CHAPTER XIX.
THE CRY FROM A DISTANCE.--I REBEL AGAINST CONTINUING THE JOURNEY.
As we paced along, meditating, I became more sensibly impressed with thefact that our progress was down a rapid declination. The salineincrustations, fungi and stalagmites, rapidly changed in appearance, anendless variety of stony figures and vegetable cryptogams recurringsuccessively before my eyes. They bore the shape of trees, shrubs, oranimals, fixed and silent as statues: at least in my distorted conditionof mind I could make out resemblances to many such familiar objects; thefloor of the cavern became increasingly steeper, as was shown by thestalactites, which, hanging here and there from the invisible ceiling,made a decided angle with the floor, corresponding with a similar angleof the stalagmites below. Like an accompanying and encircling halo theever present earth-light enveloped us, opening in front as we advanced,and vanishing in the rear. The sound of our footsteps gave back apeculiar, indescribable hollow echo, and our voices sounded ghost-likeand unearthly, as if their origin was outside of our bodies, and at adistance. The peculiar resonance reminded me of noises reverberating inan empty cask or cistern. I was oppressed by an indescribable feeling ofmystery and awe that grew deep and intense, until at last I could nolonger bear the mental strain.
"Hold, hold," I shouted, or tried to shout, and stopped suddenly, foralthough I had cried aloud, no sound escaped my lips. Then from adistance--could I believe my senses?--from a distance as an echo, thecry came back in the tones of my own voice, "Hold, hold."
"Speak lower," said my guide, "speak very low, for now an effort such asyou have made projects your voice far outside your body; the greater theexertion the farther away it appears."
I grasped him by the arm and said slowly, determinedly, and in asuppressed tone: "I have come far enough into the secret caverns of theearth, without knowing our destination; acquaint me now with the objectof this mysterious journey, I demand, and at once relieve this sense ofuncertainty; otherwise I shall go no farther."
"AN ENDLESS VARIETY OF STONY FIGURES."]
"You are to proceed to the Sphere of Rest with me," he replied, "and insafety. Beyond that an Unknown Country lies, into which I have neverventured."
"You speak in enigmas; what is this Sphere of Rest? Where is it?"
"Your eyes have never seen anything similar; human philosophy has noconception of it, and I can not describe it," he said. "It is located inthe body of the earth, and we will meet it about one thousand milesbeyond the North Pole."
"But I am in Kentucky," I replied; "do you think that I propose to walkto the North Pole, man--if man you be; that unreached goal is thousandsof miles away."
"True," he answered, "as you measure distance on the surface of theearth, and you could not walk it in years of time; but you are nowtwenty-five miles below the surface, and you must be aware that insteadof becoming more weary as we proceed, you are now and have for some timebeen gaining strength. I would also call to your attention that youneither hunger nor thirst."
"Proceed," I said, "'tis useless to rebel; I am wholly in your power,"and we resumed our journey, and rapidly went forward amid silences thatwere to me painful beyond description. We abruptly entered a cavern ofcrystal, every portion of which was of sparkling brilliancy, and aswhite as snow. The stalactites, stalagmites and fungi disappeared. Ipicked up a fragment of the bright material, tasted it, and found thatit resembled pure salt. Monstrous, cubical crystals, a foot or more indiameter, stood out in bold relief, accumulations of them, asconglomerated masses, banked up here and there, making parts of greatcolumnar cliffs, while in other formations the crystals were small,resembling in the aggregate masses of white sandstone.
"Is not this salt?" I asked.
"Yes; we are now in the dried bed of an underground lake."
"Dried bed?" I exclaimed; "a body of water sealed in the earth can notevaporate."
"It has not evaporated; at some remote period the water has beenabstracted from the salt, and probably has escaped upon the surface ofthe earth as a fresh water spring."
"You contradict all laws of hydrostatics, as I understand that subject,"I replied, "when you speak of abstracting water from a dissolvedsubstance that is part of a liquid, and thus leaving the solids."
"Nevertheless this is a constant act of nature," said he; "how else canyou rationally account for the great salt beds and other deposits ofsaline materials that exist hermetically sealed beneath the earth'ssurface?"
"MONSTROUS CUBICAL CRYSTALS."]
"I will confess that I have not given the subject much thought; I simplyaccept the usual explanation to the effect that salty seas have losttheir water by evaporation, and afterward the salt formations, by someconvulsions of nature, have been covered with earth, perhapssinking by earthquake convulsions bodily into the earth."
"These explanations are examples of some of the erroneous views ofscientific writers," he replied; "they are true only to a limitedextent. The great beds of salt, deep in the earth, are usuallyaccumulations left there by water that is drawn from brine lakes, fromwhich the liberated water often escaped as pure spring water at thesurface of the earth. It does not escape by evaporation, at least notuntil it reaches the earth's surface."
INTERLUDE--THE STORY INTERRUPTED.