the hour of 23
At this astonishing result I was nearly overcome by excitement : the last erosions of the ice-masses upon this vestige of a stupendous mountain range which they had worn away , had been made as recently as the year 1945 ! Hastily applying my nymograph , I found that the name of this particular mountain at the time when it began to be enveloped in the mass of ice moving down upon it from the north , was `` Pike 's Peak . '' Other observations with other instruments showed that at that time the country circumjacent to it had been inhabited by a partly civilized race of people known as Galoots , the name of their capital city being Denver . That evening at the hour of 23 I set up my aerial isochronophone -LSB- 3 -RSB- and reported to his gracious Majesty the Ahkoond as follows : -LSB- 3 -RSB- This satire was published in the San Francisco _ Examiner _ many years before the invention of wireless telegraphy ; so I retain my own name for the instrument . -- A.B. '' _ Sire : _ I have the honor to report that I have made a startling discovery . The primeval region into which I have penetrated , as I informed you yesterday -- the ichthyosaurus belt -- was peopled by tribes considerably advanced in some of the arts almost within historic times : in 1920 . They were exterminated by a glacial period not exceeding one hundred and twenty-five years in duration .