never left his post of observation. At the eye-piece of the huge
instrument he devoted himself to the task of following his friends as
they journeyed in their strange carriage through space.
It might be thought that the bold voyagers were for ever lost to earth.
The projectile, drawn into a new orbit by the Moon, might gravitate
eternally round the Queen of the Night as a sort of sub-satellite. But
no! A deviation, which by many was called providential, had modified the
projectile’s direction, and, after making the circle of the Moon,
brought it back from that spheroid at a speed of 172,800 miles an hour
at the moment it plunged into the ocean.
Luckily the liquid mass of the Pacific had broken the fall, which had
been perceived by the U.S. frigate -Susquehanna-. As soon as the news
had reached J. T. Maston, he had set out in all haste from the
observatory at Long’s Peak to the rescue of his friends. Soundings were
taken in the vicinity of where the shell had been seen to fall, and the
devoted Maston had not hesitated to go down in diver’s dress to find his
friends. But such trouble was unnecessary. The projectile being of
aluminium, displacing an amount of water greater than its own weight,
had returned to the surface of the Pacific after a magnificent plunge.
And President Barbicane, Captain Nicholl, and Michel Ardan were found in
their floating prison playing dominoes.
The part that Maston took in these extraordinary proceedings had brought
him prominently to the front. He was not handsome, with his artificial
cranium and his mechanical arm with its hook for a hand. He was not
young, for fifty-eight years had chimed and struck at the date of our
story’s beginning. But the originality of his character, the vivacity of
his intelligence, the fire in his eye, the impetuosity with which he had
attacked everything, had made him the beau-ideal of a man in the eyes of
Evangelina Scorbitt. His brain, carefully protected beneath its
gutta-percha roof was intact, and justly bore the reputation of being
one of the most remarkable of the day.
Mrs. Scorbitt--though the least calculation gave her a headache--had a
taste for mathematicians if she had not one for mathematics. She looked
upon them as upon beings of a peculiar and superior species. Heads where
-x-’s knocked against -x-’s like nuts in a bag, brains which rejoiced in
algebraic formulæ, hands which threw about triple integrals as an
equilibrist plays with glasses and bottles, intelligences which
understood this sort of thing:
∫∫∫Φ(-xyz-) -dx dy dz-
--these were the wise men who appeared worthy of all the admiration of a
woman, attracted to them proportionally to their mass and in inverse
ratio to the square of their distances. And J. T. Maston was bulky
enough to exercise on her an irresistible attraction, and as to the
distance between them it would be simply zero, if she succeeded in her
plans.
It must be confessed that this gave some anxiety to the secretary of the
Gun Club, who had never sought happiness in such close approximations.
Besides, Evangelina Scorbitt was no longer in her first youth; but she
was not a bad sort of person by any means, and she would have wanted for
nothing could she only see the day when she was introduced to the
drawing-rooms of Baltimore as Mrs. J. T. Maston.
The widow’s fortune was considerable. Not that she was as rich as Gould,
Mackay, Vanderbilt, or Gordon Bennett, whose fortunes exceed millions,
and who could give alms to a Rothschild. Not that she possessed the
millions of Mrs. Moses Carper, Mrs. Stewart, or Mrs. Crocker; nor was
she as rich as Mrs. Hammersley, Mrs. Helby Green, Mrs. Maffitt, Mrs.
Marshall, Mrs. Para Stevens, Mrs. Mintbury, and a few others. But she
was the possessor of four good millions of dollars, which had come to
her from John P. Scorbitt, who had made a fortune by trade in
fashionable sundries and salt pork. And this fortune the generous widow
would have been happy to employ for the advantage of J. T. Maston, to
whom she would bring a treasure of tenderness yet more inexhaustible.
At Maston’s request, she had cheerfully consented to put several
hundreds of thousands of dollars at the disposal of the North Polar
Practical Association, without even knowing what it was all about. With
J. T. Maston concerned in it she felt assured that the work could not
but be grandiose, sublime, super-excellent. The past of the Gun Club’s
secretary was voucher enough for the future.
It may be guessed, therefore, if she lost confidence when the
auctioneer’s hammer knocked down the North Pole to Barbicane & Co. While
J. T. Maston formed part of the “Co.” could she do otherwise than
applaud?
And thus it happened that Evangelina Scorbitt found herself chief
proprietor of the Arctic regions within the eighty-fourth parallel. But
what would she do with them? Or rather, how was the company going to get
any benefit out of their inaccessible domain?
That was the question! And if in a pecuniary sense it had much interest
for Mrs. Scorbitt, from a curiosity point of view it had quite as much
interest for the world at large.
The trusting widow had asked a few questions of Maston before she
advanced the funds. But Maston invariably maintained the closest
reserve. Mrs. Scorbitt, he remarked, would know soon enough, but not
before the hour had come, for she would be astonished at the object of
the new association.
Doubtless he was thinking of some undertaking which to quote Jean
Jacques, “never had an example, and never will have imitators,” of
something destined to leave far behind the attempt made by the Gun Club
to open up communication with the Moon.
When Evangelina grew somewhat pressing in her inquiries, J. T. Maston
had placed his hook on his half-closed lips, and remarked soothingly,--
“Have confidence, Mrs. Scorbitt; have confidence!”
And if Mrs. Scorbitt had confidence before the sale, what immense joy
she must have experienced at the result!
Still she could not help asking the eminent mathematician, what he was
going to do next. And though she smiled on him bewitchingly, the eminent
mathematician only replied, as he cordially shook her hand,--
“You will know very soon!”
That shake of the hand immediately calmed the impatience of Mrs.
Scorbitt. And a few days later there was another shake, for the old and
new worlds were considerably shaken--to say nothing of the shake that was
coming--when they learnt the project for which the North Polar Practical
Association appealed to the public for subscriptions.
The company announced that it had “acquired” the territory for the
purpose of working--“the Coal Fields at the North Pole”!
CHAPTER V.
THE POLAR COAL-FIELD.
“But are there any coal-fields at the Pole?” Such was the first question
that presented itself.
“Why should there be coal at the Pole?” said some.
“Why should there not be?” said others.
Coal-beds are found in many parts of the world. There is coal in Europe;
there is coal in America; and in Africa; and in Asia; and in Oceania. As
the globe is more and more explored, beds of fossil fuel are revealed in
strata of all ages. There is true coal in the primary rocks, and there
is lignite in the secondaries and tertiaries.
England alone produces a hundred and sixty millions of tons a year; the
world consumes four hundred million tons, and with the requirements of
industry there is no decrease but an increase in the consumption. The
substitution of electricity for steam as a motive power means the
expenditure of coal just the same. The industrial stomach cannot live
without coal: industry is a carbonivorous animal, and must have its
proper food.
Carbon is something else than a combustible. It is the telluric
substance from which science draws the major part of the products and
sub-products used in the arts. With the transformations to which it is
subject in the crucibles of the laboratory you can dye, sweeten,
perfume, vaporize, purify, heat, light, and you can produce the diamond.
But the coal-beds from which our carbon at present chiefly comes are not
inexhaustible. And the well-informed people who are in fear for the
future are looking about for new supplies wherever there is a
probability of their existence.
“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.
“Nordenskiold,” said Donellan, “when he explored Greenland, found among
the sandstones and schists intercalations of lignite with many forest
plants. Even in the Disko district, Steenstrup discovered eleven
localities with abundant vestiges of the luxuriant vegetation which
formerly encircled the Pole.”
“But higher up?” asked Todrin.
“Higher up, or farther up to the northward,” said the Major, “the
presence of coal is extremely probable, and it only has to be looked
for. And if there is coal on the surface, is it not reasonable to
suppose that there is coal underneath?”
The Major was right. He was thoroughly posted up in all that concerned
the geology of the Arctic regions, and he would have held on for some
time if he had not noticed that the people in the “Two Friends” were
listening to him.
“Are you not surprised at one thing, Major?”
“What is that?”
“That in this affair, in which you would expect to meet with engineers
and navigators, you have only to deal with artillerists. What have they
to do with the coal-mines of the North Pole?”
“That is rather surprising,” said the Major.
And every morning the newspapers returned to this matter of the
coal-mines.
“Coal-beds!” said one, “what coal-beds?”
“What coal-beds?” replied another; “why, those that Nares found in 1875
and 1876 on the eighty-second parallel, when his people found the
miocene flora rich in poplars, beeches, viburnums, hazels, and
conifers.”
“And in 1881–1884,” added the scientific chronicler of the -New York
Witness-, “during the Greely expedition to Lady Franklin Bay, a bed of
coal was discovered by our men at Watercourse Creek, close to Fort
Conger. Did not Dr. Pavy rightly consider that these carboniferous
deposits were apparently destined to be used some day for contending
with the cold of that desolate region?”
When these facts were brought forward, it will be easily understood that
Impey Barbicane’s adversaries were hard up for a reply. The partisans of
the “Why should there be coal?” had to lower their flag to the partisans
of “Why should there not be?” Yes, there was coal! And probably a
considerable amount of it. The circumpolar area contained large deposits
of the precious combustible on the site of the formerly luxuriant
vegetation.
But if the ground were cut from under their feet regarding the existence
of the coal, the detractors took their revenge in attacking the question
from another point.
“Be it so!” said the Major one day in the rooms of the Gun Club itself,
when he discussed the matter with Barbicane. “Be it so! I admit there is
coal there; I am convinced there is coal there. But work it!”
“That we are going to do,” said Barbicane tranquilly.
“Get within the eighty-fourth parallel, beyond which no explorer has yet
gone!”
“We will get beyond it!”
“Go to the Pole itself!”
“We are going there!”
And in listening to the president of the Gun Club making these cool
answers, talking with such assurance, expressing his opinion so
haughtily and unmistakably, the most obstinate began to hesitate. They
felt they were in the presence of a man who had lost nothing of his
former qualities; calm, cool, with a mind eminently serious and
concentrated, exact as a chronometer, adventurous, and bringing the most
practical ideas to bear on the most daring undertakings. Solid, morally
and physically, he was “deep in the water,” to employ a metaphor of
Napoleon’s, and could hold his own against wind or tide. His enemies and
rivals knew that only too well.
He had stated that he would reach the North Pole! He would set foot
where no human foot had been set before! He would hoist the Stars and
Stripes on one of the two spots of earth which remained immovable while
all the rest spun round in diurnal rotation!
Here was a chance for the caricaturists! In the windows of the shops and
kiosks of the great cities of Europe and America there appeared
thousands of sketches and prints displaying Impey Barbicane seeking the
most extravagant means of attaining his object.
Here the daring American, assisted by all the members of the Gun Club,
pickaxe in hand, was driving a submarine tunnel through masses of ice,
which was to emerge at the very point of the axis.
Here Barbicane, accompanied by J. T. Maston--a very good portrait--and
Captain Nicholl, descended in a balloon on the point in question, and,
after unheard-of dangers, succeeded in capturing a lump of coal weighing
half a pound, which was all the circumpolar deposit contained.
Here J. T. Maston, who was as popular as Barbicane with the
caricaturists, had been seized by the magnetic attraction of the Pole,
and was fast held to the ground by his metal hook.
And it may be remarked here that the celebrated calculator was of too
touchy a temperament to laugh at any jest at his personal peculiarities.
He was very much annoyed at it, and it will be easily imagined that Mrs.
Scorbitt was not the last to share in his just indignation.
Another sketch, in the Brussels -Magic Lantern-, represented Impey
Barbicane and his co-directors working in the midst of flames, like so
many incombustible salamanders. To melt the ice of the Palæocrystic Sea,
they had poured out over it a sea of alcohol, and then lighted the
spirit, so as to convert the polar basin into a bowl of punch. And,
playing on the word punch, the Belgian designer had had the irreverence
to represent the president of the Gun Club as a ridiculous punchinello.
But of all the caricatures, that which obtained the most success was
published by the Parisian -Charivari- under the signature of “Stop.” In
the stomach of a whale, comfortably furnished and padded, Impey
Barbicane and J. T. Maston sat smoking and playing chess, waiting their
arrival at their destination. The new Jonahs had not hesitated to avail
themselves of an enormous marine mammifer, and by this new mode of
locomotion had passed under the ice-floes to reach the inaccessible
Pole.
The phlegmatic president was not in the least incommoded by this
intemperance of pen and pencil. He let the world talk, and sing, and
parody, and caricature; and he quietly went on with his work.
As soon as he had obtained the concession, he had issued an appeal to
the public for the subscription of fifteen millions of dollars in
hundred-dollar shares. Such was the credit of Barbicane & Co., that
applications flowed in wholesale. But it is as well to say that nearly
all the applications came from the United States.
“So much the better!” said the supporters of the North Polar Practical
Association. “The work will be entirely American.”
The prospectus was so plausible, the speculators believed so tenaciously
in the realization of its promises, and admitted so imperturbably the
existence of the Polar coal-mines, that the capital was subscribed three
times over.
Two-thirds of the applications were declined with regret, and on the
16th of December the capital of fifteen millions of dollars was fully
paid up. It was about thrice as much as the amount subscribed for the
Gun Club when they made their great experiment of sending a projectile
from the Earth to the Moon.
CHAPTER VI.
A TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION.
Not only had Barbicane announced that he would attain his object--and now
the capital at his command enabled him to reach it without hindrance--but
he would certainly not have appealed for funds if he was not certain of
success.
The North Pole was at last to be conquered by the audacious genius of
man!
Barbicane and his co-directors had the means of succeeding where so many
others had failed. They would do what had not been done by Franklin,
Kane, Nares, or Greely. They would advance beyond the eighty-fourth
parallel. They would take possession of the vast portion of the globe
that had fallen to them under the hammer. They would add to the American
flag the forty-third star for the forty-third state annexed to the
American Confederation.
“Rubbish!” said the European delegates.
And the means of conquering the Pole--means that were practical, logical,
indisputable, and of a simplicity quite infantine--were the suggestion of
J. T. Maston. It was in his brain, where ideas were cooked in cerebral
matter in a state of constant ebullition, that there had been conceived
this great geographical work, and the means devised of bringing it to a
successful issue.
The secretary of the Gun Club was a remarkable calculator. The solution
of the most complicated problems of mathematical science was but sport
to him. He laughed at difficulties, whether in the science of
magnitudes, that is algebra, or in the science of numbers, that is
arithmetic; and it was a treat to see him handle the symbols, the
conventional signs which form the algebraic notation, whether letters of
the alphabet, representing quantities or magnitudes, or lines coupled or
crossed, which indicate the relation between the quantities and the
operations to which they are submitted.
Ah! The co-efficients, the exponents, the radicals, the indices, and the
other arrangements adopted in that language! How the signs leapt from
his pen, or rather from the piece of chalk which wriggled at the end of
his metal hook, for he preferred to work on a blackboard. There, on a
surface of ten square yards--for nothing less would do for J. T.
Maston--he revelled in all the ardour of his algebraical temperament.
They were no miserable little figures that he employed in his
calculations. No; the figures were fantastic, gigantic, traced with a
furious hand. His 2’s and 3’s waltzed like shavings in a whirlwind; his
7’s were like gibbets, and only wanted a corpse to complete them; his
8’s were like spectacles; and his 6’s and 9’s had flourishes
interminable!
And the letters with which he built up his formulæ! The -a-’s and -b-’s
and -c-’s he used for his quantities given or known; and the -x-’s,
-y-’s, and -z-’s he used for the quantities sought or unknown, and
especially his -z-’s, which twisted in zigzags like lightning flashes!
And what turns and twiggles there were in his π’s, his λ’s, his ω’s!
Even a Euclid or an Archimedes would have been proud of them!
And as to his signs, in pure unblurred chalk, they were simply
marvellous. His + showed the addition was unmistakable. His -, though
humbler, was quite a work of art. His × was as clear as a St. Andrew’s
cross. And as to his =, so rigorously equal were they, as to indicate
without a chance of mistake, that J. T. Maston lived in a country where
equality was no vain formula. His <, his >, and his ≷ were really grand!
And as to his √, the root of a quantity or of a number, it was really a
triumph, and when he completed the horizontal bar in this style
√‾‾‾‾‾‾
it seemed as if the indicatory vinculum would shoot clean off the
blackboard and menace the world with inclusion within the maniacal
equation.
But do not suppose that the mathematical intelligence of J. T. Maston
was bounded by the horizon of elementary algebra. No! The differential
calculus, the integral calculus, the calculus of variations were no
strangers to him, and with unshaking hand he dashed down the famous sign
of integration, the shape so terrible in its simplicity, the
-f-
that speaks of an infinity of elements of the infinitely little.
And like it was his Σ which represents the sum of a finite number of
finite elements; like it was his ∝ with which mathematicians indicate
the variant; like it were all the mysterious symbols employed in this
language so unintelligible to ordinary mortals. In short, this
astonishing man was capable of mounting the mathematical ladder to the
very topmost rung.
Such was J. T. Maston. No wonder his colleagues had every confidence in
him when he undertook to solve the wildest abracadabrant calculations
that occurred to their audacious brains! No wonder that the Gun Club had
confided to him the problem regarding the hurling of the projectile from
the Earth to the Moon! No wonder that Evangelina Scorbitt was
intoxicated with his glory, and had conceived for him an admiration
which perilously bordered on love!
But in the case under consideration, the solution of the problem
regarding the conquest of the North Pole, J. T. Maston had no flight to
take in the sublime regions of analysis. To allow the concessionaries of
the Arctic regions to make use of their new possessions, the secretary
of the Gun Club had but a simple problem in mechanics to occupy his
mind. It was a complicated problem, no doubt, requiring ingenious and
possibly novel formulæ, but it could be done.
Yes! They could trust J. T. Maston, although the slightest slip might
entail the loss of millions! But never since his baby head had toyed
with the first notions of arithmetic had he made a mistake, never had he
been the millionth of an inch out in a matter of measurement, and if he
had made an error in the last of twenty places of decimals his
gutta-percha cranium would have burst its fixings.
It was important to insist on the remarkable mathematical powers of J.
T. Maston. We have done so! Now we have to show him at work, and to do
that we must go back a few weeks.
About a month before the famous advertisement, J. T. Maston had been
requested to work out the elements of the project of which he had
suggested to his colleagues the marvellous consequences.
For many years he had lived at No. 179, Franklin Street, one of the
quietest streets in Baltimore, far from the business quarter, for in
commerce he took no interest; far from the noise of the crowd, for the
mob he abhorred.
There he occupied a modest habitation known as Ballistic Cottage, living
on the pension he drew as an old artillery officer, and on the salary
paid him as the Gun Club secretary. He lived alone with one servant,
Fire-Fire, a name worthy of an artilleryman’s valet. This negro was a
servant of the first-water, and he served his master as faithfully as he
would have served a gun.
J. T. Maston was a confirmed bachelor, being of opinion that
bachelorhood is the only state worth caring about in this sublunary
sphere. He knew the Sclav proverb, that a woman draws more with one hair
than four oxen in a plough; and he was on his guard.
If he was alone at Ballistic Cottage, it was because he wished to be
alone. He had only to nod to change his solitude of one into a solitude
of two, and help himself to half the fortune of a millionaire. There was
no doubt of it. Mrs. Scorbitt would only have been too happy; but J. T.
Maston was not going to be too happy; and it seemed that these two
people so admirably adapted for each other--in the widow’s opinion--would
never understand each other.
The cottage was a very quiet one. There was a groundfloor and a
first-floor. The ground floor had its verandah, its reception-room and
dining-room, and the kitchen in a small annexe in the garden. Above them
was a bedroom in front, and a workroom facing the garden away from the
noise, a -buen retiro- of the savant and the sage within whose walls
were solved calculations that would have raised the envy of a Newton or
a Laplace.
Different, indeed, was the home of Mrs. Scorbitt, in the fashionable
quarter of New Park, with the balconies on its front covered with the
fantastic sculpture of American architecture, Gothic and Renascence
jumbled together; its enormous hall, its picture galleries, its double
twisted staircase, its numerous domestics, its stables, its
coach-houses, its gardens, its lawns, its trees, its fountains, and the
tower which dominated its battlements from the summit of which fluttered
in the breeze the blue and gold banner of the Scorbitts.
Three miles divided New Park from Ballistic Cottage. But a
telephone-wire united the two habitations, and at the ringing of the
call between the mansion and the cottage conversation could be instantly
established. If the talkers could not see each other, they could hear
each other; and no one will be surprised to learn that Evangelina
Scorbitt called J. T. Maston much oftener before his telephonic plate
than J. T. Maston called Evangelina Scorbitt before hers. The
mathematician would leave his work, not without some disgust, to receive
a friendly “good morning,” and he would reply by a growl along the wire,
which he hoped would soften as it went, and then he would return to his
problems.
It was on the 3rd of October, after a last and long conference, that J.
T. Maston took leave of his colleagues to devote himself to his task. It
was the most important investigation he had undertaken. He had to
calculate the mechanical formulæ required for the advance on the Pole,
and the economical working of the coal-beds thereof. He estimated that
it would take him rather more than a week to accomplish this mysterious
task. It was a complicated and delicate inquiry, necessitating the
resolution of a large number of equations dealing with mechanics,
analytical geometry of the three dimensions, and spherical trigonometry.
To be free from trouble, it had been arranged that the secretary of the
Gun Club should retire to his cottage, and be visited and disturbed by
no one. This was a great trial for Mrs. Scorbitt, but she had to resign
herself to it. She and President Barbicane, Captain Nicholl, the brisk
Bilsby, Colonel Bloomsberry, and Tom Hunter with his wooden legs, had
called on Maston in the afternoon to bid him farewell for a time.
“You will succeed, dear Maston,” she said, as she rose to go.
“But be sure you don’t make a mistake,” said Barbicane, with a smile.
“A mistake! He!” exclaimed Mrs. Scorbitt, with horror at the thought.
With a grip of the hand from some, a sigh from one, wishes for success,
and recommendations not to overwork himself from others, the
mathematician saw his friends depart. The door of Ballistic Cottage was
shut, and Fire-Fire received orders to open it to no one--not even to the
President of the United States of America.
For the first two days of his seclusion J. T. Maston thought over the
problem without touching the chalk. He read over certain works relative
to the elements, the earth, its mass, its density, its volume, its form,
its rotation on its axis, and translation round its orbit--elements which
were to form the bases of his calculations.
These are the principal, which it is as well the reader should have
before him:--
Form of the Earth: an ellipsoid of revolution, with a major diameter of
7926·6 miles, and a minor diameter of 7899·6 miles. The difference
between the two, owing to the flattening of the spheroid at the Poles
being 27 miles, or one two-hundred-and-ninety-third of its mean
diameter.
Circumference of the Earth at the Equator: 24,899 miles, the meridional
circumference being 24,856 miles.
Surface of the Earth: 197,000,000 square miles.
Volume of the Earth: 260,000,000,000 cubic miles.
Density of the Earth: five and a half times that of water, the mass
being approximately 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
Duration of the Earth’s journey round the Sun: 365 days and a quarter,
constituting the solar year, or more exactly 365 days, 6 hours, 9
minutes, thus giving the spheroid an average velocity of 66,000 miles an
hour.
Rate of the Earth’s rotation at the Equator: 1037·4583 miles per hour.
The following were the units of length, force, time, and inclination
which J. T. Maston required for his calculations; the mile, the ton, the
second, and the angle at the centre which cuts off in any circle an arc
equal to the radius.
It was on the 5th of October, at five o’clock in the afternoon--it is
important to know the precise time in a work of such celebrity--that J.
T. Maston, after much reflecting, began to write. And, to begin with, he
attacked the problem at its base--that is, by the number representing the
circumference of the Earth, and one of its great circles, viz. the
Equator.
The blackboard was placed in an angle of the room on an easel of
polished oak, well in the light of one of the windows which opened on to
the garden. Little sticks of chalk were placed on the shelf at the
bottom of the board. A sponge to wipe out with was in the calculator’s
left hand. His right hand, or rather his hook, was reserved for writing
down the figures of his working.
He began by describing the circumference of the terrestrial spheroid. At
the Equator the curve of the globe was marked by a plain line
representing the front part of the curve, and by a dotted line
representing the back half of the curve. The axis was a perpendicular
line cutting the Equator, and marked N.S.
On the left-hand top corner of the board he wrote the number that used
to represent the earth’s circumference in metrical measurement--
40,000,000.
He knew that this was an assumption admitted to be erroneous, but it
afforded a good round integer to begin with, and the subsequent
rectification of his calculations by the inclusion of the missing meters
was but child’s-play to so transcendental a mathematician as J. T.
Maston.
He was so pre-occupied that he had not noticed the state of the
sky--which had changed considerably during the afternoon. For the last
hour one of those great storms had been gathering which affect the
organizations of all living things. Livid clouds like whitish wool
flocks had accumulated on the grey expanse and hung heavily over the
city. The roll of distant thunder was heard. One or two flashes had
already rent the atmosphere where the electric tension was at its
highest.
J. T. Maston, more and more absorbed, saw nothing, heard nothing.
Suddenly an electric bell troubled the silence of the room with its
hurried tinkling.
“Good!” exclaimed the mathematician. “If interrupters can’t get in by
the door, they come through the wire! A fine invention for people who
wish to be left alone! I’ll see if I can’t turn that current off while I
am at work!”
And stepping up to the telephone, he asked,--
“Who wants me?”
“I want a moment’s talk with you,” said a feminine voice.
“And who is speaking?”
“Have you not recognized my voice, dear Mr. Maston? It is Mrs.
Scorbitt.”
“Mrs. Scorbitt! She will not leave me a moment’s peace.”
But the last words were prudently muttered above the instrument, so that
the widow heard them not. And J. T. Maston, seeing that he must say
something civil, replied,--
“Ah! It is you, Mrs. Scorbitt?”
[Illustration:
The blackboard he struck with his back.
Page 57.
]
“I, dear Mr. Maston!”
“And what does Mrs. Scorbitt want with me?”
“To tell you that there is a storm coming your way.”
“Well, I cannot stop it--”
“No, but I wanted to ask if you had taken care to shut your window--”
Mrs. Scorbitt had hardly ended before a tremendous clap of thunder
filled the air. It seemed as though a vast sheet of silk had been torn
apart for an infinity of length. The lightning had flashed down over
Ballistic Cottage, and, conducted by the telephone-wire, had invaded the
mathematician’s room with a brutality quite electric.
J. T. Maston, bending over the mouthpiece of the instrument, received
the hardest voltaic knock that had ever found the mouth of a
philosopher. The flash had run along his metal hook, and spun him round
like a teetotum. The blackboard he struck with his back was hurled down
in the corner. And the lightning disappeared out of window.
Stunned for a moment--and it was a wonder it was no worse--J. T. Maston
slowly rose, and rubbed the different parts of his body to make sure he
was not hurt.
Then, having lost none of his coolness, as beseemed the ancient pointer
of the Columbiad, he put his room in order, picked up his easel, hoisted
up his blackboard, gathered up the fragments of chalk scattered on the
carpet, and resumed his work, which had been so rudely interrupted.
But he noticed that by the fall of the blackboard the figures he had
written on the right-hand top corner, which represented in meters the
approximate equatorial circumference of the earth, had been partially
erased. He stretched his hook up to re-write them when the bell sounded
with a feverish tinkle.
“Again!” exclaimed J. T. Maston. And he went to the telephone.
“Who is there?” he asked.
“Mrs. Scorbitt.”
“And what does Mrs. Scorbitt want?”
“Did that horrible flash of lightning strike Ballistic Cottage?”
“I have every reason to believe so.”
“Good Heavens! The lightning--”
“Do not be uneasy, Mrs. Scorbitt.”
“You are not hurt, dear Mr. Maston?”
“Not at all.”
“You are sure you have not been touched?”
“I am only touched by your thoughtfulness for me,” said the philosopher
gallantly.
“Good evening, dear Mr. Maston.”
“Good evening, dear Mrs. Scorbitt.”
And he returned to his blackboard.
“Confound that excellent woman,” he said; “if she hadn’t called me to
the telephone I should not have run the chance of being struck by
lightning.”
And to insure being left in quiet, he judiciously put the telephone out
of action.
Then he resumed his work. From the number on the board he gradually
built up a definitive formula, and then noting it on the left, he
cleared away the working by which he had arrived at it, and launched
forth into an appalling series of figures and signs.
Eight days later the wonderful calculation was finished, and the
secretary of the Gun Club triumphantly bore off to his colleagues the
solution of the problem which they had awaited with a very natural
impatience.
The practical means of arriving at the North Pole to work its coal-mines
were mathematically established. Then the company was formed under the
title of The North Polar Practical Association. Then the Arctic regions
were purchased under the auctioneer’s hammer. And then the shares were
offered to the world.
CHAPTER VII.
BARBICANE MAKES A SPEECH.
On the 22nd of December a general meeting was called of the shareholders
of the North Polar Practical Association, to take place at the rooms of
the Gun Club in Union Square. And the square itself was hardly large
enough to hold the crowd.
Usually the large hall of the club was decorated with weapons of all
sorts appropriate to the noble profession of its members. It was quite
an artillery museum. Even the furniture itself, the chairs and tables,
and couches, was of the pattern of the murderous engines which had sent
to a better world so many worthy people whose secret desire had been to
die of old age.
On this occasion the furniture had been removed. This was not a warlike
assembly; it was an industrial and pacific assembly over which Barbicane
was to preside. The hall was full to suffocation, and the crowd of those
who could not get in stretched half across Union Square.
The members of the Gun Club who had held the first shares in the company
had secured places round the platform. Amongst them, even more
triumphant than usual, were Colonel Bloomsberry, Tom Hunter with the
wooden legs, and the brisk Bilsby. A comfortable armchair had been
reserved for Mrs. Scorbitt, as was only right, considering that she was
the chief proprietor of the Polar freehold; and there were a number of
other lady shareholders belonging to all classes of the city, whose
bright bonnets, and hats, and feathers, and ribbons, were a welcome
relief to the black coats of the noisy men that crowded under the glazed
cupola of the hall.
The immense majority of shareholders were not so much supporters as
personal friends of the directors. But among the crowd were the
representatives of the rival companies who had bid against Forster at
the auction sale, and who now had taken shares in order to be qualified
to vote and make mischief at the meetings. It can be easily imagined
with what intense curiosity they awaited Barbicane’s address, which
would probably throw some light on the way in which the North Pole was
to be reached. Perhaps there was a difficulty there even greater than
working the mines? If any objections could be made we may be sure that
Baldenak, Karkof, Jansen, and Harald were quite equal to making them.
And the Major and his invaluable Todrin would lose no chance of driving
Barbicane behind his last entrenchments.
It was eight o’clock. The hall, the side rooms, and the corridors of the
Gun Club glowed with Edison lamps. Ever since the doors had been opened
to the public there had been an incessant uproar, but as soon as the
directors appeared all was silent.
At a table covered with a black cloth, on the platform, Barbicane,
Nicholl, and J. T. Maston took up their positions in the fullest glare
of the light. As they did so three cheers, punctuated by the needful
“hips,” broke forth, and were echoed in the adjacent streets. Solemnly
J. T. Maston and Captain Nicholl sat down in all the plenitude of their
celebrity. Then Barbicane, who had remained standing, put his right hand
in his trouser pocket, his left thumb in his waistcoat pocket, and began
to speak as follows:--
“Fellow-shareholders,--The directorate of the North Polar Practical
Association have called this meeting in the rooms of the Gun Club, as
they have something of importance to communicate to you.
“You have learnt from the newspapers that the object of our company is
the opening up of the coal-fields of the North Pole, the concession of
which we have obtained. The estate acquired in public auction is the
property of the company, and the capital, which was all subscribed by
the 11th of December last, enables us to enter at once on an enterprise
which will produce a rate of interest unknown up to now in any
commercial or industrial operation whatever.”
Here the first murmur of approval for a moment interrupted the orator.
“You are aware of how we came to discover that there were rich beds of
coal, and also possibly of fossil ivory, in the circumpolar regions. The
statements in the public press leave no doubt as to the existence of
these coal strata.
“Now coal has become the source of all modern industry. To say nothing
of the fuel used for heating purposes, or of its employment for the
production of steam and electricity, I may direct your attention to its
derivatives, the aniline colours, the perfumes, the picrates, salicylic
acid, naphtol, phenol, antipyrin, benzin, naphthalin, pyrogallic acid,
tannin, saccharin, tar, asphalt, pitch, lubricating oils, varnish,
yellow prussiate of potass, cyanide, bitters, &c., &c.”
And after this enumeration, which had been given with great rapidity,
the orator paused like an exhausted runner to take a long breath. Then
he continued,--
“It is indubitable that coal will in time be exhausted. Before five
hundred years the mines in operation to-day--”
“Three hundred!” shouted one of the crowd.
“Two hundred!” roared another.
“Let us say a delay more or less restricted,” said Barbicane, “and put
ourselves in a position to see what new coal-fields then remain,
supposing that the present fields are exhausted at the close of this
century.”
Here he paused to enable his audience to concentrate their attention.
Then he continued,--
“Now, fellow-shareholders, follow me, and let us start for the North
Pole.”
And the audience rose as if to pack their baggage ready for shipboard.
An observation from Major Donellan put a sudden stop to this movement of
enthusiasm.
“Before you start,” said he, “will you kindly inform the meeting how you
intend going? Are you going by sea?”
“Neither by sea, nor by land, nor by air!” said Barbicane sweetly.
And the assembly sat down, a prey to very pardonable curiosity.
“You are not without some knowledge,” continued the orator, “of the
attempts that have been made to reach that inaccessible point of the
terrestrial spheroid. It is better, however, that I should remind you of
a few of them. It will be to render due honour to the bold pioneers who
have survived and those who have succumbed in these expeditions.”
Unanimous approval from the entire audience irrespective of nationality.
“In 1845,” resumed Barbicane, “Sir John Franklin with the -Erebus- and
-Terror- set out to find the North-West Passage, and nothing more was
heard of him.
“In 1854 the American, Kane, and his lieutenant, Morton, went in search
of Franklin. They returned, but their ship, the -Advance- did not
return.
“In 1859 Sir Leopold MacClintock discovered a document from which it
appeared that no survivor remained of the -Erebus- and -Terror-
expedition.
“In 1860 Hayes left Boston in the schooner -United States-, crossed the
eighty-first parallel, and returned in 1862 without being able to
advance farther, notwithstanding the heroic efforts of his companions.
“In 1869 Captains Koldewey and Hegeman, both Germans, left Bremerhaven
in the -Hansa- and -Germania-. The -Hansa- was crushed in the ice a
little below the seventy-first parallel, and the crew had to take to
their boats to reach the coast of Greenland. The -Germania- was more
fortunate, and returned to Bremerhaven, but she had not been able to get
higher than the seventy-seventh parallel.
“In 1871 Captain Hall left New York in the steamer -Polaris-. Four
months afterwards, during the terrible winter, he died. A year later the
-Polaris-, caught in the floes after reaching the eighty-second
parallel, was crushed by the ice. Eighteen of her men, under Lieutenant
Tyson, took refuge on an ice-floe and reached the continent after long
drifting about in the Arctic Ocean.
“In 1875 Sir George Nares left Portsmouth with the -Alert- and
-Discovery-. It was in his memorable Arctic campaign that winter
quarters were established between the eighty-second and eighty-third
parallels, and that Captain Markham, in a dash to the northward, stopped
within four hundred miles of the Pole, no one up to then having been so
near.
“In 1879 our great citizen, Gordon Bennett--”
Here there were three cheers given for the proprietor of the -New York
Herald-.
--“Fitted out the -Jeannette-, which he confided to Captain De Long. The
-Jeannette- left San Francisco with thirty-three men, passed through
Behring Straits, was caught by the ice at Herald Island, and sank at
Bennett Island, near the seventy-seventh parallel. The men had only one
resource; to make southwards with the boats or journey over the
ice-fields. Misery decimated them. De Long died in October. Many others
succumbed, and twelve only returned from the expedition.
“In 1881 Lieutenant Greely left St. John’s, Newfoundland, in the steamer
-Proteus-, to establish a station on Lady Franklin Bay, a little below
the eighty-second degree. There he founded Fort Conger, whence he sent
out expeditions west and north, one of which, under Lieutenant Lockwood
and his companion, Brainard, in May, 1882, claims to have reached 83°
35′, being fifteen miles nearer than Markham’s furthest. That is the
nearest yet obtained. It is the Ultima Thule of circumpolar
cartography.”
Here there were loud cheers in honour of the American discoverers.
“But,” said Barbicane, “the expedition ended in disaster. The -Proteus-
sank. Eighty-four men were left in frightful misery. Doctor Pavy died.
Greely was discovered by the -Thetis- in 1883 with only six companions,
and one of these was Lieutenant Lockwood, who soon succumbed, adding
another name to the sorrowful martyrology of Arctic exploration.”
There was a respectful silence while Barbicane paused.
Then in a thrilling voice he resumed,--
“And so, in spite of devotion and courage unparalleled, the
eighty-fourth degree has never been passed. And we may even assert that
it never will be by means of ships or sledges. It is not given to man to
face such dangers and support such extremes of temperature. It is by
other means we must advance to the conquest of the Pole!”
From the subdued murmur of the audience it was evident that therein lay
the interest of the communication. What was this secret?
“And how are you going to capture it?” asked the Canadian.
“Before ten minutes are up you will know, sir,” replied Barbicane, “and
in addressing the shareholders generally I say, Have confidence in us,
for the promoters of the affair are the same men who embarked in the
cylindro-conical--”
“The cylindro-conical,” interrupted Todrin--
“Dared to venture to the moon.”
“And have come back as we see!” added Todrin, not without signs of
disapproval.
“Yes,” continued Barbicane, “within the next ten minutes you will know
what we propose.”
A murmur of “Oh!” and “Eh!” and “Ah!” rose in answer to the reply.
It seemed as though the orator had said, “Within the ten minutes we
shall be at the Pole!”
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