INTERESTING FOR THE INHABITANTS OF THE TERRESTRIAL SPHEROID.
And so the Washington Government knew where Barbicane & Co. had
commenced business. There could be no doubt as to the authenticity of
the telegram. The Consul of Zanzibar was too cautious a man for his
information to be doubted, and it was confirmed by subsequent telegrams.
The gigantic works of the North Polar Practical Association were in full
swing in the centre of the Kilimanjaro region, about three hundred miles
from the East Coast of Africa, a little below the equinoctial line.
How had they come to be installed so secretly in this lost country, at
the foot of the famous mountain discovered in 1848 by Krapf and Rebmann?
How had Barbicane & Co. been able to build their foundries and collect
their staff? By what means had they managed to enter into peaceful
relations with the savage tribes of the district, and their cruel and
grasping chiefs? Nobody knew. And as there were only a few days to run
before the 22nd, it was not unlikely that nobody would know.
When J. T. Maston learnt from Evangelina that the mystery of Kilimanjaro
had been cleared up by a telegram from Zanzibar,—
“Pshaw!” he said, making a wonderful zigzag in the air with his iron
hook. “They do not travel yet by telegraph or telephone; and in six
days—patarapatanboomboom—all will be ready!”
And any one who heard the secretary of the Gun Club deliver the sonorous
onomatope, like a roar from a Columbiad, would have wondered at the
amount of vital energy remaining in the old artilleryman.
But there was no doubt that he was right. There was no time to send
messengers to the Wamasai to arrest Impey Barbicane. Even if the
messengers started from Egypt, or Aden, or Massowah, or Zanzibar,
however quickly they might travel, they would have to contend with the
difficulties of the country, with the obstacles unavoidable on a road
through a mountainous region, and probably with followers acting under
the orders of a sultan as despotic as he was black.
All hope would have to be given up of stopping the operation or
arresting the operator.
But, if that was impossible, nothing was easier now than to know the
worst that could happen. The firing-point had been revealed, and it was
a simple matter of calculation—a complicated calculation evidently, but
not beyond the capacities of algebraists in particular and
mathematicians in general.
At first the Government kept the despatch secret, their object being to
be able to indicate when they published it what would be the results of
the displacement of the axis with regard to the alteration in the level
of the waters. The inhabitants of the world would then know the fate
that was in store for them, according to the segment of the spheroid on
which they resided.
On the 14th of September the telegram was sent to the Longitudes Office
at Washington, with instructions to work out the final consequences,
ballistic and geographical. The next day but one the information was
ready. It was cabled at once to all the Governments of the new and old
worlds, and having been printed in thousands of newspapers, it was cried
in all the great cities by all the newsboys of the globe, as—
“What is going to happen?”
Which was the question being asked in every language just then.
And this is the reply as given by the Longitudes Office.
“IMPORTANT NOTICE.
“The experiment to be attempted by Barbicane & Co. is as follows:—
“To produce a recoil on the 22nd of September at midnight, local time,
by means of a monster cannon throwing a projectile of one hundred and
eighty thousand tons.
“If this discharge is effected just below the Equator, near the
thirty-eighth meridian, at the base of the Kilimanjaro chain, and if it
is directed towards the south, the mechanical effect on the terrestrial
spheroid will be as follows:—
“At once, owing to the shock being combined with the diurnal movement, a
new axis will be formed, the old axis being 23° 28′, and the new one
being perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic.
“In the north the extremity of the new axis will be situated between
Greenland and Grinnell Land, on that part of Baffin Sea cut by the
Arctic Circle. In the south it will be on the Antarctic Circle to the
east of Adelaide Land.
“As an example of the new meridians, we may mention that passing through
Dublin in Ireland, Paris in France, Palermo in Sicily, Obeid in Darfur,
Kilimanjaro, Kerguelen Island, the new Antarctic Pole, the Society
Islands in the Pacific, Vancouver Island, and Melville Peninsula.
“The new Equator will pass through the Kilimanjaro country, the Indian
Ocean, Goa, a little below Calcutta, Mangala in Siam, Hong Kong, the
Marshall and Walker Islands in the Pacific, Rio Janeiro, Saint Helena,
and by St. Paul de Loanda across Africa to Kilimanjaro.
“The new Equator having been formed by the new axis, it is possible to
calculate the results on the ocean levels.
“It is worthy of note that Barbicane & Co., or rather the directors of
the North Polar Practical Association, have evidently been desirous of
doing as little damage as possible. Had the discharge been effected
towards the north, the consequences would have been disastrous for the
most civilized portions of the globe; but by firing towards the south
the consequences, so far as the submergence of the land is concerned,
will only affect the less peopled and wilder countries.
“The globe will, for the purposes of this inquiry, be divided by two
great circles, intersecting at right angles at Kilimanjaro and the
antipodes of that mountain, thus giving four segments, two in the
northern hemisphere, and two in the southern hemisphere, separated by
lines in which no alteration of level will occur.
“1. The northern hemisphere:—
“The first segment, to the west of Kilimanjaro, will comprise Africa
from the Congo to Egypt, Europe from Turkey to Greenland, America from
British Columbia to Peru and Brazil north of San Salvador—in fact the
whole of the North Atlantic and the greater part of the Equatorial
Atlantic.
“The second segment, to the east of Kilimanjaro, will comprise the
greater part of Europe from the Black Sea to Sweden, the Russian Empire,
Arabia, almost all India, Persia, Beloochistan, Afghanistan, Turkestan,
the Celestial Empire, Mongolia, Japan, Corea, the Northern Pacific and
Alaska—and also the Polar regions, so regrettably placed in the
possession of Barbicane & Co.
“2. The southern hemisphere:—
“The third segment, to the east of Kilimanjaro, will comprise
Madagascar, Kerguelen Island, Mauritius, and all the islands of the
Indian Ocean, the Antarctic Ocean to the New Pole, the Malay Peninsula,
Java, Sumatra, Borneo, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and all
the southern Pacific up to the meridian of the Society Islands.
“The fourth segment, to the west of Kilimanjaro, will include Africa
south of the Congo and the Mozambique Channel, the Cape of Good Hope,
the South Atlantic, South America below Pernambuco and Lima, Bolivia,
Brazil, Uruguay, the Argentine Confederation, Tierra del Fuego, the
Sandwich and South Shetland Islands, and a portion of the South Pacific.
“Such will be the four segments of the globe divided by lines of no
alteration in level.
“In each of these four segments there will be a central point where the
effect will attain its maximum, either of increase or decrease.
“This maximum will approach 25,000 feet at each point and at the point
the consequences will be most serious.
“In two of the segments situated opposite each other in the northern and
southern hemispheres, the sea will retire to flow into the two other
segments.
“In the first segment the Atlantic Ocean will almost entirely empty
itself, the point of maximum being about the Bermudas, where the bottom
will become visible if the depth of the sea in that locality be less
than 25,000 feet. Consequently, between America and Europe, vast
territories will be revealed, which the United States, Great Britain,
France, Spain and Portugal can annex _pro rata_ to their Atlantic
coast-lines, or otherwise, as they may think fit. But it must be
remembered that as the waters are lowered, so will the air be. The coast
of Europe and America will be lifted to such an extent, that towns
placed twenty or even thirty degrees from the point of maximum, will
have no more air than is now available at three miles from the surface
of the sea. New York, Philadelphia, Charlestown, Panama, Lisbon, Madrid,
Paris, London, Edinburgh, Dublin will be thus elevated, but Cairo,
Constantinople, Dantzic, Stockholm on one side, and the western coast
towns of America on the other, will retain their present level. The
Bermudas will be in such rarefied air as has hitherto been only
experienced by aeronauts, and will become as uninhabitable as the upper
peaks of the mountains of Tibet.
“Similar effects will be experienced in the opposite southern segment
comprising the Indian Ocean, Australia, and the Pacific. At Adelaide and
Melbourne the level of the sea will sink 25,000 feet below them, and the
air will become so pure and rarefied as to be unbreathable.
“Such are the two segments from which the waters will retire. In the sea
that will be left there will probably be many new islands, formed by the
summits of submarine mountain-chains.
“In the other segments the waters will rise to a corresponding height.
“In the segment north-east of Kilimanjaro the maximum will be at Yakutsk
in Siberia. This town will be submersed under 25,000 feet of water—less
its actual altitude—and thence thinning out on all sides the flood will
spread out over Asiatic Russia, India, China, Japan, and Alaska. The
Ural Mountains may possibly appear above the waters as islands. St.
Petersburg and Moscow on one side, Calcutta, Bangkok, Saigon, Pekin,
Hong Kong, and Tokyo, on the other, will disappear beneath the waves at
variable depths, but at depths quite sufficient to drown such of the
Russians, Hindoos, Siamese, Cochinchinese, Chinese, and Japanese who
have not left the country before the catastrophe.
“In the segment south-west of Kilimanjaro the disasters will not be of
such magnitude, as the segment is in a great measure covered by the
Atlantic and Pacific, the level of which will rise 25,000 feet above the
Falkland Islands. But nevertheless much territory will disappear, among
others all South Africa from the Gulf of Guinea and Kilimanjaro to the
Cape of Good Hope, all South America south of Central Brazil and Peru,
including Chili, the Argentine Republic down to Tierra del Fuego. The
Patagonians, however tall they may be, will not escape destruction, as
they will not even have the resource of escaping to the Cordilleras, not
one of whose summits will in those parts rise above sea-level.
“Such will be the results produced by the changes of the level of the
waters. And such are the eventualities for which those interested must
prepare, unless something happens to prevent the dastardly enterprise of
Barbicane & Co.”