Suddenly, with a furious lunge and an unwonted, violent burst of speed, we found ourselves launched upward toward the wavy, light-shot level that was our goal; and now a blinding brilliance was upon us, and for a moment we had to shade our eyes to shield them from the dazzling change. Then, when by degrees we were able to glance again about us, we found that we were on the surface of the waters, actually on the surface!--but where was this that we had come up? and in what strange and unmapped continent? There was scarcely one of us that could suppress a cry of astonishment--we were afloat, not upon the ocean, as we had expected, but rather on a wide and rapidly flowing river--a river that washed no shores, ever described by human tongue! Altogether, it was one of the weirdest and most magnificent lands imaginable; on both sides of the stream spread a flat plain, dotted with great sea shells and greenish boulders, which in their turn were interspersed with a mossy brown vegetation and pale, graceful flowers like waterlilies on solitary stalks. At measured intervals, as far as the eye could reach, were colossal stone columns, enriched with pastel tintings of pink and blue; and these shot upward hundreds of feet as though supporting some titanic dome, ending, unaccountably, in a dark, green sky from which glared several sun-like, golden orbs, which suffused the scene in a mellow, unearthly luster that was beautiful, yet terrifying and ghostly. Rubbing our eyes, like children still not half awake, we gazed at this fantastic, lovely spectacle. Not a word did we speak; we could not have found language to voice our amazement. Only the Captain, out of the whole thirty-nine of us, retained some measure of self-possession; and though, as he afterwards confessed, he was so dazzled that he spoke and acted mechanically, he did retain the presence of mind to order our vessel steered to shore and anchored. It is still a marvel to me that we had the energy to carry out these commands. Somehow we brought the X-111 to land; and somehow, after several false starts, we managed to moor the ship to a large boulder in a sort of miniature bay. And then Stranahan proved again that he possessed an original mind. Not only was he the first to force himself out of the opening door of the submarine, but he carried out a large American flag, which he planted in the ground among the brown weeds between the boulders, while with sedate and ceremonious gestures, he proclaimed, “In the name of the United States of America, I take possession of this land!”