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148 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

another book,¹ I shall not repeat here the facts and
theories upon which these speculations were based.

I find that submarine men who know nothing about ice
usually dismiss the suggestion of under-ice navigation as
ridiculous. I have found also that most polar explorers
ridicule the suggestion because they have not supple-
mented their knowledge of ice by a study of the subma-
rine. But among the few who have a knowledge in both
fields I think there would be fairly unanimous approval
of a dialogue which took place at one of our meetings.
There were one or two other submarine officers present
besides Bower when I asked him which he considered
more dangerous and probably more uncomfortable, such
voyages as the Norsemen used to make nearly every year
from Norway to Greenland during the eleventh, twelfth
and thirteenth centuries and their occasional voyages to
America, or a voyage in an ordinary British submarine
from Scapa Flow north and south to Vladivostok. After
careful thought and some discussion with his colleagues,
Bower replied that in his opinion the transarctic sub-
marine voyage would be far safer, far easier and far more
pleasant. I gathered that Commander Bower and sev-
eral other submarine men would be as eager for an oppor-
tunity to cross the Arctic as John Smith and Sir
Humphrey Gilbert were to cross the Atlantic, and that
the chances of tragedy would be about the same. John
Smith came back, but Sir Humphrey Gilbert was lost.

I am wishing the Americans the best of luck with the
proposed Shenandoah² flight across the Arctic. If the
Shenandoah does not do it, some other dirigible will, and
it is in keeping with American character to persist until

¹ Pp. 189-199. “The Northward Course of Empire,” New York, 1922, and
London, 1923.

² This was written just after the announcement by the
U.S. Security of the Navy that the Shenandoah would cross
the Arctic sea. This plan was later cancelled, but
Hausen has since announced that he will
take it by with a dirigible made in Germany. So over