*       *       *       *       *

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 grotesque stone
structures, linking the terrible city to the already familiar cubes and
ramparts which evidently formed its mountain outposts. These latter,
as well as the queer cave mouths, were as thick on the inner as on the
outer sides of the mountains. The nameless stone labyrinth 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 primordial slate, schist, and
sandstone--blocks in many cases as large as 4 × 6 × 8 feet--though in
several places it seemed to be carved out of a solid, uneven bed rock
of pre-Cambrian slate. The buildings were far from equal in size, there being innumerable
honeycomb 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 monstrously weathered, and the glacial surface
from where the towers projected was strewn with fallen blocks and
immemorial débris. 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 scarred
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 petrified 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 conical or
pyramidal model or else protected by higher surrounding structures,
preserved intact outlines despite the omnipresent crumbling and
pitting. With the field glass we could barely make out what seemed to
be sculptural decorations in horizontal bands--decorations including
those curious groups of dots whose presence on the ancient soapstones
now assumed a vastly larger significance. In many places the buildings were totally ruined and the ice sheet
deeply riven from various geologic causes. In other places the
stonework was worn down to the very level of the glaciation. 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 Tertiary times--millions
of years ago--had poured through the city and into some prodigious
subterranean abyss 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 monstrous survival from æons we had thought prehuman, I can only
wonder that we preserved the semblance of equilibrium 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 fathom more of this age-old secret--to know what sort of beings
had built and lived in this incalculably gigantic 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 archaic and unbelievable chapter of
earth's history whose outward ramifications, recalled only dimly in the
most obscure and distorted myths, had vanished utterly amidst the chaos
of terrene convulsions long before any human race we know had shambled
out of apedom. Here sprawled a Palæogæan megalopolis compared with which the fabled
Atlantis and Lemuria, Commoriom and Uzuldaroum, and Olathoë in the
land of Lomar are recent things of to-day--not even of yesterday;
a megalopolis ranking with such whispered prehuman blasphemies as
Valusia, R'lyeh, Ib in the land of Mnar, and the Nameless 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
Cyclopean pylons; and something about the ridgy, barrel-shaped designs
stirred up oddly vague, hateful, and confusing semiremembrances 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.