fi.38 THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



wondering eyes the miraculous sight above alluded to. But this 

 man was ignorant and superstitious, and instead of hastening to 

 announce his wonderful discovery for the benefit of science, he 

 stupidly gazed upon it in wonder and awe, not daring to approach 

 it. For five successive seasons from the time when he first dis- 

 covered it, did Schumachoff make stealthy journeys to his crys- 

 tallized monster, never finding courage sufficient to approach it 

 closely, but simply standing at a distance, once more to feast his 

 eyes on the wonder, and to carry away in his thick head enough 

 of terror to guarantee him nightmare for a whole month of 

 nights. At last he found the imprisoned carcass stranded on a 

 convenient sand-bank, and boldly attacked it, broke the glitter- 

 ing casing, and roughly despoiling the greaf beast of its splendid 

 tusks, hurried home and sold them for fifty roubles, leaving the 

 well-preserved bulk of elephant meat, a thousand years old, vet 

 juicy and without taint, to be devoured by wolves and bears, in- 

 hacked to bits by the natives as food for their dogs. 



The most common objection to the Symmes theory is, that, if 

 it were true, the sun could not possibly light and warm the interior 

 of the world. But the sun's rays, passing over the dense, cold 

 air of the verges, would be refracted many degrees, probably not 

 less than ten or fifteen, and would thus produce abundant light 

 and heat throughout the whole interior. In fact, eminent scien- 

 tists declare that the refracted light and heat of the sun's rays 

 would probably be so intense that the interior would be uninhab- 

 itable except around the vicinity of the verges. 



Another popular objection is, that the law of gravitation would 

 be overturned. How, says the objector, could bodies be attracted 

 alike to both the outer and inner surfaces of the earth ? But this 

 objection may be explained. All we know of gravitation is, that 

 a body let fall above the surface of the earth is drawn toward the 

 centre ; but whether the cause exists there or above the surface, 

 we know not. It would be difficult to prove, also, that bodies in 

 the interior, as well as upon the exterior, surface, when let fall, 

 would not tend to the surface in each case. The matter of the 

 earth, like a great magnet, may attract to itself all bodies coming 



