Science in Short Chapters — Aerial Exploration of the Arctic Regions, Part II

Let us now consider the third danger, that of the darkness.

The seriousness of this may be inferred from the following description of the journey of the Nassau balloon, published at the time: “It seemed to the aeronauts as if they were cleaving their way through an interminable mass of black marble in which they were imbedded, and which, solid a few inches before them, seemed to soften as they approached in order to admit them still further within its cold and dusky enclosure.

In this way they proceeded blindly, as it may well be called, until about 3. 30 A.

M.

, when in the midst of the impenetrable darkness and profound stillness an unusual explosion issued from the machine above, followed by a violent rustling of the silk, and all the signs which might be supposed to accompany the bursting of the balloon.

The car was violently shaken.

A second and a third explosion followed in quick succession.

The danger seemed immediate, when suddenly the balloon recovered her usual form and stillness.

These alarming symptoms seemed to have been produced by collapsing of the balloon under the diminished temperature of the upper regions after sunset, and the silk forming into folds under the netting.

Now, when the guide rope informed the voyagers that the balloon was too near the earth, ballast was thrown out, and the balloon rising rapidly into a thinner air experienced a diminution of pressure, and consequent expansion of the gas.

“The cold during the night ranged from a few degrees below to the freezing point.

As morning advanced the rushing of waters was heard, and so little were the aeronauts aware of the course which they had been pursuing during the night, that they supposed themselves to have been thrown back upon the shores of the German Ocean, or about to enter the Baltic, whereas they were actually over the Rhine, not far from Coblentz.

” All this blind drifting for hours, during which the balloon may be carried out to sea, and opportunities of safe descent may be lost, is averted in an Arctic balloon voyage, which would be made in the summer, when the sun never sets.

There need be no break in the survey of the ground passed over, no difficulty in pricking upon a chart the course taken and the present position at any moment.

With an horizon of 50 to 100 miles’ radius the approach of such a danger as drifting to the open ocean would be perceived in ample time for descent, and as a glance at the map will show, this danger cannot occur until reaching the latitudes of inhabited regions.

The Arctic aeronauts will have another great advantage over those who ascend from any part of England.

They can freely avail themselves of Mr. Green’s simple but most important practical invention—the drag-rope.

This is a long and rather heavy rope trailing on the ground.

It performs two important functions.

First, it checks the progress of the balloon, causing it to move less rapidly than the air in which it is immersed.

The aeronaut thus gets a slight breeze equivalent to the difference between the velocity of the wind and that of the balloon’s progress.

He may use this as a fulcrum to effect a modicum of steerage.

The second and still more important use of the drag-rope is the very great economy of ballast it achieves.

Suppose the rope to be 1000 feet long, its weight equal to 1 lb.

for every ten feet, and the balloon to have an ascending power of 50 lbs.

It is evident that under these conditions the balloon will retain a constant elevation of 500 feet above the ground below it, and that 500 feet of rope will trail upon the ground.

Thus, if a mountain is reached no ballast need be thrown away in order to clear the summit, as the balloon will always lift its 500 feet of rope, and thus always rise with the up-slope and descend with the down-slope of hill and dale.

The full use of this simple and valuable adjunct to aerial traveling is prevented in such a country as ours by the damage it might do below, and the temptation it affords to mischievous idiots near whom it may pass.

In the course of many conversations with various people on this subject I have been surprised at the number of educated men and women who have anticipated with something like a shudder the terrible cold to which the poor aeronauts will be exposed.

This popular delusion which pictures the Arctic regions as the abode of perpetual freezing, is so prevalent and general, that some explanation is demanded.

The special characteristic of Arctic climate is a cold and long winter and a short and _hot summer_.

The winter is intensely cold simply because the sun never shines, and the summer is very hot because the sun is always above the horizon, and, unless hidden by clouds or mist, is continually shining.

The summer heat of Siberia is intense, and the vegetable proportionately luxuriant.

I have walked over a few thousand miles in the sunny South, but never was more oppressed with the heat than in walking up the Tromsdal to visit an encampment of Laplanders in the summer of 1856. On the 17th July I noted the temperature on board the steam packet when we were about three degrees north of the Arctic circle.

It stood at 77° well shaded in a saloon under the deck; it was 92° in the “rōk lugar,” a little smoking saloon built on deck; and 108° in the sun on deck.

This was out at sea, where the heat was less oppressive than on shore.

The summers of Arctic Norway are very variable on account of the occasional prevalence of misty weather.

The balloon would be above much of the mist, and would probably enjoy a more equable temperature during the twenty-four hours than in any part of the world where the sun sets at night.

I am aware that the above is not in accordance with the experience of the Arctic explorers who have summered in such places as Smith’s Sound.

I am now about to perpetrate something like a heresy by maintaining that the summer climate there experienced by these explorers is quite exceptional, is not due to the latitude, but to causes that have hitherto escaped the notice of the explorers themselves and of physical geographers generally.

The following explanation will probably render my view of this subject intelligible: As already stated, the barrier fringe that has stopped the progress of Arctic explorers is a broken mountainous shore down which is pouring a multitude of glaciers into the sea.

The ice of these glaciers is, of course, fresh-water ice.

Now, we know that when ice is mixed with salt water we obtain what is called “a freezing mixture”—a reduction of temperature far below the freezing point, due to the absorption of heat by the liquefaction of the ice.

Thus the heat of the continuously shining summer sun _at this particular part of the Arctic region_ is continuously absorbed by this powerful action, and a severity quite exceptional is thereby produced.

Every observant tourist who has crossed an Alpine glacier on a hot summer day has felt the sudden change of climate that he encounters on stepping from _terra firma_ on to the ice, and in which he remains immersed as long as he is on the glacier.

How much greater must be this depression of temperature where the glacier ice is broken up and is floating in sea-water, to produce a vast area of freezing mixture, which would speedily bring the hottest blasts from the Sahara down to many degrees below the freezing point.

A similar cause retards the _beginning_ of summer in Arctic Norway and in Finland and Siberia.

So long as the winter snow remains unmelted, _i.

e. _, till about the middle or end of June, the air is kept cold, all the solar heat being expended in the work of thawing.

This work finished, then the warming power of a non-setting sun becomes evident, and the continuously accumulating heat of his rays displays its remarkable effect on vegetable life, and everything capable of being warmed.

These peculiarities of Arctic climate must become exaggerated as the Pole is approached, the winter cold still more intense, and the accumulation of summer heat still greater.

In the neighborhood of the North Cape, where these contrasts astonish English visitors, where inland summer traveling becomes intolerable on account of the clouds of mosquitoes, the continuous sunshine only lasts from May 11 to August 1. At the North Pole the sun would visibly remain above the horizon during about seven months—from the first week in March to the first week in October (this includes the effect of refraction and the prolonged summer of the northern hemisphere due to the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit).

This continuance of sunshine, in spite of the moderate altitude of the solar orb, may produce a very genial summer climate at the Pole.

I say “may,” because mere latitude is only one of the elements of climate, especially in high latitudes.

Very much depends upon surface configuration and the distribution of land and water.

The region in which our Arctic expedition ships have been ice-bound combines all the most unfavorable conditions of Arctic summer climate.

It is extremely improbable that those conditions are maintained all the way to the Pole.

We know the configuration of Arctic Europe and Arctic Asia, that they are masses of land spreading out northward round the Arctic circle and narrowing southward to angular terminations.

The southward configuration and northward outspreading of North America are the same, but we cannot follow the northern portion to its boundary as we may that of Europe and Asia, both of which terminate in an Arctic Ocean.

Greenland is remarkably like Scandinavia; Davis’s Strait, Baffin’s Bay, and Smith’s Sound corresponding with the Baltic and the Gulf of Bothnia.

The deep fjords of Greenland, like those of Scandinavia, are on its western side, and the present condition of Greenland corresponds to that of Norway during the milder period of the last glacial epoch.

If the analogy is maintained a little further north than our explorers have yet reached we must come upon a Polar sea, just as we come upon the White Sea and the open Arctic Ocean if we simply travel between 400 and 500 miles due north from the head of the frozen Gulf of Bothnia.

Such a sea, if unencumbered with land ice, will supply the most favorable conditions for a genial arctic summer, especially if it be dotted with islands of moderate elevation, which the analogies of the known surroundings render so very probable.

Such islands may be inhabited by people who cannot reach us on account of the barrier wall that has hitherto prevented us from discovering them.

Some have even supposed that a Norwegian colony is there imprisoned.

Certainly the early colonists of Greenland have disappeared, and their disappearance remains unexplained.

They may have wandered northwards, mingled with the Esquimaux, and have left descendants in this unknown world.

If any of Franklin’s crew crawled far enough they may still be with them, unable to return.

In reference to these possibilities it should be noted that a barrier fringe of mountainous land like that of Greenland and arctic America would act as a condensing ground upon the warm air flowing from the south, and would there accumulate the heavy snows and consequent glaciers, just as our western hills take so much of the rain from the vapor-laden winds of the Atlantic.

The snowfall immediately round the Pole would thus be moderated, and the summer begin so much earlier.

I have already referred to the physical resemblances of Baffin’s Bay, Smith’s Sound, etc. , to the Baltic, the Gulf of Bothnia, and Gulf of Finland.

These are frozen every winter, but the Arctic Ocean due north of them is open all the winter, and every winter.

The hardy Norse fishermen are gathering their chief harvest of cod fish in the open sea around and beyond the North Cape, Nordkyn, etc. , at the very time when the Russian fleet is hopelessly frozen up in the Gulf of Finland.

But how far due north of this frozen Baltic are these open-sea fishing banks?

More than 14 degrees—more than double the distance that lies between the winter quarters of some of our ships in Smith’s Sound and the Pole itself.

This proves how greatly physical configuration and oceanic communication may oppose the climatic influences of mere latitude.

If the analogy between Baffin’s Bay and the Baltic is complete, a Polar sea will be found that is open in the summer at least.

On the other hand, it may be that ranges of mountains covered with perpetual snow, and valleys piled up with huge glacial accumulations, extend all the way to the Pole, and thus give to our globe an arctic ice-cap like that displayed on the planet Mars.

This, however, is very improbable, for, if it were the case, we ought to find a circumpolar ice-wall like that of the antarctic regions; the Arctic Ocean beyond the North Cape should be crowded with icebergs instead of being open and iceless all the year round.

With such a configuration the ice-wall should reach Spitzbergen and stretch across to Nova Zembla;

but, instead of this, we have there such an open stretch of arctic water, that in the summer of 1876 Captain Kjelsen, of Tromsö, sailed in a whaler to lat.

81° 30´ without sighting ice.

He was then but 510 geographical miles from the Pole, with open sea right away to his north horizon, and nobody can say how much farther.

These problems may all be solved by the proposed expedition.

The men are ready and willing; one volunteer has even promised 1000_l.

_ on condition that he shall be allowed to have a seat in one of the balloons.

All that is wanted are the necessary funds, and the amount required is but a small fraction of what is annually expended at our racecourses upon villainous concoctions of carbonic acid and methylated cider bearing the name of “champagne.

” Arrangements are being made to start next May, but in the meantime many preliminary experiments are required.

One of these, concerning which I have been boring Commander Cheyne and the committee, is a thorough and practical trial of the staying properties of hydrogen gas when confined in given silken or other fabrics saturated with given varnishes.

We are still ignorant on this fundamental point.

We know something about coal-gas, but little or nothing of the hydrogen, such as may be used in the foregoing expedition.

Its exosmosis, as proved by Graham, depends upon its adhesion to the surface of the substance confining it.

Every gas has its own speciality in this respect, and a membrane that confines a hydrocarbon like coal-gas may be very unsuitable for pure hydrogen, or _vice versâ_.

Hydrogen passes through hard steel, carbonic oxide through red-hot iron plates, and so on with other gases.

They are guilty of most improbable proceedings in the matter of penetrating apparently impenetrable substances.

The safety of the aeronauts and the success of the aerial exploration primarily depends upon the length of time that the balloons can be kept afloat in the air.

A sort of humanitarian cry has been raised against this expedition, on the ground that unnaturally good people (of whom we now meet so many) should not be guilty of aiding and abetting a scheme that may cause the sacrifice of human life.

These kind friends may be assured that, in spite of their scruples, the attempt will be made by men who share none of their fears, unless the preliminary experiments prove that a balloon cannot be kept up long enough.

Therefore the best way to save their lives is to subscribe _at once_ for the preliminary expense of making these trials, which will either discover means of traveling safely, or demonstrate the impossibility of such ballooning altogether.

Such experiments will have considerable scientific value in themselves, and may solve other problems besides those of arctic exploration.

Why not apply balloons to African exploration or the crossing of Australia?

The only reply to this is that we know too little of the practical possibilities of such a method of traveling when thus applied.

Hitherto the balloon has only been a sensational toy.

We know well enough that it cannot be steered in a predetermined _line_, _i.

e. _, from one _point_ to another given _point_, but this is quite a different problem from sailing over a given _surface of considerable area_.

This can be done to a certain extent, but we want to know definitely to what extent, and what are the limits of reliability and safety.

With this knowledge, and its application by the brave and skillful men who are so eager to start, the solution of the Polar mystery assumes a new and far more hopeful phase than it has ever before presented.

THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

Commander Cheyne has gone to America to seek the modest equipment that his own countrymen are unable to supply.

He proposes now that his expedition shall be “Anglo-American.

” I have been asked to join an arctic council, to coöperate on this side, and have refused on anti-patriotic grounds.

As a member of the former arctic committee, I was so much disgusted with the parsimony of our millionaires and the anti-geographical conduct of the Savile Row Mutual Admiration Society, that I heartily wish that in this matter our American grandchildren may “lick the Britishers quite complete.

” It will do us much good.

My views, expressed in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” of July 1880, and repeated above, remain unchanged, except in the direction of confirmation and development.

I still believe that an enthusiastic, practically trained, sturdy arctic veteran, who has endured hardship both at home and abroad, whose craving eagerness to reach the Pole amounts to a positive monomania, who lives for this object alone, and is ready to die for it, who will work at it purely for the work’s sake—will be the right man in the right place when at the head of a modestly but efficiently equipped Polar expedition, especially if Lieutenant Schwatka is his second in command.

They will not require luxurious saloons, nor many cases of champagne;

they will care but little for amateur theatricals; they will follow the naval traditions of the old British “sea-dogs” rather than those of our modern naval lap-dogs, and will not turn back after a first struggle with the cruel arctic ice, even though they should suppose it to be “paleocrystic.

” MR.

WALTER POWELL.

Scientific aerostation has lost its most promising expert by the untimely death of Walter Powell.

He was not a mere sensational ballooner, nor one of those dreamers who imagine they can invent flying machines, or steer balloons against the wind by mysterious electrical devices or by mechanical paddles, fan-wheels, or rudders.

He perfectly understood that a balloon is at the mercy of atmospheric currents and must drift with them, but nevertheless he regarded it as a most promising instrument for geographical research.

I had a long conference with him on the subject in August last, when he told me that the main objects of the ascents he had already made, and should be making for some little time forward, were the acquisition of practical skill, and of further knowledge of atmospheric currents; after which he should make a dash at the Atlantic with the intent of crossing to America.

On my part, I repeated with further argument what I have already urged on page 113 of the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for July, 1880, viz.

, the primary necessity of systematic experimental investigation of the rate of exosmosis (oozing out) of the gas from balloons made of different materials and variously varnished.

Professor Graham demonstrated that this molecular permeation of gases and liquids through membranes mechanically air-tight, depends upon the adhesive affinities of particular solids for other particular fluids, and these affinities vary immensely, their variations depending on chemical differences rather than upon mechanical impermeability.

My project to attach captive balloons of small size to the roof of the Polytechnic Institution, holding them by a steelyard that should indicate the pull due to their ascending power, and the rate of its decline according to the composition of the membrane, was heartily approved by Mr. Powell, and, had the Polytechnic survived, would have been carried out, as it would have served the double purpose of scientific investigation and of sensational advertisement for the outside public.

If the aeronaut were quite clear on this point—could calculate accurately how long his balloon would float—he might venture with deliberate calculation on journeys that without such knowledge are mere exploits of blind daring.

The varnishes at present used are all permeable by hydrogen gas and hydrocarbon coal-gas, as might be expected, _à priori_, from the fact that they are themselves solid hydrocarbons, soluble in other liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons.

Nothing, as far as I can learn, has yet been done with _silicic or boracic varnishes_,[22] which are theoretically impermeable by hydrogen and its carbon compounds; but whether they are practically so under ballooning conditions, and can be made sufficiently pliable and continuous, are questions only to be solved by practical experiments of the kind above named.

Now that the best man for making these experiments is gone, somebody else should undertake them.

Unfortunately, they must of necessity be rather expensive.