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 analogue in certain
grotesque conceptions of the most daring futurists. The arabesque tracery consisted altogether of depressed lines, whose
depth on unweathered walls varied from one to two inches. When
cartouches with dot groups appeared--evidently as inscriptions in some
unknown and primordial 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 æons had disintegrated and banished
any pigments which may have been applied. The more one studied the
marvelous technique the more one admired the things. Beneath their
strict conventionalization 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 excellences there
were others lurking beyond the reach of our perceptions. Certain
touches here and there gave vague hints of latent symbols and stimuli
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 vanished epoch of their creation, and contained a large proportion
of evident history. It is this abnormal historic-mindedness of the
primal race--a chance circumstance operating, through coincidence,
miraculously in our favor--which made the carvings so awesomely
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, astronomical charts, and other scientific designs on an enlarged
scale--these things giving a naïve and terrible corroboration to what
we gathered from the pictorial friezes and dados. 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
allured 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 elliptical--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 bizarre object carved from green soapstone which
was either broken or perhaps held too inferior to warrant removal. Other apertures were undoubtedly connected with bygone 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 soapstone 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 débris, but
farther down this condition decreased. In some of the lower chambers and corridors there was little more than
gritty dust or ancient incrustations, while occasional areas had an
uncanny 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 we had seen in other structures, 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 æon-silent maze of unhuman 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 naïve 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 monstrous dead city millions of years
ago, when man's ancestors were primitive archaic mammals, and vast
Dinosauria 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 motif meant only
some cultural or religious exaltation of the archæan natural object
which had so patently embodied the quality of five-pointedness; as the
decorative motifs of Minoan Crete exalted the sacred bull, those of
Egypt the scarabæus, 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 Dinosauria were not indeed Dinosauria, but far worse.