The Smoky God

by Willis George Emerson

  PART V

  AMONG THE ICE PACKS

  For the next forty-five days our time was employed in dodging icebergs and hunting channels; indeed, had we not been favored with a strong south wind and a small boat, I doubt if this story could have ever been given to the world.

  At last, there came a morning when my father said: “My son, I think we are to see home. We are almost through the ice. See! The open water lies before us.”

  However, there were a few icebergs that had floated far northward into the open water still ahead of us on either side, stretching away for many miles. Directly in front of us, and by the compass, which had now righted itself, due north, there was an open sea.

  “What a wonderful story we have to tell the people of Stockholm,” continued my father, while a look of pardonable elation lighted up his honest face. “And think of the gold nuggets stowed away in the hold!”

  I spoke kind words of praise to my father, not alone for this fortitude and endurance, but also for his courageous daring as a discoverer, and for having made the voyage that now promised a successful end. I was grateful, too, that he had gathered the wealth of gold we were carrying home.

  While congratulating ourselves on the goodly supply of provisions and water we still had on hand, and on the dangers we had escaped, we were startled by hearing a most terrific explosion, caused by the tearing apart of huge mountain of ice. It was a deafening roar like the firing of thousand cannon. We were sailing at the time with great speed, and happened to be near a monstrous iceberg which to all appearances was as immovable as a rockbound island. It seemed, however, that the iceberg had split and was breaking apart, whereupon the balance of the monster along which we were sailing was destroyed, and it began dipping from us. My father quickly anticipated the danger before I realized its awful possibilities. The iceberg extended down into the water many hundreds of feet, and, as it tipped over, the portion coming up out of the water caught our fishing-craft like a lever on a fulcrum, and threw it into the air as if it had been a foot-ball.

  Our boat fell back on the iceberg, that by this time had changed the side next to us for the top. My father was still in the boat, having become entangled in the rigging, while I was thrown some twenty feet away.

  I quickly scrambled to my feet and shouted to my father, who answered: “All is well.” Just then a realization dawned upon me. Horror upon horror! The blood froze in my veins. The iceberg was still in motion, and its great weight and force in toppling over would cause it to submerge temporarily. I fully realized what a sucking maelstrom it would produce amid the worlds of water on every side. They would rush into the depression in all their fury, like white-fanged wolves eager for human prey.

  In this supreme moment of mental anguish, I remember glancing at our boat, which was lying on its side, and wondering if it could possibly right itself, and if my father could escape. Was this the end of our struggles and adventures? Was this death? All these questions flashed through my mind in the fraction of a second, and a moment later I was engaged in a life and death struggle. The ponderous monolith of ice sank below the surface, and the frigid waters gurgled around me in frenzied anger. I was in a saucer, with the waters pouring in on every side. A moment more and I lost consciousness.

  When I partially recovered my senses, and roused from the swoon of a half-drowned man, I found myself wet, stiff, and almost frozen, lying on the iceberg. But there was no sign of my father or of our little fishing sloop. The monster berg had recovered itself, and, with its new balance, lifted its head perhaps fifty feet above the waves. The top of this island of ice was a plateau perhaps half an acre in extent.

  I loved my father well, and was grief-stricken at the awfulness of his death. I railed at fate, that I, too, had not been permitted to sleep with him in the depths of the ocean. Finally, I climbed to my feet and looked about me. The purple-domed sky above, the shoreless green ocean beneath, and only an occasional iceberg discernible! My heart sank in hopeless despair. I cautiously picked my way across the berg toward the other side, hoping that our fishing craft had righted itself.

  Dared I think it possible that may father still lived? It was but a ray of hope that flamed up in my heart. But the anticipation warmed my blood in my veins and started it rushing like some rare stimulant through every fiber of my body.

  I crept close to the precipitous side of the iceberg, and peered far down, hoping, still hoping. Then I made a circle of the berg, scanning every foot of the way, and thus I kept going around and around. One part of my brain was certainly becoming maniacal, while the other part, I believe, and do to this day, was perfectly rational.

  I was conscious of having made the circuit a dozen times, and while one part of my intelligence knew, in all reason, there was not a vestige of hope, yet some strange fascinating aberration bewitched and compelled me still to beguile myself with expectation. The other part of my brain seemed to tell me that while there was no possibility of my father being alive, yet, if I quit making the circuitous pilgrimage, if I paused for a single moment, it would be acknowledgment of defeat, and, should I do this, I felt that I should go mad. Thus, hour after hour I walked around and around, afraid to stop and rest, yet physically powerless to continue much longer. Oh! Horror of horrors! To be cast away in this wide expanse of waters without food or drink, and only a treacherous iceberg for an abiding place. My heart sank within me, and all semblance of hope was fading into black despair.

  Then the hand of the Deliverer was extended, and the death-like stillness of a solitude rapidly becoming unbearable was suddenly broken by the firing of a signal-gun. I looked up in startled amazement, when, I saw, less than a half-mile away, a whaling-vessel bearing down toward me with her sail full set.

  Evidently my continued activity on iceberg had attracted their attention. On drawing near, they put out a boat, and, descending cautiously to the water’s edge, I was rescued, and a little later lifted on board the whaling-ship.

  I found it was Scotch whaler, “The Arlington.” She had cleared from Dundee in September, and started immediately for the Antarctic, in search of whales. The captain, Angus MacPherson, seemed kindly disposed, but in matters of discipline, as I soon learned, possessed of an iron will. When I attempted to tell him that I had come from the “inside” of the earth, the captain and mate looked at each other, shook their heads, and insisted on my being put in a bunk under strict surveillance of the ship’s physician.

  I was very weak for want of food, and had not slept for many hours. However, after a few days’ rest, I got up one morning and dressed myself without asking permission of the physician or anyone else, and told them that I was as sane as anyone.

  The captain sent for me and again questioned me concerning where I had come from, and how I came to be alone on an iceberg in the far off Antarctic Ocean. I replied that I had just come from the “inside” of the earth, and proceeded to tell him how my father and myself had gone in by way of Spitzbergen, and come out by way of the South Pole country, whereupon I was put in irons. I afterward heard the captain tell the mate that I was as crazy as a March hare, and that I must remain in confinement until I was rational enough to give a truthful account of myself.

  Finally after much pleading and many promises, I was released from irons. I then and there decided to invent some story that would satisfy the captain, and never again refer to my trip to the land of “The Smoky God,” at least until I was safe among friends.

  Within a fortnight I was permitted to go about and take my place as one of the seamen. A little later the captain asked me for an explanation. I told him that my experience had been so horrible that I was fearful of my memory, and begged him to permit me to leave the question unanswered until some time in the future. “I think you are recovering considerably,” he said, “but you are not sane yet by a good deal.” “Permit me to do such work as you may assign,” I replied, “and if it does not compensate you sufficiently, I
will pay you immediately after I reach Stockholm—to the last penny.” Thus the matter rested.

  On finally reaching Stockholm, as I have already related, I found that my good mother had gone to her reward more than a year before. I have also told how, later, the treachery of a relative landed me in a madhouse, where I remained for twenty-eight years—seemingly unending years—and, still later, after my release, how I returned to the life of a fisherman, following it sedulously for twenty-seven years, then how I came to America, and finally to Los Angeles, California. But all this can be of little interest to the reader. Indeed, it seems to me the climax of my wonderful travels and strange adventures was reached when the Scotch sailing-vessel took me from an iceberg on the Antarctic Ocean.

  PART VI

  CONCLUSION

  In concluding this history of my adventures, I wish to state that I firmly believe science is yet in its infancy concerning the cosmology of the earth. There is so much that is unaccounted for by the world’s accepted knowledge of to-day, and will ever remain so until the land of “The Smoky God” is known and recognized by our geographers.

  It is the land from whence came the great logs of cedar that have been found by explorers in open waters far over the northern edge of the earth’s crust, and also the bodies of mammoths whose bones are found in vast beds on the Siberian coast.

  * * * *

  Northern explorers have done much. Sir John Franklin, De Haven Grinnell, Sir John Murray, Kane, Melville, Hall, Nansen, Schwatka, Greely, Peary, Ross, Gerlache, Bernacchi, Andree, Amsden, Amundson and others have all been striving to storm the frozen citadel of mystery.

  I firmly believe that Andree and two brave companions, Strindberg and Fraenckell, who sailed away in the balloon “Oreon” from the northwest coast of Spitsbergen on that Sunday afternoon of July 11, 1897, are now in the “within” world, and doubtless are being entertained as my father and myself were entertained by the kind-hearted giant race inhabiting the inner Atlantic Continent.

  Having, in my humble way, devoted years to these problems, I am well acquainted with the accepted definitions of gravity, as well as the cause of the magnetic needle’s attraction, and I am prepared to say that it is my firm belief that the magnetic needle is influenced solely by electric currents which completely envelop the earth like a garment, and that these electric currents in an endless circuit pass out of the southern end of the earth’s cylindrical opening, diffusing and spreading themselves over all the “outside” surface, and rushing madly on in their course toward the North Pole. And while these currents seemingly dash off into space at the earth’s curve or edge, yet they drop again to the “inside” surface and continue their way southward along the inside of the earth’s crust, toward the opening of the so-called South Pole.24

  As to gravity, no one knows what it is, because it has not been determined whether it is atmospheric pressure that causes the apple to fall, or whether, 150 miles below the surface of the earth, supposedly one-half way through the earth’s crust, there exists some powerful loadstone attraction that draws it. Therefore, whether the apple, when it leaves the limb of the tree, is drawn or impelled downward to the nearest point of resistance, is unknown to the students of physics.

  Sir James Ross claimed to have discovered the magnetic pole at about seventy-four degrees latitude. This is wrong—the magnetic pole is exactly one-half the distance through the earth’s crust. Thus, if the earth’s crust is three hundred miles in thickness, which is the distance I estimate it to be, then the magnetic pole is undoubtedly one hundred and fifty miles below the surface of the earth, it matters not where the test is made. And at this particular point one hundred and fifty miles below the surface, gravity ceases, becomes neutralized; and when we pass beyond that point on toward the “inside” surface of the earth, a reverse attraction geometrically increases in power, until the other one hundred and fifty miles of distance is traversed, which would bring us out on the “inside” of the earth.

  Thus, if a hole were bored down through the earth’s crust at London, Paris, New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, a distance of three hundred miles, it would connect the two surfaces. While the inertia and momentum of a weight dropped in from the “outside” surface would carry it far past the magnetic center, yet, before reaching the “inside” surface of the earth it would gradually diminish in speed, after passing the half-way point, finally pause and immediately fall back toward the “outside” surface, and continue thus to oscillate, like the swinging of a pendulum with the power removed, until it would finally rest at the magnetic center, or at that particular point exactly one-half the distance between the “outside” surface and the “inside” surface of the earth.

  The gyration of the earth in its daily act of whirling around in its spiral rotation—at a rate greater than one thousand miles every hour, or about seventeen miles per second—makes of it a vast electro-generating body, a huge machine, a mighty prototype of the puny man-made dynamo, which, at best, is but a feeble imitation of nature’s original.

  The valleys of this inner Atlantis Continent, bordering the upper waters of the farthest north are in season covered with the most magnificent and luxuriant flowers. Not hundreds and thousands, but millions, of acres, from which the pollen or blossoms are carried far away in almost every direction by the earth’s spiral gyrations and the agitation of the wind resulting therefrom, and it is these blossoms or pollen from the vast floral meadows “within” that produce the colored snows of the Arctic regions that have so mystified the northern explorers.25

  Beyond question, this new land “within” is the home, the cradle, of the human race, and viewed from the standpoint of the discoveries made by us, must of necessity have a most important bearing on all physical, paleontological, archaeological, philological, and mythological theories of antiquity.

  The same idea of going back to the land of mystery—to the very beginning—to the origin of man—is found in Egyptian traditions of the earlier terrestrial regions of the gods, heroes and men, from the historical fragments of Manetho, fully verified by the historical records taken from the more recent excavations of Pompeii as well as traditions of the North American Indians.

  * * * *

  It is now one hour past midnight—the new year of 1908 is here, and this is the third day thereof, and having at last finished the record of my strange travels and adventures I wish given to the world, I am ready, and even longing, for the peaceful rest which I am sure will follow life’s trials and vicissitudes. I am old in years, and ripe both with adventures and sorrows, yet rich with the few friends I have cemented to me in my struggles to lead a just and upright life. Like a story that is well-nigh told, my life is ebbing away. The presentiment is strong within me that I shall not live to see the rising of another sun. Thus do I conclude my message.

  —Olaf Jansen.

  PART VII

  AUTHOR’S AFTERWORD

  I found much difficulty in deciphering and editing the manuscripts of Olaf Jansen. However, I have taken the liberty of reconstructing only a very few expressions, and in doing this have in no way changed the spirit or meaning. Otherwise, the original text has neither been added to nor taken from.

  It is impossible for me to express my opinion as to the value or reliability of the wonderful statements made by Olaf Jansen. The description here given of the strange lands and people visited by him, location of cities, the names and directions of rivers, and other information herein combined, conform in every way to the rough drawings given into my custody by this ancient Norseman, which drawings together with the manuscript it is my intention at some later date to give to the Smithsonian Institution, to preserve for the benefit of those interested in the mysteries of the “Farthest North”—the frozen circle of silence. It is certain there are many things in Vedic literature, in “Josephus,” the “Odyssey,” the “Iliad,” Terrien de Lacouperie’s “Early History of Chinese Civilization,” Flammarion’s “
Astronomical Myths,” Lenormant’s “Beginnings of the History,” Hesiod’s “Theogony,” Sir John de Maundeville’s writings, and Sayce’s “Records of the Past,” that, to say the least, are strangely in harmony with the seemingly incredible text found in the yellow manuscript of the old Norseman, Olaf Jansen, and now for the first time given to the world.

  THE END

  1The following quotation is significant; “It follows that man issuing from a mother-region still undetermined but which a number of considerations indicate to have been in the North, has radiated in several directions; that his migrations have been constantly from North to South.”—M. le Marquis G. de Saporta, in Popular Science Monthly, October, 1883, page 753.

  2It will be remembered that Andree started on his fatal balloon voyage from the northwest coast of Spitzbergen.

  3Sir John Barrow, Bart., F.R.S., in his work entitled “Voyages of Discovery and Research Within the Arctic Regions,” says on page 57: “Mr. Beechey refers to what has frequently been found and noticed—the mildness of the temperature on the western coast of Spitsbergen, there being little or no sensation of cold, though the thermometer might be only a few degrees above the freezing-point. The brilliant and lively effect of a clear day, when the sun shines forth with a pure sky, whose azure hue is so intense as to find no parallel even in the boasted Italian sky.”

  4Captain Kane, on page 299, quoting from Morton’s Journal, the 26th of December, says: “As far as I could see, the open passages were fifteen miles or more wide, with sometimes mashed ice separating them. But it is all small ice, and I think it either drives out to the open space to the north or rots and sinks, as I could see none ahead to the north.”