A Journey to the Earth's Interior
by Marshall B. Gardner
Chapter XI. The Mammoth
Chapter XII. The Life of the Arctic
Chapter XIII. Other Interesting Animals of the Interior
Chapter XIV. The Aurora
This is not the longest chapter in this book, but to anyone who wishes to prove our theory "in a hurry" it may be commended, for it brings proof to bear so startling, so incontrovertible, that we wonder how these observations could have been made by the regular scientists and their significance been overlooked. But then the regular scientists had a theory of the earth's composition in their minds before they made these observations. And the theory being there first would not budge to make room for the truth.
FROM WHERE DOES THE MAMMOTH COME?
These observations concern the presence in the polar regions of the mammoth. That scientists should find old tusks and remains of this animal is perhaps surprising, though it could be explained in some way or other; but they also find perfectly fresh bodies of these animals. They reason that these fresh bodies were preserved in that condition in the ice for hundreds, perhaps thousands of centuries, but we shall show that this is not the case. But let us marshal our evidence gradually.
The reader will remember that the mammoth and the mastodon are two elephant-like animals but
much larger than our elephant of the tropics. They were vegetarian animals and, like the elephant, inhabitants of a warm country. When their remains were first discovered in the polar regions, therefore, it was thought that at one time the polar regions had been very warm, with plenty of vegetation, and that owing to the gradual change of the earth's axis, the area which was once hot had gradually been brought into positions where it grew colder until at last the mammoth and mastodon were frozen out. Let us see whether this idea fits all the facts in the case. But first let us see what those facts are.
In J. W. Bud's "The World's Wonders" we read:
"The farther north we penetrate, in greater abundance are found vestiges of elephants, tortoises, crocodiles, and other beasts and reptiles of a tropical climate. These are found in greatest abundance along the banks of rivers flowing from the north, seeming to prove that there is, somewhere beyond the frozen belt not yet penetrated by man, a warm country, with climate and productions similar to those of the tropics. Along the borders of Siberia, the remains of tropical animals are so commonly found as to constitute a considerable source of commerce. In Asiatic Russia there is not a single stream or river on the banks or in the bed of which are not found bones of elephants, or other animals equally strange to that climate. In 1799, a fisherman of Ton-goose, named Schumachoff, discovered a tremendous
elephant--perfect as when thousands of years before, death had arrested its breath--encased in a huge block of ice, clear as crystal. This man, like his neighbors, was accustomed, at the end of the fishing season, to employ his time in hunting for elephant tusks along the banks of the Lena River, for the sake of the bounty offered by the government; and while so employed, in the ardor of his pursuit, he passed several miles beyond his companions when suddenly there appeared before his wondering eyes the miraculous sight above alluded to. But this man was ignorant and superstitious, and instead of hastening to announce his wonderful discovery for the benefit of science, he stupidly gazed upon it in awe and wonder, not daring to approach it. For several successive seasons from the time when he first discovered it, did Schumachoff make stealthy journeys to his crystallized monster, never finding courage sufficient to approach it closely, but simply standing at a distance, once more to feast his eyes on the wonder, and to carry away in his thick head enough of terror to guarantee him a nightmare for a whole month of nights. At last he found the imprisoned carcass stranded on a convenient sand-bank, and boldly attacked it, broke the glittering casing, and roughly despoiling the great beast of its splendid tusks, hurried home and sold them for fifty roubles, leaving the well preserved bulk of elephant meat, thousands of years old, yet juicy and without
DISCOVERY OF THE MAMMOTH ENCASED IN ICE
taint, to be devoured by wolves and bears or hacked to bits by natives as food for their dogs."
IN PERFECT PRESERVATION
We next turn to Dr. H. D. Northrop's "Earth, Sky, and Sea", where we find some later information about this same case. It seems that after the fisherman had left the mammoth carcass he told of its whereabouts and a party set out to examine it:
"For some time the flesh of this animal was cut off for dog-meat by people around, and bears, wolves, gluttons, and foxes, fed upon it till the skeleton was nearly cleared of its flesh. About three-fourths of the skin, which was of a reddish-gray color, and covered with reddish wool and black hairs about eight inches long, was saved, and such was its weight, that it required ten men to remove it; the bones of the head, with the tusks, weighed four hundred and sixteen pounds. The skeleton was taken to St. Petersburg, where it may still be seen in the Museum of Natural History. The animal must have been twice the ordinary size of the existing elephant, and it must have weighed at least twenty-thousand pounds."
REMAINS OF TROPICAL ANIMALS
This same author goes on to say:
"Every year in the season of thawing (in Northern Asiatic Russia) the vast rivers, which descend to the Frozen Ocean in the north of Siberia, sweep down with their waters innumerable portions of the banks
and expose to view the bones buried in the soil and excavations left by the rushing waters. It is curious that the more we advance toward the north of Russia, the more numerous do the bone depositaries become. In spite of the undoubted testimony often repeated, of numerous travelers, we can scarcely credit the statements made respecting some of the islands of the glacial sea near the poles, situated opposite the mouths of the Lena and of the Indigirska.
"All the islands nearest to the mainland, which is about thirty-six leagues in length, except three or four small rocky mountains, are a mixture of sand and ice, so that when the thaw sets in and their banks begin to fall, many mammoth bones are found. All the isle is formed of the bones of this extraordinary animal, of the horns and skulls of buffaloes, or of an animal which resembles them, and of some rhinoceros horns.
WHOLE ISLAND OF REMAINS
"New Siberia and the Isle of Lachon are for the most part only a mass of sand, of ice, and of elephant's teeth. At every tempest the sea casts ashore new quantities of mammoth's tusks, and the inhabitants of Siberia carry on a profitable trade in this fossil ivory. Every year during the summer innumerable fishermen's barks direct their course towards this isle of bones, and during winter immense caravans take the same route, all the convoys drawn by
dogs, returning laden with the tusks of the mammoth, weighing each from 150 to 200 pounds. The isle of bones has served as a quarry of this valuable material for export to China for five hundred years, and it has been exported to Europe for upwards of a hundred. But the supply from these strange mines remains undiminished.”
All we have to say to those last statements is that the supply must be replenished right along or such a thing could not be so everlasting. And we think there can be no doubt that these supplies of remains have been and are being replenished right to the present moment.
In his book, "In the Lena Delta", George W. Melville, the United States naval officer and explorer, also tells of the immense tusks, in this case stained black by being buried in peat bogs, which he saw in that country. In some cases they measured nine feet along the curve, and were thirty inches in circumference at the end near the skull. He saw one train of thirty sleighs laden with the tusks on its way to China.
Our next witness is Nordenskiold who tells in his "Arctic Voyages" of the traffic in mammoth tusks along the river Yennssej to China and Russia. A little later he says:
"In the Siberian Polar Sea, the animal and vegetable types, so far as we can judge beforehand, exclusively consist of survivals from the Glacial period
which next preceded the present, which is not the case in the Polar Sea where the Gulf Stream distributes its waters and whither it thus carries types from more southerly regions."
It is evident that Nordenskiold has forgotten that the currents which he thinks carry southerly types to the polar sea, really come from the north, from the polar regions. And we shall show that these animals which are apparently survivals from the glacial period are really inhabitants of the interior of the earth which, owing to its climatic conditions, is now the home of animals and vegetable species which flourished on the outer surface of the earth in the carboniferous era of giant ferns, mammoths, and other species characteristic of that period of damp, steamy, warm climate.
A PUZZLE TO THE GEOLOGIST
But Nordenskiold admits that the finding of mammoth bones, etc., in the Siberian "tundras" or immense plains of sand drifts, is a puzzle to the orthodox geologist. For these drifts were formed quite recently, and yet they contain remains of animals which the orthodox scientist believes to be thousands of years old and no longer existing. He says:
"The tundra has been formed under climatical conditions very similar to the present, which is further confirmed by the geognostic formation of the strata. It has, therefore, long been difficult of explanation
for the geologist that just in those sandy strata is found a large number of remains of mammoths, rhinoceroses, etc., that is to say, of animal types which for the present live only in tropical or sub-tropical climates. Collections from these regions have a peculiar interest from the remarkable circumstance that in the frozen soil of the tundra are found, not only skeletons, but also flesh, hide, hair, and entrails of animal forms which died out many thousands of centuries ago. Among our collections may be mentioned, large pieces of mammoth hide found along with some fragments of bone where the Mesenkin falls into the Yenissej, the skull of a musk-ox, remarkable for its size, found with fragments of mammoth bones in another tundra valley south of Orlovskoj, a very rich collection of sub-fossil shells found principally between Orlovskoj and Gostinoi."
Now that is a very clear statement of the difficulty in which the orthodox scientist finds himself. Here is a new formation--the tundra--and in it he finds skins and bones and entrails of animals which are supposed to be some thousands of centuries old. It is obvious that they cannot be as old as that, or else they would not be there. And the fact that parts of hides and entrails are found--not fossilized but simply frozen--and that semi-fossilized shells are also found, shows that the shells are older than the hides and bones. For in thousands of centuries the hides and entrails would certainly have disintegrated and
left nothing but fossil imprints. A little later Nordenskiold says:
"Few scientific discoveries have so powerfully captivated the interest both of the learned and unlearned as that of the colossal remains of elephants, sometimes well preserved with hair and flesh in the frozen soil of Siberia. Such discoveries have more than once formed the object of scientific expeditions and careful researches by eminent men, but there is still much that is enigmatical with respect to a number of circumstances connected with the Mammoth period of Siberia, whichperhaps was contemporaneous with our Glacial period. Specially is our knowledge of the animal and vegetable types, which lived at the same time as the mammoth, exceedingly incomplete, although we know that in the northernmost parts of Siberia, which are also most inaccessible from land, there are small hills covered with the bones of the mammoth and other contemporaneous animals. . . ."
IN THE NEW SIBERIAN ISLAND
A little later Nordenskiold sailed for the New Siberian Islands:
"These islands are very remarkable from a scientific point of view, being very rich in the remains of the mammoth and other animals of the same period, which are found in greater abundance among them than on the tundra of the mainland. Some of the sand-banks on their shores are so full of the bones
and tusks of the mammoth that the ivory collectors who for a series of years traveled every year from the mainland to the islands in dog-sledges, used to return in autumn when the sea was again covered with ice, with a rich harvest. According to Hedenstrom, the only educated person who has examined these islands in summer, there are besides in the interior hills which are covered with the remains of the mammoth, the rhinoceros, horse, aurochs, bison, sheep, etc."
Special collections were made by Nordenskiold of specimens that would aid him in determining what he admitted was a "difficult problem": how it was possible for the progenitors of the Indian elephant to live in the ice deserts of Siberia.
Yes the problem is difficult when you do not know all the facts, but when we know that the mammoth still lives in the interior, then we can easily understand the situation.
Perhaps the reader says, "But you have not actually proved that yet". But let the reader wait until all the evidence is in. We wish to put the matter beyond the shadow of a doubt, and so we call upon every witness who has seen these remains, but we shall leave the most remarkable case until the last.
OTHER SIMILAR DISCOVERIES
In Edwin S. Grew's "The Romance of Modern Geology" we read of the finding of mammoth remains
in France including a tusk which is carved with a rough but clever picture of a mammoth. That proves that the animal still existed on the outer surface of the earth when mankind had come upon the scene. Mr. Grew also confirms the facts we have told above of the finding of the complete mammoth in the ice by the Russian fisherman in Siberia. He adds that Mr. Adams of the St. Petersburg Museum was sent by the Czar to examine the carcass and found it in a still fresh condition.
He tells us that:
"The Yakuts of the neighborhood had cut off the flesh, with which they had fed their dogs; wild beasts, such as white bears, wolves, wolverines, and foxes had also fed upon it, and traces of their foot-steps were seen around. The skeleton almost cleared of flesh, remained whole, with the exception of one foreleg. The spine of the back, one scapula, the pelvis, and other three limbs were still held together by the ligaments and by parts of the skin; the other scapula was found not far off. The head was covered with a dry skin; one of the ears was furnished with a tuft of hairs; the balls of the eyes were still distinguishable; the brain still occupied the cranium but seemed dried up; the point of the lower lip had been gnawed and the upper lip had been destroyed so as to expose the teeth; the neck was furnished with a long flowing mane; the skin, of a dark-grey
color, covered with black hairs and a reddish wool, was so heavy that ten persons found great difficulty in transporting it to shore.
THE CARCASS OF THE MAMMOTH
"There was collected, according to Mr. Adams, more than thirty-six pounds weight of hair and wool which the white bears had trod into the ground while devouring the flesh. This mammoth was a male, so fat and well fed, according to the assertion of the Tungusian chief, that its belly hung down below the joints of its knees. Its tusks were nine feet, six inches in length, measured along the curve, and its head without the tusks weighed four hundred and fourteen pounds avoirdupois."
But Mr. Grew has something even more remarkable than this corroborative testimony to tell us, and we shall quote other writers to confirm him. He goes on in this same book to tell of:
"A very curious example of the Siberian Mammoth was discovered only a few years ago by a Lamut of one of the Arctic Villages, and through the energy of Dr. Herz was eventually removed in pieces to St. Petersburg. . . . . It was sunk in frozen ground, and this cold storage treatment had preserved it in an extraordinary manner. If the Siberian natives who had discovered it partially buried in alluvial deposit had not uncovered it, so that the sun was able to play on the carcass and produce
decay, this wonderful primeval monster might almost have been got out whole. As it was, the frozen ground had so kept the remains that Dr. Herz had found well-preserved fragments of food between the teeth, and the remains of a hearty meal in the stomach. There is no doubt that the Mammoth fell into the crevice or pit and damaged himself so much in the fall that he could not crawl out. . . . . ."
COULD NOT BE "PRIMEVAL"
The reader will notice that Mr. Grew refers to this mammoth as a "primeval" monster. And that is an example of the sort of thinking that has set all the scientists wrong on these questions regarding the polar regions. Instead of studying the actual facts as we have done in this book they come to the facts with certain fixed ideas in their heads, and they can only understand as many of the facts as fit into their ideas. Everything else they pass by as being of no importance. The reader will see that Mr. Grew has read in his previous studies that the mammoth was a primeval animal--which is true enough as far as it goes. It was a very early animal, and in all the outer world is now extinct. But when he hears of a perfectly fresh carcass being discovered, it never occurs to Mr. Grew nor to Dr. Herz nor to Nordenskiold nor to any other explorer, to think anything else than what he has always thought. They still think of the animal as extinct although its fresh carcass
is before them, and they try to explain the freshness of the carcass by saying that it was preserved by the ice.
COMES FROM WARM CLIMATE
But the mammoth and mastodon are inhabitants, as we have seen, of warm climates, and if the animal we have just read about fell into that crevice when he and his fellows still roamed on what must then have been the much warmer climate of Siberia than the present one, it follows that it was many years before the ice came and froze the animal in its grave.
We claim, it will be seen, that if these animals lived in a certain climate--whatever the climate of Siberia happened to be in the days when scientists claim that the mammoth lived--either one of two things must have happened. If the climate gradually grew colder they would be driven off by the inclemency of the change. If it did not change they would be living in Siberia still. But there are no mammoths in Siberia now. So they were driven somewhere by the growing cold. We claim that they took refuge in the interior of the earth--from whence, for all science can prove to the contrary, they may have come in the first place. We further claim that the fresh remains of their bodies which have been found in Siberia are those of mammoths which in their wanderings came a little further south than usual--for the climate around the polar openings would be quite warm enough for them, and
that these animals fell in to ice crevasses in places from which they were carried to the present situations by the movements of the ice--by those great glaciers which have from time to time been referred to in accounts of Greenland.
SUPPOSING THEY WERE A MILLION YEARS OLD
For consider the alternative supposition. Suppose the mammoth referred to above had really fallen into a pit or water hole a million or so years ago. Suppose that almost immediately afterwards the climate became so cold that the body was frozen in; and climate never does change so quickly. Even in that short interval the food in the stomach and between the teeth would have decomposed. Food begins to break up the minute it reaches the stomach and is acted on by the gastric juice. The heat and moisture of the mouth is such that all food not washed away from the teeth immediately after eating begins to decompose. It would not take a pretentiously educated scientist or veteran Arctic explorer, it would take no more scientifically equipped man than any dentist to tell that when a carcass is found frozen with fresh food between its teeth, that carcass was frozen either immediately after death or even frozen to death.
CONTRADICTIONS IN THAT VIEW
No, there is no getting away from the fact that the mammoth was alive after the ice was formed,
and in some manner fell into a crevasse and was frozen. And the only place the mammoth could come from to meet such a fate is the interior of the earth, because the interior of the earth and possibly all the land around the polar lips is the only climate in the north where he could survive. When the Siberian climate became cold the means of escape to the south was shut off. If it had not been, the mammoth might have migrated south and been alive in the warmer regions today. But we have seen that the ross-gull and other birds as well as the foxes and bears go north when the winter sets in, and the mammoth either came from the interior of the earth in the first place or else he sought it for a refuge when the Siberian wilds became too cold for him.
Apart from that there is no explanation of these remains at all. R. Lyddeker, a British biologist, writing in Knowledge for 1892 says:
"Along the borders of the Arctic Ocean for hundreds of miles mammoth remains are met with in incredible quantities; and it is still one of the puzzles of geology to account adequately and satisfactorily for the manner in which these creatures perished, and how their bodies were buried beneath the frozen soil before decomposition had begun its work, for it is hardly possible to believe that they
lived in a climate so rigorous that their bodies would have been frozen on the ground immediately after death."
The same writer in Knowledge for 1892, tells of the many discoveries of mammoth flesh in fresh condition and mentions that the natives of Siberia as well as their dogs have eaten of the flesh another striking proof of its freshness. But perhaps the most remarkable testimony of this sort is the fact that an actual banquet has been served from the flesh of this supposedly extinct animal. Readers may remember the newspaper reports of that banquet, several years ago, in Petrograd, at which the flesh of the mammoth, wheat from Egyptian tombs, and other preserved products from the remains of Pompeii and Herculaneum were among the items served, the idea being to serve only those things which were thousands of years old. Unfortunately, the scientists had not gone into the history of the mammoth as profoundly as they might, or they would have seen the inconsistencies in their theories which we have pointed out above. And then they would have had to omit the mammoth steak, or at least admit that it was not as old as the other viands they served at this scientific banquet.
But perhaps the reader is not willing to see a whole argument based on what he may consider the one isolated example of a mammoth found with fresh
food between its teeth. He may say one witness is not enough in an important case like this. Very well; let us cite another witness. In June, 1894, Dr. Stephen Bower, one of the foremost American geologists, contributed a long article on extinct animals to the Scientific American Supplement. Of course, like other scientists, he thought that the mammoth was extinct, but he knew that its flesh had been eaten by man--in fact his reference to that fact may be caused by his knowledge of the banquet at Petrograd to which we have referred above. In any case he begins his remarks about the mammoth as follows:
"While the monsters we have described perished many ages before man appeared on the earth, and have never been seen by him alive, the monster of which we are now about to write has been seen by man and its flesh eaten by him. That, however, was after it had been entombed for untold ages in the ice of Arctic regions. The remains of the mammoth are widely diffused over the earth. They have been found in great abundance not only in North America, but also in the frozen regions of Siberia, and indeed all over Asiatic Russia. . . . As far back as the tenth century an active trade has been carried on in fossil ivory. It is estimated that during the past two centuries more than two hundred pairs of fossil tusks have come into the market annually, and the localities where found are far from being exhausted. After
more than forty thousand pairs have been obtained from northern regions the traveler finds them increasing as he approaches toward the north pole. It is said that the soil of Bear Island and Liachoff Island, New Siberia, consists of sand and ice with such quantities of Mammoth remains that they appear as if they were made up of bones and tusks."
Let us break off just a moment to remind the reader how the above corroborates what we have said as to the greater frequency of life and the remains of life as we approach the north polar regions--even the mammoth bones tell the same tale as the gulls and foxes and bears.
Dr. Bowers then proceeds to verify once again the facts we have already heard of:
"But not only have the fossil remains of the Mammoth been found all over the arctic lands as far as man has penetrated, but their bodies, as we have intimated, have been found intact, frozen and preserved in the ice. In the year 1800, the entire body of a mammoth was discovered in a vast stratum of ice on the banks of the river Lena. Afterwards it became disengaged from its icy matrix and white bears, wolves, foxes and dogs fed off its flesh. It was a male and had a long mane on its neck."
And Dr. Bowers gives once more the details which we already know. He goes on, however, to tell of
another instance which other writers have also mentioned:
"A young Russian engineer, named Benkendorf, in the employ of his government, ascended the Indigirka in a steamer in 1846. The season was unusually warm for Siberia, and the country was flooded with water. The stream, which was greatly swollen, cut new channels in many places, melting the ice and frozen soil. In one of these newly cut channels he discovered a mammoth in an upright position, where it had been overwhelmed, probably thousands of years before. As its head and trunk rose and fell with the surging waters he discovered that it was still fastened in the ice and frozen soil by its hind feet. The monster was secured by throwing ropes and chains over its tusks and head, and after its hind feet were released it was safely landed by the aid of more than fifty men and horses. It proved to be of gigantic size, and the whole body was in a fine state of preservation. In its stomach was found the food that had formed its last repast, which consisted of young shoots of the fir and pine, also young fir cones. On the shoulders and along the back grew stiff hairs about a foot long. The hair was dark brown and coarsely rooted. Under the outer hairs there appeared everywhere a soft, warm and thick wool of a fallow brown color."
Dr. Bowers can only account for this surprising freshness by supposing that the freezing of the animal
was instantaneous, and his own theory is that there was a sudden change in the climate which he puts at about the lateness of what he calls the "Noachian deluge". But that is very unscientific, as we know now that changes in climate are gradual, and in serious scientific discussions it is not usual to bring in Noah and the biblical account of the deluge. But in spite of the difficulties, Dr. Bowers makes the most generous acknowledgement of the absolute freshness of this and other specimens found. He even says:
"Many of the animals, as the mammoth, rhinoceros, etc., remain undecayed. Even the capillary blood vessels still retain their contents, showing that there was not the slightest decomposition or breaking down of the tissues, but the catastrophe which overwhelmed them was sudden."
Of the mammoth, therefore, we have the mass of evidence cited to show that the interior of the earth is its habitat. The scientists who have not had this theory to work with have confessed that they cannot explain the phenomenon. But once supply the link which our theory gives and the whole sequence is complete. The mammoth is wandering today in the interior of the earth. When he ventures too near the polar orifice--it must be remembered that the mammoth and mastodon and elephant are all characterized by a tendency to wander widely--he becomes stranded on a breaking ice floe and carried over from the interior regions, to the outer regions or perhaps
falls in a crevasse in ice which afterwards begins to move in some great glacial movement. In these ways the bodies are carried over to Siberia and left where we have seen them discovered. That such a process has been going on for thousands of years is seen from the abundance of remains. Evidently the migratory instinct, which does not change for thousands of years even when the conditions which started it do change, is still working in these animals. And so we have from time to time their silent testimony to the existence and mild climate and vegetation of that interior land which supports them, and which has been giving this and other testimony for so many years without any of our learned scientists as much as once correlating and putting together the evidence--evidence which they alone among us have had the opportunity of collecting but which they collected piece meal, unaware if its importance, puzzled by it, occassionally admitting that they were puzzled, but which they never faced squarely with minds free from preconception. But at last all this evidence has been gathered together. More of it will undoubtedly be forthcoming. And, not for the first time in the history of thought, the orthodox scientists will have to admit that they were wrong in their interpretation of the facts of polar research, and that there is really something new to be found out.
THE MAMMOTH BANQUETS
We have referred to the eating of mammoth flesh by scientists and their guests at a banquet, and this evidence of the freshness of the meat of the animal is so remarkable that our readers may well wish to know all the details. As a matter of fact the eating of mammoth flesh by human beings has occurred more than once according to recent reports in newspapers, and, of course, there may be hundreds of cases among the Eskimos or inhabitants of Siberia where some of the carcasses have been found in a fresh condition.
The most talked about mammoth banquet was that given by Professor Herz, of the Imperial Academy of Science of St. Petersburg--as it was then--who had been leader of the expedition into Siberia which unearthed and transported the mammoth in question to the Imperial Museum. Only the bones and the skin were needed for mounting in the museum, and as the professor had kept the whole carcass in cold storage it suddenly occurred to him that it would be quite possible to eat the flesh. Of course he was under the impression that this flesh was over 20,000 years old, an idea which we have already shown to be quite wrong, and he asked scientists in other parts of the world to contribute other ancient foods--such as corn dug up from the ruins of Egyptian cities. As the mammoth flesh was not old at all we need not speak of the other and older items
of this feast. What does concern us is what the guests thought of the meat. But the account of the banquet says that the banquet was a triumph: "particularly the course of mammoth steak, which all the learned guests declared was agreeable to the taste, and not much tougher than some of the sirloin furnished by butchers of today."
Another mammoth meal was eaten by an American traveler and author, Mr. James Oliver Curwood, who was exploring in the far north when his Eskimo fellow travelers found the body of a mammoth exposed by the falling of a cliff-side. Before quoting Mr. Curwood we should like to point out how little the scientists really know about such matters by contrasting what he gives as the animal's age with what Professor Herz gave. Herz put it at 20,000 years; Curwood, quoted in The Chicago Tribune for July 7th, 1912, puts it at 50,000 to 100,000 years. As we have already shown, Herz is nearer the truth than Curwood. But at that he is about 20,000 years wrong. However, here is what Mr. Curwood has to say:
THE FRESH MEAT
"The flesh was of a deep red or mahogany color, and I dined on a steak an inch and a half thick. . . . The flavor of the meat was old not unpleasant but simply old and dry. That it had lost none of its life-sustaining elements was shown by the fact that the dogs throve upon it."
What Mr. Curwood calls an old flavor--really there could be no such thing any more than there could be a yellow or a blue flavor--is simply the strong flavor due to the character of the animal. Anyone who has eaten bear steak or even venison and contrasted the flavor with beef or mutton will know just what Mr. Curwood is really trying to say.
But there is on record of at least one more mammoth banquet, this time given by Gabrielle D’Annunzio from the flesh of another mammoth, the bones of which repose in a Paris Museum. Here is part of the story as cabled to the Chicago Examiner some years ago:
"Paris, Jan. 31--Meat between forty and fifty thousand years old was the star dish at a banquet given by Gabriele D’Annunzio, the Italian dramatist and poet, at the Hotel Carlton last evening.
"D’Annunzio obtained the flesh from Russia where it was cut from the carcass of a mammoth which was dug out of the ice around the Liakoff Islands, north of Siberia, by Count Stembock Fermer. The count has presented the pachyderm to the Paris Museum of Natural History, where it is about to be exhibited.
"The body embedded in the eternal ice was in perfect condition, at the time of its discovery, a large quantity of the flesh was kept in cold storage and shipped to St. Petersburg.
"This fifty thousand year old frozen meat is being
treasured in Russia, but after repeated efforts, D’Annunzio, through influential friends, succeeded in obtaining several pounds of this rare food-stuff.
"Yesterday's sensational dinner was preliminary to the competition for the Fontenoy Cup, awarded by the French Greyhound Club, of which the poet is one of the most enthusiastic members. His guests were five fellow members of the club and covers were also laid for the favorite hounds of the guests. Describing the banquet afterward to the Examiner correspondent, D’Annunzio said:
"'It was the most successful dinner I ever gave. The elephant meat exceeded my highest expectations. In flavor it was like tortoise flesh, but it was, well--a little tough. . . . . . I had it broiled and served with six different kinds of sauce.'"
Of course the reader will notice that D’Annunzio like everyone else thinks the mammoth flesh was much older than it is in this case forty thousand years is mentioned as a possible age as well as fifty thousand. Now what do the scientists mean by saying a thing is forty thousand years old, then fifty thousand, and then a hundred thousand years? Does not that mean that the whole thing is a guess? Otherwise, the man who said it was forty thousand years old would have some reason for that estimate and that reason ought to convince the man who says it is
fifty thousand years and him who says 100,000 years. Or else the 100,000 year old theory ought to convince the other fellows. Some of them, at least, ought to have some actual evidence on which to base their figures. But as there is no evidence at all, we find guesses all the way from 20,000 to 100,000 years for the age of the mammoth and we find nothing except these guesses, not a single cogent argument. That being the case, it ought to be obvious that a theory such as ours, which explains the actual facts of the case, must supplant these wild guesses. The reason the scientists who say 20,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 years cannot agree is that none of them is right. If any one of them were right he would be able to convince the others by some actual proof or argument. But as all are wrong--almost equally wrong, one might say, although their errors differ by a few thousand years no one man can convince the other. Our own pointing out of the actual facts in the case at once clears away the fog and explains everything in a clear and satisfactory manner.
THE LIFE OF THE ARCTICIn describing the voyages of different explorers we have spoken more than once of their observations of living creatures in the Arctic and Antarctic regions--creatures which could find no sustenance if there were not warmth and fertility in those regions. Perhaps the reader was inclined to think that the first few instances we adduced were exceptional, but as he found explorer after explorer making the same observation we are sure that he became more and more impressed.
But in order to show the full weight of this evidence we shall bring it all together in the present chapter, arranging it according to the various species observed, so that a complete picture of arctic animal and plant life will be spread before the reader--and that picture when viewed as a whole is a complete proof of our theory--for the number and variety of animals and plants which figure in it is so great that their occurrence in any but a region where they had a firm and abundant basis for their life--such as the interior of the earth supplies--would be absolutely impossible.
GENERAL VIEW OF ARCTIC ANIMAL LIFELet us first remind the reader that these birds and animals and flowers of the Arctic regions are no new
feature of them but have been there as far as the memory of man goes back. We have seen how the Eskimos have old traditions of them. When we come to later times we find the animals and plants still there. Some of the earliest testimony about them, the earliest testimony of modern times, that is, has been collected by the scholar whom we have already quoted, the Hon. Dames Barrington, in his book "On the Possibility of Approaching the North Pole." He tells us not only that driftwood is driven on the north coast of Iceland which could come from no other quarter than the north, but that among other fresh pieces whole trees were found which yet had their buds on them, something which would have been absolutely impossible if this wood had drifted long distances from southern climes. It is obvious that a very few months in salt water would kill the buds, but here were trees which had evidently been growing only a short time before. And he further tells us that observers in Spitzbergen have always noticed that in spring, just before the hatching season, the wild ducks, geese, and other birds, fly in a northernly direction. There is also a heavy fall migration to the north.
PHENOMENA OLD AND WELL ESTABLISHEDAnother early modern writer has this to say of the animals and fish of the north:
"It is a fact well attested by whalers and fishers in the northern seas, and one that almost every author
who adverts to the northern fisheries confirms, that innumerable and almost incredible numbers of whales, mackerel, herring, and other migratory fish annually come down in the spring season of the year, from the arctic seas toward the equator. Some authors describe the shoals of herring alone to be equal in surface to the island of Great Britain. Besides these, innumerable shoals of other fish also come down. These fish when they first come from the north in the spring, are in their best plight and fattest condition; but as the season advances and they move on to the southward, they become poor; so much so that, by the time they get to the coast of France or Spain, as fishermen say, they are scarce worth catching.
IMMENSE SHOALS OF FISH"The history of the migratory fish affords strong grounds to conclude that the shoals which come from the north are like swarms of bees from the mother hive, never to return. They are not known to return in shoals; and it is doubted by some writers whether any of them ever return north again. . . ."
To that we would simply add that a source of life so prolific and never failing that it is likened to a hive, a place where the fish breed and from which they come in shoal after shoal, is just what one might expect to find in the well warmed interior of the earth. One could never imagine such a place under a sea of solid ice. But our authority proceeds:
"Pinkerton, in his voyages, states that the Dutch, who at various periods got detained in the ice and were compelled to winter in high northern latitudes, could find but few fish to subsist on during the winter; which proves that the migrating fish do not winter amongst or on this side of the ice."
WHERE DO THESE FISH WINTER?It follows from that, that there must be immense fish-breeding grounds on the other side of the so-called polar ice, for only in a favorable location could these shoals live and breed--and it must be remembered that they would require an immense quantity of food, and only in a very temperate sea would enough food grow.
THE SEALTo quote a little further:
"The seal, another animal found in cold regions, is also said to migrate north twice each year; going once beyond the icy circle to produce their young, and again to complete their growth, always returning remarkably fat--an evidence that they find something more than snow and ice to feed on in the country to which they migrate."
In "Ree's Encyclopedia" there is one of the early articles descriptive of Hudson's Bay, and it is there stated that reindeer "are seen in the spring season of the year, about the month of March or April, coming down from the north, in droves of eight or
ten thousand, and that they are known to return northward in the month of October, when the snow becomes deep." The account goes on to say:
THE REINDEER"We are informed by Professor Adams, of St. Petersburg, that on the northern coast of Asia, every autumn the reindeer start northeastwardly from the river Lena, and return again in the spring in good condition."
Short of such a hospitable country as is afforded by the interior of the earth, where could these animals possibly find warmth and nutriment?
MUSK-OXENAmong early nineteenth century accounts of northern explorations, "Hearne's Journal" is one of the most interesting. In its pages we may read that large droves of musk-oxen abound in the arctic regions, as many as several herds each aggregating seventy to eighty head being seen by Hearne in one day. Few of them ever came as far south as the Hudson's Bay settlements. He also states that polar white bears are rarely seen in the winter and that their winter habitat is a mystery. But in the spring they suddenly appear from some unknown place having their young with them.
Hearne goes on to tell us that white foxes are exceedingly plentiful some years, and that they always
come from the north; that the animals which appear do not go again to the north, so that the supply from there must be inexhaustible. Other species of animals and fish, he tells us, are plentiful some years and very scarce in other years, which would indicate, perhaps, that under certain conditions of weather they migrate within the interior of the earth instead of coming over the ice barriers to the exterior.
VARIOUS WILD FOWLHearne has also some very interesting observations about the large numbers of swans, geese, brants, ducks, and other wild water-fowl which are so numerous about Hudson's Bay. Of geese alone there are ten different species, several of which he says--particularly the snow goose, the blue goose, the brent goose, and the horned wavy goose--lay their eggs and raise their young in some country which to Hearne was unknown--as indeed it has been to all explorers, for that country is no other than the interior of the earth. Even the Indians or Eskimos who had explored all the habitable countries in those regions, could never tell where these fowl bred, and it was well known that they never migrated to the south, and as many of these fowl moulted in the sea-son when they were visible in Hudson's Bay it was certain that they did not breed there for a moulting bird cannot sit on the nest--the moulting and the breeding seasons being always separated.
DRIFTWOOD AND SEEDS OF PLANTSNow let us follow in further detail the evidences of these various forms of life in the Arctic. We have already spoken of driftwood being found where it could only have come from the interior of the earth. This is such a common occurrence that every explorer almost that we have followed has had .something to say about it. But occasionally even stranger things than trees with green buds on them are found in the Arctic seas. Seeds of unknown species as well as of tropical species have been found, drifted down in northern currents. One very interesting find of this nature was the seed of the entada bean, a tropical seed measuring two and a quarter inches across. This remarkable find was made by a Swedish expedition under Otto Torell near Trurenberg Bay, and it is obvious that this seed must have come from the interior of the earth for it is of a tree that only grows under tropical conditions, and it would have been disintegrated had it been drifting all over the world for many months, as would be the case if it had come up from the tropical regions of the exterior of the planet.
W. J. Gordon, who recounts this find in his "Round About the North Pole" also adduces evidence that in the past there was a great variety of vegetation in Greenland, including magnolia, maple, poplar, lime, walnut, water-lily, myrica, smilax, aralia, sedges and grasses, conifers and ferns. And
it is obvious that these plants were not migrants into Greenland from the south. They could not pass oceans and icy coasts. They must have come over to Greenland from the warm interior.
MORE ABOUT REINDEERGordon also corroborates what we have just read from Ree's old time but accurate observations about reindeer. He tells us that one of the earliest explorers to find this animal in very large numbers, and on its way from some unknown land in the north, was Liakhoff, after whom Liakhoff Island was named, who saw a "mighty crowd" of them, and ascertained that their tracks were all from the north.
Gordon also tells us of Sverdrup's finding of so many hares around latitude 81 degrees that one inlet was actually called Hare Fiord. There was also enough other game to keep the whole exploring party well fed on fresh meat.
Another author who throws much light on this subject is Epes Sargent who, in collaboration with W. H. Cunnington, has written "The Wonders of the Arctic World." In describing the work of Buchan and Franklin, he tells us that one observer in their party, Captain Beechey, saw reindeer grazing on the west coast of Spitzbergen at an elevation of fifteen hundred feet. Meanwhile, there were so many birds that the place reverberated with their cries from dawn till dark, and the little auk were so
numerous that uninterrupted lines of them would extend all over the bay where the party was resting, and so close together that sometimes thirty fell at one shot. The living column was six yards broad and as many deep, and allowing sixteen birds to a cubic yard, there would be four million of them on the wing at the same time. While, Captain Beechey adds, that number appears very large, the little rotges rise in such numbers as to darken the air, and their chorus is distinctly audible at a distance of four miles. Meanwhile, the islands were thickly populated with eider-down ducks, and the "sea about Spitzbergen is as much alive as the land, from the multitude of burgomasters, stront-jaggers, malmouks, kittiwakes, and the rest of the gull tribe, while the amphibious animals and fish enliven both the ice and the water, from the huge whale to the minute clio on which it feeds, swallowing, perhaps, a million at a mouthful."
Later in this book Sargent tells us that Franklin's second expedition saw large numbers of geese migrating to the unknown north, as well as many other birds--sure indication of land to the north. Still later he mentions "innumerable flocks of Arctic and blue gulls, besides almost a dozen other species." He also notes the fact that no matter how far north the human explorer goes he always finds that the polar bear is a little ahead of him, and no matter how far
north these bears are met with they are always on their way further north.
Speaking of Dr. Kane's voyages this same author says:
"It was found that animal life abounded. Musk-oxen were shot at intervals throughout the winter . . . Wolves, bears, foxes, and other animals were repeatedly observed. Geese, ducks, and other water-fowl including plover and other wading birds, were very plentiful during the summer . . . there were large numbers of ptarmigan or snow partridge . . . The waters were found to be filled to an extraordinary degree with marine invertebrata, including jelly-fish and shrimps. Seals were very abundant. Numerous insects were observed also, especially several species of butterfly, flies, bees, and insects of like character. Quite an extensive and varied collection of specimens was secured."
--and those observations were made north of latitude 82.
Cunnington also tells of the finding of much drift-wood by the McClure expedition, some of which in the opinion of the ship's carpenter had not been subject to a very long immersion in the water. McClure himself reports on this expedition that his men saw reindeer and killed musk-oxen on the shores of Prince of Wales strait, and he adds that it is pretty evident that during the whole winter animals may be found in these straits, and that the want of sufficient
light alone prevents our larder being stored with fresh food. And Commander Osborne adds to this testimony the following remarkable admission: "Subsequent observation has completely overthrown the idea that the reindeer, musk-oxen, or other animals inhabiting the archipelago of island north of America migrate southward to avoid an Arctic winter." Later Commander McClure explored Bank's Land and found immense quantities of trees thrown in layers by glacier action evidently that had brought them from the north. Sometimes they protruded fourteen feet from the ground in which they were embedded. One ravine showed along one side a mass of trees tightly packed to a height of forty feet from the bottom of the declivity. The ground around the trees was formed of sand and shingle, showing that the trees had not grown there but had been carried there from some other spot. While some of the wood was petrified much of it was very recent, showing that this process of the trees being carried down had been going on for a great many thousands of years. And Cunnington adds:
"At a subsequent period Lieutenant Mecham met with a similar kind of fossil forest in Prince Patrick Island, nearly one hundred and twenty miles further north."
And yet in the actual latitudes where these trees are found nothing larger than a stunted willow
grows. No wonder the people who think the earth is solid are hard put to it to explain where these trees come from.
Nansen himself is puzzled to account for it. In the second volume of his "Farthest North" he speaks of this driftwood which is being continually found on the Greenland coast and whose presence, he says, has caused geographers to doubt if there can possibly be a solid polar ice cap--for if there were where could this wood come from? He says that even as far north as latitude 86 degrees he found such driftwood.
BIRDS AND THEIR MIGRATIONSIn an English work entitled "The Arctic World: Its Plants, Animals and Natural Phenomena" we find further corroborative evidence. The author urges further exploration of the Unknown Region, as he terms it, as the only means of solving the riddles which it presents and which are quite unexplainable according to the orthodox theories. He says:
"There are questions connected with the migrations of birds which can be elucidated only by an exploration of the Unknown Region. Multitudes which annually visit our shores in the winter and spring return in summer to far north. This is their regular custom and obviously would not have become a custom unless it had been found beneficial. Therefore,
we may assume that in the zone they frequent they find some water which is not always frozen; some land on which they can rest their weary feet; and an adequate supply of nourishing food."
THE SAND-PIPER IS A PUZZLEFrom Professor Newton we adopt, in connection with this consideration, a brief account of the movements of one class of migratory birds--the Knots.
"The knot or sand-piper is something half-way between a snipe and a plover. It is a very active and graceful bird, with rather long legs, moderately long wings, and a very short tail. It swims admirably but is not often seen in the water, preferring to assemble with its fellows on the sandy sea-shores, where it gropes in the sand for food or fishes in the rock pools for some crustaceans . . . Now, in the spring the knot seeks our island (England) in immense flocks, and after remaining on the coasts for about a fort-night, can be traced proceeding gradually northwards, until finally it takes leave of us. It has been noticed in Iceland and Greenland, but not to stay; the summer there would be too rigorous for its liking, and it goes further and further north. Whither? Where does it build its nest and hatch its young? We lose all trace of it for some weeks. What becomes of it?
"Toward the end of summer back it comes to us in larger flocks than before, and both old birds and
young birds remain upon our coasts until November, or, in mild seasons, even later. Then it wings its flight to the south, and luxuriates in blue skies and balmy airs until the following spring, then it resumes the order of its migration."
Commenting upon these facts, Professor Newton infers that the lands visited by the knot in the middle of summer are less sterile than Iceland or Greenland; for certainly it would not pass over these countries, which are known to be the breeding places for swarms of water-birds, to resort to regions not so well provided with supplies of food. The food, however, chiefly depends on the climate. Wherefore we conclude that beyond the northern tracts already explored lies a region enjoying in summer a climate more genial than they possess.
This is a very remarkable corroboration of our theory. Here is a well known bird whose migrations are known in every particular except one--where does it go when it departs for the north? That has been an insoluble question, but at any rate a question which suggests that the far north is not what the scientists have supposed it to be--a barren waste. And when we add to this testimony the fact that animals also disappear in that direction in the winter, we begin to see how certain it is that there is not only a land of mild summer there but of perpetual summer.
MIGRATIONS OF MENOur author goes on to say:
"Do any races of men with which we are now unacquainted inhabit the Unknown region? Mr. Markham observes that although scarcely one-half of the Arctic world has been explored, yet numerous traces of former inhabitants have been found in wastes which are at present abandoned to silence and solitude. Man would seem to migrate as well as the inferior animals, and it is possible that tribes may be dwelling in the mysterious inner zone between the Pole and the known Polar regions."
Well, our chapter on the Eskimo would have been read with interest by the author of this work. He shows every evidence of having an open mind, and we know that any scientists of today, who are as open to conviction as this writer evidently is, will eagerly embrace our demonstration that the so-called "pole" does not exist at all.
This author also refers to the presence of the "Arctic Highlanders" in the most inaccessible regions of the north and repeats their evidence that there are herds of musk-oxen frequenting lands far to the north situated in an iceless sea. He also refers to traces of these animals actually found by European explorers in Greenland, and also the presence of Eskimos who were met with by one captain and found by a later one to have gone north when the
climate was so severe that their southern route was absolutely blocked.
The late Dr. Nicholas Senn, the well known Chicago surgeon, who is quoted in this book on the subject of the Eskimo, also corroborates the fact of birds migrating to the farthest north. He adds that even in cases of birds breeding in Greenland, the migration nevertheless takes place.
MORE ANIMAL LIFE THAN IN TROPICSIn J. W. Buel's "The World's Wonders"--in which there is a very comprehensive summary of the state of our knowledge of the Arctic regions we are told, "It is a fact that animal life is greater in the Arctic than in the tropical seas. Portions of the Arctic ocean are even colored by the abundance of small creatures that swim therein."
And Herman Dieck, in his "Marvelous Wonders of the Polar World," tells us of Lieutenant Lock-wood's frequent observations in the highest latitudes he attained with Schley. These observations included signs of foxes, hares, lemmings and ptarmigans. Hundreds of musk-oxen, too, were seen by Greely in Grinnell Land. In fact, Dieck goes so far as to say that as the explorers went north they found an "Arctic Paradise" and that the ever increasing fertility of the country would almost justify the acceptance of Symmes' "eccentric theory," as he calls it. Of course Symmes' theory was eccentric because it was merely
a piece of speculation. It did not really account for the actual conformation of the earth. But at least Symmes had enough sense to be dissatisfied with the orthodox scientific theory of his day. And had Mr. Dieck known of the theory expounded in this book he could not have failed to see in the unanimous testimony of explorers that the further north you go the more animal life there is, a complete proof that there is in the far north a great asylum of refuge where every creature can breed in peace and with plenty of food. And from that region must come also those evidences of vegetable life that explorers have 'epeatedly seen, the red pollen of plants that drifts out on favorable breezes and colors whole ice bergs and glacier sides with a ruddy tinge, those seeds and buds and branches, and, most impressive of all, those representatives of races of animals that yet live on in the interior although they have disappeared from the outside of the earth.
A PARADISE OF LIFEWhat a veritable paradise of animal and vegetable life that must be! And perhaps for some sort of human life also it is a land of perpetual ease and peace. The Eskimo people who are probably still living there will have been modified from the type that we see on the outer surface. Their life will be easier, they will have no cold climates and food scarcities to contend with. Like the inhabitants
of some of our tropical islands they will reflect the ease of their lives in easy-going and lovable temperaments. They will be hunters and fishers and also eaters of many fruits and other vegetable products unknown to us. When we penetrate their lands we shall find growing almost to the inner edge of the polar opening those trees of which we have seen so many drifting trunks and branches. We shall find, nesting perhaps in those trees, perhaps in the rocks around the inner polar regions the knots and swans and wild geese and ross-gulls that we have so often seen in the preceding pages, flying to the north to escape the rigors of climate which we in our ignorance have for so long supposed to be worse in the north than elsewhere.
We shall see all that when we explore the Arctic in earnest, as we shall easily be able to do with the aid of airships. And when once we have seen it we shall wonder why it was that for so long we were blind to evidence which, as is shown in this book, has been before men's eyes for practically a whole century and over.
OTHER INTERESTING ANIMALS OF THE INTERIORThe mammoth and mastodon, while giving us our chief evidence that there is habitable land within the interior of the globe, are not the only animals which may be studied in this connection. There are records of other animals living in that land whose like has never been seen on any portion of the outside globe, only their fossilized or semi-fossilized remains telling their story.
OBSERVATIONS OF ANIMALSRobert B. Cook, writing in Knowledge for 1884, tells of the remains not only of mammoths but of hairy rhinoceros, reindeer, hippopotamus, lion, and hyena, found in northern glacial deposits, and he claims that these animals, which are not able to endure cold weather, must either have been summer visitors during the severity of the glacial period or have been permanent residents while the country had--as he thinks--a milder climate. But as the reindeer, lion, and hyena are present day forms of life and not as old as the mammoth (at least in the form in which we know them today and in which these remains show them to have been when they
were alive), it is evident that these animals visited the spots where their remains were found not from southerly climates during early glacial epochs, but that they are remains of visitors from the land of the interior. Otherwise these present day forms would not be found alongside those of the mammoth which we have shown to be a present day inhabitant of the interior of the earth. Not knowing this, Mr. Cook has great difficulty in explaining the occurrence together of these forms which in his view are earlier and later forms of life. But when we see that they are really contemporaneous the difficulty vanishes.
THE "ARCLA," A HITHERTO UNKNOWN ANIMALThat some of the animal denizens of the interior world are species quite unknown to us will not seem at all strange when we think of the conditions that obtain there, and if that were the case it would not be so very strange if at times a specimen of some kind of these unknown creatures wandered out over the lip, perhaps carried by a glacier, and was seen by some inhabitant of the far northern regions. As a matter of fact there is just such a case recorded by J. W. Buel in his survey of scientific and exploratory progress entitled "The World's Wonders". He quotes Captain Hall, who lived among the Eskimos for five years, who says that this and similar stories are worthy of credence because strange things
that the Eskimos have told on other occasions have been verified afterwards.
It seems that the Eskimos often described to Captain Hall an animal which they, called the arcla: "but which is not mentioned in any book of natural history, nor did he ever see a specimen himself. . . ." The natives speak of this animal as being larger than the bear, and as very ferocious and as much more difficult to be killed. It has grayish hair, a long tail, and short thick legs, its forefeet being divided into three parts, like the partridge's, its hind feet are like a man's heels. When resting it sits upright like a man. A Neitchille Innuit, crawling into a hole for shelter, in the night, had found one asleep and quickly despatched it with his knife. It may be added here that Ebierbing, who was Hall's interpreter, now residing in the United States, confirms such accounts of the arcla, and says that the animal once inhabited his native country on Cumberland Sound.
CURIOUS ANIMALS IN THE FAR SOUTHThere is another curious fact that could be explained easily on the ground of our theory but that otherwise is very puzzling. When Nordenskiold was exploring the Antarctic regions he visited Patagonia, the most southern of inhabited lands. When there he explored a large cave in which he found a large piece of skin covered with greenish brown hair, and studded on the inner side with little knobs
of bone. He identified it as the skin of a prehistoric animal called the mylodon, although along with the remains of the mylodon--for further exploration discovered no less than twenty specimens there were found many bones, teeth, and horny hoofs of a long extinct animal of the horse family, and as Mr. Edwin S. Grew says in his "Romance of Modern Geology" (where he recounts the episode), the whole thing is very puzzling (to the orthodox scientist, that is):
"It was supposed that the mylodon, like all the peculiar gigantic animals of South America, had become extinct as long ago as the mammoth or as the wooly rhinoceros. All these extinct South American animals were distinguished by peculiarly shaped teeth, and had no teeth at all in front. They are called, therefore, Edentata, and their representatives today are much smaller."
THE MYLODONSo there is no doubt that the animal which Dr. Nordenskiold discovered was a prehistoric form. But on the other hand there was a very remarkable circumstance:
"The skin was dry but sound. When it was placed in water it gave out a smell which, though unpleasant was very interesting, for it showed that the animal which had worn it could not have been dead thousands or even hundreds of years. It was in fact, evidently a piece of the skin of a mylodon, which had survived in this region until modern times.
"Further explorations were made in the cavern by Dr. Moreno of La Plata, and other naturalists, and an immense quantity of bones was obtained, and more portions of the skin of the mylodon with the hair on. The cavern had been inhabited probably several centuries ago by Indians, for human bones and weapons were obtained.
"The remains of as many as twenty mylodons have been obtained from the cavern, and many of the bones are cut or broken in a way which leads us to suspect that the human inhabitants of the cave cut up the dead mylodons for food, and split their bones to obtain the marrow.
"Some of the mylodon bones, skulls, jaw-bones, leg-bones, etc., are smeared with blood and have pieces of cartilage and tendon attached. There are other evidences which go to show that the Indians may have kept the mylodons alive in the cave and fed them with hay brought from the outside.
"Besides the relics of the mylodon and of man the cavern has yielded bones and teeth, and many horny hoofs belonging to a kind of extinct horses; and this constitutes one of the puzzling things about this cave treasure . . . . . .
"The bones that were found are not buried in lime or any preserving stone; but lie in sand where one would expect them to have perished long ago if they had been of any great age. Yet side by side with them are the bones of a long extinct horse; and
there is no tradition among the Indians today of any huge beast corresponding to the mylodon. . . . . . Possibly, though it does not seem very likely, the mylodon is still living in similar caverns in this region, as yet unvisited by man."
Now the above is very interesting in the light of our theory. The fact that the mylodon was not a relic of untold ages ago is beyond dispute: the relative freshness of its skin proves that, to say nothing of the fact that it was alive when Indians who knew how to domesticate animals were in the land--and that is very recent in the scale of time in which the mastodon and mylodon figure. But the fact that the bones of a long extinct horse-like animal were found alongside those of the mylodon, showing that the mylodon, an animal known to be very old and yet, in this case, proved also to be very recent, and the horse-like creature were contemporary. That means that the horse-like animal is not so old as we think.
Where, then, could either one of them have come from? Although the country has been explored since Mr. Grew's book was written no mylodons have been found as he suggests they might be. Evidently these were the remains of some specimens that in some way had wandered from the interior over the Antarctic polar lip and either through being caught on a floe or carried by a glacier they drifted on to some land which connects with Patagonia.
[paragraph continues] That the Indians, whose bones were found in the cave, died on the same spot as that in which they had lived and where they kept these animals, might almost prove that they were among the last of their kind. Otherwise as soon as their supply of food was exhausted these Indians would have gone forth in search of more and their bones would not have been found beside their banquet board.
AN ESKIMO TRADITIONIt may be well to add at this point that the Eskimos have a well defined tradition that the mammoth lives underground. Two writers in the Scientific American Supplement independently make this assertion, and while the Eskimos are wrong, of course, in thinking that a large animal like the mammoth could burrow like a mole, the very fact that they have this idea shows that they are accustomed to seeing the mammoth at intervals and then lose sight of it for some time, the animal suddenly appearing again. If we allow that the mammoth has its present habitat in the interior of the earth, it is quite easy to see how this idea arose.
THE AURORAEvery reader of this book has heard of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, and the Aurora Australis, or Southern Lights. Some readers may have visited Norway and gone far enough to catch a glimpse of this mysterious phenomenon. We say mysterious because scientists have never been able to explain it, although they usually try to do so by saying something indefinite about the earth's electricity and magnetism. We claim, on the basis of our theory, to explain definitely what causes the auroral lights: that the central sun, flashing its beams through the polar openings, is the cause. To enforce this claim we shall first describe. in the words of competent observers, just what these lights look like and how they behave. We shall then show--also on the best scientific evidence--that they are not and could not be caused by electricity or magnetism; we shall refute many fallacies on that subject. And then we shall give abundant evidence proving that the reflection of the rays of the central sun by the earth's atmosphere, modified by the conditions, cloudy or otherwise, of the atmosphere of the interior of the earth, is what causes these wonderful displays of light.
WHAT THE AURORA LOOKS LIKEWe shall have more than one description of the aurora in the following chapter, but perhaps it will be interesting to start our enquiry from a rather old but very good book to which we have referred before. In Honorable Daines Barrington's "Possibility of Approaching the North Pole" he asks a correspondent about the aurora and is assured that it "is commonly seen most strong in the north and is very red and fiery."
IS IT CONTINUOUS?Greely in his "Three Years of Arctic Service" says a number of interesting things. He remarks that there is always a feeble auroral light even when there is not a brilliant display. Soon after that remark we find him observing a perfectly circular aurora which he calls a mock sun. It had burning colors of blue, yellow and red with bars of white. A few days after, he witnessed an aurora which had a beautiful corona or crown of light around it. It had numerous and brilliant streamers. Then here is another description of an aurora:
"A beautiful and brilliant arch about three degrees wide, formed of twisted, convoluted bands of light, similar to twisted ribbons, extended from the south-west through the zenith to the north-eastern horizon. Occasionally, well-marked and clearly defined patches of light detached themselves, as puffs of smoke from a pipe, and drifted fading to the northwest.
[paragraph continues] The arch seemed to be continually renewing itself from the southwest to fade at the opposite end. Perhaps a better idea of this peculiar formation may be conveyed by likening the display to an arch having the appearance of an endless, revolving screw. This formation was by no means infrequent, but I have never seen it elsewhere or known it to be described."
Again Greely writes:
"A particularly fine aurora, like a pillar of glowing fire, from horizon to horizon through the zenith, showing at times a decidedly rosy tint."
It will at once strike the reader how well these observations fit in with our theory that the aurora is the reflection of the beams of the inner sun coming through the polar orifice, when he remembers the extraordinary differences there will be in the conditions which from time to time modify those reflections. There may be clouds between the inner sun and the polar orifice, and these may be diffused or in heavy dense masses. The atmosphere may be moister or dryer at one time than another and this will modify the reflections. The earth's outer atmosphere may vary as well as its inner one. Hence all the differences which are described in the succeeding pages.
NANSEN DESCRIBES AURORALet us now take the testimony of Fridtjof Nansen on the subject of the aurora. In "Farthest North"
he describes many appearances of this marvel. Here is part of one of his descriptions:
"A lovely aurora this evening. A brilliant corona encircled the zenith with a wreath of streamers in several layers, one outside the other; then larger and smaller sheaves of streamers over the sky. . . . . . . All of them, however, tended upward toward the corona, which shone like a halo. Every now and then I could discern a dark patch in its middle, at the point where all the rays converged. It lay a little south of the pole star, and approached Cassiopeia in the position it then occupied. But the halo kept smouldering and shifting just as if a gale in the upper strata of the atmosphere were playing the bellows to it. Presently fresh streamers shot out of the darkness out-side the inner halo, followed by other bright shafts of light in a still wider circle, and meanwhile the dark space in the middle was clearly visible; at other times it was completely covered with masses of light. Then it appeared as if the storm abated, and the whole turned pale, and glowed with a faint whitish hue for a little while, only to shoot wildly up once more and to begin the same dance over again. Then the entire mass of light around the corona began to rock to and fro in large waves over the zenith and the dark central point, whereupon the gale seemed to increase and whirl the streamers into an inextricable tangle, till they merged into a luminous vapor
that enveloped the corona and drowned it in a deluge of light, so that neither it nor the streamers, nor the dark centre could be seen--nothing, in fact, but a chaos of shining mist."
OUR EXPLANATIONNow it is obvious that the real explanation of this phenomenon is to be found in those words which Nansen uses without seeing their real bearing on the problem: "it appeared as if the storm abated" and "the gale seemed to increase". As a matter of fact the light from the central sun was being reflected from the higher reaches of the earth's atmosphere and the reflection was interfered with by a violent storm in the interior of the earth. Clouds were rapidly being formed and being dissipated in that part of the interior near the polar, opening. Thus the rays of the central sun were one moment permitted to pass without obstruction; then the opening would be clouded up, at first perhaps by one dense cloud giving the central dark spot in the reflection of which Nansen speaks; then there would be a general filming over of the aperture and the result would be a diffused reflection.
Not only is it true that no other explanation fits the facts of the rapid changes without apparent cause, but Nansen himself acknowledges that he was quite ignorant of the cause of the phenomenon. He says:
"O thou mysterious radiance! What art thou and
whence comest thou? Yet why ask? . . . . . What would it profit if we could say that it is an electric discharge or currents of electricity through the upper regions of the air, and were able to describe in minutest detail how it all came to be?"
NOT CAUSED BY ELECTRICITYThe reader will notice that Nansen does not commit himself to the popular view that the aurora is caused by electricity. In that he shows his wisdom, for we shall now deduce evidence to show that electricity has nothing whatever to do with the aurora.
If, as some people think, the earth's magnetism or electricity at the polar regions or around the earth's magnetic poles were the cause of the aurora, there would be a constant relation between its displays and the different instruments which have been constructed to tell the presence of magnetism and electricity--the compass would be affected and the electrometer would be affected. And there would certainly not be the irregularity about these displays that Nansen describes above. So now let us take the testimony of other observers. Payer who entered the Arctic circle on the "Tegetthoff" during the years 1872-1874, has a whole chapter devoted to the aurora. He says that it is very difficult to characterise the forms of this phenomenon, not only because they are manifold but because they are constantly changing. Sometimes there are brilliant
bands and patches of light upon the sky, sometimes there are appearances like "glowing balls of light". He further says:
CLOUDS IN THE INTERIOR"The movement of the waves of light gave the impression that they were the sports of winds, and their sudden and rapid rise resembled the uprisings of whirling vapors, such as the geysers might send forth In many cases the aurora much resembled a flash of summer lightning conceived as permanent".
Now that description precisely fits in with what we have described as the reflection of the light of the central sun, that light being by turns cut off in one part and then another, here and there a gleam breaking through, as the atmosphere of the interior changed. That the appearance was "the sport of winds," as Payer says, is literally true, only the winds were those shifting the clouds in the atmosphere on the inner side of the polar orifice. And it may be noted that a magnetic display could not be the sport of winds, for wind does not effect the ether in which medium along magnetic lines of force and electrical light from discharges work. If the aurora were caused by electrical lines of force discharging themselves in light, it would not be so capricious as described above. It would be a more or less steady appearance.
WHAT PAYER HAS TO SAY OF THE AURORAPayer goes on to say that often after a brilliant aurora there would be bad weather which certainly sounds as if the storm clouds from which it was reflected from the inner sun were breaking, or perhaps a storm starting in the interior was coming over the lip and running its course in the Arctic circle. He adds that none of the theories current at the time explain the phenomenon. He thinks, however, that vapors rather than electricity may play a part in the phenomenon, especially on account of its "indefinite form" which, as we have pointed out above,
is only explicable on our showing that the aurora is the reflection of the central sun and not due to any electrical discharge. A member of Payer's expedition, Lieutenant Weyprecht, describes one form of the aurora as an arch of light, looking as if "it were the upper limit of a segment of a circle and it is often thrice the breath of a rainbow. Often as it rises other arches follow it, all rising toward the zenith." Now we know that a rainbow is caused by the sun that lights the earth, and it is only natural that when the conditions are calm the reflection of the inner sun should also take this form--the circularity of the arch of the aurora simply being the reflection of the circular outline of that inner sun's diameter. Payer quotes Parry as saying that there was no magnetic disturbance when the aurora was
seen. He, himself, is not able to make any connection between variations of the magnetic instruments and the presence of the aurora, although he tries hard to do so. As the final result of his observations he writes as follows:
"No pencil can draw it, no colors can paint it, and no words can describe it in all its magnificence. And here below stand we poor men and speak of knowledge and progress, and pride ourselves on the understanding with which we extort from Nature her mysteries. We stand and gaze on the mystery which Nature has written for us in flaming letters on the dark vault of night, and ultimately we can only wonder and confess that, in truth, we know nothing of it."
Now some day that will appear very pessimistic, for we are making progress in knowledge, and about this very subject. After the enthusiastic description which Payer gives of the beauties of the aurora, might it not have occurred to him that magnetic or electrical discharges could not produce such grandeur because electrical flashes are only bright when the electricity is at a very high tension. But as soon as the tension of the electricity in the atmosphere becomes great enough we have a thunder storm, and we all know just how bright the lightning flash is. But how about these marvelous colors, this sea of flames of which Payer says "is that sea red, white or green? Who can say?" And Payer admits that
it is even impossible to tell whether the "rays shoot from above downward or from below upward." Such colors could not possibly be produced by electricity; they are the colors of the interior sun partly split up like the rainbow by their breaking up as they pass from stratum to stratum of the atmosphere at length to be reflected back to us.
But we have denied that these displays have any effect on the magnetic needle or the electrometer. Let us verify that assertion by evidence more powerful than Payer's. Greely says in the book from which we have already quoted that "it seems to be the experience here that the magnet is undisturbed during the prevalence of colorless auroras" although he did observe in a few cases he reports that magnetic storms took place at about the same time as there were auroral displays. In these cases, however, it is certain that the conditions which produced the stormy and colored appearance of the aurora due to its refraction through damp air--also produced the magnetic storms, just as in our own latitudes an electrical storm is accompanied by a great deal of moisture in the air. While in ordinary weather, the atmosphere being uniform throughout, the auroral reflection is uncolored because it is not broken up into a spectrum and at the same time in such uniformly dry air there is nothing to cause a magnetic storm. But it by no means follows, from the fact that Greely saw these magnetic storms upon one or
two occasions, that they always accompany colored auroras, for as a matter of fact they do not, as our further testimony shows.
But there is one important preliminary point. If the aurora is a reflection of the inner sun, it will only be on the rare occasions when the whole polar orifice is covered with cloud--and how rare such a condition would be, even in the damp atmosphere of the interior--that the aurora will be absent. The sun is always there, the orifice is always there, and the earth's atmosphere above the polar regions will always be dense enough to reflect some light, though not of course dense enough to reflect the wonderful lights that it sometimes does. So, if our theory be true, there ought always to be some auroral light at the pole. And we have the testimony of the celebrated French astronomer, Camille Flammarion, that this is so. In one place in his book, "The Atmosphere", he says: "Nearly every night there is a more or less brilliant display of these auroral lights". And later in the same book he says: "This light of the earth, the emission of which toward the poles is almost continuous. . . . . ."
NOTHING TO DO WITH MAGNETISMAnd now for the alleged disturbance of the magnet or other instruments. In Sargent and Cunning-ham's "Wonders of the Arctic World," which is a carefully written account of the earlier expeditions,
it is recorded that during the Second Land Expedition of Franklin, enough observations of the aurora were made with specially designed instruments and recorded to establish the fact that no disturbances of the magnetic needle accompanied the displays. (Page 164.)
We may corroborate this testimony by referring to "Wonders of the Polar World", by Herman Dieck, M. A., another work in which the main results of polar exploration are summarized. Mr. Dieck quotes a description of an aurora seen by Greely's men, in which the arch form which we have already described was very prominent, and also the prismatic colors showing that the aurora was colored through the breaking up of sunlight, just as in the case of the rainbow. And he adds that there was no noise--this is important, as electrical discharges are always accompanied by a crackling noise--and there was no disturbance of the compass. Later, Lieutenant Greely set up an electrometer, an instrument which records the presence of very small amounts of electricity, but "to his astonishment" there was not a trace of electrical disturbance. Greely also noticed that there were no crackling sounds in connection with the display.
BRUCE ON THE AURORAIt is often the case that once the real explanation of anything is found out, we get corroborative evidence from the most unexpected sources, and the
reader who turns to a very recent and most depend-able work in the Home University Library, that of William S. Bruce, leader of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, called "Polar Exploration", will find just such testimony. Professor Bruce says that the phenomenon occurs in other planets than our own and that it has been notably observed in Venus--which of course would be the case as the reader will remember that Venus occasionally shows us her central sun, and so we would naturally expect also to see its reflection in Venus' atmosphere. Professor Bruce also tells us that the early Norwegians held that the aurora was due to "fires which surround the sea to the north". Now that is very interesting because it suggests that perhaps these people had had in some way communication with the interior of the earth, and they might easily have thought that the central sun was some sort of fire. In fact some of them thought that the aurora was simply "a reflection of the sun when it is below the horizon" and that suggests that they had actually got far enough north to see the interior sun for a short time, perhaps, and that they afterwards saw its reflection in the sky in the form of an aurora, and remembering that they had just left the sun behind, they guessed that the two had this connection.
On the other hand, Professor Bruce quotes the observations of a British Antarctic Expedition to the effect that:
The central sun as it would appear to an explorer when he had reached the spot indicated by the letter ''D'' on the diagram, if the atmospheric conditions were favorable.
"The observations of atmospheric electricity taken during the displays reveal no special effect due to the aurora."
There are some other considerations which show that the aurora is really due to the interior sun. Dr. Kane, in his account of his explorations, tells us that the aurora is brightest when it is white. That shows that when the reflection of the sun is so clear that the total white light is reflected, we get a much brighter effect than when the light is cut up into prismatic colors. In the latter case the atmosphere is damp and dense--that being the cause of the rainbow effect--and through such an atmosphere one cannot see so much. Hence the display is not so bright as it is when the atmosphere is clear and the light not broken up.
THE NEARER THE POLE, THE BETTER THE DISPLAYAgain, if the aurora is the reflection of the central sun, we should expect to see it fully only near the polar orifice, and see only faint glimpses of its outer edges as we went further south. And that is precisely what is the actual fact of the matter. Says Dr. Nicholas Senn in his book "In the Heart of the Arctics":
"The aurora, which only occasionally is seen in our latitudes, is but the shadow of what is to be seen in the polar regions."
And in "Earth, Sea, and Sky," by H. D. Northrop, we read:
"As we retire from the pole, the phenomenon becomes a rare occurrence, and is less perfectly and distinctly developed."
Regarding the two quotations just made a word of explanation is necessary. When Dr. Senn speaks of the aurora being only a "shadow" when it is seen some distance south he does not mean that it is a shade. He simply means that it is much fainter than when it is seen in the north. Now what is the reason of this? It is well known that certain laws of refraction of light cause a very bright rainbow to cast another rainbow, similar to itself at a distance from itself in the sky. Sometimes when the rainbow is very bright there is enough light being refracted so that two reflections are formed, and then the first reflection is paler than the original rainbow and the second reflection is still paler. Similarly, the auroral light is refracted in part so that a faint image of it or "shadow" is seen rather far to the south, sometimes as far south as the latitude of Illinois. But it is well known that no aurora or reflection of an aurora is ever seen at the equator, and as the aurora which is seen some distance from the north is only a shadow or reflection of the real aurora it is only occasionally, when the atmosphere happens to be right for it, that we see this phenomenon.
THE DISPLAY IS CONTINUOUSH. D. Northrop further notes that the light of the aurora is continuous during the Arctic night, and he says that the arch which we have already mentioned as being such a prominent feature of the aurora is only "part of a ring of light which is elevated considerably above the surface of our globe, and whose center is situated in the vicinity of the pole."
And that is precisely what we should expect when we remember that it is the reflection of the rays coming through the polar orifice which causes the phenomenon. Northrop points out that a person looking at this ring from a point very far north would imagine that the aurora was to the south of him simply because the ring was so far spread out overhead.
This point is corroborated by the author of "The Arctic World" who says the same thing about the aurora. Meanwhile we find that William Denovan in his scientific reference work, "The Phenomena of Nature", makes the statement that:
"In temperate regions the aurora does not present such grand forms as in the extreme north."
JUST LIKE THE SUN'S CORONAThe same author also makes another interesting point that supports our contention. It is that the corona or crown of light surrounding the sun is very like the light that the aurora gives us, and Nansen, in the second volume of his "Farthest North," speaks of
an aurora in which there was a reflection that looked very like a corona. But, the reader may say, that is only a chance resemblance. It might be thought so, but exact observation confirms the idea that the light is the same in both cases. Taylor Reed, writing in Popular Astronomy for 1895, describes the spectroscopic observation of the sun's corona and compares the result with the examination of the earth's aurora. He says:
"Both have their beautiful streams. Each has a characteristic form in the neighborhood of the pole of its sphere. Apply the spectroscope to each and the analogy is continued. Each gives in the spectrum an unidentified bright line, with fainter companions. Each shows a faint continuous spectrum.
We cannot imagine what further proof than the above anybody could need. If the two sorts of light give precisely the same spectroscopic appearances they must come from precisely similar sources. That is to say, if the corona is light caused by a sun, the aurora must also be light caused by a sun. And that is what we claim.
OBSERVATIONS BY EARLIER SCIENTISTSLet us, before concluding, however, give one or two more citations to show that the evidence already adduced is not only to be had in isolated instances but is agreed with by all observers at all times. In the first place, verification of the fact that Greely obtained
no results when he set up his electrometer during a display of the aurora when he was on his northern expedition, will be found in the interview which he gave the Associated Press and which was published all over the country and 'is to be found in the Scientific American Supplement for September 6, 1884. Again, Nordenskiold gave a correspondent of the New York Herald an account of his explorations in the Arctic in the course of which he made this very important announcement:
"Whenever the sky was clear, and there was no sun or moon, he saw constant in the northeast horizon, and almost always in the same exact spot, a faintly luminous arc so motionless as to be susceptible of accurate measurement. This phenomenon, Nordenskiold concludes, comes from an actual aureole, or ring of light, surrounding the northern portion of the globe."
It is notable that Nordenskiold also says that there were no very brilliant displays that year. Evidently the weather was calm, there were no storms to make rapidly changing reflections, and as the air in the interior was probably laden with moisture the display was not brilliant. But the fact it was circular and steady shows that it was a reflection of a body that was also circular and steady, and reflected through a circular opening, and that body was no less than the interior sun.
It is interesting to note that the idea that the
aurora is a reflection of sunlight is not confined to those old Norwegians we have spoken of. In an article translated from "La Lumiere Electrique" by the Scientific American Supplement for February 17, 1883, we are told that Descartes, Ellis, Frobisher, Franklin, Raspail and Wolfert, all thought that the aurora was from sunlight. They were near the truth, but they did not know what sun it really was that caused the light. In this same article we are told that the aurora is only seen at the pole and that any celestial light seen in the skies at lower latitudes---such as the zodiacal light is not due to the aurora at all.
In Nature, the volume of 1878, will be found an account of the eclipse of the sun as observed by the astronomer royal of Great Britain wherein it is stated that Professor Bass observed steadily for the whole period one part of the sun's corona, and he found that it pulsated in just the same manner as the aurora does.
THE AURORA AND THE ELECTRIC LIGHT CONTRASTEDAnd in conclusion we may repeat the observation of Payer, quoted also by W. J. Gordon in his book "Round About the North Pole", that it is impossible to discover whether the rays of the aurora shoot upward or downward. If those rays were electrical discharges they would all be going in the same direction, like the lines of force from a magnet. But
the very fact that these rays are confused and seem to go now one way and now another, shows that they are light reflections which cross one another and appear and disappear as the reflecting surface--the upper layers of the atmosphere--varies. Thus we have one more item of the cumulative proof that the aurora is not a magnetic or electrical disturbance but simply a dazzling reflection from the rays of the central sun. And our next task is to see if there are not evidences of life in the land that is warmed by that sun. For if it warms continents and waters in the interior of the earth, if, as we have seen, birds have their feeding and breeding grounds there, if an occasional log or seed or pollen like dust is seen in the Arctic that come from some such unknown place as we have described, it ought to be possible to obtain enough evidence of such life as would prove up to the hilt the contention of this book.