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Art
and
decoration
were
pursued
,
though
of
course
with
a
certain
decadence
.
The
Old
Ones
seemed
to
realize
this
falling
off
themselves
,
and
in
many
cases
anticipated
the
policy
of
Constantine
the
Great
by
transplanting
especially
fine
blocks
of
ancient
carving
from
their
land
city
,
just
as
the
emperor
,
in
a
similar
age
of
decline
,
stripped
Greece
and
Asia
of
their
finest
art
to
give
his
new
Byzantine
capital
greater
splendors
than
its
own
people
could
create
.
That
the
transfer
of
sculptured
blocks
had
not
been
more
extensive
was
doubtless
owing
to
the
fact
that
the
land
city
was
not
at
first
wholly
abandoned
.
By
the
time
total
abandonment
did
occur
--
and
it
surely
must
have
occurred
before
the
polar
Pleistocene
was
far
advanced
--
the
Old
Ones
had
perhaps
become
satisfied
with
their
decadent
art
--
or
had
ceased
to
recognize
the
superior
merit
of
the
older
carvings
.
At
any
rate
,
the
aeon-silent
ruins
around
us
had
certainly
undergone
no
wholesale
sculptural
denudation
,
though
all
the
best
separate
statues
,
like
other
movables
,
had
been
taken
away
.
The
decadent
cartouches
and
dadoes
telling
this
story
were
,
as
I
have
said
,
the
latest
we
could
find
in
our
limited
search
.
They
left
us
with
a
picture
of
the
Old
Ones
shuttling
back
and
forth
betwixt
the
land
city
in
summer
and
the
sea-cavern
city
in
winter
,
and
sometimes
trading
with
the
sea-bottom
cities
off
the
antarctic
coast
.
By
this
time
the
ultimate
doom
of
the
land
city
must
have
been
recognized
,
for
the
sculptures
showed
many
signs
of
the
cold
's
malign
encroachments
.
Vegetation
was
declining
,
and
the
terrible
snows
of
the
winter
no
longer
melted
completely
even
in
midsummer
.
The
saurian
livestock
were
nearly
all
dead
,
and
the
mammals
were
standing
it
none
too
well
.
To
keep
on
with
the
work
of
the
upper
world
it
had
become
necessary
to
adapt
some
of
the
amorphous
and
curiously
cold-resistant
Shoggoths
to
land
life
--
a
thing
the
Old
Ones
had
formerly
been
reluctant
to
do
.
The
great
river
was
now
lifeless
,
and
the
upper
sea
had
lost
most
of
its
denizens
except
the
seals
and
whales
.
All
the
birds
had
flown
away
,
save
only
the
great
,
grotesque
penguins
.
What
had
happened
afterward
we
could
only
guess
.
How
long
had
the
new
sea-cavern
city
survived
?
Was
it
still
down
there
,
a
stony
corpse
in
eternal
blackness
?
Had
the
subterranean
waters
frozen
at
last
?
To
what
fate
had
the
ocean-bottom
cities
of
the
outer
world
been
delivered
?
Had
any
of
the
Old
Ones
shifted
north
ahead
of
the
creeping
ice
cap
?
Existing
geology
shows
no
trace
of
their
presence
.
Had
the
frightful
Mi
--
Go
been
still
a
menace
in
the
outer
land
world
of
the
north
?
Could
one
be
sure
of
what
might
or
might
not
linger
,
even
to
this
day
,
in
the
lightless
and
unplumbed
abysses
of
earth
's
deepest
waters
?
Those
things
had
seemingly
been
able
to
withstand
any
amount
of
pressure
--
and
men
of
the
sea
have
fished
up
curious
objects
at
times
.
And
has
the
killer-whale
theory
really
explained
the
savage
and
mysterious
scars
on
antarctic
seals
noticed
a
generation
ago
by
Borchgrevingk
?
The
specimens
found
by
poor
Lake
did
not
enter
into
these
guesses
,
for
their
geologic
setting
proved
them
to
have
lived
at
what
must
have
been
a
very
early
date
in
the
land
city
's
history
.
They
were
,
according
to
their
location
,
certainly
not
less
than
thirty
million
years
old
,
and
we
reflected
that
in
their
day
the
sea-cavern
city
,
and
indeed
the
cavern
itself
,
had
had
no
existence
.
They
would
have
remembered
an
older
scene
,
with
lush
Tertiary
vegetation
everywhere
,
a
younger
land
city
of
flourishing
arts
around
them
,
and
a
great
river
sweeping
northward
along
the
base
of
the
mighty
mountains
toward
a
far-away
tropic
ocean
.
And
yet
we
could
not
help
thinking
about
these
specimens
--
especially
about
the
eight
perfect
ones
that
were
missing
from
Lake
's
hideously
ravaged
camp
.
There
was
something
abnormal
about
that
whole
business
--
the
strange
things
we
had
tried
so
hard
to
lay
to
somebody
's
madness
--
those
frightful
graves
--
the
amount
and
nature
of
the
missing
material
--
Gedney
--
the
unearthly
toughness
of
those
archaic
monstrosities
,
and
the
queer
vital
freaks
the
sculptures
now
showed
the
race
to
have
--
Danforth
and
I
had
seen
a
good
deal
in
the
last
few
hours
,
and
were
prepared
to
believe
and
keep
silent
about
many
appalling
and
incredible
secrets
of
primal
nature
.
I
have
said
that
our
study
of
the
decadent
sculptures
brought
about
a
change
in
our
immediate
objective
.
This
,
of
course
,
had
to
do
with
the
chiseled
avenues
to
the
black
inner
world
,
of
whose
existence
we
had
not
known
before
,
but
which
we
were
now
eager
to
find
and
traverse
.
From
the
evident
scale
of
the
carvings
we
deduced
that
a
steeply
descending
walk
of
about
a
mile
through
either
of
the
neighboring
tunnels
would
bring
us
to
the
brink
of
the
dizzy
,
sunless
cliffs
about
the
great
abyss
;
down
whose
sides
paths
,
improved
by
the
Old
Ones
,
led
to
the
rocky
shore
of
the
hidden
and
nighted
ocean
.
To
behold
this
fabulous
gulf
in
stark
reality
was
a
lure
which
seemed
impossible
of
resistance
once
we
knew
of
the
thing
--
yet
we
realized
we
must
begin
the
quest
at
once
if
we
expected
to
include
it
in
our
present
trip
.
It
was
now
8
P.
M.
,
and
we
did
not
have
enough
battery
replacements
to
let
our
torches
burn
on
forever
.
We
had
done
so
much
studying
and
copying
below
the
glacial
level
that
our
battery
supply
had
had
at
least
five
hours
of
nearly
continuous
use
,
and
despite
the
special
dry
cell
formula
,
would
obviously
be
good
for
only
about
four
more
--
though
by
keeping
one
torch
unused
,
except
for
especially
interesting
or
difficult
places
,
we
might
manage
to
eke
out
a
safe
margin
beyond
that
.
It
would
not
do
to
be
without
a
light
in
these
Cyclopean
catacombs
,
hence
in
order
to
make
the
abyss
trip
we
must
give
up
all
further
mural
deciphering
.
Of
course
we
intended
to
revisit
the
place
for
days
and
perhaps
weeks
of
intensive
study
and
photography
--
curiosity
having
long
ago
got
the
better
of
horror
--
but
just
now
we
must
hasten
.
Our
supply
of
trail-blazing
paper
was
far
from
unlimited
,
and
we
were
reluctant
to
sacrifice
spare
notebooks
or
sketching
paper
to
augment
it
,
but
we
did
let
one
large
notebook
go
.
If
worse
came
to
worst
we
could
resort
to
rock
chipping
--
and
of
course
it
would
be
possible
,
even
in
case
of
really
lost
direction
,
to
work
up
to
full
daylight
by
one
channel
or
another
if
granted
sufficient
time
for
plentiful
trial
and
error
.
So
at
last
we
set
off
eagerly
in
the
indicated
direction
of
the
nearest
tunnel
.
