of a cragsman, I did
manage to get half way to the top of that. From that height I had a
better idea of the plateau upon the top of the crags. It appeared to
be very large; neither to east nor to west could I see any end to the
vista of green-capped cliffs. Below, it is a swampy, jungly region,
full of snakes, insects, and fever. It is a natural protection to this
singular country."

"Did you see any other trace of life?"

"No, sir, I did not; but during the week that we lay encamped at the
base of the cliff we heard some very strange noises from above."

"But the creature that the American drew? How do you account for that?"

"We can only suppose that he must have made his way to the summit and
seen it there. We know, therefore, that there is a way up. We know
equally that it must be a very difficult one, otherwise the creatures
would have come down and overrun the surrounding country. Surely that
is clear?"

"But how did they come to be there?"

"I do not think that the problem is a very obscure one," said the
Professor; "there can only be one explanation. South America is, as
you may have heard, a granite continent. At this single point in the
interior there has been, in some far distant age, a great, sudden
volcanic upheaval. These cliffs, I may remark, are basaltic, and
therefore plutonic. An area, as large perhaps as Sussex, has been
lifted up en bloc with all its living contents, and cut off by
perpendicular precipices of a hardness which defies erosion from all
the rest of the continent. What is the result? Why, the ordinary laws
of Nature are suspended. The various checks which influence the
struggle for existence in the world at large are all neutralized or
altered. Creatures survive which would otherwise disappear. You will
observe that both the pterodactyl and the stegosaurus are Jurassic, and
therefore of a great age in the order of life. They have been
artificially conserved by those strange accidental conditions."

"But surely your evidence is conclusive. You have only to lay it
before the proper authorities."

"So in my simplicity, I had imagined," said the Professor, bitterly.
"I can only tell you that it was not so, that I was met at every turn
by incredulity, born partly of stupidity and partly of jealousy. It is
not my nature, sir, to cringe to any man, or to seek to prove a fact if
my word has been doubted. After the first I have not condescended to
show such corrobor