the venture will be taken here to consider and explain the character and formation of a big true iceberg which it is supposable change their location to both inside and outside waters.
as already said, the ice belt is the dividing line between salt and fresh waters.
this being the case, large expanses of the ocean in the arctic region must be frozen over. as water is an exception to most everything else by growing lighter as it grows colder, it rises above its water level. without this provision of nature, our lakes would become solid masses of ice, and rivers would become mountains, thus extinguishing fish and producing a mass so deep and solid that a summer season would hardly melt away. this can be evidenced in any tub of water standing out in a cold night. water does not congeal entirely on the surface, but rises in frozen particles from below like cream on[20] milk. this is shown by its rising and swelling up in the center and pressing the outside of the vessel to bursting.
a pond, lake or river frozen so thickly as to bear up heavy loaded teams of horses, and armies of men with all their equipages will be materially arched as it leaves the banks. an evidence of this comes when rising and cracking with loud reports and at the thawing up and yielding of pressure on the banks when loud explosions like blasts or firing of cannons will occur, caused by the settling and cracking of the ice.
as the ocean depths are great and the arctic night of long duration, the fresh-water portions to a great depth congeal, and rising form a mass of ice inconceivable to temperate climes, both in height and area. imagine what an iceberg must have been in starting from seventy-fifth to eightieth parallel of latitude and floated through all kinds of weather till midsummer, arriving off the coasts of newfoundland, and then 300 to 500 feet high with seven times its height under water and so large as to take hours and even days or weeks to pass the main mass of ice and its fragments that have sloughed off. has any explorer ever seen such a body of ice break off from a glacier that must have covered scores of miles square when it started?
[21]as an arrow shot into the air bends its course to follow the heavy end, as truly do the heavy elements in the water manifest themselves at the center of the earth’s motion, and the saltness of the equatorial waters is much stronger than approaching the polar holes, which last term might be used with good reason instead of poles.
there seems to be with all arctic explorers the obstacle presenting itself, termed the ice belt. this obstacle is suggestive, and leads the way to base the following conclusions:
that the water at this point has become so freshened, as to admit of such a wide freezing belt, but that the boundary line is made between salt water and fresh.
it is not in place here to describe a glacier until the cause and origin is explained, which will properly come after considering the water influences from inside.
the next purpose will be to show and aim to prove that the earth is hollow and supplied with an ocean of fresh water and habitable land.
as said before the theory of an open sea gives the inference of a new climate and country, therefore now, what evidence, actual or circumstantial can be adduced?
it is claimed by arctic navigators beyond all their attempts to reach beyond the ice belt, geese,[22] duck, and other wild fowl continue to fly and seem to be in quest of food which they must obtain in waters beyond the ice belt.
the existence of an open sea beyond the ice belt has for years been conceded. as no explorer has reached much nearer than 750 miles of the supposed poles, it is reasonable to suppose that the open sea, so-called, but really a hole must be nearly fifteen hundred miles in diameter. various evidences have settled that question in the minds of navigators, the most important of which is that the sea fowls still fly beyond the reach of man’s explorations. the fact alone that wild geese, ducks, and other sea fowl go on to some feeding ground is enough to settle all doubts or arguments for or against the theory of an open sea of fresh water around the supposed poles. conclusive reasons are that no water fowl or fish can live in an ocean of salt water. strictly salt waters do not furnish any food; but only in bodies fed by streams of fresh waters, as in bays, inlets and mouths of rivers, and adjacent to the coast line of continents or islands where fresh water from springs and rainfalls contribute to produce growth and substances suitable for food.
it was observed by the navigator, ross, that moose, reindeer, wolves, musk-ox, white bear,[23] and foxes seek winter quarters toward the north rather than to the south, and return when the season becomes favorable, with their young. fish are noticed to come south but not to return.
as to water fowl, how far they could follow this opening into the center of the earth, the writer will leave for others to conjecture.
it has often been a query from whence came the arctic elephants, the remains of which are found so plentifully on the north shores of siberia, some of which during the last century have been in such a state of preservation as that their flesh was eatable by bears and wolves.
why were they protected by a covering of hair if not originating in a colder climate than exists south of the arctic circle?
do they not still exist in the interior, or have they passed out with the great auk, a former external resident?
why are the latitudes nearest the poles the favorite fishing grounds for whales? is not the interior ocean of fresh water their natural breeding ground and from thence passing out through behring strait and other channels into the outer waters? can some scientist give us reliable information as to where whales propagate most, and why it is necessary for whaling expeditions to seek high latitudes for their catch?
[24]the hole, fifteen hundred miles across, would not give any conscious impression of there being such an opening. you could not stand and inspect it like looking down a well. this hole opens into a new world unexplored by man, unless it is possible that sir john franklin and the aeronaut nansen unintentionally drifted in and were unable to navigate themselves out.
it must also, in marking out this theory, be admitted that as the center of the earth is approached this opening must be somewhat enlarged, and must assume a concave shape from the center; such being the case, the diameter must increase from one thousand to two thousand miles or more, which is very likely to be the fact. with the motion or revolution of the earth, the water would assume this condition on principle of the swinging of a pail of water over the head, and would merely be a placid ocean as boundless to the eye as the waters on the surface.
in these expanses of water, it is quite reasonable to presume that islands and large bodies of land may exist the same as outside, and that many fossil specimens thought to have existed on the outer surface in an early antiquity may have originated in the center of the earth and may even still exist; their ancient skeletons[25] having been thrown to the earth’s surface by the centrifugal forces of water in the same way that all the different stratas of rock have been cast up and mixed in one grand conglomeration from the earth’s center to its circumference. these facts seem clearly to prove by these migratory birds and animals: first an open sea; second it must be fresh water or mostly so; third, it must produce or contain desirable food elements different from what exist in the ocean on the outside, on which these birds can live when they reach their breeding grounds from which they are reported to return with largely augmented numbers. now this consistent query can arise: do they stop at a near point after passing this great boundary line of ice and find suitable and pleasant feeding grounds, or go on 500 or 1,000 miles farther? at that distance, the water is more likely to be modified in temperature and better adapted to their tastes and comfort. it seems quite right to assume that they come to inland seas, and pleasant bays, and sounds supplied with food from their shores and feeding grounds, rather than being supplied with anything existing on external parts of the earth; otherwise, their supply must all be drawn under the ice belt or pass through this great arctic filter. again this thought comes up. how did[26] these birds get sight of or learn of this internal feeding, and probably breeding ground? as migratory birds usually fly at great height, they would have an advantage over man in seeing this open ocean, as it is reasonable to think they may have bred as well as fed there. it is only a natural sequence of their migration in and out of this belt or ice circle, just as we recognize their flight north and south with the season’s changes.
if they go there by instinct, they merely do what is credited to the realm of life, considered lower in the scale of thoughts than man; but if by exploration and reason, then man must take a lower scale in calculation than the goose. to conclude this point. if birds live on vegetation, there must be an abundant supply of fresh water to produce it. if they live on fish, there must be the same sufficiency of fresh water in which to breed, feed, and live. if the birds breed, they must have hospitable shores on which to dwell and rest, and favoring skies to contribute to their various wants in order to exist.
their instincts or reason will never take them where the conditions will not admit of food and drink, rest, shelter, and protection.
one other conclusive evidence that our icebergs are not formed by the breaking off from[27] the terminals of glaciers is the fact of frequently finding them in midocean carrying such passengers as wolves, foxes, white bear, and other specimens of arctic animals. the solidity of the iceberg is much against the glacial origin, the glacier being made up of a conglomerate mass formed by snow, rain and spring waters, so much so as to be impossible to keep intact to any great bulk. the formation of the iceberg in its method must be a solid mass.
