While there he had found that he could not possibly get ashore, and so had kept quiet; but when on board the vessel which had been sent to them from St.John's, he had soon begun to talk to the crew, and there seemed to be but one way of preventing him from making known what had been done by the expedition before its promoters were ready for the disclosure, and this was to declare him a maniac, whose utterances were of no value whatever.

He was put into close confinement, and it was freely reported that he had gone crazy while in the arctic regions, and that his mind had been filled with all sorts of insane notions regarding that part of the world.
It had been intended to put him in jail on a criminal charge, but this would not prevent him from talking; and so, when he arrived in New Jersey, he was sent to an insane asylum, the officers of which were not surprised to receive him, for, in their opinion, a wilder-looking maniac was not, to be found within the walls of the institution.
Early on the morning of the day before the world was to be electrified by the announcement of the discovery of the pole, a man named William Cunningham, employed in the Sardis Works, entered the large building which had been devoted to the manufacture of the automatic shell, but which had not been used of late and had been kept locked.

Cunningham was the watchman, and had entered to make his usual morning rounds.

He had scarcely closed the door behind him when, looking over towards the engines which still stood by the mouth of the shaft made by the automatic shell, he was amazed to see that the car which had been used by Roland Clewe in his descent was not hanging above them.
Utterly unable to understand this state of affairs, he ran to the mouth of the shaft.

He found the great trap-door which had closed it thrown back, and the grating which had been made to cover the orifice after the car had descended in its place.