There could be no getting away from it. The cumulative proof was overwhelming. The sketch, the photographs, the narrative, and now the actual specimen--the evidence was complete. I said so--Isaid so warmly, for I felt that the Professor was an ill-used man.
He leaned back in his chair with drooping eyelids and a tolerant smile, basking in this sudden gleam of sunshine.
"It's just the very biggest thing that I ever heard of!" said I, though it was my journalistic rather than my scientific enthusiasm that was roused. "It is colossal. You are a Columbus of science who has discovered a lost world. I'm awfully sorry if I seemed to doubt you. It was all so unthinkable. But Iunderstand evidence when I see it, and this should be good enough for anyone."The Professor purred with satisfaction.
"And then, sir, what did you do next?"
"It was the wet season, Mr. Malone, and my stores were exhausted.
I explored some portion of this huge cliff, but I was unable to find any way to scale it. The pyramidal rock upon which I saw and shot the pterodactyl was more accessible. Being something of a cragsman, I did manage to get half way to the top of that.
From that height I had a better idea of the plateau upon the top of the crags. It appeared to be very large; neither to east nor to west could I see any end to the vista of green-capped cliffs.
Below, it is a swampy, jungly region, full of snakes, insects, and fever. It is a natural protection to this singular country.""Did you see any other trace of life?"
"No, sir, I did not; but during the week that we lay encamped at the base of the cliff we heard some very strange noises from above.""But the creature that the American drew? How do you account for that?""We can only suppose that he must have made his way to the summit and seen it there. We know, therefore, that there is a way up.
We know equally that it must be a very difficult one, otherwise the creatures would have come down and overrun the surrounding country.
Surely that is clear?"
"But how did they come to be there?"
"I do not think that the problem is a very obscure one," said the Professor; "there can only be one explanation. South America is, as you may have heard, a granite continent. At this single point in the interior there has been, in some far distant age, a great, sudden volcanic upheaval. These cliffs, I may remark, are basaltic, and therefore plutonic. An area, as large perhaps as Sussex, has been lifted up en bloc with all its living contents, and cut off by perpendicular precipices of a hardness which defies erosion from all the rest of the continent. What is the result? Why, the ordinary laws of Nature are suspended.
