Original subject: Olaf's description of the inner sun
Norlan,
When I wrote to Cater about a nighttime in the hollow Earth, he wasn't very
big on the idea. He kind of left open a possibility, though:
" The side of the central sun facing the real sun will receive slightly more
particles from the inner shell than from the opposite side. As a result,
that side might be brighter than the opposite side." This could account for
some kind of nighttime, although maybe not a pitch black nighttime like we
have. I mean, Olaf described the brightness of their day as two full moons
of light, so their nighttime could be maybe one full moon, who knows.
In this first description of the inner sun, from within, the tone of the
narration doesn't break stride or change really.
" In the meantime we had lost sight of the sun's rays, but we found a
radiance 'within ' emanating from the dull-red sun which had already
attracted our attention, now giving out a white light seemingly from a
cloud-bank far away in front of us. It dispensed a greater light, I should
say, than two full moons on the clearest night. In twelve hours this cloud
of whiteness would pass out of sight as if eclipsed, and the twelve hours
following corresponded with our night. We early learned that these strange
people were worshipers of this great cloud of light. It was ' The Smoky God
' of the ' Inner World.'".
In the second description, he breaks the storyline to give a brief, simple
explanation of gravity, but I don't know if I would conclude that it was
here where the narrator got involved. I mean, the short explanation which he
gave, just in one sentence, contains a concept about gravity which current
science soundly rejects, but which is much in keeping with Cater's concept-
Olaf reported that gravity does, in fact, exhibit repulsion. Now, how did he
know that? And why would the narrator have said such a shocking,
unacceptable thing if he were trying to water down the story and make it
more acceptable. That litle explanation about gravity, explaining why the
central sun stays in place, simply made it more difficult for the modern
mind to accept.
Cater's musings above leave open the possibility of a darker side and a
type of night, so it might have just been this which was meant by Olaf.
I do not discard the possibility, though, that the narrator tried to make
the narration more palatable in some places, maybe even with Olaf's
approval. I mean, for the rigid mindsets of those times, and given the
treatment that Olaf had when he initially tried to communicate his
experience, maybe they felt they had a reason to tone it down. For example,
the name of Olaf's guide, Jules Galea, sounds very Westernised. But I'll
have to get a hold of a person who knows Sanskrit ( anybody? ) and ask
about some of the vocabulary used, because Olaf reported that their language
was similar to Sanskrit.
Dharma/Dean