Pellucidar

**Pellucidar** is a world that occupies the hollow interior of the Earth, located 500 miles beneath the surface. It has a diameter of about 7,000 miles (11,265.41 km) and an estimated surface area of 165,480,000 square miles (428,591,232.498 square kilometers).

An entrance near the Earth's north magnetic pole connects the surface world to Pellucidar.

## Physical aspects

As a world in the inner surface of a sphere, Pellucidar has no horizon. Distant objects appear to be placed higher the farther away they are, until they're no longer visible. Although the centrifugal force generated by the Earth's rotation provides an equivalent of gravity, it is lighter than the gravitational pull of the outer Earth. As a result, surface visitors find themselves with greater speed and agility when they are in Pellucidar.

The "sun" that illuminates Pellucidar is actually the radiant core of the Earth, suspended permanently and immobile at the zenith of the Pellucidarian sky. Its apparent size is three times larger than the surface sun. The constant light and heat provided by this neversetting sun allows the proliferation of gigantic trees and lush tropical forests. However, in the higher altitudes that can be found in granitic mountain ranges, the climate becomes more temperate. The snowcapped mountaintops give birth to crystalline streams, the melting snows replenished by massive clouds which also provide protection from the sun.

Within the skies of Pellucidar there is a small planetary fragment known as the Dead World. Described as the "moon" of Pellucidar, it revolves around the Earth's core at the same velocity as the Earth itself, and therefore appears to remain stationary, casting eternal darkness over an area of Pellucidar known as the Land of Awful Shadow.

Like the surface world, Pellucidar has its own salty seas populated by a variety of giant beasts. However, in relation to the outer Earth, the continental and oceanic areas of Pellucidar are inverted: a continent on the outer world corresponds to sea in the inner world and vice-versa. As a result, the land area of Pellucidar is considerably larger than that of the outer world: about 124,110,000 square miles, i.e. three quarters of Pellucidar's total surface.

There are floating islands adrift in the seas of Pellucidar.

## Ecology

The fauna and flora of Pellucidar are notable for a large number of prehistoric survivors, which remained alive in the interior world long after their extinction on the surface. Sapient races include humans (known as gilaks), the simian sagoths, and at least two sapient reptile species, the mahars and the horibs. Animal life includes the wolf-like *Hyaenodon* (known to the natives as jalok), the giant ground sloth known as dyryth, and a large number of herbivorous and carnivorous reptiles: dinosaurs, pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, sea serpents and giant tortoises, as well as a peculiar species of miniature herbivorous cetaceans which inhabit ponds and streams.

To compensate for the immobile "sun" and the lack of stars, the natives of Pellucidar are endowed with a natural homing instinct which allows them to be constantly aware of their location. Men of the outer world who have visited Pellucidar have consistently reported a strange phenomenon created by the apparent atemporality of its perpetual noon and absence of seasonal cycles. Removed from the ability to measure time, human physiology is affected to the point that time itself seems to become relative to one's activity. For example, a traveling man might experience as if several days or even months have passed, while an idle man might experience only a few hours or minutes.

## Culture

Despite being divided in several enemy tribes and nations, all humans of Pellucidar speak the same worldwide language.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 *At the Earth's Core*, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1914)
2. ↑ *Tanar of Pellucidar*, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1929)
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 *Tarzan at the Earth's Core*, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1929-30)
4. ↑ *Land of Terror*, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1944)