HOW JOHN WHOPPER GOT CAUGHT IN THE EARTH, AND THEN GOT OUT AGAIN.
The idea that came to me was at first very vague and indefinite; neither
was it at all certain that my plan could be carried out. It had been
suggested by a peculiar sound which fell upon my ear as soon as I became
stationary, and which had continued to reverberate through the darkness
all the while. As I had been obliged, while in China, to be about so
much at night, I had provided myself with one of those compact lanterns,
which can be folded up, and carried in the pocket, with a good supply
of best wax matches. The first thing to be done was to strike a light,
and see what sort of a place I was floating in. The sensation of
floating in equilibrium was delightful and soothing; and yet I felt that
it would be a relief to touch something solid. As soon as my candle
lighted up the cavity, I saw that the walls of my strange abode were
perforated in various places by holes, some of which were large enough
to admit my body. Taking my cap from my head, I found that by waving it
in the air I could readily waft my body in whatever direction I chose;
and, in less than a minute, I found myself comfortably seated in the
largest and most convenient of these cavities. I now felt the need of
food and drink; and, before proceeding to do any thing else, I opened
one of the cans of concentrated meat, and with a glass of water from the
jar which I had so fortunately brought with me, I made quite a nice
meal. With all the burden that weighed upon my mind, I could not help
smiling when I thought that I was the only person that had ever dined in
that particular locality. After dinner, I stretched myself out, and took
a good long sleep. At last I awoke as bright as a lark, and began to
explore the surrounding region. The point that I wished particularly to
determine was this: What is the cause of the low, grinding sound that I
continually hear? and from what locality does it proceed? Upon the
answer to these questions depended all my hopes of escape. Strapping
the jar and cans securely about me, I thought that I would try to
penetrate the orifice which I had entered; but, as soon as I got upon my
feet, the slight muscular effort that I made in walking lifted me again
into the air, and I found myself once more in equilibrium. At first this
discouraged and perplexed me; but observing that I could propel myself
with the greatest ease by just fanning the air, as before, with my cap,
I concluded that this was a very easy as well as rapid mode of
locomotion. As I advanced farther and farther into the cavity, I found
that the grating noise, to which I have alluded, grew louder and more
distinct; and after moving along, perhaps about two miles, I came in
sight of an immense cylinder, the size of which it was impossible for
me to estimate, as I could see only a small section of the surface.
Floating on, I laid myself alongside of the great tube, and, taking my
knife from my pocket, tapped the cylinder several times, and found that
it was composed of some very hard and resonant metal, entirely unlike
any thing that I had ever seen before. It was of a bright vermilion
color, highly polished in certain places, and somewhat rough and
honey-combed in others. From the vibration that came when I struck it
with my knife, I inferred that it must be hollow. I only needed to try
one further experiment, in order to be satisfied that my suspicions and
hopes as to the nature of this cylinder, and the cause of the peculiar
sound that I had heard, and which now reverberated loudly on every
side, were correct. Observing that, at a point not far off, the cylinder
came almost in contact with the wall that surrounded it, I approached
the spot, and stuck two red wafers, one on the cylinder, and the other
directly opposite to it on the wall, with a distance of not more than an
inch between them. I would here observe, in explanation of my happening
to have these wafers about me, that they still continued to be used in
China, and I generally carried half a dozen or more about me in a stiff
envelope. Now came the crisis of my destiny! If the relative position of
the wafers remained for an hour unchanged, there was no hope for poor
John Whopper. With my watch--which, by the way, I had protected against
the disturbance of the magnetic currents by a compensation balance--in
my hand, I gazed earnestly and anxiously upon the two wafers. Fifteen
minutes passed. In this time, the earth had revolved one ninety-sixth
part of its daily course, and the inhabitants on the surface had
travelled two hundred and fifty miles. If my hopes are well founded, it
is hardly time yet for me to perceive any change in the two red spots
upon which my gaze is fixed. A half hour slowly passes. I do believe
that the wafers are not directly opposite to each other! let me wait a
little while longer, that I may be certain. There is no mistake about
it,--the right edge of one wafer just touches the left edge of the
other. Eureka! Hurrah! I am right. I am right. This big cylinder is
_the axis of the earth_, fixed and immovable; and these huge walls are
revolving round it. There's a discovery to make a man immortal! What
fools the old geographers were that used to say,--"the axis is an
_imaginary line_, running through," etc., etc. The name of Whopper will
now be heralded to all coming generations with the names of Bacon and
Newton and La Place and Humboldt, and all the rest of them! Fame, with
her great silver trumpet--
"Stop, my boy," I imagine the impatient reader is now saying. "You had
better get out into daylight before you crow so loud; we don't see how
your great discovery is going to help you to do that." I presume not;
but you _will_ see, if you are only patient.
I now reasoned thus with myself: "If the axis of the earth is
hollow,--about which I have no doubt,--and open at both ends,--inasmuch
as it is winter at the south pole when it is summer at the north, and
_vice versa_,--there must always be a strong current of air passing
through it,--the cold air of one extreme rushing into the warmer region
at the opposite pole. I have, then, only to find some way of introducing
my body into the interior of this axis; and, by taking advantage of the
current, I shall soon be able to see daylight again."
The next thing, therefore, to be done was to find out whether it would
be possible for me to get inside the cylinder. I had observed, that in
some places the metal of which it was composed, showed the appearance
of being honey-combed; and this gave me some encouragement. I now
crawled, or rather swam, about the surface of this cylindrical mass of
metal, and soon found an orifice large enough for me to thrust in my
hand and arm up to the elbow. True enough, there _was_ a strong draught
in there, so strong that it seemed as if my arm would be wrenched from
the socket. Every doubt and difficulty were now removed, if I could only
find a hole in the cylinder three feet in diameter; and after an hour's
search, I lighted upon just what I wanted,--a good smooth opening, and
somewhat larger than was actually needed to pass my body through. This,
however, was fortunate, because I must have space enough to project
myself with some force from the orifice, or I might strike the side of
the cylinder, and be dashed into fragments.
Every thing was now ready: nerving my whole system for the terrible
effort and the frightful risk, I sprang with all my might into the axis
of the earth. After what I had experienced when I put my arm into the
cylinder, I expected, of course, as soon as my whole body was thrown in
there, that I should undergo the terrible sensation of being whirled
upward by a tornado. Instead of this, to my astonishment, the moment
that I had cleared the orifice through which I jumped I felt as though I
were floating stationary in the air. Could it be that I was deceived in
regard to the existence of the current? This could hardly be: it was not
possible that I was stationary, for the hole through which I leaped had
vanished in a flash. It then for the first time occurred to me, that
being in the current, and as it were _a part_ of the current, moving in
it and _with_ it without any resistance, it was impossible for me to
tell whether I was advancing or not; and then I remembered how men that
went up in balloons, after they had lost sight of the earth, could not
perceive whether they were in motion or at rest; and how our teacher at
the Roxbury school used to explain the fact that we were not conscious
of the rotation of the globe on which we stood, upon the same principle.
When I thought of all this, I broke into a loud laugh, and for a long
time I could hear the echoes thundering through the cylinder.
I cannot say how glad I felt that my journey through the axis of the
earth occurred at that period of the year when the current set from the
south to the north. The prospect of safety if I were to be discharged
from the south pole, would be slight indeed; but familiarity with the
writings of various explorers in the Arctic regions gave me the very
natural feeling that I should be in a measure at home in that part of
the world.
The absence of any sense of motion, with the quietness and darkness that
surrounded me, began to induce a feeling of weariness; and I thought
that I should like to see how it looked where I was; so I lighted my
lantern, which I had extinguished when I leaped into the axis, when the
most dazzling and marvellous sight burst upon my view. I found that I
was not very far from the side of the cylinder, which was
polished--probably by the constant friction of the swift current passing
through it--so that it glistened like a diamond, only it was of one
uniform vermilion hue. Reflected, as in a fiery mirror, I caught an
occasional glimpse of myself, magnified to a gigantic size by the
concave form of the cylinder, and elongated in the most remarkable
manner by the rapidity with which I shot by the surface; and, after
this, I had no further doubts as to whether I was moving on or standing
still. I next amused myself by making all sorts of uproarious sounds,
which were repeated up and down, and back and forth, from the metallic
walls, until I was somewhat frightened at the cries I made; for it
seemed as if fifty wild demons were shouting and yelling around me.
There are some of my readers who will remember the old chemical chimney
in Roxbury, and what strange sounds were heard there when the boys stood
below, laughing and talking. What I now heard recalled most vividly all
those experiences. To soothe my mind a little, I then took a jews-harp
from my pocket and played the "Star-spangled Banner." The effect was
beautiful and almost magical, and I sank at once into a delicious
reverie.
But, as the time drew near when I supposed that I might expect to emerge
from my present position, I began to feel anxious as to what would
become of me when I came out. I anticipated, of course, that, moving at
such a fearful rate, I must expect to shoot up rather high in the air;
and the question was, where I should probably land. If, as is generally
supposed, it is a clear, open sea at the pole, I shall not _land_ at
all, but come down into the water. In this case, I am inevitably lost:
but still my faith was not shaken; after all that I had endured, it did
not seem likely that I should be left to perish in the sea. I could do
nothing but trust and wait.
In process of time the light began to steal in upon the darkness, and I
knew that another crisis was approaching,--the most trying and
formidable that I had been called to encounter. And, shortly, out I
went, high up in the air,--higher--higher,--until I thought that I
should never come down again. But, after a time, I felt that I was
descending; and the fear came upon me that I might tumble back once more
into the axis of the earth. If I had reflected a moment, I might have
perceived that this would be impossible; for, as soon as I had sunk from
my elevation down to a point not more than a hundred feet from the end
of the pole, I met the swift current of air rushing out, and was once
more hoisted up in the clouds. This was repeated several times over; and
I found myself in the condition of a cork ball, sustained in the air by
a stream of water from a fountain. It is a little odd, that at this time
there came to my mind a vivid recollection of such a cork ball that I
used to see tossing about in front of the hotel that formerly stood at
the corner of Tremont and Boylston streets, in Boston. At last it
occurred to me, that if at the time when I had nearly reached the
highest point of my ascent, and therefore must be moving very slowly, I
should fan the air with my cap, as I did before, it might waft me out of
the line of the north pole; and that I might as well come down into the
sea and be drowned, as to keep on bobbing up and down in this way
forever. The experiment was successful; and the next time that I
descended, I came gently, not into the water, but into a soft yielding
drift of snow, which entirely broke the force of my fall.
I felt sure now that all was right; and, scrambling out of the snow, I
looked about to see where I was. All around, in every direction, there
was an open sea extending to the horizon; and it was evident that I had
lighted upon an iceberg, which had floated northward from a more
southern region. After I had refreshed myself with a little food, I
proceeded to explore the frozen island, of which I had so unexpectedly
become the sole proprietor.
I am afraid that some of my readers may think that there is a tone of
exaggeration in my story as I proceed to narrate what I found there.
Thus far, it must be allowed by all that I have kept within range of
_possibility_, if not of probability; I have been careful to explain
minutely and scientifically just how every thing came about; and if it
should ever become as familiar a thing to travel _through_ the earth as
it is now to shoot over its surface on railroads, and send messages
instantaneously from one end of the world to the other, this narrative
will not sound so very strange after all. But in telling what I found on
the iceberg, and what happened to me there, I may have to tax somewhat
the credulity of my readers.