I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow
my advice without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell my reasons
for opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole:
Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2--with its vast fossil hunt and its
wholesale boring and melting of the ancientDefinition: a very old person; a person who lived
in ancient times; belonging to times long past especially of the historical period
before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 ice caps. And I am the more reluctant because my warning
may be in vain.
Doubt of the real facts, as I must reveal them, is inevitable; yet, if I suppressed what will seem extravagant and incredible, there would be nothing left. The hitherto withheld photographs, both ordinary and aerial, will count in my favor, for they are damnably vivid and graphic. Still, they will be doubted because of the great lengths to which clever fakery can be carried. The ink drawings, of course, will be jeered at as obvious impostures, notwithstanding a strangeness of technique which art experts ought to remark and puzzle over.
In the end I must rely on the judgment and standing of the few
scientific leaders who have, on the one hand, sufficient independence of thought to
weigh my data on its own hideously convincing merits or in the light of certain primordialDefinition:
having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 and highly baffling mythDefinition: a
traditional story accepted as history; serves to explain the world view of a
people
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 cycles; and on
the other hand, sufficient influence to deter the exploring world in general from any
rash and over-ambitious program in the region of those mountains of madness. It is an
unfortunate fact that relatively obscure men like myself and my associates, connected
only with a small university, have little chance of making an impression where matters
of a wildly bizarreDefinition: conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 1 or highly controversial nature are concerned.
It is further against us that we are not, in the strictest sense,
specialists in the fields which came primarily to be concerned. As a geologist, my
object in leading the Miskatonic University Expedition was wholly that of securing
deep-level specimens of rock and soil from various parts of the antarcticDefinition: the region around the
south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 continent, aided by the remarkable
drill devised by Professor Frank H. Pabodie of our engineering department. I had no wish
to be a pioneer in any other field than this, but I did hope that the use of this new
mechanical appliance at different points along previously explored paths would bring to
light materials of a sort hitherto unreached by the ordinary methods of collection.
Pabodie's drilling apparatus, as the public already knows from our
reports, was unique and radical in its lightness, portability, and capacity to combine
the ordinary artesian drill principle with the principle of the small circular rock
drill in such a way as to cope quickly with strata of varying hardness. Steel head,
jointed rods, gasoline motor, collapsible wooden derrick, dynamiting paraphernalia,
cording, rubbish-removal auger, and sectional piping for bores five inches wide and up
to one thousand feet deep all formed, with needed accessories, no greater load than
three seven-dog sledges could carry. This was made possible by the clever aluminum alloy
of which most of the metal objects were fashioned. Four large Dornier aeroplanes,
designed especially for the tremendous altitude flying necessary on the antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 plateau and with
added fuel-warming and quick-starting devices worked out by Pabodie, could transport our
entire expedition from a base at the edge of the great ice barrier to various suitable
inland points, and from these points a sufficient quota of dogs would serve us.
We planned to cover as great an area as one antarcticDefinition: the region around the
south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 season--or longer, if absolutely
necessary--would permit, operating mostly in the mountain ranges and on the plateau
south of Ross Sea; regions explored in varying degree by Shackleton, Amundsen, Scott,
and Byrd. With frequent changes of camp, made by aeroplane and involving distances great
enough to be of geological significance, we expected to unearthDefinition: bring to light; recover
through digging
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 a quite
unprecedented amount of material--especially in the pre-Cambrian
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 strata of which so narrow a range of
antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at
or near the south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
specimens had previously been secured. We wished also to obtain as great as possible a
variety of the upper fossiliferous rocks, since the primalDefinition: serving as an essential
component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or
state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 life history of
this bleak realm of ice and death is of the highest importance to our knowledge of the
earth's past. That the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding
waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2 continent was once temperate and even tropical, with a teeming
vegetable and animal life of which the lichens, marine fauna, arachnida, and penguins of
the northern edge are the only survivals, is a matter of common information; and we
hoped to expand that information in variety, accuracy, and detail. When a simple boring
revealed fossiliferousDefinition: bearing or containing fossils
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 1 signs, we would enlarge the aperture by blasting, in order to
get specimens of suitable size and condition.
Our borings, of varying depth according to the promise held out by the
upper soil or rock, were to be confined to exposed, or nearly exposed, land
surfaces--these inevitably being slopes and ridges because of the mile or two-mile
thickness of solid ice overlying the lower levels. We could not afford to waste drilling
the depth of any considerable amount of mere glaciation, though Pabodie had worked out a
plan for sinking copper electrodes in thick clusters of borings and melting off limited
areas of ice with current from a gasoline-driven dynamo. It is this plan--which we could
not put into effect except experimentally on an expedition such as ours--that the coming
Starkweather-Moore Expedition proposes to follow, despite the warnings I have issued
since our return from the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding
waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2.
The public knows of the Miskatonic Expedition through our frequent wireless reports to the Arkham Advertiser and Associated Press, and through the later articles of Pabodie and myself. We consisted of four men from the University--Pabodie, Lake of the biology department, Atwood of the physics department--also a meteorologist--and myself, representing geology and having nominal command--besides sixteen assistants: seven graduate students from Miskatonic and nine skilled mechanics. Of these sixteen, twelve were qualified aeroplane pilots, all but two of whom were competent wireless operators. Eight of them understood navigation with compass and sextant, as did Pabodie, Atwood, and I. In addition, of course, our two ships--wooden ex-whalers, reinforced for ice conditions and having auxiliary steam--were fully manned.
The Nathaniel Derby Pickman Foundation, aided by a few special contributions, financed the expedition; hence our preparations were extremely thorough, despite the absence of great publicity. The dogs, sledges, machines, camp materials, and unassembled parts of our five planes were delivered in Boston, and there our ships were loaded. We were marvelously well-equipped for our specific purposes, and in all matters pertaining to supplies, regimen, transportation, and camp construction we profited by the excellent example of our many recent and exceptionally brilliant predecessors. It was the unusual number and fame of these predecessors which made our own expedition--ample though it was--so little noticed by the world at large.
As the newspapers told, we sailed from Boston Harbor on September 2nd,
1930, taking a leisurely course down the coast and through the Panama Canal, and
stopping at Samoa and Hobart, Tasmania, at which latter place we took on final supplies.
None of our exploring party had ever been in the polar regions before, hence we all
relied greatly on our ship captains--J. B. Douglas, commanding the brig Arkham, and
serving as commander of the sea party, and Georg Thorfinnssen, commanding the barque
Miskatonic--both veteran whalers in antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole:
Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 waters.
As we left the inhabited world behind, the sun sank lower and lower in
the north, and stayed longer and longer above the horizon each day. At about 62° South
Latitude we sighted our first icebergs--table-like objects with vertical sides--and just
before reaching the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding
waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2 circle, which we crossed on October 20th with appropriately quaint
ceremonies, we were considerably troubled with field ice. The falling temperature
bothered me considerably after our long voyage through the tropics, but I tried to brace
up for the worse rigors to come. On many occasions the curious atmospheric effects
enchanted me vastly; these including a strikingly vivid mirage--the first I had ever
seen--in which distant bergs became the battlements of unimaginable cosmic castles.
Pushing through the ice, which was fortunately neither extensive nor thickly packed, we regained open water at South Latitude 77° 9'.
The last lap of the voyage was vivid and fancy-stirring. Great barren
peaks of mysteryDefinition: something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained; a story
about a crime (usually murder) presented as a novel or play or movie
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 loomed up constantly against the west as the
low northern sun of noon or the still lower horizon-grazing southern sun of midnight
poured its hazy reddish rays over the white snow, bluish ice and water lanes, and black
bits of exposed granite slope. Through the desolate summits swept ranging, intermittent
gusts of the terrible antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding
waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2 wind; whose cadences sometimes held vague suggestions of a wild and
half-sentient musical piping, with notes extending over a wide range, and which for some
subconscious mnemonic reason seemed to me disquieting and even dimly terrible. Something
about the scene reminded me of the strange and disturbing Asian paintings of Nicholas
Roerich , and of the still stranger and more disturbing descriptions of the evillyDefinition: in a
wicked evil manner
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1
fabledDefinition:
celebrated in fable or legend
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets:
1 plateau of Leng which occur in the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab
Abdul Alhazred. I was rather sorry, later on, that I had ever looked into that monstrousDefinition:
abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or
size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3
book at the college library.
On the 7th of November, sight of the westward range having been
temporarily lost, we passed Franklin Island; and the next day descried the cones of Mts.
Erebus and Terror on Ross Island ahead, with the long line of the Parry Mountains
beyond. There now stretched off to the east the low, white line of the great ice
barrier, rising perpendicularly to a height of two hundred feet like the rocky cliffs of
Quebec, and marking the end of southward navigation. In the afternoon we entered McMurdo
Sound and stood off the coast in the lee of smoking Mt. Erebus. The scoriac peak towered
up some twelve thousand, seven hundred feet against the eastern sky, like a Japanese
print of the sacredDefinition: concerned with religion or religious purposes; worthy of respect or
dedication; made or declared or believed to be holy; devoted to a deity or some
religious ceremony or use; worthy of religious veneration; (often followed by `to')
devoted exclusively to a single use or purpose or person
Word Type:
religious
Number Of Synsets: 5 Fujiyama, while beyond it rose the white,
ghostlike height of Mt. Terror, ten thousand, nine hundred feet in altitude, and now
extinct as a volcano.
Puffs of smoke from Erebus came intermittently, and one of the graduate assistants--a brilliant young fellow named Danforth--pointed out what looked like lava on the snowy slope, remarking that this mountain, discovered in 1840, had undoubtedly been the source of Poe's image when he wrote seven years later:
--the lavas that restlessly roll Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek In the ultimate climes of the pole--That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek In the realms of the boreal pole.
Danforth was a great reader of bizarreDefinition: conspicuously or grossly unconventional
or unusual
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 material, and had
talked a good deal of Poe. I was interested myself because of the antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 scene of Poe's
only long story--the disturbing and enigmatical Arthur Gordon Pym. On the barren shore,
and on the lofty ice barrier in the background, myriads of grotesqueDefinition: art characterized by an
incongruous mixture of parts of humans and animals interwoven with plants; distorted
and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous; ludicrously odd
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3penguins squawked and flapped their
fins, while many fat seals were visible on the water, swimming or sprawling across large
cakes of slowly drifting ice.
Using small boats, we effected a difficult landing on Ross Island
shortly after midnight on the morning of the 9th, carrying a line of cable from each of
the ships and preparing to unload supplies by means of a breeches-buoy arrangement. Our
sensations on first treading Antarctic soil were poignant and complex, even though at
this particular point the Scott and Shackleton expeditions had preceded us. Our camp on
the frozen shore below the volcano's slope was only a provisional one, headquarters
being kept aboard the Arkham. We landed all our drilling apparatus, dogs, sledges,
tents, provisions, gasoline tanks, experimental ice-melting outfit, cameras, both
ordinary and aerial, aeroplane parts, and other accessories, including three small
portable wireless outfits--besides those in the planes--capable of communicating with
the Arkham's large outfit from any part of the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole:
Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 continent that we would be likely to
visit. The ship's outfit, communicating with the outside world, was to convey press
reports to the Arkham Advertiser's powerful wireless station on Kingsport Head,
Massachusetts. We hoped to complete our work during a single antarcticDefinition: the region around the
south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 summer; but if this proved
impossible, we would winter on the Arkham, sending the Miskatonic north before the
freezing of the ice for another summer's supplies.
I need not repeat what the newspapers have already published about our early work: of our ascent of Mt. Erebus; our successful mineral borings at several points on Ross Island and the singular speed with which Pabodie's apparatus accomplished them, even through solid rock layers; our provisional test of the small ice-melting equipment; our perilous ascent of the great barrier with sledges and supplies; and our final assembling of five huge aeroplanes at the camp atop the barrier. The health of our land party--twenty men and fifty-five Alaskan sledge dogs--was remarkable, though of course we had so far encountered no really destructive temperatures or windstorms. For the most part, the thermometer varied between zero and 20° or 25° above, and our experience with New England winters had accustomed us to rigors of this sort. The barrier camp was semi-permanent, and destined to be a storage cache for gasoline, provisions, dynamite, and other supplies.
Only four of our planes were needed to carry the actual exploring material, the fifth being left with a pilot and two men from the ships at the storage cache to form a means of reaching us from the Arkham in case all our exploring planes were lost. Later, when not using all the other planes for moving apparatus, we would employ one or two in a shuttle transportation service between this cache and another permanent base on the great plateau from six hundred to seven hundred miles southward, beyond Beardmore Glacier. Despite the almost unanimous accounts of appalling winds and tempests that pour down from the plateau, we determined to dispense with intermediate bases, taking our chances in the interest of economy and probable efficiency.
Wireless reports have spoken of the breathtaking, four-hour, nonstop
flight of our squadron on November 21st over the lofty shelf ice, with vast peaks rising
on the west, and the unfathomed silences echoing to the sound of our engines. Wind
troubled us only moderately, and our radio compasses helped us through the one opaque
fog we encountered. When the vast rise loomed ahead, between and 84°, we knew we had
reached Beardmore Glacier, the largest valley glacier in the world, and that the frozen
sea was now giving place to a frowning and mountainous coast line. At last we were truly
entering the white, aeon-dead
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 world of the
ultimate south. Even as we realized it we saw the peak of Mt. Nansen in the eastern
distance, towering up to its height of almost fifteen thousand feet.
The successful establishment of the southern base above the glacier in
East Longitude 174° 23', and the phenomenally rapid and effective borings and blastings
made at various points reached by our sledge trips and short aeroplane flights, are
matters of history; as is the arduous and triumphant ascent of Mt. Nansen by Pabodie and
two of the graduate students--Gedney and Carroll--on December 13-15. We were some eight
thousand, five hundred feet above sea-level, and when experimental drillings revealed
solid ground only twelve feet down through the snow and ice at certain points, we made
considerable use of the small melting apparatus and sunk bores and performed dynamiting
at many places where no previous explorer had ever thought of securing mineral
specimens. The pre-Cambrian
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 granites
and beacon sandstones thus obtained confirmed our belief that this plateau was
homogeneous, with the great bulk of the continent to the west, but somewhat different
from the parts lying eastward below South America--which we then thought to form a
separate and smaller continent divided from the larger one by a frozen junction of Ross
and Weddell Seas, though Byrd has since disproved the hypothesisDefinition: a proposal intended to
explain certain facts or observations; a tentative insight into the natural world; a
concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or
phenomena; a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3.
In certain of the sandstones, dynamited and chiseled after boring
revealed their nature, we found some highly interesting fossil markings and fragments;
notably ferns, seaweeds, trilobitesDefinition: an extinct arthropod that was abundant in Paleozoic times;
had an exoskeleton divided into three parts
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 1, crinoids, and such mollusks as linguellae and gastropods--all
of which seemed of real significance in connection with the region's primordialDefinition:
having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 history. There was also a
queerDefinition:
offensive term for an openly homosexual man; hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans,
or desires) of; put in a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position; beyond or
deviating from the usual or expected; homosexual or arousing homosexual desires
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5 triangular, striated marking,
about a foot in greatest diameter, which Lake pieced together from three fragments of
slate brought up from a deep-blasted aperture. These fragments came from a point to the
westward, near the Queen Alexandra Range; and Lake, as a biologist, seemed to find their
curious marking unusually puzzling and provocative, though to my geological eye it
looked not unlike some of the ripple effects reasonably common in the sedimentary rocks.
Since slate is no more than a metamorphic formation into which a sedimentary stratum is
pressed, and since the pressure itself produces odd distorting effects on any markings
which may exist, I saw no reason for extreme wonder over the striated depression.
On January 6th, 1931, Lake, Pabodie, Danforth, the other six students,
and myself flew directly over the south pole in two of the great planes, being forced
down once by a sudden high wind, which, fortunately, did not develop into a typical
storm. This was, as the papers have stated, one of several observation flights, during
others of which we tried to discern new topographical features in areas unreached by
previous explorers. Our early flights were disappointing in this latter respect, though
they afforded us some magnificent examples of the richly fantastic and deceptive mirages
of the polar regions, of which our sea voyage had given us some brief foretastes.
Distant mountains floated in the sky as enchanted cities, and often the whole white
world would dissolve into a gold, silver, and scarlet land of Dunsanian
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 dreams and adventurous expectancy under the magic of the
low midnight sun. On cloudy days we had considerable trouble in flying owing to the
tendency of snowy earth and sky to merge into one mysticalDefinition: relating to or characteristic of
mysticism; relating to or resembling mysticism; having an import not apparent to the
senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 opalescent void with no visible
horizon to mark the junction of the two.
At length we resolved to carry out our original plan of flying five
hundred miles eastward with all four exploring planes and establishing a fresh sub-base
at a point which would probably be on the smaller continental division, as we mistakenly
conceived it. Geological specimens obtained there would be desirable for purposes of
comparison. Our health so far had remained excellent--lime juice well offsetting the
steady diet of tinned and salted food, and temperatures generally above zero enabling us
to do without our thickest furs. It was now midsummer, and with haste and care we might
be able to conclude work by March and avoid a tedious wintering through the long antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 night. Several
savage windstorms had burst upon us from the west, but we had escaped damage through the
skill of Atwood in devising rudimentary aeroplane shelters and windbreaks of heavy snow
blocks, and reinforcing the principal camp buildings with snow. Our good luck and
efficiency had indeed been almost uncannyDefinition: suggesting the operation of
supernatural influences; surpassing the ordinary or normal
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2.
The outside world knew, of course, of our program, and was told also of
Lake's strange and dogged insistence on a westward--or rather,
northwestward--prospecting trip before our radical shift to the new base. It seems that
he had pondered a great deal, and with alarmingly radical daring, over that triangular
striated marking in the slate; reading into it certain contradictions in nature and
geological period which whetted his curiosity to the utmost, and made him avid to sink
more borings and blastings in the west-stretching formation to which the exhumed
fragments evidently belonged. He was strangely convinced that the marking was the print
of some bulky, unknown, and radically unclassifiable organism of considerably advanced
evolutionDefinition: a process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage
(especially a more advanced or mature stage); (biology) the sequence of events
involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of
organisms
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2,
notwithstanding that the rock which bore it was of so vastly ancientDefinition: a very old person; a
person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past especially of the
historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 a date--Cambrian if not actually pre-Cambrian
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0--as to preclude the probable
existence not only of all highly evolved life, but of any life at all above the
unicellular or at most the trilobiteDefinition: an extinct arthropod that was abundant in Paleozoic times;
had an exoskeleton divided into three parts
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 1 stage. These fragments, with their odd marking, must have been
five hundred million to a thousand million years old.
Popular imagination, I judge, responded actively to our wireless
bulletins of Lake's start northwestward into regions never trodden by human foot or
penetrated by human imagination, though we did not mention his wild hopes of
revolutionizing the entire sciences of biology and geology. His preliminary sledging and
boring journey of January 11th to 18th with Pabodie and five others--marred by the loss
of two dogs in an upset when crossing one of the great pressure ridges in the ice--had
brought up more and more of the ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the earliest known
rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 slate; and even I was interested by the singular profusion of
evident fossil markings in that unbelievably ancientDefinition: a very old person; a person who lived
in ancient times; belonging to times long past especially of the historical period
before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 stratum. These markings, however, were of very primitive
life forms involving no great paradox except that any life forms should occur in rock as
definitely pre-Cambrian
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 as this seemed to be;
hence I still failed to see the good sense of Lake's demand for an interlude in our
time-saving program--an interlude requiring the use of all four planes, many men, and
the whole of the expedition's mechanical apparatus. I did not, in the end, veto the
plan, though I decided not to accompany the northwestward party despite Lake's plea for
my geological advice. While they were gone, I would remain at the base with Pabodie and
five men and work out final plans for the eastward shift. In preparation for this
transfer, one of the planes had begun to move up a good gasoline supply from McMurdo
Sound; but this could wait temporarily. I kept with me one sledge and nine dogs, since
it is unwise to be at any time without possible transportation in an utterly tenantless
world of aeon-long
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 death.
Lake's sub-expedition into the unknown, as everyone will recall, sent out its own reports from the shortwave 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, beaver-like 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 mysteriesDefinition: something that baffles understanding
and cannot be explained; a story about a crime (usually murder) presented as a novel
or play or movie
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 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 , 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
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 slate
with other strata mixed in. Queer skyline effects--regular sections of cubes clinging to
highest peaks. Whole thing marvelous in red-gold light of low sun. Like land of mysteryDefinition: something
that baffles understanding and cannot be explained; a story about a crime (usually
murder) presented as a novel or play or movie
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2 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 aeroplane, but hoped it could be easily mended. Then, at 11 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 queerDefinition: offensive term for an openly homosexual
man; hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of; put in a dangerous,
disadvantageous, or difficult position; beyond or deviating from the usual or
expected; homosexual or arousing homosexual desires
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5. Range looks like pre-Cambrian
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 0 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 of 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 aeroplane activities, would require a great deal for the new base which he planned 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
queerDefinition:
offensive term for an openly homosexual man; hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans,
or desires) of; put in a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position; beyond or
deviating from the usual or expected; homosexual or arousing homosexual desires
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5 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 antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole:
Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 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 4 P.M., for about that
time Lake began sending in the most extraordinary and excited messages. His working day
had started unpropitiously, since an aeroplane survey of the nearly-exposed rock
surfaces showed an entire absence of those ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the earliest known
rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 and primordialDefinition: having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or
original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1
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 JurassicDefinition: from 190 million to 135 million years ago; dinosaurs; conifers; of or
relating to or denoting the second period of the Mesozoic era
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 and Comanchian
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 sandstones and PermianDefinition: from 280 million to 230 million years
ago; reptiles
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 and TriassicDefinition: from
230 million to 190 million years ago; dinosaurs, marine reptiles; volcanic activity;
of or relating to or denoting the first period of the Mesozoic era
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 schists, with now and then a glossy
black outcropping suggesting a hard and slaty coal. This rather discouraged Lake, whose
plans all hinged on unearthingDefinition: bring to light; recover through digging
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 2 specimens more than five hundred million
years older. It was clear to him that in order to recover the ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the
earliest known rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 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 aeroplane. 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 Comanchian
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0
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 teleosts, 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 subterrene secret; and now, through a jagged aperture perhaps five
feet across and three feet thick, there yawned before the avid searchers a section of
shallow limestone hollowing worn more than fifty million years ago by the trickling
ground waters of a bygoneDefinition: past events to be put aside; well in the past; former
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 2 tropic world.
The hollowed layer was not more than seven or eight feet deep but
extended off indefinitely in all directions and had a fresh, slightly moving air which
suggested its membership in an extensive subterranean system. Its roof and floor were
abundantly equipped with large stalactites and stalagmites, some of which met in
columnar form: but important above all else was the vast deposit of shells and bones,
which in places nearly choked the passage. Washed down from unknown jungles of MesozoicDefinition: from
230 million to 63 million years ago; of or relating to or denoting the Mesozoic
era
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 tree ferns and
fungi, and forests of TertiaryDefinition: from 63 million to 2 million years ago; coming next after
the second and just before the fourth in position
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 2
cycadsDefinition: any
tropical gymnosperm of the order Cycadales; having unbranched stems with a crown of
fernlike leaves
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1, fan
palms, and primitive angiosperms, this osseous medley contained representatives of more
CretaceousDefinition: from 135 million to 63 million years ago; end of the age of reptiles;
appearance of modern insects and flowering plants; abounding in chalk; of or relating
to or denoting the third period of the Mesozoic era
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3, EoceneDefinition: from 58 million to 40 million years ago;
presence of modern mammals
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
1, and other animal species than the greatest paleontologist could have
counted or classified in a year. Mollusks, crustacean armor, fishes, amphibians,
reptiles, birds, and early mammals--great and small, known and unknown. No wonder Gedney
ran back to the camp shouting, and no wonder everyone else dropped work and rushed
headlong through the biting cold to where the tall derrick marked a new-found gateway to
secrets of inner earth and vanished aeonsDefinition: (Gnosticism) a divine power or nature
emanating from the Supreme Being and playing various roles in the operation of the
universe; the longest division of geological time; an immeasurably long period of
time
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3.
When Lake had satisfied the first keen edge of his curiosity, he
scribbled a message in his notebook and had young Moulton run back to the camp to
dispatch it by wireless. This was my first word of the discovery, and it told of the
identification of early shells, bones of ganoidsDefinition: primitive fishes having thick bony
scales with a shiny covering
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
1 and placodermsDefinition: fish-like vertebrate with bony plates on head and upper
body; dominant in seas and rivers during the Devonian; considered the earliest
vertebrate with jaws
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1,
remnants of labyrinthodontsDefinition: an amphibian of the superorder Labyrinthodontia
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 and thecodontsDefinition: presumably in the
common ancestral line to dinosaurs and crocodiles and birds
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1, great mosasaur
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 skull fragments, dinosaur vertebrae and armor plates,
pterodactylDefinition: extinct flying reptile
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 teeth and wing bones, ArchaeopteryxDefinition: extinct primitive toothed bird of
the Jurassic period having a long feathered tail and hollow bones; usually considered
the most primitive of all birds
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
1 debris, MioceneDefinition: from 25 million to 13 million years ago; appearance of
grazing mammals
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 sharks'
teeth, primitive bird skulls, and other bones of archaicDefinition: so extremely old as seeming to belong
to an earlier period; little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral
type
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 mammals such as
palaeotheres
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0, Xiphodons
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0, Eohippi
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 0, Oreodons, and titanotheres
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 0. There was nothing as recent as a mastodon, elephant, true camel,
deer, or bovine animal; hence Lake concluded that the last deposits had occurred during
the OligoceneDefinition: from 40 million to 25 million years ago; appearance of sabertoothed
cats
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1Age, and that the
hollowed stratum had lain in its present dried, dead, and inaccessible state for at
least thirty million years.
On the other hand, the prevalence of very early life forms was singular
in the highest degree. Though the limestone formation was, on the evidence of such
typical imbedded fossils as ventriculites
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 0, positively and unmistakably Comanchian
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 and not a particle earlier, the free fragments in the
hollow space included a surprising proportion from organisms hitherto considered as
peculiar to far older periods--even rudimentary fishes, mollusks, and corals as remote
as the SilurianDefinition: from 425 million to 405 million years ago; first air-breathing
animals
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 or OrdovicianDefinition:
from 500 million to 425 million years ago; conodonts and ostracods and algae and
seaweeds
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1. The
inevitable inference was that in this part of the world there had been a remarkable and
unique degree of continuity between the life of over three hundred million years ago and
that of only thirty million years ago. How far this continuity had extended beyond the
OligoceneDefinition: from 40 million to 25 million years ago; appearance of sabertoothed
cats
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1Age when the cavern
was closed was of course past all speculation. In any event, the coming of the frightful
ice in the PleistoceneDefinition: from two million to 11 thousand years ago; extensive glaciation of the
northern hemisphere; the time of human evolution
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 some five hundred thousand years ago--a mere yesterday as
compared with the age of this cavity--must have put an end to any of the primalDefinition: serving
as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or
original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
forms which had locally managed to outlive their common terms.
Lake was not content to let his first message stand, but had another bulletin written and dispatched across the snow to the camp before Moulton could get back. After that Moulton stayed at the wireless in one of the planes, transmitting to me--and to the Arkham for relaying to the outside world--the frequent postscripts which Lake sent him by a succession of messengers. Those who followed the newspapers will remember the excitement created among men of science by that afternoon's reports--reports which have finally led, after all these years, to the organization of that very Starkweather-Moore Expedition which I am so anxious to dissuade from its purposes. I had better give the messages literally as Lake sent them, and as our base operator McTighe translated them from the pencil shorthand:
"Fowler makes discovery of highest importance in sandstone and
limestone fragments from blasts. Several distinct triangular striated prints like those
in ArchaeanDefinition:
of or relating to the earliest known rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 slate, proving that source
survived from over six hundred million years ago to Comanchian
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 times without more than moderate morphological changes
and decrease in average size. Comanchian
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 0 prints apparently more primitive or decadent, if anything, than
older ones. Emphasize importance of discovery in press. Will mean to biology what
Einstein has meant to mathematicsDefinition: a science (or group of related sciences) dealing with the
logic of quantity and shape and arrangement
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 1 and physics. Joins up with my previous work and amplifies
conclusions.
"Appears to indicate, as I suspected, that earth has seen whole cycle
or cycles of organic life before known one that begins with ArchaeozoicDefinition: the time from 3,800
million years to 2,500 million years ago; earth's crust formed; unicellular organisms
are earliest forms of life; of or belonging to earlier of two divisions of the
Precambrian era
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 cells.
Was evolved and specialized not later than a thousand million years ago, when planet was
young and recently uninhabitable for any life forms or normal protoplasmic
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 structure. Question arises when, where,
and how development took place."
"Later. Examining certain skeletal fragments of large land and marine saurians and primitive mammals, find singular local wounds or injuries to bony structure not attributable to any known predatory or carnivorous animal of any period, of two sorts--straight, penetrant bores, and apparently hacking incisions. One or two cases of cleanly severed bones. Not many specimens affected. Am sending to camp for electric torches. Will extend search area underground by hacking away stalactites."
"Still later. Have found peculiar soapstone fragment about six inches across and an inch and a half thick, wholly unlike any visible local formation--greenish, but no evidences to place its period. Has curious smoothness and regularity. Shaped like five-pointed star with tips broken off, and signs of other cleavage at inward angles and in center of surface. Small, smooth depression in center of unbroken surface. Arouses much curiosity as to source and weathering. Probably some freak of water action. Carroll, with magnifier, thinks he can make out additional markings of geologic significance. Groups of tiny dots in regular patterns. Dogs growing uneasy as we work, and seem to hate this soapstone. Must see if it has any peculiar odor. Will report again when Mills gets back with light and we start on underground area."
"10:15 P.M. Important discovery. Orrendorf and Watkins, working
underground at 9:45 with light, found monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal
or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 barrel-shaped fossil of wholly unknown
nature; probably vegetable unless overgrown specimen of unknown marine radiata. Tissue
evidently preserved by mineral salts. Tough as leather, but astonishing flexibility
retained in places. Marks of broken-off parts at ends and around sides. Six feet end to
end, three and five-tenths feet central diameter, tapering to one foot at each end. Like
a barrel with five bulging ridges in place of staves. Lateral breakages, as of thinnish
stalks, are at equator in middle of these ridges. In furrows between ridges are curious
growths--combs or wings that fold up and spread out like fans. All greatly damaged but
one, which gives almost seven-foot wing spread. Arrangement reminds one of certain monstersDefinition: an
imaginary creature usually having various human and animal parts; someone or
something that is abnormally large and powerful; a person or animal that is markedly
unusual or deformed; a cruel wicked and inhuman person; (medicine) a grossly
malformed and usually nonviable fetus
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
5 of primalDefinition: serving as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in
an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2
mythDefinition: a
traditional story accepted as history; serves to explain the world view of a
people
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1, especially
fabled ElderDefinition: a
person who is older than you are; any of numerous shrubs or small trees of temperate
and subtropical northern hemisphere having white flowers and berrylike fruit; any of
various church officers; used of the older of two persons of the same name especially
used to distinguish a father from his son
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 4Things in Necronomicon.
"Their wings seem to be membranous, stretched on frame work of glandular tubing. Apparent minute orifices in frame tubing at wing tips. Ends of body shriveled, giving no clue to interior or to what has been broken off there. Must dissect when we get back to camp. Can't decide whether vegetable or animal. Many features obviously of almost incredible primitiveness. Have set all hands cutting stalactites and looking for further specimens. Additional scarred bones found, but these must wait. Having trouble with dogs. They can't endure the new specimen, and would probably tear it to pieces if we didn't keep it at a distance from them."
"11:30 P.M. Attention, Dyer, Pabodie, Douglas. Matter of highest--I
might say transcendent--importance. Arkham must relay to Kingsport Head Station at once.
Strange barrel growth is the ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the earliest known
rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 thing that left prints in rocks. Mills, Boudreau, and Fowler
discover cluster of thirteen more at underground point forty feet from aperture. Mixed
with curiously rounded and configured soapstone fragments smaller than one previously
found--star-shaped, but no marks of breakage except at some of the points.
"Of organic specimens, eight apparently perfect, with all appendages. Have brought all to surface, leading off dogs to distance. They cannot stand the things. Give close attention to description and repeat back for accuracy Papers must get this right.
"Objects are eight feet long all over. Six-foot, five-ridged barrel
torso three and five-tenths feet central diameter, one foot end diameters. Dark gray,
flexible, and infinitely tough. Seven-foot membranous wings of same color, found folded,
spread out of furrows between ridges. Wing framework tubular or glandular, of lighter
gray, with orifices at wing tips. Spread wings have serrated edge. Around equator, one
at central apex of each of the five vertical, stave-like ridges are five systems of
light gray flexible arms or tentaclesDefinition: something that acts like a tentacle
in its ability to grasp and hold; any of various elongated tactile or prehensile
flexible organs that occur on the head or near the mouth in many animals; used for
feeling or grasping or locomotion
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2 found tightly folded to torso but expansible to maximum length of
over three feet. Like arms of primitive crinoid. Single stalks three inches diameter
branch after six inches into five substalks, each of which branches after eight inches
into small, tapering tentaclesDefinition: something that acts like a tentacle in its ability to grasp
and hold; any of various elongated tactile or prehensile flexible organs that occur
on the head or near the mouth in many animals; used for feeling or grasping or
locomotion
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 or tendrils,
giving each stalk a total of twenty-five tentaclesDefinition: something that acts like a tentacle
in its ability to grasp and hold; any of various elongated tactile or prehensile
flexible organs that occur on the head or near the mouth in many animals; used for
feeling or grasping or locomotion
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2.
"At top of torso blunt, bulbous neck of lighter gray, with gill-like suggestions, holds yellowish five-pointed starfish-shaped apparent head covered with three-inch wiry cilia of various prismatic colors.
"Head thick and puffy, about two feet point to point, with three-inch flexible yellowish tubes projecting from each point. Slit in exact center of top probably breathing aperture. At end of each tube is spherical expansion where yellowish membrane rolls back on handling to reveal glassy, red-irised globe, evidently an eye.
"Five slightly longer reddish tubes start from inner angles of starfish-shaped head and end in saclike swellings of same color which, upon pressure, open to bell-shaped orifices two inches maximum diameter and lined with sharp, white tooth like projections--probably mouths. All these tubes, cilia, and points of starfish head, found folded tightly down; tubes and points clinging to bulbous neck and torso. Flexibility surprising despite vast toughness.
"At bottom of torso, rough but dissimilarly functioning counterparts of head arrangements exist. Bulbous light-gray pseudo-neck, without gill suggestions, holds greenish five-pointed starfish arrangement.
"Tough, muscular arms four feet long and tapering from seven inches diameter at base to about two and five-tenths at point. To each point is attached small end of a greenish five-veined membranous triangle eight inches long and six wide at farther end. This is the paddle, fin, or pseudofoot which has made prints in rocks from a thousand million to fifty or sixty million years old.
"From inner angles of starfish arrangement project two-foot reddish tubes tapering from three inches diameter at base to one at tip. Orifices at tips. All these parts infinitely tough and leathery, but extremely flexible. Four-foot arms with paddles undoubtedly used for locomotion of some sort, marine or otherwise. When moved, display suggestions of exaggerated muscularity. As found, all these projections tightly folded over pseudoneck and end of torso, corresponding to projections at other end.
"Cannot yet assign positively to animal or vegetable kingdom, but odds
now favor animal. Probably represents incredibly advanced evolutionDefinition: a process in which
something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more advanced or
mature stage); (biology) the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary
development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 of radiata without loss of certain
primitive features. Echinoderm resemblances unmistakable despite local contradictory
evidences.
"Wing structure puzzles in view of probable marine habitat, but may
have use in water navigation. SymmetryDefinition: (mathematics) an attribute of a shape
or relation; exact reflection of form on opposite sides of a dividing line or plane;
balance among the parts of something; (physics) the property of being isotropic;
having the same value when measured in different directions
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 is curiously vegetablelike
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0, suggesting vegetable's
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 0 essential up-and-down
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 0 structure rather than animal's fore-and-aft structure. Fabulously
early date of evolutionDefinition: a process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage
(especially a more advanced or mature stage); (biology) the sequence of events
involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of
organisms
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2, preceding
even simplest ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the earliest known rocks formed during the Precambrian
Eon
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1
protozoaDefinition: in
some classifications considered a superphylum or a subkingdom; comprises flagellates;
ciliates; sporozoans; amoebas; foraminifers; any of diverse minute acellular or
unicellular organisms usually nonphotosynthetic
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 hitherto known, baffles all conjecture as to origin.
"Complete specimens have such uncannyDefinition: suggesting the operation of
supernatural influences; surpassing the ordinary or normal
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 resemblance to certain creaturesDefinition: a living organism
characterized by voluntary movement; a human being; `wight' is an archaic term; a
person who is controlled by others and is used to perform unpleasant or dishonest
tasks for someone else
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 of
primalDefinition:
serving as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest
or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
2
mythDefinition: a
traditional story accepted as history; serves to explain the world view of a
people
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 that suggestion
of ancientDefinition: a
very old person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past
especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very
old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 existence outside antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 becomes
inevitable. Dyer and Pabodie have read Necronomicon and seen Clark Ashton Smith's nightmareDefinition: a
situation resembling a terrifying dream; a terrifying or deeply upsetting dream
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 paintings based on text, and will
understand when I speak of ElderDefinition: a person who is older than you are; any of numerous shrubs
or small trees of temperate and subtropical northern hemisphere having white flowers
and berrylike fruit; any of various church officers; used of the older of two persons
of the same name especially used to distinguish a father from his son
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4Things supposed to have created all
earth life as jestDefinition: a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; activity
characterized by good humor; tell a joke; speak humorously; act in a funny or teasing
way
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 or mistake. Students
have always thought conception formed from morbidDefinition: suggesting an unhealthy mental state;
suggesting the horror of death and decay; caused by or altered by or manifesting
disease or pathology
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3
imaginative treatment of very ancientDefinition: a very old person; a person who lived in ancient times;
belonging to times long past especially of the historical period before the fall of
the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
4 tropical radiata
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0. Also
like prehistoricDefinition: belonging to or existing in times before recorded history; of or
relating to times before written history; no longer fashionable
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 folklore things Wilmarth has spoken
of--Cthulhu
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0
cultDefinition:
followers of an exclusive system of religious beliefs and practices; an interest
followed with exaggerated zeal; followers of an unorthodox, extremist, or false
religion or sect who often live outside of conventional society under the direction
of a charismatic leader; a religion or sect that is generally considered to be
unorthodox, extremist, or false; a system of religious beliefs and rituals
Word
Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 5 appendages, etc.
"Vast field of study opened. Deposits probably of late CretaceousDefinition:
from 135 million to 63 million years ago; end of the age of reptiles; appearance of
modern insects and flowering plants; abounding in chalk; of or relating to or
denoting the third period of the Mesozoic era
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 or early EoceneDefinition: from 58 million to 40 million years ago;
presence of modern mammals
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
1 period, judging from associated specimens. Massive stalagmitesDefinition: a cylinder of calcium
carbonate projecting upward from the floor of a limestone cave
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 deposited above them. Hard work hewing
out, but toughness prevented damage. State of preservation miraculous, evidently owing
to limestone action. No more found so far, but will resume search later. Job now to get
fourteen huge specimens to camp without dogs, which bark furiously and can't be trusted
near them.
"With nine men--three left to guard the dogs--we ought to manage the three sledges fairly well, though wind is bad. Must establish plane communication with McMurdo Sound and begin shipping material. But I've got to dissect one of these things before we take any rest. Wish I had a real laboratory here. Dyer better kick himself for having tried to stop my westward trip. First the world's greatest mountains, and then this. If this last isn't the high spot of the expedition, I don't know what is. We're made scientifically. Congrats, Pabodie, on the drill that opened up the cave. Now will Arkham please repeat description?"
The sensations of Pabodie and myself at receipt of this report were
almost beyond description, nor were our companions much behind us in enthusiasm.
McTighe, who had hastily translated a few high spots as they came from the droning
receiving set, wrote out the entire message from his shorthand version as soon as Lake's
operator signed off. All appreciated the epoch-makingDefinition: highly significant or important
especially bringing about or marking the beginning of a new development or era
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 significance of the discovery, and
I sent Lake congratulations as soon as the Arkham's operator had repeated back the
descriptive parts as requested; and my example was followed by Sherman from his station
at the McMurdo Sound supply cache, as well as by Captain Douglas of the Arkham. Later,
as head of the expedition, I added some remarks to be relayed through the Arkham to the
outside world. Of course, rest was an absurd thought amidst this excitement; and my only
wish was to get to Lake's camp as quickly as I could. It disappointed me when he sent
word that a rising mountain gale made early aerial travel impossible.
But within an hour and a half interest again rose to banish disappointment. Lake, sending more messages, told of the completely successful transportation of the fourteen great specimens to the camp. It had been a hard pull, for the things were surprisingly heavy; but nine men had accomplished it very neatly. Now some of the party were hurriedly building a snow corral at a safe distance from the camp, to which the dogs could be brought for greater convenience in feeding. The specimens were laid out on the hard snow near the camp, save for one on which Lake was making crude attempts at dissection.
This dissection seemed to be a greater task than had been expected, for, despite the heat of a gasoline stove in the newly raised laboratory tent, the deceptively flexible tissues of the chosen specimen--a powerful and intact one--lost nothing of their more than leathery toughness. Lake was puzzled as to how he might make the requisite incisions without violence destructive enough to upset all the structural niceties he was looking for. He had, it is true, seven more perfect specimens; but these were too few to use up recklessly unless the cave might later yield an unlimited supply. Accordingly he removed the specimen and dragged in one which, though having remnants of the starfish arrangements at both ends, was badly crushed and partly disrupted along one of the great torso furrows.
Results, quickly reported over the wireless, were baffling and
provocative indeed. Nothing like delicacy or accuracy was possible with instruments
hardly able to cut the anomalous tissue, but the little that was achieved left us all
awed and bewildered. Existing biology would have to be wholly revised, for this thing
was no product of any cell growth science knows about. There had been scarcely any
mineral replacement, and despite an age of perhaps forty million years, the internal
organs were wholly intact. The leathery, undeteriorative
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 0, and almost indestructible quality was an inherent attribute of
the thing's form of organization, and pertained to some paleogean
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 cycle of invertebrateDefinition: any animal lacking a backbone or
notochord; the term is not used as a scientific classification; lacking a backbone or
spinal column
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
evolutionDefinition: a
process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more
advanced or mature stage); (biology) the sequence of events involved in the
evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 utterly beyond our powers of
speculation. At first all that Lake found was dry, but as the heated tent produced its
thawing effect, organic moisture of pungentDefinition: strong and sharp; capable of
wounding
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 and offensive odor
was encountered toward the thing's uninjured side. It was not blood, but a thick,
dark-green fluid apparently answering the same purpose. By the time Lake reached this
stage, all thirty-seven dogs had been brought to the still uncompleted corral near the
camp, and even at that distance set up a savage barking and show of restlessness at the
acrid, diffusive smell.
Far from helping to place the strange entity, this provisional
dissection merely deepened its mysteryDefinition: something that baffles understanding and cannot be
explained; a story about a crime (usually murder) presented as a novel or play or
movie
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2. All guesses about
its external members had been correct, and on the evidence of these one could hardly
hesitate to call the thing animal; but internal inspection brought up so many vegetable
evidences that Lake was left hopelessly at sea. It had digestion and circulation, and
eliminated waste matter through the reddish tubes of its starfish-shaped base.
Cursorily, one would say that its respiration apparatus handled oxygen rather than
carbon dioxide, and there were odd evidences of air-storage chambers and methods of
shifting respiration from the external orifice to at least two other fully developed
breathing systems--gills and pores. Clearly, it was amphibian, and probably adapted to
long airless hibernation periods as well. Vocal organs seemed present in connection with
the main respiratory system, but they presented anomalies beyond immediate solution.
Articulate speech, in the sense of syllable utterance, seemed barely conceivable, but
musical piping notes covering a wide range were highly probable. The muscular system was
almost prematurely developed.
The nervous system was so complex and highly developed as to leave Lake
aghast. Though excessively primitive and archaicDefinition: so extremely old as seeming to belong
to an earlier period; little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral
type
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 in some respects,
the thing had a set of ganglial
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 centers
and connectivesDefinition:
an uninflected function word that serves to conjoin words or phrases or clauses or
sentences; an instrumentality that connects
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 2 arguing the very extremes of specialized development. Its five-lobedDefinition:
having five lobes
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 brain
was surprisingly advanced, and there were signs of a sensory equipment, served in part
through the wiry ciliaDefinition: a hairlike projection from the surface of a cell; provides locomotion in
free-swimming unicellular organisms; any of the short curved hairs that grow from the
edges of the eyelids
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 of
the head, involving factors alienDefinition: a person who comes from a foreign country; someone who does
not owe allegiance to your country; anyone who does not belong in the environment in
which they are found; a form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its
atmosphere; transfer property or ownership; arouse hostility or indifference in where
there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness; not contained in or
deriving from the essential nature of something; being or from or characteristic of
another place or part of the world
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 7 to any other terrestrial organism. Probably it has more than five
senses, so that its habits could not be predicted from any existing analogyDefinition: an inference that if
things agree in some respects they probably agree in others; drawing a comparison in
order to show a similarity in some respect; the religious belief that between
creature and creator no similarity can be found so great but that the dissimilarity
is always greater; any analogy between God and humans will always be inadequate
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3. It must, Lake thought, have been
a creatureDefinition: a
living organism characterized by voluntary movement; a human being; `wight' is an
archaic term; a person who is controlled by others and is used to perform unpleasant
or dishonest tasks for someone else
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
3 of keen sensitiveness and delicately differentiated functions in its primalDefinition: serving
as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or
original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
world--much like the ants and bees of today. It reproduced like the vegetable cryptogamsDefinition:
formerly recognized taxonomic group including all flowerless and seedless plants that
reproduce by means of spores: ferns, mosses, algae, fungi
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1, especially the PteridophytaDefinition: containing all the
vascular plants that do not bear seeds: ferns, horsetails, club mosses, and whisk
ferns; in some classifications considered a subdivision of Tracheophyta
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1, having sporeDefinition: a small usually
single-celled asexual reproductive body produced by many nonflowering plants and
fungi and some bacteria and protozoans and that are capable of developing into a new
individual without sexual fusion
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
1 cases at the tips of the wings and evidently developing from a thallusDefinition: a
plant body without true stems or roots or leaves or vascular system; characteristic
of the thallophytes
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 or
prothallus
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0.
But to give it a name at this stage was mere folly. It looked like a
radiateDefinition: send
out rays or waves; send out real or metaphoric rays; extend or spread outward from a
center or focus or inward towards a center; have a complexion with a strong bright
color, such as red or pink; cause to be seen by emitting light as if in rays;
experience a feeling of well-being or happiness, as from good health or an intense
emotion; issue or emerge in rays or waves; spread into new habitats and produce
variety or variegate; arranged like rays or radii; radiating from a common center;
having rays or ray-like parts as in the flower heads of daisies
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 10, but was clearly something more. It was
partly vegetable, but had three-fourths of the essentials of animal structure. That it
was marine in origin, its symmetricalDefinition: having similarity in size, shape,
and relative position of corresponding parts; exhibiting equivalence or
correspondence among constituents of an entity or between different entities
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
contourDefinition: a line
drawn on a map connecting points of equal height; any spatial attributes (especially
as defined by outline); a feature (or the order or arrangement of features) of
anything having a complex structure; form the contours of
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 4 and certain other attributes clearly
indicated; yet one could not be exact as to the limit of its later adaptations. The
wings, after all, held a persistent suggestion of the aerialDefinition: a pass to a receiver
downfield from the passer; an electrical device that sends or receives radio or
television signals; existing or living or growing or operating in the air;
characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; as impalpable or intangible as
air
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 4. How it could have
undergone its tremendously complex evolutionDefinition: a process in which something passes
by degrees to a different stage (especially a more advanced or mature stage);
(biology) the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a
species or taxonomic group of organisms
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2 on a new-born earth in time to leave prints in ArchaeanDefinition: of or
relating to the earliest known rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 rocks was so far beyond conception
as to make Lake whimsically recall the primalDefinition: serving as an essential component;
having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
mythsDefinition: a
traditional story accepted as history; serves to explain the world view of a
people
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 about Great Old
Ones who filtered down from the stars and concocted earth life as a joke or mistake; and
the wild tales of cosmicDefinition: of or from or pertaining to or characteristic of the cosmos
or universe; inconceivably extended in space or time
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 hill things from outside told by a
folklorist colleague in Miskatonic's English department.
Naturally, he considered the possibility of the pre-Cambrian
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 prints having been made by a less
evolved ancestor of the present specimens, but quickly rejected this too-facile theory
upon considering the advanced structural qualities of the older fossilsDefinition: someone whose style is
out of fashion; the remains (or an impression) of a plant or animal that existed in a
past geological age and that has been excavated from the soil
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2. If anything, the later contoursDefinition: a line
drawn on a map connecting points of equal height; any spatial attributes (especially
as defined by outline); a feature (or the order or arrangement of features) of
anything having a complex structure; form the contours of
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 4 showed decadence rather than higher evolutionDefinition: a
process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more
advanced or mature stage); (biology) the sequence of events involved in the
evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2. The size of the pseudofeet
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 had decreased, and the whole morphologyDefinition: the
branch of biology that deals with the structure of animals and plants; studies of the
rules for forming admissible words; the admissible arrangement of sounds in words;
the branch of geology that studies the characteristics and configuration and
evolution of rocks and land forms
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 4 seemed coarsened and simplified. Moreover, the nerves and organs
just examined held singular suggestions of retrogressionDefinition: passing from a more complex to a
simpler biological form; returning to a former state
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 from forms still more complex. AtrophiedDefinition:
undergo atrophy; (of an organ or body part) diminished in size or strength as a
result of disease or injury or lack of use
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 2 and vestigialDefinition: not fully developed in mature
animals
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 parts were
surprisingly prevalent. Altogether, little could be said to have been solved; and Lake
fell back on mythologyDefinition: myths collectively; the body of stories associated with a culture or
institution or person; the study of myths
Word Type: religious
Number Of
Synsets: 2 for a provisional name--jocoselyDefinition: with humor
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 1 dubbing his finds "The Elder Ones."
At about 2:30 A.M., having decided to postpone further work and get a
little rest, he covered the dissectedDefinition: cut open or cut apart; make a
mathematical, chemical, or grammatical analysis of; break down into components or
essential features; having one or more incisions reaching nearly to the midrib
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 organism with a tarpaulinDefinition:
waterproofed canvas
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1, emerged
from the laboratory tent, and studied the intact specimensDefinition: an example regarded as typical of its
class; a bit of tissue or blood or urine that is taken for diagnostic purposes
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 with renewed interest. The
ceaseless antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at
or near the south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
sun had begun to limberDefinition: a two-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle used to pull a field gun or caisson;
attach the limber; cause to become limber; (used of e.g. personality traits) readily
adaptable; (used of artifacts) easily bent; (used of persons' bodies) capable of
moving or bending freely
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 6 up
their tissuesDefinition: part of an organism consisting of an aggregate of cells having a similar
structure and function; a soft thin (usually translucent) paper; create a piece of
cloth by interlacing strands of fabric, such as wool or cotton
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 a trifle, so that the head points and
tubes of two or three showed signs of unfolding; but Lake did not believe there was any
danger of immediate decompositionDefinition: the analysis of a vector field; in a decomposed state;
(chemistry) separation of a substance into two or more substances that may differ
from each other and from the original substance; (biology) the process of decay
caused by bacterial or fungal action; the organic phenomenon of rotting
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 5 in the almost subzero
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 air. He did, however, move all the
undissected specimens close together and throw a spare tent over them in order to keep
off the direct solar rays. That would also help to keep their possible scent away from
the dogs, whose hostile unrest was really becoming a problem, even at their substantial
distance and behind the higher and higher snow walls which an increased quotaDefinition: a prescribed
number; a proportional share assigned to each participant; a limitation on
imports
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 of the men were
hastening to raise around their quarters. He had to weight down the corners of the tent
cloth with heavy blocks of snow to hold it in place amidst the rising gale, for the
titanDefinition: a
person of exceptional importance and reputation; (Greek mythology) any of the
primordial giant gods who ruled the Earth until overthrown by Zeus; the Titans were
offspring of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth); the largest of the satellites of
Saturn; has a hazy nitrogen atmosphere
Word Type: religious
Number Of
Synsets: 3 mountains seemed about to deliver some gravelyDefinition: in a grave and sober
manner; to a severe or serious degree
Word Type: religious
Number Of
Synsets: 2 severe blasts. Early apprehensions about sudden antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 winds were
revived, and under Atwood's supervision precautions were taken to bank the tents, new
dog corral, and crude aeroplane shelters with snow on the mountainward side. These
latter shelters, begun with hard snow blocks during odd moments, were by no means as
high as they should have been; and Lake finally detached all hands from other tasks to
work on them.
It was after four when Lake at last prepared to sign off and advised us
all to share the rest period his outfit would take when the shelter walls were a little
higher. He held some friendly chat with Pabodie over the ether, and repeated his praise
of the really marvelousDefinition: extraordinarily good or great; used especially as intensifiers; too
improbable to admit of belief; being or having the character of a miracle
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 drills that had helped him make his
discovery. Atwood also sent greetings and praises. I gave Lake a warm word of
congratulations, owning up that he was right about the western trip, and we all agreed
to get in touch by wireless at ten in the morning. If the gale was then over, Lake would
send a plane for the party at my base. Just before retiring I dispatched a final message
to the Arkham with instructions about toning down the day's news for the outside world,
since the full details seemed radicalDefinition: (chemistry) two or more atoms bound together as a single
unit and forming part of a molecule; an atom or group of atoms with at least one
unpaired electron; in the body it is usually an oxygen molecule that has lost an
electron and will stabilize itself by stealing an electron from a nearby molecule; a
person who has radical ideas or opinions; (mathematics) a quantity expressed as the
root of another quantity; a character conveying the lexical meaning of a logogram;
(linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed; (used of opinions and
actions) far beyond the norm; markedly new or introducing radical change; arising
from or going to the root or source; of or relating to or constituting a linguistic
root; especially of leaves; located at the base of a plant or stem; especially
arising directly from the root or rootstock or a root-like stem
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 11 enough to rouse a wave of incredulityDefinition: doubt
about the truth of something
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1
until further substantiated.
None of us, I imagine, slept very heavily or continuously that morning. Both the excitement of Lake's discovery and the mounting fury of the wind were against such a thing. So savage was the blast, even where we were, that we could not help wondering how much worse it was at Lake's camp, directly under the vast unknown peaks that bred and delivered it. McTighe was awake at ten o'clock and tried to get Lake on the wireless, as agreed, but some electrical condition in the disturbed air to the westward seemed to prevent communication. We did, however, get the Arkham, and Douglas told me that he had likewise been vainly trying to reach Lake. He had not known about the wind, for very little was blowing at McMurdo Sound, despite its persistent rage where we were.
Throughout the day we all listened anxiously and tried to get Lake at intervals, but invariably without results. About noon a positive frenzy of wind stampeded out of the west, causing us to fear for the safety of our camp; but it eventually died down, with only a moderate relapse at 2 P.M. After three o'clock it was very quiet, and we redoubled our efforts to get Lake. Reflecting that he had four planes, each provided with an excellent short-wave outfit, we could not imagine any ordinary accident capable of crippling all his wireless equipment at once. Nevertheless the stony silence continued, and when we thought of the delirious force the wind must have had in his locality we could not help making the more direful conjectures.
By six o'clock our fears had become intense and definite, and after a wireless consultation with Douglas and Thorfinnssen I resolved to take steps toward investigation. The fifth aeroplane, which we had left at the McMurdo Sound supply cache with Sherman and two sailors, was in good shape and ready for instant use, and it seemed that the very emergency for which it had been saved was now upon us. I got Sherman by wireless and ordered him to join me with the plane and the two sailors at the southern base as quickly as possible, the air conditions being apparently highly favorable. We then talked over the personnel of the coming investigation party, and decided that we would include all hands, together with the sledge and dogs which I had kept with me. Even so great a load would not be too much for one of the huge planes built to our special orders for heavy machinery transportation. At intervals I still tried to reach Lake with the wireless, but all to no purpose.
Sherman, with the sailors Gunnarsson and Larsen, took off at 7:30, and
reported a quiet flight from several points on the wing. They arrived at our base at
midnight, and all hands at once discussed the next move. It was risky business sailing
over the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at
or near the south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
in a single aeroplane without any line of bases, but no one drew back from what seemed
like the plainest necessity. We turned in at two o'clock for a brief rest after some
preliminary loading of the plane, but were up again in four hours to finish the loading
and packing.
At 7:15 A.M., January 25th, we started flying northwestward under McTighe's pilotage with ten men, seven dogs, a sledge, a fuel and food supply, and other items including the plane's wireless outfit. The atmosphere was clear, fairly quiet, and relatively mild in temperature, and we anticipated very little trouble in reaching the latitude and longitude designated by Lake as the site of his camp. Our apprehensions were over what we might find, or fail to find, at the end of our journey, for silence continued to answer all calls dispatched to the camp.
Every incident of that four-and-a-half-hour flight is burned into my recollection because of its crucial position in my life. It marked my loss, at the age of fifty-four, of all that peace and balance which the normal mind possesses through its accustomed conception of external nature and nature's laws. Thenceforward the ten of us--but the student Danforth and myself above all others--were to face a hideously amplified world of lurking horrors which nothing can erase from our emotions, and which we would refrain from sharing with mankind in general if we could. The newspapers have printed the bulletins we sent from the moving plane, telling of our nonstop course, our two battles with treacherous upper-air gales, our glimpse of the broken surface where Lake had sunk his mid-journey shaft three days before, and our sight of a group of those strange fluffy snow cylinders noted by Amundsen and Byrd as rolling in the wind across the endless leagues of frozen plateau. There came a point, though, when our sensations could not be conveyed in any words the press would understand, and a latter point when we had to adopt an actual rule of strict censorship.
The sailor Larsen was first to spy the jagged line of witchlikeDefinition: being or
having the character of witchcraft
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets:
1 cones and pinnacles ahead, and his shouts sent everyone to the windows of
the great cabined plane. Despite our speed, they were very slow in gaining prominence;
hence we knew that they must be infinitely far off, and visible only because of their
abnormalDefinition:
not normal; not typical or usual or regular or conforming to a norm; departing from
the normal in e.g. intelligence and development; much greater than the normal
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 height. Little by little,
however, they rose grimly into the western sky; allowing us to distinguish various bare,
bleak, blackish summits, and to catch the curious sense of fantasy which they inspired
as seen in the reddish antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding
waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2 light against the provocative background of iridescent ice-dust
clouds. In the whole spectacle there was a persistent, pervasive hint of stupendousDefinition: so great
in size or force or extent as to elicit awe
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 1 secrecy and potential revelationDefinition: the speech act of making something
evident; an enlightening or astonishing disclosure; communication of knowledge to man
by a divine or supernatural agency; the last book of the New Testament; contains
visionary descriptions of heaven and of conflicts between good and evil and of the
end of the world; attributed to Saint John the Apostle
Word Type:
religious
Number Of Synsets: 4. It was as if these stark, nightmare
spires marked the pylonsDefinition: a tower for guiding pilots or marking the turning point in a
race; a large vertical steel tower supporting high-tension power lines
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 of a frightful gateway into
forbidden spheres of dream, and complex gulfs of remote time, space, and ultra-dimensionality
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0. I could not help
feeling that they were evilDefinition: morally objectionable behavior; that which causes harm or
destruction or misfortune; the good is oft interred with their bones"- Shakespeare;
the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice; morally bad or wrong;
having the nature of vice; having or exerting a malignant influence
Word Type:
religious
Number Of Synsets: 6 things--mountains of madness whose
farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit;
any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below
(often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2. That seething, half-luminous cloud background held ineffableDefinition: defying
expression or description; too sacred to be uttered
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 suggestions of a vague, etherealDefinition: characterized by
lightness and insubstantiality; as impalpable or intangible as air; of or containing
or dissolved in ether; of heaven or the spirit; characterized by unusual lightness
and delicacy
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 4 beyondness
far more than terrestrially spatial, and gave appalling reminders of the utter
remoteness, separateness, desolation, and aeon-long
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 0 death of this untrodden and unfathomedDefinition: situated at or extending to great
depth; too deep to have been sounded or plumbed
Word Type: gothic
Number
Of Synsets: 1
australDefinition: the
basic unit of money in Argentina; equal to 100 centavos; of the south or coming from
the south
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 world.
It was young Danforth who drew our notice to the curious regularities
of the higher mountain skyline--regularities like clinging fragments of perfect cubes,
which Lake had mentioned in his messages, and which indeed justified his comparison with
the dreamlike suggestions of primordialDefinition: having existed from the beginning;
in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 temple ruins, on cloudy Asian mountaintops so subtly and strangely
painted by Roerich. There was indeed something hauntingly Roerich-like about this whole
unearthlyDefinition:
concerned with or affecting the spirit or soul; suggesting the operation of
supernatural influences
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2
continent of mountainous mysteryDefinition: something that baffles understanding and cannot be
explained; a story about a crime (usually murder) presented as a novel or play or
movie
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2. I had felt it in
October when we first caught sight of Victoria Land, and I felt it afresh now. I felt,
too, another wave of uneasy consciousness of ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the earliest known
rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1
mythicalDefinition:
based on or told of in traditional stories; lacking factual basis or historical
validity
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 resemblances;
of how disturbingly this lethalDefinition: of an instrument of certain death
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 1 realm corresponded to the evillyDefinition: in a
wicked evil manner
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 famed
plateau of Leng in the primalDefinition: serving as an essential component; having existed from the
beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 writings. MythologistsDefinition: an expert on
mythology
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 have placed
Leng in Central Asia; but the racial memory of man--or of his predecessors--is long, and
it may well be that certain tales have come down from lands and mountains and temples of
horror earlier than Asia and earlier than any human world we know. A few daring mysticsDefinition: someone
who believes in the existence of realities beyond human comprehension
Word
Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 have hinted at a pre-PleistoceneDefinition:
from two million to 11 thousand years ago; extensive glaciation of the northern
hemisphere; the time of human evolution
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 origin for the fragmentary Pnakotic
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
0 Manuscripts, and have suggested that the devotees of Tsathoggua were as
alienDefinition: a
person who comes from a foreign country; someone who does not owe allegiance to your
country; anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found; a
form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere; transfer property
or ownership; arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love,
affection, or friendliness; not contained in or deriving from the essential nature of
something; being or from or characteristic of another place or part of the
world
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 7 to mankind as
Tsathoggua itself. Leng, wherever in space or time it might brood, was not a region I
would care to be in or near, nor did I relish the proximity of a world that had ever
bred such ambiguous and ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the earliest known rocks formed during the
Precambrian Eon
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1
monstrositiesDefinition: a
person or animal that is markedly unusual or deformed; something hideous or
frightful
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 as those Lake had
just mentioned. At the moment I felt sorry that I had ever read the abhorred
Necronomicon, or talked so much with that unpleasantly erudite folklorist Wilmarth at
the university.
This mood undoubtedly served to aggravate my reaction to the bizarreDefinition:
conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 mirage which burst upon us from the increasingly opalescentDefinition:
having a play of lustrous rainbow colors
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 zenith as we drew near the mountains and began to make out the
cumulative undulations of the foothills. I had seen dozens of polar miragesDefinition: an optical illusion in
which atmospheric refraction by a layer of hot air distorts or inverts reflections of
distant objects; something illusory and unattainable
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 during the preceding weeks, some of them quite as uncannyDefinition: suggesting
the operation of supernatural influences; surpassing the ordinary or normal
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 and fantastically vivid as the
present example; but this one had a wholly novel and obscureDefinition: make less visible or unclear; make
unclear, indistinct, or blurred; make obscure or unclear; reduce a vowel to a neutral
one, such as a schwa; make undecipherable or imperceptible by obscuring or
concealing; not clearly understood or expressed; marked by difficulty of style or
expression; difficult to find; not famous or acclaimed; not drawing attention; remote
and separate physically or socially
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
11 quality of menacing symbolism, and I shuddered as the seething labyrinthDefinition: complex
system of paths or tunnels in which it is easy to get lost; a complex system of
interconnecting cavities; concerned with hearing and equilibrium
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 2 of fabulousDefinition: extremely pleasing; based on or told
of in traditional stories; lacking factual basis or historical validity; barely
credible
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 walls and towers
and minarets loomed out of the troubled ice vapors above our heads.
The effect was that of a CyclopeanDefinition: of or relating to or resembling the
Cyclops
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 city of no
architecture known to man or to human imagination, with vast aggregations of night-black
masonry embodying monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in
shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
3 perversions of geometrical laws. There were truncated cones, sometimes
terraced or fluted, surmounted by tall cylindrical shafts here and there bulbously
enlarged and often capped with tiers of thinnish scallopedDefinition: decorate an edge with scallops; bake
in a sauce, milk, etc., often with breadcrumbs on top; form scallops in; fish for
scallops; shape or cut in scallops; having a margin with rounded scallops
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 6 disks; and strange beetlingDefinition: be suspended over or
hang over; fly or go in a manner resembling a beetle; beat with a beetle; jutting or
overhanging
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4, table-like
constructions suggesting piles of multitudinousDefinition: too numerous to be counted
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 rectangular slabs or circular
plates or five-pointed stars with each one overlapping the one beneath. There were
composite cones and pyramids either alone or surmounting cylinders or cubes or flatter
truncated cones and pyramids, and occasional needle-like spiresDefinition: a tall tower that forms
the superstructure of a building (usually a church or temple) and that tapers to a
point at the top
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 in
curious clusters of five. All of these febrileDefinition: of or relating to or characterized by
fever
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 structures seemed
knit together by tubularDefinition: constituting a tube; having hollow tubes (as for the passage of
fluids)
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 bridges crossing
from one to the other at various dizzy heights, and the implied scale of the whole was
terrifying and oppressive in its sheer gigantismDefinition: excessive size; usually caused by
excessive secretion of growth hormone from the pituitary gland; excessive largeness
of stature
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2. The general
type of mirageDefinition:
an optical illusion in which atmospheric refraction by a layer of hot air distorts or
inverts reflections of distant objects; something illusory and unattainable
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 was not unlike some of the wilderDefinition: United
States writer and dramatist (1897-1975); United States filmmaker (born in Austria)
whose dark humor infused many of the films he made (1906-2002); marked by extreme
lack of restraint or control; in a natural state; not tamed or domesticated or
cultivated; in a state of extreme emotion; deviating widely from an intended course;
(of colors or sounds) intensely vivid or loud; without a basis in reason or fact;
talking or behaving irrationally; involving risk or danger; fanciful and unrealistic;
foolish; located in a dismal or remote area; desolate; intensely enthusiastic about
or preoccupied with; without civilizing influences; (of the elements) as if showing
violent anger
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 15 forms
observed and drawn by the arcticDefinition: the regions to the north of the Arctic Circle centered on
the North Pole; a waterproof overshoe that protects shoes from water or snow; of or
relating to the Arctic; extremely cold
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 4 whaler Scoresby in 1820, but at this time and place, with those
dark, unknown mountain peaks soaring stupendouslyDefinition: to a stupendous degree
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 ahead, that anomalousDefinition: deviating from the
general or common order or type
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
1
elder-world
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 discovery in our minds, and the pall of
probable disaster enveloping the greater part of our expedition, we all seemed to find
in it a taintDefinition:
the state of being contaminated; place under suspicion or cast doubt upon;
contaminate with a disease or microorganism
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 3 of latent malignityDefinition: wishing evil to others; quality of being disposed to evil;
intense ill will
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 and
infinitely evilDefinition: morally objectionable behavior; that which causes harm or destruction or
misfortune; the good is oft interred with their bones"- Shakespeare; the quality of
being morally wrong in principle or practice; morally bad or wrong; having the nature
of vice; having or exerting a malignant influence
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 6 portent.
I was glad when the mirage began to break up, though in the process the various nightmare turrets and cones assumed distorted, temporary forms of even vaster hideousness. As the whole illusion dissolved to churning opalescence we began to look earthward again, and saw that our journey's end was not far off. The unknown mountains ahead rose dizzily up like a fearsome rampart of giants, their curious regularities showing with startling clearness even without a field glass. We were over the lowest foothills now, and could see amidst the snow, ice, and bare patches of their main plateau a couple of darkish spots which we took to be Lake's camp and boring. The higher foothills shot up between five and six miles away, forming a range almost distinct from the terrifying line of more than Himalayan peaks beyond them. At length Ropes--the student who had relieved McTighe at the controls--began to head downward toward the left-hand dark spot whose size marked it as the camp. As he did so, McTighe sent out the last uncensored wireless message the world was to receive from our expedition.
Everyone, of course, has read the brief and unsatisfying bulletins of
the rest of our antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding
waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2 sojourn. Some hours after our landing we sent a guarded report of
the tragedy we found, and reluctantly announced the wiping out of the whole Lake party
by the frightful wind of the preceding day, or of the night before that. Eleven known
dead, young Gedney missing. People pardoned our hazy lack of details through realization
of the shock the sad event must have caused us, and believed us when we explained that
the mangling action of the wind had rendered all eleven bodies unsuitable for
transportation outside. Indeed, I flatter myself that even in the midst of our distress,
utter bewilderment, and soul-clutching horror, we scarcely went beyond the truth in any
specific instance. The tremendous significance lies in what we dared not tell; what I
would not tell now but for the need of warning others off from nameless terrors.
It is a fact that the wind had brought dreadful havoc. Whether all
could have lived through it, even without the other thing, is gravely open to doubt. The
storm, with its fury of madly driven ice particles, must have been beyond anything our
expedition had encountered before. One aeroplane shelter-wall, it seems, had been left
in a far too flimsy and inadequate state--was nearly pulverized--and the derrick at the
distant boring was entirely shaken to pieces. The exposed metal of the grounded planes
and drilling machinery was bruised into a high polish, and two of the small tents were
flattened despite their snow banking. Wooden surfaces left out in the blaster were
pitted and denuded of paint, and all signs of tracks in the snow were completely
obliterated. It is also true that we found none of the ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the
earliest known rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 biological objects in a condition to
take outside as a whole. We did gather some minerals from a vast, tumbled pile,
including several of the greenish soapstone fragments whose odd five-pointed rounding
and faint patterns of grouped dots caused so many doubtful comparisons; and some fossil
bones, among which were the most typical of the curiously injured specimens.
None of the dogs survived, their hurriedly built snow inclosure near
the camp being almost wholly destroyed. The wind may have done that, though the greater
breakage on the side next the camp, which was not the windward one, suggests an outward
leap or break of the frantic beastsDefinition: a living organism characterized by voluntary movement; a
cruelly rapacious person
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2
themselves. All three sledges were gone, and we have tried to explain that the wind may
have blown them off into the unknown. The drill and ice-melting machinery at the boring
were too badly damaged to warrant salvage, so we used them to choke up that subtly
disturbing gateway to the past which Lake had blasted. We likewise left at the camp the
two most shaken up of the planes; since our surviving party had only four real
pilots--Sherman, Danforth, McTighe, and Ropes--in all, with Danforth in a poor nervous
shape to navigate. We brought back all the books, scientific equipment, and other
incidentals we could find, though much was rather unaccountably blown away. Spare tents
and furs were either missing or badly out of condition.
It was approximately 4 P.M., after wide plane cruising had forced us to
give Gedney up for lost, that we sent our guarded message to the Arkham for relaying;
and I think we did well to keep it as calm and noncommittal as we succeeded in doing.
The most we said about agitation concerned our dogs, whose frantic uneasiness near the
biological specimens was to be expected from poor Lake's accounts. We did not mention, I
think, their display of the same uneasiness when sniffing around the queerDefinition: offensive
term for an openly homosexual man; hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires)
of; put in a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position; beyond or deviating
from the usual or expected; homosexual or arousing homosexual desires
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5 greenish soapstones and certain other
objects in the disordered region-objects including scientific instruments, aeroplanes,
and machinery, both at the camp and at the boring, whose parts had been loosened, moved,
or otherwise tampered with by winds that must have harbored singular curiosity and
investigativeness.
About the fourteen biological specimens, we were pardonably indefinite.
We said that the only ones we discovered were damaged, but that enough was left of them
to prove Lake's description wholly and impressively accurate. It was hard work keeping
our personal emotions out of this matter--and we did not mention numbers or say exactly
how we had found those which we did find. We had by that time agreed not to transmit
anything suggesting madness on the part of Lake's men, and it surely looked like madness
to find six imperfect monstrositiesDefinition: a person or animal that is markedly unusual or deformed;
something hideous or frightful
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
2 carefully buried upright in nine-foot snow graves under five-pointed mounds
punched over with groups of dots in patterns exactly those on the queerDefinition: offensive term for an
openly homosexual man; hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of; put in
a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position; beyond or deviating from the
usual or expected; homosexual or arousing homosexual desires
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5 greenish soapstones dug up from MesozoicDefinition: from
230 million to 63 million years ago; of or relating to or denoting the Mesozoic
era
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 or Tertiary times.
The eight perfect specimens mentioned by Lake seemed to have been completely blown away.
We were careful, too, about the public's general peace of mind; hence
Danforth and I said little about that frightful trip over the mountains the next day. It
was the fact that only a radically lightened plane could possibly cross a range of such
height, which mercifully limited that scouting tour to the two of us. On our return at
one A.M., Danforth was close to hystericsDefinition: an attack of hysteria; a person suffering from
hysteria
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2, but kept an
admirably stiff upper lip. It took no persuasion to make him promise not to show our
sketches and the other things we brought away in our pockets, not to say anything more
to the others than what we had agreed to relay outside, and to hide our camera films for
private development later on; so that part of my present story will be as new to
Pabodie, McTighe, Ropes, Sherman, and the rest as it will be to the world in general.
Indeed, Danforth is closer mouthed than I: for he saw, or thinks he saw, one thing he
will not tell even me.
As all know, our report included a tale of a hard ascent--a
confirmation of Lake's opinion that the great peaks are of ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the
earliest known rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 slate and other very primalDefinition: serving
as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or
original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
crumpled strata unchanged since at least middle Comanchian
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 0 times; a conventional comment on the regularity of the clinging
cube and rampart formations; a decision that the cave mouths indicate dissolved
calcaerous veins; a conjecture that certain slopes and passes would permit of the
scaling and crossing of the entire range by seasoned mountaineers; and a remark that the
mysteriousDefinition:
of an obscure nature; having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the
intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2 other side holds a lofty and immense superplateau as ancientDefinition: a very old
person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past especially
of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 and unchanging as the mountains
themselves--twenty thousand feet in elevation, with grotesqueDefinition: art characterized by an incongruous
mixture of parts of humans and animals interwoven with plants; distorted and
unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous; ludicrously odd
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3rock formations protruding through a thin
glacial layer and with low gradual foothills between the general plateau surface and the
sheer precipices of the highest peaks.
This body of data is in every respect true so far as it goes, and it
completely satisfied the men at the camp. We laid our absence of sixteen hours--a longer
time than our announced flying, landing, reconnoitering, and rock-collecting program
called for--to a long mythicalDefinition: based on or told of in traditional stories; lacking factual
basis or historical validity
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets:
1 spell of adverse wind conditions, and told truly of our landing on the
farther foothills. Fortunately our tale sounded realistic and prosaic enough not to
tempt any of the others into emulating our flight. Had any tried to do that, I would
have used every ounce of my persuasion to stop them--and I do not know what Danforth
would have done. While we were gone, Pabodie, Sherman, Ropes, McTighe, and Williamson
had worked like beavers over Lake's two best planes, fitting them again for use despite
the altogether unaccountable juggling of their operative mechanism.
We decided to load all the planes the next morning and start back for
our old base as soon as possible. Even though indirect, that was the safest way to work
toward McMurdo Sound; for a straightline flight across the most utterly unknown
stretches of the aeon-dead
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 continent would involve
many additional hazards. Further exploration was hardly feasible in view of our tragic
decimation and the ruin of our drilling machinery. The doubts and horrors around
us--which we did not reveal--made us wish only to escape from this austral world of
desolation and brooding madness as swiftly as we could.
As the public knows, our return to the world was accomplished without
further disasters. All planes reached the old base on the evening of the next
day--January 27th--after a swift nonstop flight; and on the 28th we made McMurdo Sound
in two laps, the one pause being very brief, and occasioned by a faulty rudder in the
furious wind over the ice shelf after we had cleared the great plateau. In five days
more, the Arkham and Miskatonic, with all hands and equipment on board, were shaking
clear of the thickening field ice and working up Ross Sea with the mocking mountains of
Victoria Land looming westward against a troubled antarcticDefinition: the region around the
south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 sky and twisting the wind's wails
into a wide-ranged musical piping which chilled my soul to the quick. Less than a
fortnight later we left the last hint of polar land behind us and thanked heaven that we
were clear of a haunted, accursed realm where life and death, space and time, have made
black and blasphemousDefinition: grossly irreverent toward what is held to be sacred; characterized by
profanity or cursing
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2
alliances, in the unknown epochsDefinition: a period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a
fixed point or event; (astronomy) an arbitrarily fixed date that is the point in time
relative to which information (as coordinates of a celestial body) is recorded; a
unit of geological time that is a subdivision of a period and is itself divided into
ages
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 since matter first
writhed and swam on the planet's scarce-cooled crust.
Since our return we have all constantly worked to discourage antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 exploration, and
have kept certain doubts and guesses to ourselves with splendid unity and faithfulness.
Even young Danforth, with his nervous breakdown, has not flinched or babbled to his
doctors--indeed, as I have said, there is one thing he thinks he alone saw which he will
not tell even me, though I think it would help his psychologicalDefinition: mental or emotional
as opposed to physical in nature; of or relating to or determined by psychology
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 state if he would consent to
do so. It might explain and relieve much, though perhaps the thing was no more than the
delusive aftermath of an earlier shock. That is the impression I gather after those
rare, irresponsible moments when he whispersDefinition: speaking softly without vibration of
the vocal cords; a light noise, like the noise of silk clothing or leaves blowing in
the wind; speak softly; in a low voice
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 3 disjointed things to me--things which he repudiates vehemently as
soon as he gets a grip on himself again.
It will be hard work deterring others from the great white south, and
some of our efforts may directly harm our cause by drawing inquiring notice. We might
have known from the first that human curiosity is undying, and that the results we
announced would be enough to spur others ahead on the same age-long pursuit of the
unknown. Lake's reports of those biological monstrositiesDefinition: a person or animal that is
markedly unusual or deformed; something hideous or frightful
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 2 had aroused naturalists and paleontologists
to the highest pitch, though we were sensible enough not to show the detached parts we
had taken from the actual buried specimens, or our photographs of those specimens as
they were found. We also refrained from showing the more puzzling of the scarred bones
and greenish soapstones; while Danforth and I have closely guarded the pictures we took
or drew on the superplateau across the range, and the crumpled things we smoothed,
studied in terror, and brought away in our pockets.
But now that Starkweather-Moore party is organizing, and with a
thoroughness far beyond anything our outfit attempted. If not dissuaded, they will get
to the innermost nucleus of the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole:
Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 and melt and bore till they bring up
that which we know may end the world. So I must break through all reticences at
last--even about that ultimate, nameless thing beyond the mountains of madness.
It is only with vast hesitancy and repugnance that I let my mind go back to Lake's camp and what we really found there--and to that other thing beyond the mountains of madness. I am constantly tempted to shirk the details, and to let hints stand for actual facts and ineluctable deductions. I hope I have said enough already to let me glide briefly over the rest; the rest, that is, of the horror at the camp. I have told of the wind-ravaged terrain, the damaged shelters, the disarranged machinery, the varied uneasiness of our dogs, the missing sledges and other items, the deaths of men and dogs, the absence of Gedney, and the six insanely buried biological specimens, strangely sound in texture for all their structural injuries, from a world forty million years dead. I do not recall whether I mentioned that upon checking up the canine bodies we found one dog missing. We did not think much about that till later--indeed, only Danforth and I have thought of it at all.
The principal things I have been keeping back relate to the bodies, and
to certain subtle points which may or may not lend a hideous and incredible kind of
rationale to the apparent chaos. At the time, I tried to keep the men's minds off those
points; for it was so much simpler--so much more normal--to lay everything to an
outbreak of madness on the part of some of Lake's party. From the look of things, that
demonDefinition: an
evil supernatural being; a cruel wicked and inhuman person; someone extremely
diligent or skillful
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 3
mountain wind must have been enough to drive any man mad in the midst of this center of
all earthly mysteryDefinition: something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained; a story
about a crime (usually murder) presented as a novel or play or movie
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 and desolation.
The crowning abnormalityDefinition: an abnormal physical condition
resulting from defective genes or developmental deficiencies; retardation sufficient
to fall outside the normal range of intelligence; marked strangeness as a consequence
of being abnormal; behavior that breaches the rule or etiquette or custom or
morality
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 4, of course,
was the condition of the bodies--men and dogs alike. They had all been in some terrible
kind of conflict, and were torn and mangled in fiendish and altogether inexplicable
ways. Death, so far as we could judge, had in each case come from strangulation or
laceration. The dogs had evidently started the trouble, for the state of their ill-built
corral bore witness to its forcible breakage from within. It had been set some distance
from the camp because of the hatred of the animals for those hellishDefinition: very unpleasant;
extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting hell
Word Type:
religious
Number Of Synsets: 2
ArchaeanDefinition: of
or relating to the earliest known rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 organisms, but the precaution
seemed to have been taken in vain. When left alone in that monstrousDefinition: abnormally large;
shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and
hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 wind, behind flimsy
walls of insufficient height, they must have stampeded--whether from the wind itself, or
from some subtle, increasing odor emitted by the nightmare specimens, one could not say.
But whatever had happened, it was hideous and revolting enough. Perhaps
I had better put squeamishness aside and tell the worst at last--though with a
categorical statement of opinion, based on the first-hand observations and most rigid
deductions of both Danforth and myself, that the then missing Gedney was in no way
responsible for the loathsome horrors we found. I have said that the bodies were
frightfully mangled. Now I must add that some were incised and subtracted from in the
most curious, cold-blooded, and inhumanDefinition: without compunction or human feeling;
belonging to or resembling something nonhuman
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 fashion. It was the same with dogs and men. All the
healthier, fatter bodies, quadrupedal or bipedal, had had their most solid masses of
tissue cut out and removed, as by a careful butcher; and around them was a strange
sprinkling of salt--taken from the ravaged provision chests on the planes--which
conjured up the most horrible associations. The thing had occurred in one of the crude
aeroplane shelters from which the plane had been dragged out, and subsequent winds had
effaced all tracks which could have supplied any plausible theory. Scattered bits of
clothing, roughly slashed from the human incision subjects, hinted no clues. It is
useless to bring up the half impression of certain faint snow prints in one shielded
corner of the ruined inclosure--because that impression did not concern human prints at
all, but was clearly mixed up with all the talk of fossil prints which poor Lake had
been giving throughout the preceding weeks. One had to be careful of one's imagination
in the lee of those overshadowing mountains of madness.
As I have indicated, Gedney and one dog turned out to be missing in the
end. When we came on that terrible shelter we had missed two dogs and two men; but the
fairly unharmed dissecting tent, which we entered after investigating the monstrousDefinition:
abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or
size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3
graves, had something to reveal. It was not as Lake had left it, for the covered parts
of the primalDefinition: serving as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in
an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2
monstrosityDefinition: a
person or animal that is markedly unusual or deformed; something hideous or
frightful
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 had been removed
from the improvised table. Indeed, we had already realized that one of the six imperfect
and insanely buried things we had found--the one with the trace of a peculiarly hateful
odor--must represent the collected sections of the entity which Lake had tried to analyzeDefinition: consider in
detail and subject to an analysis in order to discover essential features or meaning;
make a mathematical, chemical, or grammatical analysis of; break down into components
or essential features; break down into components or essential features; subject to
psychoanalytic treatment
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4. On
and around that laboratory table were strewn other things, and it did not take long for
us to guess that those things were the carefully though oddly and inexpertly dissected
parts of one man and one dog. I shall spare the feelings of survivors by omitting
mention of the man's identity. Lake's anatomicalDefinition: an expression that relates to
anatomy; of or relating to the structure of the body; of or relating to the branch of
morphology that studies the structure of organisms
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 instruments were missing, but there were evidences of
their careful cleansing. The gasoline stove was also gone, though around it we found a
curious litter of matches. We buried the human parts beside the other ten men; and the
canine parts with the other thirty-five dogs. Concerning the bizarreDefinition: conspicuously or grossly
unconventional or unusual
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1
smudges on the laboratory table, and on the jumble of roughly handled illustrated books
scattered near it, we were much too bewildered to speculate.
This formed the worst of the camp horror, but other things were equally
perplexing. The disappearance of Gedney, the one dog, the eight uninjured biological
specimens, the three sledges, and certain instruments, illustrated technical and
scientific books, writing materials, electric torches and batteries, food and fuel,
heating apparatus, spare tents, fur suits, and the like, was utterly beyond sane
conjecture; as were likewise the spatter-fringed ink blots on certain pieces of paper,
and the evidences of curious alienDefinition: a person who comes from a foreign country; someone who does
not owe allegiance to your country; anyone who does not belong in the environment in
which they are found; a form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its
atmosphere; transfer property or ownership; arouse hostility or indifference in where
there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness; not contained in or
deriving from the essential nature of something; being or from or characteristic of
another place or part of the world
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 7 fumbling and experimentation around the planes and all other
mechanical devices both at the camp and at the boring. The dogs seemed to abhor this
oddly disordered machinery. Then, too, there was the upsetting of the larder, the
disappearance of certain staples, and the jarringly comical heap of tin cans pried open
in the most unlikely ways and at the most unlikely places. The profusion of scattered
matches, intact, broken, or spent, formed another minor enigma--as did the two or three
tent cloths and fur suits which we found lying about with peculiar and unorthodox
slashings conceivably due to clumsy efforts at unimaginable adaptations. The
maltreatment of the human and canine bodies, and the crazy burial of the damaged ArchaeanDefinition: of or
relating to the earliest known rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 specimens, were all of a piece
with this apparent disintegrativeDefinition: tending to cause breakup into constituent elements or
parts
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 madness. In view
of just such an eventuality as the present one, we carefully photographed all the main
evidences of insane disorder at the camp; and shall use the prints to buttress our pleas
against the departure of the proposed Starkweather-Moore Expedition.
Our first act after finding the bodies in the shelter was to photograph
and open the row of insane graves with the five-pointed snow mounds. We could not help
noticing the resemblance of these monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal
or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 mounds, with their clusters of grouped
dots, to poor Lake's descriptions of the strange greenish soapstones; and when we came
on some of the soapstones themselves in the great mineral pile, we found the likeness
very close indeed. The whole general formation, it must be made clear, seemed abominably
suggestive of the starfish head of the ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the earliest known
rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 entities; and we agreed that the suggestion must have worked
potently upon the sensitized minds of Lake's overwrought party.
For madness--centering in Gedney as the only possible surviving
agent--was the explanation spontaneously adopted by everybody so far as spoken utterance
was concerned; though I will not be so naive as to deny that each of us may have
harbored wild guesses which sanity forbade him to formulate completely. Sherman,
Pabodie, and McTighe made an exhaustive aeroplane cruise over all the surrounding
territory in the afternoon, sweeping the horizon with field glasses in quest of Gedney
and of the various missing things; but nothing came to light. The party reported that
the titan barrier range extended endlessly to right and left alike, without any
diminution in height or essential structure. On some of the peaks, though, the regular
cube and rampart formations were bolder and plainer, having doubly fantastic similitudes
to Roerich-painted Asian hill ruins. The distribution of crypticalDefinition: of an obscure nature;
having a secret or hidden meaning
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets:
2 cave mouths on the black snow-denuded summits seemed roughly even as far as
the range could be traced.
In spite of all the prevailing horrors, we were left with enough sheer
scientific zeal and adventurousness to wonder about the unknown realm beyond those mysteriousDefinition: of an
obscure nature; having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the
intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2 mountains. As our guarded messages stated, we rested at midnight
after our day of terror and bafflement--but not without a tentative plan for one or more
range-crossing altitude flights in a lightened plane with aerial camera and geologist's
outfit, beginning the following morning. It was decided that Danforth and I try it
first, and we awaked at 7 A.M. intending an early flight; however, heavy
winds--mentioned in our brief bulletin to the outside world--delayed our start till
nearly nine o'clock.
I have already repeated the noncommittal story we told the men at
camp--and relayed outside--after our return sixteen hours later. It is now my terrible
duty to amplify this account by filling in the merciful blanks with hints of what we
really saw in the hidden transmontane world--hints of the revelations which have finally
driven Danforth to a nervous collapse. I wish he would add a really frank word about the
thing which he thinks he alone saw--even though it was probably a nervous delusion--and
which was perhaps the last straw that put him where he is; but he is firm against that.
All I can do is to repeat his later disjointed whispersDefinition: speaking softly without vibration of
the vocal cords; a light noise, like the noise of silk clothing or leaves blowing in
the wind; speak softly; in a low voice
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 3 about what set him shrieking as the plane soared back through the
wind-tortured mountain pass after that real and tangible shock which I shared. This will
form my last word. If the plain signs of surviving elder horrors in what I disclose be
not enough to keep others from meddling with the inner antarcticDefinition: the region around the
south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2--or at least from prying too
deeply beneath the surface of that ultimate waste of forbidden secrets and inhumanDefinition:
without compunction or human feeling; belonging to or resembling something
nonhuman
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2, aeon-cursed
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 0
desolationDefinition: the
state of being decayed or destroyed; a bleak and desolate atmosphere; sadness
resulting from being forsaken or abandoned; an event that results in total
destruction
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 4--the
responsibility for unnamable and perhaps immeasurable evilsDefinition: morally objectionable
behavior; that which causes harm or destruction or misfortune; the good is oft
interred with their bones"- Shakespeare; the quality of being morally wrong in
principle or practice
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 3
will not be mine.
Danforth and I, studying the notes made by Pabodie in his afternoon flight and checking up with a sextant, had calculated that the lowest available pass in the range lay somewhat to the right of us, within sight of camp, and about twenty-three thousand or twenty-four thousand feet above sea level. For this point, then, we first headed in the lightened plane as we embarked on our flight of discovery. The camp itself, on foothills which sprang from a high continental plateau, was some twelve thousand feet in altitude; hence the actual height increase necessary was not so vast as it might seem. Nevertheless we were acutely conscious of the rarefied air and intense cold as we rose; for, on account of visibility conditions, we had to leave the cabin windows open. We were dressed, of course, in our heaviest furs.
As we drew near the forbidding peaks, dark and sinister above the line
of crevasse-riven snow and interstitial glaciers, we noticed more and more the curiously
regular formations clinging to the slopes; and thought again of the strange Asian
paintings of Nicholas Roerich. The ancientDefinition: a very old person; a person who lived
in ancient times; belonging to times long past especially of the historical period
before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 and wind-weathered rock strata fully verified all of
Lake's bulletins, and proved that these pinnacles had been towering up in exactly the
same way since a surprisingly early time in earth's history--perhaps over fifty million
years. How much higher they had once been, it was futile to guess; but everything about
this strange region pointed to obscure atmospheric influences unfavorable to change, and
calculated to retard the usual climatic processes of rock disintegrationDefinition: in a decomposed
state; a loss (or serious disruption) of organization in some system; separation into
component parts; the spontaneous disintegration of a radioactive substance along with
the emission of ionizing radiation; total destruction
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 5.
But it was the mountainside tangle of regular cubes, ramparts, and cave
mouths which fascinated and disturbed us most. I studied them with a field glass and
took aerial photographs while Danforth drove; and at times I relieved him at the
controls--though my aviation knowledge was purely an amateur's--in order to let him use
the binoculars. We could easily see that much of the material of the things was a
lightish ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the earliest known rocks formed during the Precambrian
Eon
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 quartzite, unlike
any formation visible over broad areas of the general surface; and that their regularity
was extreme and uncannyDefinition: suggesting the operation of supernatural influences; surpassing the
ordinary or normal
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 to an
extent which poor Lake had scarcely hinted.
As he had said, their edges were crumbled and rounded from untoldDefinition: of an
incalculable amount
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1
aeonsDefinition:
(Gnosticism) a divine power or nature emanating from the Supreme Being and playing
various roles in the operation of the universe; the longest division of geological
time; an immeasurably long period of time
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 3 of savage weathering; but their preternaturalDefinition: surpassing the ordinary or
normal; existing outside of or not in accordance with nature
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 solidity and tough material had saved them
from obliteration. Many parts, especially those closest to the slopes, seemed identical
in substance with the surrounding rock surface. The whole arrangement looked like the
ruins of Macchu Picchu in the Andes, or the primalDefinition: serving as an essential component;
having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 foundation walls of Kish as
dug up by the Oxford Field Museum Expedition in 1929; and both Danforth and I obtained
that occasional impression of separate CyclopeanDefinition: of or relating to or resembling the
Cyclops
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 blocks which
Lake had attributed to his flight-companion Carroll. How to account for such things in
this place was frankly beyond me, and I felt queerlyDefinition: in a strange manner; in a questionably
unusual manner
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 humbled as a
geologist. Igneous formations often have strange regularities--like the famous Giants'
Causeway in Ireland--but this stupendous range, despite Lake's original suspicion of
smoking cones, was above all else nonvolcanic in evident structure.
The curious cave mouths, near which the odd formations seemed most
abundant, presented another albeit a lesser puzzle because of their regularity of
outline. They were, as Lake's bulletin had said, often approximately square or
semicircular; as if the natural orifices had been shaped to greater symmetry by some
magic hand. Their numerousness and wide distribution were remarkable, and suggested that
the whole region was honeycombedDefinition: carve a honeycomb pattern into; penetrate thoroughly and
into every part; make full of cavities, like a honeycomb; pitted with cell-like
cavities (as a honeycomb)
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4
with tunnels dissolved out of limestone strata. Such glimpses as we secured did not
extend far within the caverns, but we saw that they were apparently clear of stalactites
and stalagmites. Outside, those parts of the mountain slopes adjoining the apertures
seemed invariably smooth and regular; and Danforth thought that the slight cracks and
pittings of the weathering tended toward unusual patterns. Filled as he was with the
horrors and strangenesses discovered at the camp, he hinted that the pittings vaguely
resembled those baffling groups of dots sprinkled over the primeval greenish soapstones,
so hideously duplicated on the madly conceived snow mounds above those six buried monstrositiesDefinition: a
person or animal that is markedly unusual or deformed; something hideous or
frightful
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2.
We had risen gradually in flying over the higher foothills and along toward the relatively low pass we had selected. As we advanced we occasionally looked down at the snow and ice of the land route, wondering whether we could have attempted the trip with the simpler equipment of earlier days. Somewhat to our surprise we saw that the terrain was far from difficult as such things go; and that despite the crevasses and other bad spots it would not have been likely to deter the sledges of a Scott, a Shackleton, or an Amundsen. Some of the glaciers appeared to lead up to wind-bared passes with unusual continuity, and upon reaching our chosen pass we found that its case formed no exception.
Our sensations of tense expectancy as we prepared to round the crest
and peer out over an untrodden world can hardly be described on paper; even though we
had no cause to think the regions beyond the range essentially different from those
already seen and traversed. The touch of evilDefinition: morally objectionable behavior; that which
causes harm or destruction or misfortune; the good is oft interred with their bones"-
Shakespeare; the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice; morally bad
or wrong; having the nature of vice; having or exerting a malignant influence
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 6
mysteryDefinition:
something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained; a story about a crime
(usually murder) presented as a novel or play or movie
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 in these barrier mountains, and in the beckoning sea of
opalescentDefinition: having a play of lustrous rainbow colors
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 sky glimpsed betwixt their summits, was
a highly subtle and attenuated matter not to be explained in literal words. Rather was
it an affair of vague psychologicalDefinition: mental or emotional as opposed to physical in nature; of or
relating to or determined by psychology
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2 symbolism and aesthetic association--a thing mixed up with exoticDefinition: being or
from or characteristic of another place or part of the world; strikingly strange or
unusual
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 poetry and
paintings, and with archaicDefinition: so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period;
little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral type
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
mythsDefinition: a
traditional story accepted as history; serves to explain the world view of a
people
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 lurking in
shunned and forbidden volumes. Even the wind's burden held a peculiar strain of
conscious malignityDefinition: wishing evil to others; quality of being disposed to evil; intense ill
will
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2; and for a second it
seemed that the composite sound included a bizarreDefinition: conspicuously or grossly unconventional
or unusual
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 musical whistling
or piping over a wide range as the blast swept in and out of the omnipresentDefinition: being present
everywhere at once
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 and
resonant cave mouths. There was a cloudy note of reminiscent repulsion in this sound, as
complex and unplaceable as any of the other dark impressions.
We were now, after a slow ascent, at a height of twenty-three thousand,
five hundred and seventy feet according to the aneroidDefinition: a barometer that measures pressure
without using fluids; containing no liquid or actuated without the use of
liquid
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2; and had left
the region of clinging snow definitely below us. Up here were only dark, bare rock
slopes and the start of rough-ribbed glaciers--but with those provocative cubes,
ramparts, and echoing cave mouths to add a portent of the unnatural, the fantastic, and
the dreamlike. Looking along the line of high peaks, I thought I could see the one
mentioned by poor Lake, with a rampart exactly on top. It seemed to be half lost in a
queerDefinition:
offensive term for an openly homosexual man; hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans,
or desires) of; put in a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position; beyond or
deviating from the usual or expected; homosexual or arousing homosexual desires
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5
antarcticDefinition:
the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the
south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 haze--such a
haze, perhaps, as had been responsible for Lake's early notion of volcanism. The pass
loomed directly before us, smooth and windswept between its jagged and malignly frowning
pylonsDefinition: a
tower for guiding pilots or marking the turning point in a race; a large vertical
steel tower supporting high-tension power lines
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2. Beyond it was a sky fretted with swirling vapors and
lighted by the low polar sun--the sky of that mysteriousDefinition: of an obscure nature; having an
import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary
understanding
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 farther realm
upon which we felt no human eye had ever gazed.
A few more feet of altitude and we would behold that realm. Danforth
and I, unable to speak except in shouts amidst the howling, piping wind that raced
through the pass and added to the noise of the unmuffled engines, exchanged eloquent
glances. And then, having gained those last few feet, we did indeed stare across the
momentous divide and over the unsampled secrets of an elder and utterly alienDefinition: a person
who comes from a foreign country; someone who does not owe allegiance to your
country; anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found; a
form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere; transfer property
or ownership; arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love,
affection, or friendliness; not contained in or deriving from the essential nature of
something; being or from or characteristic of another place or part of the
world
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 7 earth.
I think that both of us simultaneously cried out in mixed awe, wonder,
terror, and disbelief in our own senses as we finally cleared the pass and saw what lay
beyond. Of course, we must have had some natural theory in the back of our heads to
steady our faculties for the moment. Probably we thought of such things as the grotesquelyDefinition: in a
grotesque manner
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1 weathered
stones of the Garden of the GodsDefinition: the supernatural being conceived as the perfect and
omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the object of worship
in monotheistic religions; any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part
of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force; a man
of such superior qualities that he seems like a deity to other people; a material
effigy that is worshipped
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets:
4 in Colorado, or the fantastically symmetrical wind-carved rocks of the
Arizona desert. Perhaps we even half thought the sight a mirage like that we had seen
the morning before on first approaching those mountains of madness. We must have had
some such normal notions to fall back upon as our eyes swept that limitless,
tempest-scarred plateau and grasped the almost endless labyrinthDefinition: complex system of paths
or tunnels in which it is easy to get lost; a complex system of interconnecting
cavities; concerned with hearing and equilibrium
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 2 of colossalDefinition: so great in size or force or extent as to elicit awe
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1, regular, and geometrically eurythmic
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 stone masses which reared their
crumbled and pitted crests above a glacial sheet not more than forty or fifty feet deep
at its thickest, and in places obviously thinner.
The effect of the monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal
or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 sight was indescribable, for some fiendishDefinition:
extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting hell
Word Type:
religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 violation of known natural law seemed
certain at the outset. Here, on a hellishlyDefinition: extremely
Word Type:
religious
Number Of Synsets: 1
ancientDefinition: a very
old person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past
especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very
old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 table-land fully twenty
thousand feet high, and in a climate deadly to habitation since a prehuman
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 age not less than five hundred thousand
years ago, there stretched nearly to the vision's limit a tangle of orderly stone which
only the desperation of mental self-defense could possibly attribute to any but
conscious and artificial cause. We had previously dismissed, so far as serious thought
was concerned, any theory that the cubes and ramparts of the mountainsides were other
than natural in origin. How could they be otherwise, when man himself could scarcely
have been differentiated from the great apes at the time when this region succumbed to
the present unbroken reign of glacial death?
Yet now the sway of reason seemed irrefutably shaken, for this CyclopeanDefinition: of
or relating to or resembling the Cyclops
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 maze of squared, curved, and angled blocks had features which cut
off all comfortable refuge. It was, very clearly, the blasphemousDefinition: grossly irreverent
toward what is held to be sacred; characterized by profanity or cursing
Word
Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 city of the mirage in stark,
objective, and ineluctableDefinition: impossible to avoid or evade:"inescapable conclusion"
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 1 reality. That damnable portent had had a
material basis after all--there had been some horizontal stratum of ice dust in the
upper air, and this shocking stone survival had projected its image across the mountains
according to the simple laws of reflection, Of course, the phantomDefinition: a ghostly appearing
figure; something existing in perception only; something apparently sensed but having
no physical reality
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 had
been twisted and exaggerated, and had contained things which the real source did not
contain; yet now, as we saw that real source, we thought it even more hideous and
menacing than its distant image.
Only the incredible, unhumanDefinition: divested of human qualities or
attributes
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 massiveness
of these vast stone towers and ramparts had saved the frightful things from utter
annihilation in the hundreds of thousands--perhaps millions--of years it had brooded
there amidst the blasts of a bleak upland. "Corona Mundi--Roof of the World--" All sorts
of fantastic phrases sprang to our lips as we looked dizzily down at the unbelievable
spectacle. I thought again of the eldritchDefinition: suggesting the operation of
supernatural influences
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1
primalDefinition:
serving as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest
or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
2
mythsDefinition: a
traditional story accepted as history; serves to explain the world view of a
people
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 that had so
persistently haunted me since my first sight of this dead antarcticDefinition: the region around the
south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 world--of the demoniacDefinition:
someone who acts as if possessed by a demon; frenzied as if possessed by a
demon
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 plateau of Leng,
of the Mi-Go, or abominable Snow Men of the Himalayas, of the Pnakotic
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 0Manuscripts with their prehuman
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 0 implications, of the Cthulhu
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
0 cult, of the Necronomicon, and of the HyperboreanDefinition: (Greek mythology) one of a people
that the ancient Greeks believed lived in a warm and sunny land north of the source
of the north wind
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1
legendsDefinition: a story
about mythical or supernatural beings or events; brief description accompanying an
illustration
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 of formless
Tsathoggua and the worse than formless star spawnDefinition: the mass of eggs deposited by fish or
amphibians or molluscs; call forth; lay spawn
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 associated with that semientity
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
0.
For boundless miles in every direction the thing stretched off with
very little thinning; indeed, as our eyes followed it to the right and left along the
base of the low, gradual foothills which separated it from the actual mountain rim, we
decided that we could see no thinning at all except for an interruption at the left of
the pass through which we had come. We had merely struck, at random, a limited part of
something of incalculable extent. The foothills were more sparsely sprinkled with grotesqueDefinition: art
characterized by an incongruous mixture of parts of humans and animals interwoven
with plants; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous;
ludicrously odd
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3stone
structures, linking the terrible city to the already familiar cubes and ramparts which
evidently formed its mountain outposts. These latter, as well as the queerDefinition: offensive
term for an openly homosexual man; hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires)
of; put in a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position; beyond or deviating
from the usual or expected; homosexual or arousing homosexual desires
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5 cave mouths, were as thick on the
inner as on the outer sides of the mountains.
The nameless stone labyrinthDefinition: complex system of paths or tunnels in
which it is easy to get lost; a complex system of interconnecting cavities; concerned
with hearing and equilibrium
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2
consisted, for the most part, of walls from ten to one hundred and fifty feet in
ice-clear height, and of a thickness varying from five to ten feet. It was composed
mostly of prodigious blocks of dark primordialDefinition: having existed from the beginning;
in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 slate, schist, and sandstone--blocks in many cases as large as 4 x
6 x 8 feet--though in several places it seemed to be carved out of a solid, uneven bed
rock of pre-Cambrian
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 slate. The buildings
were far from equal in size, there being innumerable honeycombDefinition: a structure of small hexagonal cells
constructed from beeswax by bees and used to store honey and larvae; a framework of
hexagonal cells resembling the honeycomb built by bees; carve a honeycomb pattern
into; penetrate thoroughly and into every part; make full of cavities, like a
honeycomb
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 5 arrangements of
enormous extent as well as smaller separate structures. The general shape of these
things tended to be conical, pyramidal, or terraced; though there were many perfect
cylinders, perfect cubes, clusters of cubes, and other rectangular forms, and a peculiar
sprinkling of angled edifices whose five-pointed ground plan roughly suggested modern
fortifications. The builders had made constant and expert use of the principle of the
arch, and domes had probably existed in the city's heyday.
The whole tangle was monstrouslyDefinition: in a hideous manner; in a terribly
evil manner; in a grotesque manner
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
3 weathered, and the glacial surface from which the towers projected was
strewn with fallen blocks and immemorial debris. Where the glaciation was transparent we
could see the lower parts of the gigantic piles, and we noticed the ice-preserved stone
bridges which connected the different towers at varying distances above the ground. On
the exposed walls we could detect the scarredDefinition: mark with a scar; deeply affected or
marked by mental or physical pain or injury; blemished by injury or rough wear
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 places where other and higher
bridges of the same sort had existed. Closer inspection revealed countless largish
windows; some of which were closed with shutters of a petrifiedDefinition: cause to become stonelike or stiff or
dazed and stunned; change into stone; make rigid and set into a conventional
pattern
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 material originally
wood, though most gaped open in a sinister and menacing fashion. Many of the ruins, of
course, were roofless, and with uneven though wind-rounded upper edges; whilst others,
of a more sharply conicalDefinition: relating to or resembling a cone
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 1 or pyramidalDefinition: resembling a pyramid
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 1 model or else protected by higher surrounding structures, preserved
intact outlines despite the omnipresentDefinition: being present everywhere at
once
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 crumbling and
pitting. With the field glass we could barely make out what seemed to be sculpturalDefinition: relating
to or consisting of sculpture; resembling sculpture
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 decorations in horizontal bands--decorations including
those curious groups of dots whose presence on the ancientDefinition: a very old person; a person who lived
in ancient times; belonging to times long past especially of the historical period
before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 soapstones now assumed a vastly larger significance.
In many places the buildings were totally ruined and the ice sheet
deeply riven from various geologicDefinition: of or relating to or based on geology
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 causes. In other places the stonework
was worn down to the very level of the glaciationDefinition: the condition of being covered with
glaciers or masses of ice; the result of glacial action; the process of covering the
earth with glaciers or masses of ice
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2. One broad swath, extending from the plateau's interior, to a cleft
in the foothills about a mile to the left of the pass we had traversed, was wholly free
from buildings. It probably represented, we concluded, the course of some great river
which in TertiaryDefinition: from 63 million to 2 million years ago; coming next after the second and
just before the fourth in position
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
2 times--millions of years ago--had poured through the city and into some
prodigiousDefinition: so
great in size or force or extent as to elicit awe; of momentous or ominous
significance; far beyond what is usual in magnitude or degree
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 3
subterraneanDefinition:
being or operating under the surface of the earth; lying beyond what is openly
revealed or avowed (especially being kept in the background or deliberately
concealed)
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2
abyssDefinition: a
bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm
or void extending below (often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 of the great barrier range. Certainly, this
was above all a region of caves, gulfs, and underground secrets beyond human
penetration.
Looking back to our sensations, and recalling our dazedness at viewing
this monstrousDefinition:
abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or
size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3
survival from aeonsDefinition: (Gnosticism) a divine power or nature emanating from the Supreme Being
and playing various roles in the operation of the universe; the longest division of
geological time; an immeasurably long period of time
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 we had thought prehuman
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0, I can only wonder that we preserved the semblanceDefinition: an
outward or token appearance or form that is deliberately misleading; an erroneous
mental representation; picture consisting of a graphic image of a person or
thing
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 of equilibriumDefinition: a
stable situation in which forces cancel one another; a chemical reaction and its
reverse proceed at equal rates; equality of distribution; a sensory system located in
structures of the inner ear that registers the orientation of the head
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 4, which we did. Of course, we knew
that something--chronology, scientific theory, or our own consciousness--was woefully
awry; yet we kept enough poise to guide the plane, observe many things quite minutely,
and take a careful series of photographs which may yet serve both us and the world in
good stead. In my case, ingrained scientific habit may have helped; for above all my
bewilderment and sense of menace, there burned a dominant curiosity to fathomDefinition: a
linear unit of measurement (equal to 6 feet) for water depth; (mining) a unit of
volume (equal to 6 cubic feet) used in measuring bodies of ore; come to understand;
measure the depth of (a body of water) with a sounding line
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 4 more of this age-old secret--to know
what sort of beings had built and lived in this incalculably giganticDefinition: so exceedingly large or
extensive as to suggest a giant or mammoth
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 1 place, and what relation to the general world of its time or of
other times so unique a concentration of life could have had.
For this place could be no ordinary city. It must have formed the
primary nucleus and center of some archaicDefinition: so extremely old as seeming to belong
to an earlier period; little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral
type
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 and unbelievable
chapter of earth's history whose outward ramifications, recalled only dimly in the most
obscure and distorted mythsDefinition: a traditional story accepted as history; serves to explain
the world view of a people
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets:
1, had vanished utterly amidst the chaos of terrene convulsions long before
any human race we know had shambled out of apedom. Here sprawled a Palaeogaean
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 megalopolis compared with which
the fabled Atlantis and Lemuria, Commoriom and Uzuldaroum, and Olathoc in the land of
Lomar, are recent things of today--not even of yesterday; a megalopolis ranking with
such whisperedDefinition:
speak softly; in a low voice; spoken in soft hushed tones without vibrations of the
vocal cords
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2
prehuman
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0
blasphemiesDefinition:
blasphemous language (expressing disrespect for God or for something sacred);
blasphemous behavior; the act of depriving something of its sacred character
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 as Valusia
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 0, R'lyeh, Ib
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 in the land of
Mnar, and the NamelessDefinition: being or having an unknown or unnamed source
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 1 city of Arabia Deserta. As we flew above that
tangle of stark titan towers my imagination sometimes escaped all bounds and roved
aimlessly in realms of fantastic associations--even weaving links betwixt this lost
world and some of my own wildest dreams concerning the mad horror at the camp.
The plane's fuel tank, in the interest of greater lightness, had been
only partly filled; hence we now had to exert caution in our explorations. Even so,
however, we covered an enormous extent of ground--or, rather, air--after swooping down
to a level where the wind became virtually negligible. There seemed to be no limit to
the mountain range, or to the length of the frightful stone city which bordered its
inner foothills. Fifty miles of flight in each direction showed no major change in the
labyrinth of rock and masonry that clawed up corpselike through the eternal ice. There
were, though, some highly absorbing diversifications; such as the carvings on the canyon
where that broad river had once pierced the foothills and approached its sinking place
in the great range. The headlands at the stream's entrance had been boldly carved into
CyclopeanDefinition: of or relating to or resembling the Cyclops
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1
pylonsDefinition: a
tower for guiding pilots or marking the turning point in a race; a large vertical
steel tower supporting high-tension power lines
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2; and something about the ridgy, barrel-shaped designs
stirred up oddly vague, hateful, and confusing semi-remembrances in both Danforth and
me.
We also came upon several star-shaped open spaces, evidently public
squares, and noted various undulations in the terrain. Where a sharp hill rose, it was
generally hollowed out into some sort of rambling-stone edifice; but there were at least
two exceptions. Of these latter, one was too badly weathered to disclose what had been
on the jutting eminence, while the other still bore a fantastic conical monument carved
out of the solid rock and roughly resembling such things as the well-known Snake Tomb in
the ancientDefinition: a
very old person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past
especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very
old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 valley of Petra.
Flying inland from the mountains, we discovered that the city was not
of infinite width, even though its length along the foothills seemed endless. After
about thirty miles the grotesqueDefinition: art characterized by an incongruous mixture of parts of
humans and animals interwoven with plants; distorted and unnatural in shape or size;
abnormal and hideous; ludicrously odd
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 3stone buildings began to thin out, and in ten more miles we came to
an unbroken waste virtually without signs of sentient artifice. The course of the river
beyond the city seemed marked by a broad, depressed line, while the land assumed a
somewhat greater ruggedness, seeming to slope slightly upward as it receded in the
mist-hazed west.
So far we had made no landing, yet to leave the plateau without an
attempt at entering some of the monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and
unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 3 structures would have been inconceivable. Accordingly, we
decided to find a smooth place on the foothills near our navigable pass, there grounding
the plane and preparing to do some exploration on foot. Though these gradual slopes were
partly covered with a scattering of ruins, low flying soon disclosed an ampler number of
possible landing places. Selecting that nearest to the pass, since our flight would be
across the great range and back to camp, we succeeded about 12:30 P.M. in effecting a
landing on a smooth, hard snow field wholly devoid of obstacles and well adapted to a
swift and favorable take-off later on.
It did not seem necessary to protect the plane with a snow banking for
so brief a time and in so comfortable an absence of high winds at this level; hence we
merely saw that the landing skis were safely lodged, and that the vital parts of the
mechanism were guarded against the cold. For our foot journey we discarded the heaviest
of our flying furs, and took with us a small outfit consisting of pocket compass, hand
camera, light provisions, voluminous notebooks and paper, geologist's hammer and chisel,
specimen bags, coil of climbing rope, and powerful electric torches with extra
batteries; this equipment having been carried in the plane on the chance that we might
be able to effect a landing, take ground pictures, make drawings and topographical
sketches, and obtain rock specimens from some bare slope, outcropping, or mountain cave.
Fortunately we had a supply of extra paper to tear up, place in a spare specimen bag,
and use on the ancientDefinition: a very old person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to
times long past especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western
Roman Empire; very old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4
principle of hare and hounds for marking our course in any interior mazes we might be
able to penetrate. This had been brought in case we found some cave system with air
quiet enough to allow such a rapid and easy method in place of the usual rock-chipping
method of trail blazing.
Walking cautiously downhill over the crusted snow toward the stupendous
stone labyrinth that loomed against the opalescent west, we felt almost as keen a sense
of imminent marvels as we had felt on approaching the unfathomed mountain pass four
hours previously. True, we had become visually familiar with the incredible secret
concealed by the barrier peaks; yet the prospect of actually entering primordialDefinition:
having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 walls reared by conscious
beings perhaps millions of years ago--before any known race of men could have
existed--was none the less awesome and potentially terrible in its implications of
cosmic abnormalityDefinition: an abnormal physical condition resulting from defective genes or
developmental deficiencies; retardation sufficient to fall outside the normal range
of intelligence; marked strangeness as a consequence of being abnormal; behavior that
breaches the rule or etiquette or custom or morality
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 4. Though the thinness of the air at this
prodigious altitude made exertion somewhat more difficult than usual, both Danforth and
I found ourselves bearing up very well, and felt equal to almost any task which might
fall to our lot. It took only a few steps to bring us to a shapeless ruin worn level
with the snow, while ten or fifteen rods farther on there was a huge, roofless rampart
still complete in its gigantic five-pointed outline and rising to an irregular height of
ten or eleven feet. For this latter we headed; and when at last we were actually able to
touch its weathered CyclopeanDefinition: of or relating to or resembling the Cyclops
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 blocks, we felt that we had established
an unprecedented and almost blasphemousDefinition: grossly irreverent toward what is
held to be sacred; characterized by profanity or cursing
Word Type:
religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 link with forgotten aeonsDefinition:
(Gnosticism) a divine power or nature emanating from the Supreme Being and playing
various roles in the operation of the universe; the longest division of geological
time; an immeasurably long period of time
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 3 normally closed to our species.
This rampart, shaped like a star and perhaps three hundred feet from
point to point, was built of JurassicDefinition: from 190 million to 135 million years
ago; dinosaurs; conifers; of or relating to or denoting the second period of the
Mesozoic era
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 sandstone
blocks of irregular size, averaging 6 x 8 feet in surface. There was a row of arched
loopholes or windows about four feet wide and five feet high, spaced quite symmetrically
along the points of the star and at its inner angles, and with the bottoms about four
feet from the glaciated surface. Looking through these, we could see that the masonry
was fully five feet thick, that there were no partitions remaining within, and that
there were traces of banded carvings or bas-reliefs on the interior walls--facts we had
indeed guessed before, when flying low over this rampart and others like it. Though
lower parts must have originally existed, all traces of such things were now wholly
obscured by the deep layer of ice and snow at this point.
We crawled through one of the windows and vainly tried to decipher the
nearly effaced mural designs, but did not attempt to disturb the glaciated floor. Our
orientation flights had indicated that many buildings in the city proper were less
ice-choked, and that we might perhaps find wholly clear interiors leading down to the
true ground level if we entered those structures still roofed at the top. Before we left
the rampart we photographed it carefully, and studied its mortar-less CyclopeanDefinition: of
or relating to or resembling the Cyclops
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 masonry with complete bewilderment. We wished that Pabodie were
present, for his engineering knowledge might have helped us guess how such titanic
blocks could have been handled in that unbelievably remote age when the city and its
outskirts were built up.
The half-mile walk downhill to the actual city, with the upper wind
shrieking vainly and savagely through the skyward peaks in the background, was something
of which the smallest details will always remain engraved on my mind. Only in fantastic
nightmares could any human beings but Danforth and me conceive such optical effects.
Between us and the churning vapors of the west lay that monstrousDefinition: abnormally large;
shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and
hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 tangle of dark stone
towers, its outre and incredible forms impressing us afresh at every new angle of
vision. It was a mirage in solid stone, and were it not for the photographs, I would
still doubt that such a thing could be. The general type of masonry was identical with
that of the rampart we had examined; but the extravagant shapes which this masonry took
in its urban manifestations were past all description.
Even the pictures illustrate only one or two phases of its endless
variety, preternaturalDefinition: surpassing the ordinary or normal; existing outside of or not in
accordance with nature
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2
massiveness, and utterly alienDefinition: a person who comes from a foreign country; someone who does
not owe allegiance to your country; anyone who does not belong in the environment in
which they are found; a form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its
atmosphere; transfer property or ownership; arouse hostility or indifference in where
there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness; not contained in or
deriving from the essential nature of something; being or from or characteristic of
another place or part of the world
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 7
exoticismDefinition: the
quality of being exotic
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1.
There were geometrical forms for which an EuclidDefinition: Greek geometer (3rd century BC)
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 would scarcely find a
name--cones of all degrees of irregularity and truncation, terraces of every sort of
provocative disproportion, shafts with odd bulbous enlargements, broken columns in
curious groups, and five-pointed or five-ridged arrangements of mad grotesquenessDefinition: ludicrous or
incongruous unnaturalness or distortion
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 1. As we drew nearer we could see beneath certain transparent parts
of the ice sheet, and detect some of the tubular stone bridges that connected the
crazily sprinkled structures at various heights. Of orderly streets there seemed to be
none, the only broad open swath being a mile to the left, where the ancientDefinition: a very old person; a
person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past especially of the
historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 river had doubtless flowed through the
town into the mountains.
Our field glasses showed the external, horizontal bands of nearly
effaced sculptures and dot groups to be very prevalent, and we could half imagine what
the city must once have looked like--even though most of the roofs and tower tops had
necessarily perished. As a whole, it had been a complex tangle of twisted lanes and
alleys, all of them deep canyons, and some little better than tunnels because of the
overhanging masonry or overarching bridges. Now, outspread below us, it loomed like a
dream fantasy against a westward mist through whose northern end the low, reddish antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 sun of early
afternoon was struggling to shine; and when, for a moment, that sun encountered a denser
obstruction and plunged the scene into temporary shadow, the effect was subtly menacing
in a way I can never hope to depict. Even the faint howling and piping of the unfelt
wind in the great mountain passes behind us took on a wilder note of purposeful
malignity. The last stage of our descent to the town was unusually steep and abrupt, and
a rock outcropping at the edge where the grade changed led us to think that an
artificial terrace had once existed there. Under the glaciation, we believed, there must
be a flight of steps or its equivalent.
When at last we plunged into the town itself, clambering over fallen
masonry and shrinking from the oppressive nearness and dwarfing height of omnipresent
crumbling and pitted walls, our sensations again became such that I marvel at the amount
of self-control we retained. Danforth was frankly jumpy, and began making some
offensively irrelevant speculations about the horror at the camp--which I resented all
the more because I could not help sharing certain conclusions forced upon us by many
features of this morbid survival from nightmare antiquity. The speculations worked on
his imagination, too; for in one place--where a debris-littered alley turned a sharp
corner--he insisted that he saw faint traces of ground markings which he did not like;
whilst elsewhere he stopped to listen to a subtle, imaginary sound from some undefined
point--a muffled musical piping, he said, not unlike that of the wind in the mountain
caves, yet somehow disturbingly different. The ceaseless five-pointedness of the
surrounding architecture and of the few distinguishable mural arabesquesDefinition: position in which the
dancer has one leg raised behind and arms outstretched in a conventional pose; an
ornament that interlaces simulated foliage in an intricate design
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 had a dimly sinisterDefinition: threatening or
foreshadowing evil or tragic developments; stemming from evil characteristics or
forces; wicked or dishonorable; on or starting from the wearer's left
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 suggestiveness we could not escape,
and gave us a touch of terrible subconscious certainty concerning the primalDefinition: serving
as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or
original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
entities which had reared and dwelt in this unhallowedDefinition: remove the consecration from a
person or an object; not hallowed or consecrated
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 place.
Nevertheless, our scientific and adventurous souls were not wholly
dead, and we mechanically carried out our program of chipping specimens from all the
different rock types represented in the masonry. We wished a rather full set in order to
draw better conclusions regarding the age of the place. Nothing in the great outer walls
seemed to date from later than the JurassicDefinition: from 190 million to 135 million years
ago; dinosaurs; conifers; of or relating to or denoting the second period of the
Mesozoic era
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 and Comanchian
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 periods, nor was any piece of
stone in the entire place of a greater recency than the PlioceneDefinition: from 13 million to 2
million years ago; growth of mountains; cooling of climate; more and larger
mammals
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 Age. In stark
certainty, we were wandering amidst a death which had reigned at least five hundred
thousand years, and in all probability even longer.
As we proceeded through this maze of stone-shadowed twilight we stopped
at all available apertures to study interiors and investigate entrance possibilities.
Some were above our reach, whilst others led only into ice-choked ruins as unroofed and
barren as the rampart on the hill. One, though spacious and inviting, opened on a
seemingly bottomless abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable)
cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively); make amends
for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 without visible means
of descent. Now and then we had a chance to study the petrified wood of a surviving
shutter, and were impressed by the fabulous antiquity implied in the still discernible
grain. These things had come from MesozoicDefinition: from 230 million to 63 million years
ago; of or relating to or denoting the Mesozoic era
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
gymnospermsDefinition:
plants of the class Gymnospermae having seeds not enclosed in an ovary
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 and conifers--especially CretaceousDefinition:
from 135 million to 63 million years ago; end of the age of reptiles; appearance of
modern insects and flowering plants; abounding in chalk; of or relating to or
denoting the third period of the Mesozoic era
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3
cycadsDefinition: any
tropical gymnosperm of the order Cycadales; having unbranched stems with a crown of
fernlike leaves
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1--and
from fan palms and early angiospermsDefinition: plants having seeds in a closed ovary
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 of plainly TertiaryDefinition: from 63 million to 2
million years ago; coming next after the second and just before the fourth in
position
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 date. Nothing
definitely later than the PlioceneDefinition: from 13 million to 2 million years ago; growth of mountains;
cooling of climate; more and larger mammals
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 1 could be discovered. In the placing of these shutters--whose
edges showed the former presence of queerDefinition: offensive term for an openly homosexual
man; hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of; put in a dangerous,
disadvantageous, or difficult position; beyond or deviating from the usual or
expected; homosexual or arousing homosexual desires
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5 and long-vanished hinges--usage seemed to be varied--some
being on the outer and some on the inner side of the deep embrasures. They seemed to
have become wedged in place, thus surviving the rusting of their former and probably
metallic fixtures and fastenings.
After a time we came across a row of windows--in the bulges of a
colossal five-edged cone of undamaged apex--which led into a vast, well-preserved room
with stone flooring; but these were too high in the room to permit descent without a
rope. We had a rope with us, but did not wish to bother with this twenty-foot drop
unless obliged to--especially in this thin plateau air where great demands were made
upon the heart action. This enormous room was probably a hall or concourse of some sort,
and our electric torches showed bold, distinct, and potentially startling sculptures
arranged round the walls in broad, horizontal bands separated by equally broad strips of
conventional arabesquesDefinition: position in which the dancer has one leg raised behind and arms
outstretched in a conventional pose; an ornament that interlaces simulated foliage in
an intricate design
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2. We
took careful note of this spot, planning to enter here unless a more easily gained
interior were encountered.
Finally, though, we did encounter exactly the opening we wished; an archway about six feet wide and ten feet high, marking the former end of an aerial bridge which had spanned an alley about five feet above the present level of glaciation. These archways, of course, were flush with upper-story floors, and in this case one of the floors still existed. The building thus accessible was a series of rectangular terraces on our left facing westward. That across the alley, where the other archway yawned, was a decrepit cylinder with no windows and with a curious bulge about ten feet above the aperture. It was totally dark inside, and the archway seemed to open on a well of illimitable emptiness.
Heaped debris made the entrance to the vast left-hand building doubly
easy, yet for a moment we hesitated before taking advantage of the long-wished chance.
For though we had penetrated into this tangle of archaicDefinition: so extremely old as seeming to belong
to an earlier period; little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral
type
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
mysteryDefinition:
something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained; a story about a crime
(usually murder) presented as a novel or play or movie
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2, it required fresh resolution to carry us actually inside
a complete and surviving building of a fabulousDefinition: extremely pleasing; based on or told
of in traditional stories; lacking factual basis or historical validity; barely
credible
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3
elderDefinition: a person
who is older than you are; any of numerous shrubs or small trees of temperate and
subtropical northern hemisphere having white flowers and berrylike fruit; any of
various church officers; used of the older of two persons of the same name especially
used to distinguish a father from his son
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 4 world whose nature was becoming more and more hideously plain to
us. In the end, however, we made the plunge, and scrambled up over the rubble into the
gaping embrasureDefinition:
an opening (in a wall or ship or armored vehicle) for firing through
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 1. The floor beyond was of great slate slabs,
and seemed to form the outlet of a long, high corridor with sculptured walls.
Observing the many inner archways which led off from it, and realizing
the probable complexity of the nest of apartments within, we decided that we must begin
our system of hare-and-hound trail blazing. Hitherto our compasses, together with
frequent glimpses of the vast mountain range between the towers in our rear, had been
enough to prevent our losing our way; but from now on, the artificial substitute would
be necessary. Accordingly we reduced our extra paper to shreds of suitable size, placed
these in a bag to be carried by Danforth, and prepared to use them as economically as
safety would allow. This method would probably gain us immunity from straying, since
there did not appear to be any strong air currents inside the primordialDefinition: having existed from
the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1
masonryDefinition:
structure built of stone or brick by a mason; Freemasons collectively; the craft of a
mason
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3. If such should
develop, or if our paper supply should give out, we could of course fall back on the
more secure though more tedious and retarding method of rock chipping.
Just how extensive a territory we had opened up, it was impossible to
guess without a trial. The close and frequent connection of the different buildings made
it likely that we might cross from one to another on bridges underneath the ice, except
where impeded by local collapses and geologicDefinition: of or relating to or based on
geology
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 rifts, for very
little glaciation seemed to have entered the massive constructions. Almost all the areas
of transparent ice had revealed the submerged windows as tightly shuttered, as if the
town had been left in that uniform state until the glacial sheet came to crystallize the
lower part for all succeeding time. Indeed, one gained a curious impression that this
place had been deliberately closed and deserted in some dim, bygoneDefinition: past events to be put
aside; well in the past; former
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
2
aeonDefinition:
(Gnosticism) a divine power or nature emanating from the Supreme Being and playing
various roles in the operation of the universe; the longest division of geological
time; an immeasurably long period of time
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 3, rather than overwhelmed by any sudden calamity or even gradual
decayDefinition: the
process of gradually becoming inferior; a gradual decrease; as of stored charge or
current; the organic phenomenon of rotting; an inferior state resulting from the
process of decaying; the spontaneous disintegration of a radioactive substance along
with the emission of ionizing radiation; lose a stored charge, magnetic flux, or
current; fall into decay or ruin; undergo decay or decomposition
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 8. Had the coming of the ice been foreseen,
and had a nameless population left en masse to seek a less doomed abode? The precise
physiographic
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 conditions attending the
formation of the ice sheet at this point would have to wait for later solution. It had
not, very plainly, been a grinding drive. Perhaps the pressure of accumulated snows had
been responsible, and perhaps some flood from the river, or from the bursting of some
ancientDefinition: a
very old person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past
especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very
old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 glacial dam in the great
range, had helped to create the special state now observable. Imagination could conceive
almost anything in connection with this place.
It would be cumbrousDefinition: difficult to handle or use especially because of size or
weight
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 to give a detailed,
consecutive account of our wanderings inside that cavernous, aeon-dead
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0
honeycombDefinition: a
structure of small hexagonal cells constructed from beeswax by bees and used to store
honey and larvae; a framework of hexagonal cells resembling the honeycomb built by
bees; carve a honeycomb pattern into; penetrate thoroughly and into every part; make
full of cavities, like a honeycomb
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
5 of primalDefinition: serving as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in
an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2
masonryDefinition:
structure built of stone or brick by a mason; Freemasons collectively; the craft of a
mason
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3--that monstrousDefinition:
abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or
size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3
lairDefinition: the
habitation of wild animals
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1
of elder secrets which now echoed for the first time, after uncounted epochsDefinition: a
period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event;
(astronomy) an arbitrarily fixed date that is the point in time relative to which
information (as coordinates of a celestial body) is recorded; a unit of geological
time that is a subdivision of a period and is itself divided into ages
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3, to the tread of human feet. This
is especially true because so much of the horribleDefinition: provoking horror
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1 drama and revelation came from a mere study
of the omnipresentDefinition: being present everywhere at once
Word Type: religious
Number
Of Synsets: 1 mural carvingsDefinition: a sculpture created by removing material (as wood or ivory
or stone) in order to create a desired shape; removing parts from hard material to
create a desired pattern or shape; creating figures or designs in three dimensions;
form by carving; engrave or cut by chipping away at a surface; cut to pieces
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 6. Our flashlight photographs of
those carvings will do much toward proving the truth of what we are now disclosing, and
it is lamentable that we had not a larger film supply with us. As it was, we made crude
notebook sketches of certain salient features after all our films were used up.
The building which we had entered was one of great size and
elaborateness, and gave us an impressive notion of the architecture of that nameless
geologic past. The inner partitions were less massive than the outer walls, but on the
lower levels were excellently preserved. LabyrinthineDefinition: relating to or affecting or
originating in the inner ear; resembling a labyrinth in form or complexity
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 complexity, involving curiously
irregular difference in floor levels, characterized the entire arrangement; and we
should certainly have been lost at the very outset but for the trail of torn paper left
behind us. We decided to explore the more decrepitDefinition: worn and broken down by hard use;
lacking bodily or muscular strength or vitality
Word Type: gothic
Number
Of Synsets: 2 upper parts first of all, hence climbed aloft in the maze for a
distance of some one hundred feet, to where the topmost tier of chambers yawned snowily
and ruinouslyDefinition:
in a ruinous manner or to a ruinous degree
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 1 open to the polar sky. Ascent was effected over the steep,
transversely ribbed stone ramps or inclined planes which everywhere served in lieu of
stairs. The rooms we encountered were of all imaginable shapes and proportions, ranging
from five-pointed stars to triangles and perfect cubes. It might be safe to say that
their general average was about 30 x 30 feet in floor area, and 20 feet in height,
though many larger apartments existed. After thoroughly examining the upper regions and
the glacial level, we descended, story by story, into the submerged part, where indeed
we soon saw we were in a continuous maze of connected chambers and passages probably
leading over unlimited areas outside this particular building. The CyclopeanDefinition: of
or relating to or resembling the Cyclops
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 massiveness and gigantismDefinition: excessive size; usually caused by
excessive secretion of growth hormone from the pituitary gland; excessive largeness
of stature
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 of
everything about us became curiouslyDefinition: in a manner differing from the usual or expected; with
curiosity
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2
oppressiveDefinition:
weighing heavily on the senses or spirit; marked by unjust severity or arbitrary
behavior
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2; and there was
something vaguely but deeply unhumanDefinition: divested of human qualities or attributes
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 in all the contours, dimensions,
proportions, decorations, and constructional
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 0
nuancesDefinition: a subtle
difference in meaning or opinion or attitude
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 1 of the blasphemouslyDefinition: in a blasphemous manner
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1
archaicDefinition: so
extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period; little evolved from or
characteristic of an earlier ancestral type
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 2 stonework. We soon realized, from what the carvingsDefinition: a sculpture created by
removing material (as wood or ivory or stone) in order to create a desired shape;
removing parts from hard material to create a desired pattern or shape; creating
figures or designs in three dimensions; form by carving; engrave or cut by chipping
away at a surface; cut to pieces
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
6 revealed, that this monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and
unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 3 city was many million years old.
We cannot yet explain the engineering principles used in the anomalous
balancing and adjustment of the vast rock masses, though the function of the arch was
clearly much relied on. The rooms we visited were wholly bare of all portable contents,
a circumstance which sustained our belief in the city's deliberate desertion. The prime
decorative feature was the almost universal system of mural sculpture, which tended to
run in continuous horizontal bands three feet wide and arranged from floor to ceiling in
alternation with bands of equal width given over to geometrical arabesquesDefinition: position in which the
dancer has one leg raised behind and arms outstretched in a conventional pose; an
ornament that interlaces simulated foliage in an intricate design
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2. There were exceptions to this rule of
arrangement, but its preponderance was overwhelming. Often, however, a series of smooth
cartouchesDefinition: a cartridge (usually with paper casing); a cartridge (usually with paper
casing)
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 containing
oddly patterned groups of dots would be sunk along one of the arabesqueDefinition: position in which the
dancer has one leg raised behind and arms outstretched in a conventional pose; an
ornament that interlaces simulated foliage in an intricate design
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 bands.
The technique, we soon saw, was mature, accomplished, and aesthetically
evolved to the highest degree of civilized mastery, though utterly alienDefinition: a person
who comes from a foreign country; someone who does not owe allegiance to your
country; anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found; a
form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere; transfer property
or ownership; arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love,
affection, or friendliness; not contained in or deriving from the essential nature of
something; being or from or characteristic of another place or part of the
world
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 7 in every detail
to any known art tradition of the human race. In delicacy of execution no sculpture I
have ever seen could approach it. The minutest details of elaborate vegetation, or of
animal life, were rendered with astonishing vividness despite the bold scale of the
carvings; whilst the conventional designs were marvels of skillful intricacy. The arabesquesDefinition:
position in which the dancer has one leg raised behind and arms outstretched in a
conventional pose; an ornament that interlaces simulated foliage in an intricate
design
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 displayed a profound
use of mathematicalDefinition: of or pertaining to or of the nature of mathematics; relating to or
having ability to think in or work with numbers; beyond question; statistically
possible though highly improbable; characterized by the exactness or precision of
mathematics
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 5 principles,
and were made up of obscurelyDefinition: in an obscure manner
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 1 symmetrical curves and angles based on the quantity of five. The
pictorial bands followed a highly formalized tradition, and involved a peculiar
treatment of perspective, but had an artistic force that moved us profoundly,
notwithstanding the intervening gulf of vast geologicDefinition: of or relating to or based on
geology
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 periods. Their
method of design hinged on a singular juxtaposition of the cross section with the
two-dimensional silhouetteDefinition: an outline of a solid object (as cast by its shadow); a drawing of the
outline of an object; filled in with some uniform color; project on a background,
such as a screen, like a silhouette; represent by a silhouette
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 4, and embodied an analyticalDefinition: using or skilled in
using analysis (i.e., separating a whole--intellectual or substantial--into its
elemental parts or basic principles); of a proposition that is necessarily true
independent of fact or experience
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2
psychologyDefinition:
the science of mental life
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
1 beyond that of any known race of antiquityDefinition: the historic period preceding the
Middle Ages in Europe; extreme oldness; an artifact surviving from the past
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3. It is useless to try to
compare this art with any represented in our museums. Those who see our photographs will
probably find its closest analogueDefinition: something having the property of being analogous to
something else; of a circuit or device having an output that is proportional to the
input
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 in certain grotesqueDefinition: art
characterized by an incongruous mixture of parts of humans and animals interwoven
with plants; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous;
ludicrously odd
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 conceptions
of the most daring futuristsDefinition: a theologian who believes that the Scripture prophecies of
the Apocalypse (the Book of Revelation) will be fulfilled in the future; someone who
predicts the future
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2.
The arabesqueDefinition: position in which the dancer has one leg raised behind and
arms outstretched in a conventional pose; an ornament that interlaces simulated
foliage in an intricate design
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets:
2 tracery consisted altogether of depressed lines, whose depth on unweathered
walls varied from one to two inches. When cartouchesDefinition: a cartridge (usually with paper
casing); a cartridge (usually with paper casing)
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 with dot groups appeared--evidently as inscriptions in
some unknown and primordialDefinition: having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or
original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1
language and alphabet--the depression of the smooth surface was perhaps an inch and a
half, and of the dots perhaps a half inch more. The pictorial bands were in countersunk
low relief, their background being depressed about two inches from the original wall
surface. In some specimens marks of a former coloration could be detected, though for
the most part the untold aeonsDefinition: (Gnosticism) a divine power or nature emanating from the
Supreme Being and playing various roles in the operation of the universe; the longest
division of geological time; an immeasurably long period of time
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 had disintegratedDefinition: break into parts or
components or lose cohesion or unity; cause to undergo fission or lose particles;
lose a stored charge, magnetic flux, or current
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 and banished any pigments which may have been applied.
The more one studied the marvelousDefinition: extraordinarily good or great; used especially as
intensifiers; too improbable to admit of belief; being or having the character of a
miracle
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 technique, the more
one admired the things. Beneath their strict conventionalizationDefinition: the act of
conventionalizing; conforming to a conventional style
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 one could grasp the minute and accurate observation and
graphic skill of the artists; and indeed, the very conventions themselves served to
symbolize and accentuate the real essence or vital differentiation of every object
delineated. We felt, too, that besides these recognizable excellencesDefinition: the quality of
excelling; possessing good qualities in high degree; an outstanding feature;
something in which something or someone excels
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 2 there were others lurkingDefinition: lie in wait, lie in ambush, behave in a
sneaky and secretive manner; be about; wait in hiding to attack
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 beyond the reach of our perceptions. Certain
touches here and there gave vague hints of latentDefinition: potentially existing but not presently
evident or realized; (pathology) not presently active
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2
symbolsDefinition: an
arbitrary sign (written or printed) that has acquired a conventional significance;
something visible that by association or convention represents something else that is
invisible
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 and stimuliDefinition: any
stimulating information or event; acts to arouse action
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 which another mental and emotional
background, and a fuller or different sensory equipment, might have made of profound and
poignant significance to us.
The subject matter of the sculptures obviously came from the life of
the vanishedDefinition: get
lost, as without warning or explanation; become invisible or unnoticeable; pass away
rapidly; cease to exist; decrease rapidly and disappear; having passed out of
existence
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 6
epochDefinition: a
period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event;
(astronomy) an arbitrarily fixed date that is the point in time relative to which
information (as coordinates of a celestial body) is recorded; a unit of geological
time that is a subdivision of a period and is itself divided into ages
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 of their creation, and contained a
large proportion of evident history. It is this abnormalDefinition: not normal; not typical or usual or
regular or conforming to a norm; departing from the normal in e.g. intelligence and
development; much greater than the normal
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 3 historic-mindedness of the primalDefinition: serving as an essential component;
having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 race--a chance circumstance
operating, through coincidence, miraculouslyDefinition: in a miraculous manner
Word
Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 in our favor--which made the
carvings so awesomely
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 informative to us, and which
caused us to place their photography and transcription above all other considerations.
In certain rooms the dominant arrangement was varied by the presence of maps, astronomicalDefinition:
relating or belonging to the science of astronomy; inconceivably large
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 charts, and other scientific
designs of an enlarged scale--these things giving a naive and terrible corroboration to
what we gathered from the pictorial friezesDefinition: an architectural ornament consisting of
a horizontal sculptured band between the architrave and the cornice; a heavy woolen
fabric with a long nap
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 and
dadoesDefinition: panel
forming the lower part of an interior wall when it is finished differently from the
rest of the wall; the section of a pedestal between the base and the surbase; a
rectangular groove cut into a board so that another piece can fit into it; provide
with a dado; cut a dado into or fit into a dado
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 5. In hinting at what the whole revealed, I can only hope that my
account will not arouse a curiosity greater than sane caution on the part of those who
believe me at all. It would be tragic if any were to be alluredDefinition: dispose or incline or
entice to
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 to that realm of
death and horror by the very warning meant to discourage them.
Interrupting these sculptured walls were high windows and massive
twelve-foot doorways; both now and then retaining the petrified wooden
planks--elaborately carved and polished--of the actual shutters and doors. All metal
fixtures had long ago vanished, but some of the doors remained in place and had to be
forced aside as we progressed from room to room. Window frames with odd transparent
panes--mostly ellipticalDefinition: rounded like an egg; characterized by extreme economy of expression or
omission of superfluous elements
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
2--survived here and there, though in no considerable quantity. There were
also frequent niches of great magnitude, generally empty, but once in a while containing
some bizarreDefinition:
conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 object carved from green soapstone which was either
broken or perhaps held too inferior to warrant removal. Other apertures were undoubtedly
connected with bygoneDefinition: past events to be put aside; well in the past; former
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 2 mechanical facilities--heating, lighting, and
the like--of a sort suggested in many of the carvings. Ceilings tended to be plain, but
had sometimes been inlaid with green soapstoneDefinition: a soft heavy compact variety of talc
having a soapy feel; used to make hearths and tabletops and ornaments
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 or other tiles, mostly fallen now.
Floors were also paved with such tiles, though plain stonework predominated.
As I have said, all furniture and other movables were absent; but the
sculptures gave a clear idea of the strange devices which had once filled these
tomblike, echoing rooms. Above the glacial sheet the floors were generally thick with
detritus, litter, and debris, but farther down this condition decreased. In some of the
lower chambers and corridors there was little more than gritty dust or ancientDefinition: a very old
person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past especially
of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 incrustations, while occasional
areas had an uncannyDefinition: suggesting the operation of supernatural influences; surpassing the
ordinary or normal
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 air of
newly swept immaculateness. Of course, where rifts or collapses had occurred, the lower
levels were as littered as the upper ones. A central court--as in other structures we
had seen from the air--saved the inner regions from total darkness; so that we seldom
had to use our electric torches in the upper rooms except when studying sculptured
details. Below the ice cap, however, the twilight deepened; and in many parts of the
tangled ground level there was an approach to absolute blackness.
To form even a rudimentary idea of our thoughts and feelings as we
penetrated this aeon-silent
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 maze of unhumanDefinition:
divested of human qualities or attributes
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 masonry, one must correlate a hopelessly bewildering chaos of
fugitive moods, memories, and impressions. The sheer appalling antiquity and lethal
desolation of the place were enough to overwhelm almost any sensitive person, but added
to these elements were the recent unexplained horror at the camp, and the revelations
all too soon effected by the terrible mural sculptures around us. The moment we came
upon a perfect section of carving, where no ambiguity of interpretation could exist, it
took only a brief study to give us the hideous truth--a truth which it would be naive to
claim Danforth and I had not independently suspected before, though we had carefully
refrained from even hinting it to each other. There could now be no further merciful
doubt about the nature of the beings which had built and inhabited this monstrousDefinition:
abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or
size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3
dead city millions of years ago, when man's ancestors were primitive archaicDefinition: so
extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period; little evolved from or
characteristic of an earlier ancestral type
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 2 mammals, and vast dinosaurs roamed the tropical steppes of
Europe and Asia.
We had previously clung to a desperate alternative and insisted--each
to himself--that the omnipresence of the five-pointed motifs meant only some cultural or
religious exaltation of the ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the earliest known rocks formed during the
Precambrian Eon
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 natural
object which had so patently embodied the quality of five-pointedness; as the decorative
motifs of Minoan Crete exalted the sacredDefinition: concerned with religion or religious
purposes; worthy of respect or dedication; made or declared or believed to be holy;
devoted to a deity or some religious ceremony or use; worthy of religious veneration;
(often followed by `to') devoted exclusively to a single use or purpose or
person
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 5 bull, those of
Egypt the scarabaeusDefinition: scarabaeid beetle considered divine by ancient Egyptians
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1, those of Rome the wolf and the
eagle, and those of various savage tribes some chosen totem animal. But this lone refuge
was now stripped from us, and we were forced to face definitely the reason-shaking
realization which the reader of these pages has doubtless long ago anticipated. I can
scarcely bear to write it down in black and white even now, but perhaps that will not be
necessary.
The things once rearing and dwelling in this frightful masonry in the
age of dinosaurs were not indeed dinosaurs, but far worse. Mere dinosaurs were new and
almost brainless objects--but the builders of the city were wise and old, and had left
certain traces in rocks even then laid down well nigh a thousand million years--rocks
laid down before the true life of earth had advanced beyond plasticDefinition: generic name for certain
synthetic or semisynthetic materials that can be molded or extruded into objects or
films or filaments or used for making e.g. coatings and adhesives; a card (usually
plastic) that assures a seller that the person using it has a satisfactory credit
rating and that the issuer will see to it that the seller receives payment for the
merchandise delivered; capable of being molded or modeled (especially of earth or
clay or other soft material); capable of being influenced or formed; forming or
capable of forming or molding or fashioning
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 5 groups of cells--rocks laid down before the true life of earth had
existed at all. They were the makers and enslavers of that life, and above all doubt the
originals of the fiendish elder mythsDefinition: a traditional story accepted as history; serves to explain
the world view of a people
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets:
1 which things like the Pnakotic
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
0Manuscripts and the Necronomicon affrightedly hint about. They were the great
"Old Ones" that had filtered down from the stars when earth was young--the beings whose
substance an alienDefinition: a person who comes from a foreign country; someone who does not owe
allegiance to your country; anyone who does not belong in the environment in which
they are found; a form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere;
transfer property or ownership; arouse hostility or indifference in where there had
formerly been love, affection, or friendliness; not contained in or deriving from the
essential nature of something; being or from or characteristic of another place or
part of the world
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 7
evolutionDefinition: a
process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more
advanced or mature stage); (biology) the sequence of events involved in the
evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 had shaped, and whose powers were
such as this planet had never bred. And to think that only the day before, Danforth and
I had actually looked upon fragments of their millennially fossilized substance, and
that poor Lake and his party had seen their complete outlines. It is of course
impossible for me to relate in proper order the stages by which we picked up what we
know of that monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in
shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
3 chapter of prehuman
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 life.
After the first shock of the certain revelation, we had to pause a while to recuperate,
and it was fully three o'clock before we got started on our actual tour of systematic
research. The sculptures in the building we entered were of relatively late
date--perhaps two million years ago--as checked up by geological, biological, and astronomicalDefinition:
relating or belonging to the science of astronomy; inconceivably large
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 features--and embodied an art
which would be called decadent in comparison with that of specimens we found in older
buildings after crossing bridges under the glacial sheet. One edifice hewn from the
solid rock seemed to go back forty or possibly even fifty million years--to the lower
EoceneDefinition:
from 58 million to 40 million years ago; presence of modern mammals
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 or upper CretaceousDefinition: from 135 million to 63
million years ago; end of the age of reptiles; appearance of modern insects and
flowering plants; abounding in chalk; of or relating to or denoting the third period
of the Mesozoic era
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
3--and contained bas reliefs of an artistry surpassing anything else, with one
tremendous exception, that we encountered. That was, we have since agreed, the oldest
domestic structure we traversed.
Were it not for the support of those flashlights soon to be made
public, I would refrain from telling what I found and inferred, lest I be confined as a
madman. Of course, the infinitely early parts of the patchwork tale--representing the
preterrestrial life of the star-headed beings on other planets, in other galaxies, and
in other universes--can readily be interpreted as the fantastic mythologyDefinition: myths collectively; the
body of stories associated with a culture or institution or person; the study of
myths
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 of those beings
themselves; yet such parts sometimes involved designs and diagrams so uncannilyDefinition: in an
uncanny manner
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1 close to the
latest findings of mathematicsDefinition: a science (or group of related sciences) dealing with the
logic of quantity and shape and arrangement
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 1 and astrophysicsDefinition: the branch of astronomy concerned
with the physical and chemical properties of celestial bodies
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 that I scarcely know what to think. Let
others judge when they see the photographs I shall publish.
Naturally, no one set of carvings which we encountered told more than a
fraction of any connected story, nor did we even begin to come upon the various stages
of that story in their proper order. Some of the vast rooms were independent units so
far as their designs were concerned, whilst in other cases a continuous chronicle would
be carried through a series of rooms and corridors. The best of the maps and diagrams
were on the walls of a frightful abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently
unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively); make
amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 below even the
ancientDefinition: a
very old person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past
especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very
old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 ground level--a cavern
perhaps two hundred feet square and sixty feet high, which had almost undoubtedly been
an educational center of some sort. There were many provoking repetitions of the same
material in different rooms and buildings, since certain chapters of experience, and
certain summaries or phases of racial history, had evidently been favorites with
different decorators or dwellers. Sometimes, though, variant versions of the same theme
proved useful in settling debatable points and filling up gaps.
I still wonder that we deduced so much in the short time at our
disposal. Of course, we even now have only the barest outline--and much of that was
obtained later on from a study of the photographs and sketches we made. It may be the
effect of this later study--the revived memories and vague impressions acting in
conjunction with his general sensitiveness and with that final supposed horror-glimpse
whose essence he will not reveal even to me--which has been the immediate source of
Danforth's present breakdown. But it had to be; for we could not issue our warning
intelligently without the fullest possible information, and the issuance of that warning
is a prime necessity. Certain lingering influences in that unknown antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 world of
disordered time and alienDefinition: a person who comes from a foreign country; someone who does
not owe allegiance to your country; anyone who does not belong in the environment in
which they are found; a form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its
atmosphere; transfer property or ownership; arouse hostility or indifference in where
there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness; not contained in or
deriving from the essential nature of something; being or from or characteristic of
another place or part of the world
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 7 natural law make it imperative that further exploration be
discouraged.
The full story, so far as deciphered, will eventually appear in an
official bulletin of Miskatonic University . Here I shall sketch only the salient
highlights in a formless, rambling way. MythDefinition: a traditional story accepted as history;
serves to explain the world view of a people
Word Type: religious
Number
Of Synsets: 1 or otherwise, the sculptures told of the coming of those
star-headed things to the nascent, lifeless earth out of cosmic space--their coming, and
the coming of many other alienDefinition: a person who comes from a foreign country; someone who does
not owe allegiance to your country; anyone who does not belong in the environment in
which they are found; a form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its
atmosphere; transfer property or ownership; arouse hostility or indifference in where
there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness; not contained in or
deriving from the essential nature of something; being or from or characteristic of
another place or part of the world
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 7 entities such as at certain times embark upon spatial pioneering.
They seemed able to traverse the interstellar ether on their vast membranousDefinition:
relating to or made of or similar to a membrane; characterized by formation of a
membrane (or something resembling a membrane)
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 wings--thus oddly confirming some curious hill folklore
long ago told me by an antiquarianDefinition: an expert or collector of antiquities; of or relating to
persons who study or deal in antiques or antiquities; of or relating to antiques or
antiquities
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 colleague.
They had lived under the sea a good deal, building fantastic cities and fighting
terrific battles with nameless adversaries by means of intricate devices employing
unknown principles of energy. Evidently their scientific and mechanical knowledge far
surpassed man's today, though they made use of its more widespread and elaborate forms
only when obliged to. Some of the sculptures suggested that they had passed through a
stage of mechanized life on other planets, but had receded upon finding its effects
emotionally unsatisfying. Their preternaturalDefinition: surpassing the ordinary or
normal; existing outside of or not in accordance with nature
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 toughness of organization and simplicity of
natural wants made them peculiarly able to live on a high plane without the more
specialized fruits of artificial manufacture, and even without garments, except for
occasional protection against the elements.
It was under the sea, at first for food and later for other purposes,
that they first created earth life--using available substances according to long-known
methods. The more elaborate experiments came after the annihilation of various cosmic
enemies. They had done the same thing on other planets, having manufactured not only
necessary foods, but certain multicellular protoplasmic
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 0 masses capable of molding their tissues into all sorts of temporary
organs under hypnoticDefinition: a drug that induces sleep; of or relating to hypnosis; attracting and
holding interest as if by a spell
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
3 influence and thereby forming ideal slaves to perform the heavy work of the
community. These viscous masses were without doubt what Abdul Alhazred whisperedDefinition: speak
softly; in a low voice; spoken in soft hushed tones without vibrations of the vocal
cords
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 about as the
"Shoggoths" in his frightful Necronomicon, though even that mad Arab had not hinted that
any existed on earth except in the dreams of those who had chewed a certain alkaloidal
herb. When the star-headed OldOnes on this planet had synthesized their simple food
forms and bred a good supply of Shoggoths, they allowed other cell groups to develop
into other forms of animal and vegetable life for sundry purposes, extirpating any whose
presence became troublesome.
With the aid of the Shoggoths, whose expansions could be made to lift
prodigious weights, the small, low cities under the sea grew to vast and imposing
labyrinths of stone not unlike those which later rose on land. Indeed, the highly
adaptable Old Ones had lived much on land in other parts of the universe, and probably
retained many traditions of land construction. As we studied the architecture of all
these sculptured palaeogean cities, including that whose aeon-dead
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 corridors we were even then traversing, we were impressed
by a curious coincidence which we have not yet tried to explain, even to ourselves. The
tops of the buildings, which in the actual city around us had, of course, been weathered
into shapeless ruins ages ago, were clearly displayed in the bas-reliefs, and showed
vast clusters of needle-like spiresDefinition: a tall tower that forms the superstructure of a building
(usually a church or temple) and that tapers to a point at the top
Word Type:
religious
Number Of Synsets: 1, delicate finialsDefinition: an ornament at the top of
a spire or gable; usually a foliated fleur-de-lis
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 1 on certain cone and pyramid apexesDefinition: the highest point (of
something); the point on the celestial sphere toward which the sun and solar system
appear to be moving relative to the fixed stars
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2, and tiers of thin, horizontal scalloped disks capping
cylindrical shafts. This was exactly what we had seen in that monstrousDefinition: abnormally large;
shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and
hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 and portentous
mirage, cast by a dead city whence such skyline features had been absent for thousands
and tens of thousands of years, which loomed on our ignorant eyes across the unfathomedDefinition:
situated at or extending to great depth; too deep to have been sounded or
plumbed
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1 mountains of
madness as we first approached poor Lake's ill-fated camp.
Of the life of the Old Ones, both under the sea and after part of them
migrated to land, volumes could be written. Those in shallow water had continued the
fullest use of the eyes at the ends of their five main head tentaclesDefinition: something that acts
like a tentacle in its ability to grasp and hold; any of various elongated tactile or
prehensile flexible organs that occur on the head or near the mouth in many animals;
used for feeling or grasping or locomotion
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 2, and had practiced the arts of sculpture and of writing in quite
the usual way--the writing accomplished with a stylus on waterproof waxen surfaces.
Those lower down in the ocean depths, though they used a curious phosphorescent organism
to furnish light, pieced out their vision with obscure special senses operating through
the prismatic cilia on their heads--senses which rendered all the Old Ones partly
independent of light in emergencies. Their forms of sculpture and writing had changed
curiously during the descent, embodying certain apparently chemical coating
processes--probably to secure phosphorescenceDefinition: a fluorescence that persists
after the bombarding radiation has ceased
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 1--which the bas-reliefs could not make clear to us. The beings moved
in the sea partly by swimming--using the lateral crinoidDefinition: primitive echinoderms having five or
more feathery arms radiating from a central disk; of or relating to or belonging to
the class Crinoidea
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
arms--and partly by wriggling with the lower tier of tentaclesDefinition: something that acts
like a tentacle in its ability to grasp and hold; any of various elongated tactile or
prehensile flexible organs that occur on the head or near the mouth in many animals;
used for feeling or grasping or locomotion
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 2 containing the pseudofeet
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 0. Occasionally they accomplished long swoops with the auxiliary use
of two or more sets of their fanlike folding wings. On land they locally used the pseudofeet
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0, but now and then flew to great
heights or over long distances with their wings. The many slender tentaclesDefinition:
something that acts like a tentacle in its ability to grasp and hold; any of various
elongated tactile or prehensile flexible organs that occur on the head or near the
mouth in many animals; used for feeling or grasping or locomotion
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 into which the crinoidDefinition: primitive echinoderms
having five or more feathery arms radiating from a central disk; of or relating to or
belonging to the class Crinoidea
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
2 arms branched were infinitely delicate, flexible, strong, and accurate in
muscular-nervous coordination--ensuring the utmost skill and dexterity in all artistic
and other manual operations.
The toughness of the things was almost incredible. Even the terrific
pressure of the deepest sea bottoms appeared powerless to harm them. Very few seemed to
die at all except by violence, and their burial places were very limited. The fact that
they covered their vertically inhumed dead with five-pointed inscribed mounds set up
thoughts in Danforth and me which made a fresh pause and recuperation necessary after
the sculptures revealed it. The beings multiplied by means of spores--like vegetable
pteridophytesDefinition: plants having vascular tissue and reproducing by spores
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1, as Lake had suspected--but, owing to
their prodigious toughness and longevity, and consequent lack of replacement needs, they
did not encourage the large-scale development of new prothallia except when they had new
regions to colonize. The young matured swiftly, and received an education evidently
beyond any standard we can imagine. The prevailing intellectual and aesthetic life was
highly evolved, and produced a tenaciously enduring set of customs and institutions
which I shall describe more fully in my coming monograph. These varied slightly
according to sea or land residence, but had the same foundations and essentials.
Though able, like vegetables, to derive nourishment from inorganic
substances, they vastly preferred organic and especially animal food. They ate uncooked
marine life under the sea, but cooked their viands on land. They hunted game and raised
meat herds--slaughtering with sharp weapons whose odd marks on certain fossil bones our
expedition had noted. They resisted all ordinary temperatures marvelously, and in their
natural state could live in water down to freezing. When the great chill of the PleistoceneDefinition:
from two million to 11 thousand years ago; extensive glaciation of the northern
hemisphere; the time of human evolution
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 drew on, however--nearly a million years ago--the land dwellers had
to resort to special measures, including artificial heating--until at last the deadly
cold appears to have driven them back into the sea. For their prehistoric flights
through cosmic space, legendDefinition: a story about mythical or supernatural beings or events; brief
description accompanying an illustration
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 2 said, they absorbed certain chemicals and became almost independent
of eating, breathing, or heat conditions--but by the time of the great cold they had
lost track of the method. In any case they could not have prolonged the artificial state
indefinitely without harm.
Being nonpairing and semivegetable in structure, the Old Ones had no
biological basis for the family phase of mammal life, but seemed to organize large
households on the principles of comfortable space-utility and--as we deduced from the
pictured occupations and diversions of co-dwellers--congenial mental association. In
furnishing their homes they kept everything in the center of the huge rooms, leaving all
the wall spaces free for decorative treatment. Lighting, in the case of the land
inhabitants, was accomplished by a device probably electro-chemical
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 in nature. Both on land and under water
they used curious tables, chairs and couches like cylindrical frames--for they rested
and slept upright with folded-down tentaclesDefinition: something that acts like a tentacle
in its ability to grasp and hold; any of various elongated tactile or prehensile
flexible organs that occur on the head or near the mouth in many animals; used for
feeling or grasping or locomotion
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2--and racks for hinged sets of dotted surfaces forming their books.
Government was evidently complex and probably socialisticDefinition: advocating or
following the socialist principles
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
1, though no certainties in this regard could be deduced from the sculptures
we saw. There was extensive commerce, both local and between different cities--certain
small, flat counters, five-pointed and inscribed, serving as money. Probably the smaller
of the various greenish soapstones found by our expedition were pieces of such currency.
Though the culture was mainly urban, some agriculture and much stock raising existed.
Mining and a limited amount of manufacturing were also practiced. Travel was very
frequent, but permanent migration seemed relatively rare except for the vast colonizing
movements by which the race expanded. For personal locomotionDefinition: the power or ability to move;
self-propelled movement
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 no
external aid was used, since in land, air, and water movement alike the Old Ones seemed
to possess excessively vast capacities for speed. Loads, however, were drawn by beastsDefinition: a living
organism characterized by voluntary movement; a cruelly rapacious person
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 of burden--Shoggoths under the sea, and
a curious variety of primitive vertebratesDefinition: animals having a bony or
cartilaginous skeleton with a segmented spinal column and a large brain enclosed in a
skull or cranium
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 in the
later years of land existence.
These vertebratesDefinition: animals having a bony or cartilaginous skeleton with a
segmented spinal column and a large brain enclosed in a skull or cranium
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1, as well as an infinity of other
life forms--animal and vegetable, marine, terrestrial, and aerial--were the products of
unguided evolutionDefinition: a process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage
(especially a more advanced or mature stage); (biology) the sequence of events
involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of
organisms
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 acting on
life cells made by the Old Ones, but escaping beyond their radius of attention. They had
been suffered to develop unchecked because they had not come in conflict with the
dominant beings. Bothersome forms, of course, were mechanically exterminated. It
interested us to see in some of the very last and most decadentDefinition: a person who has fallen
into a decadent state (morally or artistically); marked by excessive self-indulgence
and moral decay
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 sculptures
a shambling, primitive mammal, used sometimes for food and sometimes as an amusing
buffoon by the land dwellers, whose vaguely simianDefinition: an ape or monkey; relating to or
resembling an ape
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 and
human foreshadowings were unmistakable. In the building of land cities the huge stone
blocks of the high towers were generally lifted by vast-winged
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 0
pterodactylsDefinition: extinct flying reptile
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 of a species heretofore unknown to paleontologyDefinition: the earth science
that studies fossil organisms and related remains
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1.
The persistence with which the Old Ones survived various geologic
changes and convulsions of the earth's crust was little short of miraculous. Though few
or none of their first cities seem to have remained beyond the ArchaeanDefinition: of or relating to the
earliest known rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1Age, there was no interruption in their
civilization or in the transmission of their records. Their original place of advent to
the planet was the Antarctic Ocean, and it is likely that they came not long after the
matter forming the moon was wrenched from the neighboring South Pacific. According to
one of the sculptured maps the whole globe was then under water, with stone cities
scattered farther and farther from the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole:
Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 as aeonsDefinition: (Gnosticism) a divine power
or nature emanating from the Supreme Being and playing various roles in the operation
of the universe; the longest division of geological time; an immeasurably long period
of time
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 passed. Another
map shows a vast bulk of dry land around the south pole, where it is evident that some
of the beings made experimental settlements, though their main centers were transferred
to the nearest sea bottom. Later maps, which display the land mass as cracking and
drifting, and sending certain detached parts northward, uphold in a striking way the
theories of continental drift lately advanced by Taylor, Wegener, and Joly.
With the upheaval of new land in the South Pacific tremendous events
began. Some of the marine cities were hopelessly shattered, yet that was not the worst
misfortune. Another race--a land race of beings shaped like octopi and probably
corresponding to fabulous prehuman
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 spawn of
Cthulhu
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 0--soon began filtering down from cosmic
infinity and precipitated a--monstrous war which for a time drove the Old Ones wholly
back to the sea--a colossal blow in view of the increasing land settlements. Later peace
was made, and the new lands were given to the Cthulhu
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
0 spawn whilst the Old Ones held the sea and the older lands. New land cities
were founded--the greatest of them in the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole:
Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2, for this region of first arrival was
sacredDefinition:
concerned with religion or religious purposes; worthy of respect or dedication; made
or declared or believed to be holy; devoted to a deity or some religious ceremony or
use; worthy of religious veneration; (often followed by `to') devoted exclusively to
a single use or purpose or person
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets:
5. From then on, as before, the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole:
Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 remained the center of the Old Ones'
civilization, and all the cities built there by the Cthulhu
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
0 spawn were blotted out. Then suddenly the lands of the Pacific sank again,
taking with them the frightful stone city of R'lyeh and all the cosmic octopi, so that
the Old Ones were again supreme on the planet except for one shadowy fear about which
they did not like to speak. At a rather later age their cities dotted all the land and
water areas of the globe--hence the recommendation in my coming monograph that some
archaeologist make systematic borings with Pabodie's type of apparatus in certain widely
separated regions.
The steady trend down the ages was from water to land--a movement encouraged by the rise of new land masses, though the ocean was never wholly deserted. Another cause of the landward movement was the new difficulty in breeding and managing the Shoggoths upon which successful sea life depended. With the march of time, as the sculptures sadly confessed, the art of creating new life from inorganic matter had been lost, so that the Old Ones had to depend on the molding of forms already in existence. On land the great reptiles proved highly tractable; but theShoggoths of the sea, reproducing by fission and acquiring a dangerous degree of accidental intelligence, presented for a time a formidable problem.
They had always been controlled through the hypnoticDefinition: a drug that induces
sleep; of or relating to hypnosis; attracting and holding interest as if by a
spell
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 suggestions of the Old
Ones, and had modeled their tough plasticityDefinition: the property of being physically
malleable; the property of something that can be worked or hammered or shaped without
breaking
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 into various useful
temporary limbs and organs; but now their self-modeling powers were sometimes exercised
independently, and in various imitative forms implanted by past suggestion. They had, it
seems, developed a semistable
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 brain
whose separate and occasionally stubborn volition echoed the will of the Old Ones
without always obeying it. Sculptured images of these Shoggoths filled Danforth and me
with horror and loathing. They were normally shapelessDefinition: having no definite form or distinct
shape; lacking symmetry or attractive form
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 2
entitiesDefinition: that
which is perceived or known or inferred to have its own distinct existence (living or
nonliving)
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 composed of a
viscousDefinition:
having a relatively high resistance to flow; having the sticky properties of an
adhesive
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
jellyDefinition: an edible
jelly (sweet or pungent) made with gelatin and used as a dessert or salad base or a
coating for foods; a preserve made of the jelled juice of fruit; any substance having
the consistency of jelly or gelatin; make into jelly
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 which looked like an agglutinationDefinition: a clumping of
bacteria or red cells when held together by antibodies (agglutinins); the building of
words from component morphemes that retain their form and meaning in the process of
combining; the coalescing of small particles that are suspended in solution; these
larger masses are then (usually) precipitated
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 of bubbles, and each averaged about fifteen feet in
diameter when a sphere. They had, however, a constantly shifting shape and
volume--throwing out temporary developments or forming apparent organsDefinition: edible viscera of a
butchered animal; a fully differentiated structural and functional unit in an animal
that is specialized for some particular function; a government agency or instrument
devoted to the performance of some specific function; (music) an electronic
simulation of a pipe organ; a periodical that is published by a special interest
group; wind instrument whose sound is produced by means of pipes arranged in sets
supplied with air from a bellows and controlled from a large complex musical
keyboard; a free-reed instrument in which air is forced through the reeds by
bellows
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 7 of sight,
hearing, and speech in imitation of their masters, either spontaneously or according to
suggestion.
They seem to have become peculiarly intractable toward the middle of
the PermianDefinition:
from 280 million to 230 million years ago; reptiles
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1Age, perhaps one hundred and fifty million years ago, when
a veritable war of resubjugation was waged upon them by the marine Old Ones. Pictures of
this war, and of the headless, slime-coated fashion in which the Shoggoths typically
left their slain victims, held a marvelously fearsome quality despite the intervening
abyssDefinition: a
bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm
or void extending below (often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 of untold ages. The Old Ones had used
curious weapons of molecular and atomic disturbances against the rebel entities, and in
the end had achieved a complete victory. Thereafter the sculptures showed a period in
which Shoggoths were tamed and broken by armed Old Ones as the wild horses of the
American west were tamed by cowboys. Though during the rebellion the Shoggoths had shown
an ability to live out of water, this transition was not encouraged--since their
usefulness on land would hardly have been commensurate with the trouble of their
management.
During the JurassicDefinition: from 190 million to 135 million years ago; dinosaurs;
conifers; of or relating to or denoting the second period of the Mesozoic era
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2Age the Old Ones met fresh
adversity in the form of a new invasion from outer space--this time by half-fungous,
half-crustacean creaturesDefinition: a living organism characterized by voluntary movement; a human being;
`wight' is an archaic term; a person who is controlled by others and is used to
perform unpleasant or dishonest tasks for someone else
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3--creatures undoubtedly the same as those figuring in
certain whisperedDefinition: speak softly; in a low voice; spoken in soft hushed tones without
vibrations of the vocal cords
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets:
2 hill legendsDefinition: a story about mythical or supernatural beings or events; brief
description accompanying an illustration
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 2 of the north, and remembered in the Himalayas as the Mi-Go, or
AbominableDefinition:
unequivocally detestable; exceptionally bad or displeasing
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 Snow Men. To fight these beings the Old Ones
attempted, for the first time since their terrene advent, to sally forth again into the
planetary ether; but, despite all traditional preparations, found it no longer possible
to leave the earth's atmosphere. Whatever the old secret of interstellar travel had
been, it was now definitely lost to the race. In the end the Mi-Go drove the Old Ones
out of all the northern lands, though they were powerless to disturb those in the sea.
Little by little the slow retreat of the elder race to their original antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 habitat was
beginning.
It was curious to note from the pictured battles that both the Cthulhu
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 0 spawn and the Mi-Go seem to have been
composed of matter more widely different from that which we know than was the substance
of the Old Ones. They were able to undergo transformations and reintegrations impossible
for their adversaries, and seem therefore to have originally come from even remoter
gulfs of the cosmic space. The Old Ones, but for their abnormalDefinition: not normal; not typical
or usual or regular or conforming to a norm; departing from the normal in e.g.
intelligence and development; much greater than the normal
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 toughness and peculiar vital properties,
were strictly material, and must have had their absolute origin within the known
space-time continuum--whereas the first sources of the other beings can only be guessed
at with bated breath. All this, of course, assuming that the non-terrestrial linkages
and the anomalies ascribed to the invading foes are not pure mythologyDefinition: myths collectively; the
body of stories associated with a culture or institution or person; the study of
myths
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2. Conceivably, the
Old Ones might have invented a cosmic framework to account for their occasional defeats,
since historical interest and pride obviously formed their chief psychologicalDefinition:
mental or emotional as opposed to physical in nature; of or relating to or determined
by psychology
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 element.
It is significant that their annals failed to mention many advanced and potent races of
beings whose mighty cultures and towering cities figure persistently in certain obscure
legendsDefinition: a
story about mythical or supernatural beings or events; brief description accompanying
an illustration
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2.
The changing state of the world through long geologic ages appeared
with startling vividness in many of the sculptured maps and scenes. In certain cases
existing science will require revision, while in other cases its bold deductions are
magnificently confirmed. As I have said, the hypothesisDefinition: a proposal intended to explain
certain facts or observations; a tentative insight into the natural world; a concept
that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; a
message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 of Taylor, Wegener, and Joly that all
the continents are fragments of an original antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole:
Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 land mass which cracked from centrifugal
force and drifted apart over a technically viscous lower surface--an hypothesisDefinition: a
proposal intended to explain certain facts or observations; a tentative insight into
the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain
certain facts or phenomena; a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete
evidence
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 suggested by
such things as the complementary outlines of Africa and South America, and the way the
great mountain chains are rolled and shoved up--receives striking support from this
uncannyDefinition:
suggesting the operation of supernatural influences; surpassing the ordinary or
normal
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 source.
Maps evidently showing the CarboniferousDefinition: from 345 million to 280 million
years ago; of or relating to the Carboniferous geologic era; relating to or
consisting of or yielding carbon
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
3 world of an hundred million or more years ago displayed significant rifts
and chasms destined later to separate Africa from the once continuous realms of Europe
(then the Valusia of primalDefinition: serving as an essential component; having existed from the
beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
legendDefinition: a story
about mythical or supernatural beings or events; brief description accompanying an
illustration
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2), Asia, the
Americas, and the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding
waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2 continent. Other charts--and most significantly one in connection
with the founding fifty million years ago of the vast dead city around us--showed all
the present continents well differentiated. And in the latest discoverable
specimen--dating perhaps from the PlioceneDefinition: from 13 million to 2 million years
ago; growth of mountains; cooling of climate; more and larger mammals
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 Age--the approximate world of
today appeared quite clearly despite the linkage of Alaska with Siberia, of North
America with Europe through Greenland, and of South America with the antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 continent through
Graham Land. In the CarboniferousDefinition: from 345 million to 280 million years ago; of or relating to
the Carboniferous geologic era; relating to or consisting of or yielding carbon
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 map the whole globe-ocean
floor and rifted land mass alike--bore symbols of the Old Ones' vast stone cities, but
in the later charts the gradual recession toward the antarcticDefinition: the region around the
south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 became very plain. The final PlioceneDefinition: from
13 million to 2 million years ago; growth of mountains; cooling of climate; more and
larger mammals
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 specimen
showed no land cities except on the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole:
Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 continent and the tip of South America,
nor any ocean cities north of the fiftieth parallel of South Latitude. Knowledge and
interest in the northern world, save for a study of coast lines probably made during
long exploration flights on those fanlike membranousDefinition: relating to or made of or similar to
a membrane; characterized by formation of a membrane (or something resembling a
membrane)
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 wings, had
evidently declined to zero among the Old Ones.
Destruction of cities through the upthrust of mountains, the
centrifugal rending of continents, the seismic convulsions of land or sea bottom, and
other natural causes, was a matter of common record; and it was curious to observe how
fewer and fewer replacements were made as the ages wore on. The vast dead megalopolis
that yawned around us seemed to be the last general center of the race--built early in
the CretaceousDefinition: from 135 million to 63 million years ago; end of the age of reptiles;
appearance of modern insects and flowering plants; abounding in chalk; of or relating
to or denoting the third period of the Mesozoic era
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3Age after a titanic earth buckling had obliterated a still
vaster predecessor not far distant. It appeared that this general region was the most
sacredDefinition:
concerned with religion or religious purposes; worthy of respect or dedication; made
or declared or believed to be holy; devoted to a deity or some religious ceremony or
use; worthy of religious veneration; (often followed by `to') devoted exclusively to
a single use or purpose or person
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets:
5 spot of all, where reputedly the first Old Ones had settled on a primalDefinition: serving
as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or
original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
sea bottom. In the new city--many of whose features we could recognize in the
sculptures, but which stretched fully a hundred miles along the mountain range in each
direction beyond the farthest limits of our aerial survey--there were reputed to be
preserved certain sacredDefinition: concerned with religion or religious purposes; worthy of respect or
dedication; made or declared or believed to be holy; devoted to a deity or some
religious ceremony or use; worthy of religious veneration; (often followed by `to')
devoted exclusively to a single use or purpose or person
Word Type:
religious
Number Of Synsets: 5 stones forming part of the first
sea-bottom city, which thrust up to light after long epochsDefinition: a period marked by
distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event; (astronomy) an
arbitrarily fixed date that is the point in time relative to which information (as
coordinates of a celestial body) is recorded; a unit of geological time that is a
subdivision of a period and is itself divided into ages
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 in the course of the general crumbling
of strata.
Naturally, Danforth and I studied with especial interest and a
peculiarly personal sense of awe everything pertaining to the immediate district in
which we were. Of this local material there was naturally a vast abundance; and on the
tangled ground level of the city we were lucky enough to find a house of very late date
whose walls, though somewhat damaged by a neighboring rift, contained sculptures of
decadent workmanship carrying the story of the region much beyond the period of the
PlioceneDefinition:
from 13 million to 2 million years ago; growth of mountains; cooling of climate; more
and larger mammals
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 map
whence we derived our last general glimpse of the prehuman
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 world. This was the last place we examined in detail,
since what we found there gave us a fresh immediate objective.
Certainly, we were in one of the strangest, weirdest, and most terrible
of all the corners of earth's globe. Of all existing lands, it was infinitely the most
ancientDefinition: a
very old person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past
especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very
old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4. The conviction grew
upon us that this hideous upland must indeed be the fabled nightmare plateau of Leng
which even the mad author of the Necronomicon was reluctant to discuss. The great
mountain chain was tremendously long--starting as a low range at Luitpold Land on the
east coast of Weddell Sea and virtually crossing the entire continent. That really high
part stretched in a mighty arc from about E. Longitude 115°, with its concave side
toward our camp and its seaward end in the region of that long, ice-locked coast whose
hills were glimpsed by Lake's and Lake's at the antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole:
Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 circle.
Yet even more monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and
unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 3 exaggerations of nature seemed disturbingly close at hand. I
have said that these peaks are higher than the Himalayas, but the sculptures forbid me
to say that they are earth's highest. That grim honor is beyond doubt reserved for
something which half the sculptures hesitated to record at all, whilst others approached
it with obvious repugnance and trepidation. It seems that there was one part of the
ancientDefinition: a
very old person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past
especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very
old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 land--the first part
that ever rose from the waters after the earth had flung off the moon and the Old Ones
had seeped down, from the stars--which had come to be shunned as vaguely and namelessly
evil. Cities built there had crumbled before their time, and had been found suddenly
deserted. Then when the first great earth buckling had convulsed the region in the Comanchian
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0Age, a frightful line of peaks had
shot suddenly up amidst the most appalling din and chaos--and earth had received her
loftiest and most terrible mountains.
If the scale of the carvings was correct, these abhorred things must
have been much over forty thousand feet high--radically vaster than even the shocking
mountains of madness we had crossed. They extended, it appeared, from about E. Longitude
100°--less than three hundred miles away from the dead city, so that we would have
spied their dreaded summits in the dim western distance had it not been for that vague,
opalescent haze. Their northern end must likewise be visible from the long antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 circle coast line
at Queen Mary Land.
Some of the Old Ones, in the decadent days, had made strange prayers to
those mountains--but none ever went near them or dared to guess what lay beyond. No
human eye had ever seen them, and as I studied the emotions conveyed in the carvings, I
prayed that none ever might. There are protecting hills along the coast beyond
them--Queen Mary and Kaiser Wilhelm Lands--and I thank Heaven no one has been able to
land and climb those hills. I am not as sceptical about old tales and fears as I used to
be, and I do not laugh now at the prehuman
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 0 sculptor's notion that lightning paused meaningfully now and then
at each of the brooding crests, and that an unexplained glow shone from one of those
terrible pinnacles all through the long polar night. There may be a very real and very
monstrousDefinition:
abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or
size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3
meaning in the old Pnakotic
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0
whispersDefinition:
speaking softly without vibration of the vocal cords; a light noise, like the noise
of silk clothing or leaves blowing in the wind; speak softly; in a low voice
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 about Kadath
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 0 in the Cold Waste.
But the terrain close at hand was hardly less strange, even if less
namelessly accursed. Soon after the founding of the city the great mountain range became
the seat of the principal temples, and many carvings showed what grotesqueDefinition: art characterized by an
incongruous mixture of parts of humans and animals interwoven with plants; distorted
and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous; ludicrously odd
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3and fantastic towers had pierced the
sky where now we saw only the curiously clinging cubes and ramparts. In the course of
ages the caves had appeared, and had been shaped into adjuncts of the temples. With the
advance of still later epochsDefinition: a period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a
fixed point or event; (astronomy) an arbitrarily fixed date that is the point in time
relative to which information (as coordinates of a celestial body) is recorded; a
unit of geological time that is a subdivision of a period and is itself divided into
ages
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3, all the limestone
veins of the region were hollowed out by ground waters, so that the mountains, the
foothills, and the plains below them were a veritable network of connected caverns and
galleries. Many graphic sculptures told of explorations deep underground, and of the
final discovery of the StygianDefinition: hellish; dark and dismal as of the rivers Acheron and Styx
in Hades
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 sunless sea
that lurked at earth's bowels.
This vast nighted gulf had undoubtedly been worn by the great river
which flowed down from the nameless and horrible westward mountains, and which had
formerly turned at the base of the Old Ones' range and flowed beside that chain into the
Indian Ocean between Budd and Totten Lands on Lake's coast line. Little by little it had
eaten away the limestone hill base at its turning, till at last its sapping currents
reached the caverns of the ground waters and joined with them in digging a deeper abyssDefinition: a bottomless
gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void
extending below (often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2. Finally its whole bulk emptied into the
hollow hills and left the old bed toward the ocean dry. Much of the later city as we now
found it had been built over that former bed. The Old Ones, understanding what had
happened, and exercising their always keen artistic sense, had carved into ornate pylonsDefinition: a tower
for guiding pilots or marking the turning point in a race; a large vertical steel
tower supporting high-tension power lines
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2 those headlands of the foothills where the great stream began its
descent into eternal darkness.
This river, once crossed by scores of noble stone bridges, was plainly
the one whose extinct course we had seen in our aeroplane survey. Its position in
different carvings of the city helped us to orient ourselves to the scene as it had been
at various stages of the region's age-long, aeon-dead
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
0 history, so that we were able to sketch a hasty but careful map of the
salient features--squares, important buildings, and the like--for guidance in further
explorations. We could soon reconstruct in fancy the whole stupendous thing as it was a
million or ten million or fifty million years ago, for the sculptures told us exactly
what the buildings and mountains and squares and suburbs and landscape setting and
luxuriant TertiaryDefinition: from 63 million to 2 million years ago; coming next after the second and
just before the fourth in position
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
2 vegetation had looked like. It must have had a marvelous and mysticDefinition: someone who
believes in the existence of realities beyond human comprehension; having an import
not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary
understanding; relating to or resembling mysticism; relating to or characteristic of
mysticism
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 4 beauty, and as I
thought of it, I almost forgot the clammy sense of sinister oppression with which the
city's inhumanDefinition: without compunction or human feeling; belonging to or resembling
something nonhuman
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 age
and massiveness and deadness and remoteness and glacial twilight had choked and weighed
on my spirit. Yet according to certain carvings, the denizens of that city had
themselves known the clutch of oppressiveDefinition: weighing heavily on the senses or spirit; marked by unjust
severity or arbitrary behavior
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
2
terrorDefinition: an
overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety; a person who inspires fear or dread; a very
troublesome child; the use of extreme fear in order to coerce people (especially for
political reasons)
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 4; for
there was a somber and recurrent type of scene in which the Old Ones were shown in the
act of recoiling affrightedly
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 from some
object--never allowed to appear in the design--found in the great river and indicated as
having been washed down through waving, vine-draped cycadDefinition: any tropical gymnosperm of
the order Cycadales; having unbranched stems with a crown of fernlike leaves
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 forests from those horrible
westward mountains.
It was only in the one late-built house with the decadent carvings that
we obtained any foreshadowing of the final calamity leading to the city's desertion.
Undoubtedly there must have been many sculptures of the same age elsewhere, even
allowing for the slackened energies and aspirations of a stressful and uncertain period;
indeed, very certain evidence of the existence of others came to us shortly afterward.
But this was the first and only set we directly encountered. We meant to look farther
later on; but as I have said, immediate conditions dictated another present objective.
There would, though, have been a limit--for after all hope of a long future occupancy of
the place had perished among the Old Ones, there could not but have been a complete
cessation of mural decoration. The ultimate blow, of course, was the coming of the great
cold which once held most of the earth in thrallDefinition: the state of being under the control of
another person; someone held in bondage
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 2, and which has never departed from the ill-fated poles--the great
cold that, at the world's other extremity, put an end to the fabled lands of Lomar
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 0 and Hyperborea
Word Type: religious
Number Of
Synsets: 0.
Just when this tendency began in the antarcticDefinition: the region around the
south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2, it would be hard to say in terms
of exact years. Nowadays we set the beginning of the general glacial periods at a
distance of about five hundred thousand years from the present, but at the poles the
terrible scourge must have commenced much earlier. All quantitative estimates are partly
guesswork, but it is quite likely that the decadent sculptures were made considerably
less than a million years ago, and that the actual desertion of the city was complete
long before the conventional opening of the PleistoceneDefinition: from two million to 11 thousand
years ago; extensive glaciation of the northern hemisphere; the time of human
evolution
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1--five hundred
thousand years ago--as reckoned in terms of the earth's whole surface.
In the decadent sculptures there were signs of thinner vegetation
everywhere, and of a decreased country life on the part of the Old Ones. Heating devices
were shown in the houses, and winter travelers were represented as muffled in protective
fabrics. Then we saw a series of cartouchesDefinition: a cartridge (usually with paper
casing); a cartridge (usually with paper casing)
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2--the continuous band arrangement being frequently
interrupted in these late carvings--depicting a constantly growing migration to the
nearest refuges of greater warmth--some fleeing to cities under the sea off the far-away
coast, and some clambering down through networks of limestone caverns in the hollow
hills to the neighboring black abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently
unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively); make
amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 of subterrene
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 0 waters.
In the end it seems to have been the neighboring abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit;
any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below
(often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2 which received the greatest colonization. This was partly due, no
doubt, to the traditional sacrednessDefinition: the quality of being sacred
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 of this special region, but may have been more
conclusively determined by the opportunities it gave for continuing the use of the great
temples on the honeycombedDefinition: carve a honeycomb pattern into; penetrate thoroughly and into every
part; make full of cavities, like a honeycomb; pitted with cell-like cavities (as a
honeycomb)
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 mountains, and
for retaining the vast land city as a place of summer residence and base of
communication with various mines. The linkage of old and new abodes was made more
effective by means of several gradings and improvements along the connecting routes,
including the chiseling of numerous direct tunnels from the ancientDefinition: a very old person; a
person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past especially of the
historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 metropolis to the black abyssDefinition: a bottomless
gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void
extending below (often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2--sharply down-pointing tunnels whose mouths
we carefully drew, according to our most thoughtful estimates, on the guide map we were
compiling. It was obvious that at least two of these tunnels lay within a reasonable
exploring distance of where we were--both being on the mountainward edge of the city,
one less than a quarter of a mile toward the ancientDefinition: a very old person; a person who lived
in ancient times; belonging to times long past especially of the historical period
before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 river course, and the other perhaps twice that distance
in the opposite direction.
The abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable)
cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively); make amends
for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2, it seems, had shelving
shores of dry land at certain places, but the Old Ones built their new city under
water--no doubt because of its greater certainty of uniform warmth. The depth of the
hidden sea appears to have been very great, so that the earth's internal heat could
ensure its habitability for an indefinite period. The beings seemed to have had no
trouble in adapting themselves to part-time--and eventually, of course,
whole-time--residence under water, since they had never allowed their gill systems to
atrophyDefinition:
a decrease in size of an organ caused by disease or disuse; any weakening or
degeneration (especially through lack of use); undergo atrophy
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3. There were many sculptures which showed
how they had always frequently visited their submarine kinsfolk elsewhere, and how they
had habitually bathed on the deep bottom of their great river. The darkness of inner
earth could likewise have been no deterrent to a race accustomed to long antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 nights.
Decadent though their style undoubtedly was, these latest carvings had
a truly epic quality where they told of the building of the new city in the cavern sea.
The Old Ones had gone about it scientifically--quarrying insoluble rocks from the heart
of the honeycombedDefinition: carve a honeycomb pattern into; penetrate thoroughly and into every
part; make full of cavities, like a honeycomb; pitted with cell-like cavities (as a
honeycomb)
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 mountains, and
employing expert workers from the nearest submarine city to perform the construction
according to the best methods. These workers brought with them all that was necessary to
establish the new venture--Shoggoth tissue from which to breed stone lifters and
subsequent beastsDefinition: a living organism characterized by voluntary movement; a cruelly
rapacious person
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 of burden
for the cavern city, and other protoplasmic
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 0 matter to mold into phosphorescent organisms for lighting purposes.
At last a mighty metropolis rose on the bottom of that StygianDefinition:
hellish; dark and dismal as of the rivers Acheron and Styx in Hades
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 sea, its architecture much like that of
the city above, and its workmanship displaying relatively little decadence because of
the precise mathematicalDefinition: of or pertaining to or of the nature of mathematics;
relating to or having ability to think in or work with numbers; beyond question;
statistically possible though highly improbable; characterized by the exactness or
precision of mathematics
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
5 element inherent in building operations. The newly bred Shoggoths grew to
enormous size and singular intelligence, and were represented as taking and executing
orders with marvelous quickness. They seemed to converse with the Old Ones by mimicking
their voices--a sort of musical piping over a wide range, if poor Lake's dissection had
indicated aright--and to work more from spoken commands than from hypnoticDefinition: a drug that induces
sleep; of or relating to hypnosis; attracting and holding interest as if by a
spell
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 suggestions as in
earlier times. They were, however, kept in admirable control. The phosphorescent
organisms supplied light With vast effectiveness, and doubtless atoned for the loss of
the familiar polar auroras of the outer-world night.
Art and decoration were pursued, though of course with a certain
decadence. The Old Ones seemed to realize this falling off themselves, and in many cases
anticipated the policy of Constantine the Great by transplanting especially fine blocks
of ancientDefinition: a
very old person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past
especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very
old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 carving from their land
city, just as the emperor, in a similar age of decline, stripped Greece and Asia of
their finest art to give his new Byzantine capital greater splendors than its own people
could create. That the transfer of sculptured blocks had not been more extensive was
doubtless owing to the fact that the land city was not at first wholly abandoned. By the
time total abandonment did occur--and it surely must have occurred before the polar
PleistoceneDefinition: from two million to 11 thousand years ago; extensive glaciation of the
northern hemisphere; the time of human evolution
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 was far advanced--the Old Ones had perhaps become
satisfied with their decadent art--or had ceased to recognize the superior merit of the
older carvings. At any rate, the aeon-silent
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 0 ruins around us had certainly undergone no wholesale sculpturalDefinition: relating
to or consisting of sculpture; resembling sculpture
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 denudation, though all the best separate statues, like
other movables, had been taken away.
The decadent cartouchesDefinition: a cartridge (usually with paper
casing); a cartridge (usually with paper casing)
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 and dadoes telling this story were, as I have said, the
latest we could find in our limited search. They left us with a picture of the Old Ones
shuttling back and forth betwixt the land city in summer and the sea-cavern city in
winter, and sometimes trading with the sea-bottom cities off the antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 coast. By this
time the ultimate doom of the land city must have been recognized, for the sculptures
showed many signs of the cold's malign encroachments. Vegetation was declining, and the
terrible snows of the winter no longer melted completely even in midsummer. The saurian
livestock were nearly all dead, and the mammals were standing it none too well. To keep
on with the work of the upper world it had become necessary to adapt some of the
amorphous and curiously cold-resistant Shoggoths to land life--a thing the Old Ones had
formerly been reluctant to do. The great river was now lifeless, and the upper sea had
lost most of its denizens except the seals and whales. All the birds had flown away,
save only the great, grotesqueDefinition: art characterized by an incongruous mixture of parts of
humans and animals interwoven with plants; distorted and unnatural in shape or size;
abnormal and hideous; ludicrously odd
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 3penguins.
What had happened afterward we could only guess. How long had the new
sea-cavern city survived? Was it still down there, a stony corpse in eternal blackness?
Had the subterranean waters frozen at last? To what fate had the ocean-bottom cities of
the outer world been delivered? Had any of the Old Ones shifted north ahead of the
creeping ice cap? Existing geology shows no trace of their presence. Had the frightful
Mi-Go been still a menace in the outer land world of the north? Could one be sure of
what might or might not linger, even to this day, in the lightless and unplumbed abyssDefinition: a bottomless
gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void
extending below (often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2es of earth's deepest waters? Those things
had seemingly been able to withstand any amount of pressure--and men of the sea have
fished up curious objects at times. And has the killer-whale theory really explained the
savage and mysteriousDefinition: of an obscure nature; having an import not apparent to the senses nor
obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 scars on antarcticDefinition: the region around the
south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south pole
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 seals noticed a generation ago by
Borchgrevingk?
The specimens found by poor Lake did not enter into these guesses, for their geologic setting proved them to have lived at what must have been a very early date in the land city's history. They were, according to their location, certainly not less than thirty million years old, and we reflected that in their day the sea-cavern city, and indeed the cavern itself, had had no existence. They would have remembered an older scene, with lush Tertiary vegetation everywhere, a younger land city of flourishing arts around them, and a great river sweeping northward along the base of the mighty mountains toward a far-away tropic ocean.
And yet we could not help thinking about these specimens--especially
about the eight perfect ones that were missing from Lake's hideously ravaged camp. There
was something abnormalDefinition: not normal; not typical or usual or regular or conforming to a norm;
departing from the normal in e.g. intelligence and development; much greater than the
normal
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 about that whole
business--the strange things we had tried so hard to lay to somebody's madness--those
frightful graves--the amount and nature of the missing material--Gedney--the unearthlyDefinition: concerned
with or affecting the spirit or soul; suggesting the operation of supernatural
influences
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 toughness of
those archaicDefinition: so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period; little
evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral type
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
monstrositiesDefinition: a
person or animal that is markedly unusual or deformed; something hideous or
frightful
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 and the queerDefinition: offensive
term for an openly homosexual man; hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires)
of; put in a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position; beyond or deviating
from the usual or expected; homosexual or arousing homosexual desires
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5 vital freaks the sculptures now showed
the race to have--Danforth and I had seen a good deal in the last few hours, and were
prepared to believe and keep silent about many appalling and incredible secrets of primalDefinition: serving
as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or
original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
nature.
I have said that our study of the decadent sculptures brought about a
change in our immediate objective. This, of course, had to do with the chiseled avenues
to the black inner world, of whose existence we had not known before, but which we were
now eager to find and traverse. From the evident scale of the carvings we deduced that a
steeply descending walk of about a mile through either of the neighboring tunnels would
bring us to the brink of the dizzy, sunless cliffs about the great abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit;
any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below
(often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2; down whose sides paths, improved by the Old Ones, led to the rocky
shore of the hidden and nighted ocean. To behold this fabulous gulf in stark reality was
a lure which seemed impossible of resistance once we knew of the thing--yet we realized
we must begin the quest at once if we expected to include it in our present trip.
It was now 8 P.M., and we did not have enough battery replacements to
let our torches burn on forever. We had done so much studying and copying below the
glacial level that our battery supply had had at least five hours of nearly continuous
use, and despite the special dry cell formula, would obviously be good for only about
four more--though by keeping one torch unused, except for especially interesting or
difficult places, we might manage to eke out a safe margin beyond that. It would not do
to be without a light in these CyclopeanDefinition: of or relating to or resembling the
Cyclops
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 catacombs,
hence in order to make the abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently
unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively); make
amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 trip we must
give up all further mural deciphering. Of course we intended to revisit the place for
days and perhaps weeks of intensive study and photography--curiosity having long ago got
the better of horror--but just now we must hasten.
Our supply of trail-blazing paper was far from unlimited, and we were
reluctant to sacrificeDefinition: the act of losing or surrendering something as a penalty for a mistake
or fault or failure to perform etc.; personnel that are sacrificed (e.g., surrendered
or lost in order to gain an objective); a loss entailed by giving up or selling
something at less than its value; the act of killing (an animal or person) in order
to propitiate a deity; (baseball) an out that advances the base runners; endure the
loss of; kill or destroy; sell at a loss; make a sacrifice of; in religious
rituals
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 9 spare notebooks
or sketching paper to augment it, but we did let one large notebook go. If worse came to
worst we could resort to rock chipping--and of course it would be possible, even in case
of really lost direction, to work up to full daylight by one channel or another if
granted sufficient time for plentiful trial and error. So at last we set off eagerly in
the indicated direction of the nearest tunnel.
According to the carvings from which we had made our map, the desired
tunnel mouth could not be much more than a quarter of a mile from where we stood; the
intervening space showing solid-looking buildings quite likely to be penetrable still at
a sub-glacial level. The opening itself would be in the basement--on the angle nearest
the foothills--of a vast five-pointed structure of evidently public and perhaps
ceremonial nature, which we tried to identify from our aerialDefinition: a pass to a receiver
downfield from the passer; an electrical device that sends or receives radio or
television signals; existing or living or growing or operating in the air;
characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; as impalpable or intangible as
air
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 4 survey of the
ruins.
No such structure came to our minds as we recalled our flight, hence we concluded that its upper parts had been greatly damaged, or that it had been totally shattered in an ice rift we had noticed. In the latter case the tunnel would probably turn out to be choked, so that we would have to try the next nearest one--the one less than a mile to the north. The intervening river course prevented our trying any of the more southern tunnels on this trip; and indeed, if both of the neighboring ones were choked it was doubtful whether our batteries would warrant an attempt on the next northerly one--about a mile beyond our second choice.
As we threaded our dim way through the labyrinth with the aid of map
and compass--traversing rooms and corridors in every stage of ruin or preservation,
clambering up ramps, crossing upper floors and bridges and clambering down again,
encountering choked doorways and piles of debris, hastening now and then along finely
preserved and uncannilyDefinition: in an uncanny manner
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets:
1 immaculate stretches, taking false leads and retracing our way (in such
cases removing the blind paper trail we had left), and once in a while striking the
bottom of an open shaft through which daylight poured or trickled down--we were
repeatedly tantalized by the sculptured walls along our route. Many must have told tales
of immense historical importance, and only the prospect of later visits reconciled us to
the need of passing them by. As it was, we slowed down once in a while and turned on our
second torch. If we had had more films, we would certainly have paused briefly to
photograph certain bas-reliefs, but time-consuming hand-copying was clearly out of the
question.
I come now once more to a place where the temptation to hesitate, or to
hint rather than state, is very strong. It is necessary, however, to reveal the rest in
order to justify my course in discouraging further exploration. We had wormed our way
very close to the computed site of the tunnel's mouth--having crossed a second-story
bridge to what seemed plainly the tip of a pointed wall, and descended to a ruinous
corridor especially rich in decadently elaborate and apparently ritualisticDefinition: of or characterized
by or adhering to ritualism
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets:
1 sculptures of late workmanshipDefinition: skill in an occupation or
trade
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1--when, shortly before
8:30 P.M., Danforth's keen young nostrils gave us the first hint of something unusual.
If we had had a dog with us, I suppose we would have been warned before. At first we
could not precisely say what was wrong with the formerly crystal-pure air, but after a
few seconds our memories reacted only too definitely. Let me try to state the thing
without flinching. There was an odor--and that odor was vaguely, subtly, and
unmistakably akin to what had nauseated us upon opening the insaneDefinition: afflicted with or
characteristic of mental derangement; very foolish
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 grave of the horror poor Lake had dissected.
Of course the revelation was not as clearly cut at the time as it sounds now. There were several conceivable explanations, and we did a good deal of indecisive whispering. Most important of all, we did not retreat without further investigation; for having come this far, we were loath to be balked by anything short of certain disaster. Anyway, what we must have suspected was altogether too wild to believe. Such things did not happen in any normal world. It was probably sheer irrational instinct which made us dim our single torch--tempted no longer by the decadent and sinister sculptures that leered menacingly from the oppressive walls--and which softened our progress to a cautious tiptoeing and crawling over the increasingly littered floor and heaps of debris.
Danforth's eyes as well as nose proved better than mine, for it was
likewise he who first noticed the queerDefinition: offensive term for an openly homosexual man; hinder or
prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of; put in a dangerous, disadvantageous, or
difficult position; beyond or deviating from the usual or expected; homosexual or
arousing homosexual desires
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5
aspect of the debris after we had passed many half-choked arches leading to chambers and
corridors on the ground level. It did not look quite as it ought after countless
thousands of years of desertion, and when we cautiously turned on more light we saw that
a kind of swath seemed to have been lately tracked through it. The irregular nature of
the litter precluded any definite marks, but in the smoother places there were
suggestions of the dragging of heavy objects. Once we thought there was a hint of
parallel tracks as if of runners. This was what made us pause again.
It was during that pause that we caught--simultaneously this time--the other odor ahead. Paradoxically, it was both a less frightful and more frightful odor--less frightful intrinsically, but infinitely appalling in this place under the known circumstances--unless, of course, Gedney--for the odor was the plain and familiar one of common petrol--every-day gasoline.
Our motivation after that is something I will leave to psychologistsDefinition:
a scientist trained in psychology
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1. We knew now that some terrible extension of the camp horrors must
have crawled into this nighted burial place of the aeonsDefinition: (Gnosticism) a divine power
or nature emanating from the Supreme Being and playing various roles in the operation
of the universe; the longest division of geological time; an immeasurably long period
of time
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3, hence could
not doubt any longer the existence of nameless conditions--present or at least recent
just ahead. Yet in the end we did let sheer burning curiosity--or anxiety--or autohypnotism
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0--or vague thoughts of
responsibility toward Gedney--or what not--drive us on. Danforth whisperedDefinition: speak softly; in a low
voice; spoken in soft hushed tones without vibrations of the vocal cords
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 again of the print he thought he had
seen at the alley turning in the ruins above; and of the faint musical piping--
potentially of tremendous significance in the light of Lake's dissection report, despite
its close resemblance to the cave-mouth echoes of the windy peaks--which he thought he
had shortly afterward half heard from unknownDefinition: an unknown and unexplored region;
anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found; a variable
whose values are solutions of an equation; not known; being or having an unknown or
unnamed source; not known to exist; not famous or acclaimed; not known before
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 8 depths below. I, in my turn, whisperedDefinition: speak
softly; in a low voice; spoken in soft hushed tones without vibrations of the vocal
cords
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 of how the camp was
left--of what had disappeared, and of how the madnessDefinition: obsolete terms for legal insanity; an
acute viral disease of the nervous system of warm-blooded animals (usually
transmitted by the bite of a rabid animal); rabies is fatal if the virus reaches the
brain; a feeling of intense anger; the quality of being rash and foolish;
unrestrained excitement or enthusiasm
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
5 of a lone survivor might have conceived the inconceivable--a wild trip
across the monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in
shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
3 mountains and a descent into the unknownDefinition: an unknown and unexplored region;
anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found; a variable
whose values are solutions of an equation; not known; being or having an unknown or
unnamed source; not known to exist; not famous or acclaimed; not known before
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 8, primalDefinition: serving as an essential
component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or
state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
masonryDefinition:
structure built of stone or brick by a mason; Freemasons collectively; the craft of a
mason
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3.
But we could not convince each other, or even ourselves, of anything
definite. We had turned off all light as we stood still, and vaguely noticed that a
trace of deeply filtered upper day kept the blackness from being absolute. Having
automatically begun to move ahead, we guided ourselves by occasional flashes from our
torch. The disturbed debris formed an impression we could not shake off, and the smell
of gasoline grew stronger. More and more ruin met our eyes and hampered our feet, until
very soon we saw that the forward way was about to cease. We had been all too correct in
our pessimistic guess about that rift glimpsed from the air. Our tunnel quest was a
blind one, and we were not even going to be able to reach the basement out of which the
abyssDefinition: a
bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm
or void extending below (often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2ward aperture opened.
The torch, flashing over the grotesquelyDefinition: in a grotesque manner
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1 carved walls of the blocked corridor
in which we stood, showed several doorways in various states of obstruction; and from
one of them the gasoline odor--quite submerging that other hint of odor--came with
especial distinctness. As we looked more steadily, we saw that beyond a doubt there had
been a slight and recent clearing away of debris from that particular opening. Whatever
the lurking horror might be, we believed the direct avenue toward it was now plainly
manifest. I do not think anyone will wonder that we waited an appreciable time before
making any further motion.
And yet, when we did venture inside that black arch, our first
impression was one of anticlimax. For amidst the littered expanse of that sculptured
crypt--a perfect cube with sides of about twenty feet--there remained no recent object
of instantly discernible size; so that we looked instinctively, though in vain, for a
farther doorway. In another moment, however, Danforth's sharp vision had descried a
place where the floor debris had been disturbed; and we turned on both torches full
strength. Though what we saw in that light was actually simple and trifling, I am none
the less reluctant to tell of it because of what it implied. It was a rough leveling of
the debris, upon which several small objects lay carelessly scattered, and at one corner
of which a considerable amount of gasoline must have been spilled lately enough to leave
a strong odor even at this extreme superplateau altitude. In other words, it could not
be other than a sort of camp--a camp made by questing beings who, like us, had been
turned back by the unexpectedly choked way to the abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any
unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below
(often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2.
Let me be plain. The scattered objects were, so far as substance was
concerned, all from Lake's camp; and consisted of tin cans as queerlyDefinition: in a strange manner; in a
questionably unusual manner
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2
opened as those we had seen at that ravaged place, many spent matches, three illustrated
books more or less curiously smudged, an empty ink bottle with its pictorial and
instructional carton, a broken fountain pen, some oddly snipped fragments of fur and
tent cloth, a used electric battery with circular of directions, a folder that came with
our type of tent heater, and a sprinkling of crumpled papers. It was all bad enough but
when we smoothed out the papers and looked at what was on them, we felt we had come to
the worst. We had found certain inexplicably blotted papers at the camp which might have
prepared us, yet the effect of the sight down there in the prehuman
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 vaults of a nightmare city was almost too much to bear.
A mad Gedney might have made the groups of dots in imitation of those found on the greenish soapstones, just as the dots on those insane five-pointed grave mounds might have been made; and he might conceivably have prepared rough, hasty sketches--varying in their accuracy or lack of it--which outlined the neighboring parts of the city and traced the way from a circularly represented place outside our previous route--a place we identified as a great cylindrical tower in the carvings and as a vast circular gulf glimpsed in our aerial survey--to the present five-pointed structure and the tunnel mouth therein.
He might, I repeat, have prepared such sketches; for those before us were quite obviously compiled, as our own had been, from late sculptures somewhere in the glacial labyrinth, though not from the ones which we had seen and used. But what the art-blind bungler could never have done was to execute those sketches in a strange and assured technique perhaps superior, despite haste and carelessness, to any of the decadent carvings from which they were taken--the characteristic and unmistakable technique of the Old Ones themselves in the dead city's heyday.
There are those who will say Danforth and I were utterly mad not to
flee for our lives after that; since our conclusions were now--notwithstanding their
wildness--completely fixed, and of a nature I need not even mention to those who have
read my account as far as this. Perhaps we were mad--for have I not said those horrible
peaks were mountains of madness? But I think I can detect something of the same
spirit--albeit in a less extreme form--in the men who stalk deadly beastsDefinition: a living organism
characterized by voluntary movement; a cruelly rapacious person
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 2 through African jungles to photograph them or
study their habits. Half paralyzed with terror though we were, there was nevertheless
fanned within us a blazing flame of awe and curiosity which triumphed in the end.
Of course we did not mean to face that--or those--which we knew had
been there, but we felt that they must be gone by now. They would by this time have
found the other neighboring entrance to the abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any
unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below
(often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2, and have passed within, to whatever night-black fragments of the
past might await them in the ultimate gulf--the ultimate gulf they had never seen. Or if
that entrance, too, was blocked, they would have gone on to the north seeking another.
They were, we remembered, partly independent of light.
Looking back to that moment, I can scarcely recall just what precise
form our new emotions took--just what change of immediate objective it was that so
sharpened our sense of expectancy. We certainly did not mean to face what we feared--yet
I will not deny that we may have had a lurking, unconscious wish to spy certain things
from some hidden vantage point. Probably we had not given up our zeal to glimpse the
abyssDefinition: a
bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm
or void extending below (often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 itself, though there was interposed a new
goal in the form of that great circular place shown on the crumpled sketches we had
found. We had at once recognized it as a monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal
or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 cylindrical tower figuring in the very
earliest carvings, but appearing only as a prodigious round aperture from above.
Something about the impressiveness of its rendering, even in these hasty diagrams, made
us think that its subglacial levels must still form a feature of peculiar importance.
Perhaps it embodied architectural marvels as yet unencountered by us. It was certainly
of incredible age according to the sculptures in which it figured--being indeed among
the first things built in the city. Its carvings, if preserved, could not but be highly
significant. Moreover, it might form a good present link with the upper world--a shorter
route than the one we were so carefully blazing, and probably that by which those others
had descended.
At any rate, the thing we did was to study the terrible sketches--which
quite perfectly confirmed our own--and start back over the indicated course to the
circular place; the course which our nameless predecessors must have traversed twice
before us. The other neighboring gate to the abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any
unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below
(often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2 would lie beyond that. I need not speak of our journey--during
which we continued to leave an economical trail of paper--for it was precisely the same
in kind as that by which we had reached the cul-de-sac; except that it tended to adhere
more closely to the ground level and even descend to basement corridors. Every now and
then we could trace certain disturbing marks in the debris or litter underfoot; and
after we had passed outside the radius of the gasoline scent, we were again faintly
conscious--spasmodically--of that more hideous and more persistent scent. After the way
had branched from our former course, we sometimes gave the rays of our single torch a
furtive sweep along the walls; noting in almost every case the well-nigh omnipresent
sculptures, which indeed seem to have formed a main aesthetic outlet for the Old Ones.
About 9:30 P.M., while traversing a long, vaulted corridor whose
increasingly glaciated floor seemed somewhat below the ground level and whose roof grew
lower as we advanced, we began to see strong daylight ahead and were able to turn off
our torch. It appeared that we were coming to the vast circular place, and that our
distance from the upper air could not be very great. The corridor ended in an arch
surprisingly low for these megalithic ruins, but we could see much through it even
before we emerged. Beyond there stretched a prodigious round space--fully two hundred
feet in diameter--strewn with debris and containing many choked archways corresponding
to the one we were about to cross. The walls were--in available spaces--boldly
sculptured into a spiralDefinition: a plane curve traced by a point circling about the center but at
increasing distances from the center; a curve that lies on the surface of a cylinder
or cone and cuts the element at a constant angle; a continuously accelerating change
in the economy; ornament consisting of a curve on a plane that winds around a center
with an increasing distance from the center; a structure consisting of something
wound in a continuous series of loops; flying downward in a helical path with a large
radius; to wind or move in a spiral course; form a spiral; move in a spiral or zigzag
course; in the shape of a coil
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
10 band of heroic proportions; and displayed, despite the destructive
weathering caused by the openness of the spot, an artistic splendor far beyond anything
we had encountered before. The littered floor was quite heavily glaciated, and we
fancied that the true bottom lay at a considerably lower depth.
But the salient object of the place was the titanicDefinition: of great force or
power
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 stone ramp which,
eluding the archways by a sharp turn outward into the open floor, wound spirallyDefinition: with
spirals
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 up the stupendousDefinition: so great
in size or force or extent as to elicit awe
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 1 cylindrical wall like an inside counterpart of those once climbing
outside the monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in
shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
3 towers or zigguratsDefinition: a rectangular tiered temple or terraced mound erected by the
ancient Assyrians and Babylonians
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets:
1 of antique Babylon. Only the rapidity of our flight, and the perspective
which confounded the descent with the tower's inner wall, had prevented our noticing
this feature from the air, and thus caused us to seek another avenue to the subglacial
level. Pabodie might have been able to tell what sort of engineering held it in place,
but Danforth and I could merely admire and marvel. We could see mighty stone corbels and
pillars here and there, but what we saw seemed inadequate to the function performed. The
thing was excellently preserved up to the present top of the tower--a highly remarkable
circumstance in view of its exposure--and its shelter had done much to protect the bizarreDefinition:
conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 and disturbingDefinition: move deeply; change the arrangement
or position of; tamper with; destroy the peace or tranquility of; damage as if by
shaking or jarring; causing distress or worry or anxiety
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 6
cosmicDefinition: of
or from or pertaining to or characteristic of the cosmos or universe; inconceivably
extended in space or time
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
2 sculptures on the walls.
As we stepped out into the awesome half daylight of this monstrousDefinition:
abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or
size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3
cylinder bottom--fifty million years old, and without doubt the most primalDefinition: serving
as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or
original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
2ly ancientDefinition: a very old person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to
times long past especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western
Roman Empire; very old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4
structure ever to meet our eyes--we saw that the ramp-traversed sides stretched dizzily
up to a height of fully sixty feet. This, we recalled from our aerial survey, meant an
outside glaciation of some forty feet; since the yawning gulf we had seen from the plane
had been at the top of an approximately twenty-foot mound of crumbled masonry, somewhat
sheltered for three-fourths of its circumference by the massive curving walls of a line
of higher ruins. According to the sculptures, the original tower had stood in the center
of an immense circular plaza, and had been perhaps five hundred or six hundred feet
high, with tiers of horizontal disks near the top, and a row of needlelike spires along
the upper rim. Most of the masonry had obviously toppled outward rather than inward--a
fortunate happening, since otherwise the ramp might have been shattered and the whole
interior choked. As it was, the ramp showed sad battering; whilst the choking was such
that all the archways at the bottom seemed to have been recently cleared.
It took us only a moment to conclude that this was indeed the route by which those others had descended, and that this would be the logical route for our own ascent despite the long trail of paper we had left elsewhere. The tower's mouth was no farther from the foothills and our waiting plane than was the great terraced building we had entered, and any further subglacial exploration we might make on this trip would lie in this general region. Oddly, we were still thinking about possible later trips--even after all we had seen and guessed. Then, as we picked our way cautiously over the debris of the great floor, there came a sight which for the time excluded all other matters.
It was the neatly huddled array of three sledges in that farther angle of the ramp's lower and outward-projecting course which had hitherto been screened from our view. There they were--the three sledges missing from Lake's camp--shaken by a hard usage which must have included forcible dragging along great reaches of snowless masonry and debris, as well as much hand portage over utterly unnavigable places. They were carefully and intelligently packed and strapped, and contained things memorably familiar enough: the gasoline stove, fuel cans, instrument cases, provision tins, tarpaulins obviously bulging with books, and some bulging with less obvious contents--everything derived from Lake's equipment.
After what we had found in that other room, we were in a measure prepared for this encounter. The really great shock came when we stepped over and undid one tarpaulin whose outlines had peculiarly disquieted us. It seems that others as well as Lake had been interested in collecting typical specimens; for there were two here, both stiffly frozen, perfectly preserved, patched with adhesive plaster where some wounds around the neck had occurred, and wrapped with care to prevent further damage. They were the bodies of young Gedney and the missing dog.
Many people will probably judge us callous as well as mad for thinking
about the northward tunnel and the abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently
unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively); make
amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 so soon after
our somber discovery, and I am not prepared to say that we would have immediately
revived such thoughts but for a specific circumstance which broke in upon us and set up
a whole new train of speculations. We had replaced the tarpaulin over poor Gedney and
were standing in a kind of mute bewilderment when the sounds finally reached our
consciousness--the first sounds we had heard since descending out of the open where the
mountain wind whined faintly from its unearthlyDefinition: concerned with or affecting the
spirit or soul; suggesting the operation of supernatural influences
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 2 heights. Well-known and mundane though they
were, their presence in this remote world of death was more unexpected and unnerving
than any grotesqueDefinition: art characterized by an incongruous mixture of parts of humans and
animals interwoven with plants; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal
and hideous; ludicrously odd
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets:
3or fabulous tones could possibly have been--since they gave a fresh upsetting
to all our notions of cosmic harmony.
Had it been some trace of that bizarreDefinition: conspicuously or grossly unconventional
or unusual
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 musical piping
over a wide range which Lake's dissection report had led us to expect in those
others--and which, indeed, our overwrought fancies had been reading into every wind howl
we had heard since coming on the camp horror--it would have had a kind of hellishDefinition: very
unpleasant; extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting hell
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 congruity with the aeon-dead
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 0 region around us. A voice from other epochsDefinition: a
period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event;
(astronomy) an arbitrarily fixed date that is the point in time relative to which
information (as coordinates of a celestial body) is recorded; a unit of geological
time that is a subdivision of a period and is itself divided into ages
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 belongs in a graveyard of other
epochsDefinition: a
period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event;
(astronomy) an arbitrarily fixed date that is the point in time relative to which
information (as coordinates of a celestial body) is recorded; a unit of geological
time that is a subdivision of a period and is itself divided into ages
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3. As it was, however, the noise
shattered all our profoundly seated adjustments--all our tacit acceptance of the inner
antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at
or near the south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
as a waste utterly and irrevocably void of every vestige of normal life. What we heard
was not the fabulous note of any buried blasphemyDefinition: blasphemous language (expressing
disrespect for God or for something sacred); blasphemous behavior; the act of
depriving something of its sacred character
Word Type: religious
Number
Of Synsets: 2 of elder earth from whose supernal toughness an age-denied
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 0 polar sun had evoked a monstrousDefinition: abnormally large;
shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and
hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 response. Instead,
it was a thing so mockingly normal and so unerringly familiarized by our sea days off
Victoria Land and our camp days at McMurdo Sound that we shuddered to think of it here,
where such things ought not to be. To be brief--it was simply the raucous squawking of a
penguin.
The muffled sound floated from subglacial recesses nearly opposite to
the corridor whence we had come--regions manifestly in the direction of that other
tunnel to the vast abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable)
cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively); make amends
for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2. The presence of a
living water bird in such a direction--in a world whose surface was one of age-long and
uniform lifelessness--could lead to only one conclusion; hence our first thought was to
verify the objective reality of the sound. It was, indeed, repeated, and seemed at times
to come from more than one throat. Seeking its source, we entered an archway from which
much debris had been cleared; resuming our trail blazing--with an added paper supply
taken with curious repugnance from one of the tarpaulin bundles on the sledges--when we
left daylight behind.
As the glaciated floor gave place to a litter of detritus, we plainly
discerned some curious, dragging tracks; and once Danforth found a distinct print of a
sort whose description would be only too superfluous. The course indicated by the
penguin cries was precisely what our map and compass prescribed as an approach to the
more northerly tunnel mouth, and we were glad to find that a bridgeless thoroughfare on
the ground and basement levels seemed open. The tunnel, according to the chart, ought to
start from the basement of a large pyramidal structure which we seemed vaguely to recall
from our aerial survey as remarkably well-preserved. Along our path the single torch
showed a customary profusionDefinition: the property of being extremely abundant
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 of carvingsDefinition: a sculpture created by removing
material (as wood or ivory or stone) in order to create a desired shape; removing
parts from hard material to create a desired pattern or shape; creating figures or
designs in three dimensions; form by carving; engrave or cut by chipping away at a
surface; cut to pieces
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 6, but
we did not pause to examine any of these.
Suddenly a bulky white shape loomed up ahead of us, and we flashed on
the second torch. It is odd how wholly this new quest had turned our minds from earlier
fears of what might lurk near. Those other ones, having left their supplies in the great
circular place, must have planned to return after their scouting trip toward or into the
abyssDefinition: a
bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm
or void extending below (often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2; yet we had now discarded all caution
concerning them as completely as if they had never existed. This white, waddling thing
was fully six feet high, yet we seemed to realize at once that it was not one of those
others. They were larger and dark, and, according to the sculptures, their motion over
land surfaces was a swift, assured matter despite the queernessDefinition: a strange attitude or
habit; a sexual attraction to (or sexual relations with) persons of the same
sex
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 of their sea-born tentacleDefinition:
something that acts like a tentacle in its ability to grasp and hold; any of various
elongated tactile or prehensile flexible organs that occur on the head or near the
mouth in many animals; used for feeling or grasping or locomotion
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 equipment. But to say that the white
thing did not profoundly frighten us would be vain. We were indeed clutched for an
instant by primitiveDefinition: a person who belongs to an early stage of civilization; a mathematical
expression from which another expression is derived; a word serving as the basis for
inflected or derived forms; belonging to an early stage of technical development;
characterized by simplicity and (often) crudeness; little evolved from or
characteristic of an earlier ancestral type; used of preliterate or tribal or
nonindustrial societies; of or created by one without formal training; simple or
naive in style
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 7
dreadDefinition: fearful
expectation or anticipation; be afraid or scared of; be frightened of; causing fear
or dread or terror
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 almost
sharper than the worst of our reasoned fears regarding those others. Then came a flash
of anticlimax as the white shape sidled into a lateral archway to our left to join two
others of its kind which had summoned it in raucous tones. For it was only a
penguin--albeit of a huge, unknown species larger than the greatest of the known king
penguins, and monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in
shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
3 in its combined albinismDefinition: the congenital absence of pigmentation in the eyes and skin
and hair
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 and virtualDefinition: being
actually such in almost every respect; existing in essence or effect though not in
actual fact
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2
eyelessnessDefinition:
blindness due to loss of the eyes
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
1.
When we had followed the thing into the archway and turned both our
torches on the indifferent and unheeding group of three, we saw that they were all
eyeless albinos of the same unknown and gigantic species. Their size reminded us of some
of the archaicDefinition: so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period; little
evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral type
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 penguins depicted in the Old Ones'
sculptures, and it did not take us long to conclude that they were descended from the
same stock--undoubtedly surviving through a retreat to some warmer inner region whose
perpetual blackness had destroyed their pigmentation and atrophied their eyes to mere
useless slits. That their present habitat was the vast abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit;
any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below
(often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2 we sought, was not for a moment to be doubted; and this evidence of
the gulf's continued warmth and habitability filled us with the most curious and subtly
perturbing fancies.
We wondered, too, what had caused these three birds to venture out of
their usual domain. The state and silence of the great dead city made it clear that it
had at no time been an habitual seasonal rookery, whilst the manifest indifference of
the trio to our presence made it seem odd that any passing party of those others should
have startled them. Was it possible that those others had taken some aggressive action
or tried to increase their meat supply? We doubted whether that pungentDefinition: strong and sharp; capable
of wounding
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 odor which the
dogs had hated could cause an equal antipathy in these penguins, since their ancestors
had obviously lived on excellent terms with the Old Ones--an amicable relationship which
must have survived in the abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently
unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively); make
amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 below as long as
any of the Old Ones remained. Regretting--in a flare-up of the old spirit of pure
science--that we could not photograph these anomalous creaturesDefinition: a living organism characterized by
voluntary movement; a human being; `wight' is an archaic term; a person who is
controlled by others and is used to perform unpleasant or dishonest tasks for someone
else
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3, we shortly left them
to their squawking and pushed on toward the abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any
unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below
(often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2 whose openness was now so positively proved to us, and whose exact
direction occasional penguin tracks made clear.
Not long afterward a steep descent in a long, low, doorless, and
peculiarly sculptureless corridor led us to believe that we were approaching the tunnel
mouth at last. We had passed two more penguins, and heard others immediately ahead. Then
the corridor ended in a prodigious open space which made us gasp involuntarily--a
perfect inverted hemisphere, obviously deep underground; fully a hundred feet in
diameter and fifty feet high, with low archways opening around all parts of the
circumference but one, and that one yawning cavernously with a black, arched aperture
which broke the symmetry of the vault to a height of nearly fifteen feet. It was the
entrance to the great abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable)
cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively); make amends
for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2.
In this vast hemisphere, whose concave roof was impressively though
decadently carved to a likeness of the primordialDefinition: having existed from the beginning;
in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 celestial dome, a few albino penguins waddled--aliens there, but
indifferent and unseeing. The black tunnel yawned indefinitely off at a steep,
descending grade, its aperture adorned with grotesquelyDefinition: in a grotesque manner
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1 chiseled jambs and lintel. From that
crypticalDefinition: of
an obscure nature; having a secret or hidden meaning
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 mouth we fancied a current of slightly warmer air, and
perhaps even a suspicion of vapor proceeded; and we wondered what living entities other
than penguins the limitless void below, and the contiguous honeycombings of the land and
the titan mountains, might conceal. We wondered, too, whether the trace of mountaintop
smoke at first suspected by poor Lake, as well as the odd haze we had ourselves
perceived around the rampart-crowned peak, might not be caused by the tortuous-channeled
rising of some such vapor from the unfathomed regions of earth's core.
Entering the tunnel, we saw that its outline was--at least at the
start--about fifteen feet each way--sides, floor, and arched roof composed of the usual
megalithic masonry. The sides were sparsely decorated with cartouchesDefinition: a cartridge (usually
with paper casing); a cartridge (usually with paper casing)
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 of conventional designs in a late,
decadent style; and all the construction and carving were marvelously well-preserved.
The floor was quite clear, except for a slight detritus bearing outgoing penguin tracks
and the inward tracks of these others. The farther one advanced, the warmer it became;
so that we were soon unbuttoning our heavy garments. We wondered whether there were any
actually igneous manifestations below, and whether the waters of that sunless sea were
hot. After a short distance the masonry gave place to solid rock, though the tunnel kept
the same proportions and presented the same aspect of carved regularity. Occasionally
its varying grade became so steep that grooves were cut in the floor. Several times we
noted the mouths of small lateral galleries not recorded in our diagrams; none of them
such as to complicate the problem of our return, and all of them welcome as possible
refuges in case we met unwelcome entities on their way back from the abyssDefinition: a bottomless
gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void
extending below (often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2. The nameless scent of such things was very
distinct. Doubtless it was suicidally foolish to venture into that tunnel under the
known conditions, but the lure of the unplumbed is stronger in certain persons than most
suspect--indeed, it was just such a lure which had brought us to this unearthlyDefinition: concerned
with or affecting the spirit or soul; suggesting the operation of supernatural
influences
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 polar waste in
the first place. We saw several penguins as we passed along, and speculated on the
distance we would have to traverse. The carvings had led us to expect a steep downhill
walk of about a mile to the abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently
unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively); make
amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2, but our
previous wanderings had shown us that matters of scale were not wholly to be depended
on.
After about a quarter of a mile that nameless scent became greatly
accentuated, and we kept very careful track of the various lateral openings we passed.
There was no visible vapor as at the mouth, but this was doubtless due to the lack of
contrasting cooler air. The temperature was rapidly ascending, and we were not surprised
to come upon a careless heap of material shudderingly familiar to us. It was composed of
furs and tent cloth taken from Lake's camp, and we did not pause to study the bizarreDefinition:
conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 forms into which the fabrics had been slashed. Slightly
beyond this point we noticed a decided increase in the size and number of the side
galleries, and concluded that the densely honeycombedDefinition: carve a honeycomb pattern into;
penetrate thoroughly and into every part; make full of cavities, like a honeycomb;
pitted with cell-like cavities (as a honeycomb)
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 4 region beneath the higher foothills must now have been reached.
The nameless scent was now curiously mixed with another and scarcely less offensive
odor--of what nature we could not guess, though we thought of decayingDefinition: lose a stored charge,
magnetic flux, or current; fall into decay or ruin; undergo decay or
decomposition
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 organisms and
perhaps unknown subterranean fungi. Then came a startling expansion of the tunnel for
which the carvings had not prepared us--a broadening and rising into a lofty,
natural-looking elliptical cavern with a level floor, some seventy-five feet long and
fifty broad, and with many immense side passages leading away into crypticalDefinition: of an obscure nature;
having a secret or hidden meaning
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets:
2 darkness.
Though this cavern was natural in appearance, an inspection with both
torches suggested that it had been formed by the artificial destruction of several walls
between adjacent honeycombings. The walls were rough, and the high, vaulted roof was
thick with stalactites; but the solid rock floor had been smoothed off, and was free
from all debris, detritus, or even dust to a positively abnormalDefinition: not normal; not typical
or usual or regular or conforming to a norm; departing from the normal in e.g.
intelligence and development; much greater than the normal
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 extent. Except for the avenue through
which we had come, this was true of the floors of all the great galleries opening off
from it; and the singularity of the condition was such as to set us vainly puzzling. The
curious new fetor which had supplemented the nameless scent was excessively pungentDefinition: strong and
sharp; capable of wounding
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2
here; so much so that it destroyed all trace of the other. Something about this whole
place, with its polished and almost glisteningDefinition: be shiny, as if wet; reflecting
light
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 floor, struck us as
more vaguely baffling and horrible than any of the monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal
or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 things we had previously encountered.
The regularity of the passage immediately ahead, as well as the larger
proportion of penguin-droppings there, prevented all confusion as to the right course
amidst this plethora of equally great cave mouths. Nevertheless we resolved to resume
our paper trailblazing if any further complexity should develop; for dust tracks, of
course, could no longer be expected. Upon resuming our direct progress we cast a beam of
torchlight over the tunnel walls--and stopped short in amazement at the supremely
radical change which had come over the carvings in this part of the passage. We
realized, of course, the great decadence of the Old Ones' sculpture at the time of the
tunneling, and had indeed noticed the inferior workmanship of the arabesquesDefinition: position in which the
dancer has one leg raised behind and arms outstretched in a conventional pose; an
ornament that interlaces simulated foliage in an intricate design
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 in the stretches behind us. But now, in this
deeper section beyond the cavern, there was a sudden difference wholly transcending
explanation--a difference in basic nature as well as in mere quality, and involving so
profound and calamitous a degradation of skill that nothing in the hitherto observed
rate of decline could have led one to expect it.
This new and degenerateDefinition: a person whose behavior deviates from what is acceptable
especially in sexual behavior; grow worse; unrestrained by convention or
morality
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 work was coarse,
bold, and wholly lacking in delicacy of detail. It was countersunk with exaggerated
depth in bands following the same general line as the sparse cartouchesDefinition: a cartridge (usually
with paper casing); a cartridge (usually with paper casing)
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 of the earlier sections, but the height
of the reliefs did not reach the level of the general surface. Danforth had the idea
that it was a second carving--a sort of palimpsest formed after the obliteration of a
previous design. In nature it was wholly decorative and conventional, and consisted of
crude spiralsDefinition: a
plane curve traced by a point circling about the center but at increasing distances
from the center; a curve that lies on the surface of a cylinder or cone and cuts the
element at a constant angle; a continuously accelerating change in the economy;
ornament consisting of a curve on a plane that winds around a center with an
increasing distance from the center; a structure consisting of something wound in a
continuous series of loops; flying downward in a helical path with a large radius; to
wind or move in a spiral course; form a spiral; move in a spiral or zigzag
course
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 9 and angles roughly
following the quintile mathematicalDefinition: of or pertaining to or of the nature of mathematics;
relating to or having ability to think in or work with numbers; beyond question;
statistically possible though highly improbable; characterized by the exactness or
precision of mathematics
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
5 tradition of the Old Ones, yet seemingly more like a parody than a
perpetuation of that tradition. We could not get it out of our minds that some subtly
but profoundly alienDefinition: a person who comes from a foreign country; someone who does not owe
allegiance to your country; anyone who does not belong in the environment in which
they are found; a form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere;
transfer property or ownership; arouse hostility or indifference in where there had
formerly been love, affection, or friendliness; not contained in or deriving from the
essential nature of something; being or from or characteristic of another place or
part of the world
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 7
element had been added to the aesthetic feeling behind the technique--an alienDefinition: a person
who comes from a foreign country; someone who does not owe allegiance to your
country; anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found; a
form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere; transfer property
or ownership; arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love,
affection, or friendliness; not contained in or deriving from the essential nature of
something; being or from or characteristic of another place or part of the
world
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 7 element, Danforth
guessed, that was responsible for the laborious substitution. It was like, yet
disturbingly unlike, what we had come to recognize as the Old Ones' art; and I was
persistently reminded of such hybrid things as the ungainly Palmyrene
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 sculptures fashioned in the Roman manner. That others had
recently noticed this belt of carving was hinted by the presence of a used flashlight
battery on the floor in front of one of the most characteristic cartouchesDefinition: a cartridge (usually
with paper casing); a cartridge (usually with paper casing)
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2.
Since we could not afford to spend any considerable time in study, we
resumed our advance after a cursory look; though frequently casting beams over the walls
to see if any further decorative changes developed. Nothing of the sort was perceived,
though the carvings were in places rather sparse because of the numerous mouths of
smooth-floored lateral tunnels. We saw and heard fewer penguins, but thought we caught a
vague suspicion of an infinitely distant chorus of them somewhere deep within the earth.
The new and inexplicable odor was abominably strong, and we could detect scarcely a sign
of that other nameless scent. Puffs of visible vapor ahead bespoke increasing contrasts
in temperature, and the relative nearness of the sunless sea cliffs of the great abyssDefinition: a bottomless
gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void
extending below (often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2. Then, quite unexpectedly, we saw certain
obstructions on the polished floor ahead--obstructions which were quite definitely not
penguins--and turned on our second torch after making sure that the objects were quite
stationary.
Still another time have I come to a place where it is very difficult to
proceed. I ought to be hardened by this stage; but there are some experiences and
intimations which scar too deeply to permit of healing, and leave only such an added
sensitiveness that memory reinspires all the original horror. We saw, as I have said,
certain obstructions on the polished floor ahead; and I may add that our nostrils were
assailed almost simultaneously by a very curious intensification of the strange
prevailing fetor, now quite plainly mixed with the nameless stench of those others which
had gone before. The light of the second torch left no doubt of what the obstructions
were, and we dared approach them only because we could see, even from a distance, that
they were quite as past all harming power as had been the six similar specimens unearthedDefinition: bring to
light; recover through digging
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
2 from the monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and
unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 3 star-mounded graves at poor Lake's camp.
They were, indeed, as lacking in completeness as most of those we had
unearthedDefinition:
bring to light; recover through digging
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 2--though it grew plain from the thick, dark green pool gathering
around them that their incompleteness was of infinitely greater recency. There seemed to
be only four of them, whereas Lake's bulletins would have suggested no less than eight
as forming the group which had preceded us. To find them in this state was wholly
unexpected, and we wondered what sort of monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal
or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 struggle had occurred down here in the
dark.
Penguins, attacked in a body, retaliate savagely with their beaks, and our ears now made certain the existence of a rookery far beyond. Had those others disturbed such a place and aroused murderous pursuit? The obstructions did not suggest it, for penguins' beaks against the tough tissues Lake had dissected could hardly account for the terrible damage our approaching glance was beginning to make out. Besides, the huge blind birds we had seen appeared to be singularly peaceful.
Had there, then, been a struggle among those others, and were the
absent four responsible? If so, where were they? Were they close at hand and likely to
form an immediate menace to us? We glanced anxiously at some of the smooth-floored
lateral passages as we continued our slow and frankly reluctant approach. Whatever the
conflict was, it had clearly been that which had frightened the penguins into their
unaccustomed wandering. It must, then, have arisen near that faintly heard rookery in
the incalculable gulf beyond, since there were no signs that any birds had normally
dwelt here. Perhaps, we reflected, there had been a hideous running fight, with the
weaker party seeking to get back to the cached sledges when their pursuers finished
them. One could picture the demoniacDefinition: someone who acts as if possessed by a demon; frenzied as if
possessed by a demon
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2
fray between namelessly monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and
unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 3 entities as it surged out of the black abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit;
any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below
(often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2 with great clouds of frantic penguins squawking and scurrying
ahead.
I say that we approached those sprawling and incomplete obstructions
slowly and reluctantly. Would to Heaven we had never approached them at all, but had run
back at top speed out of that blasphemousDefinition: grossly irreverent toward what is
held to be sacred; characterized by profanity or cursing
Word Type:
religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 tunnel with the greasily smooth floors
and the degenerateDefinition: a person whose behavior deviates from what is acceptable especially in
sexual behavior; grow worse; unrestrained by convention or morality
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 3 murals aping and mocking the things they had
superseded--run back, before we had seen what we did see, and before our minds were
burned with something which will never let us breathe easily again!
Both of our torches were turned on the prostrate objects, so that we
soon realized the dominant factor in their incompleteness. Mauled, compressed, twisted,
and ruptured as they were, their chief common injury was total decapitationDefinition: execution by cutting
off the victim's head; killing by cutting off the head
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2. From each one the tentacledDefinition: having tentacles
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 starfish head had been
removed; and as we drew near we saw that the manner of removal looked more like some
hellishDefinition:
very unpleasant; extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting
hell
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 tearing or suction
than like any ordinary form of cleavageDefinition: the state of being split or cleft; the breaking of a
chemical bond in a molecule resulting in smaller molecules; (embryology) the repeated
division of a fertilised ovum; the line formed by a groove between two parts
(especially the separation between a woman's breasts); the act of cleaving or
splitting
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 5. Their noisomeDefinition: causing or
able to cause nausea; offensively malodorous
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 2 dark-green ichorDefinition: (Greek mythology) the rarified fluid said to flow in the
veins of the Gods; a fluid product of inflammation
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 formed a large, spreading pool; but its stench was half
overshadowed by the newer and stranger stench, here more pungentDefinition: strong and sharp; capable
of wounding
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 than at any
other point along our route. Only when we had come very close to the sprawling
obstructions could we trace that second, unexplainable fetorDefinition: a distinctive odor that is
offensively unpleasant
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1 to
any immediate source--and the instant we did so Danforth, remembering certain very vivid
sculptures of the Old Ones' history in the PermianDefinition: from 280 million to 230 million years
ago; reptiles
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1Age one
hundred and fifty million years ago, gave vent to a nerve-tortured
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 0 cry which echoed hystericallyDefinition: in a hysterical manner
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 through that vaulted and archaicDefinition: so
extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period; little evolved from or
characteristic of an earlier ancestral type
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 2 passage with the evil, palimpsestDefinition: a manuscript (usually written on
papyrus or parchment) on which more than one text has been written with the earlier
writing incompletely erased and still visible
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 carvings.
I came only just short of echoing his cry myself; for I had seen those
primalDefinition:
serving as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest
or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
2 sculptures, too, and had shudderingly admired the way the nameless artist
had suggested that hideous slime coating found on certain incomplete and prostrate Old
Ones--those whom the frightful Shoggoths had characteristically slain and sucked to a
ghastly headlessness in the great war of resubjugation. They were infamous, nightmare
sculptures even when telling of age-old, bygoneDefinition: past events to be put aside; well in the
past; former
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 things; for
Shoggoths and their work ought not to be seen by human beings or portrayed by any
beings. The mad author of the Necronomicon had nervously tried to swear that none had
been bred on this planet, and that only drugged dreamers had even conceived them.
Formless protoplasmDefinition: the substance of a living cell (including cytoplasm and nucleus)
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 able to mock and reflect all
forms and organs and processes--viscousDefinition: having a relatively high resistance to
flow; having the sticky properties of an adhesive
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
agglutinationsDefinition: a clumping of bacteria or red cells when held together by antibodies
(agglutinins); the building of words from component morphemes that retain their form
and meaning in the process of combining; the coalescing of small particles that are
suspended in solution; these larger masses are then (usually) precipitated
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 of bubblingDefinition: form, produce, or emit
bubbles; flow in an irregular current with a bubbling noise; rise in bubbles or as if
in bubbles; cause to form bubbles; expel gas from the stomach; emitting or filled
with bubbles as from carbonation or fermentation; marked by high spirits or
excitement
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 7
cellsDefinition: any
small compartment; (biology) the basic structural and functional unit of all
organisms; they may exist as independent units of life (as in monads) or may form
colonies or tissues as in higher plants and animals; a device that delivers an
electric current as the result of a chemical reaction; a small unit serving as part
of or as the nucleus of a larger political movement; a hand-held mobile
radiotelephone for use in an area divided into small sections, each with its own
short-range transmitter/receiver; small room in which a monk or nun lives; a room
where a prisoner is kept
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
7--rubberyDefinition: having an elastic texture resembling rubber in flexibility or toughness;
difficult to chew
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2
fifteen-foot spheroidsDefinition: a shape that is generated by rotating an ellipse around one of its
axes
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 infinitely plasticDefinition: generic
name for certain synthetic or semisynthetic materials that can be molded or extruded
into objects or films or filaments or used for making e.g. coatings and adhesives; a
card (usually plastic) that assures a seller that the person using it has a
satisfactory credit rating and that the issuer will see to it that the seller
receives payment for the merchandise delivered; capable of being molded or modeled
(especially of earth or clay or other soft material); capable of being influenced or
formed; forming or capable of forming or molding or fashioning
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 5 and ductileDefinition: easily influenced; capable of being
shaped or bent or drawn out
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
2--slaves of suggestion, builders of cities--more and more sullen, more and more
intelligent, more and more amphibiousDefinition: relating to or characteristic of
animals of the class Amphibia; operating or living on land and in water
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2, more and more imitativeDefinition: marked by or given to
imitation; (of words) formed in imitation of a natural sound; not genuine; imitating
something superior
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3! Great
GodDefinition: the
supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator
and ruler of the universe; the object of worship in monotheistic religions; any
supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part of the world or some aspect of
life or who is the personification of a force; a man of such superior qualities that
he seems like a deity to other people; a material effigy that is worshipped
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 4 ! What madness made even those
blasphemousDefinition: grossly irreverent toward what is held to be sacred; characterized by
profanity or cursing
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 Old
Ones willing to use and carveDefinition: form by carving; engrave or cut by chipping away at a
surface; cut to pieces
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 such
things?
And now, when Danforth and I saw the freshly glisteningDefinition: be shiny, as if wet;
reflecting light
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 and
reflectively iridescentDefinition: varying in color when seen in different lights or from different angles;
having a play of lustrous rainbow colors
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2 black slimeDefinition: any thick, viscous matter; cover or stain with slime
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 which clung thickly to those
headlessDefinition: not
having a head or formed without a head; not using intelligence
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 2 bodies and stank obscenelyDefinition: to an obscene degree;
in a lewd and obscene manner
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2
with that new, unknown odor whose cause only a diseased fancy could envisage--clung to
those bodies and sparkled less voluminously on a smooth part of the accursedly
resculptured wall in a series of grouped dots--we understood the quality of cosmicDefinition: of or
from or pertaining to or characteristic of the cosmos or universe; inconceivably
extended in space or time
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
2 fear to its uttermost depths. It was not fear of those four missing
others--for all too well did we suspect they would do no harm again. Poor devilsDefinition:
(Judeo-Christian and Islamic religions) chief spirit of evil and adversary of God;
tempter of mankind; master of Hell; an evil supernatural being; a word used in
exclamations of confusion; a rowdy or mischievous person (usually a young man); a
cruel wicked and inhuman person; cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor
irritations; coat or stuff with a spicy paste
Word Type: religious
Number
Of Synsets: 7! After all, they were not evilDefinition: morally objectionable behavior; that which
causes harm or destruction or misfortune; the good is oft interred with their bones"-
Shakespeare; the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice; morally bad
or wrong; having the nature of vice; having or exerting a malignant influence
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 6 things of their kind. They
were the men of another age and another order of being. Nature had played a hellishDefinition: very
unpleasant; extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting hell
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 jest on them--as it will on
any others that human madness, callousness, or cruelty may hereafter dig up in that
hideouslyDefinition: in
a hideous manner
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 dead or
sleeping polar waste--and this was their tragic homecoming. They had not been even
savages--for what indeed had they done? That awful awakening in the cold of an unknown
epochDefinition: a
period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event;
(astronomy) an arbitrarily fixed date that is the point in time relative to which
information (as coordinates of a celestial body) is recorded; a unit of geological
time that is a subdivision of a period and is itself divided into ages
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3--perhaps an attack by the furry,
frantically barking quadrupedsDefinition: an animal especially a mammal having four limbs specialized
for walking
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1, and a
dazed defense against them and the equally frantic white simiansDefinition: an ape or monkey
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 with the queerDefinition: offensive term for an
openly homosexual man; hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of; put in
a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position; beyond or deviating from the
usual or expected; homosexual or arousing homosexual desires
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5
wrappingsDefinition: the
covering (usually paper or cellophane) in which something is wrapped; an enveloping
bandage
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 and paraphernaliaDefinition:
equipment consisting of miscellaneous articles needed for a particular operation or
sport etc.
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1...poor Lake, poor
Gedney... and poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last--what had they done that we would
not have done in their place? GodDefinition: the supernatural being conceived as the perfect and
omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the object of worship
in monotheistic religions; any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part
of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force; a man
of such superior qualities that he seems like a deity to other people; a material
effigy that is worshipped
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets:
4, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as
those carvenDefinition:
made for or formed by carving (`carven' is archaic or literary)
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 1 kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a
little less incredible! RadiatesDefinition: send out rays or waves; send out real or metaphoric rays;
extend or spread outward from a center or focus or inward towards a center; have a
complexion with a strong bright color, such as red or pink; cause to be seen by
emitting light as if in rays; experience a feeling of well-being or happiness, as
from good health or an intense emotion; issue or emerge in rays or waves; spread into
new habitats and produce variety or variegate
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 8, vegetablesDefinition: edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers
or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant; any of various herbaceous
plants cultivated for an edible part such as the fruit or the root of the beet or the
leaf of spinach or the seeds of bean plants or the flower buds of broccoli or
cauliflower
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2, monstrositiesDefinition: a
person or animal that is markedly unusual or deformed; something hideous or
frightful
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2, star spawnDefinition: the mass
of eggs deposited by fish or amphibians or molluscs; call forth; lay spawn
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3--whatever they had been, they were
men!
They had crossed the icy peaks on whose templed
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 0 slopes they had once worshipped and roamed among the tree ferns.
They had found their dead city broodingDefinition: sitting on eggs so as to hatch them by the warmth of the
body; persistent morbid meditation on a problem; think moodily or anxiously about
something; hang over, as of something threatening, dark, or menacing; be in a huff
and display one's displeasure; be in a huff; be silent or sullen; sit on (eggs);
deeply or seriously thoughtful;
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets:
8 under its curse, and had read its carvenDefinition: made for or formed by carving (`carven'
is archaic or literary)
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1
latter days as we had done. They had tried to reach their living fellows in fabledDefinition:
celebrated in fable or legend
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets:
1
depthsDefinition: the
extent downward or backward or inward; degree of psychological or intellectual
profundity; (usually plural) the deepest and most remote part; (usually plural) a low
moral state; the intellectual ability to penetrate deeply into ideas; the attribute
or quality of being deep, strong, or intense
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 6 of blacknessDefinition: the quality or state of the achromatic color of least
lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white); total absence of light
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 they had never seen--and what had they
found? All this flashed in unison through the thoughts of Danforth and me as we looked
from those headlessDefinition: not having a head or formed without a head; not using intelligence
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2, slime-coated
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 shapes to the loathsomeDefinition: causing or able to
cause nausea; highly offensive; arousing aversion or disgust
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2
palimpsestDefinition:
a manuscript (usually written on papyrus or parchment) on which more than one text
has been written with the earlier writing incompletely erased and still visible
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 sculptures and the diabolicalDefinition:
showing the cunning or ingenuity or wickedness typical of a devil; extremely evil or
cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting hell
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2 dot groups of fresh slime on the wall beside them--looked
and understood what must have triumphed and survived down there in the CyclopeanDefinition: of
or relating to or resembling the Cyclops
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 water city of that nighted, penguin-fringed
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 0
abyssDefinition: a
bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm
or void extending below (often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2, whence even now a sinisterDefinition: threatening or
foreshadowing evil or tragic developments; stemming from evil characteristics or
forces; wicked or dishonorable; on or starting from the wearer's left
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 curling mist had begun to belchDefinition: a reflex that
expels gas noisily from the stomach through the mouth; expel gas from the stomach;
become active and spew forth lava and rocks
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 3
pallidlyDefinition: in a
manner lacking interest or vitality
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
1 as if in answer to Danforth's hystericalDefinition: characterized by or arising from
psychoneurotic hysteria; marked by excessive or uncontrollable emotion
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 scream.
The shock of recognizing that monstrousDefinition: abnormally large; shockingly brutal
or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3
slimeDefinition: any
thick, viscous matter; cover or stain with slime
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 and headlessness
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 0 had frozen us into mute, motionless statues, and it is only through
later conversations that we have learned of the complete identity of our thoughts at
that moment. It seemed aeonsDefinition: (Gnosticism) a divine power or nature emanating from the
Supreme Being and playing various roles in the operation of the universe; the longest
division of geological time; an immeasurably long period of time
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 3 that we stood there, but actually it
could not have been more than ten or fifteen seconds. That hatefulDefinition: evoking or deserving
hatred; characterized by malice
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets:
2, pallidDefinition: abnormally deficient in color as suggesting physical or emotional
distress; (of light) lacking in intensity or brightness; dim or feeble; lacking in
vitality or interest or effectiveness
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 3 mist curled forward as if veritably driven by some remoter
advancing bulkDefinition:
the property resulting from being or relating to the greater in number of two parts;
the main part; the property of something that is great in magnitude; the property
possessed by a large mass; stick out or up; cause to bulge or swell outwards
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 5--and then came a sound which upset
much of what we had just decided, and in so doing broke the spellDefinition: a psychological state
induced by (or as if induced by) a magical incantation; a time for working (after
which you will be relieved by someone else); a period of indeterminate length
(usually short) marked by some action or condition; a verbal formula believed to have
magical force; orally recite the letters of or give the spelling of; indicate or
signify; write or name the letters that comprise the conventionally accepted form of
(a word or part of a word); relieve (someone) from work by taking a turn; place under
a spell; take turns working
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets:
10 and enabled us to run like mad past squawking, confused penguins over our
former trail back to the city, along ice-sunken megalithicDefinition: of or relating to megaliths or the
people who erected megaliths
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
1 corridors to the great open circle, and up that archaicDefinition: so extremely old as
seeming to belong to an earlier period; little evolved from or characteristic of an
earlier ancestral type
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
spiralDefinition: a plane
curve traced by a point circling about the center but at increasing distances from
the center; a curve that lies on the surface of a cylinder or cone and cuts the
element at a constant angle; a continuously accelerating change in the economy;
ornament consisting of a curve on a plane that winds around a center with an
increasing distance from the center; a structure consisting of something wound in a
continuous series of loops; flying downward in a helical path with a large radius; to
wind or move in a spiral course; form a spiral; move in a spiral or zigzag course; in
the shape of a coil
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 10 ramp in
a frenzied, automatic plunge for the sane outer air and light of day.
The new sound, as I have intimated, upset much that we had decided;
because it was what poor Lake's dissection had led us to attribute to those we had
judged dead. It was, Danforth later told me, precisely what he had caught in infinitely
muffled form when at that spot beyond the alley corner above the glacial level; and it
certainly had a shocking resemblance to the wind pipings we had both heard around the
lofty mountain caves. At the risk of seeming puerile I will add another thing, too, if
only because of the surprising way Danforth's impressions chimed with mine. Of course
common reading is what prepared us both to make the interpretation, though Danforth has
hinted at queerDefinition:
offensive term for an openly homosexual man; hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans,
or desires) of; put in a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position; beyond or
deviating from the usual or expected; homosexual or arousing homosexual desires
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5 notions about unsuspected and
forbidden sources to which Poe may have had access when writing his Arthur Gordon Pym a
century ago. It will be remembered that in that fantastic tale there is a word of
unknown but terrible and prodigious significance connected with the antarcticDefinition: the
region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters; at or near the south
pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 and screamed
eternally by the gigantic spectrally
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 0 snowy birds
of that malignDefinition:
speak unfavorably about; evil or harmful in nature or influence; having or exerting a
malignant influence
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3
region's core. "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!" That, I may admit, is exactly what we thought we
heard conveyed by that sudden sound behind the advancing white mist--that insidiousDefinition:
beguiling but harmful; intended to entrap; working or spreading in a hidden and
usually injurious way
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3
musical piping over a singularly wide range.
We were in full flight before three notes or syllables had been
uttered, though we knew that the swiftness of the Old Ones would enable any
scream-roused and pursuing survivor of the slaughter to overtake us in a moment if it
really wished to do so. We had a vague hope, however, that nonaggressive conduct and a
display of kindred reason might cause such a being to spare us in case of capture, if
only from scientific curiosity. After all, if such an one had nothing to fear for
itself, it would have no motive in harming us. Concealment being futile at this
juncture, we used our torch for a running glance behind, and perceived that the mist was
thinning. Would we see, at last, a complete and living specimen of those others? Again
came that insidious musical piping--"Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!" Then, noting that we were
actually gaining on our pursuer, it occurred to us that the entity might be wounded. We
could take no chances, however, since it was very obviously approaching in answer to
Danforth's scream, rather than in flight from any other entity. The timing was too close
to admit of doubt. Of the whereabouts of that less conceivable and less mentionable
nightmare--that fetidDefinition: offensively malodorous
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets:
1, unglimpsed
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 mountain of slime-spewing
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 0
protoplasmDefinition:
the substance of a living cell (including cytoplasm and nucleus)
Word Type:
scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 whose race had conquered the abyssDefinition: a bottomless
gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void
extending below (often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 and sent land pioneers to recarve and squirm
through the burrows of the hills--we could form no guess; and it cost us a genuine pang
to leave this probably crippled OldOne--perhaps a lone survivor--to the peril of
recapture and a nameless fate.
Thank Heaven we did not slacken our run. The curling mist had thickened
again, and was driving ahead with increased speed; whilst the straying penguins in our
rear were squawking and screaming and displaying signs of a panic really surprising in
view of their relatively minor confusion when we had passed them. Once more came that
sinister, wide-ranged piping--"Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!" We had been wrong. The thing was
not wounded, but had merely paused on encountering the bodies of its fallen kindred and
the hellishDefinition:
very unpleasant; extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting
hell
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2
slimeDefinition: any
thick, viscous matter; cover or stain with slime
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2 inscription above them. We could never know what that
demonDefinition: an
evil supernatural being; a cruel wicked and inhuman person; someone extremely
diligent or skillful
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 3
message was--but those burials at Lake's camp had shown how much importance the beings
attached to their dead. Our recklesslyDefinition: in a reckless manner
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 1 used torch now revealed ahead of us the large open cavern where
various ways converged, and we were glad to be leaving those morbidDefinition: suggesting an unhealthy
mental state; suggesting the horror of death and decay; caused by or altered by or
manifesting disease or pathology
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets:
3
palimpsestDefinition:
a manuscript (usually written on papyrus or parchment) on which more than one text
has been written with the earlier writing incompletely erased and still visible
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 sculptures--almost felt even
when scarcely seen--behind. Another thought which the advent of the cave inspired was
the possibility of losing our pursuer at this bewildering focus of large galleries.
There were several of the blind albinoDefinition: a person with congenital albinism: white
hair and milky skin; eyes are usually pink
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 1 penguins in the open space, and it seemed clear that their fear
of the oncoming entity was extreme to the point of unaccountability. If at that point we
dimmed our torch to the very lowest limit of traveling need, keeping it strictly in
front of us, the frightened squawking motions of the huge birds in the mist might muffle
our footfalls, screen our true course, and somehow set up a false lead. Amidst the churningDefinition: stir
(cream) vigorously in order to make butter; be agitated; moving with or producing or
produced by vigorous agitation; (of a liquid) agitated vigorously; in a state of
turbulence
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4, spiralingDefinition: to wind
or move in a spiral course; form a spiral; move in a spiral or zigzag course; in the
shape of a coil
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 fog, the
litteredDefinition:
strew; make a place messy by strewing garbage around; give birth to a litter of
animals; filled or scattered with a disorderly accumulation of objects or
rubbish
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 and unglistening
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 0 floor of the main tunnel beyond this point,
as differing from the other morbidly polished burrowsDefinition: a hole made by an animal, usually for
shelter; move through by or as by digging
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 2, could hardly form a highly distinguishing featureDefinition: a prominent attribute or
aspect of something; the characteristic parts of a person's face: eyes and nose and
mouth and chin; the principal (full-length) film in a program at a movie theater; a
special or prominent article in a newspaper or magazine; (linguistics) a distinctive
characteristic of a linguistic unit that serves to distinguish it from other units of
the same kind; an article of merchandise that is displayed or advertised more than
other articles; have as a feature; wear or display in an ostentatious or proud
manner
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 8; even, so far as we
could conjecture, for those indicated special senses which made the Old Ones partly,
though imperfectly, independent of light in emergencies. In fact, we were somewhat apprehensiveDefinition: quick
to understand; mentally upset over possible misfortune or danger etc; in fear or
dread of possible evil or harm
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
3 lest we go astray ourselves in our haste. For we had, of course, decided to
keep straight on toward the dead city; since the consequences of loss in those unknown
foothill honeycombingsDefinition: carve a honeycomb pattern into; penetrate thoroughly and into every
part; make full of cavities, like a honeycomb
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 3 would be unthinkable.
The fact that we survived and emerged is sufficient proof that the
thing did take a wrong galleryDefinition: spectators at a golf or tennis match; a porch along the
outside of a building (sometimes partly enclosed); a room or series of rooms where
works of art are exhibited; a long usually narrow room used for some specific
purpose; a covered corridor (especially one extending along the wall of a building
and supported with arches or columns); narrow recessed balcony area along an upper
floor on the interior of a building; usually marked by a colonnade; a horizontal (or
nearly horizontal) passageway in a mine
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 7
whilst
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 0 we providentiallyDefinition: in a fortunately providential
manner; in a providential manner; as determined by providence; in a prudent
manner
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 3 hit on the right
one. The penguins alone could not have saved us, but in conjunction with the mist they
seem to have done so. Only a benign fate kept the curling vaporsDefinition: a state of depression; a
visible suspension in the air of particles of some substance; the process of becoming
a vapor
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 thick enough at the
right moment, for they were constantly shifting and threatening to vanish. Indeed, they
did lift for a second just before we emerged from the nauseously
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 0
resculptured
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 tunnel into the cave; so that we
actually caught one first and only half glimpse of the oncoming entityDefinition: that which is perceived or
known or inferred to have its own distinct existence (living or nonliving)
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 as we cast a final, desperately fearfulDefinition:
experiencing or showing fear; causing fear or dread or terror; lacking courage;
ignobly timid and faint-hearted; extremely distressing; timid by nature or revealing
timidity
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 5 glance backward
before dimming the torch and mixing with the penguins in the hope of dodging pursuit. If
the fateDefinition: an
event (or a course of events) that will inevitably happen in the future; the ultimate
agency regarded as predetermining the course of events (often personified as a
woman); your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that
happens to you); decree or designate beforehand
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 4 which screened us was benignDefinition: not dangerous to health; not recurrent
or progressive (especially of a tumor); pleasant and beneficial in nature or
influence; kindness of disposition or manner
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 3, that which gave us the half glimpse was infinitely the opposite;
for to that flash of semivision
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 can be traced
a full half of the horrorDefinition: intense and profound fear; something that inspires dislike; something
horrible; intense aversion
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3
which has ever since hauntedDefinition: follow stealthily or recur constantly and spontaneously to;
haunt like a ghost; pursue; be a regular or frequent visitor to a certain place;
having or showing excessive or compulsive concern with something; showing emotional
affliction or disquiet; inhabited by or as if by apparitions
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 6 us.
Our exact motive in looking back again was perhaps no more than the
immemorial instinct of the pursued to gauge the nature and course of its pursuer; or
perhaps it was an automatic attempt to answer a subconscious question raised by one of
our senses. In the midst of our flight, with all our faculties centered on the problem
of escape, we were in no condition to observe and analyzeDefinition: consider in detail and subject to an
analysis in order to discover essential features or meaning; make a mathematical,
chemical, or grammatical analysis of; break down into components or essential
features; break down into components or essential features; subject to psychoanalytic
treatment
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 details; yet even
so, our latent brain cells must have wondered at the message brought them by our
nostrils. Afterward we realized what it was that our retreat from the fetidDefinition: offensively
malodorous
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1 slime coating on
those headless obstructions, and the coincident approach of the pursuing entity, had not
brought us the exchange of stenches which logic called for. In the neighborhood of the
prostrate things that new and lately unexplainable fetor had been wholly dominant; but
by this time it ought to have largely given place to the nameless stench associated with
those others. This it had not done--for instead, the newer and less bearable smell was
now virtually undiluted, and growing more and more poisonously insistent each second.
So we glanced back simultaneously, it would appear; though no doubt the incipient motion of one prompted the imitation of the other. As we did so we flashed both torches full strength at the momentarily thinned mist; either from sheer primitive anxiety to see all we could, or in a less primitive but equally unconscious effort to dazzle the entity before we dimmed our light and dodged among the penguins of the labyrinth center ahead. Unhappy act! Not Orpheus himself, or Lot's wife, paid much more dearly for a backward glance. And again came that shocking, wide-ranged piping--"Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!"
I might as well be frank--even if I cannot bear to be quite direct--in stating what we saw; though at the time we felt that it was not to be admitted even to each other. The words reaching the reader can never even suggest the awfulness of the sight itself. It crippled our consciousness so completely that I wonder we had the residual sense to dim our torches as planned, and to strike the right tunnel toward the dead city. Instinct alone must have carried us through--perhaps better than reason could have done; though if that was what saved us, we paid a high price. Of reason we certainly had little enough left.
Danforth was totally unstrung, and the first thing I remember of the rest of the journey was hearing him lightheadedly chant an hysterical formula in which I alone of mankind could have found anything but insane irrelevance. It reverberated in falsetto echoes among the squawks of the penguins; reverberated through the vaultings ahead, and--thank God--through the now empty vaultings behind. He could not have begun it at once--else we would not have been alive and blindly racing. I shudder to think of what a shade of difference in his nervous reactions might have brought.
"South Station Under--Washington Under--Park Street Under--Kendall
--Central--Harvard--" The poor fellow was chanting the familiar stations of the
Boston-Cambridge tunnel that burrowed through our peaceful native soil thousands of
miles away in New England, yet to me the ritual had neither irrelevance nor home
feeling. It had only horror, because I knew unerringly the monstrousDefinition: abnormally large;
shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and
hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3, nefandous analogyDefinition: an
inference that if things agree in some respects they probably agree in others;
drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity in some respect; the religious
belief that between creature and creator no similarity can be found so great but that
the dissimilarity is always greater; any analogy between God and humans will always
be inadequate
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 that had
suggested it. We had expected, upon looking back, to see a terrible and incredible
moving entity if the mists were thin enough; but of that entity we had formed a clear
idea. What we did see--for the mists were indeed all too malignly thinned--was something
altogether different, and immeasurably more hideous and detestable. It was the utter,
objective embodiment of the fantastic novelist's "thing that should not be"; and its
nearest comprehensible analogueDefinition: something having the property of being analogous to
something else; of a circuit or device having an output that is proportional to the
input
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 is a vast, onrushing
subway train as one sees it from a station platform--the great black front looming
colossally out of infinite subterranean distance, constellatedDefinition: scatter or intersperse like dots
or studs; come together as in a cluster or flock; form a constellation or
cluster
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 with strangely
colored lights and filling the prodigious burrow as a piston fills a cylinder.
But we were not on a station platform. We were on the track ahead as
the nightmareDefinition: a
situation resembling a terrifying dream; a terrifying or deeply upsetting dream
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2, plasticDefinition: generic name for certain
synthetic or semisynthetic materials that can be molded or extruded into objects or
films or filaments or used for making e.g. coatings and adhesives; a card (usually
plastic) that assures a seller that the person using it has a satisfactory credit
rating and that the issuer will see to it that the seller receives payment for the
merchandise delivered; capable of being molded or modeled (especially of earth or
clay or other soft material); capable of being influenced or formed; forming or
capable of forming or molding or fashioning
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 5 column of fetidDefinition: offensively malodorous
Word Type: gothic
Number
Of Synsets: 1 black iridescenceDefinition: the visual property of something
having a milky brightness and a play of colors from the surface
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1
oozedDefinition: pass
gradually or leak through or as if through small openings; release (a liquid) in
drops or small quantities
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2
tightly onward through its fifteen-foot sinusDefinition: an abnormal passage leading from a
suppurating cavity to the body surface; any of various air-filled cavities especially
in the bones of the skull; a wide channel containing blood; does not have the coating
of an ordinary blood vessel
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
3, gathering unholyDefinition: not hallowed or consecrated; extremely evil or cruel;
expressive of cruelty or befitting hell; having committed unrighteous acts
Word
Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 3 speed and driving before it a spiralDefinition: a plane
curve traced by a point circling about the center but at increasing distances from
the center; a curve that lies on the surface of a cylinder or cone and cuts the
element at a constant angle; a continuously accelerating change in the economy;
ornament consisting of a curve on a plane that winds around a center with an
increasing distance from the center; a structure consisting of something wound in a
continuous series of loops; flying downward in a helical path with a large radius; to
wind or move in a spiral course; form a spiral; move in a spiral or zigzag course; in
the shape of a coil
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 10,
rethickening cloud of the pallidDefinition: abnormally deficient in color as suggesting physical or
emotional distress; (of light) lacking in intensity or brightness; dim or feeble;
lacking in vitality or interest or effectiveness
Word Type: gothic
Number
Of Synsets: 3
abyss-vapor
Word
Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 0. It was a terrible, indescribable
thing vaster than any subway train--a shapeless congeriesDefinition: a sum total of many heterogenous
things taken together
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 of
protoplasmic
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 bubbles, faintly self-luminousDefinition:
having in itself the property of emitting light
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 1, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 0 as pustulesDefinition: a small inflamed elevation of skin
containing pus; a blister filled with pus
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 1 of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down
upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slitheringDefinition: to pass or move unobtrusively or
smoothly; moving as on a slippery surface
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 2 over the glisteningDefinition: be shiny, as if wet; reflecting light
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 2 floor that it and its kind had swept so evillyDefinition: in a
wicked evil manner
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 free
of all litter. Still came that eldritchDefinition: suggesting the operation of supernatural influences
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1, mocking cry--"Tekeli-li!
Tekeli-li!" and at last we remembered that the demoniacDefinition: someone who acts as if possessed by a
demon; frenzied as if possessed by a demon
Word Type: religious
Number Of
Synsets: 2 Shoggoths--given life, thought, and plasticDefinition: generic name for certain
synthetic or semisynthetic materials that can be molded or extruded into objects or
films or filaments or used for making e.g. coatings and adhesives; a card (usually
plastic) that assures a seller that the person using it has a satisfactory credit
rating and that the issuer will see to it that the seller receives payment for the
merchandise delivered; capable of being molded or modeled (especially of earth or
clay or other soft material); capable of being influenced or formed; forming or
capable of forming or molding or fashioning
Word Type: other
Number Of
Synsets: 5 organ patterns solely by the Old Ones, and having no language save
that which the dot groups expressed--had likewise no voice save the imitated accents of
their bygoneDefinition:
past events to be put aside; well in the past; former
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 masters.
Danforth and I have recollections of emerging into the great
sculptured hemisphere and of threading our back trail through the CyclopeanDefinition: of
or relating to or resembling the Cyclops
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 1 rooms and corridors of the dead city; yet these are purely dream
fragments involving no memory of volition, details, or physical exertion. It was as if
we floated in a nebulous world or dimension without time, causation, or orientation. The
gray half-daylight of the vast circular space sobered us somewhat; but we did not go
near those cached sledges or look again at poor Gedney and the dog. They have a strange
and titanic mausoleum, and I hope the end of this planet will find them still
undisturbed.
It was while struggling up the colossalDefinition: so great in size or force or extent as
to elicit awe
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1
spiralDefinition: a plane
curve traced by a point circling about the center but at increasing distances from
the center; a curve that lies on the surface of a cylinder or cone and cuts the
element at a constant angle; a continuously accelerating change in the economy;
ornament consisting of a curve on a plane that winds around a center with an
increasing distance from the center; a structure consisting of something wound in a
continuous series of loops; flying downward in a helical path with a large radius; to
wind or move in a spiral course; form a spiral; move in a spiral or zigzag course; in
the shape of a coil
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 10 incline
that we first felt the terrible fatigue and short breath which our race through the thin
plateau air had produced; but not even fear of collapse could make us pause before
reaching the normal outer realm of sun and sky. There was something vaguely appropriate
about our departure from those buried epochsDefinition: a period marked by distinctive character
or reckoned from a fixed point or event; (astronomy) an arbitrarily fixed date that
is the point in time relative to which information (as coordinates of a celestial
body) is recorded; a unit of geological time that is a subdivision of a period and is
itself divided into ages
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
3; for as we wound our panting way up the sixty-foot cylinder of primalDefinition: serving
as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or
original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
masonryDefinition:
structure built of stone or brick by a mason; Freemasons collectively; the craft of a
mason
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3, we glimpsed beside us
a continuous procession of heroic sculptures in the dead race's early and undecayed
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 0 technique--a farewell from the Old Ones,
written fifty million years ago.
Finally scrambling out at the top, we found ourselves on a great mound
of tumbled blocks, with the curved walls of higher stonework rising westward, and the
brooding peaks of the great mountains showing beyond the more crumbled structures toward
the east. The low antarcticDefinition: the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding
waters; at or near the south pole
Word Type: scientific
Number Of
Synsets: 2 sun of midnight peered redly from the southern horizon through
rifts in the jagged ruins, and the terrible age and deadness of the nightmare city
seemed all the starker by contrast with such relatively known and accustomed things as
the features of the polar landscape. The sky above was a churningDefinition: stir (cream) vigorously
in order to make butter; be agitated; moving with or producing or produced by
vigorous agitation; (of a liquid) agitated vigorously; in a state of turbulence
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 and opalescentDefinition: having a play of
lustrous rainbow colors
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1
mass of tenuous ice-vapors, and the cold clutched at our vitals. Wearily resting the
outfit-bags to which we had instinctively clung throughout our desperate flight, we
rebuttoned our heavy garments for the stumbling climb down the mound and the walk
through the aeon-old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 stone maze to the foothills where
our aeroplane waited. Of what had set us fleeing from that darkness of earth's secret
and archaicDefinition:
so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period; little evolved from or
characteristic of an earlier ancestral type
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 2 gulfs we said nothing at all.
In less than a quarter of an hour we had found the steep grade to the
foothills--the probable ancientDefinition: a very old person; a person who lived in ancient times;
belonging to times long past especially of the historical period before the fall of
the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets:
4 terrace--by which we had descended, and could see the dark bulk of our great
plane amidst the sparse ruins on the rising slope ahead. Halfway uphill toward our goal
we paused for a momentary breathing spell, and turned to look again at the fantastic
tangle of incredible stone shapes below us--once more outlined mysticallyDefinition: in a mystical
manner
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1 against an unknown
west. As we did so we saw that the sky beyond had lost its morning haziness; the
restless ice-vapors having moved up to the zenith, where their mocking outlines seemed
on the point of settling into some bizarreDefinition: conspicuously or grossly unconventional
or unusual
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1 pattern which
they feared to make quite definite or conclusive.
There now lay revealed on the ultimate white horizon behind the grotesqueDefinition: art
characterized by an incongruous mixture of parts of humans and animals interwoven
with plants; distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous;
ludicrously odd
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 city a dim,
elfinDefinition:
suggestive of an elf in strangeness and otherworldliness; small and delicate;
relating to or made or done by or as if by an elf; usually good-naturedly
mischievous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 line of
pinnacled violet whose needle-pointed heights loomed dreamlike against the beckoning
rose color of the western sky. Up toward this shimmering rim sloped the ancientDefinition: a very old
person; a person who lived in ancient times; belonging to times long past especially
of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; very old
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 table-land, the depressed course
of the bygoneDefinition:
past events to be put aside; well in the past; former
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 river traversing it as an irregular ribbon of shadow. For
a second we gasped in admiration of the scene's unearthlyDefinition: concerned with or affecting the
spirit or soul; suggesting the operation of supernatural influences
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 2
cosmicDefinition: of
or from or pertaining to or characteristic of the cosmos or universe; inconceivably
extended in space or time
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
2 beauty, and then vagueDefinition: not clearly understood or expressed; not precisely limited,
determined, or distinguished; lacking clarity or distinctness
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 3
horrorDefinition: intense
and profound fear; something that inspires dislike; something horrible; intense
aversion
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 began to creep
into our souls. For this far violet line could be nothing else than the terrible
mountains of the forbidden land--highest of earth's peaks and focus of earth's evil;
harborers of namelessDefinition: being or having an unknown or unnamed source
Word Type:
other
Number Of Synsets: 1
horrorsDefinition: intense
and profound fear; something that inspires dislike; something horrible; intense
aversion
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 and ArchaeanDefinition: of or
relating to the earliest known rocks formed during the Precambrian Eon
Word
Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 1 secrets; shunned and prayed to by
those who feared to carve their meaning; untrodden by any living thing on earth, but
visited by the sinisterDefinition: threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments; stemming from
evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonorable; on or starting from the
wearer's left
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 lightnings
and sending strange beams across the plains in the polar night--beyond doubt the unknown
archetype of that dreaded Kadath
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 0 in the Cold
Waste beyond abhorrent Leng, whereof primalDefinition: serving as an essential component;
having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
legendsDefinition: a story
about mythical or supernatural beings or events; brief description accompanying an
illustration
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 hint evasively.
If the sculptured maps and pictures in that prehuman
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 0 city had told truly, these crypticDefinition: of an obscure nature;
having a secret or hidden meaning; having a puzzling terseness
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 violet mountains could not be much less than
three hundred miles away; yet none the less sharply did their dim elfinDefinition: suggestive of an elf in
strangeness and otherworldliness; small and delicate; relating to or made or done by
or as if by an elf; usually good-naturedly mischievous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 4 essence appear above that remote and snowy rim, like the
serratedDefinition: make
saw-toothed or jag the edge of; notched like a saw with teeth pointing toward the
apex
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 edge of a monstrousDefinition:
abnormally large; shockingly brutal or cruel; distorted and unnatural in shape or
size; abnormal and hideous
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3
alienDefinition: a
person who comes from a foreign country; someone who does not owe allegiance to your
country; anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found; a
form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere; transfer property
or ownership; arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love,
affection, or friendliness; not contained in or deriving from the essential nature of
something; being or from or characteristic of another place or part of the
world
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 7 planet about to
rise into unaccustomedDefinition: not habituated to; unfamiliar with; not customary or usual
Word
Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 heavens. Their height, then, must have
been tremendous beyond all comparison--carrying them up into tenuousDefinition: having thin consistency;
very thin in gauge or diameter; lacking substance or significance; a fragile claim to
fame"
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 3 atmospheric strata
peopled only by such gaseous wraithsDefinition: a mental representation of some haunting experience
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 1 as rash flyers have barely lived
to whisperDefinition:
speaking softly without vibration of the vocal cords; a light noise, like the noise
of silk clothing or leaves blowing in the wind; speak softly; in a low voice
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 3 of after unexplainable falls.
Looking at them, I thought nervouslyDefinition: in an anxiously nervous manner; with nervous
excitement
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 of certain
sculptured hints of what the great bygoneDefinition: past events to be put aside; well in the past; former
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 2 river had washed down into the
city from their accursedDefinition: curse or declare to be evil or anathema or threaten with divine
punishment; under a curse
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2
slopes--and wondered how much sense and how much folly had lain in the fears of those
Old Ones who carved them so reticently. I recalled how their northerly end must come
near the coast at Queen Mary Land, where even at that moment Sir Douglas Lake's
expedition was doubtless working less than a thousand miles away; and hoped that no
evilDefinition:
morally objectionable behavior; that which causes harm or destruction or misfortune;
the good is oft interred with their bones"- Shakespeare; the quality of being morally
wrong in principle or practice; morally bad or wrong; having the nature of vice;
having or exerting a malignant influence
Word Type: religious
Number Of
Synsets: 6 fate would give Sir Douglas and his men a glimpse of what might lie
beyond the protecting coastal range. Such thoughts formed a measure of my overwrought
condition at the time--and Danforth seemed to be even worse.
Yet long before we had passed the great star-shaped ruin and reached
our plane, our fears had become transferred to the lesser but vast-enough range whose
recrossing lay ahead of us. From these foothills the black, ruin-crusted slopes reared
up starkly and hideously against the east, again reminding us of those strange Asian
paintings of Nicholas Roerich ; and when we thought of the frightful amorphous entities
that might have pushed their fetidly
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets: 0 squirming way
even to the topmost hollow pinnacles, we could not face without panic the prospect of
again sailing by those suggestive skyward cave mouths where the wind made sounds like an
evil musical piping over a wide range. To make matters worse, we saw distinct traces of
local mist around several of the summits--as poor Lake must have done when he made that
early mistake about volcanism--and thought shiveringly of that kindred mist from which
we had just escaped; of that, and of the blasphemousDefinition: grossly irreverent toward what is
held to be sacred; characterized by profanity or cursing
Word Type:
religious
Number Of Synsets: 2, horror-fostering abyssDefinition: a bottomless gulf or pit;
any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below
(often used figuratively); make amends for
Word Type: gothic
Number Of
Synsets: 2 whence all such vapors came.
All was well with the plane, and we clumsily hauled on our heavy flying
furs. Danforth got the engine started without trouble, and we made a very smooth
take-off over the nightmare city. Below us the primalDefinition: serving as an essential component;
having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
CyclopeanDefinition:
of or relating to or resembling the Cyclops
Word Type: scientific
Number
Of Synsets: 1 masonry spread out as it had done when first we saw it, and we
began rising and turning to test the wind for our crossing through the pass. At a very
high level there must have been great disturbance, since the ice-dust clouds of the
zenith were doing all sorts of fantastic things; but at twenty-four thousand feet, the
height we needed for the pass, we found navigation quite practicable. As we drew close
to the jutting peaks the wind's strange piping again became manifest, and I could see
Danforth's hands trembling at the controls. Rank amateur that I was, I thought at that
moment that I might be a better navigator than he in effecting the dangerous crossing
between pinnacles; and when I made motions to change seats and take over his duties he
did not protest. I tried to keep all my skill and self-possession about me, and stared
at the sector of reddish farther sky betwixt the walls of the pass--resolutely refusing
to pay attention to the puffs of mountain-top vapor, and wishing that I had wax-stopped
ears like Ulysses' men off the Siren's coast to keep that disturbing windpiping from my
consciousness.
But Danforth, released from his piloting and keyed up to a dangerous
nervous pitch, could not keep quiet. I felt him turning and wriggling about as he looked
back at the terrible receding city, ahead at the cave-riddled, cube-barnacled peaks,
sidewise at the bleak sea of snowy, rampart-strewn foothills, and upward at the
seething, grotesquelyDefinition: in a grotesque manner
Word Type: gothic
Number Of Synsets:
1 clouded sky. It was then, just as I was trying to steer safely through the
pass, that his mad shrieking brought us so close to disaster by shattering my tight hold
on myself and causing me to fumble helplessly with the controls for a moment. A second
afterward my resolution triumphed and we made the crossing safely--yet I am afraid that
Danforth will never be the same again.
I have said that Danforth refused to tell me what final horror made him
scream out so insanely--a horror which, I feel sadly sure, is mainly responsible for his
present breakdown. We had snatches of shouted conversation above the wind's piping and
the engine's buzzing as we reached the safe side of the range and swooped slowly down
toward the camp, but that had mostly to do with the pledges of secrecy we had made as we
prepared to leave the nightmare city. Certain things, we had agreed, were not for people
to know and discuss lightly--and I would not speak of them now but for the need of
heading off that Starkweather-Moore Expedition, and others, at any cost. It is
absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark,
dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalitiesDefinition: an abnormal
physical condition resulting from defective genes or developmental deficiencies;
retardation sufficient to fall outside the normal range of intelligence; marked
strangeness as a consequence of being abnormal; behavior that breaches the rule or
etiquette or custom or morality
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets:
4 wake to resurgent life, and blasphemouslyDefinition: in a blasphemous manner
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 1 surviving nightmares squirm
and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.
All that Danforth has ever hinted is that the final horror was a
mirage. It was not, he declares, anything connected with the cubes and caves of those
echoing, vaporous, wormily-honeycombed mountains of madness which we crossed; but a
single fantastic, demoniacDefinition: someone who acts as if possessed by a demon; frenzied as if
possessed by a demon
Word Type: religious
Number Of Synsets: 2
glimpse, among the churning zenith clouds, of what lay back of those other violet
westward mountains which the Old Ones had shunned and feared. It is very probable that
the thing was a sheer delusion born of the previous stresses we had passed through, and
of the actual though unrecognized mirage of the dead transmontane city experienced near
Lake's camp the day before; but it was so real to Danforth that he suffers from it
still.
He has on rare occasions whisperedDefinition: speak softly; in a low voice; spoken
in soft hushed tones without vibrations of the vocal cords
Word Type:
gothic
Number Of Synsets: 2 disjointed and irresponsible things about
"The black pit," "the carven rim," "the protoShoggoths," "the windowless solids with
five dimensions," "the nameless cylinder," "the elder Pharos," "Yog-Sothoth," "the primalDefinition: serving
as an essential component; having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or
original stage or state
Word Type: scientific
Number Of Synsets: 2
white jelly," "the color out of space," "the wings," "the eyes in darkness," "the
moon-ladder," "the original, the eternal, the undying," and other bizarreDefinition: conspicuously or grossly
unconventional or unusual
Word Type: other
Number Of Synsets: 1
conceptions; but when he is fully himself he repudiates all this and attributes it to
his curious and macabre reading of earlier years. Danforth, indeed, is known to be among
the few who have ever dared go completely through that worm-riddled copy of the
Necronomicon kept under lock and key in the college library.
The higher sky, as we crossed the range, was surely vaporous and
disturbed enough; and although I did not see the zenith, I can well imagine that its
swirls of ice dust may have taken strange forms. Imagination, knowing how vividly
distant scenes can sometimes be reflected, refracted, and magnified by such layers of
restless cloud, might easily have supplied the rest--and, of course, Danforth did not
hint any of these specific horrors till after his memory had had a chance to draw on his
bygoneDefinition: past
events to be put aside; well in the past; former
Word Type: other
Number
Of Synsets: 2 reading. He could never have seen so much in one instantaneous
glance.
At the time, his shrieks were confined to the repetition of a single, mad word of all too obvious source: "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!"