What Has Gone Before
JULES VERNE has taken us to America, A rich widow in love with the mathematician backs a proposition to change the inclination of the earth's axis to the ecliptic, so as to bring it vertical thereto, then there will be no change of seasons; only day and night will be left. They anticipate that the North Pole will then be accessible and that they will find there great coal deposits. There is the usual share-holders' meeting and everything seems in a fair way to progress in great triumph. But a lightning stroke upsets the mathematical calculations.
THE PURCHASE OF THE NORTH POLE
By JULES VERNE
Part II
IN the second and final installment we find our favorite author continuing this classic tale in a lighter vein. Is it possible for the earth's axis to be changed by any human agency? Evidently our hero, Mr. J. T. Maston, one of the world's greatest mathematicians, ought to know, because was it not he who successfully made the careful calculations of the projectile that took a number of travelers on a trip from the earth to the moon, and around it?
Indeed, J. T. Maston was not wrong. He knew his mathematics. But then, on the other hand, there are many other things in the universe outside of mathematics, and Jules Verne, in his inimitable manner, shows us all of these in his concluding chapters.
Excellent science, excellent humor and an excellent author make a combination hard to beat.
What Causes The Seasons?
In the first place, during the diurnal rotation of Jupiter, which occupies nine hours, fifty-five minutes, the days are always equal to the nights in all latitudes; that is to say, the Jovian day is four hours, fifty-seven minutes long, and the Jovian night lasts also four hours and fifty-seven minutes.
"There," said the admirers of Jovian existence, "you have something suited to people of regular habits. They will be delighted to submit to such regularity."
That is what would happen to the Earth if Barbicane did what he promised, only as the new axis would make no difference in the time of rotation, twenty-four hours would still separate the successive noons, and our spheroid would be blessed with nights, and days each twelve hours long, and we would live in a perpetual equinox.
"But the climatal phenomena would be much more curious; and no less interesting," said the enthusiasts, "would be the absence of the seasons."
Owing to the inclination of the axis to the plane of the orbit, we have the annual changes known as spring, summer autumn, and winter. The Jovians could know nothing of these things, and the Terrestrians would know them no more. The moment the new axis became perpendicular to the ecliptic there would be neither frigid zones nor torrid zones, but the whole Earth would rejoice in a temperate climate.
Why was this?
What is the Torrid zone? It is that part of the Earth comprised between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Every place within this zone has the Sun in the zenith twice a year.
What are the Temperate zones? The part comprised between the Tropics and the Polar circles; between 23° 28′ and 66° 32′ of latitude, and in which the Sun never rises to the zenith, but is above the horizon on every day in the year.
What are the Frigid zones? That part of the circum-polar regions in which the Sun does not rise above the horizon on every day in the year; while at the Pole itself he does not rise for six months at a time.
The height of the Sun above the horizon is the cause of the excessive heat of the Torrid zone, the moderate heat of the Temperate zone and the excessive cold within the Polar circles.
When the axis became perpendicular these things would be different. The Sun would remain on the plane of the Equator. All the year around he would pursue his imperturbable twelve-hour course, and rise to a distance from the zenith according to the latitude of the place. In countries of twenty degrees of latitude he would rise seventy degrees above the horizon; in countries of forty-nine degrees of latitude he would rise forty-one; in places of eighty-four degrees he would rise six, and of ninety degrees (the Pole), he would just peep half his diameter above the horizon. The days would be perfectly regular, and the Sun would rise at the same time, and also at the same point on the horizon, throughout the year.
"Look at the advantages!" said the friends of Barbicane. "Every man, according to his temperament, can choose his own climate, which will be invariable!"
Those modern Titans, the North Pole Practical Association, were going to effect a complete change in the state of things which had existed ever since the spheroid had been launched on its orbit to become the Earth as we know it.
The astronomer might lose a few of the familiar constellations; the poet might lose the long winter nights and the long summer days that figure so frequently in modern verse; but what of that when we think of the advantages that would be enjoyed by the majority of the human race?
As the newspapers in the Barbicane interest pointed out, the products of the Earth being reduced to regularity, the farmer could always plant and sow in the most favorable temperature.
"Be it so!" said the opposition. "But are we to have no rains, or hail, or storms, or waterspouts, or
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