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With
the
upheaval
of
new
land
in
the
South
Pacific
tremendous
events
began
.
Some
of
the
marine
cities
were
hopelessly
shattered
,
yet
that
was
not
the
worst
misfortune
.
Another
race
--
a
land
race
of
beings
shaped
like
octopi
and
probably
corresponding
to
fabulous
prehuman
spawn
of
Cthulhu
--
soon
began
filtering
down
from
cosmic
infinity
and
precipitated
a
--
monstrous
war
which
for
a
time
drove
the
Old
Ones
wholly
back
to
the
sea
--
a
colossal
blow
in
view
of
the
increasing
land
settlements
.
Later
peace
was
made
,
and
the
new
lands
were
given
to
the
Cthulhu
spawn
whilst
the
Old
Ones
held
the
sea
and
the
older
lands
.
New
land
cities
were
founded
--
the
greatest
of
them
in
the
antarctic
,
for
this
region
of
first
arrival
was
sacred
.
From
then
on
,
as
before
,
the
antarctic
remained
the
center
of
the
Old
Ones
'
civilization
,
and
all
the
cities
built
there
by
the
Cthulhu
spawn
were
blotted
out
.
Then
suddenly
the
lands
of
the
Pacific
sank
again
,
taking
with
them
the
frightful
stone
city
of
R'lyeh
and
all
the
cosmic
octopi
,
so
that
the
Old
Ones
were
again
supreme
on
the
planet
except
for
one
shadowy
fear
about
which
they
did
not
like
to
speak
.
At
a
rather
later
age
their
cities
dotted
all
the
land
and
water
areas
of
the
globe
--
hence
the
recommendation
in
my
coming
monograph
that
some
archaeologist
make
systematic
borings
with
Pabodie
's
type
of
apparatus
in
certain
widely
separated
regions
.
The
steady
trend
down
the
ages
was
from
water
to
land
--
a
movement
encouraged
by
the
rise
of
new
land
masses
,
though
the
ocean
was
never
wholly
deserted
.
Another
cause
of
the
landward
movement
was
the
new
difficulty
in
breeding
and
managing
the
Shoggoths
upon
which
successful
sea
life
depended
.
With
the
march
of
time
,
as
the
sculptures
sadly
confessed
,
the
art
of
creating
new
life
from
inorganic
matter
had
been
lost
,
so
that
the
Old
Ones
had
to
depend
on
the
molding
of
forms
already
in
existence
.
On
land
the
great
reptiles
proved
highly
tractable
;
but
the
Shoggoths
of
the
sea
,
reproducing
by
fission
and
acquiring
a
dangerous
degree
of
accidental
intelligence
,
presented
for
a
time
a
formidable
problem
.
They
had
always
been
controlled
through
the
hypnotic
suggestions
of
the
Old
Ones
,
and
had
modeled
their
tough
plasticity
into
various
useful
temporary
limbs
and
organs
;
but
now
their
self-modeling
powers
were
sometimes
exercised
independently
,
and
in
various
imitative
forms
implanted
by
past
suggestion
.
They
had
,
it
seems
,
developed
a
semistable
brain
whose
separate
and
occasionally
stubborn
volition
echoed
the
will
of
the
Old
Ones
without
always
obeying
it
.
Sculptured
images
of
these
Shoggoths
filled
Danforth
and
me
with
horror
and
loathing
.
They
were
normally
shapeless
entities
composed
of
a
viscous
jelly
which
looked
like
an
agglutination
of
bubbles
,
and
each
averaged
about
fifteen
feet
in
diameter
when
a
sphere
.
They
had
,
however
,
a
constantly
shifting
shape
and
volume
--
throwing
out
temporary
developments
or
forming
apparent
organs
of
sight
,
hearing
,
and
speech
in
imitation
of
their
masters
,
either
spontaneously
or
according
to
suggestion
.
They
seem
to
have
become
peculiarly
intractable
toward
the
middle
of
the
Permian
Age
,
perhaps
one
hundred
and
fifty
million
years
ago
,
when
a
veritable
war
of
resubjugation
was
waged
upon
them
by
the
marine
Old
Ones
.
Pictures
of
this
war
,
and
of
the
headless
,
slime-coated
fashion
in
which
the
Shoggoths
typically
left
their
slain
victims
,
held
a
marvelously
fearsome
quality
despite
the
intervening
abyss
of
untold
ages
.
The
Old
Ones
had
used
curious
weapons
of
molecular
and
atomic
disturbances
against
the
rebel
entities
,
and
in
the
end
had
achieved
a
complete
victory
.
Thereafter
the
sculptures
showed
a
period
in
which
Shoggoths
were
tamed
and
broken
by
armed
Old
Ones
as
the
wild
horses
of
the
American
west
were
tamed
by
cowboys
.
Though
during
the
rebellion
the
Shoggoths
had
shown
an
ability
to
live
out
of
water
,
this
transition
was
not
encouraged
--
since
their
usefulness
on
land
would
hardly
have
been
commensurate
with
the
trouble
of
their
management
.
During
the
Jurassic
Age
the
Old
Ones
met
fresh
adversity
in
the
form
of
a
new
invasion
from
outer
space
--
this
time
by
half-fungous
,
half-crustacean
creatures
--
creatures
undoubtedly
the
same
as
those
figuring
in
certain
whispered
hill
legends
of
the
north
,
and
remembered
in
the
Himalayas
as
the
Mi
--
Go
,
or
Abominable
Snow
Men
.
To
fight
these
beings
the
Old
Ones
attempted
,
for
the
first
time
since
their
terrene
advent
,
to
sally
forth
again
into
the
planetary
ether
;
but
,
despite
all
traditional
preparations
,
found
it
no
longer
possible
to
leave
the
earth
's
atmosphere
.
Whatever
the
old
secret
of
interstellar
travel
had
been
,
it
was
now
definitely
lost
to
the
race
.
In
the
end
the
Mi
--
Go
drove
the
Old
Ones
out
of
all
the
northern
lands
,
though
they
were
powerless
to
disturb
those
in
the
sea
.
Little
by
little
the
slow
retreat
of
the
elder
race
to
their
original
antarctic
habitat
was
beginning
.
It
was
curious
to
note
from
the
pictured
battles
that
both
the
Cthulhu
spawn
and
the
Mi
--
Go
seem
to
have
been
composed
of
matter
more
widely
different
from
that
which
we
know
than
was
the
substance
of
the
Old
Ones
.
They
were
able
to
undergo
transformations
and
reintegrations
impossible
for
their
adversaries
,
and
seem
therefore
to
have
originally
come
from
even
remoter
gulfs
of
the
cosmic
space
.
The
Old
Ones
,
but
for
their
abnormal
toughness
and
peculiar
vital
properties
,
were
strictly
material
,
and
must
have
had
their
absolute
origin
within
the
known
space-time
continuum
--
whereas
the
first
sources
of
the
other
beings
can
only
be
guessed
at
with
bated
breath
.
All
this
,
of
course
,
assuming
that
the
non-terrestrial
linkages
and
the
anomalies
ascribed
to
the
invading
foes
are
not
pure
mythology
.
Conceivably
,
the
Old
Ones
might
have
invented
a
cosmic
framework
to
account
for
their
occasional
defeats
,
since
historical
interest
and
pride
obviously
formed
their
chief
psychological
element
.
It
is
significant
that
their
annals
failed
to
mention
many
advanced
and
potent
races
of
beings
whose
mighty
cultures
and
towering
cities
figure
persistently
in
certain
obscure
legends
.
The
changing
state
of
the
world
through
long
geologic
ages
appeared
with
startling
vividness
in
many
of
the
sculptured
maps
and
scenes
.
In
certain
cases
existing
science
will
require
revision
,
while
in
other
cases
its
bold
deductions
are
magnificently
confirmed
.
As
I
have
said
,
the
hypothesis
of
Taylor
,
Wegener
,
and
Joly
that
all
the
continents
are
fragments
of
an
original
antarctic
land
mass
which
cracked
from
centrifugal
force
and
drifted
apart
over
a
technically
viscous
lower
surface
--
an
hypothesis
suggested
by
such
things
as
the
complementary
outlines
of
Africa
and
South
America
,
and
the
way
the
great
mountain
chains
are
rolled
and
shoved
up
--
receives
striking
support
from
this
uncanny
source
.
Maps
evidently
showing
the
Carboniferous
world
of
an
hundred
million
or
more
years
ago
displayed
significant
rifts
and
chasms
destined
later
to
separate
Africa
from
the
once
continuous
realms
of
Europe
(
then
the
Valusia
of
primal
legend
)
,
Asia
,
the
Americas
,
and
the
antarctic
continent
.
Other
charts
--
and
most
significantly
one
in
connection
with
the
founding
fifty
million
years
ago
of
the
vast
dead
city
around
us
--
showed
all
the
present
continents
well
differentiated
.
And
in
the
latest
discoverable
specimen
--
dating
perhaps
from
the
Pliocene
Age
--
the
approximate
world
of
today
appeared
quite
clearly
despite
the
linkage
of
Alaska
with
Siberia
,
of
North
America
with
Europe
through
Greenland
,
and
of
South
America
with
the
antarctic
continent
through
Graham
Land
.
In
the
Carboniferous
map
the
whole
globe-ocean
floor
and
rifted
land
mass
alike
--
bore
symbols
of
the
Old
Ones
'
vast
stone
cities
,
but
in
the
later
charts
the
gradual
recession
toward
the
antarctic
became
very
plain
.
The
final
Pliocene
specimen
showed
no
land
cities
except
on
the
antarctic
continent
and
the
tip
of
South
America
,
nor
any
ocean
cities
north
of
the
fiftieth
parallel
of
South
Latitude
.
Knowledge
and
interest
in
the
northern
world
,
save
for
a
study
of
coast
lines
probably
made
during
long
exploration
flights
on
those
fanlike
membranous
wings
,
had
evidently
declined
to
zero
among
the
Old
Ones
.
Destruction
of
cities
through
the
upthrust
of
mountains
,
the
centrifugal
rending
of
continents
,
the
seismic
convulsions
of
land
or
sea
bottom
,
and
other
natural
causes
,
was
a
matter
of
common
record
;
and
it
was
curious
to
observe
how
fewer
and
fewer
replacements
were
made
as
the
ages
wore
on
.
The
vast
dead
megalopolis
that
yawned
around
us
seemed
to
be
the
last
general
center
of
the
race
--
built
early
in
the
Cretaceous
Age
after
a
titanic
earth
buckling
had
obliterated
a
still
vaster
predecessor
not
far
distant
.
