Cold as glass

- "Glass" suggest that this is not a literal fort, but some other (modern) building.  Most likely, it is just a general reference to downtown Houston and its many glass-covered skyscrapers.

- "Cold as glass" is a phrase in Ayn Rand's novel Anthem (published in 1938) and is used in that book to describe the steel rail of a subway train.  If these words really are a reference to that book, they might be directing us to train track.

- "Cold as glass" is also a phrase in Wilma Dykeman's nonfiction book The French Broad (published in 1955) and is used there to describe a still body of water.  If these words are a meant as a reference to that, they might be directing us to a lake.

- The Glassell School of Art in Houston was built in 1979 and used glass tiles to insulate the building and keep it cool.

- Houston's Hermann Park has a Taipei Friendship Pavilion that was a bicentennial gift from the City of Taipei to the City of Houston in 1976. As part of the redesign of that park, the pavilion was relocated to a new position in 2013/14.

- A YouTube video about the Houston pavilion shows detailed images and gives a little more history. In particular, it shows the original location before the move (at 0:13 and again at 6:38).

- Apparently Taipei gave two identical pavilions to U.S. cities in 1976.  Intriguingly, the other pavilion, in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, is now the focus of the search for the Image 1 / Verse 7 casque.

Take your task

To the number

Nine eight two

- An antique Southern Pacific steam engine numbered "982" was on display in Houston's Hermann Park for half a century, and these lines of the verse are almost certainly a reference to that.  The engine was moved around a few times before it left the park in 2007, but we know that in 1981 it was located at the southeast corner of the lake.  (For full details on how we reconstructed the locomotive's location, see the Hermann Park history page.)

This map shows the steps so far:

No lion fears

- These are arguably the most important lines in the verse, because they tell us which way to go around the lake.  Going clockwise (as viewed from above) would take us west, past the entrance to the zoo, which would make sense with a reference to lions.  Going counter-clockwise would take us north through a forested area, which would make sense with the reference to "a wood."  Either direction would take us to a place with tracks for the miniature train.

- "The wood no lion fears" might be a reference to the cowardly lion making it through the Haunted Forest in The Wizard of Oz, but it isn't clear how that reference would indicate a direction.

- The Houston Zoo had at least one water fountain shaped like a lion, but it isn't clear whether one would have been visible from outside the zoo.  (Both of the pictures below are apparently from the Houston Zoo in the 1970's.  Either the fountain got moved around, or there were multiple fountains.)

- This probably refers to a fountain that shoots water in the air.  In 1981 there was one on the western side of McGovern Lake in Hermann Park.  It probably would have been visible from anywhere on the perimeter of the lake.

- This line is one of the most direct and useful clues in the whole book.  "Small of scale" refers to something that has been miniaturized but has kept the same proportions (the same scale) so it looks realistic.  And, as any train enthusiast knows, smaller versions of trains have a variety of modelling scales to maintain the appearance of a full-size train.  Hermann Park has one such miniature railroad.

- If the line said "step over" or "step onto," it could refer to the train itself or to any small model.  But the word "across" generally refers to something that stretches out for a distance on either side, like a river or a street.  And the phrase "step across" means that whatever we are crossing is no wider than a single step.  When combined with the line above, about "small of scale," there can really be no doubt: This line is clearly telling us to step across the tracks for the Hermann Park miniature train.

- If Preiss were giving us directions to go from the zoo to the Atropos Key or the Miller Outdoor Theatre or the Pioneer Memorial Obelisk, there is no way he would phrase the directions like this.  Going to any of those destinations would mean either crossing the railroad tracks twice or not crossing them at all.  But the verse very clearly tells us once (and only once) to "step across."

- The power of this clue is that it substantially narrows the search area.  The current train route goes all around Hermann Park, but the route in 1981 was much shorter and was restricted to the northwest, north, and east shores of McGovern Lake.  (See map below.)  If we are only told to cross the tracks once, our destination must be somewhere within that 1981 loop.

- One of the distinctive things about Image 8 is that it's the only painting in the whole book to use one-point perspective, where lines that would be parallel in real life converge to a vanishing point in the distance.  (The other 11 paintings are all essentially flat and don't show any depth or distance.)

-  This line might be telling us to stand in a place where we can see a similar effect.  If so, this is a very powerful clue.  The interior of the 1981 train route consisted mostly of open woodlands and there were very few places where one could see parallel, straight lines.  Our options for where to stand are narrowed down to only a few spots.

- This line could also mean that we need to move into a place where we see columns or other objects positioned in the same perspective as in Image 8.  The two most likely features would be the two mentioned here in the verse: the steam locomotive ("number nine eight two") and the fountain in McGovern Lake ("the spout").  Perhaps not coincidentally, those two features appear to be shown overlapping in the image.  The whirlwind around the genie resembles a fountain, but it casts a shadow resembling the smokestack of a steam locomotive.

In the center of four alike

Small, split,

Three winged and slight

- This is possibly a reference to a group of four elm trees.  Observers have reported that Hermann Park contains a group of four elm trees, three of which are winged elms.  It isn't clear, however, whether the trees were present in the park in 1981.  Current views of the wooded areas near the obelisk appear to show mostly pines and cypresses.

- The reflection pool at the park used to contain four small fountains, as shown here. 

- This is a modification of a sentence from Pierre; or, The Ambiguities, written by Herman Melville in 1852.  The original sentence is "What we take to be our strongest tower of delight, only stands at the caprice of the minutest event — the falling of a leaf, the hearing of a voice, or the receipt of one little bit of paper scratched over with a few small characters by a sharpened feather."  This might tell us that we should be standing in a grove of deciduous trees that lose their leaves in December.

- The use of a Herman Melville quote here appears to be a hint to steer readers to Hermann Park.  (For more information on the Melville connection, see further down this page.)

A whistle sounds.

- The final lines might describe what one can see and hear from the treasure spot.

- Given the connection between this verse and Herman Melville, a phrase like "there's the spout" has a strong, intuitive connection to the shouts made by whalers when they spotted a whale (e.g., "thar she blows!").

- The "whistle" could refer to the whistle on the park's miniature train.

- These final lines of the verse strongly suggest that when we are standing in the right spot we should be able to look "back" (toward Engine 982) and see a spout of water while also hearing a train whistle blow.

• start at Engine 982
• draw a direct line through the fountain to the other side of the lake
• step across the tracks of the small scale railroad
• look for a place relevant to "perspective"
• look for a place with "four alike"

The proposed solution for this casque is given on the Image 8 Verse 1 Solution page.