The Mayan gods had set about their creation using a measuring cord. Having the cord in the sky, on the earth, the four sides, the four corners... In doing so, they laid out an organized world... a fifth direction – up an down – lay at the earth's center. The color there was blue and there grew a giant tree. It united the Mayan universe. Its roots reached down into the forbidden underworld. Its trunk stretched up from the earth into the heavens.

I for one hang my head in shame when I think how many thousands of years ago it was that God gave to Man this beautiful world- the whole of it- to subdue and yet that part of it that must be most interesting and glorious- at least to me- remains as unknown to us as though it had never been created. Having now completed my arctic collegiate education, I feel to spend my life in extending our knowledge of the earth up to that spot which is directly under Polaris- the crowning jewel of the arctic dome.

He (Charles Frances Hall) said he could see the blue vapor coiling all around in the atmosphere and hanging alongside the edge of the birth: and he would call my attention to it and ask me if I did not see it...