n
into this vast cavity, I can undertake to give you no explanation.
Doubtless, if we carry ourselves back to the Quaternary epoch, we shall
find that great and mighty convulsions took place in the crust of the
earth; the continually cooling operation, through which the earth had to
pass, produced fissures, landslips, and chasms, through which a large
portion of the earth made its way. I come to no absolute conclusion, but
there is the man, surrounded by the works of his hands, his hatchets and
his carved flints, which belong to the stony period; and the only
rational supposition is, that, like myself, he visited the centre of the
earth as a traveling tourist, a pioneer of science. At all events, there
can be no doubt of his great age, and of his being one of the oldest
race of human beings."

The Professor with these words ceased his oration, and I burst forth
into loud and "unanimous" applause. Besides, after all, my uncle was
right. Much more learned men than his nephew would have found it rather
hard to refute his facts and arguments.

Another circumstance soon presented itself. This fossilized body was not
the only one in this vast plain of bones--the cemetery of an extinct
world. Other bodies were found, as we trod the dusty plain, and my uncle
was able to choose the most marvelous of these specimens in order to
convince the most incredulous.

In truth, it was a surprising spectacle, the successive remains of
generations and generations of men and animals confounded together in
one vast cemetery. But a great question now presented itself to our
notice, and one we were actually afraid to contemplate in all its
bearings.

Had these once animated beings been buried so far beneath the soil by
some tremendous convulsion of nature, after they had been earth to earth
and ashes to ashes, or had they lived here below, in this subterranean
world, under this factitious sky, borne, married, and given in marriage,
and died at last, just like ordinary inhabitants of the earth?

Up to the present moment, marine monsters, fish, and suchlike animals
had alone been seen alive!

The question which rendered us rather uneasy, was a pertinent one. Were
any of these men of the abyss wandering about the deserted shores of
this wondrous sea of the centre of the earth?

This was a question which rendered me very uneasy and uncomfortable.
How, should they really be in existence, would they receive us men from
above?

CHAPTE