Castaway at the Pole

Catalog Description *Cast Away at the Pole*, by William Wallace Cook, is a polar adventure serial. Stranded on an Arctic ice cap with their supplies exhausted, Captain Sails and Professor Prebble debate their desperate situation—Prebble, driven by hunger, suggests invoking "survival of the fittest" and hints at cannibalism, while Sails refuses and expresses determination to reach the North Pole despite their hardships and rivalry with a competitor named Griffyn. Their philosophical arguments about the relative merits of geographical discovery versus scientific research continue through the night in their three-man sleeping bag. They are suddenly awakened by violent motion; their sleeping bag has been scooped up by a drag rope from a passing balloon. As the temperature rises and they are carried southward, Sails realizes his expedition goals are now impossible, while Prebble observes with scientific interest the remarkable phenomenon of their unintended ascent.