Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose

  perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony, but for

  the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for the

  gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth, as the rays of the

  full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I have

  already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the

  black walls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss.

  "At first I was too much confused to observe anything accurately.

  The general burst of terrific grandeur was all that I beheld. When I

  recovered myself a little, however, my gaze fell instinctively

  downward. In this direction I was able to obtain an unobstructed

  view, from the manner in which the smack hung on the inclined surface

  of the pool. She was quite upon an even keel - that is to say, her

  deck lay in a plane parallel with that of the water - but this latter

  sloped at an angle of more than forty-five degrees, so that we seemed

  to be lying upon our beam-ends. I could not help observing,

  nevertheless, that I had scarcely more difficulty in maintaining my

  hold and footing in this situation, than if we had been upon a dead

  level ; and this, I suppose, was owing to the speed at which we

  revolved.

  "The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the

  profound gulf ; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on

  account of a thick mist in which everything there was enveloped, and

  over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and

  tottering bridge which Mussulmen say is the only pathway between Time

  and Eternity. This mist, or spray, was no doubt occasioned by the

  clashing of the great walls of the funnel, as they all met together

  at the bottom - but the yell that went up to the Heavens from out of

  that mist, I dare not attempt to describe.

  "Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam

  above, had carried us a great distance down the slope ; but our

  farther descent was by no means proportionate. Round and round we

  swept - not with any uniform movement - but in dizzying swings and

  jerks, that sent us sometimes only a few hundred yards - sometimes

  nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our progress downward, at

  each revolution, was slow, but very perceptible.

  "Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we

  were thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the only object in

  the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were visible

  fragments of vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks of

  trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of house furniture,

  broken boxes, barrels and staves. I have already described the

  unnatural curiosity which had taken the place of my original terrors.

  It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer and nearer to my

  dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a strange interest, the

  numerous things that floated in our company. I _must_ have been

  delirious - for I even sought _amusement_ in speculating upon the

  relative velocities of their several descents toward the foam below.

  'This fir tree,' I found myself at one time saying, 'will certainly

  be the next thing that takes the awful plunge and disappears,' - and

  then I was disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant

  ship overtook it and went down before. At length, after making

  several guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all - this fact

  - the fact of my invariable miscalculation - set me upon a train of

  reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat

  heavily once more.

  "It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of a

  more exciting _hope_. This hope arose partly from memory, and partly

  from present observation. I called to mind the great variety of

  buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden, having been

  absorbed and then thrown forth by the Moskoe-ström. By far the

  greater number of the articles were shattered in the most

  extraordinary way - so chafed and roughened as to have the appearance

  of being stuck full of splinters - but then I distinctly recollected

  that there were _some_ of them which were not disfigured at all. Now

  I could not account for this difference except by supposing that the

  roughened fragments were the only ones which had been _completely

  absorbed_ - that the others had entered the whirl at so late a period

  of the tide, or, for some reason, had descended so slowly after

  entering, that they did not reach the bottom before the turn of the

  flood came, or of the ebb, as the case might be. I conceived it

  possible, in either instance, that they might thus be whirled up

  again to the level of the ocean, without undergoing the fate of those

  which had been drawn in more early, or absorbed more rapidly. I made,

  also, three important observations. The first was, that, as a general

  rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent - the

  second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the one spherical,

  and the other _of any other shape_, the superiority in speed of

  descent was with the sphere - the third, that, between two masses of

  equal size, the one cylindrical, and the other of any other shape,

  the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly. Since my escape, I have

  had several conversations on this subject with an old school-master

  of the district ; and it was from him that I learned the use of the

  words 'cylinder' and 'sphere.' He explained to me - although I have

  forgotten the explanation - how what I observed was, in fact, the

  natural consequence of the forms of the floating fragments - and

  showed me how it happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex,

  offered more resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater

  difficulty than an equally bulky body, of any form whatever. {*1}

  "There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in

  enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn them

  to account, and this was that, at every revolution, we passed

  something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of a vessel,

  while many of these things, which had been on our level when I first

  opened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool, were now high up

  above us, and seemed to have moved but little from their original

  station.

  "I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself

  securely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose

  from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. I

  attracted my brother's attention by signs, pointed to the floating

  barrels that came near us, and did everything in my power to make him

  understand what I was about to do. I thought at length that he

  comprehended my design - but, whether this was the case or not, he

  shook his head despairingly, and refused to move from his station by

  the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach him; the emergency admitted

  of no delay ; and so, with a bitter struggle, I resigned him to his

  fate, fastened myself to th
e cask by means of the lashings which

  secured it to the counter, and precipitated myself with it into the

  sea, without another moment's hesitation.

  "The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is

  myself who now tell you this tale - as you see that I _did_ escape -

  and as you are already in possession of the mode in which this escape

  was effected, and must therefore anticipate all that I have farther

  to say - I will bring my story quickly to conclusion. It might have

  been an hour, or thereabout, after my quitting the smack, when,

  having descended to a vast distance beneath me, it made three or four

  wild gyrations in rapid succession, and, bearing my loved brother

  with it, plunged headlong, at once and forever, into the chaos of

  foam below. The barrel to which I was attached sunk very little

  farther than half the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the

  spot at which I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in

  the character of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the vast

  funnel became momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the

  whirl grew, gradually, less and less violent. By degrees, the froth

  and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf seemed slowly

  to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone down, and the full

  moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found myself on the

  surface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of Lofoden, and

  above the spot where the pool of the Moskoe-ström _had been_. It was

  the hour of the slack - but the sea still heaved in mountainous waves

  from the effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the

  channel of the Ström, and in a few minutes was hurried down the coast

  into the 'grounds' of the fishermen. A boat picked me up - exhausted

  from fatigue - and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from

  the memory of its horror. Those who drew me on board were my old

  mates and daily companions - but they knew me no more than they would

  have known a traveller from the spirit-land. My hair which had been

  raven-black the day before, was as white as you see it now. They say

  too that the whole expression of my countenance had changed. I told

  them my story - they did not believe it. I now tell it to _you_ - and

  I can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it than did the merry

  fishermen of Lofoden."

  ~~~ End of Text ~~~

  ======

  VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY

  AFTER THE very minute and elaborate paper by Arago, to say nothing of

  the summary in 'Silliman's Journal,' with the detailed statement just

  published by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be supposed, of course,

  that in offering a few hurried remarks in reference to Von Kempelen's

  discovery, I have any design to look at the subject in a scientific

  point of view. My object is simply, in the first place, to say a few

  words of Von Kempelen himself (with whom, some years ago, I had the

  honor of a slight personal acquaintance), since every thing which

  concerns him must necessarily, at this moment, be of interest; and,

  in the second place, to look in a general way, and speculatively, at

  the results of the discovery.

  It may be as well, however, to premise the cursory observations which

  I have to offer, by denying, very decidedly, what seems to be a

  general impression (gleaned, as usual in a case of this kind, from

  the newspapers), viz.: that this discovery, astounding as it

  unquestionably is, is unanticipated.

  By reference to the 'Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy' (Cottle and Munroe,

  London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53 and 82, that this

  illustrious chemist had not only conceived the idea now in question,

  but had actually made no inconsiderable progress, experimentally, in

  the very identical analysis now so triumphantly brought to an issue

  by Von Kempelen, who although he makes not the slightest allusion to

  it, is, without doubt (I say it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if

  required), indebted to the 'Diary' for at least the first hint of his

  own undertaking.

  The paragraph from the 'Courier and Enquirer,' which is now going the

  rounds of the press, and which purports to claim the invention for a

  Mr. Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine, appears to me, I confess, a little

  apocryphal, for several reasons; although there is nothing either

  impossible or very improbable in the statement made. I need not go

  into details. My opinion of the paragraph is founded principally upon

  its manner. It does not look true. Persons who are narrating facts,

  are seldom so particular as Mr. Kissam seems to be, about day and

  date and precise location. Besides, if Mr. Kissam actually did come

  upon the discovery he says he did, at the period designated -- nearly

  eight years ago -- how happens it that he took no steps, on the

  instant, to reap the immense benefits which the merest bumpkin must

  have known would have resulted to him individually, if not to the

  world at large, from the discovery? It seems to me quite incredible

  that any man of common understanding could have discovered what Mr.

  Kissam says he did, and yet have subsequently acted so like a baby --

  so like an owl -- as Mr. Kissam admits that he did. By-the-way, who

  is Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph in the 'Courier and

  Enquirer' a fabrication got up to 'make a talk'? It must be confessed

  that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air. Very little dependence is to

  be placed upon it, in my humble opinion; and if I were not well

  aware, from experience, how very easily men of science are mystified,

  on points out of their usual range of inquiry, I should be profoundly

  astonished at finding so eminent a chemist as Professor Draper,

  discussing Mr. Kissam's (or is it Mr. Quizzem's?) pretensions to the

  discovery, in so serious a tone.

  But to return to the 'Diary' of Sir Humphrey Davy. This pamphlet was

  not designed for the public eye, even upon the decease of the writer,

  as any person at all conversant with authorship may satisfy himself

  at once by the slightest inspection of the style. At page 13, for

  example, near the middle, we read, in reference to his researches

  about the protoxide of azote: 'In less than half a minute the

  respiration being continued, diminished gradually and were succeeded

  by analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' That the

  respiration was not 'diminished,' is not only clear by the subsequent

  context, but by the use of the plural, 'were.' The sentence, no