At the Earth’s Core(地心)

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At the Earth's Core
1
At the Earth's Core
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
At the Earth's Core
2
PROLOGUE
In the first place please bear in mind that I do not expect you to
believe this story. Nor could you wonder had you witnessed a recent
experience of mine when, in the armor of blissful and stupendous
ignorance, I gaily narrated the gist of it to a Fellow of the Royal
Geological Society on the occasion of my last trip to London.
You would surely have thought that I had been detected in no less a
heinous crime than the purloining of the Crown Jewels from the Tower, or
putting poison in the coffee of His Majesty the King.
The erudite gentleman in whom I confided congealed before I was half
through!--it is all that saved him from exploding--and my dreams of an
Honorary Fellowship, gold medals, and a niche in the Hall of Fame faded
into the thin, cold air of his arctic atmosphere.
But I believe the story, and so would you, and so would the learned
Fellow of the Royal Geological Society, had you and he heard it from the
lips of the man who told it to me. Had you seen, as I did, the fire of truth
in those gray eyes; had you felt the ring of sincerity in that quiet voice;
had you realized the pathos of it all--you, too, would believe. You would
not have needed the final ocular proof that I had--the weird
rhamphorhynchus-like creature which he had brought back with him from
the inner world.
I came upon him quite suddenly, and no less unexpectedly, upon the
rim of the great Sahara Desert. He was standing before a goat-skin tent
amidst a clump of date palms within a tiny oasis. Close by was an Arab
douar of some eight or ten tents.
I had come down from the north to hunt lion. My party consisted of
a dozen children of the desert--I was the only "white" man. As we
approached the little clump of verdure I saw the man come from his tent
and with hand-shaded eyes peer intently at us. At sight of me he
advanced rapidly to meet us.
"A white man!" he cried. "May the good Lord be praised! I have
been watching you for hours, hoping against hope that THIS time there
would be a white man. Tell me the date. What year is it?"
At the Earth's Core
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And when I had told him he staggered as though he had been struck
full in the face, so that he was compelled to grasp my stirrup leather for
support.
"It cannot be!" he cried after a moment. "It cannot be! Tell me that
you are mistaken, or that you are but joking."
"I am telling you the truth, my friend," I replied. "Why should I
deceive a stranger, or attempt to, in so simple a matter as the date?"
For some time he stood in silence, with bowed head.
"Ten years!" he murmured, at last. "Ten years, and I thought that at
the most it could be scarce more than one!" That night he told me his
story--the story that I give you here as nearly in his own words as I can
recall them.
At the Earth's Core
4
I
TOWARD THE ETERNAL FIRES
I was born in Connecticut about thirty years ago. My name is David
Innes. My father was a wealthy mine owner. When I was nineteen he
died. All his property was to be mine when I had attained my majority--
provided that I had devoted the two years intervening in close application
to the great business I was to inherit.
I did my best to fulfil the last wishes of my parent-- not because of the
inheritance, but because I loved and honored my father. For six months I
toiled in the mines and in the counting-rooms, for I wished to know every
minute detail of the business.
Then Perry interested me in his invention. He was an old fellow who
had devoted the better part of a long life to the perfection of a mechanical
subterranean prospector. As relaxation he studied paleontology. I looked
over his plans, listened to his arguments, inspected his working model--
and then, convinced, I advanced the funds necessary to construct a full-
sized, practical prospector.
I shall not go into the details of its construction--it lies out there in the
desert now--about two miles from here. Tomorrow you may care to ride
out and see it. Roughly, it is a steel cylinder a hundred feet long, and
jointed so that it may turn and twist through solid rock if need be. At one
end is a mighty revolving drill operated by an engine which Perry said
generated more power to the cubic inch than any other engine did to the
cubic foot. I remember that he used to claim that that invention alone
would make us fabulously wealthy--we were going to make the whole
thing public after the successful issue of our first secret trial--but Perry
never returned from that trial trip, and I only after ten years.
I recall as it were but yesterday the night of that momentous occasion
upon which we were to test the practicality of that wondrous invention.
It was near midnight when we repaired to the lofty tower in which Perry
had constructed his "iron mole" as he was wont to call the thing. The great
nose rested upon the bare earth of the floor. We passed through the doors
into the outer jacket, secured them, and then passing on into the cabin,
At the Earth's Core
5
which contained the controlling mechanism within the inner tube,
switched on the electric lights.
Perry looked to his generator; to the great tanks that held the life-
giving chemicals with which he was to manufacture fresh air to replace
that which we consumed in breathing; to his instruments for recording
temperatures, speed, distance, and for examining the materials through
which we were to pass.
He tested the steering device, and overlooked the mighty cogs which
transmitted its marvelous velocity to the giant drill at the nose of his
strange craft.
Our seats, into which we strapped ourselves, were so arranged upon
transverse bars that we would be upright whether the craft were ploughing
her way downward into the bowels of the earth, or running horizontally
along some great seam of coal, or rising vertically toward the surface
again.
At length all was ready. Perry bowed his head in prayer. For a
moment we were silent, and then the old man's hand grasped the starting
lever. There was a frightful roaring beneath us--the giant frame trembled
and vibrated--there was a rush of sound as the loose earth passed up
through the hollow space between the inner and outer jackets to be
deposited in our wake. We were off!
The noise was deafening. The sensation was frightful. For a full
minute neither of us could do aught but cling with the proverbial
desperation of the drowning man to the handrails of our swinging seats.
Then Perry glanced at the thermometer.
"Gad!" he cried, "it cannot be possible--quick! What does the
distance meter read?"
That and the speedometer were both on my side of the cabin, and as I
turned to take a reading from the former I could see Perry muttering.
"Ten degrees rise--it cannot be possible!" and then I saw him tug
frantically upon the steering wheel.
As I finally found the tiny needle in the dim light I translated Perry's
evident excitement, and my heart sank within me. But when I spoke I
hid the fear which haunted me. "It will be seven hundred feet, Perry," I
At the Earth's Core
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said, "by the time you can turn her into the horizontal."
"You'd better lend me a hand then, my boy," he replied, "for I cannot
budge her out of the vertical alone. God give that our combined strength
may be equal to the task, for else we are lost."
I wormed my way to the old man's side with never a doubt but that the
great wheel would yield on the instant to the power of my young and
vigorous muscles. Nor was my belief mere vanity, for always had my
physique been the envy and despair of my fellows. And for that very
reason it had waxed even greater than nature had intended, since my
natural pride in my great strength had led me to care for and develop my
body and my muscles by every means within my power. What with
boxing, football, and baseball, I had been in training since childhood.
And so it was with the utmost confidence that I laid hold of the huge
iron rim; but though I threw every ounce of my strength into it, my best
effort was as unavailing as Perry's had been--the thing would not budge--
the grim, insensate, horrible thing that was holding us upon the straight
road to death!
At length I gave up the useless struggle, and without a word returned
to my seat. There was no need for words--at least none that I could
imagine, unless Perry desired to pray. And I was quite sure that he would,
for he never left an opportunity neglected where he might sandwich in a
prayer. He prayed when he arose in the morning, he prayed before he ate,
he prayed when he had finished eating, and before he went to bed at night
he prayed again. In between he often found excuses to pray even when the
provocation seemed far-fetched to my worldly eyes--now that he was
about to die I felt positive that I should witness a perfect orgy of prayer--if
one may allude with such a simile to so solemn an act.
But to my astonishment I discovered that with death staring him in the
face Abner Perry was transformed into a new being. From his lips there
flowed--not prayer--but a clear and limpid stream of undiluted profanity,
and it was all directed at that quietly stubborn piece of unyielding
mechanism.
"I should think, Perry," I chided, "that a man of your professed
religiousness would rather be at his prayers than cursing in the presence of
At the Earth's Core
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imminent death."
"Death!" he cried. "Death is it that appalls you? That is nothing by
comparison with the loss the world must suffer. Why, David within this
iron cylinder we have demonstrated possibilities that science has scarce
dreamed. We have harnessed a new principle, and with it animated a piece
of steel with the power of ten thousand men. That two lives will be snuffed
out is nothing to the world calamity that entombs in the bowels of the
earth the discoveries that I have made and proved in the successful
construction of the thing that is now carrying us farther and farther toward
the eternal central fires."
I am frank to admit that for myself I was much more concerned with
our own immediate future than with any problematic loss which the world
might be about to suffer. The world was at least ignorant of its
bereavement, while to me it was a real and terrible actuality.
"What can we do?" I asked, hiding my perturbation beneath the mask
of a low and level voice.
"We may stop here, and die of asphyxiation when our atmosphere
tanks are empty," replied Perry, "or we may continue on with the slight
hope that we may later sufficiently deflect the prospector from the vertical
to carry us along the arc of a great circle which must eventually return us
to the surface. If we succeed in so doing before we reach the higher
internal temperature we may even yet survive. There would seem to me to
be about one chance in several million that we shall succeed--otherwise
we shall die more quickly but no more surely than as though we sat
supinely waiting for the torture of a slow and horrible death."
I glanced at the thermometer. It registered 110 degrees. While we
were talking the mighty iron mole had bored its way over a mile into the
rock of the earth's crust.
"Let us continue on, then," I replied. "It should soon be over at this
rate. You never intimated that the speed of this thing would be so high,
Perry. Didn't you know it?"
"No," he answered. "I could not figure the speed exactly, for I had no
instrument for measuring the mighty power of my generator. I reasoned,
however, that we should make about five hundred yards an hour."
At the Earth's Core
8
"And we are making seven miles an hour," I concluded for him, as I
sat with my eyes upon the distance meter. "How thick is the Earth's crust,
Perry?" I asked.
"There are almost as many conjectures as to that as there are
geologists," was his answer. "One estimates it thirty miles, because the
internal heat, increasing at the rate of about one degree to each sixty to
seventy feet depth, would be sufficient to fuse the most refractory
substances at that distance beneath the surface. Another finds that the
phenomena of precession and nutation require that the earth, if not entirely
solid, must at least have a shell not less than eight hundred to a thousand
miles in thickness. So there you are. You may take your choice."
"And if it should prove solid?" I asked.
"It will be all the same to us in the end, David," replied Perry. "At
the best our fuel will suffice to carry us but three or four days, while our
atmosphere cannot last to exceed three. Neither, then, is sufficient to
bear us in the safety through eight thousand miles of rock to the
antipodes."
"If the crust is of sufficient thickness we shall come to a final stop
between six and seven hundred miles beneath the earth's surface; but
during the last hundred and fifty miles of our journey we shall be corpses.
Am I correct?" I asked.
"Quite correct, David. Are you frightened?"
"I do not know. It all has come so suddenly that I scarce believe that
either of us realizes the real terrors of our position. I feel that I should be
reduced to panic; but yet I am not. I imagine that the shock has been so
great as to partially stun our sensibilities."
Again I turned to the thermometer. The mercury was rising with less
rapidity. It was now but 140 degrees, although we had penetrated to a
depth of nearly four miles. I told Perry, and he smiled.
"We have shattered one theory at least," was his only comment, and
then he returned to his self-assumed occupation of fluently cursing the
steering wheel. I once heard a pirate swear, but his best efforts would have
seemed like those of a tyro alongside of Perry's masterful and scientific
imprecations.
At the Earth's Core
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Once more I tried my hand at the wheel, but I might as well have
essayed to swing the earth itself. At my suggestion Perry stopped the
generator, and as we came to rest I again threw all my strength into a
supreme effort to move the thing even a hair's breadth--but the results
were as barren as when we had been traveling at top speed.
I shook my head sadly, and motioned to the starting lever. Perry pulled
it toward him, and once again we were plunging downward toward
eternity at the rate of seven miles an hour. I sat with my eyes glued to the
thermometer and the distance meter. The mercury was rising very slowly
now, though even at 145 degrees it was almost unbearable within the
narrow confines of our metal prison.
About noon, or twelve hours after our start upon this unfortunate
journey, we had bored to a depth of eighty-four miles, at which point the
mercury registered 153 degrees F.
Perry was becoming more hopeful, although upon what meager food
he sustained his optimism I could not conjecture. From cursing he had
turned to singing--I felt that the strain had at last affected his mind. For
several hours we had not spoken except as he asked me for the readings of
the instruments from time to time, and I announced them. My thoughts
were filled with vain regrets. I recalled numerous acts of my past life
which I should have been glad to have had a few more years to live down.
There was the affair in the Latin Commons at Andover when Calhoun and
I had put gunpowder in the stove--and nearly killed one of the masters.
And then--but what was the use, I was about to die and atone for all these
things and several more. Already the heat was sufficient to give me a
foretaste of the hereafter. A few more degrees and I felt that I should lose
consciousness.
"What are the readings now, David?" Perry's voice broke in upon my
somber reflections.
"Ninety miles and 153 degrees," I replied.
"Gad, but we've knocked that thirty-mile-crust theory into a cocked
hat!" he cried gleefully.
"Precious lot of good it will do us," I growled back.
"But my boy," he continued, "doesn't that temperature reading mean
At the Earth's Core
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anything to you? Why it hasn't gone up in six miles. Think of it, son!"
"Yes, I'm thinking of it," I answered; "but what difference will it make
when our air supply is exhausted whether the temperature is 153 degrees
or 153,000? We'll be just as dead, and no one will know the difference,
anyhow." But I must admit that for some unaccountable reason the
stationary temperature did renew my waning hope. What I hoped for I
could not have explained, nor did I try. The very fact, as Perry took pains
to explain, of the blasting of several very exact and learned scientific
hypotheses made it apparent that we could not know what lay before us
within the bowels of the earth, and so we might continue to hope for the
best, at least until we were dead--when hope would no longer be essential
to our happiness. It was very good, and logical reasoning, and so I
embraced it.
At one hundred miles the temperature had DROPPED TO 152 1/2
DEGREES! When I announced it Perry reached over and hugged me.
From then on until noon of the second day, it continued to drop until it
became as uncomfortably cold as it had been unbearably hot before. At
the depth of two hundred and forty miles our nostrils were assailed by
almost overpowering ammonia fumes, and the temperature had dropped to
TEN BELOW ZERO! We suffered nearly two hours of this intense and
bitter cold, until at about two hundred and forty-five miles from the
surface of the earth we entered a stratum of solid ice, when the mercury
quickly rose to 32 degrees. During the next three hours we passed
through ten miles of ice, eventually emerging into another series of
ammonia-impregnated strata, where the mercury again fell to ten degrees
below zero.
Slowly it rose once more until we were convinced that at last we were
nearing the molten interior of the earth. At four hundred miles the
temperature had reached 153 degrees. Feverishly I watched the
thermometer. Slowly it rose. Perry had ceased singing and was at last
praying.
Our hopes had received such a deathblow that the gradually increasing
heat seemed to our distorted imaginations much greater than it really was.
For another hour I saw that pitiless column of mercury rise and rise until at
摘要:

AttheEarth'sCore1AttheEarth'sCorebyEdgarRiceBurroughsAttheEarth'sCore2PROLOGUEInthefirstplacepleasebearinmindthatIdonotexpectyoutobelievethisstory.Norcouldyouwonderhadyouwitnessedarecentexperienceofminewhen,inthearmorofblissfulandstupendousignorance,IgailynarratedthegistofittoaFellowoftheRoyalGeolog...

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