This puzzle had driven Charles Hall nearly insane with wonder. Before venturing on the Polaris expedition, he had written, “There is a great, sad blot upon the present age & this is the blank on our maps & artificial globes from about the parallel 80° North up to the North Pole. I, for one, hang my head in shame when I think how many thousands of years ago it was that God gave to man this beautiful world—the whole of it—to subdue, & yet that part of it that must be most interesting and glorious remains as unknown to us as though it had never been created.”
