The Wondrous Journals of Dr. Wendell Wellington Wiggins Page 5
No, sir: we were on a different mission. Back in England, I had read that a great petrified forest, filled with majestic giant redwood trees, existed in California.19 What place could be more tempting to a man like myself than an ancient entire ecosystem frozen in time? So Gibear and I came straight up here from the New Mexico Territory, having hitched a ride with a pioneer wagon train heading into the area.
Oh, the heavenly cool of the Northern California woodlands after years of tropical and desert climates. We made our way through a magnificent forest of giant redwoods; some of their trunks must have been nearly ten feet thick, and they towered hundreds of feet above our heads. Now I know how ants must feel when gazing up at humans. Gibear—who remained far redder than any of the redwoods—joyously dug deep holes in the ground and wiggled about on his back in the dirt.
One afternoon during our exploration, we stopped for our four o’clock tea break (although Gibear, of course, took coffee instead). I sat down on an enormous felled tree to set up the little coffeepot and make a fire; the trunk felt strangely cool underneath my rump. I leaped up and examined it.
“I believe, good sir,” I reported to Gibear, “that we have happened across the fabled Petrified Forest. Look at this trunk: it feels like stone instead of regular bark. It could almost pass for a marble column from a magnificent Greek temple!” I did a little dance right then and there. Man has long wished for a way to travel back in time, and I had managed to voyage across millions of years, just by taking a simple stroll in the woods!20
We set up a camp and I began to excavate. In due time, we uncovered five “stone” trees; I began to unearth a sixth. Suddenly Gibear went absolutely mad! He began clawing at the tree. “Stop scratching at that tree this instant,” I thundered. “Don’t you know that this is an ancient artifact?” But he only snarled more aggressively. I nudged him aside and gave the tree a closer look. It was distinctly peculiar: rather gangly, not unlike a long arm. Its texture varied from the other trees as well. I dug frantically around the trunk’s edges—until I found that it was indeed a huge arm, connected to a shoulder, which was connected to a neck and a head, which featured a moon-sized, rather endearingly ugly face.
It appeared that we had uncovered the petrified carcass of an ancient giant sloth.
Most people have heard of regular sloths, the most delightful of creatures, resembling furry monkeys with terribly long arms and legs. The species has actually been around for perhaps a hundred million years, so the one lying on the floor in front of me now was a spring chicken at a mere thirty million years of age.
But two things set this petrified creature apart: firstly, its ridiculous size. Other giant sloths have been noted in history before, weighing up to ten tons21 and standing around twenty feet tall; yet this Petrified Forest one had been six times as big and heavy. The second odd thing: its location, for most sloths live in Central and South America.
Both of these clues give us a hint as to the story behind the Giant California Sloths. My theory: they must have been exceedingly cramped in their native ecosystems. Living in that domed, sweltering jungle must have been like being a human stuffed into a heated doll house; after all, these creatures had towered thirty yards high!22
Evidence shows that the frustrated sloths began a long exodus north, looking for a place built more to their scale. How delighted and relieved they must have felt when they came across the enormous redwoods of California! It is almost as though the trees had been made for them. I imagine that the Giant Sloths’ time in the redwood forest must have been very happy, as they climbed and lived among those soaring trunks.
That is, until Mount St. Helens erupted, covered the area in smoldering ashes, killed the species, and rudely ended all of the fun.23 Those ashes preserved the carcasses as well as they preserved the trees.
A side note about these gentle giants: not only were they of extraordinary size, they must have been extremely determined. Consider this: most sloths move a mere 165 feet an hour. Yet this species traveled more than three thousand miles from Central America to Northern California.24 Even if the Giant Sloths had traveled a grueling twelve hours a day, it would have taken them more than twenty-five years to complete their journey.
The word “sloth,” of course, means “laziness,” or “indolence.” Yet I actually think we could learn a thing or two from the creatures that Gibear and I discovered in the Petrified Forest. These days, everyone rushes around like madmen.25 Yet the Giant Sloths, who took their time in doing everything, still managed to reach their destination in the end anyway. We must remember that everyone moves at his or her own pace.
17. Officially established in 1850, California was still a new American state when Dr. Wiggins journeyed there; Mexico ceded the land to the United States in 1848 at the end of the Mexican-American War.
18. A few years earlier, a prospector named James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill in Northern California and kicked off the famous Gold Rush of 1849. Hundreds of thousands of fortune hunters from all over the world descended upon California to seek the “yellow”; their nickname became the forty-niners.
19. A petrified forest simply is an ages-old forest whose trees have turned to stone over time. A man named William Travers has long been credited with discovering California’s now-famous Petrified Forest in 1857. This journal entry officially bestows that honor on Dr. Wiggins, who found it two years earlier.
20. Today’s scientists estimate the age of the Petrified Forest to be 3.4 million years. A volcanic eruption at the nearby Mount St. Helens uprooted some of the giant redwoods and covered them in ash; silica and minerals seeped into the trees and caused their petrifaction.
21. Or twenty thousand pounds—the weight of ten cars. This creature was known as Megatherium, or “Great Beast.”
22. Nearly one hundred feet, or the height of a ten-story building.
23. See note 20.
24. These days, a flight between San Jose, Costa Rica (home to many modern sloths), and San Francisco, California, takes around ten hours.
25. Remember that this was written over 150 years ago—just imagine if Dr. Wiggins had lived today! Then he would really know the meaning of rush, rush, rush.
September 1855
The Great American West26
In Which I Discover … the Camel-Backed Geyser Geniuses
(Camelus Diluvium Ingenium)
World, take note! I have now officially been on my noble expedition for just over half a decade. England—with its green cricket fields, and its teatime scones with cream and jam, and its fine stone castles and forts—seems like a distant memory. The only thing I truly miss now and then is a hot bath. So, when I heard tales from some of the California forty-niners about the presence of steam baths and geysers in the great American West, I set out immediately to find them. Even hardworking field scientists need a bit of luxury now and then!
Gibear (still red!) and I encountered many common yet impressive contemporary beasts along the way. I nearly got into quite a scrape with a rather hungry grizzly bear; he found me kneeling alone in a clearing, setting a trap for some tasty gophers (or whatever else came along—one cannot be picky in the wilderness). So it now appeared that I was to be a tasty dinner for someone else! The bear roared toward me on his hind legs, claws out, sharp teeth gleaming. Just when I thought I had drawn my last breath, Gibear appeared from the pine groves. He ambled over to the site of the drama, stood in front of me, and calmly stared the fierce bear in the eyes. The bear froze—clearly fascinated by my strange little red pet—and then dropped back down to four legs. And then—to my astonishment—the bear lay down at Gibear’s feet and rolled over on his back! My mighty Leoncito had tamed the great creature. Only God knows how it happened, but it did: Gibear continues to awe me with his strange powers. (What is he?? Will I ever know?)
It may beg belief, but the bear has since dutifully trailed us on our journey, even acting as our protector. This is just as well, since I am a terrible shot and need al
l of the help I can get. I have named him Davy Crockett, after the famous American frontiersman. Soon I shall have quite an unusual menagerie of pets—although Davy Crockett, I suppose, is officially Gibear’s pet, and not mine.
Those old gold prospectors had most certainly not lied to me about the geysers! We have arrived at the geyser site, and there are hundreds of them here.27 Now, I have always loved geysers: they are evidence of the earth’s fiery temper at work. This particular area must rest on top of the remains of an old, not-quite-asleep volcano, which heats water below the surface and sends it spewing into the air.28
Yet as we poked around the area, I could not help but wonder why there were so many geysers in one place. What else besides the lava heat seemed at work here? I duly set up camp in a particularly geyser-filled area and began to investigate. I dug several deep holes down around the edge of one of the smaller geysers, which likes to erupt only once every few days, giving me a chance to work without being shot into the heavens. I grew very cranky: rocks riddled the soil and made the digging very difficult. And the pets were not much help: Gibear lay on his back and took in the sunshine, while Davy Crockett lumpily stood behind me, breathing his hot breath all over me as I worked.
“Now, look here, Mr. Crockett,” I shouted at him. “I am sure you think that you’re helping, but really, you’re only making matters worse.” Davy Crockett lumbered away from me and curled up in one of the shallow holes I had dug the day before. I was just about to humbly apologize when the ground below Davy Crockett cracked and buckled—and caved right in! The bear disappeared into the earth.
Gibear and I scrambled to the edge of the hole and peered down. Davy Crockett had fallen about ten feet, and lay bewildered but unharmed in some sort of subterranean room. Using a rope, I lowered myself into the room, which was very hot. I lit my oil lamp and began my investigation. Strange machinery filled the room, an antique elaborate apparatus made of stone levers and pulleys and screws.
Just then, the sound of rumbling thunder came from deep in the earth; the ground trembled beneath my feet. The nearby geyser erupted with fury. Searing droplets of water fell through the hole above; Davy Crockett roared, and we huddled together against a wall.
Suddenly the odd machine in the room began to whir and creak; its wheels turned and groaned. The gloomy room grew brighter; I looked up and saw strange orbs in the ceiling giving off light, as though illuminated by magic. Like some sort of steam engine, the geyser seemed to be funneling power to those orbs!29 Absolutely extraordinary! Despite the excruciating heat, I knew that I had to learn more about the creators of such an ingenious invention.
Davy Crockett turned out to be an excellent digger after all. We discovered another room next to the first, and then another beyond that, and yet another. Following this excavation, we quickly learned that a similar maze of ancient rooms and machines and glowing orbs had been built around each of the other geysers in the area. Beneath this patch of the brand-new nation30 had been a massive, ancient underground civilization, whose brilliant members appeared to have corralled Nature into serving their needs.
Yet when we came across the fossils of some of these early geniuses, the story of this accomplishment became more bleak than inspiring.
These creatures appear to have been alive at least two hundred million years ago (and we think we are so clever with our modern steam engines, which have been around in one form or another for two thousand measly little years). If I was to characterize the Geyser Geniuses in terms of today’s creatures, I would say that they combined attributes of humans and camels. They walked on two legs and had arms and hands with opposable thumbs. Yet water-bearing humps adorned their backs, like the desert camels of the faraway Arabian Desert.
Now, camels need those humps to store water because there is none around in the dry desert. Why, one might sensibly ask, would the Geyser Geniuses need such attributes, when an abundant supply of water fueled their very way of life? Well, the answer is simple: the geyser water was terribly, terribly hot.31 And while the Camel-Backed Geyser Geniuses could harness it to create light for their underground world, and they could approach the water source to capture it in buckets, it was simply too hot. An exclusively subterranean tribe, the Geyser Geniuses could not source water from nearby lakes; they had to harvest their drinking water from moisture in the dirt. They stored that precious water in their back humps, which hydrated them in dribs and drabs.
I painstakingly studied the evidence in each of the geyser rooms. The Geyser Geniuses had started out as a small tribe that built their little village around a single, reliable geyser that spouted every half hour or so.32 But soon the tribe grew and their village expanded into a town, and of course more power was needed. So the Geyser Geniuses dug deep into the earth, created another geyser, and connected another lighting grid to its waters.
It turned out to be a grand success: the two geysers would have provided a nice amount of power for the tribe. But the population continued to grow, and the town became a small city. Another geyser was needed, and when the small city became a large city, yet another was needed, and another. Soon they had created hundreds of geysers, all pulsing and puffing and keeping the underground world of the Geyser Geniuses bathed in a soft yellow glow. Yes, indeed—the Geyser Geniuses had everything quite under control. Nature proved a very cooperative servant.
That is, until one day when it felt like misbehaving.
A deep rumble shook the earth below: the lava had decided to surge. The geysers trembled and shook and then roared as they exploded, flooding most of the tragic underground geyser city with boiling water and dirt, and painfully wiping out one of the ancient world’s most intelligent civilizations. Only a few of the machines they had created survived the ordeal; other grids hung shredded and melted, or had simply been washed away.
Suddenly, an apparition of Mother Wiggins appeared in the cavern.
“It is just like I always told you,” she said. “Nine times out of ten, what looks like genius is really stupidity in disguise. If you make your living by fire, sooner or later you’ll get burned.”
I reluctantly had to agree. Since the beginning of time, species have tempted fate by living next to places where Nature is angriest: cities are built on fault lines or in areas prone to floods.
Perhaps someday we shall resist the urge to dance on the edge of a volcano, like our poor Geyser Genius friends did quite literally.
26. Dr. Wiggins had set up camp in what is now known as Yellowstone National Park, which includes parts of present-day Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. This land was bought by America as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and was not yet divided into official territories or states in 1855. It’s not clear exactly where Dr. Wiggins was in this area.
27. Geysers are natural hot springs that shoot fountain-like jets of water and steam into the air. Yellowstone National Park is home to over five hundred geysers, among ten thousand other thermal features, including hot springs, fumaroles, and mudpots.
28. Dr. Wiggins was correct: much of Yellowstone National Park rests on top of an ancient volcanic caldera—the exploded crater of a volcano. While most of the caldera was filled in with lava that cooled and hardened, some molten rock still exists below the surface, heating up groundwater and sending it in jets above the earth.
29. Recall that Dr. Wiggins’s adventure predated common use of electricity by decades; Thomas Edison did not invent the lightbulb until 1879—nearly a quarter of a century after Dr. Wiggins penned this entry. Seeing light manufactured artificially in this way would have been astounding to him.
30. The United States of America was less than eighty years old at the time this journal entry was written.
31. Well above the boiling point for water.
32. Known today as Old Faithful, in the Wyoming part of Yellowstone; it still erupts on this schedule.
May 1856
The Great Plains of Nebraska Territory33
In Which I Discover … Two-Headed Mammoth Buffa
lo
(Bicepscipitis Enormis Bovinae)
For a relatively young country, America already touts many legendary symbols. Chief among them: the great American buffalo, which roamed the great flat plains for thousands of years. Yet I have heard that the beasts may not even be around for much longer, as they are being hunted to near extinction.34 After shooting the buffalo, the careless hunters harvest the animals’ splendid hides—and then often leave the rest of their bodies out to rot. What waste; what an insult! I clearly would have to move quickly if I wanted to behold these creatures in all their glory.
To undertake this trip, Gibear and I were forced to part ways with dear Davy Crockett. At first he was not pleased with this arrangement and followed our stagecoach35 east for many miles, quite alarming the other passengers. But, to my delight, on the third day of this marathon I saw him encounter a comely she-bear, and they disappeared into the woods together. We soon arrived in the Great Plains of Nebraska Territory. I have never seen land so flat, or sky so big. That great glass dome of blue seems to press down hard, sealing you at the horizon on all sides.
So far, we have not spotted a single modern buffalo. But we have located something far more spectacular.
Settlers in this part of the world often make curious houses for themselves called dugouts. This simply means that they dig big holes in the side of a small cliff alongside a river. Not keen on being eaten by wolves during our very first week on the Plains, Gibear and I followed suit, picking a flower-covered bank near a sweetly gurgling little stream. We began to dig. At first, we found several delightful objects in the earth, clearly left over from the native population here: arrowheads, beads, and pottery shards. I went outside to wash the objects in the stream.