Chapter 11

We left for the river with enough fuel for an estimated 15,000 klicks of powered flight. Actually, that was more correctly 375 hours of powered flight at 40 KPH, but it was easier to visualize it as distance rather than time. Assuming that we flew for 12 hours a day, and tied up for the remaining 14 hours, that was enough for about four weeks of travel. So we were going to fly away from home for 12 days before turning around, provided that we did not encounter strong winds. We had no way of knowing in advance, so we were truly exploring in unknown space.

We headed straight for the Mississippi and turned upstream. Janice had the job of making overlapping photos of the ground so that we could lay out a map when we were finished. The first part of the trip north was somewhat dull, since we were only seeing klick after klick of forest at the edge of the river.

We encountered rougher ground on the third day, and the view became much more interesting as we could see where the river had cut a path through the hills. In places, the channel was down to 25% of its broadest width and was flowing in a torrent. I couldn't get a good estimate of the speed of the water, but it was obvious that a very powerful boat would be needed to make any progress against that current.

The river wound back and forth in several oxbow bends as it threaded itself through these low mountains. On the fourth day, about midday, we saw another large river join with the Mississippi. This river ran off to the east so I named it the Ohio River. It was not as large as the Mississippi, of course, but it was a substantial source of water in and of itself. When we had time, it would be worth our while to investigate that river, too.

The next day, we spotted another major river emptying from the northwest into the Mississippi. This one I named the Missouri River, I think for obvious reasons. It was about the same size as the Ohio River, and, between the two, appeared to supply about 40% of the water in the main river. The Mississippi was still the largest of the three rivers, but was not the behemoth that it was south of the junction with the Ohio River. We continued north and could see mountains to our east, rolling hills to our west, and just a hint of open prairie to the far west.

The farther north we got, the more small rivers we saw emptying into the Mississippi, but none of them rivaled the Ohio or the Missouri for quantity of water. The river we were following continued to run through rolling hills, large in themselves, but not really large enough to be called mountains. The river that I was still calling the Mississippi had now shrunk to the size of any common river, and it was kind of a disappointment to see its reduced size. However, we still had not found a place we could call its source, so we kept doggedly on, pressing north in hopes of finding something significant.

BINGO! There in the far distance to the north we could see the shimmer of a large body of water. At this point, there was no way to tell if it was ocean or monster lake, but I had a nostalgic hope that it was a remnant of the Great Lakes. If not a remnant, maybe it was a new version of the same thing. We were getting close to the preset limit of our travel, so we needed to modify our plans.

I called together the other two airships and we transferred their surplus bottled hydrogen to our ship. They were to remain anchored here while the Macon continued on North with enough fuel to last for eight more days. The people in the other ships were rightly pissed off at being left behind, but they did bow to the call of necessity if we were to complete our mission.

The Macon pushed on farther north and got a better look at the body of water we could see in the distance. If this was a lake, it was a monster. It seemed so big from our viewing point that I wondered if it could be more like the Lake Iroquois that was the precursor of four of the Great Lakes.

Again, we were not equipped for ditching in deep water, so I ordered a left turn to move along the coast. We moved along about a hundred klicks and there was a sudden change in the topography. The forest ended rather abruptly and there was an open area, much like a desert, extending for miles. The difference was that this area caused our compass to run wild. It twisted and turned with no obvious rhyme or reason. The soil was a bright red, very much like a recent coating of iron rust. I wondered if this could be the remnant of a giant iron meteoroid that had struck the Earth in the past few million years. It could not be that asteroid that had struck when Eve and I were driven through time, but it could be a more recent one that had not been nearly as destructive.

If this was such a meteoroid, it was a God-send for us. Provided we could find a practical way to transport it, this rock would supply our needs for iron for hundreds of years. Not only that, it would not require the elaborate smelting that conventional iron ore would need.

We had to descend and take samples for our return home. We had to know if this was indeed what I hoped it was. We vented hydrogen and settled to the ground. Not wasting any time, Eve, my geology team, and I jumped out of the gondola and started a close investigation of what we hoped we had found. A few quick and simple chemical tests showed a very high concentration of iron, so we were even more hopeful than we had been before.

Within an hour, we had made all of the field tests we could with our primitive equipment and gathered a representative set of samples. We could hardly contain our joy as we climbed back into the Macon and lifted off. Of course, we had already reported our find to the other air ships and to home base, so there was a lot of joy floating around the whole human population of New Earth.

Oh, by the way, we had found the small stream flowing from the monster lake into the beginning of the mighty Mississippi River.

There was no way we were going to be able to transport the iron by water. The usual thing to do would have been to barge the iron to our home down the Mississippi River. Unfortunately, that narrowing of the river just three days north of where we would want to dock our barges for unloading would make barging impossible for some time, possibly forever. A road through the mountains was also impractical at our current level of technology.

It looked to me like our only solution was to move iron by Zeppelin. I further concluded that the best way to do this was to do a preliminary refining at the source and ship a standardized pig (ingot) by air. I presented my ideas to the rest of the community, and nobody could come up with a better solution to the problem. There was no question that we had to have that iron!

We immediately set out to construct a cargo carrying Zeppelin 100 m long. This required four Sterling engines as the power source. We also began construction of a furnace heated by hydrogen.

The most difficult part of the planning was in selecting who would go and how many horses and dogs would be sent with them. The easiest part of the job was in naming the remote colony. By vote of the community, we selected "Iron Mine."

Our whole community now had over 1,000 adults, so we had a goodly number of people to choose from. There was no lack of volunteers, so we decided to send two men and ten women. This was in keeping with our current gender ratio. Besides the factory buildings, we decided to build two small houses for the men and a dormitory for the women. All of the women wanted to become pregnant, so we left it up to them to arrange how they would associate themselves with the men.

The buildings were built in modules to be assembled on site, as was the small furnace. Wagons were shipped complete, except for the wheels. Transporting of items to Iron Mine was begun as soon as the Zeppelin, Iron Hauler #1, was ready. The buildings and furnace were moved first. The second trip was people and dogs, along with food, weapons, and other things that they would need right away. The rest of the stuff was brought on succeeding trips.