Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 21 -- Boys Club Singles
would the place of landing be found under such conditions as that?), and with little food, and
dreading that, at any moment, the water might rise, or the cavern roof come down, so that they
would bump against it in the dreadful dark, and be scraped off, or choked by the flood as it filled
up to the roof above.
Quoting from the table of contents of Alaric J. Roberts' New Trade Winds for the Seven Seas
(1942), in the third episode, "Atlantis and Lemuria of the Deep,"
A dramatic shipwreck scene takes place, and the survivors escape to Crater Island, where they
discover a geological rift causing and underground passage into the gigantic "subtitudes" of the
earth's interior.
We have the pro-forma exploration party for such ventures -- the young and adventurous
accompanied by the pedantic professor. A snippet of the explorers' banter,
"Then one day as we were exploring the lower depths of these endless byways, we were
astonished by the discovery of an underground river that must have been several thousand feet
beneath the surface. The entire tunnel as far as we could see was covered with a thin growth
of luminous substance that radiated light."
"That's certainly is a coincidence," said the professor. "I have a friend on the Pacific Coast by
the name of Walter Dee, who has written a biography of his life called 'Into the Bowels of the
Earth.' He has given an account of his actual experiences beneath the surface of the earth in a
gigantic rift, similar to this one, which extends thousands of feet into the ground... They
intersected a traverse fault, too, at that tremendous subtitude, and there they discovered an
underground river of ocean water. The heat grew so intense at that depth that they were
unable to continue their explorations. Comparing Jean's subterranean experiences in France
and Mr. Dee's on the Pacific Coast, with our situation here, we may conclude that we, too, may
find an underground river further down this corridor."
"Our minds must be turned alike," answered Jean jovially, "for during the past week you have
astonished me with many deductions that I thought were original with me."
"Great minds run in the same underground river," added Gerald humorously.
We'll pick up upon the "underground rivers" metaphor in Chapter 29, but this passage would be
one of the very few in English literature combining literal and symbolic employment.
In J.E. Gurdon's The Secret of the South (1950), explorers from the
upper world discover a lost white race, the Polarians, battling the
Neanderthal-like Anthropians beneath the Antarctic icecap. Note the
cover's ominous watery setting.
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