A Journey in Other Worlds | Page 9

sun to attract, and to lighten the pole
approaching or turning towards the sun, by removing some heavy substance from it, and
putting it preferably at the opposite pole. This shifting of ballast is most easily
accomplished, as you will readily perceive, by confining and removing water, which is
easily moved and has a considerable weight. How we purpose to apply these aqueous
brakes to check the wabbling of the earth, by means of the attraction of the sun, you will
now see.
"From Commander Fillmore, of the Arctic Shade and the Committee on Bulkheads and
Dams, I have just received the following by cable telephone: 'The Arctic Ocean is now in
condition to be pumped out in summer and to have its average depth increased one
hundred feet by the dams in winter. We have already fifty million square yards of
windmill turbine surface in position and ready to move. The cables bringing us currents
from the dynamos at Niagara Falls are connected with our motors, and those from the
tidal dynamos at the Bay of Fundy will be in contact when this reaches you, at which
moment the pumps will begin. In several of the landlocked gulfs and bays our system of
confining is so complete, that the surface of the water can be raised two hundred feet
above sea- level. The polar bears will soon have to use artificial ice. Perhaps the cheers
now ringing without may reach you over the telephone.'"
The audience became greatly interested, and when the end of the telephone was applied
to a microphone the room fairly rang with exultant cheers, and those looking through a
kintograph (visual telegraph) terminating in a camera obscura on the shores of Baffin Bay

were able to see engineers and workmen waving and throwing up their caps and falling
into one another's arms in ecstasies of delight. When the excitement subsided, the
president continued:
"Chairman Wetmore, of the Committee on Excavations and Embankments in Wilkesland
and the Antarctic Continent, reports: 'Two hundred and fifty thousand square miles are
now hollowed out and enclosed sufficiently to hold water to an average depth of four
hundred feet. Every summer, when the basin is allowed to drain, we can, if necessary,
extend our reservoir, and shall have the best season of the year for doing work until the
earth has permanent spring. Though we have comparatively little water or tidal power,
the earth's crust is so thin at this latitude, on account of the flattening, that by sinking our
tubular boilers and pipes to a depth of a few thousand feet we have secured so terrific a
volume of superheated steam that, in connection with our wind turbines, we shall have no
difficulty in raising half a cubic mile of water a minute to our enclosure, which is but
little above sea-level, and into which, till the pressure increases, we can fan or blow the
water, so that it can be full three weeks after our longest day, or, since the present
unimproved arrangement gives the indigenes but one day and night a year, I will add the
21st day of December.
"'We shall be able to find use for much of the potential energy of the water in the
reservoir when we allow it to escape in June, in melting some of the accumulated polar
ice-cap, thereby decreasing still further the weight of this pole, in lighting and warming
ourselves until we get the sun's light and heat, in extending the excavations, and in
charging the storage batteries of the ships at this end of the line. Everything will be ready
when you signal "Raise water."'"
"Let me add parenthetically," said Bearwarden, "that this means of obtaining power by
steam boilers sunk to a great depth is much to be commended; for, though the amount of
heat we can withdraw is too small to have much effect, the farther towards the centre our
globe can be cooled the deeper will the water of the oceans be able to penetrate--since it
is its conversion into steam that prevents the water from working its way in farther--and
the more dry land we shall have."
"You see," the president continued, "the storage capacity at the south pole is not quite as
great as at the north, because it is more difficult to excavate a basin than to close the exits
of one that already exists, which is what we have done in the arctic. The work is also not
so nearly complete, since it will not be necessary to use the southern reservoir for storing
weight for six months, or until the south pole, which is now at its maximum declination
from the sun, is turned towards it and begins to move away; then, by increasing the
amount of matter there, and