Into the Green Prism
By A. Hyatt Verrill
Copyright © March, April 1929 A. Hyatt Verrill
This edition published in 2011 by eStar Books, LLC.
www.estarbooks.com
ISBN 9781612101651
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Into the Green Prism
By A. Hyatt Verrill
CHAPTER I
It is rather a difficult matter for a scientist to write intelligently, and interestingly of a science with which he is not thoroughly familiar, and it is still harder for one who is accustomed to dealing with hard facts and purely scientific truths to record matters which, to those who have never come into contact with them, must appear purely imaginary and highly improbable. Hence it is with the greatest hesitation, and only alter long consideration and innumerable urgings from my fellow scientists, that I have decided to relate the truly remarkable story of the astonishing discoveries, and the incredible incidents that resulted there from, which were made by my friend, Professor Ramon Amador, while he was associated with me in South America.
As I think the matter over, I feel convinced that Professor Amador without doubt made the most notable and revolutionary discovery in physics which has been made in the last two centuries. Not only did it completely upset many supposed laws and theories which had been held as scientific truths for years, but in addition, it divulged entirely new and undreamed of forces and laws, both in the realm of physics and in optics. I may even go further and state unequivocally that his discovery threw an entirely new light upon our accepted ideas of matter, ether waves, the atomic theory, gravitational force and even life itself. Had it been developed and brought to the attention of the world it might—and unquestionably would—have been of inconceivable benefit to mankind, although, on the other hand, it might have proved a curse.
But, as has been the case with not a few epochal discoveries in the world of science, my friend's discovery was completely lost almost as soon as it was made, and with its loss the world—as we know it— lost one of its most brilliant scientists, and I lost— temporarily at least—a most steadfast, cherished and esteemed friend.
Professor Ramon Amador, as no doubt most of my readers are aware, was a Peruvian by birth, a citizen of the United States by choice, and an internationally recognized authority on physics and optics. He was a graduate of Santo Domingo and San Marcos Universities in Cuzco and Lima, a Ph.D. of Harvard, a post-graduate of Princeton and Columbia, and he had taken degrees at several European colleges. Being the fortunate possessor of a comfortable income from profitable investments in his native land, he was able to devote all of his time to study and investigations in his chosen line of science, and while he held the chair of Applied Physics at Moulton University, and delivered courses of lectures on physics and optics at numerous seats of learning both in this country and abroad, he steadfastly refused to accept any permanent appointment where he would be tied down to routine work and would not be free to follow his own inclinations and researches.
I first met Ramon while I was in Peru conducting archeological studies in and about Cuzco, the ancient Incan capital. Like myself, he was making an intensive study of the cyclopean structures of the pre-Incas, but from an entirely different angle and for a totally distinct purpose. His interest in the ruins of a mysterious vanished race was wholly centered upon the physics and mechanics of the stupendous works, while mine was as equally centered upon the human or anthropological features. Hence our interests never clashed, and from time to time, each of us made discoveries or evolved theories which helped the other, so that we got on famously. But even under any circumstances we would have become steadfast friends. Amador was a most charming and likable man, once you came to know him well, although to a casual acquaintance he appeared reserved, a bit stand-off-ish—if I may use the term-rather self—sufficient, unemotional, and, at times, even abrupt and discourteous. But these characteristics were due largely to a latent shyness and self-consciousness which he could never quite overcome, and to a subconscious feeling that other men were not in the least interested in him or his work. But, once his friendship and interest were won, he revealed himself as an entirely different character.
His mobile face, usually rather grave and with that indescribable but typical expression of sadness or pathos almost universal among Peruvians, became animated; his lips parted in a delightful boyish smile. his fine eyes sparkled, he talked volubly and entertainingly on almost any subject, and he joked, laughed and related numberless interesting and amusing stories. Possibly his most outstanding characteristics, and those which made him most loved by those who knew him intimately like myself, were his great gentleness, kindness and tenderness; his charity and ability to forgive; his optimism regarding his fellow men and women; his poetic and artistic temperament, and his deep respect— amounting almost to reverence—for women. Unquestionably his Spanish blood was responsible for many of these characteristics, but Incan blood also ran in his veins and accounted for some of his most admirable traits. Although by no means Indian in appearance— for he was no darker than myself, yet at times, he seemed almost wholly Indian in temperament and, despite his scientific training, his devotion to his chosen science and his marvelous powers of deduction and matter-of-fact reasoning, there was a great deal of the aboriginal mysticism, imagination and romance in his makeup.
All this rather lengthy dissertation upon the character of Professor Amador may seem dull, uninteresting and of no real consequence, but it is really highly important, for it throws a light upon subsequent events and, without a knowledge of my dear friend's personality, his actions, his psychology, his final end would seem incredible, unnatural and inexplicable.
During the time that we were thrown together at Cuzco—and later at Tiahuanaco in Bolivia— Ramon was a constant source of knowledge and inspiration in my archeological work. Being a native of the country and familiar with the Quichua and Aimará dialects, and with a dash of aboriginal blood besides, he met the native Indians on their own ground, won their confidence and enabled me to secure myths, fables, folklore and priceless information which they had never before divulged to strangers. Also, these oppressed descendants of the Incans guided us to many hitherto unknown ruins of their ancestors, and while I studied the archeological features of the remains, my friend carried on his measurements and computations, or spent hours, staring at some monolithic structure, a vacant far-away expression in his eyes, as if gazing into the past and visualizing the means by which the forgotten races accomplished feats which were inexplicable to him, even with his knowledge of physical laws. Often, too, his trained eyes and brain noted certain features of the structures which escaped me, and, to my utter amazement, I soon discovered that Professor Amador held most revolutionary and unscientific views regarding the mysterious structures of the district. As he came to know me better, he confessed that he was convinced that the ancient Peruvians and Bolivians had possessed knowledge of forces and of natural laws which are unknown to us and that, if they could be rediscovered, they would revolutionize the industries, arts and even the life of our civilization. Not that he regarded them as supernatural—for despite his Indian-Latin blood, Ramon was utterly lacking in superstition—but, as he put it quite logically, as the works could not be explained by any known physical laws, and as they could not be duplicated, even with our advanced mechanical knowledge, they must have been accomplished by some unknown method and a knowledge of unknown laws or forces.
It was in hopes of discovering some clue or key to these tha
t he had visited the district, but at the end of several months, when I was compelled to leave for other fields, he confessed that he was no nearer a solution than he was before.
It was not until the following year that I again met Professor Amador. I had recently returned from Ecuador where, in the Manabi district, I had-been engaged in making extensive archeological researches, and where I had made some truly epochal discoveries of remains of a hitherto unknown but highly cultured prehistoric race. I had scarcely been able to scratch the surface, so to say, when I had been forced to abandon work owing to the rainy season, and I planned to return to the new field as soon as the weather permitted. But even in the short time I had been on the ground I had obtained some most interesting specimens. Prominent among, these were a number of most remarkable gold beads and ornaments unlike anything hitherto known. Viewed with the naked eye, they appeared to be merely grains or tiny nuggets of gold—for which, as a matter of fact, they were mistaken when they were first found —few of them larger than the head of a common pin. During examination under a powerful lens, they were revealed as hand-wrought, perfectly formed beads, chased, carved, decorated and perforated. Many, indeed, were composed of several almost microscopic portions, soldered or welded together.*
The moment I showed these truly amazing examples of prehistoric handiwork to Professor Amador, he became intensely interested and excited.
"Marvelous!" he exclaimed, as he examined the minute golden beads with his pocket lens. "The most astonishing examples of human handicraft I have ever seen. The very antithesis of the stupendous works of the trans-Andean regions! My friend, I believe your discovery of these may lead to the ultimate solution of all the mysteries of physics which I have vainly tried to solve. Think of it! On the one hand structures composed of stones weighing upwards of one hundred tons, cut, fitted, raised to great heights, transported hundreds of miles** squared and beveled with mathematical accuracy, sculptured elaborately, hewn into immense doorways and portals as though the refractory pyritic rock were as soft as cheese. On the other hand, these minute, almost invisible golden heads, carved, built up, perforated as perfectly, as beautifully, as though they were inches in diameter or—perhaps better—as though they had been made by the hands of midgets—elves or fairies—no larger than a mouse! There you have the two extremes; and both, I feel sure, are the result of a knowledge of the same lost physical laws. In one case we have normal handiwork exaggerated, enlarged thousands of times; in the other equally normal handicraft reduced in an equal degree. It is"—here he laughed merrily at the comparison—"it is like viewing objects through the opposite ends of a telescope; seemingly magnifying them one way, apparently reducing them the other!" Then, suddenly: "Caramba!" he cried, leaping to his feet and relapsing into his mother tongue as he always did when greatly excited. "That is an idea, an inspiration! My friend, these golden beads must have been fashioned by means of a lens! No human being of normal size could have accomplished the feat otherwise, and we know they are the work of normal sized men, for you tell me the other objects are of ordinary size and that the skeletal fragments you have unearthed are those of ordinary human beings. Ah! we must discover those lenses. Even if I cannot solve the puzzle of the laws and forces that enabled the pre-Incas to cut and erect their titanic structures, still I may make epochal discoveries in the line of optics.
"With your permission, Don Alfeo, I shall accompany you when you return to Esmeraldas. Somewhere in the district we must find the lenses—such things are imperishable—and I am not sure—no, I dare not mention such an insane thought—I am not sure, but that the key to the mysteries may be revealed, when we find those prehistoric magnifying glasses."
* Such beads were actually found at Manabi, Ecuador, by Prof. Marshall Saville of the Museum of the American Indian; Heye Foundation, and are on exhibition at the museum in New York City.
**In Bolivia and Peru are monolithic stone idols of gigantic size (one measuring fifty feet in length by twelve-feet in diameter) which are composed of a rock known only in Ecuador, in a district nearly fifteen hundred miles from where the idols were found.
That my friend had some new theory in his fertile brain, I felt sure, His imagination had been fired, had leaped ahead and had seized upon some clue or detail or some feature that had escaped me, and had visualized some possible solution of the puzzles he had so long been trying to solve. Personally I could see no connection between the Cyclopean stone work of the interior and these minute gold objects from the coast. They were as far apart as the antipodes, the work of two distinct races, objects of totally different materials, and, for all I or anyone else knew, of different periods— perhaps hundreds, even thousands of years apart. Archeologically and anthropologically the beads were most interesting as revealing new features of a cultural center, and while they had aroused my wonder and interest, yet how they were made was a problem that, strictly speaking, was scarcely an archeological matter. The thought had crossed my mind that the makers of the beads must have possessed most remarkable eyesight and extraordinarily deft and delicate fingers, and for a moment I, too, had wondered, if by any possibility, they had possessed lenses of some sort. But, as far as known, no prehistoric American race had even a remote or rudimentary knowledge of optics, and I dismissed the idea as unreasonable, fanciful and outside the realm of scientific reasoning, I had seen living Indians—such as the Mapuches of Chile—weave horsehair into extremely small forms. I had seen purblind squaws of the Pima tribe weave nests of perfectly-formed baskets, the largest barely an inch in diameter and the smallest scarcely a quarter of an inch square, and I deemed it not at all impossible that the ancient inhabitants of Manabi might have carved and soldered grains of gold with the unaided eye, even if a white man, with the degenerate eyesight resulting from centuries of civilization, artificial light and lack of training, would have found such a feat utterly impossible.
But Amador, as I have said, possessed a vivid imagination, a love of the mysterious and mystical, a vast amount of romance, and, as was quite natural, even necessary I might say, considering the science to which he was devoted, he was a trained, expert theorist. Here I might fittingly explain that there is a very wide gulf between the two sciences we represented. Archeology and anthropology are sciences built upon facts. The archeologist—and the anthropologist—make discoveries, reveal uncontrovertible facts, and from the material and data obtained, formulate theories and hypotheses to dovetail with the facts. The physicist, on the contrary, works out abstract theories, formulates problematical laws and mathematical equations, and, from these, endeavors to prove facts and to demonstrate the accuracy of his calculations. Amador, to be sure, was not entirely a theoretical scientist, but realized that, in many cases, facts should come first and theories later. In fact I had often jokingly told him that the world had lost a most brilliant archeologist, when he had turned to physics as a life study, for his remarkable powers of observation, his interest in his prehistoric ancestors, and his powers of deduction would have enabled him to have reached the topmost pinnacle in that science.
But to return to more concrete matters. Ramon, of course, accompanied me a few months later, when I set sail for South America, and, in due course of time, we found ourselves in Ecuador.
I had thought that my own equipment was very complete and, much as I regretted it, far too bulky and voluminous for traveling in a crude and somewhat wild district. But in comparison with the impedimenta of my friend, my luggage was insignificant. Not only did he carry a most complete and up-to-date field equipment, consisting of the latest of tents, camp furniture, cooking outfit, etc., together with clothing, arms, food supplies and enough to supply a large party for months of tropical exploration, but in addition, he had brought along a most elaborate scientific laboratory, with a complete chemical and mechanical plant for conducting tests and experiments in optics and physics.
I gazed with dismay upon the innumerable boxes, cases, bundles, baskets, trunks, bags and other packages bearing Amador
's name, which were disgorged from the steamer's hold and were dropped upon the rickety dock at Guayaquil.
And I foresaw no little difficulty in transporting this mountain of dunnage up the coast to the jungle-covered shores of the river at Manabi.
But I had reckoned without my friend's resourcefulness and familiarity with local conditions. I had prided myself upon my experience and knowledge of Latin America and Latin Americans, upon my ability to accomplish great things when dealing with the natives; but, beside Ramon, I was a veritable amateur. Browbeating, joking, cajoling, flattering, cursing, praising the tattered Mestizo peons, the uniformed officials the slouching stevedores, the sailors and the innumerable hangers-on by turn, he soon had them laughing, working like demons, obeying him instantly, vying with one another to please him, and, in an incredibly short time, all our baggage was stowed in the dirty coasting schooner and we were ready for the long and weary voyage up the coast.
CHAPTER II
We reached our destination in due time and, having arrived at the location where I had secured the specimens the preceding season, and had done my excavatory work, Professor Amador's laboratory and outfit were soon unpacked and set up, forming quite an imposing nucleus of civilization in the midst of the wilderness. Meanwhile, I had arranged my own much humbler and simpler headquarters, had set my men to work clearing the jungle that had sprung up like magic since my last visit, and busied myself searching for the most promising spot in which to recommence my field work.
Ramon, once he had established himself, donned old bush clothes, fell to work with the rest of us, and soon proved himself as adaptable to roughing it as any old hand. He showed the most intense interest in the locality, asked innumerable questions, watched everything I did, and in an astonishingly short time acquired a remarkable knowledge of archeological work. He possessed the keenest eyes of any man I ever met, and was most amazingly observant. Several times he discovered valuable and interesting specimens, which I had completely overlooked. As the excavations proceeded, he watched each shovelful of earth like a hawk, and would swoop upon every fragment of potsherd or chipped stone that was revealed. The spot where we were working was on a fairly level, alluvial plain between two streams—a sort of tongue or cape which obviously had frequently been flooded in times past. That it had also been occupied by a populous village or town was evident, for all along the steep river banks, potsherds, stone implements and remains of fires were to be seen. Evidently, too, the site had been occupied for a long time, for the traces of human occupancy extended from a few feet below the surface to a depth of more than twenty feet. And as the soil was literally filled with potsherds, digging was slow work. Each time a fragment of pottery was disclosed it was necessary to proceed very carefully; often we worked for hours with a small trowel and a whisk broom in order to secure some fragment without completely destroying it. And as we found no traces of gold ornaments and no traces of any material which might have served as a lens, after several days' work, Professor Amador grew tired of watching the apparently fruitless labors of the peons and wandered off up the narrow, pebbly beach beside the stream. It was in the stream itself that I had discovered the minute gold beads, and knowing they must have been washed out from the banks, I had assumed that they had come from the village site. Armed with a batea or gold pan, Ramon busied himself washing out the gravel in the stream and grew quite excited and enthusiastic when he, too, secured several dozen of the beads. But, he was interested only in finding the means by which the ancient Manabis had fashioned the bits of ornamented gold, and when, on the second day of his panning, he shouted lustily to me, I felt sure he had made a discovery. I was not mistaken. From the river gravel he had washed out a fragment of semi-transparent green material which, had I come upon it, I should have cast aside as a bit of a green glass bottle, the remains of one of my own discarded bottles of the previous season. But Ramon, who was busily examining the fragment with his pocket-lens, declared that it was not glass.
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