were at
the flattened poles. Where I was I now knew well. I had reached the
antarctic pole. Here the earth was flat--an immense level with no
roundness to lessen the reach of the horizon but an almost even
surface that gave an unimpeded view for hundreds of miles.

The subterranean channel had rushed through the mountains and had
carried me here. Here came all the waters of the Northern ocean
pouring into this vast polar sea, perhaps to issue forth from it by
some similar passage. Here, then, was the South Pole--a world by
itself: and how different from that terrible, that iron land on the
other side of the mountains!--not a world of ice and frost, but one
of beauty and light, with a climate that was almost tropical in its
warmth, and lands that were covered with the rank luxuriance of a
teeming vegetable life. I had passed from that outer world to this
inner one, and the passage was from death unto life, from agony and
despair to sunlight and splendor and joy. Above all, in all around me
that which most impressed me now was the rich and superabundant life,
and a warmth of air which made me think of India. It was an amazing
and an unaccountable thing, and I could only attribute it to the
flattening of the poles, which brought the surface nearer to the
supposed central fires of the earth, and therefore created a heat
as great as that of the equatorial regions. Here I found a tropical
climate--a land warmed not by the sun, but from the earth itself. Or
another cause might be found in the warm ocean currents. Whatever the
true one might be, I was utterly unable to form a conjecture.

But I had no time for such speculations as these. After the first
emotions of wonder and admiration had somewhat subsided, I began to
experience other sensations. I began to remember that I had eaten
nothing for a length of time that I had no means of calculating, and
to look around to see if there was any way of satisfying my hunger.
The question arose now, What was to be done? After my recent terrible
experience I naturally shrank from again committing myself to the
tender mercies of strange tribes; yet further thought and examination
showed me that the people of this strange land must be very different
from those frightful savages on the other side of the mountains.
Everywhere I beheld the manifest signs of cultivation and
civilization. Still, I knew that even civilized people would not
necessarily be any kinder than savages, and that I m