Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

L. Frank Baum (1856-1919)
Chapter 16 -- Underground Rivers in English Fiction
Baum is fondly remembered for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), but not stopping with the
Yellow Brick Road, he followed with three more volumes. Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908)
was the last. Yes, this one's "in" not "of." Most of the action is outside of Oz, actually, but Baum
liked close titles.
Dorothy is sent to visit her uncle who ranches in California. There, Dorothy and friends are riding
a buggy when an earthquake swallows them.
Yes; there was land below them; and not so very far away, either. But they were floating very,
very slowly -- so slowly that it could no longer be called a fall -- -and the children had ample
time to take heart and look about them.
They saw a landscape with mountains and plains, lakes and rivers, very like those upon the
earth's surface; but all the scene was splendidly colored by the variegated lights from the six
suns.
It's not all folly, however. Dorothy encounters her old friend, the Wizard, and they fight invisible
bears.
"Run for the river!" shouted the Wizard, and Jim quickly freed himself from his unseen
tormenters by a few vicious kicks and then obeyed. As soon as he trotted out upon the surface
of the river he found himself safe from pursuit, and Zeb was already running across the water
toward Dorothy.
"I think we'd better stick to the river, after this," said Dorothy. "If our unknown friend hadn't
warned us, and told us what to do, we would all be dead by this time."
"That is true," agreed the Wizard, "and as the river seems to be flowing in the direction of the
Pyramid Mountain it will be the easiest way for us to travel."
So what do we make of this?
That Dorothy should be remembered not only for travel by tornado and balloon, but also by
underground river.
That Baum should have stopped with his first Oz volume, as by the fourth, the novelty's spent.
And if the spell was wearing thin by the fourth, what must be the quality of the 36th?
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