Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 15 -- The Maelstrom
other vortices among the Ferroe islands, but smaller, have no other cause than the collision of
waves, rising and falling at the flux and reflux, against a ridge of rocks and shelves which
confine the water so that it precipitates itself like a cataract and thus the higher the flood rises
the deeper must the fall be; and the natural result of this is a whirlpool or vortex, the prodigious
suction whereof is sufficiently known by lesser experiments.
The USS Nautilus glided under the polar ice in 1958 and found no downward opening. We can't
be certain regarding the finding of the USS Thresher, we must allow, but that submarine's secret
story must wait until Chapter 88, Extraterrestrials and Lost Races of the American West.
"Bottomless Pit Found on the Ocean's Floor," Far Out Magazine, April 1982, tells of an opening in
the ocean floor between Panama and the Galapagos Islands, through which "scientists" say a
constant flow of ocean water is being sucked beneath the marine floor.
It'd quite impossible to prove the absence of a hole.
Final Thoughts
We began this chapter with a question. Near the North Pole, there exist two singularities, the
magnetic pole and the legendary Moskenstrom. Which is caused by an underground river?
For Kircher, the whirlpool was the doorway to below. He and his literary legacy -- Poe and his
imitators whom we'll meet in 12-14 -- would have voted for the Moskenstrom.
But we now hold to a less-imaginative tidal explanation for the Norwegian seascape. The
whirlpool is not of the bathtub drain variety. No water exits through the floor.
Kircher was wrong regarding the hydraulics, but his fanciful concept of the earth's fiery core was
somewhat correct regarding the magnetic singularity. As we will see in Chapter 45, Subterranean
Geophysics, there is indeed an underground river beneath us, one of molten iron, and that's
compasses point the way the do.
As we're in the area, we should note
Norway's Gronligrotta, the world's
northernmost underground river. The karst
springs have attracted tourists since the
16th century.
World World Record Record
Record
Most Northern
Underground River
66 degrees 25'
DRAFT 1122//66//22001122
Gronligrotta
NOK 100.00
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