Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 14.djvu/346

 AT THE BASE OF THE SPHINX. As we were approaching the huge mound the mist cleared away, and the form stood out with greater distinctness. It was, as I have said, almost that of a sphinx, a dusky-hued sphinx, as though the matter which composed it had been oxidized by the inclemency of the polar climate.

And then a possibility flashed into my mind, an hypothesis which explained these astonishing phenomena.

"Ah!" I exclaimed, "a lodestone! that is it! A magnet with prodigious power of attraction!"—Page 383. Vol. 14.