Chapter XI.
Nothing had more perplexed me in seeking to reconcile my sense
to the existence of regions extending below the surface of the
earth, and habitable by beings, if dissimilar from, still, in
all material points of organism, akin to those in the upper
world, than the contradiction thus presented to the doctrine in
which, I believe, most geologists and philosophers concur-
viz., that though with us the sun is the great source of heat,
yet the deeper we go beneath the crust of the earth, the
greater is the increasing heat, being, it is said, found in the
46ratio of a degree for every foot, commencing from fifty feet
below the surface. But though the domains of the tribe I speak
of were, on the higher ground, so comparatively near to the
surface, that I could account for a temperature, therein,
suitable to organic life, yet even the ravines and valleys of
that realm were much less hot than philosophers would deem
possible at such a depth- certainly not warmer than the south of
France, or at least of Italy. And according to all the accounts
I received, vast tracts immeasurably deeper beneath the surface,
and in which one might have thought only salamanders could
exist, were inhabited by innumerable races organised like
ourselves, I cannot pretend in any way to account for a fact
which is so at variance with the recognised laws of science, nor
could Zee much help me towards a solution of it. She did but
conjecture that sufficient allowance had not been made by our
philosophers for the extreme porousness of the interior earth-
the vastness of its cavities and irregularities, which served to
create free currents of air and frequent winds- and for the
various modes in which heat is evaporated and thrown off. She
allowed, however, that there was a depth at which the heat was
deemed to be intolerable to such organised life as was known to
the experience of the Vril-ya, though their philosophers
believed that even in such places life of some kind, life
sentient, life intellectual, would be found abundant and
thriving, could the philosophers penetrate to it. "Wherever the
All-Good builds," said she, "there, be sure, He places
inhabitants. He loves not empty dwellings." She added,
however, that many changes in temperature and climate had been
effected by the skill of the Vril-ya, and that the agency of
vril had been successfully employed in such changes. She
described a subtle and life-giving medium called Lai, which I
suspect to be identical with the ethereal oxygen of Dr. Lewins,
wherein work all the correlative forces united under the name of
vril; and contended that wherever this medium could be expanded,
as it were, sufficiently for the various agencies of vril to
47have ample play, a temperature congenial to the highest forms of
life could be secured. She said also, that it was the belief of
their naturalists that flowers and vegetation had been produced
originally (whether developed from seeds borne from the surface
of the earth in the earlier convulsions of nature, or imported
by the tribes that first sought refuge in cavernous hollows)
through the operations of the light constantly brought to bear
on them, and the gradual improvement in culture. She said also,
that since the vril light had superseded all other light-giving
bodies, the colours of flower and foliage had become more
brilliant, and vegetation had acquired larger growth.
Leaving these matters to the consideration of those better
competent to deal with them, I must now devote a few pages to
the very interesting questions connected with the language of
the Vril-ya.
