Puck — June 18, 1879 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PUCK. PUCKS CONDENSED NOVELS. NEW SERIES, No, III. 70 THE NORTH POLE IN A MINOTE AND A HALF. By Joores Vamrng, I. ROFESSOR BLUNDERFOG, of Got- tingen, was my maternal uncle. He was the Professor of Numismatography in the University. Twice every year he was com- pelled to deliver a lecture, two hours long, to the students on old coins; the rest of the year belonged to himself. All his time, not occu- pied by University duties, he employed in sleeping and thinking. I thus divide his time because, though he never had his pipe out of his mouth during his waking hours, except when he was eating or drinking lager, yet_nei- ther smoking nor eating nor drinking interfered with his thinking. He had thought all the hair off of his fore- head and off of the crown of his head, so that only a rim of hair was left on his cranium. He was about six feet tall, about fifty years old, and about as fat as a lightning-rod. In Gottingen he was looked upon as a well of profundity. He was so profound, in fact, that no one ever attended his lectures, except that on one occasion a drunken student wan- dered into his room by mistake, and was found, at the end of the lecture, fast asleep under the benches. However, he was looked upon asa very great man in Gottingen, and even the Burgomaster thought it an honor to receive a bow from Professor Blunderfog. I. My father had died in my early youth, and I had been brought up by an over-indulgent mother, In boyhood I had always had a strong desire to go and be a pirate, and in early youth I had sighed to be a buccaneer. Now that I had reached my twentieth year, I was deter- mined to be a sailor. My mother wept over my resolve, but, not feeling able to overcome it, she resolved to send me on a six months’ visit to my Uncle Blunderfog; for, as she justly observed, “‘ There is no place where he is less likely to see the sea.” Thad often visited my uncle before, and we ‘were well acquainted with each other, I strolled up to my uncle’s house when I reached Gottin- gen, and, finding his servant, Bridgetta, at the door,I entered. I went at once to his library. As] entered without making a noise, I thought he would not observe me, but hardly ha closed the door when he cried out: “ Rudolph, what is the logarithm of 3,003?” 1 at once turned to the tables and gave him the logarithm; then he went on with his work. I sat down and observed him, A long table, at least fifteen feet long, stood in the centre of the room. On it were sheets of paper stretch- ing from one end to the other, and those sheets were covered with figures, I recognized my uncie’s well-known habit of working. He would cover his tablé with paper, then place himself flat on his stomach on it, and make his calcu- lations, As the figures increased he would slide towards the end of the table, and when the whole table had been covered with figures, his sum would be done. I sat patiently, for I saw that he had nearly reached the end of his paper. Suddenly he stood up straight, took the glasses from his eyes, and exclaimed: “Eureka! I have found it!” “Keep it, old man, and don’t you give it away!" I cried, forgetting the respect due tomy uncle in my boyish desire to air school-boy wit. But my uncle merely called Bridgetta to bring us “zwei beer.” IL My uncle Blunderfog had made a most won- derful discovery, and he confided the details of it to me that evening as we smoked our pipes and drank our beer. “« My dear boy,” said he, ‘‘ many men have tried to reach the North Pole but have all failed. In former days that was not to be won- dered at, but in modern times they fail because they do not take advantage of the discoveries of modern science. ‘They all attempt to go in ships, and all get wrecked in the ice. I have discovered a new method of going to the North Pole. “A balloon!” I cried enthusiastically, “No,” said the Professor, ‘‘thongh that is not to be sneezed at," he added, as the sound of the blowing of Bridgetta's horn came from an adjacent room, My Uncle Blunderfog took his pipe from his mouth and buried his nose in the mug of lager that had been standing by his elbow. As I saw his spectacles emerge from the mug, fol- lowed at the regulation distance by his nose, I knew that the exciting moment had arrived. “There is,” said my uncle calmly and slowly, “ but one way of reaching the North Pole, and that is by means of the parabola and the arte- sian well, Do you remember,” asked he, “what a parabola is?” “Oh, yes,” I answered, glibly repeating the definition we had learned at school; “ it isa curve having an infinite branch without having a rectilineal asymptote.” My Uncle Blunderfog nodded his head. “The stream thrown up by every fountain,” said he, “describes a parabola, By means of an artesian well I shall journey to the North Pole.” “Oh!” cried I, no longer interested in the ways and means, ‘will you take me?” “TT shall need some one,” said Uncle Blun- derfog; ‘as well you as another.” And so it was arranged that I should accom. pany Professor Blunderfog on his trip to the North Pole, Iv. The For many days we were very busy. Professor set me to work to copy the figures on his long table into a book, in order that we might take them with us. I also provided such articles of clothing and food as we might need. Professor Blunderfog devoted himself exclu- sively to the building of what he called his po- larimotor. ‘This was an immense tub, built of the very lightest material, having a diameter of thirty feet, and a circumference, as every school-boy knows, represented by 30 x 3.14159. The height of the tub was three feet. The bottom of the tub was formed in a very pecu- liar manner. For a width of eighteen inches from the side the bottom was perfectly level; but the rest of the bottom was one half con- cave and the other half convex, Exactly in the centre, where the convex and concave parts met, was placed a brass socket, in which there was a hole one foot in diameter; that hole could be closed by a screw-cap. As soon as the tub was finished we started for Amsterdam. We found, after much cogi- tation, that there was only one way in which we could convey our tub. It would not go on the cars, nor on a wagon; and we finally hired an elephant at the Gottingen Museum, fastened the tub on his back, and drove him to Amster- dam. My Uncle Blunderfog, as he marched reflectively behind that elephant with his eyes fixed on the animal's caudal appendage, ex- cited great admiration. At Amsterdam my uncle hired an artesian well-borer and an as- sistant, and had some peculiar machinery made, and then, with our trappings and our tub, we embarked on board the good ship Prinz Wilhelm, Captain von Bumblecoop, and gaily sailed for Greenland. Vv. Durinc our whole voyage my Uncle Blun- derfog assiduously studied the figures I had copied into the book, and sometimes for whole days he would remain flat on his stomach on the deck, doing sums on the planks with a piece of red chalk, Finally we landed in Greenland, and started for the spot my uncle had selected as the most appropriate place for his experiment. I shall call that place Ziz, for the reason that my Uncle Blunderfog desires to have its location kept secret, As a conveyance for our machinery, etc., we obtained some sledges, drawn by dogs, but we could find no conveyance large enough for our tub, The result was that we were compelled to take turns in rolling it to its destination, At length we reached Ziz, and at once com- menced work, The tub was placed on the ground on a spot selected by my uncle; the cap taken off of the hole in the centre; through that hole was placed the instrument with which they bore artesian wells, and the borer went in- dustriously to work. For days he worked on, until one evening my Uncle Blunderfog said to me: “To-morrow we shall reach the North Pole,” VI. I must admit that I was startled by his words. We were sitting in our ice-cabin smok- ing our pipes; before each of us was a huge mug, containing three bottles of lager. As soon as my Uncle Blunderfog had finished that remark, he buried his face in his mug; higher and higher that mug tilted till it was finally turned exactly upside down, and then my uncle slowly emerged from beneath it. He placed the mug at his elbow, and turned his eyes on me. “As you are to go with me,” he said solemnly, “it is proper that you should understand our experiment, in order that you may not inter- fere with its working. Listen then, my boy. We are boring an immense artesian well, and our tub stands exactly over it. I have exam- ined the geological formation of this land, and I found that at a certain number of feet below the surface there was an immense body of wa- ter. When we tap that, it will rush up through our well and strike the bottom of our tub, It will be powerful enough to carry our tub up with it. Naturally the course of the stream would be a parabola, but, by making the bot- tom of the tub partly concave and partly con- vex, the course of the stream will be somewhat changed. By its natural course we would be landed twenty miles nearer our present position than the Pole is; but, by reason of the pecu- liar formation of the bottom of our tub, we will land exactly on the Pole. We are within three feet of the water; we shall bore to within three inches of it; then we will remove our ma- chinery and let the water break through. Our tub will be carried up with the giant stream, and we shall be landed on the Pole.” VII. On the morrow everything happerted just as my uncle had stated. We placed ourselves, with the articles we intended to carry with us, in the tub at precisely 9 a.m. The boring ma- chinery had been taken out, and the cover had been secured on the hole in the centre. At ten minutes past 9 o'clock we felt our tub rise. The sensation was a delightful one, but: it was over so speedily that I find it impossible to cor- rectly characterize it, The pressure of the water was so great that it pressed in the convex portion of our tub’s bottom, and, except the flat rim around the edge, the bottom of our tub became concave. I counted the seconds as we were moving, and in exactly one minute and a half from the time when we left the earth we landed on the North Pole—and it was darker than the inside of a whale’s belly.