"Now move this way with your chair, and look at this map. And in the
first place, I will tell you that at the South Pole--probably not
precisely at the pole, but certainly within the sixth of a degree of
it--is a circular surface of absolutely white-hot, boiling lava, about
fifteen miles in diameter. This surface was, in ages past, as indicated
by surroundings, many times its present surface extent--say from seventy
to seventy-five miles across. No doubt the surface of the earth at the
Antarctic Pole had once cooled, and later become covered with water,
though with very shallow water--probably at some points by none, at
others by a depth of ten or fifteen feet. From some cause--and many
causes might be imagined--this earth-and-water surface of say two
hundred miles in circumference, sank into the interior of the earth, and
the boiling lava came to the surface. We can scarcely conceive of the
awful effect when the Antarctic Sea poured over the circumference of
this mass of boiling earth and metal.
"Now it must be considered that this boiling lava was not merely a great
surface of white-hot matter, in which case it would, relatively
speaking, soon have cooled. To flood its edges with an overflow of ten
feet of water would be comparable to running a film of water a hundredth
of an inch in depth over the top of a red-hot stove in which a large
fire continues to burn and constantly to renew the heat on its surface.
This surface of boiling lava must have had a practically limitless
depth, and the water which poured over it must have evaporated
instantly. After thinking the matter over, with the _data_ which I have
well in view, I concluded that it required about two hundred years for
the water to reach the limit which it finally attained as water _en
masse_. A little thought on the subject has shown me that Peters is
telling the truth, because his description, to my mind, harmonizes with
the laws of physics. One of the earliest phenomena presented by this
condition, was that so much sea-water evaporated, and evaporated so
rapidly, that masses of rock-salt formed, creating a partial barrier to
the inroads of the sea--I say a partial barrier, because the
deliquescence of salt would cause it to be the poorest of all barriers
to water. Still, we must remember that the immediately surrounding water
must have reached, so far as salt is concerned, the saturation point,
and would have been a very slow solvent of hard rock-salt in enormous
masses and several miles in extent. Then, two other conditions soon
arose: First, the warm surrounding water permitted a coral-like
development, as shown by present appearances, and second, volcanic
action began.
"Now look at my map. This inner circle represents the present area of
boiling lava, which, as I have said, is about fifteen miles in
diameter--the South Pole, according to the natives, being at about the
point corresponding to this dot, marked 'a.' The ring next without the
circle I have made to represent a zone of lava which is at its inner
edge white-hot, and at its outer edge red-hot, its width, let us say, as
the division is arbitrary, about four miles. The second circle
represents a zone of lava which is dull red at its inner edge, and
black, but hot, at its outer. Of course the lava blends away from
white-hot within, to barely warm without; but I thus map it, the better
to picture reigning conditions. The next circle, some four or five miles
in width, represents a ring of cold lava-blocks, masses of rock-salt,
and animalculine remains, from twenty-five to two hundred feet high.
Outside of this last-mentioned zone, we have several rings of volcanic
mountains with intervening valleys, and many active craters at the
summit of mountains; while on the mountain-sides lie numerous masses of
rock-salt, thrown from below by eruptive action, glistening in the
brilliant volcanic light, and slowly deliquescing. This zone of
mountains and valleys is from ten to twenty miles in width, and whilst
in the main its mountains are not more than from half a mile to a mile
high, it contains peaks of five or six miles in height, and there is one
peak which rises nine miles above the sea-level.
"I want you to look particularly at these larger mountain-ranges, one at
the right, the other at the left side of my map--each of which as it
stretches out into the sea divides into two smaller chains. Upon these
ranges, and the comparatively diminutive height of the intervening
mountains, in connection with the fact that there is a constant
wind-current from the lower Pacific (generally speaking, from the west
of longitude 74 W.), depends the habitability of this large island, the
Island of Hili-li (here represented in about longitude 75 E.), and many
other islands which stretch out in the same direction from this enormous
active surface-crater. I say that upon such conditions depends the
habitability of these islands, and so I believe; but there is another
cause for their greater than tropical warmth: If you will glance here on
the right of this map, in the midst of the mountain zone you will see
represented a bay, which, winding among mountains, makes its way very
close to the zone of hot lava--in fact, is divided from it by little
more than the ring of lava-blocks, rock-salt, and animal remains, which
at this point is narrowed to a width of about two miles. The temperature
of the water of this bay at its inner extremity is probably about 180
F.--say 32 below the boiling-point of distilled water; and it flows in a
steady current past the Island of Hili-li. This bay is undoubtedly fed
from the opposite side of the great crater, and its supply flows for
miles in contact with hot lava. It is probable that this extremely warm
water current greatly assists the hot-air current in creating the
super-tropical climate of Hili-li.
"And now, as I have in part satisfied your curiosity, and as I am
somewhat exhausted with my two days' and nights' experience with Peters,
I know you will permit me to rest at so suitable a stopping-point.
To-morrow evening I will take up the story of Dirk Peters where it joins
the sudden break in Pym's journal, and will carry you along to the time
when the inhabitants of Hili-li thought that the atmosphere of some
other land would be more conducive to Peters' longevity and health, as
well as to their own tranquillity. And I assure your Sultanship, that
the story I shall relate to you to-morrow night will be more interesting
than the dry physical facts which I have this evening imparted, and
which it seemed best that you should know before hearing in consecutive
detail the particulars of Peters' voyage."
I assented to his suggestions, thanking him for the clear description
which he had given of that strange region, and for the pains he had
taken to draft of it so accurate a map--which map he allowed me to
retain. I was about to ask a question, when the door opened, and Doctor
Castleton rushed into the room.
"Well, how's the old man?" he asked.
We described Peters' condition; and I even recounted a few of the facts
which Bainbridge had just imparted to me. Then I asked the question
which Castleton's abrupt entry had delayed.
"But," I asked, "has not Peters' imagination, owing to the
administration of drugs, been unnaturally stimulated? There are drugs
which it is commonly believed may have a wonderful effect in stimulating
the imagination to flights of marvellous grandeur."
"No," said Bainbridge. "The doctor here will say the same. No drug on
earth could produce even an approach to such an effect."
"Certainly not," said Castleton. "The mass of laymen are not only
ignorant--excuse me, sir, but I know you want the facts--not only
ignorant, but extremely and persistently ignorant on this subject. I
have heard it said that Byron drank twelve--or perhaps twenty--bottles
of wine the night he wrote 'The Corsair.' If he did, he simply wrote
'The Corsair' in spite of the wine. I have heard it stated that Poe was
intoxicated when he wrote 'The Raven'--which is not only an untrue
statement but one that could not possibly be true, and which certainly
every man who ever attempted to write under the influence of an
alcoholic stimulant knows to be false. Drugs--including alcohol--which
are supposed to stimulate what we might term a rational imagination,
only stimulate an irrational fancy. They seem to the person affected to
cause a play of imagination, but they really produce only a state of
nervous action which causes their subject to feel appreciation of
otherwise trifling mental pictures that in themselves are flimsy
nothings. Let a man so affected try to impart to another his fancies,
and--well, who has not been bored by a drunken man? Did De Quincey, with
that superb mind, succeed in fancying anything that even he could tell?
He speaks of glowing drug-born fancies, but he describes nothings. Now
Milton, the old Puritan--the cold-water man--he had fancies which he was
able to transmit, and which are worthy to be forever treasured. The
early Greeks were exceedingly temperate, and the men who composed the
'Nostoi' were not drunkards--Homer sang the 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey'
with a sober tongue, and a sober brain back of his utterances. The man
who gets drunk to write poetry, will find it easier to write his poetry
on the following morning, spite of headache, blue-devils, and all." He
paused for a moment; and then this peculiar man continued:
"And I know! Why, sir, I have drunk barrels of whiskey--barrels of the
stuff. I have seen whiskey-snakes in squirming masses three feet deep. I
have gone into a parlor, and had a lady say when she saw me fumbling in
my pockets: 'Doctor, your handkerchief is in your back pocket.' Bless
her! I was only putting back into my pockets the jim-jam snake-heads as
the snakes _would_ try to emerge! I pity a weak devil that goes home and
to bed because of a mild attack of delirium tremens. I brush the vipers
away with a sweep of my hand, and go about my business. But I myself
draw the line at roosters. A man who may laugh at snakes will quail
before roosters. A fellow may shut his eyes to snakes, but he can't shut
his ears to roosters. Well, well: it's all in a life-time. But, believe
me, no good poetry, either in verse or in prose, is drunkenman poetry."
With which final remark he shot out of the room. Then Doctor Bainbridge
took his departure, and I retired to sleep and to dream of fiery
craters, with snakes crawling out of them, and gigantic roosters picking
up the snakes one by one and dropping them over a mountain of salt into
a lake of boiling water. I was pleased when morning came, and I heard
the comparatively cheering tinkle from bells on the team of mules
drawing the little "bob-tail" street-car past the hotel.