«The Purchase Of The North Pole» by Jules Verne

Jules Verne! Among boys a name to conjure with. What memories of half-forgotten books does it bring back! Journeys into the Interior of the Earth, Voyages on Comets, Journeys to the Moon, Submarine Boats—all are creations of his marvellously inventive brain. The Purchase Of the North Pole is a sequel to " From the Earth to the Moon." J. T. Maston, the secretary of the Gun Club of Baltimore, evolves the plan of changing, by the discharge and subsequent recoil of a huge cannon, the world's axis, so as to lay bare the North Pole and the wealth of minerals which it is supposed to contain.

The plan is kept secret, but a limited liability company is formed for the purchase of the Folar cap, all the shares being taken up by members of the Gun Club. When, however, the plan is made known the world becomes alarmed the surface of the earth will be changed, whole countries and peoples will be buried under some thousand feet of water, while Britain and Southern Australia will have only the most rarefied air, and measures are taken for the arrest of the directors of the scheme. They have fled, however, and when their whereabouts become known it is to late, they cannot be stopped, and the world resigns itself to its fate. Let the boys, and their elders, see the result for themselves.