Bradley Land
Bradley Land is the name of a landmass Frederick Cook claimed to have seen during a expedition in 1909. He said, the land between positions (84°20′N 102°0′W / 84.333°N 102.000°W) and (85°11′N 102°0′W / 85.183°N 102.000°W). He described it as two masses of land with a break, a strait, or an indentation between.[1] The land was named for John R. Bradley, who had sponsored Cook's expedition.
Cook published two photographs of the land and described it as follows: "The lower coast resembled Heiberg Island, with mountains and high valleys. The upper coast I estimated as being about one thousand feet high, flat, and covered with a thin sheet ice."[2]
It is now known there is no land at that location. Cook's observations were based on either a misidentification of sea ice or an outright fabrication. Cook's Inuit companions reported that the photographs were actually taken near the coast of Axel Heiberg Island.[3]
References
- ↑ Balch, Edwin Swift (1913). The North Pole and Bradley Land. Philadelphia: Campion and Company. p. 54.
- ↑ Cook, Frederick A. (1911). My Attainment of the Pole: Being the Record of the Expedition that First Reached the Boreal Center, 1907-1909. New York: The Polar Publishing Co. p. 246.
- ↑ Bryce, Robert M. (2008). "Fredrick A. Cook: From Hero to Humbug". Retrieved 2009-02-23.