Earth's pole

“ The more we consider the asymmetry of the ice distribution in latitude and longitude, and its disparity in elevation, the more difficult it becomes to explain the phenomena upon any astronomical basis. If we were at liberty to disregard the considerations forced upon us by physicists and astronomers, and permit ourselves simply to follow freely the apparent leadings of the phenomena, it appears at this hour as though we should be led upon an old and forbidden trail,—the hypothesis of a wandering pole. ”

“ If we are to regard the pole as very near the point of greatest cold, it becomes a matter of much interest to examine whether the pole has always occupied its present position, or whether it has been subject to slow changes of place upon the earth's surface. Therefore, the geologists have appealed to astronomers to discover whether they are in possession of any observational evidence tending to show that the pole is in motion. ”

“ The earth’s axis, continued indefinitely upwards, meets the sphere in a point called the Celestial Pole. This point in our middle latitudes is between the zenith and the north horizon, near a certain star of the second magnitude familiarly known as the Pole Star. As the earth revolves from west to east the celestial sphere appears to us to revolve in the opposite direction, turning on the line joining the Celestial Poles as on a pivot. ”

“ Reduced to its simplest form, a sun-dial consists of a straight pole erected upon a permanently fixed circular plate, the shadow of the pole indicating midday when it coincides with a line drawn due north from the base of the pole, the pole being erected upon a line parallel with the axis of the earth. ”

“ Whereas, at the Poles of our Earth, although the Sun is for half a year together above the Horizon, yet he never ascends above, nor descends below it, more than 231⁄2 degrees. When the Sun is in the Equinoctial, or in that Circle which divides the northern half of the Heavens from the southern, he is seen with one half of his Disc above the Horizon of the North Pole, and the other half above the Horizon of the South Pole ”

“ The reason why we must make the observations in this way is, because at the European Observatory we can see the North Pole, while at the Cape of Good Hope, they can only see the South Pole, The angle between the two celestial poles is necessarily 180 degrees exactly, because the directions of the lines drawn from the two places to the celestial poles are parallel to the same line, namely, the axis of the earth. ”

“ It is not only the pole, but the whole surrounding country that is better known on Mars than on the Earth, not only from the geographical, but also from the meteorological point of view. Thus, for instance, we can almost constantly measure the extent of the polar snows, and we find that it varies with the seasons. ”

“ Yes, we are very near the Earth again, and this is far inside the arctic polar circle, where the sun [82] never goes down during summer, but sets for a long night in the winter. I have kept far to the westward to avoid the magnetic pole, which might play havoc with my apparatus. ”

“ Now, if it had been so, since the earth is flattened more than five leagues at the pole, the seas, carried to the equator by centrifugal force, would have covered mountains twice as high as the Himalayas; all the countries near the polar circle, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Siberia, Greenland, and New Britain, would have been buried in five leagues of water, while the regions at the equator, having become the pole, would have formed plateaus fifteen leagues high! ”

“ Telescopic observations show clearly by the great variation in the extent of the polar snows how extensive is the effect of these changes upon the surface of the planet. In the hot summer the snows rapidly retreat toward the pole, and even leave the actual pole itself bare of snow, showing that upon Mars, as upon the Earth, the center, or pole, of greatest cold (at least in the southern hemisphere) does not coincide with the geographical pole of the planet. ”

“ At each pole, in turn, there are six months of continual day followed by six months of continual night, and when the sun is at one of the solstices it just touches the horizon on the corresponding polar circle at the hour that marks midnight on the parts of the earth which lie outside the polar circles. ”

“ Thus, after long intervals of time we find the pole of the earth no longer pointing towards the same spot in the apparent sphere of the heavens, or in other words, our pole-star is not, as at present, α Ursæ Minoris, but some other celestial body ”

“ If, therefore, the North Pole in the sky had undergone a great change in its position, it might seem obvious that the tube from the earth's centre to its surface which would now conduct the vision from that centre to the north celestial Pole would emerge at a different point of the earth's crust from that which it formerly occupied. We have here to deal with the case that arises not unfrequently in astronomy, in which a fact of broad general truth requires a minute degree of qualification ”

“ We will follow it towards the southern pole. You can scarcely see the earth, we are so high up. Lower down are currents rushing towards the pole, which would impede the progress of this silvery cloud. ”

“ Now the Earth is a great magnet with a positive pole, which we call the north pole at one end of its axis, and a negative pole, which we call the south pole, at the other end of its axis, as shown in Fig. ”

“ "Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, 'When I grow up I will go there.' The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven't been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour's off. ”

“ This substantial production of alternating poles upon the planet takes place through the diversity of its surface as water and land, through the oblique position of its axis, whereby summer and winter are produced, through the processes, or through the life that is upon it, through the processes of decomposition and combination effected by water, through the revival and death of vegetation, and even the white colour of snow. The planet discharges its pole in the neighbourhood of the sun, like a cork pellet, and reloads of itself at a distance from the sun ”

“ For a short time it remains stationary, then suddenly springs to life. The waves of light drive violently from east to west; the edges assume a deep red and green colour and dance up and down. The rays shoot up more rapidly; they become shorter; all rise together and approach nearer and nearer to the magnetic Pole. It looks as if there were a race among the rays, and that each aspired to reach the Pole first. And now the point is reached, and they shoot out on every side, to the north and the south, to the east and the west. ”

“ Nothing could exist on these poles that was not a fixture to the planet's surface, consequently no snow or ice existed at the poles themselves. Many explorers' lives had been lost before this discovery was made; those who succeeded in reaching the pole having made the discovery too late to save themselves from being hurled off the planet into space. But so small was the surface of this repelling pole that it was argued that the pole must run through the center of the planet, to make it equal in mass to the attracting force which covered the rest of the surface. ”

“ Independently of astronomical objections, there is good geological evidence that the poles of the earth must have been nearly in their present places from the dawn of life until now. From the Laurentian upward, those organic limestones which mark the areas where warm and shallow equatorial water was spreading over submerged continents, are so disposed as to prove the permanence of the poles. ”

“ More than one explanation has been put forward, but the best so far, because the most simple, is that the body is not a sphere but a jagged mass, a mountain alone in space, and that as it turns upon its axis first one corner and then another is presented to our view or throws a shade upon its neighbor. When the pole directly faces us, no great change occurs, especially if it also nearly faces the Sun. ”

“ It has poles, not mathematical points, but natural termini of force excelling in primary efficiency by the co-operation of the whole: and there are poles in like manner in the earth which our forefathers sought ever in the sky: it has an æquator, a natural dividing line between the two poles, just as the earth has: for of all lines drawn by the mathematicians on the terrestrial globe, the æquator is the natural boundary, and is not, as will hereafter appear, merely a mathematical circle. It, like the earth, acquires Direction and stability toward North and South, as the earth does ”