I believe I thought they were men who walked on their
heads, for in those days I much preferred guessing at things I did not
understand, to asking someone who knew how to explain them to me. So you
see I understood so very little, that I actually thought that by getting up
early and working hard it would be quite easy for me, with my little spade,
to dig right down to the other side of this mighty globe!
However, one day, before I had made more than an opening to my tunnel, I
listened to a conversation about digging deep wells and mines. I could not
understand most of what was said, nor did I know the meaning of any of the
long words which I then heard for the first time; but there was one thing
which I did understand, and this made me stop short in my work, afraid to
dig another spadeful of earth. I had thought it would be so delightful to
walk through my tunnel, and come out at the other side where the strange
New Zealand people lived; but now my great dread was lest I should get to
the inside of the earth before I was aware of it, when I had dug perhaps
only a little hole; for those who were speaking about it, said how
impossible it was to get very far below the surface,--or, as they called
it, very deep into the "crust" of the earth--because of the great heat,
which makes the men who work in deep mines glad to throw off their clothes.
"The deeper the bore, the greater the heat," they said; and then went on to
speak of this crust as if it covered the earth as the shell covers an egg,
so that I thought it might perhaps be broken just as easily.
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