Let the reader who has followed this strange story which I am directed to title "The End of Earth," and who, in imagination, has traversed the cavernous passages of the underworld and listened to the conversation of those two personages who journeyed towards the secrets of the Beyond, return now to upper earth, and once more enter my secluded lodgings, the home of Llewellen Drury, him who listened to the aged guest and who claims your present attention. Remember that I relate a story within a story. That importunate guest of mine, of the glittering knife and the silvery hair, like another Ancient Mariner, had constrained me to listen to his narrative, as he read it aloud to me from the manuscript. I patiently heard chapter after chapter, generally with pleasure, often with surprise, sometimes with incredulity, or downright dissent. Much of the narrative, I must say,--yes, most of it, appeared possible, if not probable, as taken in its connected sequence. The scientific sections were not uninteresting; the marvels of the fungus groves, the properties of the inner light, I was not disinclined to accept as true to natural laws; but when The-Man-Who-Did-It came to tell of the intra-earth salt deposits, and to explain the cause of the disappearance of lakes that formerly existed underground, and their simultaneous replacement by beds of salt, my credulity was overstrained. "Permit me to interrupt your narrative," I remarked, and then in response to my request the venerable guest laid down his paper. "Well?" he said, interrogatively. "I do not believe that last statement concerning the salt lake, and, to speak plainly, I would not have accepted it as you did, even had I been in your situation." "To what do you allude?" he asked. "The physical abstraction of water from the salt of a solution of salt; I do not believe it possible unless by evaporation of the water." "You seem to accept as conclusive the statements of men who have never investigated beneath the surface in these directions, and you question the evidence of a man who has seen the phenomenon. I presume you accept the prevailing notions about salt beds, as you do the assertion that liquids seek a common level, which your scientific authorities also teach as a law of nature?" "Yes; I do believe that liquids seek a common level, and I am willing to credit your other improbable statements if you can demonstrate the principle of liquid equilibrium to be untrue." "Then," said he, "to-morrow evening I will show you that fluids seek different levels, and also explain to you how liquids may leave the solids they hold in solution without evaporating from them."