TO SHIFT EARTH'S AXIS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 138, 7 December 1912, Page 17

TO SHIFT EARTH'S AXIS

A CAUTION TO. ENGINEERS. Now that our engineers have begun to talk tranquilly of changing ths inclination of the earth's axis (writes the Argonaut) it seems necessary to beg them to proceed with some caution in a matter of this kind. There is reason to believe that changes in the pole have produced cataclysms in prehistoric ages, and before anything of the kind is attempted artificially there ought to be the guarantee of a popular referendum. There are now two proposals for tamper- . ing with the terrestrial mechanism. The first is for the inundation of the Sahara desert, and in this case the shifting of the pole would be, or might be 2 incidental through the transfer of weight. But the New York engineer, Carroll Livingston Riker, proposes to change climatic conditions by means of a deliberate attack upon the axis. He wants to build a jetty 200 miles long eastward from. Cape Race in order to turn aside the cold Arctic currents into the warm waters of the mid-Atlantic. This, he says, would abolish the cold winters from Newfoundland >to Hatteras, iceberg perils Would become a thing of the past, and the inclination of the terrestrial axis would be shifted "a trifle." Moreover, the work would be much cheaper than the Panama Canal, although Mr. Riker does not face the possibility that it migbt be dear at any price. Let us hope that Mr. Rikev will j do nothing without due deliberation. We have grown used to the present axial inclination and we should hate anything like an abrupt change.