"1923."
[The following is the description by Professor J. Scott, F.R.S.,
of his recent Airship Journey across the old Bed of the North
Sea. July 1, 1923.]
It is perhaps unnecessary for me to state the objects and purpose of
my journey of last week, as it would be false modesty in me not to
recognise the great interest taken by the geologic and antiquarian
worlds in my proposed enterprise. For the benefit, however, of those
for whose intelligence the so-called "Popular" geologic works are
compiled, I will recapitulate some points which are ancient history to
my instructed readers.
The winter of 1922 witnessed the greatest geologic change in the
earth's surface since the last of the Glacial epochs. Into the causes
and general results of this change I do not propose to enter, beyond
mentioning my opinion that the theory propounded by Professor
Middleton (a theory designed only for one purpose--that of attempting
to throw doubt on the data and reasoning of my first monograph on the
subject) is not only childish, but based on a fallacy.
I will confine myself to the results as they affected this country and
the continent of Europe, of which it is now a prolongation or
headland--not, as the Daily Press erroneously labels it, a peninsula.
The total change in elevation of the land is now calculated at 490
feet 7 inches, but more accurate measurements are still being taken.
This great change brings us back to a geologic age when man and
mammoth co-existed in the primeval forest of Cromer, and when the
Dogger Bank was a great plain where wild beasts roamed and palæolithic
man left the traces of his industry in the bones and shaped flints
which we hope soon to collect in quantities from the mud and ooze with
which thousands of years of sea-action has covered them.
I had little difficulty in obtaining Admiralty permission to accompany
the Captain of a Naval Airship on one of his regular patrol trips
across the great expanse of mud which was once the North Sea.
Of course in the six months since the departure of the Ocean from the
new lands, the district has been regularly patrolled by the Navy, but
the air is as yet the only safe route by which to cross it. It will be
some time, perhaps years, before the surface becomes safe to walk on,
although the Government is plentifully sprinkling grass and other
seeds from all passing aircraft. In the large and powerful airship in
which I was privileged to travel, we had every modern device for
enabling a close inspection of the surface to be taken. A trail-rope
was used when it was desired to drift slowly or to actually hover over
some of the points of interest which we observed on our passage.
The day was fine and clear, and I could not have wished for better
weather conditions when we rose over Dover and started the main
engines on a north-easterly course. As no maps can yet be compiled of
the New Lands (as popular clamour has most inaccurately labelled them)
owing to their dangerous surface, we navigated by the old Admiralty
charts, marked in depths of water, and I was amused at having the
Varne and Goodwin "shoals" pointed out to me--the objects indicated
being long ridges of sandy hills rising from the shining surface of
the Channel bed. Off Deal and Dover a few of the wrecks are being
worked on by enterprising local Salvage Companies--a road being laid
out to each composed of gravel, sand, and brushwood. I fear, however,
that the speculators will not profit greatly. The roads are good
enough over the sand, but where they cross the mud-flats they swallow
not only their traffic but the funds of their owners.
As we travelled up the valley with the drone of our engines echoing
from the whale-backed ridges on either side, with our gondolas barely
a hundred feet from the ground, I discussed our programme with the
Captain, whose views and reminiscences I found most entertaining. On
general subjects he was like most of his service, almost contemptibly
uneducated (I might mention that he did not understand what
Magdalenian culture was!), but he was evidently well read in his own
trade. He told me several stories which were no doubt excellent, but
which were marred to a point of incomprehensibility by a foolish
interlarding of technical terms. I gave him a short précis of what is
known or deduced of prehistoric life on the New Lands, and spoke of
the bones and fossils occasionally found in trawl-nets by the
fishermen. His point of view was that the war overshadowed everything.
He seemed to think that that event was one from which all others
should date, although it had lasted such a short time. As very little
of interest to me could yet be seen owing to the general coating of
slime with which the land was covered, I amused myself by listening to
his experiences on his weekly air patrols, his conversation being
somewhat after this style:--
"Yes, it was a fair snorter while it lasted--that gale,--damn lucky we
hadn't many ships out. Yes, most of 'em got in. They either ran down
Channel (Lord! the Straits were like opening the caisson gates to a
graving-dock!) and made New Queenstown, or else they got into harbour on
the East Coast and stranded there. You see, what with mines and wrecks,
the North Sea wasn't being used much, and as the navies were taking a
rest there wasn't much of value at sea. Some ships got stuck
though--fishing boats mostly. No, they were all right--it took a week to
drain off, and it was calm weather when they grounded. Most of them have
wireless now, and they yelped for help, and we took 'em off. Those that
hadn't were a bit hungry when we found them, but I don't think we lost
many. You see, all nations sent air fleets out. Have you read the U.S.
Magazine? You ought to; there's a damn good argument going on as to
whether it would have paid us or Germany most if it had happened during
the war. I think us, myself. You see, there's only a narrow channel now
running past the Norwegian coast, and we could have mined that. Look at
that, Professor! How's that for mines? That's Zeebrugge with the houses
showing over the sand-hills. Whose? Oh! both sides put 'em there--that
hollow to the east is proper stiff with them, isn't it? Port
fifteen--Quartermaster! steer east--What? No, just going to show you
something. You said it seemed a wicked waste of material; well, look
over there--two of them got it. One's a U.C. boat but the other's a big
one. They picked them up coming back, and that big chap's nearly in two
halves--Starboard twenty, Quartermaster! No, we needn't go closer,
you'll see one every half mile between here and Heligoland--some of ours
as well as theirs. Yes--that's a Dutchman--torpedoed by the look of
him. See the hole in the stern? Oh, butter and bacon and that sort of
thing! No, nobody in her. Why? Well, look at the davits--they left her
before she sank--all the boats are gone.
"Like these glasses? That's the _Hinder_ over there. Yes, they still
live in her, and she's still useful. A fine big lightship, isn't she?
She settled down at her moorings as peacefully as could be, and when
we sent a line down to them on our first patrol trip after the show,
they sent up a note asking for some 'baccy, and would we post some
letters for them? Nothing ever did worry the _Hinder_ in the war, and
it won't now. You see, English and German used to fight under her tail
every other night, and as she was an international light she just
flashed away and looked on. I wonder none of their crew have written a
book yet--'Battles round the _Hinder_,' by an Eyewitness. It would be
better than most of the truck that has been written in England about
it. Yes, she lies in a bit of a hollow, but the light shows up all
right, and that's all we want. Here you are; this is what you wanted."
We had reached the first object of interest in my journey. More
trail-rope was paid out, and we swung with our engine stopped, downwind,
lying twenty feet above a great pit torn in the earth by some tremendous
explosion. All around the pit-mouth lay masses of earth and rock, and
the face of the crater was thick with bone-breccia and fossils of every
kind. The explosion had occurred over an old beach on the bank of what
had once been the old Channel River. For thousands of years prehistoric
men and beasts had lived and died there, and had left their skeletons to
enlighten us. And more than bones had been left. Almost the first
basket-load that our light electric "grab" produced for us contained
among its numerous specimens of surpassing interest a rough "hand-axe"
of dark flint, possibly of Pre-Chellean culture. However, the whole of
my notes and specimens obtained on this visit are now being examined
and classified, and I will postpone description of them until the
meeting of the Society on the 18th.
I would have liked to have descended into the pit by a ladder or other
means, but was dissuaded, partly by the motion of the airship, which
swayed to and fro in the light wind, and partly by the blunt negative
with which my suggestion was greeted by the Captain. We took only
three baskets of specimens from this spot, as we had others to visit,
and our carrying capacity was limited. As we slowly hauled in the
trail-rope and prepared to continue our journey, I asked the Captain
whether this crater had been intentionally formed by the Government
for purposes of research, or whether it had been produced accidentally
in the late war.
"Accident?" he said. "Well, no, hardly that--but still, I expect he
_thought_ he might pull it off without doing himself in." He pointed
to one of two big submarines which lay on opposite sides of the
crater. The one indicated was the smaller of the two, and the least
damaged. She lay upright with a slight tilt up by the bow (which was
dented and torn rather badly). The other was in two halves, and lay on
her side with a mound of earth, bones, and rock, making a sort of
rough junction between the halves. The two submarines looked like
great guardians of the pit, and I wondered at the madness of man that
makes him revel in war and killing to no purpose. I mentioned
something of this thought to the Captain, who was still gazing at the
more intact of the two boats, and tapping a flint "Coup de poing" on
the side of our gondola.
"Well, Professor," he said, "the man who made this tool didn't make it
to clean his nails with, did he?" I observed that it was now generally
agreed that most of prehistoric man's weapons were for use against his
greatest foes--which were wild beasts, and not men. The Captain jerked
the flint implement back into the basket.
"My oath! you've said it," he snapped. "_We've_ been fighting wild
beasts, and that chap in the smaller boat was a friend of mine. He
took that Fritz fairly amidships with his stem, but he couldn't get
free, and they went down locked. When Fritz hit bottom his mines went,
and that blew them apart, and so there's your bone pit, Professor."
I looked back at the pit and the two hulks beside it, now dwindling
astern. "How do you know all that?" I asked.
"Read his number on the conning-tower for one thing, and the chap who
had that boat would be pretty sure to take a Hun with him when he had to
go. The rest? Well, his bows are bashed in, you see, and his lid is
still open, so he gave Fritz his bow first on the surface. You may have
some relics of curious beasts in that basket, Professor, but I can show
you a relic, or a hundred if you like, of a damn sight nastier beast.
See the masts over that mudbank? That's a Dutch liner--two torpedoes and
no warning. Full of women too. Like to go and look? I thought not. Yes,
Professor, I can show you two hundred sunken ships in a few hours' run
here, and they haven't all got their davits empty by a long chalk. Never
mind--here's something more amusing."
Our engine slowed and almost stopped while we drifted across a flat,
broad, muddy plateau which sloped away to a valley on each side.
"See those lines?" said my abrupt naval friend--"those long straight
scores along the mud, I mean. Those are where the submarines--ours and
theirs--have been taking bottom for a rest. Taking bottom? Oh! on
winter nights, when it's too dark to see or when they're waiting for
anything, or got defects or struck fog, you know. They used to take
bottom a lot here, because it's good surface and they had twenty
fathom of water, too. The marks haven't washed out yet. See this one?
He bumped three times before he settled: he must have had a lot of
headway on--his track's all of half a mile. That bed is where he
settled for the night. It's soft there, and he worked in over his
bilge keel. There's another, fifty yards off him. Of course it was
probably made a year before or after he made his, but there must have
been cases when our boats and Fritz's lay that much apart all night
and didn't know it. Pretty queer idea, isn't it? Perhaps a banjo
strumming in one boat and a gramophone going in the other. Oh yes,
they used to have concerts on the bottom before turning in! One of our
chaps gave me a programme once. There were twenty items in it, and it
was headed 'C/o G.P.O.--126 feet.' This was a regular submarine
traffic lane for both sides. Some parts of the surface up north aren't
marked at all,--it was either too deep water or there were too many
mines about. Funny thing is, that some of the areas which both sides
seem to have studiously gone round and avoided have no mines at all in
them. Just rumour, I suppose. They gave the place a bad name and
damned it. Eh? No--that's all right--tip 'em out on the deck--we can
scrub the place out when we get in."
He spoke to a sailor, who stepped forward and turned the nearest
basket of specimens upside down. As he did so, something rolled from
the heap to my feet, and with a thrill which could only be understood
by my brother scientists I gazed on the greatest archæological
discovery of the ages. I have already announced my discovery to the
press, and the scientists of all nations are now gathering in London
to inspect it, so I shall not enter now on a detailed description. I
may say that my first thought was that I had in my hands a copy of my
confrère Keith's reconstruction of the Piltdown skull, and that my own
reconstruction had been to a certain extent false; but on mature
reflection I decided that this could not be so, and that I must
classify my find as belonging to a hitherto unknown branch of the race
of Homo Sapiens--akin to, but yet distinct from, Eoanthropus. This
prehistoric man I have called Homo Scoticanthropus, and my full report
and conclusions will be shortly before the Society.
The skull is intact and requires no reconstruction. The lower mandible
is of the chimpanzee-like type found with Eoanthropus, and as it was
picked up by the same basket, must undoubtedly belong to the skull.
As to the remainder of our voyage, I can only say that I spent the time
on the floor of the gondola measuring and inspecting my find. I could
not tear myself away from it, and we therefore omitted our visits to
other spots where explosions were known to have occurred near the old
sea-bed, confining ourselves to a hurried round of the Naval patrol
route. Beyond a casual inspection and a remark that it looked like
Hindenburg, the airship captain took no interest in this now famous
skull, but confined himself to his duties of navigation and control.
It is unfortunate that the exact depth and geological strata of the
skull's position cannot be given. The basket was drawn from the bottom
of the pit, but the skull may have been either thrown up by the
explosion or rolled down later by the action of the tides.
When the new lands have dried we hope to have a careful inspection of
that and other pits, when more and perhaps equally valuable
discoveries may be made.
I have perhaps made undue mention of my naval friend in this pamphlet,
but to tell the truth his type was new to me. Though, like all his
fellow-officers, his limited education had tended to make him
narrow-minded, he nevertheless deserves mention here as having assisted,
albeit in a humble way, in the most wonderful discovery in history.