BELOW THE EARTH

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 31, 5 August 1930, Page 4

BELOW THE EARTH

A GREAT VENTURE

NEW FIELDS FOR SCIENCE

SOLVING OLD PROBLEMS

Science foresees as an epochal scientific achievement a subterranean laboratory miles deep in the inferno of heat which is the earth's interior, where man may produce first-hand evidence concerning the origin of the earth, may nhd out how to explain and perhaps curb the earth's lashing seas, spouting volcanoes, and almost daily earthquakes, may solve our growing problem of power by tapping our globe's limitless heat to run our civilisation, may throw new light on how life comes into oxisteneo and what causes death, says the "New York Times."

Dr. Hadlow Shapley, director of Harvard College Observatory, recommends 'as a beginning for man's conquest o£ the mysteries hidden inside our earth a series of permanent scientific laboratories established along a single shaft sunk to about three miles deep in the bowels of the earth. Deeper temporary workshops—ten, thirty, or even a'hundred miles down —are desirable, he believes, if two great obstacles in the form of expense and unusual engineering proWeins can be overcome. '-'The cost of building the three-mile shaft, "a major adventure of science," Dr. Shadloy estimates at about 10,000,----000 dollars, or "less than one-half the cost of a single battleship." Ho believes that if the money were availablo engineers could be persuaded within six months to begin digging. : Two of tho world's leading engineers, Sir Charles A. Parsons, former president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and John L. Ho'dgson, who have considered the project of underground laboratories, see in it no obstacles that modern engineering cannot overcome. FRIENDS OF THE PLAN. ■ Sir Charles, who asserts that for 25,----(100,000 dollars man can dig down about 12 miles, and Mr. Hodgson, who regards man's conquest of the earth's interior to a depth of 30 miles as practical, say iii agreement with Dr. Shapley's suggested plan: — . . "We don't know what there is m tho interior of tho earth and wo ought to. It is certain that the proposed shaft is a practicable engineering project and that the only thing necessary to make it a reality is the money." ' Strange that we should know more febout the centre of our sun and about stars, hundreds of millions of miles away, than we do about the centre of our own little globe, whose diameter is only 8000 miles. The deepest borings m tho world are not much more than ono mile deep. It is as if a sphere, the size of an orange, were inhabited by diminutive beings, who had explored their globe only at the surface and to a depth of one-fourth the thickness of the paper on which this is written. Picture the subterranean workshops which science says we must have if wo are to achieve the goal of learning all that we can about our earth and tho magnificent creation in which we live. , In their underground chamber, miles from the medley of noises of civihsatioii and safe from interruption, a -TOUP of men are earnestly working with queer-looking instruments and machines. Somewhat resembling deepclivers iii their thick helmets ana strange clothing made out of metals, they preiient a rare spectacle. The unusual uniform as evidently designed to protect the workers from the terrific heat raging outside their refrigerated laboratory. A lino protrudes from a corner of the suit and loses itself endlessly in the obscure bloomy passages. What is it? Merely a hose through which icy gases evaporated from liquid air are pumped into the suits. The air thus supplied is also breathed and in that way these adventurous men, far from the life-sustain-ing oxygen, keep alive. < THE TJNDERaROUND CHAMBER. From outside the chamber comes the sound of a faint hiss. Then ribbons of steam can be perceived curling upward in the deep gloom as tho terriiic heat of the red-hot rocks meets tho refrigerated subterranean chamber. In this mysterious, buried laboratory, the astronomer, puzzling over problems of the earth's origin, rubs shoulders With the physicist who is seeking a key •with which to unlock the power imprisoned in the atom. A geologist is making delicate tests with the hope of proving or disproving definitely that America is drifting away from Europe. Next to him. a biologist is studying what effect the absence of the cosmic rays may have on living creatures and is wondering how these studies may be used m the elimination of disoase and the prolongation of life, among men, . . 'Through the narrow shaft which is the. only link between the -Plutonic ■ laboratory and the surface of the earth, an elevator appears. From it another <roup of men, dressed in the same unusual style as those already m the chamber, enter. They are the relief force of scientists. .Human labour beyond a certain limit of time hero is impossible. There is a hurried consultation. Numerous charts and graphs exchange hands.. Then the elevator with its new cargo shoots upward at express speed. '■ ■ : ' • ■ To make this dream an everyday reality, science must combat its major difficulty in the- form of tho earths tremendous heat. Tho deeper-we dig the hotter it gets. There !is- an approximate increase of one degree Fahrenheit for each seventy-five feet that we descend nearer to the earth's heart, so that the temperature at three miles would be about 250 degrees Fahrenheit. At a depth of thirty miles the merciless inferno would melt most of the substances known to us/ A shaft twenty feet in diameter, and lined with granite, to be sunk in stages each about half a mile deep, is proposed by Sir Charles as "quite safe" from the pressures and temperatures encountered in the earth's interior within a twelve-mile depth. Below a cer|(an depth the heat would have to bo jumped out. AIR LOOKS AT INTERVALS. 'Along the shaft, at suitable internals, air locks would have to bo provided. Each of these would support th« pressure of the air of the stage above, thus keeping both the pressure and tho temperature below tho lock ijown to points a* which human beings iould survive. Special cooling machinery would have to be designed and installed. Sir Charles suggests that the best cooling arrangement may be pipes filled with brine, which, by natural circulation, would form a powerful carrier of heat. Special electrical apparatus would convey an enormous quantity of heat to the surface. In the lower depths refrigerating machinery at each half-mile stake would cope with the greater heat to be removed.

"There is no doubt that these methods would maintain a moderate temperature in * twelve-mile shaft all the way down to the. bottom," says Sir Charles. "They . mark bo departure except in matters of detail from the ordinary m«thode at engineers." Perhaps most promising for humanity, however, art the experiments which a. de*'j} tmftsrjgronnft workshop would inaks "possiblt oh the physics and chemistry of life. Ai the present time bioJBgirti ft*£ ibSfi io fc»ej> ligirt away from

creatures. They can also keep air away. They can regulate the temperatures as they wish. But one thing they cannot keep away from experiments at the surface- of the carth —the cosmic ray, 1113'sterious waves or particles, nobody knows quito what, which continually bombard the earth from outer space.

The cosmic ray penetrates laboratories as easily as light rays go through ordinary glass. Only in the underground laboratories which Dr. Shapley recommends -would it be possible to keep .them out altogether. As these cosmic rays are potent influences on the inmost nature of life, particularly on heredity, science would find it very desirable and important to discover what happens to living creatures when they are deprived of tho habitual exposure'to the cosmic rays to which all of nature's creatures on tho surface of the earth are subject. How did our earth ' originate? Where did the moon come •from and where is it going1? What aio the forces of evolution in the cosmos and what is the fate they hold in store for our universe and particularly our earth ? For these momentous questions scientists Confidently believe the proposed subterranean laboratory would assist in finding a solution. Dr. Shapley says that according to Jeffreys both theory and observation indicate that the moon, at one time only a few thousand miles from the earth's surface, has gradually receded and is moving away now. The moving away of the moon is expected to lengthen our day and our month, so that ages from now both the moon and' the earth, will have days and months of equal length. AYe will then have a month equal to forty-seven present days. MOON'S DISSOLUTION. When that time comes, the moon will again approach the earth, slowly and gradually, until it is broken up by tidal disruption just before it gets to the earth's surface. ' This remote catastrophe may result in a ring of fragments circulating around tho earth much like the ring that is now around Saturn. Whether or not this is true and whether the planetcsimal hypothesis describes accurately the origin and evolution of our globe are points which can be tested by scientists working in the deep interior of the' earth. The subterranean investigator, by examining tho problem of tho earth 's flow, of heat from its bowels, the distribution of radio-active elements, the pulsations of the earth's crust, and by seismic studies, will throw now light on the origin and the supposed meteoric naturo of our earth. Dr. Shapley points out that by utilising the work already done in existing mines and borings, a three-mile shaft with-four or. five permanent laboratories at various levels could bo sunk without much difficulty. While deeper laboratories are desirable and may later on become feasible, the three-mile shaft alone, in his opinion, would yield scientific material of the greatest importance. "These so-called Plutonic laboratories may mark the coming decade as ono of the important epochs of science in man's attempt to understand tho earth," ho said. "Fully equipped with modern scientific apparatus, some of which would have to be especially designed, they would contribute to our knowledge in a dozen different fields of science. "These workshops would help _to answer the great questions regarding the biological effects of the cosmic rays aud tho radium rays, ether drag and the Einstein theory of relativity, tho nature of radio-activity in the rocks, and earthquakes. They would help us in the study of gravity, tho lunar tides in the- body of the earth, the dating of the Ice Ages, and the earth's source of heat. The project may have great commercial possibilities but in my opinion it should bo carried out with the advance of science as its sole motive." 'Underground study of earthquake waves might be especially useful.