The Lost World Audiobook - Chapter 5 - By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Read by Dr James Gill

[Music] so good evening so it's uh been a bit of a week and uh as some of you may have noticed there's been a bit of a slight delay in the last approach to the lost world um hello let's try it over here there is unfortunately only so much that i can do in the week but we've now moved on to the next um or serialization of the lost world so we've completed the strand um volume one and now on to volume 2. remembering that the lost world was originally not a book but was a series of shorts placed in the strand magazine in 1912. so far we've met malone and he's encountered professor challenger and had his uh altercations with him but now we're joining them as malone head to see the professor challenger at the evening meeting with his other peers now you're going to sit down so i can read this i think it'd be a good idea unfortunately with a bit of a heat wave here um 38 degrees celsius um the other day and this one is behaving a little bit strangely at the moment and shedding terribly thank you for that cat now are you going to sit down no i want to get on with the sit down sit down sit down yes we know the book smells strange but just sit down okay terribly sorry but apparently we have to wait okay so if you're going to stand there i can still read are you ready on entirely personal note um i know that these um books aren't so much in keeping with the the medical aspect of the channel but to be honest i actually quite enjoy um reading the lost world and it gives me a bit of a focus as well um not only that but it gives a my sister's nephew something to go to sleep to hopefully right go on down down there you go you settle i think we're good to go the lost world chapter 5 questions what were the physical shocks incidental to my first interview with professor challenger and the mental ones which accompanied the second i was somewhat demoralized by the time i found myself in enmore park once more in my aching head the one thought throbbing that there really was a truth in this man's story that it was of tremendous consequence and that would work up into an inconceivable copy for the gazette when i could attain permission to use it the taxi cab was waiting at the end of the road so i sprang into it and drove down to the office mccardle was at his post as usual well he cried expectantly what may have run to i'm thinking young man you've been in the wars don't tell me that he assaulted you we had a little difference at first what a man what a man he is what did you do well he became more reasonable and then we had a chat but i got nothing out of him well nothing for publication i'm not so sure about that you've got a black eye out of him that's for publication we can't have this reign of terror mr malone we must bring the man to his bearings i'll have a later net on him tomorrow that'll raise a blister just give me the material and i'll engage to brand the fellow forever professor munchausen hey how's that for an inset headline sir john mandeville castiglio all imposters and bullets in history i'll show him for the fraud that he is well i wouldn't do that sir now you why not because he's not a fraud at all what road mcardle you don't mean to say you really believe that stuff about mammoths and mastodons and great sea serpents well i don't know about that i i don't think he makes any claims of the kind but i do believe he's got something new or then for pity's sake right it's up man i'm longing to but all i know is that he gave me in confidence and on the condition that i didn't i condense into a few sentences the professor's narrative well as you can see that's how it stands mcardle looked deeply incredulous well mr malone he said at last about this scientific meeting tonight i there can be no privacy about that anyhow i don't suppose any other people want to report it for waldron was reported already a dozen times and no one is aware that challenger will speak so hey we may get a scoop if we're lucky you'll be there in any case so you'll be able to give us a pretty full report i'll keep space up until midnight my day was a busy one and i had an early dinner at the savage club with top henry to whom i gave her an account of my adventures he listened with a skeptical smile on his gaunt face and roared with laughter on hearing the professor had convinced me my dear chap things don't happen like that in real life people don't stumble upon enormous discoveries and then lose their evidence leave that to the novelists the fellow is full of tricks as a monkey house at the zoo it's all absolute bosch but the the american poet he never existed but i saw a sketchbook challenges sketchbook oh you think that he drew the animal well of course he did who else what about the photographs there's nothing in the photographs you by your own mission said you only saw a bird a pterodactyl but that's what he says he put the pterodactyl into your head well then what about the bones well first one out of an irish jew the second one vamped up for the occasion if you're clever and you know your business you can fake a bone as easily as you can take a photograph i began to feel uneasy perhaps after all i had been premature in my acquiescence then i had a sudden happy thought will you come to the meeting with me i asked top henry looked thoughtful he's not a popular person the genial challenger he said a lot of people have accounts to settle with him i should say is the best hated man in london if the medical students don't turn out there will be no end to iraq i don't want to get into a bear garden you might at least do him the justice to hear him state his own case well perhaps it's only fair all right i'm your man for the evening when we arrived at the hall we found a much greater concourse than i'd expected a line of electric brathams discharged their cargos of whitebeard professors while the dark stream of humbler pedestrians who crowded through the arch doorway showed that the audience would be popular as well as scientific indeed it became evident to us as soon as we'd taken our seats that a useful and boyish spirit was abroad in the gallery and the back portions of the hall looking behind me i could see rows of faces of the familiar medical student type apparently the great hospitals had each sent down their contingent the behavior of the audience at present was good humid but mischievous scraps of popular songs were chorused with enthusiasm which was a strange prelude to a scientific lecture and it was already a tendency to personal chaff which promised a jovial evening to others however embarrassing it might be to the recipients of these dubious honors when old dr meldrum with his well-known curly brimmed opera hat appeared upon the platform there was a universal query of where did you get that tile to which he hurriedly removed it and concealed it furtively under his chair when gouty professor wadley limped to his seat there was a general affectionate inquiry from all parts of the hall as the exact state of his poor toe which caused him obvious embarrassment the greatest demonstration of all however was the entrance of my new acquaintance professor and challenger when he passed down to take his place at the extreme end front row of the platform such a yell of welcome broke forth when his black beard first protruded round the corner that i began to suspect tarp henry was right in his surmise and that all of this assemblage was there not merely for the sake of the lecture but because it got rumored abroad the famous professor would take part in the proceedings there was some sympathetic laughter on his entrance among the front benches of well-dressed spectators as though the demonstration of students in this instance was not unwelcome to them their greeting was indeed a frightful outburst of sound and the uproar of a carnivora cage on the steps of the bucket bearing keepers heard in the distance there was an offensive tone to it perhaps and yet in the main it struck me as more riotous outcry the noisy reception of one who amused and interested them rather than one they disliked or despised challenger smiled with a weary tolerant contempt as a kindly man would meet a yapping litter of puppies he sat down and blew out his chest passed his hand caressingly down his beard and looked with drooping eyelids and supercilious eyes at the crowded hall before him the uproar of his advent had not yet died away when professor ronald murray the chairman and mr waldron the lecturer threaded their way to the front and the proceedings began professor murray will i'm sure excuse me if i say he has the common fault of most englishmen that of being inaudible while earth people who have something to say which might be worth hearing should not take the slight trouble to learn how to make it heard is one of the strange mysteries of modern life their methods as reasonable as trying to pour some precious stuff from from the spring to the reservoir through a non-conducting pipe which could be by the least effort opened professor murray made several profound remarks over his white tie and the watercraft on the table with the humorous twinkling aside to the silver candlestick upon his right non reaching the audience then he sat down and mr waldron the famous pop chill electorate rose amid a general murmur of applause he was a stern gaunt man with a harsh voice and an aggressive manner but he had the merit of knowing how to assimilate the ideas of other men and pass them on in a way which is intelligible and even interesting to the lay public with a happy knack of being funny about the most unlikely objects so that the procession of the equinox or the formation of a vertebrae became a highly humorous process as treated by him it was a bird's eye view of creation as interpreted by science which in the language always clear and sometimes picturesque he unfolded before us he told us that the globe a huge mass of flaming gas flaring through the heavens then he pictured the solidification and the cooling and the wrinkling which formed the mountains the steam which turned to water and slow preparation of the stage upon which was to be played out the inexplicable drama of life as to the origin of life itself he was discreetly vague that the germs of it could hardly survive the original roasting was he declared fairly certain therefore it had come later had it built itself out of the cooling inorganic elements of the globe very likely had the germs of it arrived from outside upon a meteor it was hardly conceivable on the whole the wisest man was the least dogmatic upon the point we will not or at least we had not succeeded up to date in making organic life in our laboratories out of inorganic materials the gulf between the dead and the living was something which our chemistry could not as yet bridge but there was a higher and subtler chemistry of nature which working with great forces over long epochs might well produce results which were impossible for us there the matter must be left this brought the lecturer to the great ladder of animal life beginning low down with mollusks and feeble sea creatures and then up rung by rung through leptiles and fissures to last we came to the kangaroo rat a creature which brought forth its young alive the direct ancestor of all mammals and presumably therefore of everyone in the audience no no from a skeptical student in the back row if the young gentleman in the red tie who cried no no and presumably claimed to have been hatched out of an egg would wait upon him after the lecture he'd be glad to see such a curiosity there followed laughter it was strange to think that the climax of the age-long process of nature had been the creation of that gentleman in the red tie but had the process stopped was this gentleman to be taken as the final type the beal and end-all of development he hoped that he would not hurt the feelings of the gentleman in the red tie if he maintained that whatever virtues that gentleman might possess in private life still the vast processes of the universe were not fully justified if they were to end entirely in his production evolution was not a spent force but one still working and even greater achievements were in store plus having made a general titter and played very prettily with his interrupter the lecturer went back to his picture of the past with the drying of the seas the emergence of sandbags and the sluggish viscous life which lay upon their margins the overcrowded lagoons and the tendency of the sea creatures to take refuge upon the mud flats where the abundance of food awaited them and their consequent enormous growth ladies and gentlemen he had it that frightful brood of saurians which have fright our eyes when seen in the wilden or the soulhoffen slates but which were fortunately extinct long before the first appearance of mankind upon this planet question boomed a voice from the platform mr waldron was a strict disciplinarian with a gift of acid humor as was exemplified upon the gentleman in the red tie which made it perilous to interrupt him but this interjection appeared to him so absurd he was at a loss as to how to deal with it so looks the shakespearean who's confronted by a rancid baconian or the astronomer who was assailed by a flat earth fanatic he paused for a moment and then raising his voice repeated slowly the words which were extinct before the coming of man question boom the voice once more waldron looked with amazement along the line of professors up the platform until his eyes fell upon the figure of challenger who leaned back in his chair with closed eyes an amused expression as if he was smiling in his sleep i see said waldron with a chug it is my friend professor challenger and amid the laughter he renewed his lecture as if that was the final explanation and no more need to be said but the incident was far from being closed whatever path the lecturer took amid the wilds of the past seemed invariably to lead him back to some assertion as to the extinct or prehistoric life which instantly brought the same bull's bellow from the professor the audience began to anticipate it and raw with the delight when it came the packed benches of students joined in and every time challenges beard opened before any sound could come forth there was a yellow of question from hundreds of voices and an answering counter cry of order and shame from as many more waldron though a hardened lecturer and a strong man became rattled he hesitated stammered repeated and got himself snarled in a long sentence and finally turned furiously upon the cause of his troubles this really is intolerable he cried glaring across the platform i must ask you professor challenger to cease these ignorant and unmanly interruptions there was a hush over the hall the students ridged with delight at seeing the high gods on olympus quarreling amongst themselves challenger leaved his bulky figure slowly out of the chair i in turn must ask you mr waldron he said to cease to make associations which are not in strict accordance with scientific fact the words unleashed a tempest shame shame give him a hearing put him out shove him off the platform fair play these emerged from the general uproar of amusement or exasperation the chairman was on his feet flapping both of his hands and bleeding excitedly professor challenger put personal views later but later but there were solid peaks above his clouds of inaudible mutter their interrupter bowed smiled and stroked his beard and then relaxed into his chair waldron very flushed and warlike continued his observations now and then as he made an acetation he shot a venomous glance at his opponent who seemed to be slumbering deeply with the same broad happy smile upon his face at last the lecture came to an end i'm inclined to think it was a premature one as the pre-oration was hurried and disconnected the thread of the argument had been rudely broken and the audience was restless and expectant waldron sat down and after cheer up from chairman professor challenger rose and advanced to take the edge of the platform in the interests of my paper i took down his speech verbatim ladies and gentlemen he began amid a sustained interruption from the back i beg pardon ladies gentlemen and children i must apologize i had inadvertently admitted a considerable section of this audience tamalt during which the professor stood with one hand raised and his enormous head nodding sympathetically as if you were bestowing a quantification upon the crowd i've been selected to move a vote thanks to mr waldron for the very picturesque and imaginative address to which we have just listened there are points in it with which i disagree and it has been my duty to indicate them as they rose but nonetheless mr waldron has accomplished his object well that object being to give a simple and interesting account of what he conceives to have been the history of our planet popular lecturers are in the nature parasitic angry gesture from mr waldron they exploit for fame or cash the work which was done by their indignant and unknown brethren one smallest new fact obtained in a laboratory one brick built into the temple of science far outweighs any secondhand exposition which passes an idle hour but can leave no useful result behind it i'd put forward this obvious reflection not out of any desire to disparage mr waldron in particular but you may not lose your sense of proportion and mistake the acolyte for the high priest at this point mr waldron whispered to the chairman who rose and said something severely to his watercraft but enough of this loud and prolonged cheers let me pass to some subject of wider interest that is the particular point upon which i as an original investigator have challenged our lecturer's accuracy it is upon the permanence of certain types of animal life upon the earth i do not speak upon the subject as an amateur nor i may add as a popular lecturer but i speak as one whose scientific conscience compels him to adhere closely to facts when i say that mr waldron is very wrong in supposing that because he himself has never seen a so-called prehistoric animal therefore these creatures no longer exist they are indeed as he has said our ancestors but they are if i may use the expression our contemporary ancestors who can still be found with all of their hideous and formidable characteristics if one has but the energy and the hardy hood to seek them out creatures which were supposed to be jurassic monsters who would hunt down and devour our largest and fiercest animals still exist cries of bosch prove it how do you know question how do i know you ask me i know because i have visited their secret haunts i know because i have seen some of them applause uproar and a voice of liar um am i a liar general hearty and noisy descent did i hear someone say i was a liar well that person who called me a liar stand up that i may know him a voice here he is sir an inoffensive little person in spectacles shrugging violently was held up amongst a group of students did you venture to call me a liar no sir no shouted the accused and disappeared like a jack in a box if any person in this hall dares to doubt my veracity i should be glad to have a few words with him after the lecture liar who said that again the invensive one plunging desperately was elevated high into the air if i come down among you the general course of come love come which interrupted the proceedings for some moments while the chairman standing up and waving both his arms seemed to be conducting music the professor his face flushed his nostrils dilated and his beard bristling was now in proper berserk mode every great discoverer has been met with the same incredulity the shore brand of generation of fools when great facts are laid before you you have not the intuition the imagination which would help you to understand them you can only throw mud at men who have risked their lives to open new fields to science you persecute the prophets galileo darwin and i prolong cheering and complete interruption all this from my hurried notes taken at the time which given a little notion as to the absolute chaos to which the assembly had by this time being reduced so terrific was the uproar that several ladies had already beaten a hurried retreat grave and reverend seniors seemed to have caught the prevailing spirit as badly as the students and saw white beard of men rising and shaking their fists at the obdurate professor the great audience seethe and simmered like a boiling pot the professor took a step forward and raised both his hands there was something so big and arresting and virile in the man that the clatter and shouting died gradually away before his commanding gesture and his masterful eyes he seemed to have a definite message and they all hushed to hear it i will not detain you he said it is not worth it truth is truth and the noise of a number of foolish young men and i fear i must add of their equally foolish seniors cannot affect the matter i claim and i have opened a new field of science and you dispute it cheers then i put you to the test will you credit one or more of your own number to go out as your representatives and test my statement in your name mr summerley the veteran professor of comparative anatomy rose amongst the audience a tall thin bitter man with a withered aspect for a theologian he wished he said to ask professor challenger whether the results to which he alluded in his remarks had been obtained during a journey to the headwaters of the amazon made by him two years before the professor answered that they had mr summerley desired to know how it was that professor challenger claimed to have made discoveries in these regions which have been overlooked by wallace bates and other previous explorers of established scientific repute professor challenger answered that mr sumlin appeared to be confusing the amazon with the thames that it was in reality a somewhat larger river that mr sumli might be interested to know that with the orinoco which communicated with it some fifty thousand miles of country were opened up and that in so vast a space it was not impossible for one person to find what another had missed mr summerly declared with an acid smile that he fully appreciated the difference between the thames and the amazon which lay in the fact that any acetation about the former could be tested whilst the latter it could not he would be obliged if professor challenger would give the latitude and longitude of the country in which the prehistoric animals were to be found professor challenger replied that he'd reserved such information for good reasons of his own and would be prepared to give it with proper precautions to a committee chosen from the audience would mr sumly serve on such a committee and test his story in person mr sumli yes yes i will great cheering professor challenger then i guarantee that i will place in your hands such material as will enable you to find your way it is only right however since mr summerly goes to check my statement that i should have one or more with him who may check his i will not disguise from you that there are some difficulties and dangers mr summerley will need a younger colleague may i ask for volunteers it is thus that the great crisis of a man's life springs out at him could i have imagined that when i entered the hall i was about to pledge myself to a wilder adventure that had ever come to me even in my dreams but gladys was it not the very opportunity of which she spoke clothes would have told me to go so i i sprung to my feet i was speaking and yet i had prepared no words top henry my companion was plucking up my skirts i heard him whispering sit down malone don't make a public ass of yourself at the same time i was aware of a tall thin man with dark gingery hair a few seats in front of me he was also on his feet he glared back at me with hard angry eyes but i refused to give way i will go mr chairman i kept repeating over and over name name cried the audience my name is edward dunn malone and i am a reporter of the daily gazette i claim to be an absolutely unprejudiced witness what is your name sir the chairman asked my tall rival i am lord john roxanne i've already been at the amazon and i know all the ground and i have special qualifications for this investigation lord john roxton's reputation as a sportsman and traveller is of course world famous said the chairman at the same time it would certainly be as well to have a member of the press on the expedition then i move said professor challenger that both these gentlemen be elected as representatives of this meeting to accompany professor sumley upon his journey to investigate and to report upon the truth of my statements and so i meant shouting and cheering our fate was decided and i found myself born away in the human current which swirled towards the door with my mind half stunned by the vast new project which had risen so suddenly before it as i emerged from the hall i was conscious for a moment of a rush of laughing students down the pavement and of arms wielding a heavy umbrella which rose and fell in the midst of them then amid a mixture of groans and cheers professor challenger's elected brothman slid from the curb and i found myself walking away under the silvery lights of regent street full of thoughts of gladys and of wonder as to my future suddenly it was a touch of my elbow and i turned and found myself looking into the humorous masterful eyes of the tall thin man who'd volunteered to be my companion in this strange quest mr malone i understand he said we might be companions what my rooms are just over the road in the albany perhaps if you have the kindness to spare me half an hour there are one or two things i would badly want to say to you end of chapter five well i hope that you're enjoying chapter five and things are finally beginning to move it sounds like away from london and onto the adventure proper um if you're enjoying this please uh subscribe to the video and hopefully we'll be able to keep you entertained for a little bit longer with these well i said a little longer i think the lost world is uh going to take up quite a bit of space uh yet yes my word that is still quite a bit of space yes so there's still quite a bit left to go right on that note i'll bid you all goodbye and i'll see you next time take care [Music] you