The rough notes from which this narrative, said Robert Cromnie in a preface for this book, has been constructed were given to me by the man who tells the story. For obvious reasons I have altered the names of the principals, and I hereby pass on the assurance which I have received, that the originals of such as are left alive can be found if their discovery be thought desirable. This alteration of names, the piecing together of somewhat disconnected and sometimes nearly indecipherable memoranda, and the reduction of the mass to consecutive form, are all that has been required of me or would have been permitted to me. The expedition to Labrador mentioned by the narrator has not returned, nor has it ever been definitely traced. He does not undertake to prove that it ever set out. But he avers that all which is hereafter set down is truly told, and he leaves it to mankind to accept the warning which it has fallen to him to convey, or await the proof of its sincerity which he believes the end of the century will produce. Weird junk from the 1890s. For real.

Author Biography

Robert Cromie (1855-1907) was a Belfast journalist and novelist. He was the third son of Dr. Cromie of Clough where he was born on July 17, 1855. Cromie was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution where, according to one article, he claimed "an unbeaten record in the matter of examinations, having never once failed, by reason...of having never once entered." A Plunge into Space, a science fiction novel, was published in 1890. This work predates H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon by some 10 years, but contains a number of similarities. Cromie pointed these out in letters to the Academy journal. Cromie's 1895 novel The Crack of Doom was his most successful and contains the first description of an atomic explosion.