At the Mountains of Madness

I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice
without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell my reasons for
opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarctic - with its vast fossil hunt
and its wholesale boring and melting of the ancient ice caps. And I am the more
reluctant because my warning 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 would be nothing
left. The hitherto withheld photographs, both ordinary and aerial, will count in
my favor, for they are damnably vivid and graphic. Still, they will be doubted
because of the great lengths to which clever fakery can be carried. The ink
drawings, of course, will be jeered at as obvious impostures, notwithstanding a
strangeness of technique which art experts ought to remark and puzzle over.
In the end I must rely on the judgment and standing of the few scientific
leaders who have, on the one hand, sufficient independence of thought to weigh
my data on its own hideously convincing merits or in the light of certain
primordial and highly baffling myth cycles; and on the other hand, sufficient
influence to deter the exploring world in general from any rash and
over-ambitious program in the region of those mountains of madness. It is an
unfortunate fact that relatively obscure men like myself and my associates,
connected only with a small university, have little chance of making an
impression where matters of a wildly bizarre or highly controversial nature 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 a ge ologist, my object in
leading the Miskatonic University Expedition was wholly that of securing
deep-level specimens of rock and soil from various parts of the antarctic
continent, aided by the remarkable drill devised 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 did hope that the use of this new mechanical appliance at
different points along previously explored paths would bring to light materials
of a sort hitherto unreached by the ordinary methods of collection.
Pabodie's drilling apparatus, as the public already knows from our reports, was
unique and radical in its lightness, portability, and capacity to combine the
ordinary artesian drill principle with the principle of the small circular rock
drill in such a way as to cope quickly with strata of varying hardness. Steel

head, jointed rods, gasoline motor, collapsible wooden derrick, dynamiting
paraphernalia, cording, rubbish-removal auger, and sectional piping for bores
five inches wide and up to one thousand feet deep all formed, with needed
accessories, no greater load than three seven-dog sledges could carry. This was
made possible by the clever aluminum alloy of which most of the metal objects
were fashioned. Four large Dornier aeroplanes, designed especially for the
tremendous altitude flying necessary on the antarctic plateau and with added
fuel-warming and quick-starting devices worked out by Pabodie, could transport
our entire expedition from a base at the edge of the great ice barrier to
various suitable inland points, and from these points a sufficient quota of dogs
would serve us.