Original subject: More Arctic Evidence
List Members,
From the Marshall Gardner book. The salubrious clime of the hollow earth does wonders for the fish, too. It is not only the men that are giants, and the apples the size of a man's head, but even the fish are extra large. I heard third-party testimony, but good, from a Norwegian lady who said that the Codfish from the Arctic were huge compared to further South.
The Book ...
PHENOMENA OLD AND WELL ESTABLISHED
Another early modern writer has this to say of the animals and fish
of the North:
"It is a fact well attested by whalers and fishermen in the northern
seas, 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 socalled 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 SEAL
To 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-OXEN
Among 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 bear 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 FOWL
Hearne 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 season 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.