Under the Sea to the North Pole (8 page)

There was no want of work. There was quite enough to do to look after the safety of the house, which was constantly threatened by the storms from the south-east. The winter, notwithstanding its excessive cold, was troubled by the return of the warm currents, and the sight of the numerous gaps in the pack encouraged the travellers in supporting the presumption that the Greenland Sea is more open than that of Barentz or Lincoln. Manifestly some branch of the Gulf Stream penetrated these high latitudes, and rendered at any time possible the breaking up of the ice.

Packed in a wonderful way among the icebergs, the
Polar Star
was in no way injured by the pressure from the sea. Her iron cradle admirably fulfilled its functions, and the articulations of the metal frame yielded whenever necessary. On the 15th of November, Captain Lacrosse, on climbing the bergs around the ship, found her keel three feet out of the water, and literally suspended about two feet above the level of the ice-field. Soundings were immediately taken, and removed any fear he might have had of an eventual shipwreck. The adjacent ice was more than three yards thick, and the water maintained a temperature of one degree down to a depth of from 25 to 40 fathoms.

On the 25th of November the thermometer went down so low that the mercury was frozen, and recourse had to be made to thermometers and barometers of pure alcohol, During the days that followed, temperatures much more terrible were obtained, and on the 22nd of December, after a considerable rise in the thermometric columns (-22°) the cold reached a minimum rarely experienced by explorers, that is to say, 56 degrees below zero.

Such was its intensity that some of the men had serious attacks. Two fingers of the left hand had to be amputated from the Breton sailor, Le Clerc. Four others were on the sick-list with sudden internal derangements.

But the most alarming case was that of the nurse Tina Le Floc’h.

The Breton, accustomed to the mild humid climate of her country, could hardly stand the intense cold, particularly as the cold is not free from moisture in these extreme latitudes. The least omission or interruption in the work of the camp occasioned the most serious consequences. If they neglected to scrape the floors, instantly sheets of verglas formed; if the heat of the stoves only went down a degree or two the vapour of respiration was immediately converted into fine snow which covered everything, and saturated it with carbonic acid; if a current of air insidiously penetrated, the temperature at once went down enough to cause congestions and pneumonia in those who were susceptible.

One morning, Hubert D’Ermont announced to the council of officers that he was going to make his first attempt to combat the enemy they could no longer endure. The experiment took place that very day. The stoves in the different rooms were cleared out of coals, and before the sailors recovered from their amazement and could ask why the fires were extinguished when the temperature outside was 48° below zero, the upper part of the grate came down displaying the reflector, from which spread forth the intense heat of four tongues of a ruddy feebly illuminatory flame. At the same time instead of the lamps in which the oil was nearly frozen, in place of the candles and experiments in electric lighting parsimoniously attempted by Schnecker, they saw in the burners that had been prepared for it large butterfly flames of bicarburet of hydrogen.

Lighting gas under the 76th parallel! That was something of a prodigy! Who had accomplished this prodigy?

There was one who could have explained it immediately; the German disguised as an Alsacian. He ground his teeth when he saw that Hubert had not boastedly promised anything in vain.

The hydrogen of the tubes had produced this marvellous result and when in the evening he was asked what had been the cost, he replied with a smile—

“Oh! very small, hardly forty cubic decimetres.”

Forty cubic decimetres! That represented a cubic centimetre of the same gas in a solid state. Marc D’Ermont’s discovery was verified; the experiment had been made. With a few grains of this marvellous product they could brave all winters, and Hubert could have said with Archimedes—changing the formula slightly—” Give me a condenser and I will thaw the pole.”

But the admirable results of the discovery did not end here. To utilize the forced leisure of winter quarters, Hubert had all the crew to assist him.

The day after the experiment quite a banquet took place in the crew’s dining-room. The cooking was simply perfection. What could they not cook on a stove where a single flame four millimetres high sufficed to develop a heat of 1800 degrees, which had necessarily to be moderated by an ingenious scale of distances. As is well known, the combustion of hydrogen in the air gives an almost invariable temperature of 1789 degrees, or 189 degrees greater than that of molten iron.

In the course of the meal, while the men were laughing and asking if they were to wear their summer clothes, Doctor Servan remarked none the less gaily,—

“Well! well! do not talk too much. I have noticed a few faces, and they have shown me that we ought to redouble our hygienic precautions. If we only had a few fresh herbs at our disposal!”

“That we can do!” replied Hubert; “if Monsieur Schnecker will only help me, we can. build a greenhouse.” “A greenhouse?” said the German. “Yes, and in that greenhouse we can raise early vegetables, carrots, salads, radishes, etc., everything green and refreshing.” The men looked at him in amazement. The chemist laughed mechanically. Nevertheless the enthusiasm of the company was communicative. There was no thought of objections, and an unanimous hurrah echoed from both ends of the table. “Vegetables!” said Lieutenant Remois. “While you ‘are about it, a little fruit would not come amiss!” “Yes, fruit!” they exclaimed, their mouths watering at the alluring hope. “Strawberries, for example!” said Isabelle. “If it will not displease my dear cousin, we will have strawberries and vegetables in the spring. We have only to allow for the inevitable delay due to germination and growth.” And with these smiling promises the meal ended. In the morning, under a temperature of 32 degrees, the men were afoot. With feverish activity they set themselves to work. One of the transition sheds was promptly converted into a hothouse. A second partition of planks was added to first and the space between them, as with the walls of the house, was filled with cinders and fragments of coal. Two portable fireplaces were placed at the ends, connected by tubes. At the same time four electric lamps were fixed on the corners. Finally, at the foot of the partitions, in narrow bands, the soil was dug up as deeply as possible after watering it with boiling water. “But” said Lieutenant Hardy, “that is all labour in vain. Is the cold going to pack itself off at the sight of the kettle?” “Patience, my dear friend, patience!’‘ replied Hubert. “The cold must be kept away for a day only. You ask Monsieur Schnecker.” In fact the German seemed to like the work. He smiled with a knowing air and nodded his head. In the trench dug round the hot-house was buried a rod of iron with its ends fixed to the two stoves. In this way the ends had only to be made hot to insure the soil having a constant and humid temperature by the melting of the surrounding ice.

“Very well!” said the still incredulous Hardy, “but where are you to get your mould from? Or do you intend to grow your vegetables cooked at the roots?”

“Know, sir,” said the German, “that all soil will bear vegetation to skilful cultivators. As to the vegetables being cooked, they will not be that until after the crop.”

From time to time the workers stopped to contemplate what they had done. They stood astonished, unable to believe their eyes. What! A hot-house, vegetables, fruits, in 76 north latitude in the depths of the polar night, and at a temperature of forty below freezing!

But neither Hubert nor Schnecker said anything. They had only done half the work; the more important half remained to be done.

They had to find the mould and the fertilizer. They could not dream of attacking the neighbouring rocks now frozen six or eight yards thick. To make a border conformably to the new rules of this improvised gardening, Schnecker first strewed a bed of cinders. But to this bed of cinders they must add a second layer of fertilizer. Where was it to be found?

As they were asking themselves this the chemist exclaimed,—

“Bah! It is not so difficult when we know how. The
Polar Star
contains all we want.”

And next day twelve men, under Guerbraz, were ordered to get out of the steamer’s hold as much sand and straw as was necessary.

These were heaped up temporarily in the middle of the hothouse where Schnecker subjected them to the needful chemical treatment.

Beaten and broken and reduced to dust the straw was cooked for two hours in boiling water. To this vegetable mash was added all the organic waste that was handy, and it required all the patience of a chemist enamoured of his art to go through with an undertaking as nauseous as it was fatiguing.

When this was done Hubert congratulated the German.

“My dear Monsieur Schnecker,” said he, “we have now only to nitrogenize a fertilizer which already appears to me rather rich. What do you think?” ”I think that a man who has solidified hydrogen ought to have in his baggage a few litres of liquid nitrogen. That is the infancy of the art, or I do not know what I am talking about.” “That is it,” said the lieutenant. “There is the nitrogen required.” And so saying he presented the German with a cylinder about forty centimetres long and twenty in diameter. This cylinder, furnished like the others with a screw, was placed on a stand and put in communication with a barrel of thick glass provided with a double tube. The interior of the barrel was filled with a liquid mixture of hydrogen and carbon which have a strong affinity for nitrogen. With infinite precautions the two men opened the screw tap and allowed the liquid to fall drop by drop into the mixture, where, as it resumed its gaseous elasticity, it was absorbed with equal rapidity. This work of preparation lasted about two hours, after which the chemical manure heap received its first fertilizing sprinkling. “Now,” said Schnecker, “all we have to do is to keep our borders well watered.” “I will do that,” said Isabelle, gaily; “what salary do you offer?” “That is right!” said D’Ermont. “You shall name your own price.” “Well, then, I ask only one favour, that of mingling a few flowers with your vegetables.” “Bravo!” exclaimed the company. “We only want a few humming birds to make us believe we are in the Antilles or on the banks of the Amazon.” The manure was spread in a thick layer on the borders and then covered with about six inches of sand. This sand was in turn watered with the ammoniacal mixture and then with tepid water. “Now,” said Schneckert, quietly, “we can sow the seed.” They let the bed rest for a day under the double action of the subterranean heat and the electric light which was strongly displayed in the globes of rough glass. Early next morning they scattered the seed on which they based their hopes of a crop. There was a square of strawberries reserved beneath the more direct rays of the lamps; radishes, salad, carrots, parsley, occupied the other beds. Along the walls, Isabelle sowed a few annuals, nemophilas, nasturtiums, and major and minor convolvuluses.

“And now we must trust to God!” said De Keralio, religiously.

From this moment, in truth, it lay with God to aid the efforts of man. The unhoped-for employment of hydrogen for the warming of the house produced marvellous results. If they had not had before their eyes the sight of the terrible polar winter, they might have thought it was spring, so mild and pleasant was the interior temperature.

On the advice of the doctors, D’Ermont was riot too liberal in the use of the beneficent gas. There were many reasons for this prudent economy. The first was the very natural fear of expending too great an mount of a substance which was intended for invaluable purposes; the second, that this combustion of hydrogen, although considerably tempered by the passage of the gas through carbon, rapidly exhausted the quantity of breathable air contained in the hermetically closed apartments. The medicine men had conceived a certain amount of anxiety relative to the general health of the colony. To the first objection, Hubert had replied that he had enough hydrogen to supply three winters. But to the second he made no reply, recognizing that this quite abnormal temperature could not but have some effect’ on the lungs. And so it was agreed that as soon as the cold became milder, the old warming by coal should be recommenced, and the precious gas should only be used for the nitrogenized products of the earth.

In this state of quietude the middle of January was reached, when the sun began to announce his return by vague white streaks on the southern horizon. This was the dawn manifesting itself with a discretion bordering on parsimony.

But on the other hand the explorers had the frequent pleasure of admiring the marvellous aurora borealis.

These strange electrical phenomena were so numerous as almost to fatigue the natural curiosity of the observers, and each time their appearance was indicative of considerable atmospheric perturbation. Terrible storms shook the ice, and the house, in spite of its timbers and its iron beams, only owed its escape from destruction to its sheltered position between two bare rocks.

On two occasions the ship seemed to be in danger. The awful noise which came in from the sea caused a fear that the pack would break up, and that the steel cradle under the united influence of the cold and the pressure of the outer ice would go down before the floe bergs.

On the 20th of January, Lacrosse, incapable of mastering his anxiety any longer, went out in company with Lieutenant Remois and six men. A thick snow, fallen the day before, made the journey very laborious, by reason of the frequent falls into the gullies hidden by the perfidious carpet of whiteness. It took them more than an hour to get from the camp to the shore. But once there, they had the immense gratification of seeing the
Polar Star
still in her position swinging in her cradle. The ice had piled up around her to such a height as to form an impregnable rampart to every attack from outside.