A book presented as Olaf Jansen's truthful record by Willis George Emerson about a journey beneath the earth.
Basics
- Genre: Science fiction, adventure
- Protagonist: Olaf Jansen
- Antagonist: The dangers of the ice caps, society's disbelief
- Setting: California, the Arctic Ocean, the interior of the earth, the Antarctic Ocean, the 1890s.
- Theme: Adventure
- Recommend?: No. I guess there is some rumor that the maps and "meaty" chapters of the book are held in secret at the Smithsonian. That is exactly how the book reads - long buildup, very brief description of the interior of earth, and then there is an abrupt skip to a heavily detailed wind-down. Very jarring and anticlimactic.
The author befriended Olaf Jansen, was suddenly informed of his failing health, and was entrusted with data, drawing, and maps to disseminate into the world. ...Olaf must have wasted all his final breaths on describing the Arctic expedition or something because nothing else happens at all in the novel. The pacing is bizarre.
Some reviews around the internet claim there are chapters and maps missing, and that they've read the complete version and it's amazing. Others claim the Smithsonian confiscated them and only allow us to read a few chapters. I really don't know. The arctic voyage was pretty exciting to read, so I'd like to read the rest of his adventure if it's out there, but I somehow doubt a fictional account of a giant subterranean redwood forest or whatever can be regarded as protected knowledge. I just think the author lost his steam after the sailing arc and lacked the whimsy required for the fantasy arc. He wrote several other books, so I'm curious what genre he prefers.
Inner Earth
The people are giants, and the redwoods would be underbrush compared to the forest under the earth. They stayed at Jehu but the capital was Eden. The people practically spoke Sanskrit (can't you tell, with their naming language?). They use electrical bullet railways (like Goddess of Atvatabar). The ruler of the continent is also the high priest. Men don't marry until 75-100 years of age, and men and women live to 600-800 years old. They love music, arts, and science, etc. A hazy mist goes up from the land each evening and it invariably rains every day. The land is humid, has invigorating electrical light and warmth, and has luxuriant vegetation and long-living animals like elephants.
And the smoky god is a light source.
The great luminous cloud or ball of dull-red fire—fiery-red in the mornings and evenings, and during the day giving off a beautiful white light, "The Smoky God,"—is seemingly suspended in the center of the great vacuum "within" the earth, and held to its place by the immutable law of gravitation, or a repellant atmospheric force, as the case may be. I refer to the known power that draws or repels with equal force in all directions.
The base of this electrical cloud or central luminary, the seat of the gods, is dark and non-transparent, save for innumerable small openings, seemingly in the bottom of the great support or altar of the Deity, upon which "The Smoky God" rests; and, the lights shining through these many openings twinkle at night in all their splendor, and seem to be stars, as natural as the stars we saw shining when in our home at Stockholm, excepting that they appear larger. "The Smoky God," therefore, with each daily revolution of the earth, appears to come up in the east and go down in the west, the same as does our sun on the external surface. In reality, the people "within" believe that "The Smoky God" is the throne of their Jehovah, and is stationary. The effect of night and day is, therefore, produced by the earth's daily rotation.
Then they leave for home. The end.
Afterword
It is impossible for me to express my opinion as to the value or reliability of the wonderful statements made by Olaf Jansen. The description here given of the strange lands and people visited by him, location of cities, the names and directions of rivers, and other information herein combined, conform in every way to the rough drawings given into my custody by this ancient Norseman, which drawings together with the manuscript it is my intention at some later date to give to the Smithsonian Institution, to preserve for the benefit of those interested in the mysteries of the "Farthest North"—the frozen circle of silence. It is certain there are many things in Vedic literature, in "Josephus," the "Odyssey," the "Iliad," Terrien de Lacouperie's "Early History of Chinese Civilization," Flammarion's "Astronomical Myths," Lenormant's "Beginnings of History," Hesiod's "Theogony," Sir John de Maundeville's writings, and Sayce's "Records of the Past," that, to say the least, are strangely in harmony with the seemingly incredible text found in the yellow manuscript of the old Norseman, Olaf Jansen, and now for the first time given to the world.