sensed this instinctively. He compelled the crew to exercise, by just walking around the ship in a circle for a given period of time. The men called this activity the madhouse promenade. Cook organized activities to stimulate the minds of the men and give them something else to focus on besides the hopelessness of their situation. As a result of this new regime of fire light and fresh meat, the ailing began to recover. By these means Cook demonstrated the leadership that Amundsen and the others so admired in him.²³ 

With the return of the sun, spirits rose and health generally improved. During the winter, while locked in the ice pack, the Belgica had drifted with the ice from roughly 81°w. to 101°w. The ship was still trapped, however, and as the summer progressed hope diminished that the vessel would be freed. Although openings of water appeared, the steamer found no ice-free path. When attempts to use explosives to break up ice proved futile, Cook suggested that the crew use huge saws to cut avenues. A channel was chiseled but the shifting floes closed it again. Finally on 14 February 1899, the pack broke up enough to free the vessel. After a fortnight of negotiating through the oft-blocked routes leading north, the Belgica escaped the ice pack on 14 March 1898, setting a course for Punta Arenas where it arrived two weeks later. Further exploring was mooted by the staff but rejected, and the ship reached Antwerp on 5 November 1899.²⁴ 

And what of the two giant figures who emerged from the ice and returned to civilization in South America? Roald Amundsen left the ship and accompanied back to Norway one of the sailors who had lost his mind over the winter and still had not yet recovered. Amundsen returned to Norway, wiser and more determined than ever to pursue his life’s goal and eventually his accomplishments made him the greatest explorer of his day. 

For his part, Frederick A. Cook deserves to be remembered for his work on Gerlache’s expedition. Later controversy in Cook’s life clouds the picture. But the men of the Belgica survived in large part—perhaps entirely—because of the expertise and strength of character of Frederick A. Cook. Cook’s knowledge came of real-world experience in the Arctic; his standing among the men of the Belgica allowed him to carry out his lifesaving medical program of fresh meat and light treatment. Cook’s reputation has suffered much over the course of the twentieth century; he deserves better. Whatever some people assume he did or did not do in the Arctic or later in his life, in the Antarctic at least, Frederick A. Cook remains a hero. 

(Endnotes) 

1 Marthe Oulié, Charcot of the Antarctic (London: John Murray, 1938), 62. 
2 Scottish Geographical Magazine 29, 551. 
3 Scottish Geographical Magazine 27, 661. 
4 Beau Riffenburgh, The Myth of the Explorer (New York and London: Belhaven Press, 1993), 165. 
5 Beau Riffenburgh, The Myth of the Explorer (New York and London: Belhaven Press, 1993), 165. 
6 Riffenburgh, Myth, chapter 9. 
7 Riffenburgh, Myth, 188-89. 
8. Indeed Nansen’s hope of conquering the South Pole was extraordinarily important to him. When after years away from exploring work he loaned the Fram to Roald Amundsen, Nansen watched his fellow countryman’s departure with sadness for it meant the end of his dream of standing at the South Pole. 
14. Gerlache had intend to sail in the late summer of 1896 but problems caused a delay to 1897. 
10. Geographical Journal 8 (August 1896),180; “The Belgian Antarctic Expedition,” Geographical Journal 10 (September 1897), 331.
11. “The Belgian Antarctic Expedition,” Geographical Journal 12 (September 1898), p. 319; 18 (October 1901), p. 357. Notes, “Nature 60 (August 10, 1899), 352; Nation, November 15, 1900, 391. Henryk Arctowski published reports on the scientific results of the expedition; see Geographical Journal 14 (July 1989 9), 77-82 and 14 (October 1899), 413-26. 
13. Carsten E. Borchgrevink made the first undisputed landing on the Antarctic continent in January 1895; others had landed on islands quite close to the shore of the continent. 
14. Adrien de Gerlache, Ouinze Mois dans L’Antarctique (Bruxelles: Imprimerie Scientifique, 1902), pp. 36-37. This speed was roughly comparable to other exploring ships of the period. See T.H. Baughman, Pilgrims on the Ice: Robert Falcon Scott’s First Antarctic Expedition, University of Nebraska Press, 1998. 
15. Baughman, Pilgrims, 39-40. 
16. Frederick A. Cook, Through the First Antarctic Night (New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1900), X-xi; Cook, “The New Antarctic Discoveries,” Century 59 (January 1900), 409-11. 
17. This survey corrected many errors in contemporary charts. Lecointe, Expedition Antarctique Beige, pp. 12,15; Geographical Journal 18 (October 1901), 362. Geographical Journal 18 (October 1901): 376; Lecointe, Expedition Antarctique Beige, 36, 39-40. 
19. I am indebted to Colin Bull for explaining to me the dynamics of the ice on a ship in these conditions. 
20. Lecointe, Expedition Antarctique Belge, 40. 
21. Frederick A. Cook, “The New Antarctic Discoveries,” Century (59), 416-18; Geographical Journal 18 (October 1901), 381-82. 
22. Frederick A. Cook, Through the First Antarctic Night (New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1900), 234. 
23. Frederick A. Cook had previously published his theory about fresh meat and the prevention of scurvy. See Cook, “Medical Observations Among the Esquimaux,” New York Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics 24 (March 1894). To understand why Cook’s methods were successful, see Charles A. Czeisler, “Bright Light Induction of Strong (Type O) Resetting of the Human Circadian Pacemaker,” Science 224 (16 June 1989), 32 8-34. Cook, Through the First Antarctic Night, 245, quote, 234. 
24. Lecointe, Expedition Antarctique Beige, 15; Geographical Journal, 18 (October 1901), 38-89; The New York Times, 6 May 1899, 4 and 1 June 1899, 5.

Copyright 2005 - The Frederick A. Cook Society