induce his hearers to believe.

It took a little nerve to shut him off; Van Emmon was the one who did
it. Somehow they all felt immensely relieved when the gigantic voice was
silenced; and at once began discussing the thing with great earnestness.
Jackson was for assuming that the first record was worn and old, the
last one, fresh and new; but after examining both tapes under a glass,
and seeing how equally clear cut and sharp the impressions all were,
they agreed that the extraordinary voice they had heard was practically
true to life.

They tried out the rest of the records in that batch, finding that they
were all by the same speaker. Nowhere among the ribbons brought from the
library was another of his making, although a great number of different
voices was included; neither was there another talker with a fifth the
volume, the resonance, the absolute power of conviction that this
unknown colossus possessed.

Of course this is no place to describe the laborious process of
interpreting these documents, records of a past which was gone before
earth's mankind had even begun. The work involved the study of countless
photos, covering everything from inscriptions to parts of machinery, and
other details which furnished clue after clue to that superancient
language. It was not deciphered, in fact, until several years after the
explorers had submitted their finds to the world's foremost
lexicographers, antiquarians and paleontologists. Even today some of it
is disputed.

But right here is, most emphatically, the place to insert the tale told
by that unparalleled voice. And incredible though it may seem, as judged