And as he said these words her heart fell.
The temperature of this great perforation was taken at many points, and when Roland brought to Margaret the statement of the height of the mercury at the very bottom she was astounded and shocked to find that it was only eighty-three degrees.
"This is terrible!" she ejaculated.
"What do you mean ?" he asked in surprise.

"That is not hot.

Why, it is only summer weather." But she did not think it terrible because it was so hot; the fact that it was so cool had shocked her.

In such temperature one could live! A great source of trust and hope had been taken from her.
"Roland," she said, sinking into a chair, "I don't understand this at all.

I always thought that it became hotter and hotter as one went down into the earth; and I once read that at twenty miles below the surface, if the heat increased in proportion as it increased in a mine, the temperature must be over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit.