CHAPTER
XIX.
THE CRY FROM A DISTANCE- I REBEL AGAINST CONTINUING
THE JOURNEY.
As we paced along, meditating, I became more sensibly impressed with the fact
that our progress was down a rapid declination. The saline incrustations, fungi
and stalagmites, rapidly changed in appearance, an endless variety of stony
figures and vegetable cryptogams recurring successively before my eyes. They
bore the shape of trees, shrubs, or animals, fixed and silent as statues: at
least in my distorted condition of mind I could make out resemblances to many
such familiar objects; the floor of the cavern became increasingly steeper, as
was shown by the stalactites, which, hanging here and there from the invisible
ceiling, made a decided angle with the floor, corresponding with a similar angle
of the stalagmites below. Like an accompanying and encircling halo the ever
present earth light enveloped us, opening in front as we advanced, and vanishing
in the rear. The sound of our footsteps gave back a peculiar, indescribable
hollow echo, and our voices sounded ghostlike and unearthly, as if
their origin was outside of our bodies, and at a distance. The peculiar
resonance reminded me of noises reverberating in an empty cask or cistern. I was
oppressed by an indescribable feeling of mystery and awe that grew deep and
intense, until at last I could no longer bear the mental strain.
" Hold, hold," I shouted, or tried to shout, and stopped
suddenly, for although I had cried aloud, no sound escaped my lips. Then from a
distance could I believe my senses ? from a distance as an echo, the cry came back in the tones of my own
voice, " Hold, hold."
" Speak lower," said my guide, " speak very low, for now an
effort such as you have made projects your voice far outside your body; the
greater the exertion the farther away it appears."
I grasped him by the arm and said slowly, determinedly, and in a suppressed
tone: " I have come far enough into the secret caverns of the Earth,
without knowing our destination; acquaint me now with the object of this
mysterious journey, I demand, and at once relieve this sense of uncertainty ;
otherwise I shall go no farther."
" You are to proceed to the Sphere of Rest with me," he replied,
" and in safety. Beyond that an Unknown Country lies, into which I have
never ventured."
" You speak in enigmas; what is this Sphere of Rest? Where is it?"
" Your eyes have never seen anything similar; human philosophy has no
conception of it, and I can not describe it," he said. " It is located
in the body of the earth, and we will meet it about one thousand miles beyond
the North Pole."
" But I am in Kentucky," I replied; " do you think that I propose
to walk to the North Pole, man if man you be; that
unreached goal is thousands of miles away."
" True," he answered, " as you measure distance on the
surface of the earth, and you could not walk it in years of time;
but you are now twentyfive miles below the surface, and you
must be aware that instead of becoming more weary as we
proceed, you are now and have for some time been gaining
strength. I would also call to your attention that you neither
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 that were to me painful beyond description. We
abruptly entered a cavern of crystal, every portion of which was
of sparkling brilliancy, and as white as snow. The stalactites,
stalagmites and fungi disappeared. I picked up a fragment of
the bright material, tasted it, and found that it resembled pure
salt. Monstrous, cubical crystals, a foot or more in diameter,
stood out in bold relief, accumulations of them, as conglomerated masses, banked
up here and there, making parts of great
columnar 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 not evaporate."
" It has not evaporated; at some remote period the water has
been abstracted from the salt, and probably has escaped upon the
surface of the 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
dissolved substance that is part of a liquid, and thus leaving the solids."
" Nevertheless this is a constant act of nature," said he;
" how else can you rationally account for the great salt beds and
other deposits of saline materials that exist hermetically sealed
beneath the earth's surface?"
" I will confess that I have not given the subject much
thought; I simply accept the usual explanation to the effect that salty seas
have lost their water by evaporation, and afterward the salt formations, by some
convulsions of nature, have been covered with earth, perhaps sinking by
earthquake convulsions bodily into the earth."
" These explanations are examples of some of the erroneous views of
scientific writers," he replied; " they are true only to a limited
extent. The great beds of salt, deep in the earth, are usually accumulations
left there by water that is drawn from brine lakes, from which the liberated
water often escaped as pure spring water at the surface of the earth. It does
not escape by evaporation, at least not until it reaches the earth's
surface."
