“We stood in a line gazing upon the receding roof of the great cavern, the heavy walls left like buttresses to hold up the overlying mountain ridge, and the tiny figures dimly swarming on the distant floor.

“The quarry extends far in under the ridge.  Much barren rock is taken out, for the Phosphori rock occurs variously in masses, layers, lenticles, and almond shaped inclusions in the igneous matrix.

“We were to descend, but before we did so the Superintendent led us to the summit of the ridge.  From here, with a superb hand telescope, we gazed up a distant land beyond the volcanic area we had surmounted, occupied by farms and villages.  It was the North country where the prehistorics dwelt.  It seemed peaceful and attractive.  Beyond this again we just discerned the shimmering surface of the Great Glacier, the superb train of ice, that comes southward in the winter, and encroaches even upon some of the exposed margins of the land of the prehistorics.  Its retreat is rapid in the warm season, and its broad tract is broken by emergent backs of rocks and land, that are seamed with wild flowers.  The Martians travel to these oases in the Ocean of Ice, and it is from these flowers that an entrancing perfume is extracted, of which the Martians are extremely fond.

“We lingered on this pinnacle of rock and surveyed a prospect on either side of contrasted and great interest.  The land of the Zinipi north of us resembled the fertile hill and valley country of the Genesee River in western New York, the great region south of us a combination of the Snake River country in Idaho, and the fissured ranges of the Silverton Quadrangle in Colorado.

“Between these rose this high partition of castellated rock.

“We descended again to the mouth of the quarry, and, led by the Superintendent, were swung far out from its dizzy sides into the lake of air between them upon a platform, used for an aerial elevator.  Chapman clung nervously to me, and complained of a light nausea and dread.  I felt only a tonic exhilaration, and as we slowly sank through the shaft of air, crossed by sunlight for some distance, and then passed into the cooler shadows of its deeper parts, where the yet level sun failed to penetrate, I cried aloud with delight, and the abyss around us shouted its salutation back.

“Still we descended, and soon saw back in the deep prolongations of the tunnel the shining walls of this phosphorescent cave.  The light glowed so effulgently that it seemed a soft radiant haze, through which came the sound of voices, and in it black figures moved incessantly.

“The method of quarrying is not unlike that of the marble quarries on the earth.  Drilling long holes in and under the stone, which from pressure has assumed a rudely cubical cleavage, separates the rock into heavy pieces.  These holes are wedged, and the rocks forced off into useful blocks.  All is done by hand, and the picture of activity, with workers constantly engaged at their various duties made a singular scene.  We walked far into the ever deepening womb of the mountain, while on either hand lateral tunnels, or rather avenues had been pushed, penetrating rich segregations wherever they had been traced, and where also glowed the welcome glow of this lithic lamp.