A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future

by John Jacob Astor

  CHAPTER III.

  PRESIDENT BEARWARDEN'S SPEECH.

  "To the Bondholders and Stockholders of the Terrestrial AxisStraightening Company and Representatives of Earthly Governments.

  "GENTLEMEN: You know that the objects of this company are, tostraighten the axis of the earth, to combine the extreme heat ofsummer with the intense cold of winter and produce a uniformtemperature for each degree of latitude the year round. Atpresent the earth's axis--that is, the line passing through itscentre and the two poles--is inclined to the ecliptic abouttwenty-three and a half degrees. Our summer is produced by thenorthern hemisphere's leaning at that angle towards the sun, andour winter by its turning that much from it. In one case thesun's rays are caused to shine more perpendicularly, and in theother more obliquely. This wabbling, like that of a top, is thesole cause of the seasons; since, owing to the eccentricity ofour orbit, the earth is actually fifteen hundred thousand milesnearer the sun during our winter, in the northern hemisphere,than in summer. That there is no limit to a planet'sinclination, and that inclination is not essential, we haveastronomical proof. Venus's axis is inclined to the plane of herorbit seventy-five degrees, so that the arctic circle comeswithin fifteen degrees of the equator, and the tropics alsoextend to latitude seventy-five degrees, or within fifteendegrees of the poles, producing great extremes of heat and cold.

  "Venus is made still more difficult of habitation by the factthat she rotates on her axis in the same time that she revolvesabout the sun, in the same way that the moon does about theearth, so that one side must be perpetually frozen while theother is parched.

  "In Uranus we see the axis tilted still further, so that thearctic circle descends to the equator. The most varied climatemust therefore prevail during its year, whose length exceedseighty-one of ours.

  The axis of Mars is inclined about twenty-eight and two thirdsdegrees to the plane of its orbit; consequently its seasons mustbe very similar to ours, the extremes of heat and cold beingsomewhat greater.

  "In Jupiter we have an illustration of a planet whose axis isalmost at right angles to the plane of its orbit, being inclinedbut about a degree and a half. The hypothetical inhabitants ofthis majestic planet must therefore have perpetual summer at theequator, eternal winter at the poles, and in the temperateregions everlasting spring. On account of the straightness ofthe axis, however, even the polar inhabitants--if there areany--are not oppressed by a six months' night, for all exceptthose at the VERY pole have a sunrise and a sunset every tenhours--the exact day being nine hours, fifty five minutes, andtwenty-eight seconds. The warmth of the tropics is also temperedby the high winds that must result from the rapid whirl on itsaxis, every object at the equator being carried around by this atthe rate of 27,600 miles an hour, or over three thousand milesfarther than the earth's equator moves in twenty-four hours.

  "The inclination of the axis of our own planet has alsofrequently considerably exceeded that of Mars, and again has beenbut little greater than Jupiter's at least, this is by all oddsthe most reasonable explanation of the numerous Glacial periodsthrough which our globe has passed, and of the recurring mildspells, probably lasting thousands of years, in which elephants,mastodons, and other semi-tropical vertebrates roamed in Siberia,some of which died so recently that their flesh, preserved by thecold, has been devoured by the dogs of modern explorers.

  "It is not to be supposed that the inclining of the axes ofJupiter, Venus, the Earth, and the other planets, is now fixed;in some cases it is known to be changing. As long ago as 1890,Major-Gen. A. W. Drayson, of the British Army, showed, in a workentitled Untrodden Ground in Astronomy and Geology, that, as aresult of the second rotation of the earth, the inclination ofits axis was changing, it having been 23@ 28' 23" on January 1,1750, 23@ 27' 55.3" on January 1, 1800, and 23@ 27' 30.9" onJanuary 1, 1850; and by calculation one hundred and ten years agoshowed that in 1900 (one hundred years ago) it would be 23@ 27'08.8". This natural straightening is, of course, going on, andwe are merely about to anticipate it. When this improvement wasmooted, all agreed that the EXTREMES of heat and cold could wellbe spared. 'Balance those of summer against those of winter bypartially straightening the axis; reduce the inclination fromtwenty-three degrees, thirty minutes, to about fifteen degrees,but let us stop there,' many said. Before we had gone far,however, we found it would be best to make the work complete.This will reclaim and make productive the vast areas of Siberiaand the northern part of this continent, and will do much for theantarctic regions; but there will still be change in temperature;a wind blowing towards the equator will always be colder than oneblowing from it, while the slight eccentricity of the orbit willsupply enough change to awaken recollections of seasons in oureternal spring.

  "The way to accomplish this is to increase the weight of the poleleaving the sun, by increasing the amount of material there forthe sun to attract, and to lighten the pole approaching orturning towards the sun, by removing some heavy substance fromit, and putting it preferably at the opposite pole. Thisshifting of ballast is most easily accomplished, as you willreadily perceive, by confining and removing water, which iseasily moved and has a considerable weight. How we purpose toapply these aqueous brakes to check the wabbling of the earth, bymeans of the attraction of the sun, you will now see.

  "From Commander Fillmore, of the Arctic Shade and the Committeeon Bulkheads and Dams, I have just received the following bycable telephone: 'The Arctic Ocean is now in condition to bepumped out in summer and to have its average depth increased onehundred feet by the dams in winter. We have already fiftymillion square yards of windmill turbine surface in position andready to move. The cables bringing us currents from the dynamosat Niagara Falls are connected with our motors, and those fromthe tidal dynamos at the Bay of Fundy will be in contact whenthis reaches you, at which moment the pumps will begin. Inseveral of the landlocked gulfs and bays our system of confiningis so complete, that the surface of the water can be raised twohundred feet above sea- level. The polar bears will soon have touse artificial ice. Perhaps the cheers now ringing without mayreach you over the telephone.'"

  The audience became greatly interested, and when the end of thetelephone was applied to a microphone the room fairly rang withexultant cheers, and those looking through a kintograph (visualtelegraph) terminating in a camera obscura on the shores ofBaffin Bay were able to see engineers and workmen waving andthrowing up their caps and falling into one another's arms inecstasies of delight. When the excitement subsided, thepresident continued:

  "Chairman Wetmore, of the Committee on Excavations andEmbankments in Wilkesland and the Antarctic Continent, reports:'Two hundred and fifty thousand square miles are now hollowed outand enclosed sufficiently to hold water to an average depth offour hundred feet. Every summer, when the basin is allowed todrain, we can, if necessary, extend our reservoir, and shall havethe best season of the year for doing work until the earth haspermanent spring. Though we have comparatively little water ortidal power, the earth's crust is so thin at this latitude, onaccount of the flattening, that by sinking our tubular boilersand pipes to a depth of a few thousand feet we have secured soterrific a volume of superheated steam that, in connection withour wind turbines, we shall have no difficulty in raising half acubic mile of water a minute to our enclosure, which is butlittle above sea-level, and into which, till the pressureincreases, we can fan or blow the water, so that it can be fullthree weeks after our longest day, or, since the presentunimproved arrangement gives the indigenes but one day and nighta year, I will add the 21st day of December.

  "'We shall be able to find use for much of the potential energyof the water in the reservoir when we allow it to escape in June,in melting some of the accumulated polar ice-cap, therebydecreasing still further the weight of this pole, in lighting andwarming ourselves until we get the sun's light and heat, inextending the excavations, and in charging the storage batteriesof the ships at this end of the line. Everything will be r
eadywhen you signal "Raise water."'"

  "Let me add parenthetically," said Bearwarden, "that this meansof obtaining power by steam boilers sunk to a great depth is muchto be commended; for, though the amount of heat we can withdrawis too small to have much effect, the farther towards the centreour globe can be cooled the deeper will the water of the oceansbe able to penetrate--since it is its conversion into steam thatprevents the water from working its way in farther--and the moredry land we shall have."

  "You see," the president continued, "the storage capacity at thesouth pole is not quite as great as at the north, because it ismore difficult to excavate a basin than to close the exits of onethat already exists, which is what we have done in the arctic.The work is also not so nearly complete, since it will not benecessary to use the southern reservoir for storing weight forsix months, or until the south pole, which is now at its maximumdeclination from the sun, is turned towards it and begins to moveaway; then, by increasing the amount of matter there, and at thesame time lightening the north pole, and reversing the processevery six months, we decrease the speed at which the departingpole leaves the sun and at which the approaching pole advances.The north pole, we see, will be a somewhat more powerful leverthan the south for working the globe to a straight position, butwe may be sure that the latter, in connection with the former,will be able to hold up its end."

  [The building here fairly shook with applause, so that, had thearctic workers used the microphone, they might have heard in theenthusiastic uproar a good counterpart of their own period.]

  "I only regret," the president continued, "that when we beganthis work the most marvellous force yet discovered--apergy--wasnot sufficiently understood to be utilized, for it would haveeased our labours to the point of almost eliminating them. Butwe have this consolation: it was in connection with our work thatits applicability was discovered, so that had we and all otherspostponed our great undertaking on the pretext of waiting for anew force, apergy might have continued to lie dormant forcenturies. With this force, obtained by simply blending negativeand positive electricity with electricity of the third element orstate, and charging a body sufficiently with this fluid,gravitation is nullified or partly reversed, and the earth repelsthe body with the same or greater power than that with which itstill attracts or attracted it, so that it may be suspended orcaused to move away into space. Sic itur ad astra, we may say.With this force and everlasting spring before us, what may we notachieve? We may some day be able to visit the planets, thoughmany may say that, since the axes of most of those we haveconsidered are more inclined than ours, they would rather stayhere. 'Blessed are they that shall inherit the earth,'" he wenton, turning a four-foot globe with its axis set vertically and atright angles to a yellow globe labelled "Sun"; and again waxingeloquent, he added: "We are the instruments destined to bringabout the accomplishment of that prophecy, for never in thehistory of the world has man reared so splendid a monument to hisown genius as he will in straightening the axis of the planet.

  "No one need henceforth be troubled by sudden change, and everyman can have perpetually the climate he desires. Northern Europewill again luxuriate in a climate that favoured the elephantsthat roamed in northern Asia and Switzerland. To produce theseanimals and the food they need, it is not necessary to have greatheat, but merely to prevent great cold, half the summer's sunbeing absorbed in melting the winter's accumulation of ice.

  "When the axis has reached a point at which it inclines but abouttwelve degrees, it will become necessary to fill the antarcticreservoir in June and the Arctic Ocean in December, in order tocheck the straightening, since otherwise it might get beyond theperpendicular and swing the other way. When this motion iscompletely arrested, I suggest that we blow up the Aleutian Islesand enlarge Bering Strait, so as to allow what corresponds to theAtlantic Gulf Stream in the Pacific to enter the ArcticArchipelago, which I have calculated will raise the averagetemperature of that entire region about thirty degrees, therebystill further increasing the amount of available land.

  "Ocean currents, being the result of the prevailing winds, whichwill be more regular than at present, can be counted upon tocontinue practically as they are. It may not be plain to you whythe trade winds do not blow towards the equator due south andnorth, since the equator has much the same effect on air that astove has in the centre of a room, causing an ascending currenttowards the ceiling, which moves off in straight lines in alldirections on reaching it, its place being taken by cold currentsmoving in opposite directions along the floor. Picture toyourselves the ascending currents at the equator moving off tothe poles from which they came. As they move north they arecontinually coming to parts of the globe having smaller circlesof latitude than those they have left, and therefore not movedforward as rapidly by the earth's daily rotation as the latitudesnearer the equator. The winds consequently run ahead of thesurface, and so move east of north--the earth turning towards theeast--while the heavier colder surface currents, rushing towardsthe equator to take the place of the ascending column, comingfrom regions where the surface whirls comparatively slowly tothose where it is rotating faster, are continually left behind,and so move southwest; while south of the equator a correspondingmotion results. Though this is not the most exact explanation,it may serve to make the action clear. I will add, that if anyone prefers a colder or a warmer climate than that of the placein which he lives, he need only go north or south for an hour;or, if he prefers his own latitude, he can rise a few thousandfeet in the air, or descend to one of the worked-out coal-mineswhich are now used as sanitariums, and secure his object by aslight change of altitude. Let us speed the departure of rackingchanges and extremes of climate, and prepare to welcome what webelieve prevails in paradise--namely, everlasting spring."

  Appended to the address was the report of the GovernmentExamining Committee, which ran: "We have critically examined theTerrestrial Axis Straightening Company's figures andcalculations, also its statements involving natural philosophy,physics, and astronomy, all of which we find correct, and herebyapprove.

  [Signed] "For the Committee:

  "HENRY CHELMSFORD CORTLANDT,

  "Chairman."

  The Board of Directors having ratified the acts of its officers,and passed congratulatory resolutions, the meeting adjourned sinedie.