EXTRAORDINARY LOSS OF WEIGHT.
The first thought that occurred to us after the excitement of
discovery had somewhat subsided was that the interior of the earth was
in all probability a habitable planet, possessing as it did a
life-giving luminary of its own, and our one object was to get into
the planet as quickly as possible. A continual breeze from the
interior ocean of air passed out of the gulf. Its temperature was much
higher than that of the sea on which we sailed, and it was only now
that we began to think of laying off our Arctic furs.
A closer observation of the interior sun revealed the knowledge that
it was a very luminous orb, producing a climate similar to that of the
tropics or nearly so. As we entered the interior sphere the sun rose
higher and higher above us, until at last he stood vertically above
our heads at a height of about 3,500 miles. We saw at once what novel
conditions of life might exist under an earth-surrounded sun, casting
everywhere perpendicular shadow, and neither rising nor setting, but
standing high in heaven, the lord of eternal day. We seemed to sail
the bottom of a huge bowl or spherical gulf, surrounded by oceans,
continents, islands, and seas.
A peculiar circumstance, first noticed immediately after arriving at
the centre of the gulf, was that each of us possessed a sense of
physical buoyancy, hitherto unfelt.
Flathootly told me he felt like jumping over the mast in his
newly-found vigor of action, and the sailors began a series of antics
quite foreign to their late stolid behavior. I felt myself possessed
of a very elastic step and a similar desire to jump overboard and leap
miles out to sea. I felt that I could easily jump a distance of
several miles.
Professor Starbottle explained this phenomenal activity by stating
that on the outer surface of the earth a man who weighs one hundred
and fifty pounds, would weigh practically nothing on the interior
surface of an earth shell of any equal thickness throughout. But the
fact that we did weigh something, and that the ship and ocean itself
remained on the under surface of the world, proved that the shell of
the earth, naturally made thicker at the equator by reason of
centrifugal gravity than at the poles, has sufficient equatorial
attraction to keep open the polar gulf. Besides this centrifugal
gravity confers a certain degree of weight on all objects in the
interior sphere.
"I'll get a pair of scales," said Flathootly, "an' see how light I am
in weight."
"Don't mind scales," said the professor, "for the weights themselves
have lost weight."
"Well, I'm one hundred and seventy-five pounds to a feather," said
Flathootly, "an' I'll soon see if the weights are right or not."
"The weights are right enough," said the professor, "and yet they are
wrong."
"An' how can a thing be roight and wrang at the same time, I'd loike
to know? We'll thry the weights anyway," said the Irishman.
So saying, Flathootly got a little weighing machine on deck, and,
standing thereon, a sailor piled on the weights on the opposite side.
He shouted out: "There now, do you see that? I'm wan hundred and
siventy-siven pounds, jist what I always was."
"My dear sir," said the professor, "you don't seem to understand this
matter; the weights have lost weight equally with yourself, hence they
still appear to you as weighing one hundred and seventy-seven pounds."
"Excuse me, sorr," said Flathootly. "If the weights have lost weight,
the chap that stole it was cute enough to put it back again before I
weighed meself. Don't you see wid yer two eyes I'm still as heavy as
iver I was?"
"You will require ocular demonstration that what I say is correct.
Here, sir, let me weigh you with this instrument," said the professor.
The instrument referred to was a huge spring-balance with which it was
proposed to weigh Flathootly. One end of it was fastened to the mast,
and to the hook hanging from the other end the master-at-arms secured
himself. The hand on the dial plate moved a certain distance and
stopped at seventeen pounds. The expression on the Irishman's face was
something awful to behold.
"Does this machine tell the thruth?" he inquired in a tearful voice.
We assured him it was absolutely correct. He only weighed seventeen
pounds.
"Oh, howly Mother of Mercy!" yelled Flathootly. "Consumption has me by
the back of the neck. I've lost a hundred and sixty pounds in three
days. Oh, sir, for the love of heaven, take me back to me mother. I'm
kilt entoirely."
It was some time before Flathootly could understand that his lightness
of weight was due to the lesser-sized world he was continually
arriving upon, together with centrifugal gravity, and that we all
suffered from his affliction of being each "less than half a man" as
he termed it. The weighing of the weights wherewith he had weighed
himself proved conclusively that the depreciation in gravity applied
equally to everything around us.
The extreme lightness of our bodies, and the fact that our muscles had
been used to move about ten times our then weight, was the cause of
our wonderful buoyancy.
The sailors began leaping from the ship to a large rock that rose out
of the water about half a mile off. Their agility was marvellous, and
Flathootly covered himself with glory in leaping over the ship
hundreds of feet in the air and alighting on the same spot on deck
again.
Their officers and scientific staff remained on deck as became their
dignity, although tempted to try their agility like the sailors.
Flathootly surprised us by leaping on a yardarm and exclaiming:
"Gintlemen, I tell ye what it is, I'm no weight at all."
"How do you make that out?" said the professor.
"Well, Oi've been thinking," said he, "that, as you say, we're in the
middle of the two wurrlds. Now it stands to sense that the wan wurrld,
I mane the sun up there, is pullin' us up an' the t'other wurrld is
pullin' us down, an' as both wurrlds is pulling aqually, why av corse
we don't amount to no weight at all. How could I turn fifteen
summersaults at wance if I was any weight? That shows yer weighing
machine is all wrang again."
"How can you stand on the deck if you are no weight?" inquired the
professor.
"Why, I'm only pressing me feet on the boards," said the Irishman;
"look here!" So saying, he leaped from the yard and revolved in the
air at least twenty times before alighting on the deck.
"Now," said the professor, "I'll explain why you only weigh seventeen
pounds as indicated by the spring-balance. We have sailed, down the
gulf 500 miles, haven't we?"
"Yis, sorr."
"And here we are sailing upside down on the inside roof of the
world----"
"Sailin' upside down? Indeed, sorr, an' ye can't make me believe that,
for shure I'm shtandin' on me feet like yourself, head uppermost."
"Well, whether you believe it or not, we are sailing upside down, just
as ships going to Australia sail upside down as compared with ships
sailing the North Atlantic. But the point of gravity is this: Here we
are surrounded on all sides by the shell of the earth, which attracts
equally in all directions. Hence all objects in the interior world
have no weight as regards whatever thickness of the earth's shell
surrounds them. You see, weight is caused by an object having the
world on one side of it. Thus both the world and the object attract
each other according to the density and distance apart. What we call a
pound weight is a mass of matter attracted by the earth on its surface
with a force equal to the weight of sixteen ounces. A pound weight on
the surface of the earth weighs sixteen ounces, and all the mighty
volume of our planet, with all its mountains, continents and seas,
weighs only sixteen ounces on the surface of a pound weight. The earth
may still weigh many millions of tons as regards the sun, but as
regards a pound weight it only weighs sixteen ounces."
"That is an illustration of Flathootly's mental calibre," said Captain
Wallace. "He only believes what his brain can accommodate in the way
of knowledge."
"God bless the captain," said Flathootly, "I'm shure his brain is as
big as mine any day in the week."
"Now," continued the astronomer, "it seems to me that the substances
of the earth, rocks, metals, and water, have, under the influence of
centrifugal gravity, massed themselves very thickly at the equator or
point of greatest motion, and stretch toward the poles in a
gradually-lessening mass until the polar gulfs are reached. Thus the
earth's shell resembles a musk-melon with the inside cleaned out."
"It makes me mouth wather to think of it," said Flathootly.
"Now, listen," said the astronomer; "we are also under the influence
of the earth's centrifugal motion, and wherever we are on the interior
surface we swing round our circle of latitude in twenty-four hours,
and thus men, ship, and ocean are held up against the interior vault
like a boy being able to hold water in a vertical position at the
bottom of the pail he swings round him at the end of a cord."
"Don't you think, professor," I inquired, "we will become heavier as
we approach the region of greatest motion under the equator?"
"I don't think so," he replied, "for the ocean around the poles has
naturally gravitated to the internal as well as to the external
equator, to restore the equilibrium of gravity. The reason why a man
does not weigh less on the external equator than at the poles,
although flying around at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, is
that the deeper ocean, that is, the extra twenty-six miles that the
earth is thicker on the equator, counterbalances by its attraction
the loss of weight due to the rapid centrifugal motion, and so
preserves in all objects on the earth a uniform weight."
"The whole thing," said Flathootly, "is as clear as mud. I'm glad to
know, sorr, I haven't lost me entire constitution at all evints, an'
if I can only carry home what weight I've got lift I'll make a fortune
in a dime museum."