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Show AT THE NORTH POLE. ' j What Would Happen if One Should Get There. Just as the magnet always turns to the pole, so human endeavor for centuries cen-turies past has been similarly directed. Whether at any future time it will be vouchsafed to mortals to reach the pole is a matter as to which, for various reasons, considerable doubt may be entertained. - But would such an achievement be desirable? I assert the contrary quite seriously. If anyone really got to the pole he would, in common parlance, be utterly at sea," simply because at the pole tlere is no possibility of ascertaining one's whereabouts. A person arriving there would find an altogether different differ-ent world before him. Like a blind man he would grope about in and vainly vain-ly sndeavor to get back from whence he came. This by .no means enviable situation is calculated to thoroughly destroy the illusions which he may have cherished when starting on his polar expedition. His completely changed situation would be accounted for by the fact that when stationed at the pole the direction to the north would be found to coincide with the line of the zenith that is to say, the point exactly above us. The opposite point viz.. the nadir would coincide with the direction to the south. The longitudinal circles, and hence also the meridian of the locality, would coincide with the circles of the latitude; an equator would coincide with the horizon. hori-zon. Hence an astronomical determination determi-nation of the locality, according to latitude lati-tude and longitude, is altogether precluded. pre-cluded. The same may be said in regards determining de-termining one's bearings in any direction. direc-tion. The compass, too, would fail there, because its horizontal intensity H so slight as to preclude the possibility possibil-ity of its action. The only criterion for judging that one has arrived at the pole is that the observed altitude of the sun, after having been corrected to altitude al-titude above the true horizon, is found to coincide with the value of the declination de-clination of the sun for the day in question. Moreover, in those regions there is scarcely a day on which dense fogs do not prevail, and 60 or more degrees (C) of cold, such as mostly most-ly exist there, will enhance the difficulties diffi-culties to such an extent that it can only be a question of approximate estimates. esti-mates. Such conditions are by no means enviable, and are scarcely calculated cal-culated to induce us to long for them with all our hearts. But these are not the only things which are likely to make a sojourn at the pole a never-ending torment. Worse than all the rest, one cannot count the passing hours there: in other words, there is no criterion for determining deter-mining the time of day. During a period of six months the sun will neither rise nor set, but during the whole of the time will always remain either above or below the horizon. As the earth revolves re-volves around its axis in twenty-four hours, the sun apparently describes, during the same interval ,a circuit of 300 degrees round the sky, being visible at an altitude equal to the declination whenever declination is of the same name as the pole at which the observer is stationed. The numerous attempts hithe-to made to reach the pole have, as a mat-ter mat-ter of course, been by , water that is to say, by ships and sledges. The idea I that one might get there by an aerial passage has not gained ground until I recently, but if we consider that balloons bal-loons are not navigable, and hence are liable to be carried away in any direction direc-tion by any air currents that may accidentally acci-dentally prevail, and in the mose unlikely un-likely event only to the pole, no one of common sense will comprehend how success could have been expected from such an enterprise. Moreover, determinations deter-minations of locality cannot possibly be made from a balloon with any approximate ap-proximate degree of accuracy. |
