Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1909-09-15
AT NORTH POLE.
Conditions Confuse Ideas of Time
and Distance.

upon the north pole many wonderful fact
about this region OF the globe are beins
either stated in detail, merely suggested
or altogether ignored.
1t has been known, for example, that
the earth is fiatter at the poles than al
any other part of its surface, and that the
hattening is greater at the north than al
the south pole. This fiattening was sus-
pected in 1872, because in that year clock
which was known to be correct time
keeper in Paris was observed to lag be-
hind two minutesa day in French Guiana,
South America. The suppositiop that this
loss OF time was due to gravity being feeb-
Ter near the equator than toward the north
pole was confirmed by experiment.
BY actually measuring degree Of lati-
tude in far northern country and then
close to the equator, certain French as
tronomers were able to show, from the
fact that the former was longer that the
earth was flattened at the north pole. BY
carrying out the same process at the Cape
OF Good Hope, it was shown that there
was also fattening at the south pole.
A man standing at the north pole is
about twenty miles nearer the center of
the earth and weighs more than if he were
at the equator. He Weighs more because
at the pole he stands on a spot where the
centrifugal force of the earth's revolution
is practically nothing, while at the equator
gravity is reduced somewhat by the rota-
tion of the earth's surface at the rate of
LAO feet in a second or a little over /, 200
miles an hour.
Another queer fact about the north
pole is the way in which trip to it COM
pietely changes the appearance of the
heavens. People familiar with the night
sky often fail to orient themselves on
finding themselves in countries far re-
moved from the poles. Travellers to Aus
tralia have been astonished to find well
known consultations turned as were alto
gether topsy-turvy.
The well known Orion, for example,
a brilliant object in the southern skies
for our latitude, appears in the Australian
heavens in the north and upside down.
Everything in the sky undergoes an
equally startling change as the observer
passes into the high ATTITUDES of the far
north. At the north pole, itself, the
whole mechanism OF the stellar motions
seems, if not disordered, at least reversed.
The stars neither rise nor set, but simply
move round-always the same con-
stellation in view-in dome, whose
centre OF revolution is the zenith.
Almost in that zenith is the 'pole starr
itself, and the very position of it would
convince the explorer without the aid of
instruments that he had at last reached
the goal of Arctic exploration.
But the most perplexing of all the
changes produced in human ideas by the
north pole have yet to be told. "Do those
adventurous men who go in search of the
north POLE" asks recent writer in the
Atlontic Monthly, ''realize that when they
shall have triumphed over all the physical
difficulties which impede their way, they
will have to face metaphysical difficulties
yet more formidable?
'Should any of our Arctic adventurers
reach the pole he would CONE into such
relations with time and space as no other
man was ever in. Consider the situation
1t is uncertain whether the pole has no
longitude whatsoever, or has all the lon
gitude there is. Suppose you were stand
ing on the north pole. Either you would
have great deal too much longitude or
you would have none at all.
Whichever way it was, it would be
very confusing to rational being brought
up as we have been. Even if there is lon
gitude there, it is not good for anything,
for it is solely matter of east and west,
and there is no east or west at the north
pole-all is south. Standing on that pole,
look which way you might, all, all would
be south.
"We may well believe that an adven-
turer would step of the pole as quickly as
he could. Suppose he should take few
steps south in any direction. He would
thus acquire little bit of east and west
and north, but his natural Joy at this re-
covery would be brief. Looking back
ward at the pole, where of course he had
planted the American flag, he might see,
let us say, an iceberg beyond the flag on
the other side OF the pole. Which way
would the flag be from hims North, be-
yond question. But which way would the
iceberg be from him?
"His line of vision would extend straight
north until it reached the flag, and then,
continuing on in exactly the same direc-
ton, it would be going south. The same
direction would be the same as the oppo-
site directiOni
"Or, consider such an experiment as the
following: Let our adventurer take his
stand a very short distance from the pole
and then let him run around in a circle,
with the pole in the centre. At distance
of two or three feet there will be enough
east and west to answer the requirements
of the experiment. At every stop he will
pass over many meridians. If he is about
three feet from the pole and goes at a
comfortable trot, he will cross thirty or
forty meridians in second. But at every
step his time will change. If it is now
,~,l haS &c he II