



Produced by Judith Boss.  HTML version by Al Haines.











  The Lost Continent was originally published
    under the title Beyond Thirty




THE LOST CONTINENT


by

Edgar Rice Burroughs


JTABLE 3 9 1



1


Since earliest childhood I have been strangely fascinated by the
mystery surrounding the history of the last days of twentieth century
Europe.  My interest is keenest, perhaps, not so much in relation to
known facts as to speculation upon the unknowable of the two centuries
that have rolled by since human intercourse between the Western and
Eastern Hemispheres ceased--the mystery of Europe's state following the
termination of the Great War--provided, of course, that the war had
been terminated.

From out of the meagerness of our censored histories we learned that
for fifteen years after the cessation of diplomatic relations between
the United States of North America and the belligerent nations of the
Old World, news of more or less doubtful authenticity filtered, from
time to time, into the Western Hemisphere from the Eastern.

Then came the fruition of that historic propaganda which is best
described by its own slogan: "The East for the East--the West for the
West," and all further intercourse was stopped by statute.

Even prior to this, transoceanic commerce had practically ceased, owing
to the perils and hazards of the mine-strewn waters of both the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  Just when submarine activities ended we
do not know but the last vessel of this type sighted by a Pan-American
merchantman was the huge Q 138, which discharged twenty-nine torpedoes
at a Brazilian tank steamer off the Bermudas in the fall of 1972.  A
heavy sea and the excellent seamanship of the master of the Brazilian
permitted the Pan-American to escape and report this last of a long
series of outrages upon our commerce.  God alone knows how many
hundreds