The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 — page 156: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

540 A MONTH IN THE MOON. describing the affair did good duty for speech. By the by, we found no air left in the torrent, which proves the truth of M. Mauny’s theory : the air that was there for a few hours was only a quantity of terrestrial air. Leaving to our right the summit already explored by the baronet and M. Mauny, we continued our way down the loug yellow valley till we came to another gorge much deeper toward the south. ‘There we found a coal vein level with the ground. The baronet stood and looked at it for some little time, thinking doubtless what a treasure it would be if close to London. But uncle and I did not take much interest in it, so we pursued our way, getting over the ground, be it remembered, by leaps of ten or twelve yards at a time, and doing fifteen leagues an hour at least. ‘Suddenly uncle stopped short. He stooped over, knelt down, tore a magnifying glass out of his pocket, and set himself to a steady examination of a sort of little green moss scarcely visible on the back of a blue pebble. He got up at last in a state of lively emotion, and beckoned me to come and look. Well, dear papa, we had madea discovery! ‘The Brieta parvula lay before us. Oh! it was very parvula indeed! A miserable: scrap of moss, hardly per- ceptible, that I should have passed by a hundred times, or have taken for a bit of the lava round about. ‘Uncle was quite delighted, and it-was a pleasure to see him so overjoyed. He shook hands with me, and we congratulated each other by signs. ‘‘ After a quarter of an hour spent thus, I began to think the Brieta had had enough attention, and as uncle did not seem disposed to move, and looked indeed as if he would like to take root beside his pebble, I made hima sign that I was going to the foot of the mountain, and would come back for him. ‘‘ Some secret instinct of coming glory must have impelled me surely ; for I had not taken two steps beyond a little spur of the Apenuines that marked a gloomy valley, when an unexpected sight met my eyes! I stood before an immense excavation that had evidently been dug out of the rock by human, or rather superhuman hands. ‘There was no doubt about it; what I saw before me was no freak of nature, but most certainly the work of creatures as powerful as they must have been intelligent ! A gigantic staircase of admirable proportions led by gently sloping wide steps to a vestibule, supported by pillars worthy of the Cyclops. They were four or five times loftier and larger than those of the colonnade of St. Peter’s at Rome, and they were chiseled out of a single block of malachite, and upheld the whole front of the mountain itself. “The vestibule led into a court that appeared seven or eight times larger than that of the Coliseum ; it was roofed over, and lighted here and there by small oval windows. ‘The whole was grand, lofty, and elegant beyond de- scription. We saw nothing like it in Egypt, dear papa, nor on the Upper Nile, nor even at Nineveh. Gigantic monsters cut out of eranite guarded the entrance to the court. The walls were decorated with frescoes and highly colored paintings. | ‘I tore myself away at last, and hastened to communicate to the others the discovery of these marvels. I found uncle still poring over the Brieta LOOKS =) (CC) 5