Near the end of Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), the title character and his pal Dirk Peters are adrift in an open boat, floating ever closer to a watery vortex leading, presumably, into the Hollow Earth: “The wind had entirely ceased, but it was evident that we were still hurrying on to the southward, under the influence of a powerful current…The heat of the water was extreme, even unpleasant to the touch, and its milky hue was more evident than ever…The ashy material fell now continually around us, and in vast quantities. The range of vapour to the southward had risen prodigiously in the horizon, and began to assume more distinctness of form. I can liken it to nothing but a limitless cataract, rolling silently into the sea from immense and far-distant rampart in the heaven. The gigantic curtain ranged along the whole extent of the southern horizon. It emitted no sound.” (© 1930 by The Limited Editions Club (The George Macy Companies, Inc.))