A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future

by John Jacob Astor

  CHAPTER XIII.

  NORTH-POLAR DISCOVERIES.

  Two days later, on the western horizon, they beheld the ocean.Many of the streams whose sources they had seen when they crossedthe divide from the lake basin, and whose courses they hadfollowed, were now rivers a mile wide, with the tide ebbing andrising within them many hundreds of miles from their mouths.When they reached the shore line they found the waves breaking,as on earth, upon the sands, but with this difference: they hadbefore noted the smallness of the undulations compared with thestrength of the wind, the result of the water's weight. Thesewaves now reminded them of the behaviour of mercury, or of meltedlead when stirred on earth, by the rapidity with which the crestsdropped. Though the wind was blowing an on-shore gale, there wasbut little combing, and when there was any it lasted but asecond. The one effort of the crests and waves seemed to be toremain at rest, or, if stirred in spite of themselves, tosubside.

  When over the surface of the ocean, the voyagers rose to a heightof thirty thousand metres, and after twenty- four hours'travelling saw, at a distance of about two hundred miles, whatlooked like another continent, but which they knew must be anisland. On finding themselves above it, they rose still higherto obtain a view of its outlines and compare its shape with thatof the islands in the photographs they had had time to develop.The length ran from southeast to northwest. Though crossed bylatitude forty, and notwithstanding Jupiter's distance from thesun, the southern side had a very luxuriant vegetation that wasalmost semi-tropical. This they accounted for by its totalimmunity from cold, the density of the air at sea-level, and thewarm moist breezes it received from the tepid ocean. The climatewas about the same as that of the Riviera or of Florida inwinter, and there was, of course, no parching summer.

  "This shows me," said Bearwarden, "that a country's climatedepends less on the amount of heat it receives from the sun thanon the amount it retains; proof of which we have in the tops ofthe Himalayas perpetually covered with snow, and snow-cappedmountains on the very equator, where they get the most directrays, and where those rays have but little air to penetrate. Itshows that the presence of a substantial atmosphere is asnecessary a part of the calculation in practice as the sunitself. I am inclined to think that, with the constant effect ofthe internal heat on its oceans and atmosphere, Jupiter could getalong with a good deal less solar heat than it receives, in proofof which I expect to find the poles themselves quite comfortable.The reason the internal heat is so little taken into account onearth is because, from the thickness of the crust, it cannot makeitself felt; for if the earth were as chilled through as ice, thepeople on the surface would not feel the difference."

  A Jovian week's explorations disclosed the fact that though theisland's general outlines were fairly regular, it had deep-waterharbours, great rivers, and land-locked gulfs and bays, some ofwhich penetrated many hundred miles into the interior. It alsoshowed that the island's length was about six thousand miles, andits breadth about three thousand, and that it had therefore aboutthe superficial area of Asia. They found no trace of the greatmonsters that had been so numerous on the mainland, though therewere plenty of smaller and gentle-looking creatures, among themanimals whose build was much like that of the prehistoric horse,with undeveloped toes on each side of the hoof, which in themodern terrestrial horse have disappeared, the hoof being inreality but a rounded-off middle finger.

  "It is wonderful," said Bearwarden, "how comparatively narrowa body of water can keep different species entirely separate.The island of Sumatra, for instance, is inhabited by marsupialsbelonging to the distinct Australian type, in which the female,as in the kangaroo, carries the slightly developed young in apouch; while the Malay peninsula, joined to the mainland, has allthe highly developed animals of Asia and the connected land ofthe Eastern hemisphere, the narrow Malacca Strait being all thathas kept marsupials and mammals apart, though the separatingpower has been increased by the rapid current setting through.This has decreased the chance of creatures carried to sea ondrift-wood or uprooted trees getting safely over to such a degreethat apparently none have survived; for, had they done so, we maybe certain that the mammals, with the advantage their young haveover the marsupials, would soon have run them out, the marsupialsbeing the older and the less perfect form of life of the two."

  Before leaving the beautiful sea-girt region beneath them,Cortlandt proposed that it be named after their host, whichBearwarden seconded, whereupon they entered it as Ayrault Islandon the charts. After this they rose to a great height, and flewswiftly over three thousand miles of ocean till they came toanother island not quite as large as the first. It was fourthousand five hundred miles long by something less than threethousand wide, and was therefore about the size of Africa. Ithad several high ranges of mountains and a number of great riversand fine harbours, while murmuring, bubbling brooks flowedthrough its forest glades. There were active volcanoes along thenorthern coast, and the blue, crimson, and purple lines in theluxuriant foliage were the most beautiful they had ever seen.

  "I propose," said Bearwarden, "that we christen this Sylvialand."This Cortlandt immediately seconded, and it was so entered on thecharts.

  "These two islands," said Bearwarden, "may become the centres ofcivilization. With flying machines and cables to carrypassengers and information, and ships of great displacement forthe interchange of commodities, there is no limit to theirpossible development. The absence of large waves will also bevery favourable to sea-spiders, which will be able to run attremendous speeds. The constancy in the eruptions of thevolcanoes will offer a great field to Jovian inventors, who willunquestionably be able to utilize their heat for the productionof steam or electricity, to say nothing of an inexhaustiblesupply of valuable chemicals. They may contain the means ofproducing some force entirely different from apergy, and assuperior to electricity as that is to steam. Our earthlyvolcanoes have been put to slight account because of the longintervals between eruptions."

  After leaving Sylvialand they went westward to the eastern of thetwo crescent continents. It was separated from the island byabout six thousand miles of ocean, and had less width than thewestern, having about the proportions of a three-day crescent,while the western had the shape of the moon when four or fivedays old. They found the height of the mountains and plateaussomewhat less than on the eastern continent, but no greatdifference in other respects, except that, as they went towardsthe pole, the vegetation became more like that of Scotland or anorth temperate region than any they had seen. On reachinglatitude fifty they again came out over the ocean to investigatethe speckled condition they had observed there. They found avast archipelago covering as great an area as the whole PacificOcean. The islands varied from the size of Borneo and Madagascarto that of Sicily and Corsica, while some contained but a fewsquare miles. The surface of the archipelago was about equallydivided between land and water.

  "It would take good navigation or an elaborate system oflight-houses," said Bearwarden, "for a captain to find theshortest course through these groups."

  The islands were covered with shade trees much resembling thoseon earth, and the leaves on many were turning yellow and red, forthis hemisphere's autumn had already begun.

  "The Jovian trees," said Cortlandt, "can never cease to bear,though the change of seasons is evidently able to turn theircolour, perhaps by merely ripening them. When a ripe leaf fallsoff, its place is doubtless soon taken by a bud, for germinationand fructification go on side by side."

  Before leaving, they decided to name this Twentieth CenturyArchipelago, since so much of the knowledge appertaining to ithad been acquired in their own day. At latitude sixty thenorthern arms of the two continents came within fifteen hundredmiles of each other. The eastern extension was split like thetail of a fish, the great bay formed thereby being filled withislands, which also extended about half of the distance across.The western extremity shelved very gradually, the sand-barsrunning out for miles just
below the surface of the water.

  After this the travellers flew northward at great speed in theupper regions of the air, for they were anxious to hasten theirjourney. They found nothing but unbroken sea, and not till theyreached latitude eighty-seven was there a sign of ice. They thensaw some small bergs and field ice, but in no great quantities.As their outside thermometer, when just above the placidwater--for there were no waves here--registered twenty- onedegrees Fahrenheit, they accounted for this scarcity of ice bythe absence of land on which fresh water could freeze, and by thefact that it was not cold enough to congeal the very saltsea-water.

  Finally they reached another archipelago a few hundred miles inextent, the larger islands of which were covered with a sheet ofice, at the edges of which small icebergs were being formed bybreaking off and slowly floating. Finding a small island onwhich the coating was thin, they grounded the Callisto, andstepped out for the first time in several days. The air was sostill that a small piece of paper released at a height of sixfeet sank slowly and went as straight as the string of aplumb-line. The sun was bisected by the line of the horizon, andappeared to be moving about them in a circle, with only its upperhalf visible. As Jupiter's northern hemisphere was passingthrough its autumnal equinox, they concluded they had landedexactly at the pole.

  "Now to work on our experiment," said Cortlandt. "I wonder how wemay best get below the frozen surface?"

  "We can explode a small quantity of dynamite," repliedBearwarden, "after which the digging will be comparatively easy."

  While Cortlandt and Bearwarden prepared the mine, Ayrault broughtout a pickaxe, two shovels, and the battery and wires with whichto ignite the explosive. They made their preparations within onehundred feet of the Callisto, or much nearer than an equivalentamount of gunpowder could have been discharged.

  "This recalls an old laboratory experiment, or rather lecture,"said Cortlandt, as they completed the arrangements, "for theillustration is not as a rule carried out. Explode two pounds ofpowder on an iron safe in a room with the windows closed, and thewindows will be blown out, while the safe remains uninjured.Explode an equivalent amount of dynamite on top of the safe, andit will be destroyed, while the glass panes are not even cracked.This illustrates the difference in rapidity with which theexplosions take place. To the intensely rapid action of dynamitethe air affords as much resistance as a solid substance, whilethe explosion of the powder is so slow that the air has time tomove away; hence the destruction of the windows in the firstcase, and the safe in the second."

  When they had moved beyond the danger line, Bearwarden, as theparty's practising engineer, pressed the button, and theexplosion did the rest. They found that the ground was frozen toa depth of but little more than a foot, below which it becameperceptibly warm. Plying their shovels vigorously, they had soondug the hole so deep that its edges were above their heads. Whenthe floor was ten feet below the surrounding level thethermometer registered sixty.

  "This is scarcely a fair test," said Cortlandt, "since the heatrises and is lost as fast as given off. Let us therefore closethe opening and see in what time it will melt a number of cubicfeet of ice."

  Accordingly they climbed out, threw in about a cart-load of ice,and covered the opening with two of the Callisto's thick rugs.In half an hour all the ice had melted, and in another half hourthe water was hot.

  "No arctic expedition need freeze to death here," saidBearwarden, "since all a man would have to do would be to burrowa few feet to be as warm as toast."

  As the island on which they had landed was at one side of thearchipelago, but was itself at the exact pole, it followed thatthe centre of the archipelago was not the part farthest north.This in a measure accounted for the slight thickness of ice andsnow, for the isobaric lines would slope, and consequently whatwind there was would flow towards the interior of thearchipelago, whose surface was colder than the surrounding ocean.The moist air, however, coming almost entirely from the south,would lose most of its moisture by condensation in passing overthe ice-laden land, and so, like the clouds over the region eastof the Andes, would have but little left to let fall on thisextreme northern part. The blanketing effect of a greatthickness of snow would also cause, the lower strata of ice tomelt, by keeping in the heat constantly given off by the warmplanet.

  "I think there can be no question," said Cortlandt, "that, as aresult of Jupiter's great flattening at the poles and the drawingof the crust, which moves faster in Jupiter's rotation than anyother part, towards the equator, the crust must be particularlythin here; for, were it as thin all over, there would be no spacefor the coal-beds, which, judging from the purity of theatmosphere, must be very extensive. Further, we can recall thatthe water in the hot spring near which we alighted, whichevidently came from a far greater depth than we have here, wasnot as hot as this. The conclusion is clear that elsewhere theinternal heat is not as near the surface as here."

  "The more I see of Jupiter," exclaimed Bearwardenenthusiastically, "the more charmed I become. It almost exactlysupplies what I have been conjuring up as my idea of a perfectplanet. Its compensations of high land near the equator, and lowwith effective internal heat at the poles, are ideal. The gradualslope of its continental elevations, on account of their extent,will ease the work of operating railways, and the atmosphere'sdensity will be just the thing for our flying machines, whileNature has supplied all sources of power so lavishly that noundertaking will be too great. Though land as yet, to judge byour photographs, occupies only about one eighth of the surface,we know, from the experience of the other planets, that this isbound to increase; so that, if the human race can perpetuateitself on Jupiter long enough, it will undoubtedly have onefourth or a larger proportion for occupation, though the landalready upheaved comprises fully forty times the area of ourentire globe, which, as we know, is still three-fourths water."

  "Since we have reached what we might call the end of Jupiter, andstill have time, continued Ayrault, "let us proceed to Saturn,where we may find even stranger things than here. I hoped wecould investigate the great red spot, but am convinced we haveseen the beginning of one in Twentieth Century Archipelago, andwhat, under favourable conditions, will be recognized as such onearth."

  It was just six terrestrial weeks since they had set out, andtherefore February 2d on earth.

  "It would be best, in any case, to start from Jupiter's equator,"said Cortlandt, "for the straight line we should make from thesurface here would be at right angles to Saturn. We shallprobably, in spite of ourselves, swing a few degrees beyond theline, and so can get a bird's-eye view of some portion of thesouthern hemisphere."

  "All aboard for Saturn!" cried Bearwarden enthusiastically, inhis jovial way. "This will be a journey."