The Northern Lights, page 15
The new year was spent in making further tests and improvements. The strain on the men was beginning to show. Næss, in his methodological manner, followed a prearranged testing program even if the results obtained were disappointing. Birkeland would jettison carefully laid plans in an instant if a better idea occurred to him. The contrast in styles led to tension and disagreement. Birkeland came to see Næss as Eyde’s “spy,” who questioned his decisions and kept his paymaster informed of progress. The furnace was limiting his imagination and depressing his spirits: he was forbidden by Eyde to discuss it outside the workshop for fear of aiding competitors, although he was usually so drained by the heat and noise at work that going out in the evenings was impossible anyway. Birkeland was beginning to suffer from the pressure he was under. He had worked every weekend and not taken a holiday, even the two weeks he usually escaped abroad from the freezing, dark January. In less than one year he had made more progress than BASF had done in six and yet Eyde was still barking for faster results. Birkeland hated the twilight of the Norwegian winter, the intense cold and the difficulties of getting around in the snow, and since the autumn, his insomnia had returned and headaches and restlessness plagued him. Now, incessantly harried and criticized by Eyde, he came to feel like a hired hand in the service of Eyde’s vision of a commercial megalith. This, combined with his deliberate marginalization by Eyde, made him decide to submit all the patents for the furnace in his own name, despite the fact that he had signed an agreement with Eyde that ownership of the patents would be shared. He was aware that this would cause problems when he was found out, but his ideas were his only currency.
Eyde noticed Birkeland’s pallor and agitation on his regular inspections and, making discreet inquiries about the professor’s health to acquaintances at the university, was informed that Birkeland had been prone to “nervous freezing fits” since his student days. Eyde took this to mean that Birkeland’s mental health was fragile and he became worried that progress on the furnace might be slowed if he broke under the strain. He began to plan how he could edge the unpredictable professor out of the company now that most of the theoretical work was accomplished. He quietly wrote to his contacts in Sweden to find an engineer who could replace Birkeland should the need arise and took every opportunity to cement his position as head of the saltpeter enterprise with the shareholders. He told Wallenberg that Næss found Birkeland exasperating; Eyde made references to Birkeland’s fragile state of health and raised questions about his reliability now that the project had progressed to a more serious level. Wallenberg agreed to help Eyde look for a replacement engineer.
While Birkeland sweated over the furnace’s performance, Eyde sought larger investors to risk capital on developing industrial-scale furnaces and to build a hydroelectric plant on one of his waterfalls to power it. Wallenberg, Tillberg, and Persson were bankrolling the expensive experiments for the time being but their resources were not limitless. It was a difficult balancing act, asking for money for a process that was not yet proven to work on an industrial scale but that needed investment to make it happen. Most financiers were excited by the possibility of a compound that every farmer needed but doubted that the Birkeland furnace would work any better than other methods that had been tried and failed. Eyde needed to speed up the development of the furnace even more. At the beginning of February he wrote to Wallenberg to request that an engineer be sent from Sweden. He wanted more control over the technical aspects of the company and could not achieve that while Birkeland was in charge of the workshop.
The following week, engineer Lindström arrived with Wallenberg and, in a move calculated to tie Birkeland’s hands, Eyde took them to inspect the Ankerløkken site. The professor could not object to Lindström’s presence in front of Wallenberg but he was clearly shocked that a new engineer had been engaged without his approval. Birkeland showed Lindström the furnace and the absorption system and answered his many questions, but when they left he simply nodded goodbye. Eyde knew that Birkeland would be incensed by this betrayal and further annoyed that he was introducing so many Swedish elements into the company. While Birkeland was not prejudiced against individual Swedes, he would have preferred finance to come from sources other than their oppressor in the Union. He had once written to Bjerkenes, “We will show the Swedes who is boss” after Bjerkenes had delivered a particularly good lecture in Stockholm; Eyde’s familiarity with Swedish bankers was undermining this sentiment.
Two days after Lindström’s visit, Birkeland collapsed. His housekeeper called his brother, Tønnes, who arrived the following day to find Birkeland in bed, shivering and incomprehensible. Empty bottles of whisky had been pushed under the bedside table and a half-full one stood on top. Tønnes realized his brother was suffering from nervous exhaustion brought on by unrelenting work and that his depression had returned. He went to the local pharmacy and asked for a gentle sleeping powder and a tonic. The pharmacist advised him of a new product that had just been launched, veronal, considered safe enough to buy without prescription. It was produced by Bayer, a reputable German pharmaceutical company. Tønnes read the label carefully:
Veronal—Recommended to be given in hot tea or water. The compound has a soporific action indicated in nervous restlessness, insomnia and depression, for maniacs and in cardiac troubles. Does not affect temperature or respiration. May cause erythema [superficial reddening of the skin in patches]. Produces sleep without subsequent depression.
The pharmacist explained that veronal was diethyl barbituric acid, measured in grains of white crystalline powder and that five to ten grains would promote sleep. As if to assure Tønnes that it would help Professor Birkeland’s insomnia, he explained that the strange name resulted from the fact that a pharmacist from Bayer, who was testing the substance on a train journey to Italy, had slept for eight hours and not woken up until the guard shouted the name of his stop, “Verona.” Tønnes bought a small bag of veronal. Back home he made a pot of black tea for his brother, warning him that the grains tasted very bitter and needed to be dissolved in warm liquid. Birkeland slept well for the first time in months, but his condition remained unstable and Tønnes advised him to stay in bed for the next two weeks at least. Before returning to Porsgrund, he asked Sem Sæland and the Mohns to call on his brother occasionally.
When Eyde was informed of Birkeland’s illness, he was relieved that the professor would be out of the way of the new engineer. Næss was occasionally sent to Birkeland’s house to consult with him over insignificant design problems but Birkeland realized that this was to keep him away from the workshop. Næss would not even write a note of his replies. Birkeland was aware that some days Næss found him incoherent, distracted, or so intense it was hard for him to leave. These occasions followed bad nights when Birkeland was driven to distraction by restlessness and unfocused but intense dissatisfaction and frustration. The only release he could find was to take more veronal than his brother had recommended and wash the bitter grains down with whisky rather than tea.
The halfhearted visits by Næss served only to convince Birkeland that Eyde was trying to remove him from the project. He was correct in his suspicions. In a letter to Marcus Wallenberg’s brother, Knut, Eyde made it clear that Birkeland’s presence was superfluous.
Christiania
14 March 1904
Dear Bank Manager Knut Wallenberg,
The stay here of Engineer Lindström, for which I am very grateful, has been very useful to us. It has been useful not only because Professor Birkeland has been ill in bed all the time since the arrival of the gentleman, but also because I believe his quiet and thorough investigations of various electrical problems will shed light on several problems where we so far have been in doubt. He has made several suggestions during his stay that I am convinced will be advantageous to the project, and I dare to request of you, if possible, to arrange that Lindström come back to Christiania to conclude his investigations. The time is now favourable since Professor Birkeland still has to keep indoors and, accordingly, can do nothing personally at the test plant.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
S. Eyde
When Henrik Mohn was told by Tønnes of his friend’s collapse, he rang Ida and suggested that a visit from her might be welcome. Although she had been upset by Birkeland’s dropping their meetings in favor of the furnace, she felt somewhat mollified by the fact that the excuse must have been genuine if he had become ill from overwork. On the first Saturday she had free from school, Ida dressed in the narrow-waisted, dark gray jacket she kept for special occasions (as there were twenty-two tiny buttons to be fastened down the front with a special hook) and took the train for the twenty-five-kilometer journey from Lillestrøm to Lysaker. She found her way to the address Henrik Mohn had given her, Villa Granstua, a large house with a gabled roof, red tiles, and numerous wooden balconies. It was more ornate than most on the street and had six bells at the downstairs door. Birkeland’s housekeeper let Ida in and showed her into the large drawing room, which had a bay window shrouded in heavy velvet blinds. There were books and papers piled on the desk at the window but otherwise it was an anonymous place, devoid of photographs or personal effects. Even in her small room at the school Ida had photographs and her own drawings on the walls.
Birkeland walked quietly into the room after a long interval. Despite his surprise at seeing Ida, he was pleased that she had come and the visit went well. She returned the following day and on subsequent weekends while he was confined to his apartment. She would bring him the journals he asked for, eat with him, discuss politics or her school and family, and inquire closely into his state of health. Birkeland was grateful for the attention as the muffled silence of the house bore into him like toothache after the noise and activity of his life before the illness. His old friends, Amund Helland, Henrik Mohn, and Sem Sæland, and his cousin Richard, also came regularly, bringing news of the university, small items of gossip or controversy that might stir the old Birkeland, the engaged and passionate professor, to rise from the listless invalid who had replaced him.
With the ministrations of his friends, rest, and regular sleep, Birkeland’s health slowly improved. The first time he left the house after his collapse was on 12 March for Sem Sæland’s wedding to Gudrun Schøning. Birkeland was determined to be there but he knew he was not fit enough to attend alone, so he asked Ida to accompany him. Although nothing was said, their appearance together at the wedding moved their relationship to a different level, from friendship to courtship, and the unusual couple enjoyed the flurry of looks and questions they received, since neither was used to turning heads.
Despite his collapse, Birkeland returned to work at his usual pace, making time only for Ida, who persuaded him to join in the Norwegian obsession of walking in the forests on weekends. Throughout the late spring and summer he worked in his office with Sæland and Dietrichson, devoting some days to the furnace, others to planning a new laboratory, yet others to studying the results of the last expedition. During his convalescence, Birkeland accepted the fact that he would have to cooperate with Eyde’s appointees and that the politics of big business reached as far as the factory floor. The reward for relinquishing complete control of the furnace would be more time to work on the Aurora Polaris Expedition.
At the beginning of April the Wallenberg brothers agreed to use their bank as guarantor to create a new company, Electrochemical Industry (ELKEM), with capital of five million crowns, almost four million of which would be controlled by the Wallenbergs. ELKEM took over the majority of the shares in the Norwegian Nitrogen Company and the rights to Eyde’s waterfalls. A new test factory was to be built at Notodden, a village in the heart of the Telemark district, southwest of Christiania. Birkeland, already so busy, was put in charge of approving the plans. Rather than cancel meetings with Ida, Birkeland began working through the night again to finish the designs for the factory by the autumn.
Matters between Birkeland and Eyde deteriorated further when Næss, who checked the patent drawings for the furnace that had been returned by Bryn, informed Eyde that Birkeland had been submitting them in his name alone. Eyde was furious. He believed that nothing would have happened with Birkeland’s idea without the financing he had put in place, but if Birkeland’s name alone was on the patents, he might one day seek to regain control of his invention. For Birkeland, his ownership of the patents was the last shred of influence he retained in the rapidly changing company, and he did not want to relinquish it. The disagreement rumbled on, poisoning an already strained collaboration.
As the short Norwegian autumn was followed by winter, Birkeland’s considerable workload was made heavier when he had to travel to Notodden to supervise the installation of the furnaces in the factory. The journey involved four hours on a train to Kongsberg and then another three hours by horse carriage over the hills between the railway station and Heddalsvann Lake, on the north shore of which lay Notodden. The village consisted of about fifty houses, a hotel for the few tourists who ventured that way, a handful of small farms in the clearings, and small fields reclaimed from the pine forest that came down to the water’s edge. It was a peaceful, beautiful place although Birkeland had no time to appreciate it. As always, Eyde was pressuring the engineers, construction workers, and Birkeland to finish the factory in record time. Wallenberg had persuaded the French bank Paribas to consider becoming a major shareholder in the enterprise but they would invest only if a committee of experts declared Birkeland’s invention capable of producing saltpeter in sufficient quantities to turn a profit. An added incentive to hurry was that Otto Witt had informed Eyde that the BASF furnace was also close to being tested. If it proved more efficient than Birkeland’s, no one would put money into the Norwegian company and the whole venture would collapse in a morass of bankruptcy and wasted effort. Eyde set a June date for the experts to inspect the furnace, just a few months ahead.
Although Eyde did not admit it, Birkeland knew there was a further problem, potentially more serious than the others. Relations between Norway and Sweden were worsening; the Union was at breaking point and both nations were preparing for armed conflict in the face of Sweden’s refusal to acknowledge Norway’s grievances. The investors in the new company were Swedish, but it would become impossible to transfer money from one country to the other if war broke out. There would be a backlash against allowing Swedes so much interest in a Norwegian company using national assets and the Swedish engineers would be forced to return home. In short, the entire enterprise would founder within hours if war were declared.
10
Ida
Monday, 15 May 1905
Pension Parkveien 25, Christiania
To the finder of nitrogen in air, we salute you on this happy day.
Telegram sent to Birkeland by the Norwegian Parliament,
15 May 1905
BIRKELAND did not keep a diary. Important information, equations, expense details, phone numbers and social engagements were written on scraps of paper and used as bookmarks, or filed under seat cushions and in his pockets. His housekeeper would collect any notes she found and leave them in a neat pile on the hall table under a piece of rock Birkeland had brought back from Haldde summit. Without a diary, he was prone to forget appointments, which was why he arranged to give a lecture about the aurora to a large group of dignitaries on Monday, 15 May. Only later, once it was too late to cancel, did Birkeland realize that the lecture would clash with an important prior commitment: his wedding.
On the morning of 15 May, Birkeland stood in front of his audience in full formal dress, white shirt and cravat, shiny black patent leather shoes, trying to avoid getting chalk dust on his new suit and talking as fast as he could. Amund Helland, due to act as Birkeland’s witness (with some reluctance because he did not approve of marriage), was waiting outside the Festival Hall with a carriage to rush them to Frogner Church, where the ceremony was due to begin just half an hour after the lecture finished. Helland looked only slightly less scruffy than usual in a deep russet, wide-brimmed hat and a cape pushed back over his shoulders to reveal a creased suit onto which ash was dropping from his pipe. Helland was well aware of his sartorial laxness. He had been walking along the harbor by the old railway station a few weeks before when a young dandy offered him a crown to carry a heavy case. Helland had replied, “It is a good wage, sir, but first I have to go to the university to give a lecture!” This incident had shamed him into buying a new suit, although he rarely wore it.
Giving the briefest of bows at the end of his talk, Birkeland hurried out of the hall, brushing the chalk dust from his hands and collecting the leather-bound prayer book Ida had given him as an engagement present. The carriage trotted briskly along the southern boundary of the Royal Palace grounds, then right into Frognerveien. Birkeland and Helland managed to arrive before the bride and were greeted by the priest, who directed them to the front pew. There were no guests waiting and the flowers were those left over from the Sunday service. After Birkeland proposed to Ida, they had visited the local parish church because a church ceremony was the only legal way to marry in Norway, but Birkeland, who had not attended a service since graduating from university, had persuaded the priest to allow them the simplest ceremony, with just two witnesses, no guests, hymns, or sermon. Although Ida was deeply religious, she was well aware that Birkeland was not and she felt too old to indulge in the fuss of a traditional wedding.
