The Smoky God; Or, A Voyage to the Inner WorldEmerson, Willis George
Science
The Smoky God; Or, A Voyage to the Inner World
Emerson, Willis George
Voyages, Imaginary
IN concluding this history of my adventures, I wish to state that I
firmly believe science is yet in its infancy concerning the cosmology
of the earth. There is so much that is unaccounted for by the world's
accepted knowledge of to-day, and will ever remain so until the land of
"The Smoky God" is known and recognized by our geographers.
It is the land from whence came the great logs of cedar that have been
found by explorers in open waters far over the northern edge of the
earth's crust, and also the bodies of mammoths whose bones are found in
vast beds on the Siberian coast.
Northern explorers have done much. Sir John Franklin, De Haven Grinnell,
Sir John Murray, Kane, Melville, Hall, Nansen, Schwatka, Greely, Peary,
Ross, Gerlache, Bernacchi, Andree, Amsden, Amundson and others have all
been striving to storm the frozen citadel of mystery.
I firmly believe that Andree and his two brave companions, Strindberg
and Fraenckell, who sailed away in the balloon "Oreon" from the
northwest coast of Spitzbergen on that Sunday afternoon of July
11, 1897, are now in the "within" world, and doubtless are being
entertained, as my father and myself were entertained by the
kind-hearted giant race inhabiting the inner Atlantic Continent.
Having, in my humble way, devoted years to these problems, I am well
acquainted with the accepted definitions of gravity, as well as the
cause of the magnetic needle's attraction, and I am prepared to say that
it is my firm belief that the magnetic needle is influenced solely by
electric currents which completely envelop the earth like a garment,
and that these electric currents in an endless circuit pass out of the
southern end of the earth's cylindrical opening, diffusing and spreading
themselves over all the "outside" surface, and rushing madly on in their
course toward the North Pole. And while these currents seemingly dash
off into space at the earth's curve or edge, yet they drop again to the
"inside" surface and continue their way southward along the inside of
the earth's crust, toward the opening of the so-called South Pole.(24)
(24 "Mr. Lemstrom concluded that an electric discharge which could only
be seen by means of the spectroscope was taking place on the surface of
the ground all around him, and that from a distance it would appear as
a faint display of Aurora, the phenomena of pale and flaming light which
is some times seen on the top of the Spitzbergen Mountains."--The Arctic
Manual, page 739.)
As to gravity, no one knows what it is, because it has not been
determined whether it is atmospheric pressure that causes the apple to
fall, or whether, 150 miles below the surface of the earth, supposedly
one-half way through the earth's crust, there exists some powerful
loadstone attraction that draws it. Therefore, whether the apple, when
it leaves the limb of the tree, is drawn or impelled downward to the
nearest point of resistance, is unknown to the students of physics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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