Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1882-07-01
SATURDAY, JULY l
10000 Leagues Under the Sea Placed i
the Shade.

1S <
Philadelphia Press.
The approaching visit to Philadelphia
of j. Palmarts, q member Of the Belgian
Geographical society, who is now in the
United States, develops a remarkably
novel scheme for reaching the North
Pole. Mr.. Paimarts has devoted much
of his lifetime to study of Arctic explora
tons, and his presence in this country
at the present time is prompted by a
desire to enlist interest and capital in
behalf of hazardous project. His pro-
posed expedition to the Arctic regions
is to be made by the extremely novel
method Of submarine navigation. Mr..
Palmarts condemns the usual method of
steam vessels, sledge, etc., and considers
utterly impracticable the plan proposed
by Capt. Ciieyna of the British navy, Of
reaching the hidden pole by means of a
balloon. The Belgian bases his theory
on the fact that the Polar seas are solid
on the surface only, and that that part
of the floating ice beneath the water is
six times as thick as that which is seen
above the surface. Going further, Mr..
Palmarts argues that as the highest ice
burg yet seen was not over 800 feet in
height, the greatest depth to which he
would have to descend in order to clear
the floating ice would be 300 feet.
His plan to contruct an iron vessel af-
ter the model of that furnished by an
Italian named Ioselli. The vessel will
therefore be composed Of steel, thirty
feet IN length, eight feet in diameter,
and weigh 1900 pounds, or about three
and one-sixth tons. The novel craft
will be shaped somewhat like a cigar,
tapering in front and having a hemis-
pherical stern. She will he propelled
by a screw, the motor of which will be
furnished by a Froment electro magnet
ic apparatus, requiring but a small crew
three men all told. The supply OF
oxygen will he obtained by the decom-
position of water, and the carbonic acid
gas will be consumed by the means OF
caustic potash. The vessel displacing
exactly its weight in water, the descent
win be caused by allowing a little of the
fluid to flow into the hold, increasing
the quantity as the vessel sinks. When
the vessel is to rise to the surface the
water in the hold will be merely forced
out by the means Of a pump. On the
forward deck of the marine curiosity
will be an electric light inclosed in a
glass compartment capped with iron.
On the stern deck win be the wheel
house, likewise constructed Of thick
glass, protected by a heavy turret of
metal. This compartment will be sufi,
GENTLY large to accommodate the wheel.
man. The vessel will be provisioned
for sixty days, which the ~invento,
thinks will be ample time to reach the
point Of destination.
Mr.. Palmarts says the vessel is now
beyond mere hypothesis, a number Of
highly satisfactory experiments having
already been made in Europe. Accord.
ing to Mr.. Palmart's plan, his little
vessel will be transported to the Arctic
regions in the neighborhood Of Spitz,
bergen by an ordinary whaler, and then
lowered for her submarine journey.
He considers the route Of Spitzbergen
by far the best yet discovered, and ex
poets that by following a course along
about fifteen degrees longitude east, he
win avoid the heaviest masses Of ice.
He also argues in favor Of this route
from the fact that the sea which sur
rounds S~pitzbergen is very much higher
than any others in the same latitude.
Owing to its nearness to the mouth of
the'Gulf stream, which, being heated by
the gulf Of Mexico, has not we lost it's
heat when it has reached the Islands.
AS result, therefore, he urges that the
belt of ice between Spitzbergen and the
Pole ID smaller and less dangerous than
it ID at any other point, and for this
reason is the most available for explora
ton. s4 Y .He va