True, Borchgrevink believed the Antarctic Continent to be an exceptionally cold one, but for this he was not to blame. No man can help what he does or does not believe in these matters regardless of sound logic and able reasoning to the contrary.—N. C.
Nansen, another Norwegian, in the Arctic Polar Sea, had been astonished to find that the water at a great depth, instead of being colder than at the surface as he had expected, was warmer! He had also found that as he progressed northward from 80° the thermometer had been inclined to rise rather than to fall. To be sure, when he arrived at a point within a little more than two hundred miles of the earth’s axis, he had found only a continuance of ice—a frozen sea which undoubtedly extended to the pole itself; but this frigidity I attributed to the fact that it was a sea into which, from the zone of fierce cold below, were constantly forced huge ice-floes. These, as I conceived, would maintain the condition of cold in the Arctics by shutting out the under warmth, through which, however, they would be gradually melted—to be discharged in those great Arctic currents which Nansen and other explorers had observed. The lack of thickness in the ice forming about the pole had also been noted with some surprise. This too, I claimed, was due to the warm earth beneath it which, while it could not much affect the general climate, when some three miles of very chilly water and several feet of substantial ice lay between, did serve as a provision of nature to prevent the northern sea from becoming one mighty solidified mass.
Now, ice-floes could not be forced inland, as would have to be the case in the Antarctics where there was admittedly a continent instead of a sea. Around this continent, it was said, there lay a precipitous frozen wall which no man had ever scaled. What lay beyond, no man of our world had ever seen. But in my fancy I saw those ramparts of eternal ice receding inward to a pleasant land, as the snow-capped Sierras slope to the verdant plains of California. A pleasant land—a fair circular world—temperate in its outer zone, becoming even tropic at the center, and extending no less than a thousand miles from rim to rim. There, I believed, unknown to the world without, a great and perhaps enlightened race lived and toiled—loved and died.
III.
EVEN SEEKING TO REALIZE IT.
But scientists, I was grieved to find, took very little stock in these views. Even such as were willing to listen declared that the earth’s oblation counted for nothing. Most of them questioned the existence of a great central heat—some disputed it altogether. The currents and temperatures reported by Nansen, Borchgrevink and others, they ascribed, as nearly as I can remember, to centrifugal deflections, to gravitatory adjustments—to anything, in fact, rather than what seemed to me the simple and obvious causes. As a rule, they ridiculed the idea of a habitable world, or even the possibility of penetrating the continent at all. When I timidly referred to a plan I had partially conceived—something with balloons in it—they despised me so openly that I was grateful not to be dismissed with violence. I cannot forego one brief example.
He was a stout, shiny-coated man, with the round eyes and human expression of a seal. He took me quite seriously, however, which some of them had not. Also himself, and the world in general. When I had briefly stated my convictions he put his fingers together in front of his comfortable roundness and regarded me solemnly. Then he said:
“My dear young man, you are pursuing what science terms an ignis fatuus, commonly and vulgarly known as a will-o’-the-wisp. You are wasting your time, and I assure you that neither I nor my associates in science could, or would, indorse your sophistries, or even stand idly by and see you induce the unthinking man of means to invest in an undertaking which we, as men of profound research and calm understanding, could not, and therefore would not approve.” He cleared his throat with a phocine bark at the end of this period and settled himself for the next. “Men in all ages,” he proceeded, “have undertaken, in the cause of science, difficult tasks, and at vast expenditure, when there was a proper scientific basis for the effort.”
He paused again. My case was hopeless so far as he was concerned—that was clear. I would close the interview with a bit of pleasantry.
“Ah, yes,” I suggested, “such as the ‘hunting of the snark,’ for instance. Well, perhaps I shall find the snark at the South Pole, when I get there, who knows?”
The human seal lifted one flipper and scratched his head for a moment gravely. Then he said with great severity: