hardly descended into the bowels of the
earth ere they at once perceived that thus placed between the furnaces
of the central fire, as it were, a forge of the Cyclops, hot enough to
liquefy granite, and the outer cold, which was sufficient to solidify
oxygen and nitrogen, they had at their disposal the most enormous
extremes in temperature, and consequently thermic cataracts by the side
of which all the cataracts of Abyssinia and Niagara were only toys. What
caldrons did they own in the ancient volcanoes! What condensers in the
glaciers! At first sight they must have seen that if a few distributing
agencies of this prodigious energy were provided, they had power enough
there to perform the whole work of mankind--excavation, air supply,
water supply, sanitation, locomotion, descent and transport of
provisions, etc.

I am well aware of that. I am further aware that ever favoured by
fortune, the inseparable friend of daring, the new Troglodytes have
never suffered from famine, nor from shortness of supplies. When one of
their snow-covered deposits of carcasses threatened to give out, they
used to make several trial borings, drive several shafts in an upward
direction. They never failed presently to meet with rich finds of food
reserves, extensive enough to close the mouths of the alarmists, whereby
there resulted on each occasion, according to the law of Malthus, a
sudden increase in the population, coupled with the excavation of new
underground cities, more flourishing than their older sisters. But, in
spite of all this, we remain overwhelmed with wonder when we consider
the incalculable degree of courage and intelligence lavished on such a
work, and solely called into being by an idea which, starting one day
from one individual brain, has leavened the whole globe. What giant
falls of earth, what murderous explosions, what a death-roll there must
have been at the outset of the enterprise! We shall never know what
bloodthirsty duels, what rapes, what doleful tragedies, took place in
this lawless society, which had not yet been reorganised. The history of
the early conquerors and colonists of America, if it could be told in
detail, would pale entirely beside it. Let us draw a veil over the
proceedings. But this pitch of horrors was perhaps necessary to teach us
that in the forced intimacy of a cave there is no mean between warfare
and love, between mutual slaughter or mutual embraces. We began by
fighting; to-day we fall on