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Very slight, however, in comparison was the regard which these astronomical
wonders attracted on board the Dobryna. All interest there was too much
absorbed in terrestrial matters, and in ascertaining what changes had taken
place in the configuration of the earth itself, to permit much attention
to be paid to its erratic movements through space.
The schooner kept bravely on her way, but well out to sea,
at a distance of two miles from land. There was good need
of this precaution, for so precipitous was the shore that a
vessel driven upon it must inevitably have gone to pieces;
it did not offer a single harbor of refuge, but, smooth and
perpendicular as the walls of a fortress, it rose to a height
of two hundred, and occasionally of three hundred feet.
The waves dashed violently against its base. Upon the general
substratum rested a massive conglomerate, the crystallizations
of which rose like a forest of gigantic pyramids and obelisks.
But what struck the explorers more than anything was the appearance
of singular newness that pervaded the whole of the region.
It all seemed so recent in its formation that the atmosphere had had no
opportunity of producing its wonted effect in softening the hardness
of its lines, in rounding the sharpness of its angles, or in modifying
the color of its surface; its outline was clearly marked against the sky,
and its substance, smooth and polished as though fresh from a founder's mold,
glittered with the metallic brilliancy that is characteristic of pyrites.
It seemed impossible to come to any other conclusion but that the land
before them, continent or island, had been upheaved by subterranean
forces above the surface of the sea, and that it was mainly composed
of the same metallic element as had characterized the dust so frequently
uplifted from the bottom.
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