Stealth Journeys with the Steam Mapper

Chapter 42: The Steam Age Requires Steam Energy

Sir Steven lived in the time of "The Steam Age".  Factories, sailing vessels, locomotives, dirigibles, horseless carriages, and many other new inventions relied on steam power.   Homes were heated with steam radiators, but also had new devices for communicating relying on steam-driven pneumatic tubes.  Steam was used in cooking and ironing but also for a new cleaning appliance.  Some of these inventions were limited in distribution and used only by communities with access to natural steam sources.  In those instances, an eccentric or secluded inventor devised workable tools for his household and neighbors, and never copyrighted or shared the ideas for the benefit for all civilization.   One of the first regions of the western world to find practical uses was Iceland, where early settlers enjoyed steamy hot water for their households, and steam power for simple machinery.

The Steam Age was short-lived.   A shame, since the fossil fuels extracted and used worldwide for many machines that had once been steam-driven, led to the ruination of earth's atmosphere. Now, in an attempt to reverse the damage, scientists were eagerly seeking bigger and better solutions of wind farms, solar panels, waterfall and river turbines, ocean current turbines, biomass fuels, and, even steam vents, both on land and beneath the sea.    New chemical compounds found only at deep sea hydrothermal vents held promise of solving the never-ending demand for energy.   The discoveries of a bacterium feeding on carbon compounds promised to reverse the effects of global warming.

MYKA was amazed that more than a century ago, over 100 years ago, a man realized the power of undersea steam vents and the untold riches awaiting the ones who claimed them.  That so much information had been lost with the disappearance of one man, seemed astounding.   And, that some of the data reappeared only recently, seemed miraculous.  MYKA  was glad to part of the exploration team holding the answers, and worried about the many others who wanted this valuable information, too.

As Sir Steven, (the famed detective hired to protect the investor's interests), eavesdropped during the long sea voyage with the hidden cargo destined for Perth, Australia, he was amazed by the scientific knowledge being discussed.    He had never heard of steam beneath the ocean surface being used to power steam engines.

On their 1895 trip to Iceland, a territory of Denmark, the scientists had been impressed with the early use of "natural" steam to power industrial equipment, as well as practical home uses of heating and washing.  The sources of these available steam sources were still something of a mystery, but finding practical uses had been part of Iceland's history for more than one hundred years.  The scientists of the future would learn of plate tectonics and the mid-Atlantic rift that contributed to the weird topography of Iceland.

What these anonymous scientists were seeking in the British colony of Australia was an equivalent source of steam to power the new phase of the Industrial Revolution.  The population of Australia quickly grew with the 1851 discovery of gold in Colonial Victoria, and the industrialization that followed over the last fifty years of the 19th century, required more and more energy to mine the gold.

In the region of Ballarat, early miners sought alluvial gold.   It is surface gold, which is much easier to find.  The miners were striking it rich just as the "49ers" of California did by panning for gold and collecting the dust, and by using a pick axe or shovel right on the surface of the ground to find themselves a nugget.  As they worked, trees were cut down to house and warm the miners, and to provide timbers to shore up the mine tunnels.

As the gold mines began to require more excavation, stronger, mightier tools were needed. Human and horse power would no longer suffice.  The mining companies began to rely on the knowledge of the industrial Britain and brought in steam-powered machinery to do the heavy work.

The boilers were the heart of the steam operations, and they burned tons of wood to produce the steam needed to run the equipment.   Quartz rock was crushed to powder by a steam-driven stamper battery to release the gold hidden in the rocks.  The wheelwright's factory was also steam-driven, turning tree trunks into the spokes for wagon wheels which were still used to carry the ore and other materials, and the heavy equipment.  The mining foundries began to manufacture their own boilers, engines, pumps as well as their equipment parts.  As railway lines were completed, transportation tasks became easier.   But steam locomotives required wood to run as well.  Australian forests disappeared as the demand for wood grew.

In contrast, in America the best source for fueling steam boilers to run machinery was coal.  Coal was mined both locally in California, and farther away and brought in on the rails.

Having a ready source of a fairly economical way to power the mining heavy equipment was a necessity.  Finding a new source that could be piped to the mining sites was an innovative idea that investors would welcome.  Newer mining sites revealing silver and copper ores in western Australia, and in New Zealand, continued to be explored long after the initial Australian gold rush and they depended on the same requirements of creating steam to run the mining equipment and all of the other energy needs.

The idea of collecting steam directly from the earth to use for these purposes sounded perfect.   If the shoreline of Iceland had these resources, perhaps other territories had them as well.  The new improved submersible and the longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates collected for this exploration plus the scientistific new steam mapper device would make this venture seem very practical.

The device that Sir Steven stole was a type of steam mapper used to detect locations of steam plumes.  It relied on gathering data that would signal the possibility of nearby hydrothermal vents.  The steam mapper device combined several measurement instruments.  The steam mapper Sir Steven stole was housed in an aluminum cylinder about six inches in diameter and about 40 inches long.

The new improved steam mapper, (to be used by Land, Aronnax, and Payne was now housed in a cylinder designed to be towed at great ocean depths.  The cylinder was created with the same new alloys and glass fibers used to protect the new submersible at ocean depths of four miles below sea level where extreme pressure could crush most materials.  The cylinder had a diameter of eighteen inches and walls six inches thick, leaving room for the three scientific instruments to fit into a space inside the tube of only six inches diameter and three feet in length.  The three finely crafted instruments would measure temperature, pressure, and light.

The other research tools were the actual observations of the men onboard the submersible and what they might see through the tiny portholes, as they glided over the ocean floors.  Ned Land and Sir Steven were instructed by Professor Aronnax on the detailed observations they would need to do in his place.