similar to that in the court-yard stood in the centre of the floor,
and that it was surmounted by a shallow pan of zinc, fitted at one
end with a waste-pipe, like that of a bath-tub, leading to the
gutter of the court. I was still further surprised to note, when I
passed on into the studio, that the centre of that chamber also
contained what might be termed a supplement to the trestle-work, in
that the furniture had been moved to one side to make room for an
improvised table on which rested an ordinary mattress. In addition
to this a bureau-bed had been unfolded and set in readiness at one
of the walls, while a blazing fire burned in the grate, although the
day was anything but cold. Before I had time to speculate upon the
meaning of all these mysterious preparations, I heard Burnham
calling, so throwing my coat on a settee I hastened to join him. I
found him engaged in firing up a small portable steam-engine that
stood in one corner of the yard, and in affixing to the exhaust-pipe
of the cylinder another pipe, several feet in length, with a movable
arm, evidently for the purpose of ejecting steam in any desired
direction.
“Now,” he said, as he completed the connection, “while the boiler is
getting up steam, you and I must get to work and uncover our
package. I expected Dr. Dunne here before this, but doctors, you
know, are always entitled to latitude in non-professional matters.”
So saying, he took a knife and began to cut away the ropes from the
package, I following his example. Then we removed layer after layer
of sacking, the air growing, I thought, all the time sensibly
colder, till upon removing the last of the sack-cloth--we could not,
of course, remove the wrapping on which the weight rested, but
merely contented ourselves with ripping the top open and letting it
fall on either side--what was my surprise to see before me an
immense oblong block of blue, pellucid ice. But who shall express my
feelings when, a moment after, I discerned _imbedded in the heart of
the transparent crystal the form of a man_.
But let me describe what I saw. There, lying on its back in the
middle of the frozen slab, was unmistakably the body of a man, but
so wonderfully life-like in every detail that it was as difficult to
believe that the man was dead as it was to conceive how he had come
into his present position. The eyes were dark and wide open, and
whether or not it was due to some peculiar refracting qualities of
the medium through which they were observed, they did not look
glassy or seem to have lost their lustre. The short, thick, curly
black locks that clustered about the forehead, and the closely
trimmed beard that fringed the cheeks, looked as natural as they
could have done in the heyday of life. But just as inexplicable was
the dress. It was composed of some light material such as is worn in
hot climates, and had more in common with the ancient Greek chlamys,
or the Arab burnous, than with any other type of dress that I
recall. Such colors as it had were tasteful and resplendent, and had
lost none of their original freshness. The feet were shod with
sandals, and a gemmed ring still sparkled upon one of the fingers of
the right hand. It was the face and figure of a handsome man of
thirty, or thereabouts, and the whole posture was so indicative of
repose as to indicate that, whoever he might be, he had met his end
calmly and without pain.
I turned mechanically toward Burnham and saw that he was watching my
surprise and smiling.
“Well, what do you think of my package,” he asked; “was it worth the
trouble of bringing it here from the Arctic circle?”
“I must congratulate you on your specimen,” I returned; “it will
certainly be a great acquisition to our scientific men and
antiquaries. But how are you going to preserve it? Won’t you find it
rather a difficult matter to keep the ice in a state of
congelation--and expensive, too, I should think?”
“That is not my intention,” he replied; “I mean to thaw him out.”
“And then?” I queried.
“Resuscitate him.”
I looked at my friend to see if he were not joking, but could detect
no sign of mirth about his face.
“Why not?” he said; “that man in the ice there is as organically
perfect as you or I are. No fibre or atom of his organism has
undergone any change since he came into the condition he is now in.
Say that he met his death--if indeed he is dead--by drowning, and
the water he was drowned in was subsequently frozen, he is no worse
off at this moment, even though he has been lying where he is
thousands of years, than the man who was drowned five minutes ago.
And I hold, and my friend Dr. Dunne agrees with me----”
Dr. Dunne, one of the most scientific physicians and surgeons in the
city, as is well known, entered the court-yard at that moment, after
giving a secret knock, and apologized for his tardiness.
“My friend, Dr. Dunne, I say, agrees with me, that our treatment of
drowned, or so-called drowned, men is all wrong, and that they can
be resuscitated hours after death has apparently supervened, if the
proper measures are taken. Drowning is simply a case of arrested
function, that is all. Provided the organism is sound, why should it
not be made to perform its functions again? Does a temporary
stoppage ruin a watch if the works are all right? If so, what are
doctors and watch-makers for, I should like to know? Is it not so,
doctor?”
“At all events we can try,” rejoined the doctor, impressively; “I am
heartily glad of such a favorable, such an ultra-favorable,
opportunity, I should say, of testing the efficacy of my treatment
of drowned men upon so promising a subject.”
“But what about the freezing, doctor?” I ventured to remark, for the
coolness with which the whole subject was treated reminded me
painfully of my own deficiencies of scientific lore and rendered me
proportionately modest. “I have always understood that frozen limbs
are as good as dead, and that amputation alone can save the life of
the rest of the organism in such a case. It seems to me that when
the whole body is frozen, so much the worse.”
“So much the better,” returned the doctor, warmly; “it is much
easier to work where the conditions are homogeneous.”
By this time the steam escaping from the safety-valve of the
portable engine showed that the pressure was considerable, and
Burnham, who had previously shifted the slide-valve so that the
steam would pass straight into the exhaust, now wheeled the engine
opposite the block of ice, pointed the lateral pipe, which he had
connected with the exhaust, and which he manipulated on its joint by
means of a fork, toward the side of the block, turned the
globe-valve and let the jet of blue vapor play upon the ice. The
court-yard was soon thick with clouds of steam, but the huge
ice-block kept dwindling away as the steam was directed upon one
point or the other, by wheeling the engine round it, till in less
than half an hour the court-yard was little better than a puddle and
nothing remained of the ice-block but a crystal envelope, a few
inches thick, around the inclosed body, so deftly and skillfully had
Burnham directed the steam-jet upon all portions alike.
“We shall now have to exercise more care,” he remarked; “the
remaining ice must be removed in a more gentle manner. Help me to
carry the body into the laboratory.”
So saying, we all lent a hand and transferred the ice-bound body to
the zinc tray upon the trestles in the laboratory, in which a
roaring stove-fire had previously been lit, and the temperature of
which, when the doors were shut, was like that of a Turkish bath.
“There!” ejaculated Burnham, who, though in his shirt-sleeves, was
perspiring freely and panting after his work; “so far, so good. Let
us go into the studio and sit down and rest while _our guest_”--I
was struck with the quaintness of the epithet as applied to the
corpse in the next room, as also with the emphasis Burnham gave
it--“sheds the remnant of the crystal mantle he has worn for who
shall say how many thousand years. It will take at least half an
hour before he is completely thawed out, and meanwhile, if you like,
I will tell you how I managed to run across him in the Far North.”
We were all curious to know, so Burnham gave the following details:
“After leaving San Francisco in March, last year, we sailed North
with the intention of reaching Behring Sea by the time the ice broke
up, hoping to do well enough with whales and seals to return before
the season closed. I had, of course, made my arrangements with the
captain, going as a volunteer, to do duty or not as I pleased, and
living in the cabin. We had the usual adventures which are part and
parcel of a whaler’s experience, and which I will not bother you
with, as they are not germane to the question, and I found my health
improving wonderfully under the influence of the fresh air,
exercise, and excitement.
“By June we had passed Behring Straits and then cruised for a good
many weeks in the open sea beyond; but our luck was bad, and, owing
to trying to better it before we left, we waited too long; worse
than that, we were caught by a storm which blew us nearly due north
for several days to a point some hundred miles east of Banks’s Land
and the Parry Isles; and before we knew where we were, we found
ourselves shut in by the ice, luckily in the lee of some bluffs,
forming part of a small island only a few square miles in extent, to
which circumstance alone we could attribute the escape of our vessel
from being crushed by the ice-pack. Subsequent observations showed
that we were in longitude 162 degrees W. and about latitude 76
degrees N.--a point, by the way, rarely reached by navigators even
under the most exceptionally favorable circumstances. There was
nothing for it, however, but to make the best of a bad job and
prepare to winter it out with the best grace we could. Luckily we
had plenty of provisions--I had looked after the matter of
commissariat, personally, before embarking--and I think I may safely
say that few whalers ever wintered in the Arctic circle better
equipped in that respect than we were.
“As you can readily imagine, the life of a ship’s crew, ice-bound,
during the long, dark, northern winter is not an enviable one.
Suffice it to say that we got through it with probably less than the
ordinary amount of hardship, and were very glad to catch a glimpse
of the sun about the beginning of April, as it looked like a sign of
release, though the captain did not think the ice would break up for
at least six weeks longer. There was now some pleasure in rambling,
as there were a few hours of sunlight to do it by, and I used to
make the most of it, as one might get an occasional pop at a seal or
otter, and not unfrequently the captain--we were by this time great
chums--would accompany me.
“One day in May we were tramping along, gun in hand, over the
ice-fields, going over some new ground to the east of the ship, when
we came upon a patch of remarkably clear and transparent ice, about
a mile from the vessel. This was the more peculiar as the generality
of the ice in our neighborhood was rough, jagged, opaque, and
usually coated with snow. Looking down casually as we were crossing
this patch, my eye was arrested by the curious spectacle of the body
of a man embedded in the ice, some sixteen or eighteen feet below
the surface. I called the captain’s attention to the phenomenon,
and, getting down on our hands and knees, we spent a good while in
examining the strange object as well as we could, and speculating
upon how it could have got there. What puzzled us most was the white
clothing upon the body, the captain’s theory being that it was the
corpse of some officer of consequence, belonging, perhaps, to some
government expedition, whose shroud had burst its canvas casing
after being consigned to the deep, and which had afterward drifted
there with the currents and frozen fast. I, however, whose eyes were
keener, could see that the dress upon the body was no shroud, and
that the features, instead of being livid, bloated, and swollen,
like those of a corpse that had been some time in the water, were
clear-cut, fresh, and untouched by decay. I became anxious to obtain
a nearer view of this strange discovery, and at length prevailed
upon the captain to let me have the use of half a dozen of the crew
to dig down through the ice till I could satisfy my curiosity
regarding it. Accordingly, next morning we set to work with pick and
shovel to sink a shaft in the ice, and it was only the work of an
hour or two before we were within two feet of the body.
“At this distance I renewed my examination and became the more and
more impressed and mystified as I did so. But my astonishment was
still further increased when, upon gazing downward through the
pellucid depths below, I saw, or thought I saw, the dim outlines of
buildings, just as they might seem from the top of some tall
monument. I thought I could detect lines of streets and squares, the
buildings on which were white as of marble, their architecture
seeming to approach the Grecian in type. Gardens and trees, too, I
thought I saw, but the light of the low sun was so feeble that I did
not know whether it might not all be due to the fantastic forms of
sea-weed, and that imagination was doing the rest. As it was,
however, the impression I received served to increase my interest in
the mysterious object beneath me.
“I now resolved to secure possession of this wonderful windfall,
from a scientific standpoint, which luck had thrown in my way; and
by dint of promising a liberal reward to my assistants I succeeded
in persuading them to dig round and below the body, leaving the
block, which we just now melted, only supported securely enough at
its ends to keep it from breaking down, till such time as we were
prepared to remove it. Here, again, I had a bitter altercation with
the captain, when I mooted my design of carrying off my prize. It
was absurd, he said, preposterous, to think of packing a huge block
of ice, containing only the dead body of a man, and of no earthly
use to anybody. Did I think that whalers were fitted out for costly
voyages into polar seas for the fun of the thing? Look at the room
it would take, if nothing else. No; he must draw the line there; he
would be d----d if he gave his countenance to any such nonsense as
that, science or no science.
“I now saw that it was neck or nothing. There is nothing so obdurate
as a sea-captain, if he sets his foot down, and by long association
I knew my man. I determined to try him on a new tack, and to go to
almost any length in doing so, partly through the spirit of
opposition which is strong within me, and partly because I had
already formulated, in a vague manner, the scheme which we are now
carrying into practice. I felt a deep conviction, too, that I was in
some mysterious way working out mysterious ends, and that gave new
strength to my resolve.
“‘Captain,’ I said that evening as we sat in the cabin, ‘what do you
estimate that your present trip is worth?’
“‘Worth nothing as yet,’ he answered, with a growl; ‘worse luck to
it.’
“‘I mean what would you take for the net earnings of the voyage,
provided somebody bought your chances for what you might pick up
upon the return?’
“The captain studied. It was plain that I had given his ideas a new
turn. Perhaps he divined the bent of mine.
“‘Well,’ he said, at length, ‘there would be the crew to be
considered, as well as myself, in a case of that sort. We’re all
working on shares. Captain gets half, and the other half of the net
proceeds are divided _pro rata_ among the petty officers and crew.
What would suit me mightn’t suit them.’
“‘Well, what could you reasonably expect to take on the home voyage
with average luck?’ I said, returning to the charge.
“‘Half a dozen sperm-whales wouldn’t be out of the way,’ returned
the captain, cheerily; ‘might get more. Catch might range anywhere
from twenty to forty thousand dollars.’
“‘Call it thirty thousand,’ I said; ‘would that be a fair average?’
“‘Well, there’s twenty-two of a crew. That would net about seven
hundred dollars apiece for their share. I don’t think they would
growl at that. Fifteen thousand would suit me, and I think I should
be very well out of it, for that matter. But why do you ask such
questions?’
“‘Read that,’ I said, for answer, and shoved a slip of paper across
the table.
“‘Why, what’s this?’ said the captain, taking up the slip of paper
and reading:
Off the Parry Isles,
Long. 162° W., lat. 76° N.,
May 14th, 1888.
Bank of California, San Francisco.
Pay to the order of J. F. Manson, captain whaling bark _Marion_, the
sum of thirty thousand dollars ($30,000) and debit
Richard Burnham.
“‘Simply a check for your possible gains on the return voyage,
captain. I want the use of your ship as far as San Francisco.
Everything satisfactory, I suppose. Good-night.’ So saying, I
strolled into my stateroom, leaving the worthy captain to deliberate
upon my proposal.
“Next morning I purposely got up late; but by the earnest and
many-voiced conversation which I could faintly hear, upon the deck
above me, I knew that the seed I had sown was germinating, if not
bearing fruit.
“Well, to cut a long story short, my proposal was accepted; the
ice-block dug out and conveyed to the vessel with a good deal of
trouble; my check certified and cashed in Victoria, where most of
the crew were paid off, and----here we are. Now, suppose we adjourn
to the laboratory and see if _our guest_ has completely thawed out
yet.”
The strong heat from the stove had, in truth, very nearly finished
what the steam had begun. Though there was still a shell of ice
surrounding the body, it was little more than a shell, and Dr. Dunne
recommended that the next stage in the treatment should be
approached with all expedition. Burnham, accordingly, went off to
prepare a bath in the bath-room adjoining the studio, and when he
hailed us, the doctor and myself carried in the zinc tray with the
body and deposited the latter in the bath.
“We must proceed very slowly,” said the doctor, as he stood by,
thermometer in hand; “I shall begin with a temperature of fifty and
increase it very gradually--say, in half an hour or so--to blood
heat. All the internal organs are, of course, frozen; the lungs,
too, are doubtless full of ice, and the first thing to be done is to
relieve them of the water. Not the least remarkable feature,
gentlemen,” he continued, turning to us, “is that this body must
have been frozen almost before--in my theory, certainly before--it
was drowned. But how to account for this? That is the point. It is
certainly beyond the range of our scientific experience, nor can we
conceive of any natural or chemical force powerful enough to effect
such a result. This man, too, is clad in the garb of a tropical, or
sub-tropical, region. These are evidently his every-day clothes
which he is wearing. He must have been both drowned and frozen
almost simultaneously. The drowning and the freezing must have been
nearly coincident events--at all events, within an hour or two of
each other. I can not see into it. I give it up,” concluded the
doctor, with a shake of the head.
“Still,” said Burnham, “have we not something of a parallel in the
elephants which, some years ago, were found embedded in the ice to
the north of Siberia, just as this man was? The elephant is a
tropical animal, and can scarcely be credited with going to the
North Pole on a pleasure trip. How do you account for that?”
“Perhaps,” suggested I, “it was a case of the mountain coming to
Mahomet in both instances. Perhaps the pole came to them. Suppose
that through some unknown natural cause, or some outside cosmical
agency, the axis of the earth should change abruptly, as it is
probable that it is now doing gradually, and that what were formerly
the equatorial regions became the polar, and _vice versâ_, what
would naturally follow? In the first place, the oceans and seas
would be hurled over the continents in tidal waves miles high. Only
mountaineers dwelling in the highest altitudes would escape. That
would be the first result. The second would be that the waters upon
what were formerly the tropical regions would be frozen. The third
would be----what we see before us now in that bath.”
“Very ingenious, certainly,” remarked the doctor, dryly; “but we
have got no time for speculation now. Let us attend to business. Our
friend here should be pretty thoroughly warmed through by this time.
Please lend a hand to get him on the operating-table.”
Accordingly, we removed the body from the bath to the mattress in
the studio, the room having been meanwhile closed and its
temperature raised to blood heat.
“We must first get the water out of the lungs,” said the doctor, as
he reached for what looked something like a stomach-pump, but which,
instead of the suction tube, terminated in a diaphragm made of some
elastic substance, which he applied to the open mouth of the body,
pressing it closely with his left hand, at the same time asking me
to compress the nostrils tightly. The flesh was now warm, soft, and
yielding. The doctor then drew back the piston of his pump and a
stream of water followed through the discharge tube. This was
repeated several times, till the lungs were pronounced free from
water.
A consultation now followed between the doctor and Burnham.
“The blood in the veins and arteries,” said the doctor, “though it
has undergone liquefaction, is probably, to a certain extent,
coagulated. Though why,” he continued, musingly, “should such be the
case? At any rate, let us see.”
He then took a lancet from his instrument-case and proceeded to make
an incision in the median vein of the left arm, when, to his
manifest joy, as I could see, a few drops of blood spurted out.
“Yes! it is as I thought,” he exclaimed, joyfully; “the blood has
_not_ coagulated. It is a simple case of drowning, and, to all
intents and purposes, our friend here is no better and no worse off
than if he had been asphyxiated by water only a few hours ago. Mr.
Burnham, I congratulate you,” taking that gentleman by the hand and
shaking it with the utmost enthusiasm, “upon being instrumental in
providing a subject for resuscitation--for resuscitate him I do not
doubt that I shall, now that I have direct evidence that the blood
has undergone no chemical change--a subject, compared with which a
mere, ordinary case of drowning sinks into the most infinitesimal
insignificance; for--who can tell?--perhaps this man has lain in
this condition for hundreds, aye, for thousands of years; perhaps he
belongs to a remote prehistoric age, for ice, the great embalmer,
knows neither time nor seasons, and a thousand years are to it but
as one hour. Whatever our friend here is, or has been, he will
presently be one of us; he will open his mouth and unlock the
secrets of the past. He will tell us how he came to be in his
present plight. He will add another page to the world’s history.”
I felt myself catching all the doctor’s enthusiasm, and now hung
upon everything that he did with breathless interest.
“The next step,” said the doctor, “is to stimulate the heart’s
action and restore the circulation. To do this will require our
united efforts. You, Mr. Burnham, will take charge of the battery
and apply the electrodes; our friend here”--signifying myself--“will
assist in inflating the lungs; I will attend to the circulation.
Your battery is ready, is it not, Mr. Burnham?”
The battery, with its auxiliary apparatus for intensifying the
current, was brought round and placed on a table close by. Dr. Dunne
then made an incision in the breast so as to expose the breast-bone,
or sternum, and another in the back, in the region of the third
vertebra. To the former of these the negative pole of the battery
was applied, and to the latter the positive electrode.
“Where is that phial, I wonder?” interjected the doctor, looking
over his medicine-chest, and taking out bottle after bottle; “ah,
here it is,” he said, at last, “here is the substance on which I
rely to restore the action of the heart and give new life to our
friend here. It has only lately been introduced into the
pharmacopœia; but since its introduction it has done wonders in
cardiac affections. It is distilled from a plant which grows only in
East Africa. Its name is _strephanthus_, and its effect is to
accelerate the action of the heart. It is now my purpose to inject a
portion of this powerful stimulant into the median vein, which I
have just opened, in our friend’s arm, whence it will be conveyed to
the heart. Meanwhile, you, Mr. Burnham, and our friend here will
induce artificial respiration in the lungs, so that the blood may be
oxygenated after it has been expelled from the heart by the
spasmodic valvular action which the _strephanthus_ will excite in
that organ. Now, let us each attend closely to his allotted duty.”