Doctor Jones' Picnic

"Figures Don't Lie."

The North Pole! That spot upon earth so environed with trackless fields of unbroken snow and mountains of ice; with an atmosphere so cold that none but the bravest and hardiest of mankind can breathe it and live. And yet these apparently insuperable obstacles have but stimulated men to do and dare all things, so that they might but reach that ultima thule. In vain have our utilitarians cried, "Qui bono?" God has planted within man the spirit of lordship and domination; and, true to that spirit, he will never rest until Nature shall have yielded up to him her last secret, and his restless foot shall have trodden the wildest and farthest spot of earth. Then, and not till then, will he stand crowned "Lord of Creation."

In this faithful history of the discovery and exact location of the North Pole, it is not necessary to bring before the reader in historical review the many illustrious names and grand heroisms of former explorers of Arctic regions. They did marvelous deeds, beyond the comprehension of those who did not actually participate in them. They sacrificed thousands of noble lives, and undoubtedly did all that could be done with the means at their command. Ah! there we have struck the keynote. The means at their command were inadequate, and nothing but failure and disaster could result from their best laid plans and efforts.

Dr. Jonathan Jones sat in his office in the populous, thriving city of R--, situated in one of our western states. He occupied an easy chair, heels upon a low, flat-topped writing desk, newspaper in hand, reading an account of the failure of Dr. Nansen to reach the North Pole. That renowned and hardy explorer proposed reaching the spot by floating on an ice floe. We are all familiar with the fact that he did actually get to within about three hundred miles of the coveted spot, but was obliged to turn back for want of dogs and sledges.

Dr. Jones laid the paper down with a groan. "Will they never learn?" he apostrophizingly cried to a bust of Hahnemann that rested upon a bracket in a corner of the room. "They can never get there on any such lines. I believe it to be a perfectly feasible scheme, if worked out on simple scientific principles. If I had capital, I would try it."

He sat with the points of his extended fingers touching each its mate of the opposite hand, and mused for several moments. Suddenly he seized a pencil, and rapidly jotted down figures, lines, and characters that meant nothing to any mortal but himself.

"Figures don't lie!" he shouted to aforesaid bust. "That depends, Doctor, on whether they are legitimately used or not. Sometimes they are made to represent the vilest untruth," said a voice behind him. The Doctor wheeled about and encountered the genial countenance of Mr. A.L. Denison.

"Hullo! Denison. Just the man I wanted to see. Sit down."

"What's up now, Doctor? Anyone hurt or seriously sick?" inquired Denison, as he occupied a chair.

For answer the Doctor read aloud the account of Dr. Nansen's failure to reach the North Pole, and then said: "I do not wonder that he failed. No one will succeed upon any such lines or plans."

"Well, Doctor, you don't suppose that anyone will ever get there and back alive, do you?"

"Whether they will or not, I do not know; but that it is a perfectly feasible and rational undertaking, under proper conditions, I as firmly believe as I do that I am alive," and he brought his fist down upon the desk by way of emphasis with a whack that made the various loose articles in the little office rattle. Even the bust upon the bracket moved about uneasily, whether by way of approbation or not, this truthful chronicle ventures no opinion. Denison looked at the flushed face and glittering eyes of the Doctor, moved uneasily in his chair, and said: "What's up, Doctor? I never knew you to drink. Getting off?" tapping his os frontis with his forefinger significantly.

"Denison," replied the Doctor, unheeding the innuendoes of his friend, "I tell you that I have a plan for going to, and returning from, the North Pole with perfect safety, absolute certainty, and a degree of comfort that will reduce the whole expedition to the level of a glorious picnic." Denison indulged in a long, low whistle.

"Draw it a little milder, Doctor. Go to and return from the North Pole with perfect safety, certainty, comfort, and pleasure! What do you mean? I never heard of anything so preposterous in my life!"

"Hitch up to the desk here, and I will soon tell you what I mean," cried the Doctor. Denison complied, and the Doctor, seizing a pencil, drew upon a leaf of the scratch book, with a few vigorous strokes, a sketch of a globe, thus:

"There," said he, as he gave a few finishing touches. "There you have the idea."

"Well, go on."

"This sketch represents a mammoth globe of aluminum, two hundred feet in diameter, as you will notice.

"I see," assented Denison.

"We have, then, a great hollow globe, consisting, as I said before, of aluminum. I have chosen that material for two obvious reasons; lightness and strength. The globe is simply to be floated by heating the atmosphere within it."

"What will you heat it with, and how long do you suppose it will be before your globe returns to the earth?" asked Denison.

"Your questions are quite practical, and I am ready to answer them. There are to be three skins or coverings to our globe, with a foot of space (or air blanket, if you please) between them. This affords us two air chambers that materially prevent the radiation of heat. Once heated, a very little fuel will keep the interior of our great air-ship at the desired temperature. You see, at the inferior or lower part of the ship, a square apartment attached, plentifully supplied with windows. That represents the living and store rooms. The living rooms are to be comfortably furnished, and no reason can be alleged why we should not enjoy in them absolute comfort. In our store-rooms, we will carry one year's supply of food. And in tanks of sufficient size, petroleum (or whatever combustible we conclude to be most suitable) for heating and cooking purposes. See?"

"I see," said Denison.

"You will observe that so conservative of heat is this arrangement that every particle of caloric created in the living rooms, or cabin below, helps by that much to float the great globe. All the warmth from cooking and heating; the heat and smoke from our pipes and cigars; yea, even the animal heat which radiates from our bodies, all subserve the one great purpose and function-keeping up the temperature and buoyant effort of the globe. Do you begin to catch on?" fairly shouted the enthusiastic Doctor.

"Well, it looks very well so far," returned Denison slowly. "But, my dear sir, I foresee one difficulty that in your enthusiasm you seem to have overlooked. You can never guide or steer this immense ship. It must go with the wind, and you are just as likely to go to the South Pole as to the North, and very unlikely to go to either. You must excuse me, but this last is certainly an insuperable obstacle to your making anything practicable of your idea."

"I admit at once that this great body could not be steered, nor in any degree guided by any apparatus that we could devise," assented the Doctor. "But that we should be obliged to float aimlessly, hither and thither, altogether the creatures of chance, I do not for a moment admit. The equator, receiving as it does, the vertical rays of the sun, is by far the hottest portion of the earth. The atmosphere at that quarter, being constantly superheated and correspondingly rarified, ascends into the vault above. This creates a semi-vacuum below, and the cooler atmospheres north and south of the equator rush in and fill the aforesaid vacuum. Pouring in from opposite directions with an impetus that often amounts to hurricanes, they boil up as they meet, miles into the firmament above. They then set off in two strong currents toward either Pole. What is the natural inference? The navigators of our air-ship have the power to raise and lower at pleasure. Obviously, there is but one thing for sensible men to do: Let her rise until we strike a northerly current, if necessary, and remain in it so long as it is favorable; when it changes, rise or lower until another favorable current is found, etc. Do you happen to think of any more 'insuperable' obstacles, my dear sir?"

"Well, I must say that while I am not convinced of the practicability of your scheme, still you meet my objections in a way that is quite surprising, and which shows that you have given the matter much thought; yet I am not sure that you will not run upon difficulties that will make it altogether impossible. For instance, there is the cost of so vast an undertaking. It would cost hundreds of thousands, at the least calculation."

"Now, Denison, you have struck the only real difficulty that I can think of. I really have no idea of who will furnish the money. I had not thought even of asking anyone to do so."

Patients came in at this juncture, and Denison took his departure. A few days later, however, he returned, and when the Doctor was at leisure, opened the conversation by asking if anything had developed with regard to the air-ship building.

"O, ho!" cried Dr. Jones, "you are getting into my way of thinking on that subject, are you?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I have thought of it considerably since I saw you. I would like, at least, to see it tried."

"There is but one way to do: If you get interested sufficiently to wish to take hold, we will see if we cannot stir up our friends and form a stock company. Or, failing in that, we might have a working model built, and I think we could induce the Government to take hold of the matter."

Denison called frequently during the following month, and it was evident that he was fast becoming imbued with the Doctor's ideas and enthusiasm.

* * *