{"id":"01KG8AMXWEQZ4S1YEQPY3T3ASB","cid":"bafkreicsoffonk247eleev3ieexlyclg4ix2ffczlqant4ispzudbnosbi","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5911,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":5865,"text":"IV.\r\n\r\nPierre plunged deep into the woods, and paused not for several miles;\r\npaused not till he came to a remarkable stone, or rather, smoothed mass\r\nof rock, huge as a barn, which, wholly isolated horizontally, was yet\r\nsweepingly overarched by beech-trees and chestnuts.\r\n\r\nIt was shaped something like a lengthened egg, but flattened more; and,\r\nat the ends, pointed more; and yet not pointed, but irregularly\r\nwedge-shaped. Somewhere near the middle of its under side, there was a\r\nlateral ridge; and an obscure point of this ridge rested on a second\r\nlengthwise-sharpened rock, slightly protruding from the ground. Beside\r\nthat one obscure and minute point of contact, the whole enormous and\r\nmost ponderous mass touched not another object in the wide terraqueous\r\nworld. It was a breathless thing to see. One broad haunched end hovered\r\nwithin an inch of the soil, all along to the point of teetering contact;\r\nbut yet touched not the soil. Many feet from that--beneath one part of\r\nthe opposite end, which was all seamed and half-riven--the vacancy was\r\nconsiderably larger, so as to make it not only possible, but convenient\r\nto admit a crawling man; yet no mortal being had ever been known to have\r\nthe intrepid heart to crawl there.\r\n\r\nIt might well have been the wonder of all the country round. But strange\r\nto tell, though hundreds of cottage hearthstones--where, of long\r\nwinter-evenings, both old men smoked their pipes and young men shelled\r\ntheir corn--surrounded it, at no very remote distance, yet had the\r\nyouthful Pierre been the first known publishing discoverer of this\r\nstone, which he had thereupon fancifully christened the Memnon Stone.\r\nPossibly, the reason why this singular object had so long remained\r\nunblazoned to the world, was not so much because it had never before\r\nbeen lighted on--though indeed, both belted and topped by the dense deep\r\nluxuriance of the aboriginal forest, it lay like Captain Kidd's sunken\r\nhull in the gorge of the river Hudson's Highlands,--its crown being full\r\neight fathoms under high-foliage mark during the great spring-tide of\r\nfoliage;--and besides this, the cottagers had no special motive for\r\nvisiting its more immediate vicinity at all; their timber and fuel being\r\nobtained from more accessible woodlands--as because, even, if any of the\r\nsimple people should have chanced to have beheld it, they, in their\r\nhoodwinked unappreciativeness, would not have accounted it any very\r\nmarvelous sight, and therefore, would never have thought it worth their\r\nwhile to publish it abroad. So that in real truth, they might have seen\r\nit, and yet afterward have forgotten so inconsiderable a circumstance.\r\nIn short, this wondrous Memnon Stone could be no Memnon Stone to them;\r\nnothing but a huge stumbling-block, deeply to be regretted as a vast\r\nprospective obstacle in the way of running a handy little cross-road\r\nthrough that wild part of the Manor.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKRN2V3Z8JTW27R93R4XR","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMXWNS6BDGQZA83N37PV7","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:53.134Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:18.335Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}