ace to be measured by miles.

The sea in subsiding did not recede to its old limits; for a part only
of the miles of the lower lands between the scooped-out mountain heart
and the sea was restored to the world by the retiring waters, and the
heart of the mountain having been carried away and engulfed for ever,
the projecting mountain mass was left suspended not only over the land
now covered by the lower cities, but for miles over the sea. Neither can
be approached except by proceeding first for a long distance in an
opposite direction inland, until the extreme point is reached where the
sea stopped its ravages on the mountain's heart; the road then leads by
circuitous bendings to the land below.

On the rocky ridges of the heart or indent of the mountain, and on the
part of the mountain foot restored by the sea, now stand the middle and
lower cities of Montalluyah.

The hanging mountain mass, with its promontories and high hills,
presents all varieties of shape and outline, and is itself intersected
by rocks, ravines, cataracts, and torrents.

One great torrent runs on for many miles, and having been swelled by
tributaries into an immense gathering of mighty waters, rushes
impetuously seaward, to the extreme point of the suspended mountain,
whence from its aerial height it falls into the sea beneath, the spray
bringing refreshment to the parched atmosphere of the lower and
intervening cities, built on the ridges and peaks of the sea-worn heart
of the mountain. This torrent, called the Great Cataract, forms a
feature of great grandeur and beauty.

On the suspended mountain itself is built a city larger than your
largest capitals, called the Upper city of Montalluyah. The Lower city,
nearer the sea-level, is distant vertically about three miles from the
nearest under part of the projecting mountain-arm above. The cities
swarm with human beings, whilst the wealth of the districts is
incalculable.

Before my time many of the under parts of the suspended mountain had
broken from the parent mountain arm, burying cities and their
inhabitants under the masses of rock.

In the then state of science these catastrophes could scarcely have been
prevented, but at that time the inhabitants of Montalluyah rarely
thought of preventing accidents till after they had occurred!

Although in my reign the suspended mountain did not threaten immediate
danger, I saw that unless means could be devised to support it, like
catastro