H.P. Lovecraft. At the Mountains of Madness
At the Mountains of Madness
by H. P. Lovecraft
Written Feb-22 Mar 1931
Published February-April 1936 in Astounding Stories, Vol. 16, No. 6
(February 1936), p. 8-32; Vol. 17, No. 1 (March 1936), p. 125-55; Vol. 17,
No. 2 (April 1936), p. 132-50.
I
I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my
advice without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell
my reasons for opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarctic - with
its vast fossil hunt and its wholesale boring and melting of the ancient
ice caps. And I am the more reluctant because my warning may be in vain.
Doubt of the real facts, as I must reveal them, is inevitable; yet, if I
suppressed what will seem extravagant and incredible, there would be
nothing left. The hitherto withheld photographs, both ordinary and aerial,
will count in my favor, for they are damnably vivid and graphic. Still,
they will be doubted because of the great lengths to which clever fakery
can be carried. The ink drawings, of course, will be jeered at as obvious
impostures, notwithstanding a strangeness of technique which art experts
ought to remark and puzzle over.
In the end I must rely on the judgment and standing of the few scientific
leaders who have, on the one hand, sufficient independence of thought to
weigh my data on its own hideously convincing merits or in the light of
certain primordial and highly baffling myth cycles; and on the other hand,
sufficient influence to deter the exploring world in general from any rash
and over-ambitious program in the region of those mountains of madness. It
is an unfortunate fact that relatively obscure men like myself and my
associates, connected only with a small university, have little chance of
making an impression where matters of a wildly bizarre or highly
controversial nature are concerned.
It is further against us that we are not, in the strictest sense,
specialists in the fields which came primarily to be concerned. As a
geologist, my object in leading the Miskatonic University Expedition was
wholly that of securing deep-level specimens of rock and soil from various
parts of the antarctic continent, aided by the remarkable drill devised by
Professor Frank H. Pabodie of our engineering department. I had no wish to
be a pioneer in any other field than this, but I did hope that the use of
this new mechanical appliance at different points along previously
explored paths would bring to light materials of a sort hitherto unreached
by the ordinary methods of collection.
Pabodie's drilling apparatus, as the public already knows from our
reports, was unique and radical in its lightness, portability, and
capacity to combine the ordinary artesian drill principle with the
principle of the small circular rock drill in such a way as to cope
quickly with strata of varying hardness. Steel head, jointed rods,
gasoline motor, collapsible wooden derrick, dynamiting paraphernalia,
cording, rubbish-removal auger, and sectional piping for bores five inches
wide and up to one thousand feet deep all formed, with needed accessories,
no greater load than three seven-dog sledges could carry. This was made
possible by the clever aluminum alloy of which most of the metal objects
were fashioned. Four large Dornier aeroplanes, designed especially for the
tremendous altitude flying necessary on the antarctic plateau and with
added fuel-warming and quick-starting devices worked out by Pabodie, could
transport our entire expedition from a base at the edge of the great ice
barrier to various suitable inland points, and from these points a
sufficient quota of dogs would serve us.
We planned to cover as great an area as one antarctic season - or longer,
if absolutely necessary - would permit, operating mostly in the mountain
ranges and on the plateau south of Ross Sea; regions explored in varying
degree by Shackleton, Amundsen, Scott, and Byrd. With frequent changes of
camp, made by aeroplane and involving distances great enough to be of
geological significance, we expected to unearth a quite unprecedented
amount of material - especially in the pre-Cambrian strata of which so
narrow a range of antarctic specimens had previously been secured. We
wished also to obtain as great as possible a variety of the upper
fossiliferous rocks, since the primal life history of this bleak realm of
ice and death is of the highest importance to our knowledge of the earth's
past. That the antarctic continent was once temperate and even tropical,
with a teeming vegetable and animal life of which the lichens, marine
fauna, arachnida, and penguins of the northern edge are the only
survivals, is a matter of common information; and we hoped to expand that
information in variety, accuracy, and detail. When a simple boring
revealed fossiliferous signs, we would enlarge the aperture by blasting,
in order to get specimens of suitable size and condition.
Our borings, of varying depth according to the promise held out by the
upper soil or rock, were to be confined to exposed, or nearly exposed,
land surfaces - these inevitably being slopes and ridges because of the
mile or two-mile thickness of solid ice overlying the lower levels. We
could not afford to waste drilling the depth of any considerable amount of
mere glaciation, though Pabodie had worked out a plan for sinking copper
electrodes in thick clusters of borings and melting off limited areas of
ice with current from a gasoline-driven dynamo. It is this plan - which we
could not put into effect except experimentally on an expedition such as
ours - that the coming Starkweather-Moore Expedition proposes to follow,
despite the warnings I have issued since our return from the antarctic.
The public knows of the Miskatonic Expedition through our frequent
wireless reports to the Arkham Advertiser and Associated Press, and
through the later articles of Pabodie and myself. We consisted of four men
from the University - Pabodie, Lake of the biology department, Atwood of
the physics department - also a meteorologist - and myself, representing
geology and having nominal command - besides sixteen assistants: seven
graduate students from Miskatonic and nine skilled mechanics. Of these
sixteen, twelve were qualified aeroplane pilots, all but two of whom were
competent wireless operators. Eight of them understood navigation with
compass and sextant, as did Pabodie, Atwood, and I. In addition, of
course, our two ships - wooden ex-whalers, reinforced for ice conditions
and having auxiliary steam - were fully manned.
The Nathaniel Derby Pickman Foundation, aided by a few special
contributions, financed the expedition; hence our preparations were
extremely thorough, despite the absence of great publicity. The dogs,
sledges, machines, camp materials, and unassembled parts of our five
planes were delivered in Boston, and there our ships were loaded. We were
marvelously well-equipped for our specific purposes, and in all matters
pertaining to supplies, regimen, transportation, and camp construction we
profited by the excellent example of our many recent and exceptionally
brilliant predecessors. It was the unusual number and fame of these
predecessors which made our own expedition - ample though it was - so
little noticed by the world at large.
As the newspapers told, we sailed from Boston Harbor on September 2nd,
1930, taking a leisurely course down the coast and through the Panama
Canal, and stopping at Samoa and Hobart, Tasmania, at which latter place
we took on final supplies. None of our exploring party had ever been in