“Mount Olympus riseth even to the clear aether, wherefore letters written in the dust on the summit of that mountain have been found unchanged after the lapse of a whole year. Neither do birds live there, by reason of the rarefaction of the air, nor could the philosophers who have ascended it remain, even for a brief space of time, without sponges soaked in water, which they applied to their nostrils and sucked thence a denser air.”
—Anon., 11th century
Erstwhile Human 