Brenda
1st October 2007, 01:46 AM
I've been reading a collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short science fiction, including a story featuring Professor Challenger from The Lost World. The story is called "When the World Screamed" and made me wonder if Anne had it in the back of her mind when she created Petaybee!
In it, Professor Challenger theorizes that the earth is a living creature, and determines to wake it; he has a crew drill down eight miles through the crust, at which point they reach a very strange "soft" layer. They drop an artesian drill down into it, and barely make it out alive before there is an impossible noise as the very earth screams; all the lifts and other apparatus are violently ejected from the tunnel, followed by an enormous amount of foul-smelling sludge; and at the same time, all around the world, violent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions register the Earth's distress at having been pricked.
It was that last bit about the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that really made me think of Petaybee.
In it, Professor Challenger theorizes that the earth is a living creature, and determines to wake it; he has a crew drill down eight miles through the crust, at which point they reach a very strange "soft" layer. They drop an artesian drill down into it, and barely make it out alive before there is an impossible noise as the very earth screams; all the lifts and other apparatus are violently ejected from the tunnel, followed by an enormous amount of foul-smelling sludge; and at the same time, all around the world, violent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions register the Earth's distress at having been pricked.
It was that last bit about the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that really made me think of Petaybee.