"The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

an abyss on the summit, issued so vast a quantity of ashes that the
sun was entirely blotted out from the heavens, and it became darker
than the darkest midnight; so that when we were even at the distance
of a hundred and fifty miles from the mountain, it was impossible to
see the whitest object, however close we held it to our eyes.'"*(2)

* In Iceland, 1783.
*(2) "During the eruption of Hecla, in 1766, clouds of this kind
produced such a degree of darkness that, at Glaumba, which is more
than fifty leagues from the mountain, people could only find their way
by groping. During the eruption of Vesuvius, in 1794, at Caserta, four
leagues distant, people could only walk by the light of torches. On
the first of May, 1812, a cloud of volcanic ashes and sand, coming
from a volcano in the island of St. Vincent, covered the whole of
Barbadoes, spreading over it so intense a darkness that, at mid-day,
in the open air, one could not perceive the trees or other objects
near him, or even a white handkerchief placed at the distance of six
inches from the eye."- Murray, p. 215, Phil. edit.

"Hum!" said the king.
"'After quitting this coast, the beast continued his voyage until we
met with a land in which the nature of things seemed reversed- for
we here saw a great lake, at the bottom of which, more than a
hundred feet beneath the surface of the water, there flourished in
full leaf a forest of tall and luxuriant trees.'"*

* In the year 1790, in the Caraccas during an earthquake a portion
of the granite soil sank and left a lake eight hundred yards in
diameter, and from eighty to a hundred feet deep. It was a part of the
forest of Aripao which sank, and the trees remained green for
several months under the water."- Murray, p. 221

"Hoo!" said the king.
"Some hundred miles farther on brought us to a climate where the
atmosphere was so dense as to sustain iron or steel, just as our own
does feather.'"*

* The hardest steel ever manufactured may, under the action of a
blowpipe, be reduced to an impalpable powder, which will float readily
in the atmospheric air.

"Fiddle de dee," said the king.
"Proceeding still in the same direction, we presently arrived at the
most magnificent region in the whole world. Through it there meandered
a glorious river for several thousands of miles. This river was of
unspeakable depth, and of a transparency richer than that of amber. It
was from three to six miles in width; and its banks which arose on
either side to twelve hundred feet in perpendicular height, were
crowned with ever-blossoming trees and perpetual sweet-scented
flowers, that made the whole territory one gorgeous garden; but the