“Ah, that once mooted point is settled.  Though hard at first, it proved a bagatelle.  Start not my lord; there are those who have measured Mardi by perch and pole, and with their wonted lead sounded its utmost depths.  Listen:  it is a pleasant story.  The coral wall which circumscribes the isles but continues upward the deep buried crater of the primal chaos.  In the first times this crucible was charged with vapors nebulous, boiling over fires volcanic.  Age by age, the fluid thickened; dropping, at long intervals, heavy sediment to the bottom; which layer on layer concreted, and at length, in crusts, rose toward the surface.  Then, the vast volcano burst; rent the whole mass; upthrew the ancient rocks; which now in divers mountain tops tell tales of what existed ere Mardi was completely fashioned.  Hence many fossils on the hills, whose kith and kin still lurk beneath the vales.  Thus Nature works, at random warring, chaos a crater, and this world a shell.”

Mohi stroked his beard.

Yoomy yawned.

Media cried, “Preposterous!”

“My lord, then take another theory—­which you will—­the celebrated sandwich System.  Nature’s first condition was a soup, wherein the agglomerating solids formed granitic dumplings, which, wearing down, deposited the primal stratum made up of series, sandwiching strange shapes of mollusks, and zoophytes; then snails, and periwinkles:—­ marmalade to sip, and nuts to crack, ere the substantials came.

“And next, my lord, we have the fine old time of the Old Red Sandstone sandwich, clapped on the underlying layer, and among other dainties, imbedding the first course of fish,—­all quite in rule,—­sturgeon-forms, cephalaspis, glyptolepis, pterichthys; and other finny things, of flavor rare, but hard to mouth for bones.  Served up with these, were sundry greens,—­lichens, mosses, ferns, and fungi.

“Now comes the New Red Sandstone sandwich:  marly and magnesious, spread over with old patriarchs of crocodiles and alligators,—­hard carving these,—­and prodigious lizards, spine-skewered, tails tied in bows, and swimming in saffron saucers.”

“What next?” cried Media.

“The Ool, or Oily sandwich:—­rare gormandizing then; for oily it was called, because of fat old joints, and hams, and rounds, and barons of sea-beeves and walrusses, which then crowned the stratum-board.  All piled together, glorious profusion!—­fillets and briskets, rumps, and saddles, and haunches; shoulder to shoulder, loin ’gainst sirloin, ribs rapping knuckles, and quarter to none.  And all these sandwiched right over all that went before.  Course after course, and course on course, my lord; no time to clear the wreck; no stop nor let; lay on and slash; cut, thrust, and come.