Death Under the Northern Lights
I
The Rhine, a chaser named after the famous river, is sailing toward the stormy world of ice and snow—the Arctic Ocean. On this vessel is the German national science research team members who are on their expedition to the North Pole.
Situated at the northern cap of the earth and right beneath the Big Dipper, with the North Pole at its very center, the Arctic Ocean is surrounded by the Euro-Asian and North American continents, in which way it resembles the Mediterranean, only that it is half enclosed. It is joined with the Atlantic Ocean by the Norwegian Sea, the Greenland Sea, the Baffin Bay and waters around the Arctic Archipelago, and at the same time connected with the Pacific Ocean through the very narrow Bering Strait. Geographically the Arctic Ocean is divided into the Nordic and the North Pole waters.
The Rhine is sailing from the Nordic waters to the North Pole waters.
There’s a moment of tranquility, which is rare in summer in the Nordic seas. The icebergs passing by now and then look like sea monsters covered in silver robes, changing their poses while slowly drifting along with the ocean currents.
Amid these icebergs, there sails the Rhine, steadily navigating towards the North Pole.
And on this warship there’s the expedition led by the German meteorologist, Professor Wegener.
At this moment Professor Wagner is standing on the deck with his eyes gazing toward the north. He is of medium height, not necessarily tall but very vigorous. His straight nose and firmly closed lips give him a resolute and solemn look.
The salty sea wind brings back to him memories of the past.
It was in the winter of 1907, Wegener fell ill upon returning to Hamburg from his first expedition to the North Pole. His two years’ life at the Polar region resulted in serious rheumatoid arthritis. Persuaded by the world famous meteorologist K?ppen (also later his father-in-law), Wegnener put away his research works and stayed in hospital.
Nevertheless Wegener was never an obedient patient. While lying on the sick bed, he was still working on the thermodynamics textbooks. One day he set his gaze upon the walls of the ward. There his eyes were attracted by a colorful world map. Much to his surprise, he found that the contour lines on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean correspond with each other in such an amazing way. In particular the extruding right angle of East Brazil fits so well into the Gulf of Guinea at the West Coast of Africa, which also appears to be an inturn right angle. And going south right from that point, for every outward bend in the Brazilian coastline, there is a matching gulf of the same shape in the west coast of Africa. Likewise, every pop-out in the Brazilian coastline fits into an incurvating gulf of the same shape at the West Africa coastline. While staring at the map, a bold idea flicked in Wegener’s mind. He jumped out of bed and leaped to ran hurriedly to the map. Having looked at the map closely and carefully, he finally seemed to have come upon something. He came out of the ward, walked through the grassland and climbed up the gazebo. There he looked at the running waters in the Elbe and asked himself, “Is it true that the continent is drifting？”
Thirty years have passed since he devoted himself to the research work and Wegener is 50 year’s old, yet he has never ceased his researches on this hypothesis. He is aware that at his age this would be his last chance for such expeditions. It is with such great aspiration and incomparable perseverance that he is now off on his third expeditions to the North Pole...
Professor Wegener sets his eyes upon an iceberg with a flat top. A seal of grayish yellow color is crouching upon the iceberg with his eyes staring tightly at the crew.
The people on the ship are yelling and waving toward the seal, yet it remains still and quiet on the iceberg as if it were nailed upon it, till the iceberg passes by the ship.
The seal stimulates the excitement of professor. He goes back to the cabin and starts telling the story about catching a cowfish to his team.
“It was in 1909,”says Wegener, “I was in a village named Sivaltu in South America, a paradise of the aboriginal people located seventy kilometers away from Buenos Aires, also the capital city of Argentina. To the east of the village is the Atlantic Ocean and to the north is the Palana River. There were the lush primitive forests, endless grasslands, fresh-water lakes with crystal clear water and herds of wild animals. It took me more than 2 months to travel there from Frankfurt. After I got there I lived together with the aboriginal people.”
“It was on the morning of a day in early spring. The sky was blue and full of sunshine. I went out to the sea for fishing with two locals. I was rowing the boat. Our boat sailed into the Alla gulf at full speed, like an arrow out of the bow. Suddenly a white wave popped out ahead on the right side of our boat, followed by a glimpse of a big gray body. With the move of my local pal’s hand, I saw a ray of white light flashed towards the water, and then red blood gushed to the surface of the sea. I couldn’t help but shouted out, “Cowfish！”
“I had never expected that cowfish could be found in South America, because they were only seen in the shallow seas of Africa before. Out of an ecstasy of joy, I jumped into the sea and swam towards the cowfish.”
A young man named Mike Kraus, who sits next to Wegener interrupts, “Is the cowfish very rare and valuable？”
“It’s invaluable！ It has tremendous value in my verification of the hypothesis that South America and Africa were once joined. According to the Monogenistic theories about the origin of species, animals of the same species cannot be evolved individually in two regions separated afar. They must have been originated from the same region and then transferred to another region either directly or through a third region. Now that Africa and South America are separated by a vast ocean which the cowfish are incapable of swimming across, how did the cowfish come from Africa to South America or vice versa？”
Another team member named Neil Kurz cuts in anxiously, “Oh, please go on telling us what happened after you jumped into the sea！”
The Professor continued, “I swam right next to the cowfish. When I tried to catch it with my hand, it suddenly pressed me into the water with its wide tail. While I was under the water I heard screams from my aboriginal pals. Fortunately I did not lose my consciousness. I swam a few meters away before popping my head out of the water again. This time I caught hold of the rope of the leister and dragged the cowfish all the way to the boat.”
“It was a young calf looked similar to a seal. And it glared at us with its big eyes. I was so excited that I pat its head and said, ‘Hey, young fellow. You are now my witness to the continental drift.’”
The crew burst into laughs, among them the professor’s assistant Kraus laughs most loudly.
The night darkness falls and stormy waves rise in the sea. The Rhine is now very close to the Greenland Sea. The sky is gloomy and it starts sleeting. Snow flakes fall from the sky and then either disappear on the white ice or melt in the green waves. Professor Wegener is smoking while sitting in the cabin. Once again he opens the letter from the earth scientist Kail.
Dear Professor Wegener,
My dear friend, I’m sure you’ll be interested in this letter which I’m writing in a rush. I’m telling you a piece of striking news: just a few days ago I found vestiges of ancient glaciers. Only God knows why glacier sediments can be found in the sandy Australian mountains. As you know, Australia is now in the tropical climatic zone with an annual temperature of 27℃. There shouldn’t have been massive glacier movements in such environments. And yet here I found glacier striations and deposits left by massive glaciers which were formed by continuous pressing of accumulated snow. The glaciers have flowed by the region, carrying with them huge rocks on the ground and thus left clear striations on the ground. I could easily tell the way in which the glaciers moved.
...
Without doubt, this letter has made great influences on Wegener. He set off for a trip to Australia, after which he made a study tour to Mozambique and Botswana. In all these regions, Wegener discovered evidences strongly supporting his continental drift hypothesis—vestiges of ancient glaciers.
And now, with his hands holding this letter which he has cherished for years, Wegener felt deep appreciation to Kail.
A wave of joyful melody whirls through the door and blows right into Wegener’s heart, like a gentle breeze. It is Beethoven’s Symphony 9. And the sounds are from the Captain’s office. Wegener is a fan of Beethoven. He adores and reveres Beethoven because of his great perseverance and respectable personality. As the music gets to the part where all men extend their arms to the sky and give their ode to Joy, Wegener suddenly stands up. A piece of stone falls on the floor, making a big sound. At the same time, the door is opened.
It is Kraus. He bends down to pick up the stone and asks Wegener if the stone has any symbolic meanings.
Wegener answers in a very serious tone, “This is not a piece of common stone, but a very rare fossil of glossopteris flora. I found this in the stratum of 200 million years old in South America in 1909. Before that, I have found fossils of the same type of plants in Uganda of Africa and Canberra of Australia. But I had never expected to see this in South America, because the distribution of vegetation various in different climatic zones as the latitude and climatic type changes. For example, low-growing tundra plants are seen in frigid polar zones, lush forests in temperate zones and evergreen plants in the tropical zone. And yet fossils of glossopteris flora are found in different climatic zones. How come this happens？ Is it because this particular species of plants has some special features which enable them to adopt themselves easily in different climate conditions？ No way, it can’t be this reason！”
“It’s because of the Continental drift？” Kraus gives the answer as if he were solving a riddle.
“That’s it！” says Wegener, “On the day I found this fossil, I couldn’t go to sleep that night. The murmuring sounds of the tropical forests out of my shed kept me wondering what the ancient continent looked like. What was the look of the southern hemisphere and northern hemisphere？ Why the continents drifted？”
“I kept pondering on it until I came up with a rather clear outline in my mind. On the basis of that I developed and brought forth an important subject in the geological filed of today. This subject will make it possible for us to explain the geological phenomena which were unexplainable for human beings in the past hundreds and thousands of years, to predict the outburst of volcanoes and earthquakes, to speculate and foresee the geological structures and underground mines of various regions. In a word, it is going to have tremendous influences on the progress of man.”
Eyes sparkled with tears, Kraus says earnestly, “Please let me be your lifetime assistant and work with you, so that I could give all my life to your cause.”
Wegener holds the young man’s hands to welcome him. Their chats goes on till late into the night. The topics of their talks include Wegener’s scientific research career over the past decades, such as his successful lecture at Frankfurt, the attacks he received at the Symposium of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in New York , the warm applause he met with amid the geologists from the Southern hemisphere and the cold rejections he was confronted with from the geophysicists in North America. All these topics get the professor excited.
II
When the world was experiencing World War I, another world war in the field of earth sciences was also brewing.
At the time, Wegener published his representative works, The Origin of Continents and Oceans.
It marked the birth of the theory of continental drift！
Based on his years of scientific researches and practices, especially his studies of the stratum structures on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, ancient biocenology and climatic studies, Wegener presented strong evidences in support of his theory of continental drift. He proposed that all the continents on the earth we see today were joined in a single landmass 200 million years ago, which he named as “Urkontinent”, meaning “origin of the continents”. Later this giant continent started to drift apart. The American continent is separated from Europe and Africa while the newly emerged Atlantic Ocean expanded in between. Meanwhile the Indian subcontinent drifted from the Antarctica and cut into the Asian continent, which was drifting eastward. The collision resulted in the crumpling of the front edge of the Indian subcontinent, which eventually led to the piling up of the towering Himalayas. The Australian continent was originally joined with the Antarctica as well. Some time later than the drift of the Indian subcontinent, it started to move northwards and is still in its mission now. So is the American continent, the westward movement of which is accompanied by the expansion of the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile the distance between the western coast of America and the eastern coast of Asia is being shortened and the Pacific Ocean is shrinking.
Like a big storm, Wegener’s hypothesis of continental drift swept over the field of geology and caused a global sensation.
His paper was published on Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen and The Science Digest. Then his hypothesis was covered by various countries.
Soon the English version of The Origin of Continents and Oceans was published. Following that was the publishing of his book in French, Japanese, Russian and Spanish versions in various countries.
The Origin of Continents and Oceans made a global sensation！
Continental drift became the hottest topic and center of interest everywhere and on various science publications, academic conferences, magazines and newspapers. So is Wegener’s name. Those were such exciting days. Many people were simply startled by the idea of drifting continents because this went way beyond their beliefs in fixed and unmovable continents！
Geologists from different countries published papers in favor of the theory of continental drift, reckoning it as a valid rejection of the land bridges concept and a bomb thrown right into the heart of the theory of fixed continent. They also attached great importance to Wegener’s theory, saying that its significance for geology is equal to that of the theory of blood circulation for physiology and the evolutionism for biology and that it is a great revolution in the history of geology！