"As on examination you will see,"my uncle continued,"it is only about six feet in length,which is a long way from the pretended giants of early days.As to the particular race to which it belonged,it is incontestably Caucasian.It is of the white race,that is,of our own.The skull of this fossil being is a perfect ovoid without any remarkable or prominent development of the cheekbones,and without any projection of the jaw.It presents no indication of the prognathism which modifies the facial angle.*Measure the angle for yourselves,and you will find that it is just ninety degrees.But Iwill advance still farther on the road of inquiry and deduction,and Idare venture to say that this human sample or specimen belongs to the Japhetic family,which spread over the world from India to the uttermost limits of western Europe.There is no occasion,gentlemen,to smile at my remarks."*The facial angle is formed by two planes-one more or less vertical which is in a straight line with the forehead and the incisors;the other,horizontal,which passes through the organs of hearing,and the lower nasal bone.Prognathism,in anthropological language,means that particular projection of the jaw which modifies the facial angle.
Of course nobody smiled.But the excellent Professor was so accustomed to beaming countenances at his lectures,that he believed he saw all his audience laughing during the delivery of his learned dissertation.
"Yes,"he continued,with renewed animation,"this is a fossil man,a contemporary of the mastodons,with the bones of which this whole amphitheater is covered.But if I am called on to explain how he came to this place,how these various strata by which he is covered have fallen into this vast cavity,I can undertake to give you no explanation.Doubtless,if we carry ourselves back to the Quaternary epoch,we shall find that great and mighty convulsions took place in the crust of the earth;the continually cooling operation,through which the earth had to pass,produced fissures,landslips,and chasms,through which a large portion of the earth made its way.I come to no absolute conclusion,but there is the man,surrounded by the works of his hands,his hatchets and his carved flints,which belong to the stony period;and the only rational supposition is,that,like myself,he visited the center of the earth as a traveling tourist,a pioneer of science.At all events,there can be no doubt of his great age,and of his being one of the oldest race of human beings."The Professor with these words ceased his oration,and I burst forth into loud and "unanimous"applause.Besides,after all,my uncle was right.Much more learned men than his nephew would have found it rather hard to refute his facts and arguments.
Another circumstance soon presented itself.This fossilized body was not the only one in this vast plain of bones-the cemetery of an extinct world.Other bodies were found,as we trod the dusty plain,and my uncle was able to choose the most marvelous of these specimens in order to convince the most incredulous.
In truth,it was a surprising spectacle,the successive remains of generations and generations of men and animals confounded together in one vast cemetery.But a great question now presented itself to our notice,and one we were actually afraid to contemplate in all its bearings.
Had these once animated beings been buried so far beneath the soil by some tremendous convulsion of nature,after they had been earth to earth and ashes to ashes,or had they lived here below,in this subterranean world,under this factitious sky,borne,married,and given in marriage,and died at last,just like ordinary inhabitants of the earth?
Up to the present moment,marine monsters,fish,and suchlike animals had alone been seen alive!
The question which rendered us rather uneasy,was a pertinent one.
Were any of these men of the abyss wandering about the deserted shores of this wondrous sea of the center of the earth?
This was a question which rendered me very uneasy and uncomfortable.
How,should they really be in existence,would they receive us men from above?