“But why should there be coal at the Pole?”
“Why?” replied the supporters of President Barbicane. “Because in the carboniferous period, according to a well-known theory, the volume of the Sun was such that the difference in temperature between the Equator and the Poles was inappreciable. Immense forests covered the northern regions long before the appearance of man, when our planet was subject to the prolonged influence of heat and humidity.”
And this the journals, reviews, and magazines that supported the North Polar Practical Association insisted on in a thousand articles, popular and scientific. If these forests existed, what more reasonable to suppose than that the weather, the water, and the warmth had converted them into coal-beds?
But in addition to this there were certain facts which were undeniable. And these were important enough to suggest that a search might be made for the mineral in the regions indicated.
So thought Donellan and Todrin as they sat together in a corner of the “Two Friends.”
“Well,” said Todrin, “can Barbicane be right?”
“It is very likely,” said the Major.
“But then there are fortunes to be made in opening up the Polar regions!”
“Assuredly,” said the Major. “North America has immense deposits of coal; new discoveries are often being announced, and there are doubtless more to follow. The Arctic regions seem to be a part of the American continent geologically. They are similar in formation and physiography. Greenland is a prolongation of the new world, and certainly Greenland belongs to America—”
“As the horse’s head, which it looks like, belongs to the animal’s body,” said Todrin.