Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1912-11-06

M enlist, it will cost less than $780,
81 100000 to make Siberia a sum-
& mer resort, start ice famines in
Labrador, give Scotland an all
day summer, with a temperature
like Japan's; change the climate
Of the Atlantic coast to one like
that of Southern California, melt
all the ice on and around the north
pole and open it to truck gardening.
To do so will be cheaper, much easier
and twice as quickly done as to build
the Panama canal, says the New York
Herald
All that is necessary to accomplish
these results, some of which would re-
suit from tipping the old earth side
ways, is to build riprap jetty about
200 miles long across the shoals ex-
tending eastward from Newfoundland,
near Cape Race. That would stop the
Labrador current, whose cold is cap
able of making 100000 tons of ice
every second, from running right into
the Gulf stream, whose heat is equal
to the burning Of 100000 tons of
coal every minute. They meet now
on the Grand Bank, where the water
is only about $50 feet deep. The Gulf
stream is split up and spreads out
over millions of square leagues of the
Atlantic.
Sink Labrador Current
If such a jetty were built the Labra-
dor current coming down from the
Arctic would be turned eastward, and
would be sunk so far when the Gulf
stream met it that the latter warm
blue river of the ocean would pass
over the great cold river from the
north pole. The warm Gulf stream
would continue in almost undiminish-
ed volume to the northward and the
Labrador current would run mile
deep through the great depths Of the
Atlantic, making the torrid zone about
the equator cooler, wI~ile the Gulf
stream would requirv only three
months to melt every inch of ice
around the pole.
Fantastic though this may appear,
it has received the closest interest
from the foremost men of practical
science in America and other coun-
tries Every detail of the as
founding enterprise has been worke.1
out by Carroll Livingston Riker of
Brooklyn, who has made critics syal-
low their scornful prophecies in oIher
enterprises. He built at 81 Dey street,
in 1874, the first mechanical reIriger-
ating warehouse ever constructed, and
devised and constructed the refrig-
erat plant on board the steamship Gel
tic. which carried to Liverpool the
first cargo of American dressed meats
ever landed there.
He designed and constructed the
first ice and cold air refrigerating ma
chine ever constructed. He was call
ed visionary when he proposed each
of these, which have proved pioneers
in great industriGi equipment of the
world.
When the federal government de-
cided to make Washington, the ma
tional capital, sanitary by dredging
the Potomac Mr. Riker designed and
built the largest and most powerful
pumping dredge ever constructed up
to that time. 1t pumped up a solid
block of granite weighing 1900 pounds
as if it were a pebble, lifting it 80
feet above the water, and snatched
big steel safe from {he river ooze
with the same ease. Then he built
wharfs and jetties from Bar HarboT
to the Magdalena river and salved the
steamships ST. Paul, Otranto and A. A.
Shaw when they west on the beaches
in famous wrecks. He was one of the
American government experts who ex-
amined the drsdging FOR the Gatun