There was an incredibly large number of persons who were simply oozing with inventions and schemes, the adoption of which would absolutely insure the discovery of the Pole.

Naturally, in view of the contemporaneous drift of inventive thought, flying machines occupied a high place on the list.

Motor cars, guaranteed to run over any kind of ice, came next.

One man had a submarine boat that he was sure would do the trick, though he did not explain how we were to get up through the ice after we had traveled to the Pole beneath it.
Still another chap wanted to sell us a portable sawmill.

It was his enterprising idea that this should be set up on the shore of the central polar sea and that I was to use it for shaping lumber with which to build a wooden tunnel over the ice of the polar sea all the way to the Pole.