Free Under the Sea to the North Pole by Pierre Maël

difficult when we know how. The Polar Star contains all we want.”
    And next day twelve men, under Guerbraz, were ordered to get out of the steamer’s hold as much sand and straw as was necessary.
    These were heaped up temporarily in the middle of the hothouse where Schnecker subjected them to the needful chemical treatment.
    Beaten and broken and reduced to dust the straw was cooked for two hours in boiling water. To this vegetable mash was added all the organic waste that was handy, and it required all the patience of a chemist enamoured of his art to go through with an undertaking as nauseous as it was fatiguing.
    When this was done Hubert congratulated the German.
    “My dear Monsieur Schnecker,” said he, “we have now only to nitrogenize a fertilizer which already appears to me rather rich. What do you think?” ”I think that a man who has solidified hydrogen ought to have in his baggage a few litres of liquid nitrogen. That is the infancy of the art, or I do not know what I am talking about.” “That is it,” said the lieutenant. “There is the nitrogen required.” And so saying he presented the German with a cylinder about forty centimetres long and twenty in diameter. This cylinder, furnished like the others with a screw, was placed on a stand and put in communication with a barrel of thick glass provided with a double tube. The interior of the barrel was filled with a liquid mixture of hydrogen and carbon which have a strong affinity for nitrogen. With infinite precautions the two men opened the screw tap and allowed the liquid to fall drop by drop into the mixture, where, as it resumed its gaseous elasticity, it was absorbed with equal rapidity. This work of preparation lasted about two hours, after which the chemical manure heap received its first fertilizing sprinkling. “Now,” said Schnecker, “all we have to do is to keep our borders well watered.” “I will do that,” said Isabelle, gaily; “what salary do you offer?” “That is right!” said D’Ermont. “You shall name your own price.” “Well, then, I ask only one favour, that of mingling a few flowers with your vegetables.” “Bravo!” exclaimed the company. “We only want a few humming birds to make us believe we are in the Antilles or on the banks of the Amazon.” The manure was spread in a thick layer on the borders and then covered with about six inches of sand. This sand was in turn watered with the ammoniacal mixture and then with tepid water. “Now,” said Schneckert, quietly, “we can sow the seed.” They let the bed rest for a day under the double action of the subterranean heat and the electric light which was strongly displayed in the globes of rough glass. Early next morning they scattered the seed on which they based their hopes of a crop. There was a square of strawberries reserved beneath the more direct rays of the lamps; radishes, salad, carrots, parsley, occupied the other beds. Along the walls, Isabelle sowed a few annuals, nemophilas, nasturtiums, and major and minor convolvuluses.
    “And now we must trust to God!” said De Keralio, religiously.
    From this moment, in truth, it lay with God to aid the efforts of man. The unhoped-for employment of hydrogen for the warming of the house produced marvellous results. If they had not had before their eyes the sight of the terrible polar winter, they might have thought it was spring, so mild and pleasant was the interior temperature.
    On the advice of the doctors, D’Ermont was riot too liberal in the use of the beneficent gas. There were many reasons for this prudent economy. The first was the very natural fear of expending too great an mount of a substance which was intended for invaluable purposes; the second, that this combustion of hydrogen, although considerably tempered by the passage of the gas through carbon, rapidly exhausted the quantity of breathable air contained in the hermetically closed apartments. The medicine men had conceived a certain