The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1913-01-02
Scientist Has d Plan
10 Shift Gulf Stream
Would Build lefty to Divert
Its Meeting With Lab
radOr Current.
IF we may credit deep sea scien-
fist it will cost less than $780,
100000 to make Siberia 4 sum

IF we may credit deep sea scien-
fist it will cost less than $780,
100000 to make Siberia Il sum-
mer resort. start ice famines in
Labrador, give Scotland an all day
summer, with temperate like ia
pans, change the climate of the At
lantic coast to one like that of south
ern 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.
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 cana
BILE of making 100000 tons of ice
every second. from running ri ght into
the gulf stream, whose heat is equal
to the burning of 100000 tons of
coal every minute. They meet now
on the Grand banks. 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 At
lantic.
If such jetty were built the Lab
rador 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 a mile
deep through the great depths of the
Atlantic, making the torrid zone about
the equator cooler. while the gulf
stream would require only three
months to melt every inch Of ice
around the pole. -
Scientific Men Interested.
Fantastic though this may appear,
1t has received the closest interest
from the foremost. men of practical
science in America and other coun-
tries. Every detail of the astounding
enterprise has been worked out by
Carroll Livingston Riker of New York,
who built in 1874 the first mechanical
refrigerating warehouse ever con
structed and devised and constructed
the refrigerating plant on board the
steamship Celtic. which carried to Liv-
erpool 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 called
visionary when he proposed each of
these, which have proved pioneers in
the great industrial equipment of the
world.
When the federal government decid-
ed to make Washington, the national
capital, sanitary by dredging the Po-
tomac Mr.. Riker designed and built
the largest and most powerful pump
ing dredge ever constructed up to that
time. 1t pumped up solid block of
granite weighing 1900 pounds as if it
were a pebble. lifting it thirty feet
above the water, and snatched a big
steel safe from the river ooze with the
same ease. Then he built wharfs and
jetties from Bar Harbor to the Mag
dalena river and salved the steam
ships st. Paul. Otranto and A. A
Shaw when fhnv wont on tho hoo ohoS
in famous wrecks. He was one Of tho
American government experts who ex-
amined the dredging for the Gatun
dam, at Panama. He surveyed Ha.
vana harbor for the Spanish govern
ment and prepared the system for dis
posal Of Havana sewage.
His record is that of visionary, and