Having, in my humble way, devoted years to these problems, I am well acquainted with the accepted definitions of gravity, as well as the cause of the magnetic needle's attraction, and I am prepared to say that it is my firm belief that the magnetic needle is influenced solely by electric currents which completely envelop the earth like a garment, and that these electric currents in an endless circuit pa.s.s out of the southern end of the earth's cylindrical opening, diffusing and spreading themselves over all the "outside" surface, and rushing madly on in their course toward the North Pole. And while these currents seemingly dash off into s.p.a.ce at the earth's curve or edge, yet they drop again to the "inside" surface and continue their way southward along the inside of the earth's crust, toward the opening of the so-called South Pole.(24)

(24 "Mr. Lemstrom concluded that an electric discharge which could only be seen by means of the spectroscope was taking place on the surface of the ground all around him, and that from a distance it would appear as a faint display of Aurora, the phenomena of pale and flaming light which is some times seen on the top of the Spitzbergen Mountains."--The Arctic Manual, page 739.)

As to gravity, no one knows what it is, because it has not been determined whether it is atmospheric pressure that causes the apple to fall, or whether, 150 miles below the surface of the earth, supposedly one-half way through the earth's crust, there exists some powerful loadstone attraction that draws it. Therefore, whether the apple, when it leaves the limb of the tree, is drawn or impelled downward to the nearest point of resistance, is unknown to the students of physics.

Sir James Ross claimed to have discovered the magnetic pole at about seventy-four degrees lat.i.tude. This is wrong--the magnetic pole is exactly one-half the distance through the earth's crust. Thus, if the earth's crust is three hundred miles in thickness, which is the distance I estimate it to be, then the magnetic pole is undoubtedly one hundred and fifty miles below the surface of the earth, it matters not where the test is made. And at this particular point one hundred and fifty miles below the surface, gravity ceases, becomes neutralized; and when we pa.s.s beyond that point on toward the "inside" surface of the earth, a reverse attraction geometrically increases in power, until the other one hundred and fifty miles of distance is traversed, which would bring us out on the "inside" of the earth.

Thus, if a hole were bored down through the earth's crust at London, Paris, New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, a distance of three hundred miles, it would connect the two surfaces. While the inertia and momentum of a weight dropped in from the "outside" surface would carry it far past the magnetic center, yet, before reaching the "inside" surface of the earth it would gradually diminish in speed, after pa.s.sing the halfway point, finally pause and immediately fall back toward the "outside" surface, and continue thus to oscillate, like the swinging of a pendulum with the power removed, until it would finally rest at the magnetic center, or at that particular point exactly one-half the distance between the "outside" surface and the "inside" surface of the earth.

The gyration of the earth in its daily act of whirling around in its spiral rotation--at a rate greater than one thousand miles every hour, or about seventeen miles per second--makes of it a vast electro-generating body, a huge machine, a mighty prototype of the puny-man-made dynamo, which, at best, is but a feeble imitation of nature's original.

The valleys of this inner Atlantis Continent, bordering the upper waters of the farthest north are in season covered with the most magnificent and luxuriant flowers. Not hundreds and thousands, but millions, of acres, from which the pollen or blossoms are carried far away in almost every direction by the earth's spiral gyrations and the agitation of the wind resulting therefrom, and it is these blossoms or pollen from the vast floral meadows "within" that produce the colored snows of the Arctic regions that have so mystified the northern explorers.(25)

(25 Kane, vol. I, page 44, says: "We pa.s.sed the 'crimson cliffs' of Sir John Ross in the forenoon of August 5th. The patches of red snow from which they derive their name could be seen clearly at the distance of ten miles from the coast."

La Chambre, in an account of Andree's balloon expedition, on page 144, says: "On the isle of Amsterdam the snow is tinted with red for a considerable distance, and the savants are collecting it to examine it microscopically. It presents, in fact, certain peculiarities; it is thought that it contains very small plants. Scoresby, the famous whaler, had already remarked this.")

Beyond question, this new land "within" is the home, the cradle, of the human race, and viewed from the standpoint of the discoveries made by us, must of necessity have a most important bearing on all physical, paleontological, archaeological, philological and mythological theories of antiquity.

The same idea of going back to the land of mystery--to the very beginning--to the origin of man--is found in Egyptian traditions of the earlier terrestrial regions of the G.o.ds, heroes and men, from the historical fragments of Manetho, fully verified by the historical records taken from the more recent excavations of Pompeii as well as the traditions of the North American Indians.

It is now one hour past midnight--the new year of 1908 is here, and this is the third day thereof, and having at last finished the record of my strange travels and adventures I wish given to the world, I am ready, and even longing, for the peaceful rest which I am sure will follow life's trials and vicissitudes. I am old in years, and ripe both with adventures and sorrows, yet rich with the few friends I have cemented to me in my struggles to lead a just and upright life. Like a story that is well-nigh told, my life is ebbing away. The presentiment is strong within me that I shall not live to see the rising of another sun. Thus do I conclude my message. OLAF JANSEN.

PART SEVEN. AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD

I FOUND much difficulty in deciphering and editing the ma.n.u.scripts of Olaf Jansen. However, I have taken the liberty of reconstructing only a very few expressions, and in doing this have in no way changed the spirit or meaning. Otherwise, the original text has neither been added to nor taken from.

It is impossible for me to express my opinion as to the value or reliability of the wonderful statements made by Olaf Jansen. The description here given of the strange lands and people visited by him, location of cities, the names and directions of rivers, and other information herein combined, conform in every way to the rough drawings given into my custody by this ancient Norseman, which drawings together with the ma.n.u.script it is my intention at some later date to give to the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, to preserve for the benefit of those interested in the mysteries of the "Farthest North"--the frozen circle of silence.

It is certain there are many things in Vedic literature, in "Josephus,"

the "Odyssey," the "Iliad," Terrien de Lacouperie's "Early History of Chinese Civilization," Flammarion's "Astronomical Myths," Lenormant's "Beginnings of History," Hesiod's "Theogony," Sir John de Maundeville's writings, and Sayce's "Records of the Past," that, to say the least, are strangely in harmony with the seemingly incredible text found in the yellow ma.n.u.script of the old Norseman, Olaf Jansen, and now for the first time given to the world.

THE END