Underland
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; and Fight for Life: The Neil Moss Story, dir. Dave Webb (2006).
44 ‘For the first time in millennia . . . the vast majority of people a few generations ago ‘: Harrison, The Dominion of the Dead, p. 31.
Chapter 3: Dark Matter
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55 shielded from the surface by 3,000 feet of halite, gypsum . . . clay and topsoil: on the strata sequence at Boulby, see ‘Lithological Log of Cleveland Potash Ltd’, Borehole Staithes No. 20, drilled September–December 1968 to a depth of c.3500 feet (BGS ID borehole 620319, BGS Reference NZ71NE14).
58 ‘the revelation of a new order . . . and darkness as well’: Kent Meyers, ‘Chasing Dark Matter in America’s Deepest Gold Mine’, Harper’s Magazine (May 2015), 27–37: 28.
58 ‘As if. . .you could infer the meadow ‘: Rebecca Elson, ‘Explaining Dark Matter’, in A Responsibility to Awe (Manchester: Carcanet, 2001), p. 71.
75 ‘I suddenly thought. . . it seems to have stuck’: Paul Crutzen, quoted in Howard Falcon-Lang, ‘Anthropocene: Have Humans Created a New Geological Age?’, BBC, 11 May 2011
75 ‘mankind [sic] . . . millions of years to come’: Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer, ‘The Anthropocene’, International Geosphere-Biosphere Newsletter 41 (May 2000)
75 As the Pleistocene was defined by the action of ice . . . at a global scale: for several years now I have taught a graduate course at Cambridge called ‘Cultures of the Anthropocene’. The literature of and on the idea of the Anthropocene is vast, various, disputatious and growing. Some of the texts I find most interesting are detailed in the bibliography and are drawn on in this brief discussion of the concept and its implications for deep time, politics and ethics.
76 ‘stratigraphically optimal’: Anthropocene Working Group of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, ‘When Did the Anthropocene Begin? A Mid-Twentieth-Century Limit is Stratigraphically Optimal’, Quaternary International 383 (2015), 204—7.
77 ‘Are we being good ancestors?’: Jonas Salk, ‘Are We Being Good Ancestors?’, World Affairs 1:2 (1992), 16–18.
78 ‘palaeontology of the present’ : W. J. T. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 325.
79 A trace fossil is the sign . . . absence serves as sign: see also Ilana Halperin, ‘Autobiographical Trace Fossils’, in Making the Geologic Now: Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life, ed. Elizabeth Ellsworth and Jamie Kruse (New York: Punctum, 2013), pp. 154–8.
81 ‘At night, according to . . . beneath the earth’: Bede, The Reckoning of Time, trans. Faith Wallis (725; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999), p. 97.
82 Occasionally the miners hacked their ways into geodes . . . down there in the crust: on Pennine mining cultures, see Peter Davidson’s glittering chapter, ‘Spar Boxes: Northern England’, in his Distance and Memory (Manchester: Carcanet, 2013), pp. 42–58.
Chapter 4: The Understorey
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89 ‘underground social network . . . fungal species’: Suzanne Simard, ‘Notes from a Forest Scientist’, afterword to Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees, trans. Jane Billinghurst (Vancouver/Berkeley: Greystone Press, 2016), p. 247.
90 ‘ forged their duality . . . making a forest’: Simard, in Wohlleben, Hidden Life of Trees, p. 249.
90–91 ‘co-operative system . . . forest wisdom . . . mothers’. Suzanne Simard, ‘Exploring How and Why Trees “Talk” to Each Other’, Yale Environment 360, 1 September 2016
91 ‘the wood wide web’: see Suzanne Simard et al., ‘Net Transfer of Carbon between Ectomycorrhizal Tree Species in the Field’, Nature 388:6642 (1997), 579–82.
91 ‘The wood wide web . . . languages of the forest network’: Simard, in Wohlleben, Hidden Life of Trees, p. 249.
96 ‘plants are physiologically separate . . . functioning of ecosystems’: see E. I. Newman, ‘Mycorrhizal Links between Plants: Their Functioning and Ecological Significance’, Advances in Ecological Research 18 (1988), 243–70: 244.
98 ‘a busy social space . . . cross-species world underground’: Anna Tsing and Rosetta S. Elkin, ‘The Politics of the Rhizosphere’, Harvard Design Magazine 45 (Spring/Summer 2018)
98 ‘Next time you walk through a forest . . . lies under your feet ‘: Anna Tsing, ‘Arts of Inclusion, or How to Love a Mushroom’, Manoa 22:2 (2010), 191–203: 191.
99 ‘we had roots that grew . . . one tree and not two’: Louis De Bernières, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (Reading: Seeker and Warburg, 1996), p. 281.
100 and of the hyphae that are weaving . . . a version of love’s work: Ginny Battson has also written – beautifully – on mycelia and/as love, in a short online essay, ‘Mycelium of the Forest Floor. And Love’, 12 October 2015
101 If only your mind were a slightly greener thing . . . drown you in meaning: Richard Powers, The Overstory (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018), p. 4.
102 Fungi were among the first organisms . . . changing conditions of the Anthropocene: for more on the cultural and political histories of fungi, and how they entangle with our own, see Anna Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017). I have also drawn in this discussion on Karen Barad, ‘No Small Matter: Mushroom Clouds, Ecologies of Nothingness, and Strange Topologies of Spacetimemattering’, in ALDP, pp. G103-G120.
102–3 Scientists working in Chernobyl after the disaster . . . processing it in some way: see N. N. Zhdanova et al., ‘Ionizing Radiation Attracts Soil Fungi’, Mycological Research 108:9 (2004), 1089–96; and E. Dadachova and A. Casadevall, ‘Ionizing Radiation: How Fungi Cope, Adapt, and Exploit with the Help of Melanin’, Current Opinion in Microbiology 11:6 (2008), 525–31.
103 ‘Learning to see mosses is more like listening than looking’: Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2003), p. 11.
103 ‘mosses . . . the limits of ordinary perception’: Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, p. 10.
104 ‘holobionts’: Lynn Margulis, ‘Symbiogenesis and Symbionticism’, in Symbiosis as a Source of Evolutionary Innovation: Speciation and Morphogenesis, ed. Lynn Margulis (Boston: MIT Press, 1991), pp. 1–14: p. 3.
104 ‘consisting of trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi . . . sharing a common life ‘ : Glenn Albrecht, ‘Exiting the Anthropocene and Entering the Symbiocene’, PYSCHOTERRATICA, 17 December 2015
104 ‘To dwellers in a wood . . . voice as well as its feature’: Thomas Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree (1872; London: Penguin, 2012), p. 3.
104 ‘live in a world that watches . . . sensate, personified. They feel ‘: Richard Nelson, Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon View of the Northern Forest (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 14.
105 ‘the word for world is forest ‘: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Word for World is Forest (1972; London: Orion Books, 2015).
111 ‘all its technical vocabulary . . . no words to hold this mystery ‘: Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis: Milkweed, 2013), p. 49.
111 ‘fluent botany . . . gift of seeing’: Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, pp. 48—9.
112 A bay is a noun . . . well[ing]up all around us’: Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, p. 55.
112 ‘grammar of animacy ‘: Robin Wall Kimmerer, ‘Speaking of Nature’, Orion Magazine, 14 June 2017, passim.
112 mammal language: J. H. Prynne, ‘On the Poetry of Peter Larkin’, No Prizes 2 (2013), 43�
�5: 43.
113 ‘geotraumatics ‘: Cybernetic Culture Research Unit, ‘Barker Speaks’, in CCRU: Writings 1997–2003 (Falmouth: Time Spiral Press, 2015), p. 155.
113 ‘planetary dysphoria’: Emily Apter, ‘Planetary Dysphoria’, Third Text 27:1 (2017), 131–40.
113 ‘apex-guilt’: aliciaescott, ‘Field Study #007, The Extinction Event’, Bureau of Linguistical Reality, 1 September 2015
113 ‘species loneliness’: Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, p. 208.
113 ‘by human intelligence. . . the wood wide web ‘: Albrecht, ‘Exiting the Anthropocene and Entering the Symbiocene’.
Second Chamber
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121 ‘if we need to go into caves in a nuclear war . . . a lot of food: British Pathe, ‘Caveman 105 Days Below’, YouTube, 13 April 2014
122 ‘I can only think clearly in the dark . . . darkness in Europe’: Ludwig Wittgenstein, quoted in Tim Robinson, Connemara: The Last Pool of Darkness (London and Dublin: Penguin, 2009), p. 1. In the same book, Robinson tells the story of artist Dorothy Cross’s habit of diving down to feed the conger eels at the bottom of the harbour.
Chapter 5: Invisible Cities
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133 ‘convolutes’: ‘Translators’ Foreword’, in TAP, p. xiv.
133 ‘collective dream’: TAP, p. 152.
133 ‘It is more arduous to honour . . . memory of the nameless ‘: these words, from Benjamin’s preparatory notes to ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’, are etched into glass at Dani Karavan’s memorial to Benjamin at Portbou.
135 ‘subterranean city . . . upper world’: TAP, pp. 85—98.
135 ‘Our waking existence . . . lose ourselves in the dark corridors’: TAP, p. 84.
135 ‘key’, ‘underworld’: TAP, p. 403, p. 84.
135 ‘make some sign to the world one is leaving’: TAP, p. 88.
135 ‘hatchway[s] leading from the surface to the depths ‘: TAP, p. 98.
135 ‘guard the threshold’: TAP, p. 214.
135 ‘protect and mark the transitions ‘: TAP, p. 88.
136 ‘lightning-scored, whistle-resounding darkness . . . entered and traversed’: TAP, pp. 84-5.
139 ‘Paris has another Paris under herself . . . its arteries and its circulation’: Victor Hugo, The Essential Victor Hugo, trans. E. H. and A. M. Blackmore (1862; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 395.
140 So started one of the most remarkable episodes of Paris’s history: the years of the disinterral of Paris’s cemeteries are vividly discussed in Graham Robb, Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris (London: Picador, 2010); and Andrew Hussey, Paris: The Secret History (London: Penguin, 2007), among other sources.
142 ‘Temporary Autonomous Zone’: Hakim Bey, T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2003).
143 An unofficial ‘university’ of the catacombs was established: see, for a fascinatingly detailed account of one aspect of the multiple encryptions of recent cataphile culture, Sean Michaels, ‘Unlocking the Mystery of Paris’ Most Secret Underground Society’, Gizmodo, 21 April 2011
147 I found a Hollow place . . . It was quite soft: see Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Kathleen Coburn, vol. 1 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), entry 949.
148 ‘an identical copy of their city . . . who is alive and who is dead’: Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, trans. William Weaver (1972; London: Vintage, 1997), pp. 98–9.
149 ‘there is a layer of urban stratigraphy . . . unearthed below ground’: Wayne Chambliss, personal communication, May 2018.
149 ‘infrastructure that supports urban life . . . above the surface of the earth ‘: Pierre Belanger, ‘Altitudes of Urbanisation’, Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 55 (January 2016), 5–7: 5.
149 ‘Complex subterranean spaces . . . above and below ground’: Graham, Vertical, p. 5.
151 ‘The cold in these underground corridors . . . exchanged addresses’: TAP, p. 89.
152 The city of the dead antedates . . . every living city: Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (New York: Har-court & Brace, 1961), p. 7.
154 ‘most photographed barn in America’: Don DeLillo, White Noise (London: Penguin, 1986), p. 128.
155 ‘ feeding the rat’: Al Alvarez, Feeding the Rat: A Climber’s Life on the Edge (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).
155 ‘recod[es] people’s normalised relationships to city space’: Bradley Garrett, Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City (London: Verso, 2014), p. 6.
156 I was especially struck by the manic systematicity of much explorer practice: see, for more on the connection-delirium of contemporary infrastructure-mappers, Shannon Mattern’s dazzling essay ‘Cloud and Field’, Places Journal (August 2016)
156–7 ‘London deserted . . . what a place to explore!’: Edward Thomas, ‘Chalk Pits’, in Selected Poems and Prose (1981; London: Penguin, 2012), pp. 77—8.
170–71 I wonder at what will remain of our cities . . . trace impressions of its presence: I draw here on, among other sources, Jan Zalasiewicz’s work on cities and the rock record, including an interview with him by Andrew Luck-Baker for ‘Leaving our Mark: What Will Be Left of Our Cities’, 1 November 2012
Chapter 6: Starless Rivers
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177 Starless rivers run through classical culture, and they are the rivers of the dead: see for a detailed examination of geology and mythology in this context, Julie Baleriaux, ‘Diving Underground: Giving Meaning to Subterranean Rivers’, in Valuing Landscape in Classical Antiquity, ed. Jeremy McInerney and Ineke Sluiter (Leiden: Brill, 2016), pp. 103–21; and Salomon Kroonenberg, Why Hell Stinks of Sulfur: Mythology and Geology of the Underworld (London: Reaktion, 2013).
178 ‘Flectere si nequeo superos . . . the River of Hell ‘: Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. Peter Davidson (personal communication).
178 ‘vanishing lakes’: see Johann von Valvasor, ‘An Extract of a Letter Written to the Royal Society out of Carniola, by Mr John Weichard Valvasor, R. Soc. S. Being a Full and Accurate Description of the Wonderful Lake of Zirknitz in that Country’, in Philosophical Transactions, Giving Some Accompt of the Present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours, of the Ingenious in Many Considerable Parts of the World, ed. Henry Oldenburg and Francis Roper, vol. 16 (London: Printed for T.N. by John Martyn, 1687). I draw in this chapter also on the defining work of Trevor Shaw, Foreign Travellers in the Slovene Karst: 1486— 1900 (Ljubljana, Založba ZRC, 2008); and Trevor Shaw and Alenka Čuk, Slovene Caves & Karst Pictured 1545—1914 (Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2012).
181 ‘limitless tempest’: Rainer Maria Rilke, letter to Lou Andreas-Salomé, 11 February 1922, in Rainer Maria Rilke, Lou Andreas-Salome: Briefwechsel (Zurich: M. Niehans, 1952), p. 464 (translation mine).
181 ‘Ancient tangled deeps. . . never to be sought’: Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘Sonnet 17’, in Sonnets to Orpheus, trans. Martyn Crucefix (London: Enitharmon Press, 2012), p. 47.
184 ‘We are the bees of the invisible . . . the great golden hive of the invisible ‘: Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘106. To Witold von Hulewicz, Postmark: Sierre, 13.11.25’, in Rilke, Selected Letters 1902—1926, trans. R. F. C. Hull (London: Quartet Encounters, 1988), p. 394.
186 ‘The Timavo River flows from the mountains . . . springs beside the sea ‘: Posidonius, Posidonius, ed. Ludwig Edelstein and I. G. Kidd, trans. I. G. Kidd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 46.
186–7 Systematic exploration of the river’s hidden extent . . . dive into the ink: I draw here in part on an excellent series of four articles in Italian tracing the course and histo
ry of the Reka/Timavo by Pietro Spirito that appeared in Il Piccolo between 2 and 23 August 2014, gathered under the title ‘Alla scoperta del Timavo’.
187 ‘The Timavo is a dream . . . metre by metre’: Marco Restiano, quoted in Pietro Spirito, ‘Nei cantieri sottoterra da anni si dà la caccia al fiume che non c’è’, Il Piccolo, 23 August 2014 (translation mine).
192 ‘When you’re in the cave . . . unknown land that people didn’t know existed’: Hazel Barton, ‘This Woman is Exploring Deep Caves to Find Ancient Antibiotic Resistance’, interview with Shayla Love, Vice, 20 April 2018
193 A peak can exercise the same irresistible power of attraction as an abyss ‘: Théophile Gautier, trans. Claire Elaine Engel, originally in Les Vacances du Lundi (1869; Paris: G. Charpentier et E. Fasquelle, 1907), p. 13.
193 ‘a passion for depth . . . man had been before ‘: Lovelock, Life and Death Underground, p. 66.
194 ‘Au revoir, papa’: Jacques Attout, Men of Pierre Saint-Martin (London: Werner Laurie, 1956), p. 96.
194 ‘ The show has hardly begun ‘: Attout, Men of Pierre Saint-Martin, p. 102.
195 ‘Never again shall I celebrate . . . vast and luminous’: Attout, Men of Pierre Saint-Martin, pp. 38–9.
196 ‘Because it’s there’: George Mallory, quoted in ‘Climbing Mount Everest is Work for Supermen’, New York Times, 18 March 1923.
196 In The Darkness Beckons, Martyn Farr tells the story of . . . but also its destruction : Martyn Farr, The Darkness Beckons (1980; Sheffield: Vertebrate Press, 2017); see also ‘Dead Man’s Handshake: The Linking of Kingsdale Master Cave and Keld Head, 1975–9’, in Chris Bonington, Quest for Adventure (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1990).
198–9 For years I could only understand . . . Budapest’s underwater maze: I draw in this discussion of cave diving on Farr, The Darkness Beckons; and Antti Apunen, Divers of the Dark: Exploring Budapest’s Underground Caves, trans. Marju Galitsos (Helsinki: Tammi, 2015).