POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY SUMNER N. BLOSSOM, Editor December, 1923
Will the ZR-1 Discover a Polar Paradise?
H
ERE is one of the most outstanding stories of scientific possibility ever
published.
Commander Green� exclusive article has all the pungency of romantic fiction;
at the same time it is founded on scientific observations of a veteran
arctic explorer, and corroborated by fascinating legends of the Eskimos.
Not since the days of Columbus has any venture held such power of gripping
the world�s imagination as the proposed voyage of the ZR-1.
In the issue of POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY for November, 1920, the prophesy was
made that a �huge dirigible of the Zeppelin type will enable the explorer of
the future to study the geography of the poles in a really scientific way.�
Now this promise is to be fulfilled in the projected transpolar flight of
the new navy dirigible next summer. What will be the outcome?
Commander Green�s entrancing picture of a balmy polar paradise represents,
he says, simply a tremendous possibility of arctic aeronautic exploration.
In this article he sets forth the facts as he has gathered them. Whether
you agree with this theory or not, you will find it absorbingly fascinating.
By Lieutenant-Commander Fitzhugh Green, U.S.N.
I
N THE proposed transpolar flight of the huge new navy dirigible, the ZR-1
(the Shenandoah), next summer, lies the most thrilling possibility that ever
faced a single body of explorers;
In the center of the unknown area of the Polar Sea may be discovered a vast
continent heated by subterranean fires, and inhabited by the descendants of
the last Norwegian colony of Greenland!
So wild is the idea as to tax the most gullible imagination. Yet it is
vividly encouraged and supported not only by history and tradition, but by
the searching test of scientific analysis.
Witness the astounding facts:
Within boundaries of the Polar Sea spreads the greatest unexplored area on
the surface of the globe: 1,000,000 square miles on which no human eye has
gazed! Look at the map on page 31. Most of this enormous wilderness lies
on the Alaskan side of the Pole. On the European side lies Iceland at a
point corresponding roughly to the center of the unknown area opposite it
across the top of the world.
This fact is significant.
Experts are in nearly unanimous agreement that a new arctic land will be
found by the ZR-1. Doctor Harris, the tidal expert in Washington, D. C.,
long ago declared that the data he had worked out from polar ocean currents
all convinced him that the existence of a large land-mass near the North
Pole is indisputable.
Add to this the array of evidence geologists adduce on the basis of terrific
volcanic activity along a well-defined line leading up the North Pacific,
through the Japanese archipelago, and the fiery Aleutians, and onward toward
the Pole. This seismic axis plotted on the globe nearly bisects the unknown
area of the Polar Ocean. Further, were this line swung through 180 degrees,
it would touch Iceland, one of the most fiercely volcanic spots on earth.
Another significant fact.
Still more: Not many years ago, in a particular open season, the American
whaler, Captain Keenan, reported he saw a land northeast of Point Barrow.
Peary, from Cape Thomas Hubbard, sighted distant peaks northwest. Such
evidence is incontrovertible. The new continent seems already within our
grasp!
So much for the land-mass.
Now for its probable inhabitants.
Eric the Red discovered Greenland in 985 A.D. He brought back glowing tales
of grassy fiords, long sunlit days, game-infested hills, ice-pans groaning
under their burden of fat seals, bays teeming with fish.
Vikings Prosper
Colonization began at once. And so true did Eric�s bright tale prove that
the Vikings greatly prospered. In the archives at Bergen may be seen today
the receipts for their princely contributions in ivory and oil to the
ill-fated Crusades.
The last ship known to have returned to Norway from her arctic colonies
arrived in the year 1410. We read that it brought a rich cargo; that its
report was of happy, thriving Norsemen back north; of health and growing
independence despite their rigorous environment.
Then, as in 1914, Europe became a shambles. Plague and war swept
civilization. Pestilential disease ran a ghastly race with a horde of human
murderers. Even the sea route north was forgotten�.
Lost Colony a World Riddle
Dark ages passed, Nature bred again in men the will to search her world for
knowledge and for wealth. Greenland was rediscovered. Hans Egede
established the first modern settlement there in 1721. But the grim report
he made was tragic beyond belief:
The Norwegian colony, 10,000 people - perhaps 100,000 - had, to a man,
mysteriously disappeared!
�The greatest riddle in the history of the world,� it has been called - the
baffling mystery of the lost Norse colony.
Where did they go?
Where didn�t they go is a question more easily answered. Not to sea in
ships, for they had but one or two; and Greenland, lying above the
tree-line, gave them no timber for building more. Not slain by Eskimos, for
Eskimos are the most peace-loving people in the world, knowing nothing of
the art of war. Not, like Europe, swept by some dread germ of awful
virulence, for germs don�t thrive in polar regions.
What then?
Examine the Eskimo tradition: It paints in vivid terms the White Men
swarming suddenly north to a wonderland the natives long had known. Because
of evil spirits, no Eskimo had ever dared this trail.
�The land is warm; is clothed in summer verdure the year around; is
populated by fat caribou and musk-ox. It lies,� they say, even to this day,
�in the direction of the coastal trail-route north.�
This route is that taken by our American expeditions. Peary, Kane, and
Hayes all used it. It always has been the easiest route as well as the most
productive of natural food in seal and walrus. For our explorers it has
been a hard trail. But for the Norwegian colonists whose forebears had
spent 10 generations north of the arctic circle it must have been less
difficult to travel than were the western plains for our American pioneers.
Lured Northward
Picture the terrible situation in which the deserted Norsemen in Greenland
found themselves: No outlet for their trade. No source of supply for the
little but indispensable luxuries of life. No access to friends and
families back home.
A generation - two, perhaps - of heartbreak and of longing; unhappiness
goading the younger men to travel northward. Perhaps a route to southern
lands lay that way.
Suddenly like a bombshell breaks upon the weary colony the wonderful news:
�We�ve found a polar paradise! Sunshine! Game! Grass! One moon�s easy
journey north! A short lap on the sea ice! Come!�
What had they to wait for? A Century had passed since the last ship sailed.
The last man who had seen a real Norwegian had died. The homeland was but a
myth. So they �packed and, singing songs, departed,� the native legend puts
it, �suddenly to the northward.� They never returned. The fact is not at
all surprising if what we think is true - that they found a land of milk and
honey in the very center of the polar pack. And it is perfectly logical to
suppose that their descendants will be found up there next summer by the
dirigible ZR-1, in dramatic isolation.
Go back to the scientific data on which we base this amazing assumption.
Iceland�s collection of volcanoes is unsurpassed. She has 107 major craters
within her tiny limits, and thousands of minor ones. Iceland�s climate is
temperate despite its arctic situation. The peace, and health, and the
prosperity of Iceland�s inhabitants were sustained by its natural warmth
during the 200 years of isolation from Europe that it suffered at the same
time and for the same reasons that the Greenlandic Norsemen were deserted.
Moreover, Iceland�s lava flows are by no means always from conventional
craters. The greatest of them have come quietly from fissures in the level
land. We may deduce that subterranean fires smolder near the surface. It
is not uncommon for the inhabitants to be forewarned of eruption by sudden
melting of the snow and ice.
Hot springs and boiling mud are found in every part of Iceland. There has
been projected an engineering scheme for heating the whole island by
harnessing its steaming geysers.
In this connection it is interesting to compare the mean annual temperature
of Iceland 34F - with that of Greenland at the same latitude - minus 15 F.
During the summer Icelanders enjoy a period quite comparable to that of our
own New England states. Averages run up to 60 F.
It is no idle dream to claim that Iceland has a mate across the way.
Geographical twins are common on our globe; Cape Horn and the Cape of Good
Hope; the Mediterranean and the Caribbean; islands off Alaska and Japan; and
so on.
Is There a Polar Paradise?
It is no speculation of wild improbability to picture a polar paradise, like
some titan emerald in its alabaster setting. At Disco, Greenland, orchids
warmed by natural hot springs blossom out of doors through the bitter
sunless winter months!
Weighing carefully all the facts available, we may set the area of the new
land at about 50,000 square miles, or roughly the size of the state of
Pennsylvania. Its perimeter is bulwarked by a quake-distorted range of
mountains buried in eternal ice and snow, and rearing 10,000 feet into the
sky. Twisting fiords penetrate the ragged ice-gnarled coast.
Just inside the mountains hangs a veil of fog, the vapor of contrasting
temperatures. For here we may imagine the aspect changes sharply. Heat
from a nether world defines the cold. White of snow and ice shades swiftly
to the green of verdant pastures, and gold of wooded uplands.
We come upon a level clearing on which are spread symmetrically half a
hundred human habitations. Tall men magnificently built and clad in short
and bright hued loosely fitting blouses are moving leisurely about.
Mingling with them are comely, fair-haired women in dainty smock. Laughing
children dash here and there among the shrubbery.
No savages are these descendants of the vanished colony. Indeed, we shall
be mistaken if they are not far in advance of our own smug selves in
culture, learning, deportment, and social refinement. They have harnessed
natural energy to an amazing degree. They know the truths of other worlds.
They have mastered the secrets of health.
May Revolutionize Commerce
Yet we need not be swept away by too sanguine a view of what the ZR-1 may
find. There are others features savoring more of cold, hard facts than of
romance.
For instance, a polar air route cuts the distance to European and Asiatic
capitals from 11,000 to 5,000 miles. A vast volume of commerce and traffic
will be deflected from America toward the Pole.
No matter what the land may be which lies close to the Pole, it will control
the Polar Ocean strategically. Appreciation of this fact is evidenced by
Amundsen�s announcement that his next great effort to be first across will
include three planes. And there are whispers that two other powers are
grooming entries for the race.
Alaska then must come into her own. She will gather population and stand as
an arctic service station to passing planes.
The ZR-1 may get away by early June. The weather then is calm; the daily
temperature just above the freezing point. After her 6,000-mile flight from
Lakehurst to Point Barrow, from which she will eventually take off, there
must be a period of final grooming; possibly a trial or two out over the
icefields. And by the Fourth of July, 1924, we should know the answer to
this most thrilling of all man�s geographical conundrums.
Does a polar paradise exist? And, if so, are the vanished Norsemen there?
···
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