Elephants Face Crisis as Building Is Discovered to Be Sinking into Swamp

Rumors that Eliot House is sinking at an increasing rate into the swamp on which it was built were spreading through the University last night after high officials failed to deny reports.

The fact that there was a slight movement of the foundations of the second largest of the buildings in the House system was disclosed four years age when steady pressure caused a break in a number of water mains under the basement.

Experts Gloomy

An overwhelming majority of the investigators expressed the opinion at that time that the House was being engulfed in the quagmire from which it had sprung, but at such a slow rate that there need be no alarm.

Latest disclosures show that the longer the process has gone on, the less gradual it has become until an alarming rate of subgression has been reached.

Fault Lies in Site

The fault lies, unprejudiced sources claim with the choosing of the site of the traditional sent of "Harvard Indifference." All the region south of Eliot and South Streets--the area now occupied by Eliot House and Memorial Drive used to be a low-lying swampland on which "squatters" lived in cabins, whose disappearance into the swamp in the early days of Cambridge provided one of the chief sources of excitement for local witch-hunters.

Business School Too?

The School of Business Administration, situated just across the river, was also built on the unstable base and a report of its tendency to sink has been in circulation for several years.

The Elephants need not be alarmed, however, one building expert predicted last night. "There is no danger of there being a serious drop before the next three years are over," he said, "and by the time the building sinks up to the first floor it will be possible to add a sixth story onto the top."

As the lower regions become uninhabitable more floors can be added indefinitely in an endless succession of top stories, he assured auxious merry men.