Crater

“ All about, the giant bare mountains ringed the crater. Their gaunt, jagged outlines were a black ring against which was set the star-strewn wonder of the sky, in whose exact center slowly rotated the marvelous globe of Mother Earth. ”

“ From this point we can see a clear path to the summit. Upward we climb to where the rim of the crater seems but a few hundred feet away. Look! there is a jet of steam right ahead; one grand effort and I sit upon the rim of the crater. I shout a word of triumph which sounds strangely shrill to my companions below, who, one by one, soon gain my exalted position. The feeling of triumph that filled the heart of each one as he gained that sublime height can be realized by no one who has not been in a similar position. ”

“ How slowly we moved! My mouth was parched and dry, and I was in a fever of excitement. The smoke from the crater was close above me in great wreaths. At last we reached the top. I leapt out, and without waiting for a guide, made my way past, and rushed up the active cone, slipping in the shifting, loose, gritty soil. When I reached the top a gale was blowing, and the scenery below, with the Bay and Naples and Sorrento, lay before me, the most magnificent panorama in the world. ”

“ To the other was the downward sweep of the crater's flank, dun, dead, wrinkled, seamed and seared by the stabbing rays which bathed it in pitiless light. And beyond the foot of the crater was a vast irregular plain, lower in the center as though eons past it might have been the bed of some vanished sea. About the plain were the crests of barren mountains, crags, pinnacles, misshapen and weird beyond thought.
Yes, the moon is dead—now. But—there was life upon it once. Croft willed himself down from the lip of the crater to the plain. He moved about it. ”

“ For a minute they heard only the slight sigh of the desert wind as it lifted above the mountain barrier and swept down to cleanse the odors of the crater before it rose again to pursue its wayward course, the light crackling of fire devouring iron-wood, the tense breathing of someone at their side–nothing else. Then from somewhere below, where the sands of the arena were becoming faintly visible under the first lunar rays of the night, came the thin echoes of a call. ”

“ It is an unpretending expanse of grayish water, about a hundred miles in circumference, with two islands in its centre, mere upheavals of rent and scorched and blistered lava, snowed over with gray banks and drifts of pumice-stone and ashes, the winding sheet of the dead volcano, whose vast crater the lake has seized upon and occupied. ”

“ The crater is a spectacle that gives the mind such occupation as it has not had before. Talk of the Pyramids and the Sphinx that so overpowered me at Gizeh! That crater would think it a good joke to chuck them up in the air.
“But nothing impressed me into silence so heavily as the sight, later on, of a lava stream, lower down the mountain-side, issuing in thick ooze, and crawling slowly from out a gaping cavern. Liquid, deep scarlet fire was this, of the density, apparently, of oil, advancing like a fiery death to scorch and consume with slow and even flow—inexorable. ”

“ Occasionally at night the eternal fires within the gaping crater may be seen tinting the low-hanging clouds and the snow that crowns the summit, fourteen thousand five hundred feet high, with rosy red. ”

“ At last daylight came, and I saw that although in the midst of a wide sandy plain, there were no dunes; scattered bushes grew here and there, and dotted about in the distance were a number of bare granite rocks. The crater I had climbed from went sheer down at my feet so abruptly indeed, and with so little to denote its presence, that within a few yards of its brink nothing whatever could be seen of it. ”

“ The travelers frequently broke through as far as their breasts, with an alarmingly rapid diminution of their strength. Reaching the summit of the ridge, they found the precipitous walls of a gigantic crater yawning beneath them, with the loftiest elevations in the shape of three pinnacles rising above the ice on its southern brim. ”

“ And, first of all, we descend the precipice, 300 feet in depth, which forms the wall of the original crater, but now blooming with a prodigal vegetation. In many places the incline is so steep that zigzag flights of wooden steps have been inserted here and there in the face of the cliff in order to facilitate the descent. At the bottom we step on to a surface of cold boiled lava, and even here, in every chink where a little soil has collected, Nature asserts her robust vitality, and delicate little ferns put forth their green fronds to feel the light. ”

“ A thousand peaks were in sight, chain beyond chain, ridge beyond ridge, of mountains;—the vast, glittering region of the lunar South Pole on the one side, and to the north the huge crater-chain rising in successive lines. "Is all this," I thought, "the result of the terrific convulsions that ruined life upon this satellite, or is it but the nature of this world—a world of mountain ranges,—of huge craters,—of volcanic action?"
Then I rose upwards into the dark airless expanse of ether, and directed my car to the mighty ring of Ptolomæus. ”

“ Being constantly wet, the colors are brilliant beyond description. Sloping gently from this rim of the crater in every direction the rocks are full of cavities in successive terraces, forming little pools, with margins of silica the color of silver, the cavities being of irregular shape, constantly full of hot water, and precipitating delicate, coral-like beads of a bright saffron. ”

“ Who could reach you in the heart of a volcano? But don't I see an opening at its summit?"
"Yes, its crater, a crater formerly filled with lava, steam, and flames, but which now lets in this life–giving air we're breathing." ”

“ There was no need of the oppressive odour, the dull roaring and thundering and hissing, to call up a degree of reverent admiration, even fear, and it required an effort of will to stay and grow used to the tremendous sight. The first sensation on seeing the crater is certainly terror, then curiosity awakens, and one looks and wonders; yet the sight never becomes familiar, and never loses its threatening aspect. Still, the inner crater may be a disappointment. ”

“ When the sun plunged into the masses of yellowish mist that clung to the rim of the crater a bright moon was already high in the heavens. The transformation from day to night was sudden, for in the tropics the light fades abruptly, and darkness swoops upon the land almost as a black cloud scurrying across the face of the sun obliterates the brilliant radiance in a short space of time. ”

“ A restless night passed in this way was succeeded by a day of laborious toil in making part of the circuit of the crater. Sometimes along narrow pathways, crossing unsightly seams by a natural bridge of only a foot in breadth, where a sudden stumble might have precipitated them into some horrible gulf of fire, or into some deep sunken cavern; sometimes along a tract like a wide, desolate sea-beach; sometimes by a lake of fire, so furiously boiling, and splashing, and casting up jets of liquid lava, that the travellers were compelled to fly for their lives ”

“ Rocky pinnacles and needles shoot up into the sunlight out of the black depths. Down sinks the line of light, mile after mile, and continually new precipices and cliffs are brought into view, until at last the vast floor is attained and begins to be illuminated. In the meanwhile the sun’s rays, darting across the gulf, have touched the summits of the central peaks, twenty or thirty miles from the crater’s inmost edge, and they immediately kindle and blaze like huge stars amid the darkness. ”

“ It is impossible for a camera with its narrow field of view to give correct impressions of the conditions of the mountain top. The observer standing upon that solitary, sharp, rocky pinnacle, although he narrows his vision to the new crater steaming below, is conscious of the steep slopes behind him and he also sees subconsciously the surrounding ragged edge of the bowl of the ancient crater. ”

“ We took a hasty glance into the gloomy crater of the volcano and throwing ourselves on the warm ashes, gazed in wonder and astonishment. It would be vain for me to attempt a description of the scene. I scarcely knew the world in which I had lived. ”

“ Through this thick darkness flashes of lightning gleamed in a hundred lines, and many natives were instantly struck down to the earth by stones falling from the sky. Then a deluge of hot water and flowing mud rose over the rim of the old crater, and poured down the mountain-sides, sweeping away trees and beasts and human bodies in its seething mass. At the same moment, stones and ashes and sand were projected to an enormous height into the air, and, as they fell, destroyed nearly every thing within a radius of more than twenty miles. ”

“ Farther up are deep beds of ashes, and light, spongy rocks and cinders, giving evidence of intense heat. Within the crater, as without, the surface is entirely covered with volcanic rocks, but here it forms one of the hottest places on a clear day in August, it has ever been my lot to witness. Not a breath of air seems to enter, and the hot sun pours down upon thousands of rocks and stones that reflect his rays with an intensity that seems to multiply beyond conception. ”

“ The sphere lay behind us on its dwindling snowdrift thirty feet away.
As far as the eye could see over the enormous disorder of rocks that formed the crater floor, the same bristling scrub that surrounded us was starting into life, diversified here and [98] there by bulging masses of a cactus form, and scarlet and purple lichens that grew so fast they seemed to crawl over the rocks. The whole area of the crater seemed to me then to be one similar wilderness up to the very foot of the surrounding cliff. ”

“ Thus, in looking towards the hill I have just named, it appears to be but little in advance of a huge mass more to the eastward, whose steep purple sides, truncated summit, and yawning crater bespeak its volcanic origin. Yet as you proceed on your road, you see them remove from each other, leagues apart. ”

“ That was the yawning dead crater, into which we now and then tumbled rocks, half as large as a barrel, from our perch, and saw them go careering down the almost perpendicular sides, bounding three hundred feet at a jump; kicking up cast-clouds wherever they struck; diminishing to our view as they sped farther into distance; growing invisible, finally, and only betraying their course by faint little puffs of dust ”

“ Slave and workers – obeying a superior command.
Overhead, more than two hundred miles of solid rock-strata lay like a thick shell – an exuviate – as tho this alien bit of spake were animate, and the moon-matter a shell over its pulsating being. The crater-shaft itself, like a huge gaping aesophagus, was drawing into the Hemisphere a current of rarefied air, and like corpuscles the disc-shadows flickered upon their endless journeys. Yet herein lay the stronghold, the natural habitat, of the Wrongness of Space. ”

“ The strong arm of Almighty power has rolled back the dense cloud which hung over the terrific crater, and has exposed it to our view, and although no human eye can penetrate the abyss, yet enough is seen to warn us of the consequences of trifling with Omnipotence. ”

“ This black, contorted desert waste is more sterile and hopeless than any mountain of stone, because the idea of relentless destruction is involved here. This great hummocked, sloping plain, ridged and seamed, was all about us, without cheer or relaxation of grim solitude. Before us rose, as black and bare, what the guides call the mountain, and which used to be the crater. Up one side is worked in the lava a zigzag path, steep, but not very fatiguing, if you take it slowly. Two thirds of the way up, I saw specks of people climbing. ”

“ I leaped to a little boss of rock, and surveyed the crater. I could see no signs of mooncalves or Selenites, nor could I see Cavor, but I could see my handkerchief afar off spread out on its thicket of thorns. I looked about me, and then sprang forward to the next convenient viewpoint.
I beat my way round in a semicircle and back again in a still remoter crescent. It was very fatiguing and hopeless. The air was really very much cooler and it seemed to me that the shadow under the westward cliff was growing broad. ”

“ Now though the wind blew with an icy mouth on that high peak, in the rocks of the crater it was sheltered, and warm because of the inner fires of the mountain. So it was ordered that in turn one brother should abide on the peak, and one in a cave midway down the mountain, and one on the slopes where the palms and orange-trees are rooted among the white-flowered sweet-scented broom. ”

“ Think—While the steam and stones are being blown out, the crater is an open funnel, with more or less upright walls inside. As the steam grows weaker, fewer and fewer stones fall outside, and more and more fall back again inside. At last they quite choke up the bottom of the great round hole. Perhaps, too, the lava or melted rock underneath cools and grows hard, and that chokes up the hole lower down. Then, down from the round edge of the crater the stones and cinders roll inward more and more. The rains wash them down, the wind blows them down. ”

“ Either the monk, disappointed in his search for gold, had fibbed, or nature had made one of its most extraordinary changes. The crater was about a mile and a half in circumference, five or six hundred feet deep, with sides slightly sloping, and so regular in its proportions that it seemed an artificial excavation. The bottom was level, both sides and bottom covered with grass, and it seemed an immense conical green basin. ”