will know the difference, anyhow." But I must admit that for some

unaccountable reason the stationary temperature did renew my waning

hope. What I hoped for I could not have explained, nor did I try.

The very fact, as Perry took pains to explain, of the blasting of

several very exact and learned scientific hypotheses made it apparent

that we could not know what lay before us within the bowels of

the earth, and so we might continue to hope for the best, at least

until we were dead--when hope would no longer be essential to

our happiness. It was very good, and logical reasoning, and so I

embraced it.

At one hundred miles the temperature had DROPPED TO 152 1/2 DEGREES!

When I announced it Perry reached over and hugged me.

From then on until noon of the second day, it continued to drop

until it became as uncomfortably cold as it had been unbearably hot

before. At the depth of two hundred and forty miles our nostrils

were assailed by almost overpowering ammonia fumes, and the

temperature had dropped to TEN BELOW ZERO! We suffered nearly two

hours of this intense and bitter cold, until at about two hundred

and forty-five miles from the surface of the earth we entered a

stratum of solid ice, when the mercury quickly rose to 32 degrees.

During the next three hours we passed through ten miles of ice,

eventually emerging into another series of ammonia-impregnated

strata, where the mercury again fell to ten degrees below zero.

Slowly it rose once more until we were convinced that at last we

were nearing the molten interior of the earth. At four hundred

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