Evening star., 1912-09-29
MELT FROZEN POLAR SEA
Scheme for Changing the Climate of
North Atlantic Coast.
PROJECT TO COST $4,000, 900
Proposes, Also, to Alter the Solar
Inclination of the Mundane
Sphere.
Special Dispatch to Tue Star.

Special Dispatch TO Tie Star.
NEW YORK, September os-Carroll
Livingston Riker, New York engineer,
proposes to change the climate of the
whole Atlantic coast of North America.
and to alter the solar inclination of the
eafth. His plan is to send the great
heat-bearinS gulf stream, unchilled, into
the very heart of the arctic. The warm
current, he maintains. would melt the
frozen polar seas. and by this substi-
tuition OF water for ice he believes tie
earth would swing around a bit on its
polar axis and present to the more direct
rays of the sun the regions that are now
uninhabltable for most of the human
race.
Not only that he would at the same
time. he declares, open the ice-bound
harborS of eastern Canada for whole
years shipping; do away with the fogs
OF the Labrador and Newfoundland
coast and on the northern Atlantic. and.
finally. put an end to the great wandering
icebergs on the steamship tracks that
made the Titanic disaster possible. The
total cast of this work, he estimates at
Sl9OOO,CCO, a sum far below the cost of
the Panama canal, and the acomolish-
ment of the work, he declares, will be
much simpler.
Mr. Riker has carried out several nota
BILE engineering featS. He built the first
refrigerating warehouse in the world and
installed the first cold storage system
in transatlantic ship.
Outlines His Plan,
The amazing proposal mentioned is
made by Mr.. Riker in all seriousness and
sincerity. He believes that it can he done
and in this way:
y jetty would be built extending east
ward from Newfoundland across tho wa
ter on the Great Banks and east thereof
until a wall is formed which will inter-
cept the cold northern Labrador current
turning 1T eastward until it meets the
north-fiOWing gulf stream in deep water
The greater part of the cold stream would
pass under the warm current. he declares
and the 1ce-laden upper part be DETECTED
north again.
To carry out the plan the ietty. saws
Mr. Riker. would need to be 200 miles
long. but jetty thirty miles long pro-
jecting out from Cape Race would modify
the climate from Newfoundland to Cape
Hatteras and do away with the fogs.
the extreme cold of the winter and bring
another spring to the northern part of
this continent.
Method in Building Jetty.
Mr.. Riker has even worked out the
method he would use in building the
jetty. He would have backbone of
rock thirty feet high, which would cause
an incline of sand a mile long on the
north and half mile on the south
and within few months the deposit
would cover the wall. When this filling
was complete a second backbone would
be laid, and SO on till the wall was high
enough to defect the northern current
and to get the deposits of sands from
both streams. He would require fleet of
about twenty hopper-barges, which
would carry the rock from the high land
on the coast to the position in the sea-
This work, he declares, would not be diff
ficult, but the position of the source of
supply OF the rock and gravity would
take care of much of the loading of the
cost.