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arm of the sea. It was over a thousand miles wide at its mouth, and, had not
the photographs showed the contrary, they would have thought the Callisto had
reached the northern end of the continent. It extended into the land fifteen
thousand miles, and, on account of the shape of its mouth, they called it
Funnel Bay. Rising to a height, they flew across, and came to a great
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table-land peninsula, with a chain of mountains on either side. The southern
range was something over,
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A Journey in Other Worlds and the northern something less than, five thousand
feet in height, while the table-land between sloped almost imperceptibly
towards the middle, in which, as they expected, they found a river compared to
which the Mississippi or the Amazon would be but a brook. In honour of the
President of the Terrestrial
Axis Straightening Company, they called this great projection, which averaged
about four thousand miles across by twelve thousand miles long, Bearwarden
Peninsula. They already noticed a change in climate;
the ferns and palms became fewer, and were succeeded by pines, while the air
was also a good deal cooler, which was easily accounted for by their altitude
-- though even at that height it was considerably denser than at sea-level on
earth -- and by the fact that they were already near latitude thirty.
The exposed points on the plateau, as also the summits of the first mountains
they had seen before alighting, were devoid of vegetation, scarcely so much as
a blade of grass being visible. Since they could not account for this by cold,
they concluded that the most probable explanation lay in the tremendous
hurricanes
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
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that, produced by the planet's rapid rotation, frequently swept along its
surface, like the earth's trade-
winds, but with far more violence.
On reaching the northern coast of the peninsula they increased their elevation
and changed their course to northeast, not caring to remain long over the
great body of water, which they named Cortlandt
Bay. The thousands of miles of foam fast flew beneath them, the first thing
attracting their attention being a change in the ocean's colour. In the
eastern shore of Cortlandt Bay they soon observed the mouth of a river, ten
miles across, from which this tinted water issued in a flood. On account of
its colour, which reminded them of a stream they knew so well, they christened
it the Harlem.
Believing that an expedition up its valley might reveal something of interest,
they began the ascent, remaining at an elevation of a few hundred feet. For
about three hundred miles they followed this river, which had but few bends,
while its sides became more and more precipitous, till it flowed through a
canon four and a half miles across. Though they knew from the wide
discoloration of Cortlandt Bay that the volume of water discharged was
tremendous, -240-
the stream seldom moved at a rate of more than five miles an hour, and for a
time was free from rocks and rapids, from which they concluded that it must be
very deep. Half an hour later they saw a cloud of steam or mist, which
expanded, and almost obscured the sky as they approached. Next they heard a
sound like distant thunder, which they took for the prolonged eruption of some
giant crater, though they had not expected to find one so far towards the
interior of the continent. Presently it became one
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A Journey in Other Worlds continuous roar, the echo in the canon, whose walls
were at this place over six hundred feet high, being simply deafening, so that
the near discharge of the heaviest artillery would have been completely
drowned.
"One would think the end of the world was approaching!" shouted Cortlandt
through his hands.
"Look!" Bearwarden roared back, "the wind is scattering the mist."
As he spoke, the vapoury curtain was drawn aside, revealing a waterfall of
such vast proportions as to dwarf completely anything they had ever seen or
even imagined. A somewhat open horseshoe lip, three and a half miles straight
across and over four miles following the line of the curve, discharged a
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sheet of water forty feet thick at the edge into an abyss six hundred feet
below. Two islands on the brink divided this sheet of liquid into three nearly
equal parts, while myriads of rainbows hovered in the clouds of spray. Two
things especially struck the observers: the water made but little curve or [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]