There was a silence. Cyrus knew that his hearers were having more or less difficulty in digesting his statements. However, he smiled pleasantly, as he said: "My sympathies are with you, gentlemen, and my thanks for your courteous reception of my absurd story. But there is one thing I do know about these people. Although their buildings were often as high as ours, I know their legs were shorter. All their stone steps, in every case, had risers about half the size of ours."
"Ah! Then they were a race of pigmies."
"I should think so, and with long arms and very short legs. They were evidently strong on sculpture, as there are fragments of statues, heads, bas reliefs, monuments, etc., all scattered about. And the people represented are very much like ourselves, in some ways."
"WITH LONG ARMS AND VERY SHORT LEGS"—Page 216
"You say you were there at dusk. Why didn't you see it by day light?"
"Well, the—er—climate is peculiar. The air, if you can call it air, is so very rarefied as to be no protection whatever against the heat of the sun. And the surface of the ground, by daylight, would burn your feet. And by night, there being no atmosphere twixt you and space, the temperature is about 300 degrees below zero."
"Three hundred degrees!"