The Mountains Of Madness
Part 4's
Yet our scientific and adventurous spirit is not entirely dead; and we mechanically carry out a chipping program of specimens of all the different rock types represented in masonry. We expect a rather complete set to draw better conclusions regarding the age of the place. There is nothing on the great outer wall that seems to date back to the Jurassic and Comanchian eras, nor is there a piece of stone all over the place newer than the Pliocene epoch. In clear certainty, we roam amid a death that has ruled for at least 500,000 years, and most likely even longer.
As we continued through this maze of stone-shaded twilight, we stopped at all the available holes to study the interior and investigate the possibility of entry. Some were above our reach, while others only led to ice-clogged ruins with no roof and barren like a fortress on a hill. One, though vast and inviting, was opened in a seemingly bottomless abyss with no means of descent in sight. Sometimes we had the opportunity to study the petrified wood of the surviving shutter, and were impressed by the amazing antiquity implied in the still-visible groove. These things come from gymnosperms and Mesozoic conifers — especially the chalk cycads — and from the fan palms and early angiosperms of the obvious Tertiary dates. Nothing is certain after Pliocene can be found. In this window leaf placement — whose edges show long-lost hinge marks — its use seems to vary; some are outside and some are on the inner side of the deep hole. They appear to have been sandwiched in place, thus surviving rust from the marks and possibly metal binders and possibly them.
After some time, we found a row of — windows in the spikes of the five large endless conical tops jagged — leading to a spacious well-maintained room with a stone floor; but this is too high in the room to allow for a descent without ropes. We have a rope with us, but do not want to bother with this twenty-foot drop unless obliged to - especially in the air of this plateau where great demands are made on the actions of the heart. This very spacious room is probably some kind of hall or meeting place, and our electric torches feature bold, distinct sculptures, and it is potentially surprising that it surrounds the walls in wide and horizontal bands separated by the same wide strips of conventional arabic. We pay close attention to this place, planning to enter here unless an easier-to-get interior is found.
However, finally, we actually found the gap we wanted; an arch about six feet wide and ten feet high, he said, marks the former end of an air bridge that spans an alley about five feet above the current glaciation level. These arches are, of course, flattened to the upper floor; and in this case one of the floors is still there. The accessible building was a series of square terraces on our left facing west. It was across the alley, where the other arch was evaporated, was an old cylinder with no windows and with a strange bulge about ten feet above the opening. The inside was completely dark, and the gate appeared to be open in a well that had no boundless void.
The accumulated debris made the entrance to the large left-hand building double easy, but for a moment we hesitated before taking advantage of the long-awaited opportunity. Because even though we have penetrated into this mysterious mystery, it required a new resolution to take us completely inside a complete building and survive the incredible old world whose nature is becoming more and more sinister for us. However, in the end, we succeeded; and rushed over the rubble into the gaping hole. The floor outside was made of large slate slabs, and seemed to form an outlet of a long and high corridor with sculptural walls.
How vast the territory we have opened, it is impossible to guess without a trial. Its close and frequent connections from a variety of different buildings allow us to cross each other on bridges under the ice unless otherwise hindered by local collapse and geological rifts, because very little thinning seems to have entered the massive construction. Almost all transparent ice fields had revealed sinking windows as tightly shut, as if the city had been left in a uniform state until the ice sheets came to crystallize the bottom for all the next time. Indeed, one gets the strange impression that this place was deliberately closed and abandoned in some gloomy past, rather than being overwhelmed by sudden disasters or even gradual decay. Has the arrival of the ice been foreseen, and has the nameless population gone en masse to find a place to live that was not so devastated? The exact physiographic conditions that attend to the formation of the ice sheet at this point should await the next solution. Obviously, this is not a moving mill. Perhaps the pressure from snow accumulation is the cause; and perhaps some flooding from rivers, or from the rupture of some ancient glacier dams in wide ranges, has helped create special conditions that can now be observed. Imagination could imagine almost everything related to this place.
The Elder Things city is located behind (in) a large iceberg that is always hit by strong snowstorms and landslides continue to arrive.