SURFACE SLIPS 45 



dead beast : the softer parts dissolve, the skin, shrivelled and sagged, 

 endures. So has it been over the vast bulk of Tutira. Its skin also 

 remains as of yore, shrunk and wrinkled indeed with age, but intact. 

 In spite of torrential rainfalls, the surface of the station remains at this 

 date as it was ages ago. It is now, as it was then, blanketed with a 

 dark, porous, unfertile, rooty humus. So vast a change by processes of 

 internal waste, of subcutaneous dissolution, is perhaps unique in the 

 annals of geology. 



