The Purchase of the North Pole by Jules Verne

"The Purchase of the North Pole" by Jules Verne opens with a debate between the mathematician J. T. Maston and wealthy widow Mrs. Scorbitt regarding women's capacity for scientific discovery. Maston dismisses female intellectual capability while Scorbitt counters his arguments. The conversation shifts when Scorbitt offers financial support for an ambitious American venture: the North Polar Practical Association plans to purchase undiscovered Arctic territories beyond the eighty-fourth parallel through public auction authorized by the U.S. Government. An advertisement in the New York Herald announces the December 3rd auction in Baltimore, detailing the sale of the Polar region with perpetual ownership rights—including a mysterious clause accounting for future geographical and meteorological changes. International newspapers speculate wildly about the clause's meaning, proposing theories involving comets and the precession of equinoxes, but the enterprise's true leadership remains anonymous, represented only by an obscure agent.