"Not if we were blown far enough to get beyond the earth"s attraction--or to get so far away from that body that the sun"s attraction counterbalances that of the earth," replied the professor, calmly.
"And why do we not fall off?" asked Mark.
"We do come pretty near falling off," returned Professor Henderson, grimly. "I should think you could see that, Mark."
"Our lightness!" Jack cried. "Washington"s jumping and the lightness of all objects! I see. This fragment of the earth--this island in the air, as you call it, Professor--is large enough to possess some powers of attraction of its own; but not as much as the earth. I wonder how large it really is?"
"That is a matter for future discovery," returned the scientist, with some eagerness.
"My goodness me!" groaned Mark. "He really enjoys the situation."
"No man has ever been in such a position before--I am convinced of that," declared the professor. "Were it not that you are all in as perilous a situation as myself, I would not worry about this condition.
It is marvelous, and the situation affords me opportunity to learn many things that science has only guessed at before."
"Don"t talk that way!" wailed the oil man, suddenly. "You"ll make _me_ believe in this island in the air business, and I _know_ it"s craziness!"
Nor could anything the professor say convince the oil man that there was any common sense in the plain statement of their situation. It was beyond Phineas Roebach"s powers of imagination.
As for Washington White, he could not understand the affair anyway.
But he always accepted the professor"s words as Bible truth and he had no doubt of the surprising fact.
"We was bound ter git inter trouble, b.u.t.tsy an" me, w"en we agreed ter start on any sech foolish journey. And de consanguinuity ob dis "casion a.s.suages me ob de fac" dat we"se only got our come-upance fo" bein"
so reckless. Now we is nebber gwine ter see de State o" Maine again, "ceptin" it is froo de perfesser"s telescope."
His complaint received little attention from Jack Darrow or Mark Sampson; they were too deeply interested in the explanation of the catastrophe that had overtaken them.
"How big a slice of Alaska do you suppose has been blown off the earth, Professor?" asked Jack.
"It may be much more than a part of Alaska," replied Mr. Henderson.
"Until we have a chance to explore the region more thoroughly I cannot even guess the answer to your question."
"And how can we explore it?" demanded Mark, quickly. "If there is no atmosphere on these mountain tops which we see--or, which we saw before we fell into this creva.s.se--we cannot get off this plane. We are imprisoned on the low ground. The lack of air will keep us from climbing the mountains."
"Or from flying over them if we can get the _s...o...b..rd_ into commission again," added Jack. "Every necessity brings its own invention," said the professor. "Let us not despair. We may yet find some means of traveling all about this floating island."
"And what will you do if you get to the edge--fall off?" exclaimed Andy.
He likewise accepted the professor"s words at their face value. He never thought of doubting either the aged scientist"s honesty or his learning.
"If the attraction of this fragment holds good here, it will hold good all over its surface," proclaimed the professor. "We have no means yet of weighing this torn-away world we are on--this new planet. But it must be of considerable size. Otherwise it would not hang here in s.p.a.ce as it does."
"And without movement?" cried Jack.
"I believe it is circling the earth as the earth circles the sun. We are practically on a second moon--only the fires in the heart of our young planet are not dead."
"I should say they were not dead, if that geyser Mr. Roebach opened up is any sign of life," remarked Mark.
"You are quite right, my boy," said the professor, cheerfully. "The volcanic disturbance brought about great earthquakes. These, however, were merely warning symptoms. We did not know it, however. Finally the great ma.s.s of gas formed beneath the earth"s crust somewhere about the Alaskan coast of the Arctic Ocean, we will say, exploded and forced an enormous portion of the crust into the air.
"No wonder we lost consciousness," he continued, with enthusiasm. "We were probably traveling faster than human beings ever traveled before.
The entire nature of the portion of the earth we stood upon was changing. Our atmosphere was changing. We were shot into the sky and in a flash were beyond the common influence of what we call the law of gravitation."
"But what a hole we must have left in that part of the world!" gasped Jack. "Think of it! The seas must have run right into the chasm and made the bottoms of the old seas dry land."
"Not at all! Not at all!" returned the professor. "Think what a mighty globe the earth is. Remember that there are valleys miles deep--mountains miles high! There are holes in the ocean which have remained unfathomed to this day! The surface of the earth is very, very rough. What keeps the oceans from overflowing the land and filling all those sinks and valleys that are deeper than the ocean bed? Merely the power of attraction which the earth exercises.
"Suppose explorers hurry to the scene of the great earthquake--to the edge of the vast crater which the blowing-out of this portion of the earth has left. What will they find--a hole filled with the waters of the Arctic Ocean?"
"And why not?" demanded Jack, stoutly.
"Because the evidence of our own eyes a.s.sures us that such is not the case," declared the professor, pointing again to the rolling planet they had so strangely left. "The earth is not overbalanced. She still rolls on her proper course, I have no doubt. The breaking away of this island is not a serious matter to the earth as a whole. The contour of the hemispheres is not changed. I showed you how I had traced the outlines of the continent before, even, that I was confident we had been blown off the earth.
"No. Those who explore the region which we have left will find hills and valleys as before--awful creva.s.ses, perhaps, and steaming cauldrons of water and mud. No vegetation, of course, but snow has perhaps fallen on some parts of the raw scar, and those explorers may be able to travel through a region that was--a week ago--the bowels of the earth!
"The foundation rocks of the earth are left raw and exposed, as they may be after some terrific land-slip. But nothing more. We sail here high above the earth----"
"Looks like we were _below_ it now," muttered Mark.
"But if we have been observed from the earth--and of course those great telescopes at the Lick Observatory have found us out ere this--we will appear above her," said the professor. "Many things about this strange happening we may only guess at. Of one thing we are sure--we have air to breathe, water to drink, there are wild animals to kill for food, vegetation exists; we are, in fact, upon a miniature world which is not much different from that we have left--as yet, at least."
"All that sounds mighty fine," interrupted Phineas Roebach. "And I expect you believe it all, Professor Henderson. But there"s just one thing that _I_ believe: We"re down here, two hundred feet or more from the top of this ice wall, and the game, or the vegetation, or anything else, isn"t going to help us much while we"re here. What I want to know is: How are we going to get out of this creva.s.se?"
CHAPTER XVIII
IMPRISONED IN THE ICE
The oil hunter"s demand was like a bomb thrown in their midst. The boys had been so deeply interested in the professor"s relation of facts, and in the scientific phase of their situation, that the more practical questions of their mere existence on this island in the air had not before held their attention for long.
"We"ve got to find some way of climbing out, I reckon," Mark said, slowly.
"Well, find it!" snapped Phineas Roebach. "Let"s talk of something practical. We"ll freeze to death down here very soon, if we don"t starve first."
"Very true," said the professor. "Mr. Roebach is eminently practical.
We must give our attention to the immediate peril that menaces us."
At this moment Andy came forward with two hatchets and an axe.
"These are the things we want, I guess," he said, quietly. "We"ve got to chop steps in the wall, and climb up in that way." "And abandon all our instruments--and the telescope?" exclaimed Professor Henderson.
"And the _s...o...b..rd_?" added Mark.
"We can hoist all the small things up to the top of this wall--if we can get up there ourselves," said the old hunter.
"Right you are, Mr. Sudds," declared Phineas Roebach, with vigor.