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Re: Purchase of the North Pole

From: Arthur B. Evans <aevans2~at~mail.tds.net>
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 19:38:38 -0500
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~math.technion.ac.il>

Norm,

Unlike most, this Ace reprint is *not* from the Fitzroy Edition (trans. I.O.
Evans). It is from the 1890 Ogilvie version originally published with the
title _Topsy Turvy_.

I don't have a copy of this particular translation, so I can't tell you how
good or bad it is overall. But, reading through the opening chapter which
you have scanned, it certainly leaves a lot to be desired.

For example:

p. 1: "Well then, according to your opinion, no woman seeing an apple fall
could have discovered the law of universal gravitation, so that it would
have made her the most illustrious scientific person of the seventeenth
century?"

Verne said: "Well then, according to you, Mr. Maston, no woman seeing an
apple fall could have discovered the laws of universal gravitation as did
that illustrious English scientist at the end of the seventeenth century?"

p. 1: "No, Mrs. Scorbitt, and in the meanwhile I would like to prove to you
that since there are inhabitants on earth, and consequently women, there has
not one feminine brain been found yet to which we owe any discoveries like
those of Aristotle, Euclid, Kepler, Laplace, etc."
    "Is this a reason? And does the past always prove the future?"
    "Well, a person who has done nothing in a thousand years, without a
doubt, never will do anything."

Verne said: "No, Mrs. Scorbitt. Nevertheless, I would point out to you that,
from the time that people have inhabited the Earth, and therefore women,
there has never yet been a feminine brain to which we owe a single discovery
in the realm of science like those of Aristotle, of Euclid, of Kepler or of
Laplace."
    "Is that a reason? Is the future irrevocably tied to the past?"
    "Hum! what has not occurred in thousands of years will never occur,
without a doubt!"

p. 2: For several years, it is true, the Conference at Berlin had formulated
a special plan for the guidance of such of the great powers as might wish to
appropriate rights under the claim of colonization or the opening of
commercial markets. This code was not acceptable to all, and the Polar
region had remained without inhabitants.

Verne said: Some years ago, it is true, the Berlin Conference had formulated
a special code to be used by the great Powers who might wish to appropriate
for themselves the rights of others under the pretext of colonization or the
opening of commercial markets. But this code did not seem applicable in this
circumstance since the polar region was not inhabited.

See what I mean?

All best,
Art
Received on Tue 15 Feb 2000 - 04:37:10 IST

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