CHAPTER XXIV.POLAR COSMOGRAPHY.
Of course, to eat at table, they were obliged to sit on the ground.
"But," said Clawbonny, "who wouldn't give all the tables anddining-rooms in the world, to dine in north latitude 89 degrees 59minutes 15 seconds?"
The thoughts of each one were about their situation. They had no otheridea than the North Pole. The dangers they had undergone to reach it,those to overcome before returning, were forgotten in theirunprecedented success. What neither Europeans, Americans, nor Asiaticshad been able to do, they had accomplished. Hence they were all readyto listen to the doctor when he told them all that his inexhaustiblememory could recall about their position. It was with real enthusiasmthat he first proposed their captain's health.
"They were all ready to listen to the doctor."]
"To John Hatteras!" he said.
"To John Hatteras!" repeated the others.
"To the North Pole!" answered the captain, with a warmth that wasunusual in this man who was usually so self-restrained, but who nowwas in a state of great nervous excitement. They touched glasses, andthe toasts were followed by earnest hand-shakings.
"It is," said the doctor, "the most important geographical fact of ourday! Who would have thought that this discovery would precede that ofthe centre of Africa or Australia? Really, Hatteras, you are greaterthan Livingstone, Burton, and Barth! All honor to you!"
"You are right, Doctor," said Altamont; "it would seem, from thedifficulty of the undertaking, that the Pole would be the last placediscovered. Whenever the government was absolutely determined to knowthe middle of Africa, it would have succeeded at the cost of so manymen and so much money; but here nothing is less certain than success,and there might be obstacles really insuperable."
"Insuperable!" cried Hatteras with warmth; "there are no insuperableobstacles; there are more or less determined minds, that is all!"
"Well," said Johnson, "we are here, and it is well. But, Doctor, willyou tell me, once for all, what there is so remarkable about thePole?"
"It is this, Johnson, that it is the only motionless part of theglobe, while all the rest is turning with extreme rapidity."
"But I don't see that we are more motionless here than at Liverpool."
"No more than you perceive the motion at Liverpool; and that isbecause in both cases you participate in the movement or the repose.But the fact is no less certain. The earth rotates in twenty-fourhours, and this motion is on an axis with its extremities at the twopoles. Well, we are at one of the extremities of the axis, which isnecessarily motionless."
"So," said Bell, "when our countrymen are turning rapidly, we areperfectly still?"
"Very nearly, for we are not exactly at the Pole."
"You are right, Doctor," said Hatteras seriously, and shaking hishead; "we are still forty-five seconds from the precise spot."
"That is not far," answered Altamont, "and we can consider ourselvesmotionless."
"Yes," continued the doctor, "while those living at the equator moveat the rate of three hundred and ninety-six leagues an hour."
"And without getting tired!" said Bell.
"Exactly!" answered the doctor.
"But," continued Johnson, "besides this movement of rotation, doesn'tthe earth also move about the sun?"
"Yes, and this takes a year."
"Is it swifter than the other?"
"Infinitely so; and I ought to say that, although we are at the Pole,it takes us with it as well as all the people in the world. So ourpretended immobility is a chimera: we are motionless with regard tothe other points of the globe, but not so with regard to the sun."
"Good!" said Bell, with an accent of comic regret; "so I, who thoughtI was still, was mistaken! This illusion has to be given up! One can'thave a moment's peace in this world."
"You are right, Bell," answered Johnson; "and will you tell us,Doctor, how fast this motion is?"
"It is very fast," answered the doctor; "the earth moves around thesun seventy-six times faster than a twenty-four-pound cannon-ballflies, which goes one hundred and ninety-five fathoms a second. Itmoves, then, seven leagues and six tenths per second; you see it isvery different from the diurnal movement of the equator."
"The deuce!" said Bell; "that is incredible, Doctor! More than sevenleagues a second, and that when it would have been so easy to bemotionless, if God had wished it!"
"Good!" said Altamont; "do you think so, Bell? In that case no morenight, nor spring, nor autumn, nor winter!"
"Without considering a still more terrible result," continued thedoctor.
"What is that?" asked Johnson.
"We should all fall into the sun!"
"Fall into the sun!" repeated Bell with surprise.
"Yes. If this motion were to stop, the earth would fall into the sunin sixty-four days and a half."
"A fall of sixty-four days!" said Johnson.
"No more nor less," answered the doctor; "for it would have to fall adistance of thirty-eight millions of leagues."
"What is the weight of the earth?" asked Altamont.
"It is five thousand eight hundred and ninety-one quadrillions oftons."
"Good!" said Johnson; "those numbers have no meaning."
"For that reason, Johnson, I was going to give you two comparisonswhich you could remember. Don't forget that it would take seventy-fivemoons to make the sun, and three hundred and fifty thousand earths tomake up the weight of the sun."
"That is tremendous!" said Altamont.
"Tremendous is the word," answered the doctor; "but, to return to thePole, no lesson on cosmography on this part of the globe could be moreopportune, if it doesn't weary you."
"Go on, Doctor, go on!"
"I told you," resumed the doctor, who took as much pleasure in givingas the others did in receiving instruction,--"I told you that the Polewas motionless in comparison with the rest of the globe. Well, that isnot quite true!"
"What!" said Bell, "has that got to be taken back?"
"Yes, Bell, the Pole is not always exactly in the same place; formerlythe North Star was farther from the celestial pole than it is now. Soour Pole has a certain motion; it describes a circle in abouttwenty-six years. That comes from the precession of the equinoxes, ofwhich I shall speak soon."
"But," asked Altamont, "might it not happen that some day the Poleshould get farther from its place?"
"Ah, my dear Altamont," answered the doctor, "you bring up there agreat question, which scientific men investigated for a long time inconsequence of a singular discovery."
"What was that?"
"This is it. In 1771 the body of a rhinoceros was found on the shoreof the Arctic Sea, and in 1799 that of an elephant on the coast ofSiberia. How did the animals of warm countries happen to be found inthese latitudes? Thereupon there was much commotion among geologists,who were not so wise as a Frenchman, M. Elie de Beaumont, has beensince. He showed that these animals used to live in rather highlatitudes, and that the streams and rivers simply carried their bodiesto the places where they were found. But do you know the explanationwhich scientific men gave before this one?"
"Scientific men are capable of anything," said Altamont.
"Yes, in explanation of a fact; well, they imagined that the Pole usedto be at the equator and the equator at the Pole."
"Bah!"
"It was exactly what I tell you. Now, if it had been so, since theearth is flattened more than five leagues at the pole, the seas,carried to the equator by centrifugal force, would have coveredmountains twice as high as the Himalayas; all the countries near thepolar circle, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Siberia, Greenland, and NewBritain, would have been buried in five leagues of water, while theregions at the equator, having become the pole, would have formedplateaus fifteen leagues high!"
"What a change!" said Johnson.
"O, that made no difference to scientific men!"
"And how did they explain the alteration?" asked Altamont.
"They said it was due to the
shock of collision with a comet. Thecomet is the _deus ex machina_; whenever one comes to a difficultquestion in cosmography, a comet is lugged in. It is the most obligingof the heavenly bodies, and at the least sign from a scientific man itdisarranges itself to arrange everything."
"Then," said Johnson, "according to you, Doctor, this change isimpossible?"
"Impossible!"
"And if it should take place?"
"If it did, the equator would be frozen in twenty-four hours!"
"Good! if it were to take place now," said Bell, "people would aslikely as not say we had never gone to the Pole."
"Calm yourself, Bell. To return to the immobility of the terrestrialaxis, the following is the result: if we were to spend a winter here,we should see the stars describing a circle about us. As for the sun,the day of the vernal equinox, March 23d, it would appear to us (Itake no account of refraction) exactly cut in two by the horizon, andwould rise gradually in longer and longer curves; but here it isremarkable that when it has once risen it sets no more; it is visiblefor six months. Then its disk touches the horizon again at theautumnal equinox, September 22d, and as soon as it is set, it is seenno more again all winter."
"You were speaking just now of the flattening of the earth at thepoles," said Johnson; "be good enough to explain that, Doctor."
"I will. Since the earth was fluid when first created, you understandthat its rotary movement would try to drive part of the mobile mass tothe equator, where the centrifugal force was greater. If the earth hadbeen motionless, it would have remained a perfect sphere; but inconsequence of the phenomenon I have just described, it has anellipsoidal form, and points at the pole are nearer the centre of theearth than points at the equator by about five leagues."
"So," said Johnson, "if our captain wanted to take us to the centre ofthe earth, we should have five leagues less to go?"
"Exactly, my friend."
"Well, Captain, it's so much gained! We ought to avail ourselves ofit."
But Hatteras did not answer. Evidently he had lost all interest in theconversation, or perhaps he was listening without hearing.
"Well," answered the doctor, "according to certain scientific men, itwould be worth while to try this expedition."
"What! really?" exclaimed Johnson.
"But let me finish," answered the doctor. "I will tell you. I mustfirst tell you this flattening of the poles is the cause of theprecession of the equinoxes; that is to say, why every year the vernalequinox comes a day sooner than it would if the earth were perfectlyround. This comes from the attraction of the sun operating in adifferent way on the heaped-up land of the equator, which thenexperiences a retrograde movement. Subsequently it displaces this Polea little, as I just said. But, independently of this effect, thisflattening ought to have a more curious and more personal effect,which we should perceive if we had mathematical sensibility."
"What do you mean?" asked Bell.
"I mean that we are heavier here than at Liverpool."
"Heavier?"
"Yes; ourselves, the dogs, our guns, and instruments!"
"Is it possible?"
"Certainly, and for two reasons: the first is, that we are nearer thecentre of the globe, which consequently attracts us more strongly, andthis force of gravitation is nothing but weight; the second is, therotary force, which is nothing at the pole, is very marked at theequator, and objects there have a tendency to fly from the earth: theyare less heavy."
"What!" exclaimed Johnson, seriously; "have we not the same weighteverywhere?"
"No, Johnson; according to Newton's law, bodies attract one anotherdirectly as their masses, and inversely to the square of theirdistances. Here I weigh more, because I am nearer the centre ofattraction; and on another planet I should weigh more or lessaccording to the mass of the planet."
"What!" said Bell, "in the moon--"
"In the moon my weight, which is two hundred pounds at Liverpool,would be only thirty-two pounds."
"And in the sun?"
"O, in the sun I should weigh more than five thousand pounds!"
"Heavens!" said Bell; "you'd need a derrick to move your legs."
"Probably," answered the doctor, laughing at Bell's amazement; "buthere the difference is imperceptible, and by an equal effort of themuscles Bell would leap as high as on the docks at Liverpool."
"Yes, but in the sun?" urged Bell.
"My friend," answered the doctor, "the upshot of it all is that we arewell off where we are, and need not want to go elsewhere."
"You said just now," resumed Altamont, "that perhaps it would be worthwhile to make a journey to the centre of the world; has such anundertaking ever been thought of?"
"Yes, and this is all I'm going to say about the Pole. There is nopoint in the world which has given rise to more chimeras andhypotheses. The ancients, in their ignorance, placed the garden of theHesperides there. In the Middle Ages it was supposed that the earthwas upheld on axles placed at the poles, on which it revolved; butwhen comets were seen moving freely, that idea had to be given up.Later, there was a French astronomer, Bailly, who said that the lostpeople mentioned by Plato, the Atlantides, lived here. Finally, it hasbeen asserted in our own time that there was an immense opening at thepoles, from which came the Northern Lights, and through which onecould reach the inside of the earth; since in the hollow sphere twoplanets, Pluto and Proserpine, were said to move, and the air wasluminous in consequence of the strong pressure it felt."
"That has been maintained?" asked Altamont.
"Yes, it has been written about seriously. Captain Symmes, acountryman of ours, proposed to Sir Humphry Davy, Humboldt, and Arago,to undertake the voyage! But they declined."
"And they did well."
"I think so. Whatever it may be, you see, my friends, that theimagination has busied itself about the Pole, and that sooner or laterwe must come to the reality."
"At any rate, we shall see for ourselves," said Johnson, who clung tohis idea.
"Then, to-morrow we'll start," said the doctor, smiling at seeing theold sailor but half convinced; "and if there is any opening to thecentre of the earth, we shall go there together."