The Ichors
“Edward, answer my question please!”
“Sorry Miss, can you rephrase the question?”
“No Edward and its Mrs. Graham to you and all!”
“Sorry Mrs. Graham, I’m just considering my answer.” A pal whispered him the question as the rest of the class tittered. “Ah yes, Henry the Eighth was a right peado for marrying a twelve-year-old. OK, it probably wasn’t such a sin in those days and the fact that she was a Spanish Princess, Catherine of Aragon who had already been married to his elder brother King, had quite a lot to do with it politically and the fact that he was able to retain her substantial dowry. He was skint you see. That created an alliance with Spain against the Frenchies no doubt. She was Catholic and overtly religious which didn’t go down to well later in life, since she couldn’t provide Henry with a son heir. The divorce was rather messy since he needed the blessing of the Pope in Rome and that wasn’t forthcoming. Not to be out done by a pompous cleric thousand miles away, he told him to sod off and created his own church, religion and bishops who kindly granted him the divorce as requested. He immediately married another dolly bird, Anne Boleyn, hoping she would do him the honours.”
“That’s sufficient Edward, we get the picture even though it was rather colourful. What are you reading?”
“Alexander the Great Miss, sorry I mean Mrs. Graham. I finished the one on the Henry’s, you gave me,” said Edward rather solemnly. The bell rang for end of lesson.
“Edward, I would still like the courtesy of you attending. OK, class dismissed! And you Edward can collect the homework books please, check that they are all there, list the missing and write their names up in the ‘Detention’ book.”
“Yes Mrs. Graham. Why do I have to do this?”
“Penance Edward, penance! Something you have read a lot about it in the history books,” answered the teacher as she watched the pupils sling their homework books in Edward’s direction. He reluctantly counted them, checked the missing ones and held up the detention list for Mrs. Graham to see, holding up three fingers. She relented with a shake of the head which brought a smile to his face. Picking up the stack he followed the teacher to the Staff room, relieved and in better humour.
Being one of the larger members of his class he could look after himself but decided not to tell the homework culprits that they were saved detention this time. Let them stew and turn up after school to find that they were not listed, he thought. He found school easy and without any great deal of effort always found himself near the top of his class. He didn’t want to be classed as a ‘swat’ so produced occasional duff work or not finishing all the set questions. His reports always listed, ‘Could do better!’ but since he was always near the top of the class his parents couldn’t complain too much, just encouraged him.
Edward was good at all sports that he took up and was always in the House and School Teams for his year. Although he generally kept to himself, engrossed in books, he was well liked, particularly for his quick wittiness, especially in front of teachers. He always made the lessons lively. Some teachers, particularly Mrs. Graham would make a point of asking him questions to liven up a lesson, with his amusing answers and anecdotes.
Finishing the Sixth Form, armed with excellent results he was accepted to read Chemistry at Liverpool University. On arrival the first day, at the Registration, he had to choose two subsidiary subjects. The letter from his tutor stipulated maths and physics so he mechanically signed up for those. As he was waiting in the queue there was the prettiest girl, he had ever set eyes on, signing up for Geography. He detected from her folder that her name was Eleanor Mary Bishop.
A few days later, in his digs, he hacked into the Registry files and discovered that she had signed up to read Geology as main with Geography and Chemistry subsidiary subjects and in the Student Union site she had joined the Mixed Hockey and Debating Society. Interesting! Within minutes Edward H. Hemsworth had registered himself as Edward H. Emsworth to read Geology, with Chemistry and Geography as subsidiary subjects. Oh, he also joined the mixed hockey and the debating society, to be sure that their paths crossed.
The Fresher’s Ball, commonly called ‘A Cattle Market,’ where older students were on the look out for fresh talent was a complete disaster for Edward. He spent his time visiting all the halls, bars, discos in search of the gorgeous Eleanor to no avail. He later learned to his dismay that she was protecting herself from him and any other suitor by announcing she was engaged to some lad at home and unavailable. Whether this was true or not he would find out and, in the meantime, he decided to be indispensible to her.
His double timetable was a bit of a mishmash with a number of double bookings. To overcome that he hacked into the lecture notes of all of his lecturers, printed them out, filed them and marked the ones he would likely miss. Most of the lecturers just regurgitated the same lecture each year. He also found an overload of coursework that had to be handed in. Fortunately, the tutors required digital copies to be submitted plus they doled out the same questions each year. Both his tutors had been around some years and had an array of answers on file. It was easy to pick out the A minuses, doctor them and submit. He never missed a submission though he was deliberately late on most occasions. He generally received a mark of A-, A or even A+ when the Tutor was generous. There weren’t too many tutorials and he prepared for each by reading past essays marked A+ so that he could contribute to the discussions when prompted.
He kept up with all the lectures by speed reading the lecture notes and just checking that nothing new had been added. His pursuit of luscious Eleanor was progressing. They acknowledged each other, sat close by and even in a group had coffee together. The debating society was a bit of a flop. Eleanor attended but more of a listener than a participant and tended to be absent more often than not. He quite enjoyed them, took part and entertained the audience with his wit and humour especially when Eleanor was present. Hockey was a disaster. Eleanor was Jolly hockey sticks, chosen for the University First Team whilst he was lingering in the beginners. At least at the practice sessions the Firsts were obliged to help the beginners. At least he was able to have a few collisions with her and help her up. He was a quick learner and quickly progressed up the ranks but to his chagrin the lovely Eleanor only helped the beginners.
Students miss lectures for all reasons under the sun and overcome their problem by borrowing other student’s notes. This is the area where Edward excelled in supplying good readable notes. His expertise in writing notes he said was from just listening rather than busily writing and recording the lecture on Dictaphone. To remember the knowledge, he just transcribed the Dictaphone recording onto his laptop and hey presto he had excellent notes and understanding. To the close circle of friends around the delectable Eleanor he admitted that rather than type he used the word recognition facility on his laptop. The beautiful Eleanor became a regular recipient of the notes saying they were better than her unreadable scrawl.
The end of the first term exams were dreaded by all. There were rumours, unfounded, that the University cleared itself of dross by this method. The papers were sent to City Printers three weeks before the exam date so Edward easily availed himself of copies with some judicious hacking. To his circle of friends, including Eleanor, he would predict six topics that statistically came up each year. Those that heeded his advice did well. For Eleanor and her closest friends, he even predicted the form of the questions. He claimed it was just the application of the science of statistics and predictability. After all he said, they had only covered a limited term time of topics.
This got him closer to his beloved Eleanor and even encouraged him to ask her out to go for a drink. She usually agreed but turned up with group of friends so no close liaison. He was fortunate that his brother handed him down an old, serviceable Ford estate car. With wheels he had an advantage over any other suitor in wooing his Eleanor but she was elusive, only came out with a gaggle of friends. Overhearing conversations, he just heard her mention David this, David that, to his consternation. At the end of term ball, she did deign to have one dance with him even though he pleaded for more, she left early.
Towards the end of the year, he decided to change tactics and be cooler towards her. He swapped hockey for rugby and soon was playing for the Firsts. He took over Chairman of the Debating Society and cleared out the dross. He applied to be a member of the Student Union and was elected, sticking his head above the parapet to be noticed. Instead of proffering lecture notes, Eleanor now had to ask for them. He was still a friendly face amongst the group but he stopped making a beeline for Eleanor. He even asked girls in the department out and had regular girl friends. To no avail, Eleanor kept him at arms length, mind you that was with all the male students. All she talked about was her David.
End of first year exams were approaching and the student population at large were getting nervous apart from Edward who five weeks before time had all his papers on file. When friends asked what he predicted would come up he would turn the question around and ask them to predict. If they came up with a subject, he would put up a good argument for its inclusion or otherwise. For once Eleanor confided with him that she was worried about her exams and could she ask him for advice since he had been so helpful in the past. He suggested they go to an Indian that night and they could discuss the matter since he had given it much thought. That came to naught in his pursuit. She brought two girlfriends along from the department. They discussed the exam in a perfunctory way and on leaving the Indian, Edward pressed a typed copy of his predictions into her hand.
All Edward’s group of friends did well in the exams, some of the naturally brighter ones did exceptionally well. Edward did well even though he had double load of exams. Eleanor was exceptional but sadly quit her course at the end of the year to marry the said David and no doubt bring up a gaggle of kids. Edward only found out when he returned to Uni after the summer vacation. Initially he was devastated but quickly came to terms with it, though he couldn’t settle down to a regular girl friend. His rugby career blossomed as he was picked to play for his Country in the under twenties and under twenty-one teams. His debating skills suggested a career in Politics but he couldn’t quite visualise that.
At the end of his third year, he graduated with a double First in Chemistry and Geology. The University found out about his double dealings at the last moment, at the Congregation where degrees were handed out. They decided to keep quiet about it and to investigate how this could have happened without them knowing. Edward received his degrees on separate occasions, having to wear different coloured hood, hired, to denote the degree course. A minor additional expense. He was snapped up by the petro-chemical industry in their exploration division where he lingered for five years.
During the five years he spent most of his free time reading or in fact studying the petrology of batholiths, the underground chambers of volcanoes. The book that intrigued him most was, ‘The Granite Controversy’ by H. H. Read which caused a furore when it was first published in 1957. The eminent geologist postulated that some of the batholiths appeared to have no vent at the base for the magma to rise from the depths. He also pointed out that these huge batholiths or magma chambers hadn’t distorted the surrounding rocks as should have happened with such an enormous intrusion. The surrounding rocks were baked, melted and slightly deformed around the perimeter but not the huge upheaval expected.
This led him to postulate that some other physical and chemical action took place, separate from the magma layers below. His thought process led him to suggest some migration and penetration of chemical esters which initiated a melting process in the overlying rocks totally independent of the magma layers. He named these migrating chemicals as ‘Ichors.’ To quote Read on this process, ‘Granitisation of pre-existing lithologies with little involvement of magma,’ This spilt the so-called experts into groups of Magamatists and Transformists
Edward carefully searched through the original researches and examples of Professor Read, and although his work was disputed no new theories had emerged to explain this seeming phenomenon. Mightily intrigued, Edward followed up more modern theories explaining how rocks can melt and conceded that there could be an ester, ichor, miasma, flux, call it what you will, that initiates melting of rock. He gained a place at Edinburgh University to study such phenomena. The topic had been dismissed many years ago but Edward put his debating skills to the test and the Chemistry Department succumbed and offered him a year’s grant initially and more if he had made significant progress.
His Professors told him in no uncertain terms that only extremely high temperatures and high pressures would initiate a melt down. Edward wasn’t totally convinced and picked up papers on the effect of high explosives on rocks. This led to a more fruitful research. One pointer he picked up was that heavily saturated rocks melted at a lower temperature than dry strata. He added more water to his experiments and saw some progress. He reached a point where he was convinced, he was on the right track but needed larger and costlier experiments. His Professors decided he was barking up the wrong tree, or rock in his case, and terminated his grant.
This didn’t deter Edward who leased a small holding in North Wales near the sea that included an abandoned quarry so that he could scale up his experiments. He already had an explosive licence and a quarry to boot so could legally purchase explosive for commercial use. Using a digger, he built huge domes or rock in the quarry, doused the whole lot in water from a diverted stream and set up his explosions. In a way they were all disastrous in that all that happened was the rocks, which he’d nicely piled up in a dome, were just nicely redistributed back onto the quarry floor. He decided that he needed to create pressure in the system that would naturally be provided in the overlying strata.
He covered his next mound in concrete at great expense. To his amazement he found fragments of melted rock even though the mound was again demolished and neatly distributed on the quarry floor. For his next experiment he decided to reinforce the concrete with steel rods. He took a welding course at the local Tech College and constructed a cage around his rock pile then poured double amount of concrete over it.
This time, his experiment succeeded in melting more of the rock and started a sort of chain reaction with the melting. Cracks appeared in the casing and the heat and steam escaped bringing an end to the melting. After breaking open his mound he invited certain experts in Geology and Chemistry to inspect the melted rocks and they all agreed that it was a fair experiment but weren’t convinced that there was any chain reaction involved. Edward was not deterred and built a larger mound with even more steel reinforcement and thickness of concrete. He invited the less sceptical experts to witness his final experiment. Edward’s savings were running out.
This time the concrete dome held and the temperature in the dome continued to rise for some hours until the outer skin of the dome started to melt and the pressure inside the dome fell. It took weeks for the dome to cool and the sceptical experts were invited to check on his melted rocks and pronounced that he was onto something significant. They had never witnessed rocks melting with such a small charge of explosive. Two Universities offered him grants to continue his experiments and find a commercial use for his results.
Four years on Edward and a team of scientist not only could set off a chain reaction of melting but developed ways of feeding the dome with new material. One vent spewed out a thick lava of molten rock whilst another vent near the top was fed with rock and copious amounts of water. They had to move their whole experiment to a Lock side in Scotland which could supply the quantity of water and rocks required. To start a commercial venture, they initially just created forms to cast kerb stones for roadsides. They termed the molten material as artificial diorite, a natural volcanic rock.
More and more eminent Professors came to witness the experiment and were suitably impressed with this manmade realistic volcano but none could deduce a commercial use for it. Someone dubbed it the ‘Cold Fusion’ experiment and the name stuck. Eventually cracks would appear in the walls of these domes and hot liquids would spew out. To control this flow which could be highly dangerous, these vents were piped and suddenly they found that the effluent had cooled to crystals of various minerals as found in natural veins near volcanic activity. These could be ‘mined,’ concentrated and sold on to the chemical industry if the quantities were right. Secondly the pumped salty sea water that was steaming out was condensing into clear potable water. They diverted a dozen trucks from the local landfill site and tipped the contents into their volcano. The molten rock just digested the lot with no problem.
They further experimented by tipping in rough steel scrap in great quantities and found the ‘Veins’ from the vents now contained high quantities of iron or natural haematite. They got quite excited and tipped in quantities of various scrap metal, copper, aluminium, tin and found their volcano would spew out fairly refined ore of these metals. This was a breakthrough for the commercial use of their volcano. The problem was to find the right site for waste conversion and the funds to pay for it.
A Professor from Imperial suggested that they should investigate a site on the banks of the Thames estuary, East of London. The city could provide all the waste they could handle, the River Thames the water and the dredgers the silt to keep the supply of molten rock going. That solved the commercial issue and Professor Atkin promised to help in persuading the London Council to provide land and planning permission. He also suggested that they should develop the volcano to provide a power generating source.
It took years of dogged persuasion to get the London Council to agree to such a project but having agreed on the benefits of getting rid of waste, sewage and providing cheap power and clean water they granted planning permission and invested hard cash in the project. Edward also persuaded a large number of utility companies to invest sufficient monies to make the project viable.
Two years later the infrastructure was in place with roads, quays, power, pumps and diverted sewers. The building of a massive dome started. The centre would comprise silt from the Thames compacted with builders waste and mixed metal waste that the scrap merchants were glad to dispose of. The outer casing was built out of reinforced concrete, ten metres thick. Vents were installed to smaller domes so that the metals could be refined and extracted for commercial use. A couple of condensing towers were built to provide drinking water after the steam had powered turbines generating electricity.
Six years from digging the first sod the project was completed and ready to fire up the volcano. Various dignitaries attended the initiation ceremony and positioned themselves in one of the tourist boats on the opposite side of the river, to be as far away from the explosion as possible. Many refused to come, even the press were reluctant to come up close. They sent a couple of helicopters and drones to film the event. Apart from the free champagne and canapés there wouldn’t be much to see only a dredger ready to be unloaded and a barge from the City, full of containers stuffed with compressed garbage.
To make the whole scene more spectacular Edward had arranged a massive pyrotechnic display which had nothing to do with the firing up of the volcano. Prompt at noon a siren went off droning away and a few minutes later the explosion in the dome was set off, not that anybody heard it across the water and the main show was the firework display which puzzled but gratified the audience. Ten minutes later the champagne party was interrupted by the sight of smoke or steam erupting from the top of the volcano. Edward had opened the top vents just for show.
The scientists and engineers on site, congratulated themselves and continued to monitor the dials and the printouts of their scientific equipment. They all seemed satisfied that all was in order and had to wait six hours or so for the whole pile to heat up and start providing a head of steam to power the turbines.
Edward sat deflated as everything seemed to be in order. Their first job they estimated would be in six hours when they would start pumping in the Thames water to keep the contents moist and create more steam, then they would start pumping up the silt from the dredgers to add earthy elements to the molten mass inside and reduce the temperatures to a constant level. Later they would introduce the compressed City garbage and monitor the effect. Two days later they expected to open the vents and drain away the concentrated mineral deposits into smaller domes for further refinement. They also had a machine at the ready to cast cobbles stones and pavers to be sent back to the roads of London.
The second week flocks of scientists descended once it was clear that the whole volcano wouldn’t explode and blown everyone into smithereens. They checked all the monitors, took samples, checked radiation and left without finding fault. The power generated was fed back into the grid, the condensed water was tested and added to the water supply via the normal treatment plants. The only problem Edward could foresee was the supply of raw materials. The dredgers on the Thames were only too happy to dock at their quayside than sail out far into the North Sea to dump their silt. More containers of City garbage, destined for the land fill sites were being diverted to the site. All the builder’s rubble and material from excavation were now being transported by road and barge to the London Volcano. The main London sewage plant was now planning to construct a sewage pipe directly to site. A freight rail was being planned to ship in scrap and garbage from afar.
The outputs apart from the power and water included various minerals for the Chemical industries and the rich metalliferous ores that went to the various smelters. Another quay was being planned to handle the shipping; everything so far was working like clockwork. Even the investors, including the Council, were rubbing their hands together by the success of the venture. The volcano was swallowing all of the London garbage and pouring out valuable by-products.
Edward still couldn’t convince the scientific community that he had discovered the ‘ichors’ of Professor Read and harnessed them for public good. Secretly they couldn’t understand the nature of this self-perpetuating power and secondly why hadn’t they discovered it themselves. Within a few years this invention or discovery was going to take the world by storm and make Nuclear Power redundant. All this was going to make Edward a rich man but he still hankered over his past love Eleanor.
In the second year of operation the winter weather was particularly ferocious with extremely low temperatures, storms, snow or freezing rain. The dredgers couldn’t operate, nor the barges carrying waste from the city. The raw materials to feed the ‘volcano’ were drying up. Construction had come to a standstill ceasing the supply of building rubble and waste. The roads had become impassable so that even the land fill sites couldn’t provide the necessary feed of waste needed to control the temperatures in the system. The planned provision of a store of waste and rubble hadn’t come to fruition.
The temperatures in the ‘volcano’ were getting frightfully unstable. Even copious amounts of Thames water couldn’t dampen the system. Cracks started to appear in the casing as the plant was digesting its own walls with the lack of sufficient raw materials. Eventually the cracks opened up and lava, molten rock, started spewing out in various places enlarging the mound and destroying the generator plant. After a few days the temperatures started to drop rapidly so that the lava flows reduced. On the third day the self-perpetuating melting process had ceased and Edward was left with an enormous mound of slowly solidifying rock. The sceptics were quick to rush in and criticise the whole project as unviable and labelled Edward as a crank professor. The company was wound up and the investors dried up. There was no interest in reviving the project.
Two years later Edward found a position at Imperial University in London, in the petrology department, studying magma chambers in the earth’s crust, still on the look out for an Eleanor.
