CHAPTER VIII.
EXTRAORDINARY LOSS OF WEIGHT.
The first thought that occurred to us after the excitement ofdiscovery had somewhat subsided was that the interior of the earth wasin all probability a habitable planet, possessing as it did alife-giving luminary of its own, and our one object was to get intothe planet as quickly as possible. A continual breeze from theinterior ocean of air passed out of the gulf. Its temperature was muchhigher than that of the sea on which we sailed, and it was only nowthat we began to think of laying off our Arctic furs.
A closer observation of the interior sun revealed the knowledge thatit was a very luminous orb, producing a climate similar to that of thetropics or nearly so. As we entered the interior sphere the sun rosehigher and higher above us, until at last he stood vertically aboveour heads at a height of about 3,500 miles. We saw at once what novelconditions of life might exist under an earth-surrounded sun, castingeverywhere perpendicular shadow, and neither rising nor setting, butstanding high in heaven, the lord of eternal day. We seemed to sailthe bottom of a huge bowl or spherical gulf, surrounded by oceans,continents, islands, and seas.
A peculiar circumstance, first noticed immediately after arriving atthe centre of the gulf, was that each of us possessed a sense ofphysical buoyancy, hitherto unfelt.
Flathootly told me he felt like jumping over the mast in hisnewly-found vigor of action, and the sailors began a series of anticsquite foreign to their late stolid behavior. I felt myself possessedof a very elastic step and a similar desire to jump overboard and leapmiles out to sea. I felt that I could easily jump a distance ofseveral miles.
Professor Starbottle explained this phenomenal activity by statingthat on the outer surface of the earth a man who weighs one hundredand fifty pounds, would weigh practically nothing on the interiorsurface of an earth shell of any equal thickness throughout. But thefact that we did weigh something, and that the ship and ocean itselfremained on the under surface of the world, proved that the shell ofthe earth, naturally made thicker at the equator by reason ofcentrifugal gravity than at the poles, has sufficient equatorialattraction to keep open the polar gulf. Besides this centrifugalgravity confers a certain degree of weight on all objects in theinterior sphere.
"I'll get a pair of scales," said Flathootly, "an' see how light I amin weight."
"Don't mind scales," said the professor, "for the weights themselveshave lost weight."
"Well, I'm one hundred and seventy-five pounds to a feather," saidFlathootly, "an' I'll soon see if the weights are right or not."
"The weights are right enough," said the professor, "and yet they arewrong."
"An' how can a thing be roight and wrang at the same time, I'd loiketo know? We'll thry the weights anyway," said the Irishman.
So saying, Flathootly got a little weighing machine on deck, and,standing thereon, a sailor piled on the weights on the opposite side.
He shouted out: "There now, do you see that? I'm wan hundred andsiventy-siven pounds, jist what I always was."
"My dear sir," said the professor, "you don't seem to understand thismatter; the weights have lost weight equally with yourself, hence theystill appear to you as weighing one hundred and seventy-seven pounds."
"Excuse me, sorr," said Flathootly. "If the weights have lost weight,the chap that stole it was cute enough to put it back again before Iweighed meself. Don't you see wid yer two eyes I'm still as heavy asiver I was?"
"You will require ocular demonstration that what I say is correct.Here, sir, let me weigh you with this instrument," said the professor.
The instrument referred to was a huge spring-balance with which it wasproposed to weigh Flathootly. One end of it was fastened to the mast,and to the hook hanging from the other end the master-at-arms securedhimself. The hand on the dial plate moved a certain distance andstopped at seventeen pounds. The expression on the Irishman's face wassomething awful to behold.
"Does this machine tell the thruth?" he inquired in a tearful voice.
We assured him it was absolutely correct. He only weighed seventeenpounds.
"Oh, howly Mother of Mercy!" yelled Flathootly. "Consumption has me bythe back of the neck. I've lost a hundred and sixty pounds in threedays. Oh, sir, for the love of heaven, take me back to me mother. I'mkilt entoirely."
It was some time before Flathootly could understand that his lightnessof weight was due to the lesser-sized world he was continuallyarriving upon, together with centrifugal gravity, and that we allsuffered from his affliction of being each "less than half a man" ashe termed it. The weighing of the weights wherewith he had weighedhimself proved conclusively that the depreciation in gravity appliedequally to everything around us.
The extreme lightness of our bodies, and the fact that our muscles hadbeen used to move about ten times our then weight, was the cause ofour wonderful buoyancy.
The sailors began leaping from the ship to a large rock that rose outof the water about half a mile off. Their agility was marvellous, andFlathootly covered himself with glory in leaping over the shiphundreds of feet in the air and alighting on the same spot on deckagain.
Their officers and scientific staff remained on deck as became theirdignity, although tempted to try their agility like the sailors.
Flathootly surprised us by leaping on a yardarm and exclaiming:"Gintlemen, I tell ye what it is, I'm no weight at all."
"How do you make that out?" said the professor.
"Well, Oi've been thinking," said he, "that, as you say, we're in themiddle of the two wurrlds. Now it stands to sense that the wan wurrld,I mane the sun up there, is pullin' us up an' the t'other wurrld ispullin' us down, an' as both wurrlds is pulling aqually, why av corsewe don't amount to no weight at all. How could I turn fifteensummersaults at wance if I was any weight? That shows yer weighingmachine is all wrang again."
"How can you stand on the deck if you are no weight?" inquired theprofessor.
"Why, I'm only pressing me feet on the boards," said the Irishman;"look here!" So saying, he leaped from the yard and revolved in theair at least twenty times before alighting on the deck.
"Now," said the professor, "I'll explain why you only weigh seventeenpounds as indicated by the spring-balance. We have sailed, down thegulf 500 miles, haven't we?"
"Yis, sorr."
"And here we are sailing upside down on the inside roof of theworld----"
"Sailin' upside down? Indeed, sorr, an' ye can't make me believe that,for shure I'm shtandin' on me feet like yourself, head uppermost."
"Well, whether you believe it or not, we are sailing upside down, justas ships going to Australia sail upside down as compared with shipssailing the North Atlantic. But the point of gravity is this: Here weare surrounded on all sides by the shell of the earth, which attractsequally in all directions. Hence all objects in the interior worldhave no weight as regards whatever thickness of the earth's shellsurrounds them. You see, weight is caused by an object having theworld on one side of it. Thus both the world and the object attracteach other according to the density and distance apart. What we call apound weight is a mass of matter attracted by the earth on its surfacewith a force equal to the weight of sixteen ounces. A pound weight onthe surface of the earth weighs sixteen ounces, and all the mightyvolume of our planet, with all its mountains, continents and seas,weighs only sixteen ounces on the surface of a pound weight. The earthmay still weigh many millions of tons as regards the sun, but asregards a pound weight it only weighs sixteen ounces."
"That is an illustration of Flathootly's mental calibre," said CaptainWallace. "He only believes what his brain can accommodate in the wayof knowledge."
"God bless the captain," said Flathootly, "I'm shure his brain is asbig as mine any day in the week."
"Now," continued the astronomer, "it seems to me that the substancesof the earth, rocks, metals, and water, have, under the influence ofcentrifugal gravity, massed themselves very thickly at the equator orpoint of greatest motion, and stretch toward the poles in agra
dually-lessening mass until the polar gulfs are reached. Thus theearth's shell resembles a musk-melon with the inside cleaned out."
"It makes me mouth wather to think of it," said Flathootly.
"Now, listen," said the astronomer; "we are also under the influenceof the earth's centrifugal motion, and wherever we are on the interiorsurface we swing round our circle of latitude in twenty-four hours,and thus men, ship, and ocean are held up against the interior vaultlike a boy being able to hold water in a vertical position at thebottom of the pail he swings round him at the end of a cord."
"Don't you think, professor," I inquired, "we will become heavier aswe approach the region of greatest motion under the equator?"
"I don't think so," he replied, "for the ocean around the poles hasnaturally gravitated to the internal as well as to the externalequator, to restore the equilibrium of gravity. The reason why a mandoes not weigh less on the external equator than at the poles,although flying around at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, isthat the deeper ocean, that is, the extra twenty-six miles that theearth is thicker on the equator, counterbalances by its attractionthe loss of weight due to the rapid centrifugal motion, and sopreserves in all objects on the earth a uniform weight."
"The whole thing," said Flathootly, "is as clear as mud. I'm glad toknow, sorr, I haven't lost me entire constitution at all evints, an'if I can only carry home what weight I've got lift I'll make a fortunein a dime museum."