But when the penetrating light reached something different, then would come the time for a change in his theories.
Discussion and controversy in regard to the discoveries of the Artesian ray continued, often with great earnestness and heat, in learned circles, and there were frequent demands upon Clewe to demonstrate the truth of his descent of fourteen miles below the surface of the earth by an actual exhibition of the shaft he had made or by the construction of another.
But to such requests Clewe turned a deaf ear.

It would be impossible for him to open his old shaft.

If in any way he could remove the rocks and soil which now blocked up its upper portion for a distance of half a mile, it would be impossible to reconstruct any portion which had been obstructed.

The smooth and polished walls of the shaft, which gave Clewe such assurance of safety from falling fragments, would not exist if the tunnel were opened.
As to a new shaft--that would require a new automatic shell, and this Clewe was not willing to construct.

In fact, rather than make a new opening to the cave of light, he would prefer that people should doubt that any such cave existed.