---
title: "The Lost World (Doyle novel)"
chunk: 2/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_World_(Doyle_novel)"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:04:41.529856+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Running the gauntlet of hostile tribes, the expedition finally reaches the lost world with the aid of indigenous guides, who are superstitiously scared of the area. Summerlee retains his arrogance and his skepticism, until a pterodactyl flies down and is seen by all at close range, as it steals the companions’ dinner. After this, Summerlee apologises to Challenger.
The group explores the entire base of the plateau to find a way to the top and discover that a former route up is now blocked by a rock slide. They also encounter human bones at one spot at the base of the cliff, identified as James Colver, Maple White’s companion, who, it would seem, somehow fell to his death. With the cliffs to the plateau apparently unscalable, an adjacent pinnacle is climbable but separated by a wide gap. Challenger determines that a tall tree on the pinnacle can be cut down and used as a bridge, which allows the four explorers to cross over to the plateau. However, they are almost immediately trapped on the other side, thanks to the treachery of one of their hired porters, Gomez—who, as it turns out, is a former slaver whose brother had previously been killed by Roxton during his anti-slavery activities. He takes his revenge by dropping the tree off the cliff, stranding the explorers on the plateau. Roxton shoots and kills Gomez, and the other guide is subsequently killed by another porter, a formerly enslaved black man named Zambo, who remains loyal to the party: but the latter is unable to do much more to help, other than send some of the company's supplies over by rope. 
The explorers investigate the wonders of the lost world, finding a herd of Iguanodons in a glade. They narrowly escape an attack from pterodactyls after the party comes upon a rookery around a swampy pit in a former volcanic blow-hole. Although barely escaping with their lives, Roxton takes great interest in nearby blue clay deposits.
At night a ferocious theropod is about to break through the protective fence of thorn bushes built around their camp; Roxton averts disaster by bravely dashing at it, thrusting a blazing torch at its face to scare it away.

 
The night after, Malone ventures out alone and studies fauna near the central lake; including Glyptodons, Irish elks, and a Stegosaurus. He barely escapes a Megalosaurus and falls into a deep pit dug to trap and impale animals while running in the dark; proof of humans on the plateau.

After climbing out of the pit, Malone returns to the camp to find the others missing and signs of a violent attack. The following morning, Roxton arrives after escaping the race of "ape-men" that captured the party on the night that Malone visited the central lake. While in captivity, they discovered that a tribe of indigenous people, with whom the "ape-men" are at war, inhabit the other side of the plateau.
Roxton and Malone take their rifles to mount a rescue. They arrive at the village of the ape-men and see an Indian hurled off the cliff to the delight of the hairy creatures. Professor Challenger apparently enjoys special status as a captive because of his physical resemblance to the king of the ape-men, and tries in vain to save Summerlee from a similar death. Lord Roxton shoots the king dead at the start of the rescue attack, and he and Malone fire repeatedly, preventing the ape-men from throwing Summerlee and the remaining captured tribe members over the edge. 
One of the saved Indians is a young prince of the tribe and the surviving tribe members take the party back to their village. With the help of the explorers’ firepower, they return to defeat the "ape-men", slaughtering all the adult males, with most being driven off the cliff. After witnessing the power of their guns, the tribe wishes to keep the explorers on the plateau. During their time with the tribe, Roxton plans how to capture a pterodactyl chick at Challenger's request, using a protective wooden cage against the adult pterodactyls. Wanting to leave and return to civilization, the explorers are helped by the young prince they saved, who gives them a crude map of the caves in the hillside near the tribe. With the map, the explorers are able to find a tunnel leading back to the outside world. They escape by night, descending on a rope. 
Upon return to England, many detractors continue to dismiss the expedition's account, until, at a public meeting at Queen's Hall Challenger produces the young pterodactyl as proof, transfixing the audience and leaving them in no doubt of the truth. The explorers are instantly feted as heroes, and on a wave of adulation find themselves carried shoulder-high from the hall by cheering crowds. The pterodactyl, in the confusion, makes its escape and is witnessed several times at different locations around London, causing consternation wherever it goes, but is last seen heading off to the southwest in the probable direction of its home.
At a private celebratory dinner, Roxton reveals to the others that the blue clay contained diamonds. He had been tipped off to the possibility, by the recollection of a similar feature in South Africa, and managed to extract about £200,000 worth (£23 million in 2021), which is to be split between them. Challenger plans to open a private museum with his share. Summerlee plans to retire and categorise fossils. Malone returns to his love, Gladys, hoping she will recognise his achievements. Instead, he finds she has now changed her mind and married a very ordinary man instead, an insignificant clerk. Astonished at this turn of events, and with nothing to keep him in London, he decides to accompany Roxton back to the lost world, which the explorers earlier had named "Maple White Land" in honour of the American who found it.