At the MOUNTAINS of MADNESS
By H. P. LOVECRAFT
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Astounding Stories February, March, April 1936.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to followmy advice without knowing why. It is altogether against my will thatI tell my reasons for opposing this contemplated invasion of theantarctic—with its vast fossil hunt and its wholesale boring andmelting of the ancient ice caps. And I am the more reluctant because mywarning may be in vain.
Doubt of the real facts, as I must reveal them, is inevitable; yet,if I suppressed what will seem extravagant and incredible there wouldbe nothing left. The hitherto withheld photographs, both ordinaryand aërial, will count in my favor, for they are damnably vivid andgraphic. Still, they will be doubted because of the great lengths towhich clever fakery can be carried. The ink drawings, of course, willbe jeered at as obvious impostures; notwithstanding a strangeness andtechnique which art experts ought to remark and puzzle over.
In the end I must rely on the judgment and standing of the fewscientific leaders who have, on the one hand, sufficient independenceof thought to weigh my data on its own hideously convincing merits orin the light of certain primordial and highly baffling myth cycles;and on the other hand, sufficient influence to deter the exploringworld in general from any rash and over-ambitious program in the regionof those mountains of madness.
It is an unfortunate fact that relatively obscure men like myself andmy associates, connected only with a small university, have littlechance of making an impression where matters of a wildly bizarre orhighly controversial natures are concerned.
It is further against us that we are not, in the strictest sense,specialists in the fields which came primarily to be concerned. As ageologist, my object in leading the Miskatonic University Expeditionwas wholly that of securing deep-level specimens of rock and soil fromvarious parts of the antarctic continent, aided by the remarkable drilldevised by Professor Frank H. Pabodie of our engineering department.
I had no wish to be a pioneer in any other field than this, but I didhope that the use of this new mechanical appliance at different pointsalong previously explored paths would bring to light materials of asort hitherto unreached by the ordinary methods of collection.
Pabodie's drilling apparatus, as the public already knows from ourreports, was unique and radical in its lightness, portability, andcapacity to combine the ordinary Artesian drill principle with theprinciple of the small circular rock drill in such a way as to copequickly with strata of varying hardness.
Steel head, jointed rods, gasoline motor, collapsible wooden derrick,dynamiting paraphernalia, cording, rubbish-removal auger, and sectionalpiping for bores five inches wide and up to one thousand feet deep allformed, with needed accessories, no greater load than three seven-dogsledges could carry. This was made possible by the clever aluminumalloy of which most of the metal objects were fashioned.
Four large Dornier aëroplanes, designed especially for the tremendousaltitude flying necessary on the antarctic plateau and with addedfuel-warming and quick-starting devices worked out by Pabodie, couldtransport our entire expedition from a base at the edge of the greatice barrier to