Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 edition. Excerpt: ... XVI CONCLUSION MATERIALISTS are inclined to doubt the sanity of men who head their ships toward the ends of the earth in search of new lands and new truths. Only ice and snow are visualized; and this is so remote that it is deemed of but little value in its contribution toward the wealth of the world. "What are you going to do with the land when you find it? Can you raise wheat on it?" were the practical questions put to me by a Wall Street banker. To him the obliteration of a vast unknown space by the substitution of well-defined coast-lines of a great continent was a useless expenditure of time and money, unless that land could be inhabited and its resources utilized. Knowledge of the fact that land exists there, supplanting ignorance and conjecture; its physical characteristics, which are but another chapter in the history of our globe; its birds, many of which pass our doors in spring and fall; its animals, existing where life seems impossible; its bright-colored flowers blossoming at the very edge of eternal snows; its climate, exerting such a vast influence upon southern countries--all these considerations are tossed aside as irrelevant; they cannot be made to return dividends--that is, in the Wall Street sense. Space will not permit a review of what the Northern traveler has contributed, not only to the various branches of science, but to our actual welfare. Man has been content to leave home, to live in savage places, to plod along through deep snows, to land upon primeval shores, to suffer privations and discomforts, and all this in order to add his mite to the sum of the world knowledge. And man will continue to do these foolish things and to undergo these useless hardships until the sum of human knowledge is complete. We hope...