The Purchase of the North Pole: A sequel to "From the earth to the moon"Verne, Jules
Science
The Purchase of the North Pole: A sequel to "From the earth to the moon"
Verne, Jules
Science fiction, French -- Translations into English
“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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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