“The seed of Abraham in which all nations should be blessed.”
“What about David’s throne?”
“The promise was to Abraham, not to David. The latter’s throne will be
raised to a republic.”
“Was the spirit of republic first of Jesus?”
“From the beginning of God.”
As a foot disappears. “Will woman equalize in its rule, Presidentess as
of God?”
“That is the universal rule.”
Another foot starts, I haste again. “Who is the devil?” But he is gone
too quick. And around about me come living people; friends at home.
“Can the living come?” I ask Savant, who is still near.
“In spirit form just the same.”
I talk to them; they to me, the news of each. We walk about and discuss
the people and the occasion, quite content in each other’s society.
In the center of the room, upon a pedestal are Serpenta and Show Off. I
do believe they have been married, for this has been the assembly. We
arrive at their side with loving wishes, in time to see a chamois
garlanded close by. We hear the word “initiation” and stuff our mouths
at its American misapplication.
The crowd are gone and spirit friends. I say to Saucy:
“Let’s go to bed,” who replies:
“I have just woke up. I went in dream to see Mamma. She was crying. I
put my arm around her neck and she leaned her head on me and was
comforted. I told her I would come home in a cloud, which scared her so,
I laughed out loud. She heard, and looked about the room, then took her
work. I think I will go every night to see her.”
My father is brushing by my arm. I say:
“O, what do you think, I saw my little children who are dead, in dear
mother’s care. They have been growing by my side. I knew them plainly
and realize I have oft consciously caressed them. What is the element
producing the phenomena?”
“It is positive electricity confined by glass. The balloons of clouds
are thus manipulated and strong to carry a number of people. I am
studying how constructed, to use them in our return.”
I go out hastily into the night, the long night of this city. My mind so
wrought upon by home people I look up at the velvet black sky, and pray:
Silent night! Above me
Thy sublimity far reaching
Opens to Omniscience!
Specks are thy sun system
In dotted plain!
Mindful of human pain—
Communest thou peace?
Longing to leave this place.
Great everywhere, guide me,
Guiding me here, guide me hence.
I await thy signal
In calm acceptance.
What? A Crown of Radiance arisen there. A solemn bell tolls forth;
streams of light are shed around in spectrum sparks; the river banks are
deserted; the towers tenantless, as each citizen hastens to the inner
aisles of verdure depths, where issues shadowed fire.
I keep pace with Savant, whom first I see and reach with him an inner
balcony that is endless in curving ring each side, making amphitheater
around the city. The center is a great open rotunda, of fields, miles
broad, of shaking ice. A flame of gold supplying the Crown above ascends
out of a round cavernous crater in the center.
Savant seats himself on a raised broad platform, commanding a view of
the whole scene. I unconsciously sit beside him. Beneath our feet I see
a rug of “hel”iotrope. (NOTE. The quotation marks in the flowers give a
double meaning. A “hel” meaning heel on the rug.) A hedge of
“wall”flower hems us in from a row of poplar tree columns. Before us on
a table is spread a set of “China” asters under a canopy of blue iris
(flag). As Canterbury “bells” ring forth, we begin a feast.
The centerpiece is a large “sweet-pea”cock, flanked by “chick”weed on
each side, “butter”cup, “pica”lily and “pitcher”plant have places.
Alarm at my heart at the solemn tolling bell had hastened my feet
hither. To find a scenic banquet is somewhat puzzling. The usual
ascending glow, with its usual reversal of shadows, is augmented by the
added source, in new portraiture, adding to the picturesqueness of the
occasion. Taught at home that all people without Christ are barbaric, I
was expecting an abject worship of the disturbed elements. Instead I am
pleased as surprised to find it an inspiration of interest only.
I look to get their knowledge of the phenomena. For its solution I have
left home and risked my life. That they fear it not, is evident. Instead
they love and reverence its benefaction to them—lighting and warming
their homes all winter; their winter daylight—as Roban said, in their
interior winter quarters. Unusually quiet this season so far, but this
is to outdo all, make up for lost time, unprecedented in grandeur. That
they understand it I am solicitous to know. I could catch a word now and
then. I could understand in the voluble tonic, stream of talk I read
from their gestures and expressive faces some meaning of their patriotic
interest.
The morning banquet at an end, all sit back in their seats and look at
Savant as though some special ceremony is to ensue. Thoroughly excited,
I see him hold a state book and read:
“We receive again God’s sign of the disturbance of aurora—our beautiful
mother in the earth—who gathers us each winter around her fireside to
comfort us in its warm beams.”
“What is aurora?”
“Yearly we ask this question. None have answered us. We yearly invite
our subjects to explore her confines, whence she lights her beacon. We
invite now.”
“Who will descend the Glory Hall to pay devoirs to the country’s
goddess.”
I had followed him quite plainly. When he stopped, in the silence that
followed a great light filled my eyes, as the idea that engendered it
filled my mind.
I a“rose” in my seat, which latter is a rose vine—insignia of
aurora—which word I hear in suppressed intuition in application to
myself as a branch of bloom settles on my head wreath-like. Raising my
hands in acceptance of the undertaking, they look calmly at me,
incredulous, when I speak in full earnest tones:
“I will go, God of the universe, Creator of aurora has led me hither for
that purpose.”
Sitting again, they are convinced, and much upset in their calculations,
that I so small should answer the great request.
In their surprise I get full revenge of all I have been subject of so
long.
Now, all look at Savant, which occasions me to do the same. The
phenomenal wave of thought, individual to him, wraps his countenance in
stormy struggle. He speaks:
“We cannot accept, in duty to guest and stranger.” But I gesture firmly.
Again he is submerged with greater struggles to exhaustion of his great
strength, when an enduring calm arises in his face, like a smiling
island in a hurricane tossed sea. Waving his hands, as I had done, he
speaks:
“I will take you.”
All arise in consternation and press about us. Mae, wild-eyed, shakes me
back and forth. Father buries his face in his hands. Roba and Charley
only, clap their hands. The tide now turns in our favor; all is pleasant
bustle. The tender social visiting of their usual tenor and normal habit
is changed to agitation in concocting a mode of preparation to ensure
our safety, resulting in an elaborate scheme of training, to which we
are subjected, separately, next day.
Bandaged securely we are rolled about and tossed. Suspended to a long
rope we are dangled in mid air, swung in a circle with increasing speed.
Hands are waved before us, jumping and shouting indulged in to harden
our nerves. Left alone, click, the floor beneath is loosening,
revolving, opening, black darkness ensues, then lights glimmer around;
bells, whistles and reverberations fill all the air with din, followed
by melody so low as scarcely to be heard—the music of the spheres.
This has taken days, as it has been necessary to repeat each lesson,
over and over. Quite unnecessary, I think, is so much pains of
preparation.
But at last the day is appointed, as all things are ready.
The city is astir from center to circumference. We are on view in
Central Hall. The masses pass by us in solemn file to take leave of us,
as of their dead. I feel to smile, but like the dead am turned to stone.
We next are placed in a round crystal globe receptacle. Packed in,
Savant’s unique instruments to his hand. Fluid food to our mouths
through a tube. Condensed air to our nostrils. We are locked in by
Savant.
Now carried out on a long platform pier toward the abyss and placed upon
the top of a huge iceberg mass—as weight to sink us.
Dynamite hurls us out over fields and blocks of surging ice, lifting us
into the rose enfolding pit. My sole experience is precipitation.
Conscious of swift descent, unattended by jar, thrilled to the center of
my being, I realize my position.
Readers, what is to ensue, is the special key to the phenomena of
Astronomy. For the contents of the next few pages, I have written this
story.
I am not the first who has thought the earth to be hollow, and entered
at the Arctics. Also that a rolling fire, and open sea, are within. That
I _define_ this fire, and its _safe control_, thereby discovering the
_secret_ of our planet, and its object in the solar system, is the first
time such definition has been given ever. Is of such high importance I
deem it my solemn duty to publish it.
Adding a relevant definition of the Sun, and other sky objects, is but
following out the line, struck by the first keynote.
In comparison with the present indefinite theory, this illustration far
exceeds it in practical demonstration—ever satisfactory to truthful
students.
Shelly in the time of Byron voiced this promise of the Arctics.
Poets have sung of its unknown city.
Capital and life have ever embarked for its discovery.
The smoke has cleared, leaving a steady moonlight, brightness
intensified. I think to look below and see there a moon, round and
glistening, many miles in width, its grandeur startling. Transfixed, I
see it grow, as it is plainly coming up higher. To relieve my eyes I
look to one side to see its appurtenances, only to find none. The sides
of the cavern are far away and undiscernible. I am puzzled. Resolving to
understand this unexpected bearing, I look first at my watch. A new
puzzle is on its face. Its calendar declares the passage of days since I
have been here. I turn square to the beautiful moon beneath me and
bravely steady my understanding, for a queer unrest sensation is trying
to creep on me.
Though I throw it off, in its terrifying aspect, yet it wraps me round
and permeates my consciousness. That this moon, now so quiet and
glittering, is not only the fire producing the Aurora smoke, but
something more. The painful solicitude of Arc people at letting me do
this daring act, that to me looked like mockery, is demonstrative of
their better understanding. If Savant knew what was to happen, I cannot
say, for I cannot speak to him, nor he to me, nor see each other’s
faces. I am alone with the problem I have put myself in. My old statue
sense upholds me. I lean on it as I place straight the lines of new
knowledge—that the moon I see is not a moon, but the central fire of the
whole earth—the molten mass of astronomical science.
That it does not fill the whole center is second new knowledge, for a
haze of distance is each side and above, denoting far removal of the
earth-crust, egg shell, undiscoverable even by the powerful lens of the
crystal globe around me. Central of the earth, it may be thousands of
miles below, though slowly growing. My strained eyes take its impress on
their inner orbs. Wherever I look it is there. I settle bravely to scan
it, enchanted. A new phase comes over it. A flame column is rearing;
breaks and sparks fly upward as coals snap outward. Should the latter
hit the crust, so far away, it would stir it somewhat, giving the
outward inhabitants a shock of earthquake. I have it—this is the cause
of earthquakes. Third new knowledge.
Nearer to the flame that now rolls back and forth as if to engulf us, it
bends downward on each side as if the space around it were also below
it. Thus have I seen our hall lamp do at home when disturbed by air
currents.
Lamp! Lamp! Is the earth a lamp?
Before me is the key note.
Hiss, crack! It is our life preserver—the iceberg beneath us. Melted to
vapor it will ascend and carry our globe to Arc again.
Listening with wildly beating heart in intense suspense, I become
unconscious as fiery serpents twine beneath me.
At last recovered I look again; but no longer there. Ah, above? Have we
passed it?
Below it and still descending. I lean heavily and wholly on my statue.
The days make no impress on me. Not even when I see the sky out of
southern zone. Coldly viewing the Southern Cross Constellation of sun
stars, the planet Mercury comes between, taking on a peculiar distinct
phase. I sluggishly remember that in a mine the planets are seen thus at
noon-day. Ah! is the earth’s center to be a mine to me?
My eyes become exhilarant as I quickly investigate. I can see its
(Mercury’s) rivers, mountains plainly. I can see into it. As I get
excited, I see an inside flaming fire, as earth’s. Then it is—yes, a
lamp, also.
The planets lamps? Where are their chimneys? I inspect again. There
certainly is no chimney to guard the draught. I will study. Oh, why did
I not notice before, it is more like a Chinese lantern—candle inside,
colored shade outside.
I look in ecstasy for days. It is, as is our dear mother earth, a
beautiful Japanese lantern; made by Deity’s hand to revolve around the
glowing sun.
A sun ray spectrums the interior of earth. O, beam alive with electric,
spirit intelligence, give me a sign. The sun itself comes. My eye, on
fire, looks into its soul. O, sun, what art thou? Worshiped by some as
God, by all as a great life giver. Ages past and future will you roll,
unguided by man.
I am now so hot I wonder if I have partly warmed the inside of my statue
being, (so wholly benumbed I became at the knowledge of passing below
the earth’s center, inside light—losing all shadow of hope of seeing Arc
again—that my marble state was more than ever marbleized). Now that I am
treated, in lieu of home, to new explanations of past astronomical
phenomena, is some recompense to my constitutionally enthusiastic mind.
Holding down an equally strong impulse to desire to tell this new
acquisition, I let it unfold to myself to warm me under my marble
shield. What follows fast? Vision upon vision is enlarging my interior
sense of human life, until my outside is only cold. My whole inner is
seething in ardor until my eyes break through the statue thrall. Too
hasty—the light blinds me. I close them impatiently; open slowly.
Is the sun a China lamp? O, no, no; but an American electric arc light.
I hurrah unrestrainedly!
Around it dance its gay planets as it sits and beams warmly upon their
atlas garniture—a round crystal-globed lamp. I see a marking on the
disc. Does it designate a disturbance within? It grows and changes.
Would that some astronomer were here. The globe in which I sit is steady
in its motion, but the marking on the sun changes oft. I look up toward
the earth flame to see coming from its side more coals and smoke; also
so far one side as to clear its blaze safely, is a huge mass—yes,
ice—coming swiftly directly over me. Having collected all this hard
winter, it has rolled over the edge of Arc to complete my destruction
for my daring temerity. Resolving to retain consciousness, I look
downward at the sun spot. It has changed; is changing, as does the
ice-mass above me. Can that mass, in eclipse from the light above, be
the spot? I believe it is, and that it will now strike us.
Hitting only on the edge of our anchor, ice, it spins the globe off into
space, over and over, vapor spouts adhering. But I have seen behind us a
slim stationary object. Is it? Oh, is it a fixture to hold the earth
flame?
Relieved of our heavy ice we gravitate to it (as the ice-mass
evaporates, filling the interior with Aurora prisms. These escaping at
both northern and southern zone outlet, are certain proof of the
attending phenomena).
Sliding along its length we curve toward the side of the earth which I
shall hope soon to see. Coming at last far away, like a cloud, now to
it, we dip down (or the rod fixture on which we slide, as though some
inner electric lode drew us).
This quite mysterious direction engages my study as we pass under the
earth-crust, as it, China-lantern transparent like, curves by above us
as if in a rim. I study; why the crust of the earth turns round and
round, and not the rod! Surely no earthly lantern is so elaborately
constructed.
Engaged in study I find myself outside. The rod arises now in height of
location and branches to each side of the crust-rim, fork like.
Extending, we go out, out toward the sun. As we lightly bound hither and
thither, side and about, I catch a backward glance of the continent
America. Tears fill my eyes. As I press them out I see approaching a
white cliff on the rod, covering its width. This side are crowding a
swarm of tiny people absorbed in dislodging a huge boulder of which the
ground is covered. Clinging about them is a semi-transparent vapor that
floats and densifies, collecting over their heads. They jump into the
air, whirl over harlequin like and descend to push again the boulder.
No sign of vegetation; there must be no air. Can the vapor be their
breath? Why does it not float away? In the globe I have tubes to my nose
that supply my breath.
The little fairies, are they (I pinch myself) getting into mischief? An
adult makes peace by administering sharp pinches. As one moves its mouth
to howl, I do too, but cannot make a sound; neither does the child who
cries without. I see the reason. A thin filmy gauze surrounds it
confining the vapor breath.
Over goes the boulder lightly as if hollow. Losing its rod gravitation
it flies off toward the earth and disappears (dashing on its surface—an
aerolite).
Ere they select another we enter their midst. Not seeing us within, they
grasp the globe and roll it over. Seeing a debris marring its shining
surface they pound it off. This removed from the fastening Savant swings
it open, Pandora-box-like, as off they rush. Winding carefully his
breath tubes about him, Savant takes tools, solutions, etc., and
stepping out carefully inspects the boulder’s surface. (Are they the
dust on the rod?) Selecting one he quickly works. Indents and excavates
a large round cavity, disclosing a glittering black diamond interior,
disappearing inside as he works. I, curiously steer the globe to the
entrance. The inside smooth he places a block in the center, obvious as
rest to the globe which I steer to and stop on, seeing myself an equal
distance from the interior sides. Satisfied, he proceeds to throw a
solution over the latter, which brings out a picture or reflection from
the globe-disc, camera-like. Is the picture the interior of the earth? I
scan it curiously.
After the ice border (around the north pole) land with one only
vegetation, a white cactus. White is the color of the whole inside
except some blackened spots. The cactus skin is clothing of a people who
appear, who eat the pulp and work the thorns into houses and into ships
as water, first shallow, deeper grows; and again into forts upon the
cacti brunches growing up out of the water, thorn protected from sea
monsters. Then these last range alone.
A great blur where we passed the light, more sea includes the lower
half.