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TO THE POLE BY AIR SHIP

To reach the North Pole has been the ambition of man through the centuries. It is the last great thing to be done in working out the destiny of man to explore, conquer and know all of the earth that was given him to live upon and to rule. The quest of the North Pole—and the South Pole—is a law of gravity within man. It is the all-compelling instinct to know all of the unknown; it matters not where—in the depths of the sea, high in the air, in the mystery of the origin of life, in the greater puzzle of the hereafter, in the whisperings from the occult world, in the geologic records of ages past, [[strikethrough]]in the minutiae of chemistry, [[strikethrough]] in the solar or stellar systems, in the infinitude of space—everywhere and as to everything, from the planets to atoms, man wants to know, feels that he must know. 

The North Pole [[strikethrough]] stands [[strikethrough]] as the center and symbol of a vast unknown region Hundreds of years. To make this unknown known was one of the highest ambitions of man. The utilitarian value of that knowledge is perhaps nothing. Its scientific value is a matter of opinion and discussion. By the true scientific spirit is: "Wherever in all the realm of physics there exists an unknown, a missing link, a dark spot, go find what is there and discuss its value afterward in the light of the knowledge gained."

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