Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 26 -- Subterranean Water Bodies
For two hundred and fifty miles our prospector bore us through the crust beneath our outer
world. At that point it reached the center of gravity of the five-hundred-mile-thick crust. Up to
that point we had been descending -- direction is, of course, merely relative. Then at the
moment that our seats revolved -- the thing that made you believe that we had turned about
and were speeding upward -- we passed the center of gravity and, though we did not alter the
direction of our progress, yet we were in reality moving upward -- toward the surface of the
inner world.
Had Perry stopped lecturing, he'd have been close. The center of gravity of a hollow sphere's
not, as he claims, half-way through its shell, but the experience of passing through a center of
gravity is reasonably portrayed.
Unfortunately, Perry keeps lecturing.
It is very simple, David. The earth was once a nebulous mass. It cooled, and as it cooled it
shrank. At length a thin crust of solid matter formed upon its outer surface -- a sort of shell; but
within it was partially molten matter and highly expanded gases. As it continued to cool, what
happened? Centrifugal force burled the particles of the nebulous center toward the crust as
rapidly as they approached a solid state. You have seen the same principle practically applied
in the modern cream separator. Presently there was only a small super-heated core of
gaseous matter remaining within a huge vacant interior left by the contraction of the cooling
gases. The equal attraction of the solid crust from all directions maintained this luminous core
in the exact center of the hollow globe. What remains of it is the sun you saw today -- a
relatively tiny thing at the exact center of the earth.
Perry (a la Burroughs) has been to the library, we presume, as the central sun idea, we recall
from Chapter 14, dates at least back to the 1700s.
Ja, a subterranean, is a doubter.
That is ridiculous, since, were it true, we should fall back were we to travel far in any direction,
and all the waters of Pellucidar would run to one spot and drown us. No, Pellucidar is quite flat
and extends no man knows how far in all directions. At the edges, so my ancestors have
reported and handed down to me, is a great wall that prevents the earth and waters from
escaping over into the burning sea whereon Pellucidar floats.
You live upon the under side of Pellucidar, and walk always with your head pointed
downward?... And were I to believe that, my friend, I should indeed be mad.
An inventor's unrestrained babble vs. a local's staid provinciality. A humorous moment in
Tarzan's territory, but we don't have to delve deep into our own history to find us arguing much
the same positions.
DRAFT 1122//66//22001122
Uppddaatteess aatt hhttttpp::////www. .uunnm. .eedduu//~rrhheeggggeenn//UnnddeerrggrroouunnddRi ivveerrss. .hhttml l
332