Part 38 (1/2)
”No,” responded the Frenchman stoutly, ”it is the Gaurisankar. Why will you English persist in renaming everything in the world? Gaurisankar is the native name, and, in my opinion, far more appropriate and euphonious than Everest.”
This discussion was not continued, for now everybody became interested in the movements of the Ark. Cosmo had decided that it would be safe to approach close to the point where the last peak of the mountain had disappeared.
Cautiously they drew nearer and nearer, until, looking through the wonderfully transparent water, they caught sight of a vast precipice descending with frightful steepness, down and down, until all was lost in the profundity beneath.
The point on which De Beauxchamps had landed was now covered so deep that the water had ceased to swirl about it, but lay everywhere in an unbroken sheet, which was every moment becoming more placid and refulgent in the suns.h.i.+ne.
The world was drowned at last! As they looked abroad over the convex surface, they thought, with a shudder, that now the earth, seen from s.p.a.ce, was only a great, gla.s.sy ball, mirroring the sun and the stars.
But they were ignorant of what had happened far in the west!
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FRENCHMAN'S NEW SCHEME
After the disappearance of Mt. Everest, Cosmo Versal made a careful measurement of the depth of water on the peak, which he found to be forty feet, and then decided to cruise eastward with the Ark, sailing slowly, and returning after a month to see whether by that time there would be any indications of the reappearance of land.
No part of his extraordinary theory of the deluge was more revolutionary, or scientifically incredible, than this idea that the continents would gradually emerge again, owing to internal stresses set up in the crust of the earth.
This, he antic.i.p.ated, would be caused by the tremendous pressure of the water, which must be ten or twelve miles deep over the greatest depressions of the old ocean-bottoms. He expected that geological movements would attend the intrusion of the water into subterranean cavities and into the heated magma under volcanic regions.
He often debated the question with the savants aboard the Ark, and, despite their incredulity, he persisted in his opinion. He could not be shaken, either, in his belief that the first land to emerge would be the Himalayas, the Pamirs, and the plateau of Tibet.
”We may have to wait some years before any considerable area is exposed,” he admitted, ”but it must not be forgotten that what land does first appear above the water will lie at the existing sea-level, and will have an oceanic climate, suitable for the rapid development of plants.
”We have aboard all things needed for quick cultivation, and in one season we could begin to raise crops.”
”But at first,” said Professor Jeremiah Moses, ”only mountain tops will emerge, and how can you expect to cultivate them?”
”There is every probability,” replied Cosmo, ”that even the rocks of a mountain will be sufficiently friable after their submergence to be readily reduced to the state of soil, especially with the aid of the chemical agents which I have brought along, and I have no fear that I could not, in a few weeks, make even the top of Everest fertile.
”I antic.i.p.ate, in fact, that it will be on that very summit that we shall begin the re-establishment of the race. Then, as the plateaus below come to the surface, we can gradually descend and enlarge the field of our operations.”
”Suppose Everest should be turned into a volcano?”
”That cannot happen,” said Cosmo. ”A volcano is built up by the extrusion of lava and cinders from below, and these cannot break forth at the top of a mountain already formed, especially when that mountain has no volcanic chimney and no crater, and Everest had neither.”
”If the lowering of the flood that caused our stranding on a mountain top in Sicily was due to the absorption of water into the interior of the crust, why may not that occur again, and thus bring the Himalayas into view, without any rising on their part?” demanded Professor Moses.
”I think,” said Cosmo, ”that all the water that could enter the crust has already done so, during the time that the depression of level which so surprised us was going on. Now we must wait for geologic changes, resulting from the gradual yielding of the internal ma.s.s to the new forces brought to bear upon it.
”As the whole earth has gained in _weight_ by the condensation of the nebula upon it, its plastic crust will proportionally gain in _girth_ by internal expansion, which will finally bring all the old continents to the surface, but Asia first of all.”
Whether Cosmo Versal's hypotheses were right or wrong, he always had a reply to any objection, and the prestige which he had gained by his disastrously correct theory about the watery nebula gave him an advantage so enormous that n.o.body felt enough confidence in himself to stand long against anything that he might advance.
Accordingly, everybody in the Ark found himself looking forward to the re-emergence of Mount Everest almost as confidently as did their leader, Cosmo Versal.
They began their waiting voyage by sailing across the plateau of Tibet and the lofty chain of the Yung-ling Mountains out over China.