The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (78 page)

31
Trilobite:
“Subphylum of aquatic arthropods known from the Cambrian to the Permian” (CNH).
Crinoid:
“Sea lilies, feather stars; class of shallow to deep-water echinoderms [see n. 49 below]” (CNH).
Lingula:
A genus of mollusc that “has existed unchanged for 400 million years” (CNH). HPL's ms. reads “linguellae,” an apparent error.
Gasteropod
: “Snails; a large class of aquatic, terrestrial or parasitic molluscs” (CNH); more commonly spelled
gastropod
.

32
The first airplane flight to the South Pole had been made by Byrd on November 28, 1929. See Byrd,
Little America
, pp. 326-45.

33
“Adventurous expectancy” is a central element in HPL's aesthetic of the imagination, and a conception to which he attached peculiar significance. “What has haunted my dreams for nearly forty years is
a strange sense of adventurous expectancy connected with landscape and architecture and sky-effects.
. . . I wish I could get the idea on paper—the sense of marvel and liberation hiding in obscure dimensions and problemati cally reachable at rare instants through vistas of ancient streets, across leagues of strange hill country, or up endless flights of marble steps culminating in tiers of balustraded terraces. Odd stuff—and needing a greater poet than I for effective aesthetic utilisation” (SL 3.100).

34
HPL was surely aware that many previous Antarctic expeditions had foundered because scurvy and other diseases had developed from the lack of citrus fruit. As early as 1772, Capt. James Cook had shown that citrus fruits—particularly limes and lemons—would help to ward off scurvy, but several later expeditions had failed to stock these essential foodstuffs.

35
The first microorganisms are thought to have emerged around 3 billion years ago.

36
The use of shortwave radio had been pioneered by the Australian Sir Douglas Mawson (1882-1958) on his Antarctic voyage of 1911-12. On Byrd's first expedition a reporter for the
New York Times
sent daily reports, while Byrd himself also made regular radio broadcasts to the public.

37
Now termed Queen Mary Coast and Knox Coast, located at the southeastern end of Wilkes Land, near Masson Island and the Shackleton Ice Shelf.

38
The tallest of the Himalayan mountain chain in Nepal, Mount Everest, is 29,028 feet above sea level. It was first scaled in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. In reality, the highest point on the Antarctic continent is the Vinson Massif (16,066 feet above sea level).

39
Antarctic winds are indeed no laughing matter, and can blow as hard as 200 miles per hour.

40
HPL always used this now archaic spelling for
Eskimo
.

41
The term Comanchian (or Comanchean) formerly designated a geological period between the Jurassic and the Cretaceous; it was already archaic by 1930.

42
Cephalopod:
“Octopus, squid, cuttlefish; a class of marine carnivorous molluscs characterized by the specialization of the head-foot into a ring of arms (tentacles) generally equipped with suckers or hooks” (CNH).
Echini
: sea urchins.
Spirifera:
“Extinct order of articulate brachiopods with spiral brachidia; known from the Ordovician to the Jurassic” (CNH).
Teliost:
“Loose assemblage of bony fishes (Osteichthyes)” (CNH). More commonly spelled
teleost. Ganoid:
An order of largely extinct fish whose bodies are covered with bony plates or scales. The term is no longer in common use.

43
Cycad:
“Subdivision of Gymnosperms [see n. 74] (Pinophyta); evergreen, perennial shrubs or trees with stems that are usually unbranched but thickened by some secondary growth” (CNH).
Angiosperm
: “Flowering plants; the major division of seed plants (Spermatophyta)” (CNH).

44
Placoderm:
“Class of primitive, heavily armoured, jawed fishes (Gnathostomata) known primarily from the Devonian” (CNH).
Laby rinthodont:
“Extinct subclass of primitive amphibians known from the Palaeozoic and Triassic” (CNH).
Thecodont:
“Primitive order of ar chosaurian reptiles with teeth set in sockets; probably ancestral to dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and crocodiles; known from the Upper Permian to the Upper Triassic” (CNH).
Mososaur:
An extinct Leipdosaurian marine reptile known from the Cretaceous; ancestor of various species of lizard. More commonly spelled
mosasaur. Pterodactyl:
A well-known extinct winged reptile of the suborder Pterodactyloidea, known from the Upper Jurassic to the Cretaceous.
Archaeopteryx:
“The oldest known fossil bird, having a long vertebrate tail” (OED). Fossil remains dating from the Late Jurassic have been found.
Palaeothere:
“Extinct family of horse-like mammals (Perissodactyla) known from the Eocene and Oligocene” (CNH).
Xiphodon:
“Extinct family of primitive artio dactyls [diverse order of mostly large herbivorous or omnivorous terrestrial mammals] known from the Eocene and Oligocene of Europe” (CNH).
Dinocerase:
“Extinct suborder of mainly North American ungulates [any large hoof-bearing, grazing animal] known from the late Palaeocene to Eocene” (CNH).
Eohippus:
The oldest known genus of the horse family. The term is now largely archaic and, when used, refers only to the North American specimens of the extinct genus Hyra cotherium.
Oreodon:
An extinct mammal of the artiodactyl order known from the Oligocene to Miocene periods in North America.
Titanothere:
An extinct rhinoceroslike ungulate mammal known from the Lower Eocene to the Middle Oligocene.

45
Ventriculite:
A type of sponge known from the Upper Cretaceous.

46
For Einstein, see n. 129 to
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
.

47
Archaeozoic:
“Pertaining to the era of the earliest living beings on our planet” (OED). Now archaic.

48
Radiata:
Latinized plural noun form of the adjective “radiate,” referring to creatures (such as starfish) whose bodies are characterized by radial symmetry.

49
Echinoderm:
a phylum of marine animals including sea lilies, starfish, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers, all of which bear five-fold rotational symmetry.

50
See n. 21 to “Pickman's Model.”

51
Albert N. Wilmarth, instructor of literature at Miskatonic University, is the narrator of “The Whisperer in Darkness” (1930).

52
It is not entirely clear what is meant by this phrase. Cthulhu, the extraterrestrial entity trapped in his sunken city of R'lyeh in the Pacific, was created in “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926); he has a band of human wor shipers scattered across the earth who seek to bring about his resurrection. Here the term seems to refer to the entities (mentioned in the story as the Great Old Ones) who accompanied Cthulhu on his cosmic voyage through the depths of space to the earth, and who are presumably similar in shape to the octopoid Cthulhu. They are not, however, explicitly described in the tale; at one point it is said: “The carven idol was great Cthulhu, but none might say whether or not the others were precisely like him” (CC 154); later it is mentioned that they are not “composed altogether of flesh and blood” (CC 154).

53
Cryptogam:
“A lower plant, lacking conspicuous reproductive structures such as flowers or cones” (CNH).
Pteridophyte:
“Ferns; classified under the term Filicophyta [division of vascular plants which reproduce by spores produced in sporangia borne on the leaves, usually in clusters]” (CNH).

54
Albert N. Wilmarth (see n. 51). “The Whisperer in Darkness” deals with creatures labeled the fungi from Yuggoth who have come from the planet Yuggoth (= Pluto) to the earth and besiege a lonely farmer in the Vermont wilderness.

55
This term had also been used in several previous stories by HPL, but it appears to denote quite different entities. It first occurs in “The Strange High House in the Mist” (1926) and then in
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
, evidently referring to the gods of the dream-world.

56
Recall the name of the whaling ship accompanying Byrd's expedition, the
C. A. Larsen
(n. 13).

57
The Pnakotic Manuscripts are, chronologically, the first of HPL's mythical books. They are first cited in “Polaris” (1918), a tale about the ancient arctic world of Lomar. Extensive use is made of them in
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.
The comment about their “pre-Pleistocene origin” refers to the possibility that they were composed before the earliest primitive human beings had evolved from hominids, about 2 million years ago.

58
Tsathoggua is an invention of HPL's friend Clark Ashton Smith (see n. 21 to “Pickman's Model”); it first appeared in the story “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” (written in 1929;
Weird Tales
, November 1931). HPL made his first reference to the entity in “The Mound,” a tale ghostwritten for Zealia Bishop in 1929-30 but not published until 1940. Tsathoggua is cited again in “The Whisperer in Darkness” (1930).

59
William Scoresby (1789-1857) undertook yearly voyages to Greenland between 1803 and 1822 and wrote many books of his travels, illustrated with his own drawings.

60
Dyer and Danforth are at the very limit of breathability without external aid: human beings ordinarily require an oxygen supply above 25,000 feet.

61
Machu Picchu is a city of the Incas fifty miles northwest of Cuzco, situated on a narrow ridge 2000 feet above the Vilcanota River. It was probably built sometime early in the second millennium C.E. (c. 1000-1400). It was rediscovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, an American explorer.

62
Kish is an ancient Sumerian city near Babylon that flourished in the third millennium B.C.E. Oxford University and the Field Museum (Chicago) undertook a joint expedition to the site in 1923-29; several monographs detailing their excavations were subsequently published.

63
The Giants' Causeway is a geological formation on the northern coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It consists of a lava flow that is at least 12 million years old, 700 feet long, and 40 feet wide. As the flat surface of the lava cooled, cracks formed an unusually regular pattern of hexagons; the downward extension of these cracks produced a forest of closely packed hexagonal columns 20 feet tall.

64
The Garden of the Gods is a park northwest of Colorado Springs, consisting of red and white sandstone formations, some of which stand upright and are over 300 feet tall. The site is of late Paleozoic origin and was produced by erosion from wind and water.

65
Presumably a reference to the Grand Canyon. HPL, having never gone west of New Orleans, did not know these sites in Colorado and Arizona at firsthand.

66
“A name given to the Pamirs, the great region of mountains covering 30,000 square miles, devoid of trees and shrubs, and most of it in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Tadzhikistan” (
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
).

67
The Mi-Go, Yeti, or Abominable Snowmen are a real folk myth in Nepal and Tibet. They are supposed to be huge human beings who dwell at the snow line in the Himalayas; their snowprints have purportedly been seen, but these are probably the prints of bears. The term
Mi-Go
is a Tibetan compound:
mi,
“man,” and
go
(or
gyo
), “swift,” or “Fast-moving manlike creature.” This mention, however, is a clear nod to “The Whisperer in Darkness,” where the stories of the fungi from Yuggoth in the Vermont hills are said to be analogous to the “belief of the Nepalese hill tribes in the dreaded
Mi-Go
or ‘Abominable Snow Men' who lurk hideously amidst the ice and rock pinnacles of the Himalayan summits” (CC 206); later the fungi are explicitly identified with the Mi-Go (CC 216).

68
For Tsathoggua, see n. 58. “Hyperborean” refers to the story cycle involving the ancient mythical northern continent of Hyperborea (at the North Pole) written by Clark Ashton Smith, of which “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” is a part.

69
The Old Ones' city corresponds approximately to the city described in A. Merritt's “The People of the Pit” (1917): “ ‘Straight beneath me was the—city. I looked down upon mile after mile of closely packed cylinders. They lay upon their sides in pyramids of three, of five—of dozens—piled upon each other. . . . they were topped by towers, by minarets, by flares, by fans, and twisted monstrosities.” The city is postulated as existing underground somewhere in the Yukon. See
The Fox Woman and Other Stories
(1949; rpt. New York: Avon, 1977), pp. 67-68.

70
For HPL's views on Atlantis, see n. 7 to “The Temple.” Lemuria is a continent once thought to have existed in the Indian Ocean; it was hypothesized by Ernst Haeckel to account for the presence of lemurs and other animals and plants in southern Africa and the Malay Peninsula. HPL, although philosophically influenced by Haeckel, learned of Lemuria primarily from W. Scott-Elliot's
The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria
(1925), which is mentioned in “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926). Commorion and Uzuldaroum are cities in the land of Hyperborea invented by Clark Ashton Smith in “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros.” “Olathoë in the land of Lomar” is a reference to HPL's own tale, “Polaris” (see n. 57).

71
Valusia is a kingdom in prehistoric Europe invented by HPL's friend Robert E. Howard (1906-1936). In Howard's fiction Valusia is ruled by King Kull, and an entire series of tales are set in this realm. R'lyeh is the sunken city housing Cthulhu in “The Call of Cthulhu.” Ib is the primeval city that was destroyed by Sarnath in HPL's “The Doom That Came to Sarnath” (1920). The Nameless City is a reference to HPL's own story, “The Nameless City”: “It must have been thus before the first stones of Memphis were laid, and while the bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked. There is no legend so old as to give it a name, or to recall that it was ever alive . . .” (D 98).