At the Mountains of Madness

At the Mountains of Madness
by H. P. Lovecraft
I
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 geologist, 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.
We planned to cover as great an area as one antarctic season - or longer, if absolutely
necessary - would permit, operating mostly in the mountain ranges and on the plateau
south of Ross Sea; regions explored in varying degree by Shackleton, Amundsen, Scott,
and Byrd. With frequent changes of camp, made by aeroplane and involving distances
great enough to be of geological significance, we expected to unearth a quite
unprecedented amount of material - especially in the pre-Cambrian strata of which so
narrow a range of antarctic specimens had previously been secured. We wished also to
obtain as great as possible a variety of the upper fossiliferous rocks, since the primal life
history of this bleak realm of ice and death is of the highest importance to our knowledge
of the earth's past. That the antarctic continent was once temperate and even tropical,
with a teeming vegetable and animal life of which the lichens, marine fauna, arachnida,
and penguins of the northern edge are the only survivals, is a matter of common
information; and we hoped to expand that information in variety, accuracy, and detail.
When a simple boring revealed fossiliferous signs, we would enlarge the aperture by
blasting, in order to get specimens of suitable size and condition.
Our borings, of varying depth according to the promise held out by the upper soil or rock,
were to be confined to