stefansson-wrangel-09-13-042-001

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Dear Taylor,

I have been sending you rather lengthy cables of
advice to and about Noice. but it is rather difficult and
expensive to be clear. Noice has a fine opportunity now
if he handles it right, both for himself and for the
cause of exploration. Here in England a bad impression
has been produced by only one or two things in his cables.
On the whole the impression is very good so far as I can
gather. The chief trouble was the last, or second last,
paragraph of his long cable. The general tenor of the
despatch as edited in New York and interpreted in England
was that there was but one explanation of the difficulties
in Wrangell Island - the absence of game from Wrangell and
other insuperable difficulties of the country aud climate.
When, at the end of such a despatch, he said that on start-
ing for the mainland of Siberia the boys had less than one
chance in a thousand of getting there, it was open to only
one of three interpretations, all undesirable. The exper-
ienced polar travellers who had read the despatch carefully
and who had seen that Knight had died of illness in June
and that the woman had had some food left, saw no logical
explanation of the statement by Noice and formed the
general impression, which two or three of them expressed,
that the whole Noice despatch was so sensational and un-
reliable that one could form no opinion for the time being.
Others, realising the amount of food there must have been
on hand when the boys started, said that if the danger of
the trip was one in a thousand they had shown complete
lack of judgment in attempting it - they should have gone
on close rations expecting to replenish by hunting when the
daylight came back. The third, and of course far the com-
monest interpretation, was that the conditions had been so
bad that no human being was justified in advocating or
undertaking expeditions so dangerous as that of Wrangell
Island
. This last interpretation had a very bad effect on
the raising of funds. Mr. Brewer had loaned us £2,250
with the hope that the public would reimburse him and he
made an appeal to them through the press. We have heard
from several people who would have given money but for the
impression created by the Noice despatch that Wrangell
Island
was not only as worthless a place as its worst de-
tractors had always said but that the expedition had been

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