Limanora the island of progress
inflowing fire. Day after day we found that the beach was disappearing,
and in its place, when the steam cleared, we could see that the great
gap in the bastion-works of the island was filled up.
This was the first of their lava wells I had seen. Its operations
explained to me the massive symmetry of the rocky shores and the
cyclopean terraces and shoots down the mountain-sides, that had, I
thought, been either chiselled by tens of thousands of years of slavish
labour, or laid by the hands of a race of giants now vanished from the
earth. This little people was itself the Vulcan that turned the bowels
of the world into smelting-works and used the mighty forces lying
underneath the crust of our orb with the ease of a smith at his forge.
What had the Limanorans to fear from invaders with even the mightiest
war-engines that had ever been invented? They had made themselves
fortifications which would outlast the attacks of any human invention.
When the beetling circle of precipices was complete around their island
who could land troops, even if they evaded the blast of the storm-cone?
To the Limanorans themselves the height of their shores was no
disadvantage; in fact it gave them easy starting-points for their wing
expeditions; they could plunge from the jutting cliffs into the air and
so gain impetus for their flight.
Thus had they been able to destroy that spirit of militarism which,
after a certain stage, is the implacable foe of true progress. It is
based on two of the most childish and most primitive of forces in the
human breast, combativeness and the passion for display. Hence the
impossibility of stamping out the contagion. Ever and anon in the
former history of the island the age of peace seemed to have begun; but
marauders from abroad would land and stir the instinct of brigandage
and make an army and a military leader necessary. Thenceforward
again all the arrangements of the community were made subordinate
to the ambition of the soldier. An intrusion of savagery and brute
force, however veiled in glory and the panoplies of civilisation, is
irresistible by the powers of peace. Only slow and silent conquest of
the armed power brought back progress in peaceful arts again, again to
be maimed and thrown back from some external accident. Not that they
ever pretended that they could eject struggle out of their life, but
they did aim to raise the plane of conflict and competition. Never
could this people have entered on the rapid development of their powers
without their lava ramparts and their storm-cone to keep off all
occasions of militarism.
These lava wells had still other uses. Out of their flow were made
the rock foundations on which the houses of this people were built.
It puzzled me for years to know how they succeeded in making their
immense platforms and terraces out of the hardest trap. Their mansions
stood out from the precipices and cliffy sides of the mountain on
isolated plateaus that gave the inmates free view on every side and
free circulation of air around. They rose picturesque and romantic from
the top of lonely rocks, like the castles of the Rhine, dominating the
whole locality. Down the rocky foundations poured at times torrents
of water from the sluice-gates of the mountain, cleansing or cooling
the surroundings; yet never was there any danger for these everlasting
ramparts.
Another use to which these lava wells were put was to modify the
temperature. They were generally opened and let flow in the coolest
months of winter, and the red-hot cascades falling into the sea heated
it to such an extent that the climate of the whole island was mellowed
and tempered. From the wells far up the slope of the mountain the lava
flow had been so guided and moulded that immense channels had been made
down to the edge of the cliffs, with sides as lofty as the precipitous
shores themselves. Down these were shot in summer great avalanches of
mountain snow right into the ocean, so tempering the strength of the
summer heat.
But these were only subsidiary uses of the tappings of the central
earth fires. Their main and original purpose was to relieve the
perturbations of Lilaroma. It was one of the chief duties of the Leomo
to watch over the destiny of their island, which was volcanic in its
origin, though it had been greatly added to in former ages by the coral
insect. Lava-streams had overspread the coral, and then the myriads of
minute architects had thrust out their structures farther and farther
into the sea and thus the lowlands had been broadly extended, while the
red-hot layers of lava added massiveness to the body of the island. Yet
it was continually shaken by earthquakes and threatened with partial
if not complete disaster. It was the function of Leomarie to watch the
approach of these earthquakes and guard against them. The Leomo had the
most delicate instruments for recording every tremor of the earth’s
crust. They had also thermometers and electrometers down their heat
wells and lava wells, and these automatically recorded at the surface
every variation of the heat and magnetism of the earth. They had
classified through many centuries all the preliminary and concomitant
circumstances of earthquakes, and had found and formulated certain
causal relations amongst them. Thus the minutest symptom of change in
the records made by their instruments roused them to watchfulness. They
were soon able to tell in what direction the explosive materials were
accumulating and how far below the surface of the earth; then, when
they had fixed with more or less definiteness the time they had to
spare, they began sinking lava wells right into the perturbed lake of
fire. The vent acted as safety-valve; the shakings of the island ceased
as the steam roared forth, and the molten rock began to yeast down the
side of the mountain. All danger was past for another period of time.
Again and again throughout the past ages the Leomo had saved the island
from the ravages of earthquake and uncontrolled lava-streams from the
crater of Lilaroma. Never did they intermit their vigilance or cease to
advance their knowledge of the earth and its habits and laws. It seemed
to me at first that nothing could occur in the crust of our planet
which they would not foresee. I came afterwards to know the limits of
Leomarie, and the reasons why they pushed almost feverishly forward
to further knowledge. They were ever afraid that something unforeseen
might occur and threaten the stability of their land and the progress
towards the nobler life.
Once in the dark ages before the great exilings an appalling disaster
had occurred which ploughed deep into the consciousness of the people
the necessity for the development of this earth science. Their central
city stood upon a great plateau up the slope of Lilaroma. Within
recorded memory there had been no great outburst from the mountain; and
the inhabitants travelled fearlessly up to its rim and down the bowl of
its crater. At times there had been slight spittings of ashes and once
or twice a new fumarole or hot spring or even lava fountain had opened
at some point on the mountain slope; but these were all at a distance
from the bustling, luxurious city; and most of them had awakened slight
notice. The volcano indeed had been practically quiescent since the
great migration from the Antarctic regions and the sealing of the
archipelago by the circle of fog. The citizens were keeping one of
their annual feasts, and were lapped in luxurious ease and pleasure.
They had been exhilarated by a long period of prosperity and a recent
victory over the savage clan that inhabited one of the adjacent
islands. The country people and a number of hermits living in lonely
parts of Limanora had been alarmed by various premonitory symptoms,
sultry clouds turbaning the head of Lilaroma, tremors in the earth more
and more threateningly repeated, great and unaccountable disturbances
in the sea, and a hot, heavy, brooding atmosphere around the whole
island. Some of them came to the city and warned the revellers to be
prepared for some catastrophe; but they were waved aside as dreamers,
mere superstitious disturbers of life and its traffic. Half the city
was gathered together in the central market-place to see a great
spectacle, when the earth shook beneath them. They fell on their faces
and cried to their gods; but it was in vain. The market stood upon a
plateau high above the rest of the city, overlooking the ocean. Like a
cap this platform was blown into the air, and all the pleasure-seekers
vanished like smoke. Out on the sea and here and there on the land a
rain of dust fell mingled with minute pieces of human flesh; but never
was any one of the gathered thousands found; and as if to obliterate
the traces of her ghastly work, the mountain sent down a broad stream
of lava, which filled up the gulf where the market-place had been, and
sealed up the dust-buried city, preserving it for after-ages like a fly
in amber. Those who escaped destruction fled, some to distant parts
of Limanora, some to other islands; but all were buried for centuries
in grovelling superstition. It was out of the hermits and the country
people that a new nation was built up, which set itself as a first
duty to establish Leomarie, that it should not be taken unawares by
any repetition of this great catastrophe. Nor has it ever recurred,
although there have been many premonitory symptoms. The lava wells or
vents eased the labours of the internal fires and saved the island.
Their new and deeper wells, driven by the tirleomoran, and reaching the
internal fires, gave them greater sense of security. Irelium floats
were let down which would not be injured by the great heat, and these,
communicating with an indicator at the mouth, told of every disturbance
in the surface of the lake of fire. All the indicators were connected
with the centre of force, and automatically recorded there all they
had to tell. The same system of centralised record placed the various
indications of the climolans or earth-sensors at every moment ready to
the hand of the Leomo. These climolans were down every force-well and
told every variation in the heat, the density of the air, the kind of
vapour, the magnetism, and the movement of the crust of the earth.
No change in the earth below the island down to a distance of thirty
or forty miles (the latter the greatest depth they had reached) was
neglected. Every indication was properly tabulated and classified, and
year was compared with year and month with month, till the meaning and
importance of every change were exactly known. The furthest records of
the past, as well as those more recent, were daily consulted in order
to find the generalisation that would fit any new symptom. The Leomo
felt daily the pulse of Lilaroma as a doctor would that of his most
valued fever patient. They knew that they had the fate of the race in
their hands, and no indication was of too little importance for them to
consider. What would all the strivings and labours of the nation come
to if any laxity on their part should allow such a volcanic catastrophe
to recur as had destroyed the capital of old?
CHAPTER VIII
RIMLA
IN studying the practical aims and issues of earth science, I was
taught to manage their apparatus, and to interpret every tremor in the
earth’s crust and every indication of the instruments. I had already
been taught to make their apparatus, for my physical discipline had
begun several years before I was admitted to Fialume. It was in fact
one of their primary maxims that muscular exercises should go on
contemporaneously with intellectual and spiritual pursuits, that no
citizen should be allowed to neglect for even a day the development of