At the mountains of madness
without possible transportation in an utterly tenantless world of
æon-long death.
Lake's subexpedition into the unknown, as every one will recall, sent
out its own reports from the short-wave transmitters on the planes;
these being simultaneously picked up by our apparatus at the southern
base and by the _Arkham_ at McMurdo Sound, whence they were relayed to
the outside world on wave lengths up to fifty meters.
The start was made January 22nd at 4 a.m.; and the first wireless
message we received came only two hours later, when Lake spoke of
descending and starting a small-scale ice-melting and bore at a point
some three hundred miles away from us. Six hours after that a second
and very excited message told of the frantic, beaverlike work whereby a
shallow shaft had been sunk and blasted, culminating in the discovery
of slate fragments with several markings approximately like the one
which had caused the original puzzlement.
Three hours later a brief bulletin announced the resumption of the
flight in the teeth of a raw and piercing gale; and when I dispatched
a message of protest against further hazards, Lake replied curtly that
his new specimens made any hazard worth taking.
I saw that his excitement had reached the point of mutiny, and that I
could do nothing to check this headlong risk of the whole expedition's
success; but it was appalling to think of his plunging deeper and
deeper into that treacherous and sinister white immensity of tempests
and unfathomed mysteries which stretched off for some fifteen hundred
miles to the half-known, half-suspected coast line of Queen Mary and
Knox Lands.
* * * * *
Then, in about an hour and a half more, came that doubly excited
message from Lake's moving plane, which almost reversed my sentiments
and made me wish I had accompanied the party:
"10:05 p.m. On the wing. After snowstorm, have spied mountain range
ahead higher than any hitherto seen. May equal Himalayas, allowing
for height of plateau. Probable Latitude 76° 15´, Longitude 113° 10´
E. Reaches far as can see to right and left. Suspicion of two
smoking cones. All peaks black and bare of snow. Gale blowing off
them impedes navigation."
After that Pabodie, the men, and I hung breathlessly over the receiver.
Thought of this titanic mountain rampart seven hundred miles away
inflamed our deepest sense of adventure; and we rejoiced that our
expedition, if not ourselves personally, had been its discoverers. In
half an hour Lake called us again:
"Moulton's plane forced down on plateau in foothills, but nobody
hurt and perhaps can repair. Shall transfer essentials to other
three for return or further moves if necessary, but no more heavy
plane travel needed just now. Mountains surpass anything in
imagination. Am going up scouting in Carroll's plane, with all
weight out.
"You can't imagine anything like this. Highest peaks must go over
thirty-five thousand feet. Everest out of the running, Atwood to
work out height with theodolite while Carroll and I go up. Probably
wrong about cones, for formations look stratified. Possibly
pre-Cambrian slate with other strata mixed in. Queer sky line
effects--regular sections of cubes clinging to highest peaks. Whole
thing marvelous in red-gold light of low sun. Like land of mystery
in a dream or gateway to forbidden world of untrodden wonder. Wish
you were here to study."
Though it was technically sleeping time, not one of us listeners
thought for a moment of retiring. It must have been a good deal
the same at McMurdo Sound, where the supply cache and the _Arkham_
were also getting the messages; for Captain Douglas gave out a call
congratulating everybody on the important find, and Sherman, the cache
operator, seconded his sentiments. We were sorry, of course, about the
damaged aëroplane, but hoped it could be easily mended. Then, at eleven
p.m., came another call from Lake:
"Up with Carroll over highest foothills. Don't dare try really tall
peaks in present weather, but shall later. Frightful work climbing,
and hard going at this altitude, but worth it. Great range fairly
solid, hence can't get any glimpses beyond. Main summits exceed
Himalayas, and very queer. Range looks like pre-Cambrian slate,
with plain signs of many other upheaved strata. Was wrong about
volcanism. Goes farther in either direction than we can see. Swept
clear of snow above about twenty-one thousand feet.
"Odd formations on slopes of highest mountains. Great low square
blocks with exactly vertical sides, and rectangular lines of low,
vertical ramparts, like the old Asian castles clinging to steep
mountains in Roerich's paintings. Impressive from distance. Flew
close to some, and Carroll thought they were formed of smaller
separate pieces, but that is probably weathering. Most edges
crumbled and rounded off as if exposed to storms and climate
changes for millions of years.
"Parts, especially upper parts, seem to be of lighter-colored
rock than any visible strata on slopes proper, hence an evidently
crystalline origin. Close flying shows many cave mouths, some
unusually regular in outline, square or semicircular. You must come
and investigate. Think I saw rampart squarely on top of one peak.
Height seems about thirty thousand to thirty-five thousand feet. Am
up twenty-one thousand five hundred myself, in devilish, gnawing
cold. Wind whistles and pipes through passes and in and out of
caves, but no flying danger so far."
From then on for another half hour Lake kept up a running fire of
comment, and expressed his intention of climbing some of the peaks on
foot. I replied that I would join him as soon as he could send a plane,
and that Pabodie and I would work out the best gasoline plan--just
where and how to concentrate our supply in view of the expedition's
altered character.
Obviously, Lake's boring operations, as well as his aëroplane
activities, would need a great deal delivered at the new base which
he was to establish at the foot of the mountains; and it was possible
that the eastward flight might not be made, after all, this season. In
connection with this business I called Captain Douglas and asked him to
get as much as possible out of the ships and up the barrier with the
single dog team we had left there. A direct route across the unknown
region between Lake and McMurdo Sound was what we really ought to
establish.
Lake called me later to say that he had decided to let the camp stay
where Moulton's plane had been forced down, and where repairs had
already progressed somewhat. The ice sheet was very thin, with dark
ground here and there visible, and he would sink some borings and
blasts at that very point before making any sledge trips or climbing
expeditions.
He spoke of the ineffable majesty of the whole scene, and the queer
state of his sensations at being in the lee of vast, silent pinnacles,
whose ranks shot up like a wall reaching the sky at the world's rim.
Atwood's theodolite observations had placed the height of the five
tallest peaks at from thirty thousand to thirty-four thousand feet.
The windswept nature of the terrain clearly disturbed Lake, for it
argued the occasional existence of prodigious gales, violent beyond
anything we had so far encountered. His camp lay a little more than
five miles from where the higher foothills rose abruptly.
I could almost trace a note of subconscious alarm in his words--flashed
across a glacial void of seven hundred miles--as he urged that we all
hasten with the matter and get the strange, new region disposed of as
soon as possible. He was about to rest now, after a continuous day's
work of almost unparalleled speed, strenuousness, and results.
* * * * *
In the morning I had a three-cornered wireless talk with Lake and
Captain Douglas at their widely separated bases. It was agreed that one
of Lake's planes would come to my base for Pabodie, the five men, and
myself, as well as for all the fuel it could carry. The rest of the
fuel question, depending on our decision about an easterly trip, could
wait for a few days, since Lake had enough for immediate camp heat and
borings.
Eventually the old southern base ought to be restocked, but if we
postponed the easterly trip we would not use it till the next summer,
and, meanwhile, Lake must send a plane to explore a direct route
between his new mountains and McMurdo Sound.
Pabodie and I prepared to close our base for a short or long period, as
the case might be. If we wintered in the antarctic we would probably
fly straight from Lake's base to the _Arkham_ without returning to
this spot. Some of our conical tents had already been reinforced by
blocks of hard snow, and now we decided to complete the job of making a
permanent village. Owing to a very liberal tent supply, Lake had with
him all that his base would need, even after our arrival. I wirelessed
that Pabodie and I would be ready for the northwestward move after one
day's work and one night's rest.
Our labors, however, were not very steady after four p.m., for about
that time Lake began sending in the most extraordinary and excited
messages. His working day had started unpropitiously, since an
aëroplane survey of the nearly exposed rock surfaces showed an entire
absence of those Archæan and primordial strata for which he was
looking, and which formed so great a part of the colossal peaks that
loomed up at a tantalizing distance from the camp.
Most of the rocks glimpsed were apparently Jurassic and Comanchean
sandstones and Permian and Triassic schists, with now and then a glossy
black outcropping suggesting a hard and slaty coal.
This rather discouraged Lake, whose plans all hinged on unearthing
specimens more than five hundred million years older. It was clear
to him that in order to recover the Archæan slate vein in which he
had found the odd markings, he would have to make a long sledge trip
from these foothills to the steep slopes of the gigantic mountains
themselves.
He had resolved, nevertheless, to do some local boring as part of the
expedition's general program; hence, he set up the drill and put five
men to work with it while the rest finished settling the camp and
repairing the damaged aëroplane. The softest visible rock--a sandstone
about a quarter of a mile from the camp--had been chosen for the
first sampling; and the drill made excellent progress without much
supplementary blasting.
It was about three hours afterward, following the first really heavy
blast of the operation, that the shouting of the drill crew was heard;
and that young Gedney--the acting foreman--rushed into the camp with
the startling news.
* * * * *
They had struck a cave. Early in the boring the sandstone had given
place to a vein of Comanchean limestone, full of minute fossil
cephalopods, corals, echini, and spirifera, and with occasional
suggestions of siliceous sponges and marine vertebrate bones--the
latter probably of teliosts, sharks, and ganoids.
This, in itself, was important enough, as affording the first
vertebrate fossils the expedition had yet secured; but when shortly
afterward the drill head dropped through the stratum into apparent
vacancy, a wholly new and doubly intense wave of excitement spread
among the excavators.
A good-sized blast had laid open the subterrane secret; and now,