Read Online Dinosaurs in the Attic by Douglas Preston - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Douglas Preston
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and be forced into a position of unstable equilibrium.... A few more pulls ... and the top of the meteorite would move almost imperceptibly forward, the stones under the edge of revolution would begin to splinter and crumble, then amidst the shouts of the natives and our own suppressed breathing, the "Iron Mountain" would roll over. When it struck the ground the hard rocks would elicit streams of sparks from its brown surface before they crumbled, the softer ones would dissolve into dust and smoke, and the giant would bury itself half its depth in the earth with a slow, resistless motion.
The sheer weight of the meteorite began to wear out all three jacks, and the weather worsened. A gale broke the ice barrier holding the sea ice out of Melville Bay, and winds drove it toward the ship, threatening to trap the vessel for the winter. Peary and his crew worked feverishly through the night,
a night of such savage wildness as is possible only in the Arctic regions. The wild gale was howling out of the depth of Melville Bay through the Hope's rigging, and the snow was driving in horizontal lines.... Towering above the human figures about it, and standing out black and uncompromising, was the raison d'être of it all.
The next morning they abandoned the meteorite on shore and fled from the bay just before the ice pack closed in behind them.
Peary wouldn't give up. He returned again with the Hope and still heavier equipment in the summer of 1897. The meteorite still stood on a low bluff at the shore of the island, and this time Peary brought the large ship right into a stretch of deep water next to the bluff, thereby putting the boat in an extremely dangerous position. Any storm or shifting currents could have nudged the ship against the shore, sending it straight to the bottom. Working fast, Peary's crew laid steel rails across the narrow stretch of water between the bluff and the deck. As the "monster" was inched along the rails, which had been greased with soap tallow, the ship groaned and lurched, causing an uproar among the Eskimos, who felt that heaven was finally going to punish Peary for his audacity. But the meteorite was at last brought on board, where it literally sank into the complaining timbers of the ship's deck. Peary's four-year-old daughter was aboard, and she broke a bottle of wine over it and uttered a string of nonsense syllables, "ah-ni-ghi-to," which immediately became the meteorite's name. (Officially, this meteorite has three names: the Tent [its Eskimo name], Ahnighito [its popular name], and Cape York [its scientific name, in keeping with the nomenclature of meteorites, which are usually named after the nearest landmark]. The scientific name of the Woman and Dog is also Cape York.)
"Never," wrote Peary later, "have I had the terrific majesty of the force of gravity and the meaning of the words 'momentum' and 'inertia' so powerfully brought home to me as in handling this mountain of iron." When the meteorite was safely aboard, the ship's navigator found his compass needles locked in the direction of the iron mass.
The Hope arrived at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where the Ahnighito was unloaded by a 100-ton floating crane (it had previously broken a fifty-ton crane) and stored under a tarpaulin. There it sat in obscurity while Jesup and Mrs. Peary, acting as her husband's agent while he was trying to reach the Pole, haggled amicably over a price. Mrs. Peary wanted $60,000, but Jesup felt the price was too high, especially considering the Museum's large financial support of Peary.
Mrs. Peary felt that these meteorites, gained at such effort, were worth a payment from the Museum above and beyond the normal support. She wrote a somewhat facetious letter to Jesup, in which she pleaded,
The meteorites are all I have and I feel that I should make an effort to turn them into money and invest it so that my children will have something with which they may be educated to earn a living.... Mrs. Jesup would
The sheer weight of the meteorite began to wear out all three jacks, and the weather worsened. A gale broke the ice barrier holding the sea ice out of Melville Bay, and winds drove it toward the ship, threatening to trap the vessel for the winter. Peary and his crew worked feverishly through the night,
a night of such savage wildness as is possible only in the Arctic regions. The wild gale was howling out of the depth of Melville Bay through the Hope's rigging, and the snow was driving in horizontal lines.... Towering above the human figures about it, and standing out black and uncompromising, was the raison d'être of it all.
The next morning they abandoned the meteorite on shore and fled from the bay just before the ice pack closed in behind them.
Peary wouldn't give up. He returned again with the Hope and still heavier equipment in the summer of 1897. The meteorite still stood on a low bluff at the shore of the island, and this time Peary brought the large ship right into a stretch of deep water next to the bluff, thereby putting the boat in an extremely dangerous position. Any storm or shifting currents could have nudged the ship against the shore, sending it straight to the bottom. Working fast, Peary's crew laid steel rails across the narrow stretch of water between the bluff and the deck. As the "monster" was inched along the rails, which had been greased with soap tallow, the ship groaned and lurched, causing an uproar among the Eskimos, who felt that heaven was finally going to punish Peary for his audacity. But the meteorite was at last brought on board, where it literally sank into the complaining timbers of the ship's deck. Peary's four-year-old daughter was aboard, and she broke a bottle of wine over it and uttered a string of nonsense syllables, "ah-ni-ghi-to," which immediately became the meteorite's name. (Officially, this meteorite has three names: the Tent [its Eskimo name], Ahnighito [its popular name], and Cape York [its scientific name, in keeping with the nomenclature of meteorites, which are usually named after the nearest landmark]. The scientific name of the Woman and Dog is also Cape York.)
"Never," wrote Peary later, "have I had the terrific majesty of the force of gravity and the meaning of the words 'momentum' and 'inertia' so powerfully brought home to me as in handling this mountain of iron." When the meteorite was safely aboard, the ship's navigator found his compass needles locked in the direction of the iron mass.
The Hope arrived at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where the Ahnighito was unloaded by a 100-ton floating crane (it had previously broken a fifty-ton crane) and stored under a tarpaulin. There it sat in obscurity while Jesup and Mrs. Peary, acting as her husband's agent while he was trying to reach the Pole, haggled amicably over a price. Mrs. Peary wanted $60,000, but Jesup felt the price was too high, especially considering the Museum's large financial support of Peary.
Mrs. Peary felt that these meteorites, gained at such effort, were worth a payment from the Museum above and beyond the normal support. She wrote a somewhat facetious letter to Jesup, in which she pleaded,
The meteorites are all I have and I feel that I should make an effort to turn them into money and invest it so that my children will have something with which they may be educated to earn a living.... Mrs. Jesup would
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