Roy Rockwood by On a Torn-Away World

Author:On a Torn-Away World [World, On a Torn-Away]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-01-25T15:52:54+00:00

That they were all suffering from the rarity of the atmosphere was plain. It seemed as though the envelope of breathable air surrounding the earth had suddenly become vastly rarified. If the. atmosphere had been so changed all over the globe it would be a catastrophe unspeakable.

“We certainly can’t cross these mountains—nor the Rockies,” groaned

Jack. “How are we ever going to get home again?”

“If the air remains as it is now?” asked Mark. “You’re right! We’re imprisoned in this part of Alaska just as fast as though we were caged behind iron bars.”

“If we only had some of those torches we used on the moon,” said Jack.

“What will we do, Professor?” begged Mark.

“Let us not lose hope,” responded the old scientist. “First we will get to Aleukan and see if our provisions have been brought over from Coldfoot.”

“I’ll bet they haven’t been brought across the range,” said the pessimistic Mark. “If the air everywhere is so rarified the men would die crossing the mountains.” “Think of the people living on Mt. Washington—and other heights!” cried Jack, suddenly. “Why, they will be snuffed out like candles. It is an awful thought.”

“We will hope, at least, that this fearful catastrophe is local,” said the professor, seriously. “Have a care, Jack! Don’t dip like that. We do not want to descend here.”

It was extremely difficult to manage the Snowbird, for she answered to the levers so much more quickly than before. The air pressure on the craft was so slight that at the least touch she mounted upward like a scared quail! The speed of the aeroplane had to be reduced, too; they traveled scarcely forty miles an hour.

On either hand as they winged their way over the great river of ice (it was quite four miles broad) sharp cliffs arose, guarding the glacier. These cliffs ranged from two hundred to a thousand feet high.

The professor, at once interested in such a marvel of nature, begged Jack to reduce the speed even more. They merely floated above the cracked expanse of whitish-green ice for some minutes.

“That’s what the earthquakes did for it,” said Phineas Roebach. “You see those crevasses—and some of ‘em mighty deep? Well, they weren’t here the last time I came this way.” “She is in motion again, perhaps,” suggested Professor Henderson.

“It ain’t been in motion for ages—or, so the Aleuts say,” responded the oil hunter.

“But there looks now to be some sagging forward. There is a crevasse splitting the glacier from wall to wall,” proclaimed the scientist.

“We’d never be able to sled over this trail in the world!” cried Mark.

“How would you pass such a yawning gulf as that?”

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