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.