Second Landing by Murray Leinster — Read

On the hemisphere facing Aspasia, Thalassia's twin planet, there is but one rocky island not constantly swept by the ocean's giant swells. Evidences of former occupation exist here, but the island has been wave-swept by enormously violent storms, and only excavations for what may have been an observatory and military base remain. -- _Astrographic Survey Publication 11297. Appendix to Space Pilot Vol. 460, Sector XXXIV, p. 71._

The contents of the cave were of interest to the biologist, the archaeologists, the camera specialist, the specimen-preservation member of the Expedition's staff, the palaeontologist, the historian, to Halliday, Belmont, Janney and everyone else but Brett. It would have been of interest to him too, if it had happened that the cave was dry. But there was no single metal object not corroded out of all imaginable resemblance to its original form. The relatively few ceramic remains he could identify as having been made by injection-molding and fired within their molds. That meant a remarkably high state of civilization. But there was no object suitable for his examination as a technological object. The restoration specialist began the extremely tedious process of re-displacement on them. With suitable precautions, a heap of rust can electrolytically be restored to its original condition of solidity and form -- if the rust has not been disturbed. But it is an excruciatingly slow affair.