" A little farther
along the water courses began to flow to the eastward. The flora and fauna
had again altered in character, and now began to grow sparse; the soil was
thin and arid, and in a week I found myself in a region absolutely
destitute of organic life and without a vestige of soil. All was barren
rock. The surface for hundreds of _prastams_, as I continued my advance,
was nearly level, with a slight dip to the eastward. The rock was
singularly striated, the scratches arranged concentrically and in
helicoidal curves. This circumstance puzzled me and I resolved to take
some more instrumental observations, bitterly regretting my improvidence
in not availing myself of the Ahkoond's permission to bring with me such
apparatus and assistants as would have given me knowledge vastly more
copious and accurate than I could acquire with my simple pocket
appliances.
I need not here go into the details of my observations with such
instruments as I had, nor into the calculations of which these
observations were the basic data. Suffice it that after two months' labor
I reported the results to his Majesty in Sanf Rachisco in the words
following:
"_Sire:_ It is my high privilege to apprise you of my arrival on the
western slope of a mighty depression running through the center of the
continent north and south, formerly known as the Mississippi Valley. It
was once the seat of a thriving and prosperous population known as the
Pukes, but is now a vast expanse of bare rock, from which every particle
of soil and everything movable, including people, animals and vegetation,
have been lifted by terrific cyclones and scattered afar, falling in other
lands and at sea in the form of what was called meteoric dust! I find that
these terrible phenomena began to occur about the year 1860, and lasted,
with increasing frequency and power, through a century, culminating about
the middle of that glacial period which saw the extinction of the Galoots
and their neighboring tribes.
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