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Title: A Journey into the Interior of the Earth

Author: Jules Verne

Translator: F. A. Malleson

Release date: February 1, 2003 [eBook #3748]
Most recently updated: August 6, 2026

Language: English

Original publication: London: Ward, Lock, &Co., Ltd., 1877

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3748

Credits: Produced by Norman M. Wolcott

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A JOURNEY
INTO THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH ***

A Journey into the Interior of the Earth

by Jules Verne

[Redactor's Note: The following version of Jules Verne's "Journey into
the Interior of the Earth" was published by Ward, Lock, &Co., Ltd.,
London, in 1877. This version is believed to be the most faithful rendition
into English of this classic currently in the public domain. The few notes of
the translator are located near the point where they are referenced. The
Runic characters in Chapter III are visible in the HTML version of the text.
The character set is ISO-8891-1, mainly the Windows character set. The
translation is by Frederick Amadeus Malleson.

While the translation is fairly literal, and Malleson (a clergyman) has
taken pains with the scientific portions of the work and added the chapter
headings, he has made some unfortunate emendations mainly concerning
biblical references, and has added a few 'improvements' of his own, which
are detailed below:

III. "pertubata seu inordinata," as Euclid has it."

XXX. cry, "Thalatta! thalatta!" the sea! the sea! The deeply indented
shore was lined with a breadth of fine shining sand, softly

XXXII. hippopotamus. {as if the creator, pressed for time in the first
hours of the world, had assembled several animals into one.} The colossal
mastodon

XXXII. I return to the scriptural periods or ages of the world,
conventionally called 'days,' long before the appearance of man when the
unfinished world was as yet unfitted for his support. {I return to the biblical
epochs of the creation, well in advance of the birth of man, when the
incomplete earth was not yet sufficient for him.}

XXXVIII. (footnote), and which is illustrated in the negro countenance
and in the lowest savages.

XXXIX. of the geologic period. {antediluvian}

(These corrections have kindly been pointed out by Christian Sánchez
<chvsanchez@arnet.com.ar> of the Jules Verne Forum.)]

—————————————————————————————
——————

A JOURNEY

INTO THE

INTERIOR OF THE EARTH

by

Jules Verne

—————————————————————————————
——————

PREFACE

THE "Voyages Extraordinaires" of M. Jules Verne deserve to be made
widely known in English-speaking countries by means of carefully prepared
translations. Witty and ingenious adaptations of the researches and
discoveries of modern science to the popular taste, which demands that
these should be presented to ordinary readers in the lighter form of cleverly
mingled truth and fiction, these books will assuredly be read with profit and
delight, especially by English youth. Certainly no writer before M. Jules
Verne has been so happy in weaving together in judicious combination
severe scientific truth with a charming exercise of playful imagination.

Iceland, the starting point of the marvellous underground journey
imagined in this volume, is invested at the present time with a painful
interest in consequence of the disastrous eruptions last Easter Day, which
covered with lava and ashes the poor and scanty vegetation upon which
four thousand persons were partly dependent for the means of subsistence.
For a long time to come the natives of that interesting island, who cleave to
their desert home with all that amor patriae which is so much more easily
understood than explained, will look, and look not in vain, for the help of
those on whom fall the smiles of a kindlier sun in regions not torn by
earthquakes nor blasted and ravaged by volcanic fires. Will the readers of
this little book, who, are gifted with the means of indulging in the luxury of
extended beneficence, remember the distress of their brethren in the far

north, whom distance has not barred from the claim of being counted our
"neighbours"? And whatever their humane feelings may prompt them to
bestow will be gladly added to the Mansion-House Iceland Relief Fund.

In his desire to ascertain how far the picture of Iceland, drawn in the
work of Jules Verne is a correct one, the translator hopes in the course of a
mail or two to receive a communication from a leading man of science in
the island, which may furnish matter for additional information in a future
edition.

The scientific portion of the French original is not without a few errors,
which the translator, with the kind assistance of Mr. Cameron of H. M.
Geological Survey, has ventured to point out and correct. It is scarcely to be
expected in a work in which the element of amusement is intended to enter
more largely than that of scientific instruction, that any great degree of
accuracy should be arrived at. Yet the translator hopes that what trifling
deviations from the text or corrections in foot notes he is responsible for,
will have done a little towards the increased usefulness of the work.

F. A. M.

The Vicarage,

Broughton-in-Furness

—————————————————————————————
——————

CONTENTS

I THE PROFESSOR AND HIS FAMILY II A MYSTERY TO BE
SOLVED AT ANY PRICE III THE RUNIC WRITING EXERCISES
THE PROFESSOR IV THE ENEMY TO BE STARVED INTO
SUBMISSION V FAMINE, THEN VICTORY, FOLLOWED BY
DISMAY VI EXCITING DISCUSSIONS ABOUT AN
UNPARALLELED EXERCISE VII A WOMAN'S COURAGE VIII
SERIOUS PREPARATIONS FOR VERTICAL DESCENT IX
ICELAND, BUT WHAT NEXT? X INTERESTING
CONVERSATIONS WITH ICELANDIC SAVANTS XI A GUIDE
FOUND TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH XII A BARREN LAND
XIII HOSPITALITY UNDER THE ARCTIC CIRCLE XIV BUT
ARCTICS CAN BE INHOSPITABLE, TOO XV SNÆFFEL AT LAST
XVI BOLDLY DOWN THE CRATER XVII VERTICAL DESCENT
XVIII THE WONDERS OF TERRESTIAL DEPTHS XIX
GEOLOGICAL STUDIES IN SITU XX THE FIRST SIGNS OF
DISTRESS XXI COMPASSION FUSES THE PROFESSOR'S HEART
XXII TOTAL FAILURE OF WATER XXIII WATER DISCOVERED
XXIV WELL SAID, OLD MOLE! CANST THOU WORK IN THE
GROUND SO FAST? XXV DE PROFUNDIS XXVI THE WORST
PERIL OF ALL XXVII LOST IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH
XXVIII THE RESCUE IN THE WHISPERING GALLERY XXIX
THALATTA! THALATTA! XXX A NEW MARE INTERNUM XXXI
PREPARATIONS FOR A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY XXXII
WONDERS OF THE DEEP XXXIII A BATTLE OF MONSTERS
XXXIV THE GREAT GEYSER XXXV AN ELECTRIC STORM
XXXVI CALM PHILOSOPHIC DISCUSSIONS XXXVII THE
LIEDENBROCK MUSEUM OF GEOLOGY XXXVIII THE

PROFESSOR IN HIS CHAIR AGAIN XXXIX FOREST SCENERY
ILLUMINATED BY ELECTRICITY XL PREPARATIONS FOR
BLASTING A PASSAGE TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH XLI
THE GREAT EXPLOSION AND THE RUSH DOWN BELOW XLII
HEADLONG SPEED UPWARD THROUGH THE HORRORS OF
DARKNESS XLIII SHOT OUT OF A VOLCANO AT LAST! XLIV
SUNNY LANDS IN THE BLUE MEDITERRANEAN XLV ALL'S
WELL THAT ENDS WELL

——————————————————————————————
—————

A JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR OF THE
EARTH

CHAPTER I.

THE PROFESSOR AND HIS FAMILY

On the 24th of May, 1863, my uncle, Professor Liedenbrock, rushed into
his little house, No. 19 Königstrasse, one of the oldest streets in the oldest
portion of the city of Hamburg.

Martha must have concluded that she was very much behindhand, for the
dinner had only just been put into the oven.

"Well, now," said I to myself, "if that most impatient of men is hungry,
what a disturbance he will make!"

"M. Liedenbrock so soon!" cried poor Martha in great alarm, half
opening the dining-room door.

"Yes, Martha; but very likely the dinner is not half cooked, for it is not
two yet. Saint Michael's clock has only just struck half-past one."

"Then why has the master come home so soon?"

"Perhaps he will tell us that himself."

"Here he is, Monsieur Axel; I will run and hide myself while you argue
with him."

And Martha retreated in safety into her own dominions.

I was left alone. But how was it possible for a man of my undecided turn
of mind to argue successfully with so irascible a person as the Professor?
With this persuasion I was hurrying away to my own little retreat upstairs,
when the street door creaked upon its hinges; heavy feet made the whole
flight of stairs to shake; and the master of the house, passing rapidly
through the dining-room, threw himself in haste into his own sanctum.

But on his rapid way he had found time to fling his hazel stick into a
corner, his rough broadbrim upon the table, and these few emphatic words
at his nephew:

"Axel, follow me!"

I had scarcely had time to move when the Professor was again shouting
after me:

"What! not come yet?"

And I rushed into my redoubtable master's study.

Otto Liedenbrock had no mischief in him, I willingly allow that; but
unless he very considerably changes as he grows older, at the end he will be
a most original character.

He was professor at the Johannæum, and was delivering a series of
lectures on mineralogy, in the course of every one of which he broke into a
passion once or twice at least. Not at all that he was over-anxious about the
improvement of his class, or about the degree of attention with which they
listened to him, or the success which might eventually crown his labours.
Such little matters of detail never troubled him much. His teaching was as
the German philosophy calls it, 'subjective'; it was to benefit himself, not

others. He was a learned egotist. He was a well of science, and the pulleys
worked uneasily when you wanted to draw anything out of it. In a word, he
was a learned miser.

Germany has not a few professors of this sort.

To his misfortune, my uncle was not gifted with a sufficiently rapid
utterance; not, to be sure, when he was talking at home, but certainly in his
public delivery; this is a want much to be deplored in a speaker. The fact is,
that during the course of his lectures at the Johannæum, the Professor often
came to a complete standstill; he fought with wilful words that refused to
pass his struggling lips, such words as resist and distend the cheeks, and at
last break out into the unasked-for shape of a round and most unscientific
oath: then his fury would gradually abate.

Now in mineralogy there are many half-Greek and half-Latin terms, very
hard to articulate, and which would be most trying to a poet's measures. I
don't wish to say a word against so respectable a science, far be that from
me. True, in the august presence of rhombohedral crystals, retinasphaltic
resins, gehlenites, Fassaites, molybdenites, tungstates of manganese, and
titanite of zirconium, why, the most facile of tongues may make a slip now
and then.

It therefore happened that this venial fault of my uncle's came to be pretty
well understood in time, and an unfair advantage was taken of it; the
students laid wait for him in dangerous places, and when he began to
stumble, loud was the laughter, which is not in good taste, not even in
Germans. And if there was always a full audience to honour the
Liedenbrock courses, I should be sorry to conjecture how many came to
make merry at my uncle's expense.

Nevertheless my good uncle was a man of deep learning—a fact I am
most anxious to assert and reassert. Sometimes he might irretrievably injure
a specimen by his too great ardour in handling it; but still he united the
genius of a true geologist with the keen eye of the mineralogist. Armed with
his hammer, his steel pointer, his magnetic needles, his blowpipe, and his
bottle of nitric acid, he was a powerful man of science. He would refer any
mineral to its proper place among the six hundred [1] elementary substances
now enumerated, by its fracture, its appearance, its hardness, its fusibility,
its sonorousness, its smell, and its taste.

The name of Liedenbrock was honourably mentioned in colleges and
learned societies. Humphry Davy, [2] Humboldt, Captain Sir John Franklin,
General Sabine, never failed to call upon him on their way through
Hamburg. Becquerel, Ebelman, Brewster, Dumas, Milne-Edwards, Saint-
Claire-Deville frequently consulted him upon the most difficult problems in
chemistry, a science which was indebted to him for considerable
discoveries, for in 1853 there had appeared at Leipzig an imposing folio by
Otto Liedenbrock, entitled, "A Treatise upon Transcendental Chemistry,"
with plates; a work, however, which failed to cover its expenses.

To all these titles to honour let me add that my uncle was the curator of
the museum of mineralogy formed by M. Struve, the Russian ambassador; a
most valuable collection, the fame of which is European.

Such was the gentleman who addressed me in that impetuous manner.
Fancy a tall, spare man, of an iron constitution, and with a fair complexion
which took off a good ten years from the fifty he must own to. His restless
eyes were in incessant motion behind his full-sized spectacles. His long,
thin nose was like a knife blade. Boys have been heard to remark that that
organ was magnetised and attracted iron filings. But this was merely a

mischievous report; it had no attraction except for snuff, which it seemed to
draw to itself in great quantities.

When I have added, to complete my portrait, that my uncle walked by
mathematical strides of a yard and a half, and that in walking he kept his
fists firmly closed, a sure sign of an irritable temperament, I think I shall
have said enough to disenchant any one who should by mistake have
coveted much of his company.

He lived in his own little house in Königstrasse, a structure half brick and
half wood, with a gable cut into steps; it looked upon one of those winding
canals which intersect each other in the middle of the ancient quarter of
Hamburg, and which the great fire of 1842 had fortunately spared.

[1] Sixty-three. (Tr.)

[2] As Sir Humphry Davy died in 1829, the translator must be pardoned
for pointing out here an anachronism, unless we are to assume that the
learned Professor's celebrity dawned in his earliest years. (Tr.)

It is true that the old house stood slightly off the perpendicular, and
bulged out a little towards the street; its roof sloped a little to one side, like
the cap over the left ear of a Tugendbund student; its lines wanted accuracy;
but after all, it stood firm, thanks to an old elm which buttressed it in front,
and which often in spring sent its young sprays through the window panes.

My uncle was tolerably well off for a German professor. The house was
his own, and everything in it. The living contents were his god-daughter
Gräuben, a young Virlandaise of seventeen, Martha, and myself. As his
nephew and an orphan, I became his laboratory assistant.

I freely confess that I was exceedingly fond of geology and all its kindred
sciences; the blood of a mineralogist was in my veins, and in the midst of
my specimens I was always happy.

In a word, a man might live happily enough in the little old house in the
Königstrasse, in spite of the restless impatience of its master, for although
he was a little too excitable—he was very fond of me. But the man had no
notion how to wait; nature herself was too slow for him. In April, after he
had planted in the terra-cotta pots outside his window seedling plants of
mignonette and convolvulus, he would go and give them a little pull by
their leaves to make them grow faster. In dealing with such a strange
individual there was nothing for it but prompt obedience. I therefore rushed
after him.

CHAPTER II.

A MYSTERY TO BE SOLVED AT ANY PRICE

That study of his was a museum, and nothing else. Specimens of
everything known in mineralogy lay there in their places in perfect order,
and correctly named, divided into inflammable, metallic, and lithoid
minerals.

How well I knew all these bits of science! Many a time, instead of
enjoying the company of lads of my own age, I had preferred dusting these
graphites, anthracites, coals, lignites, and peats! And there were bitumens,
resins, organic salts, to be protected from the least grain of dust; and metals,
from iron to gold, metals whose current value altogether disappeared in the
presence of the republican equality of scientific specimens; and stones too,
enough to rebuild entirely the house in Königstrasse, even with a handsome
additional room, which would have suited me admirably.

But on entering this study now I thought of none of all these wonders;
my uncle alone filled my thoughts. He had thrown himself into a velvet
easy-chair, and was grasping between his hands a book over which he bent,
pondering with intense admiration.

"Here's a remarkable book! What a wonderful book!" he was exclaiming.

These ejaculations brought to my mind the fact that my uncle was liable
to occasional fits of bibliomania; but no old book had any value in his eyes
unless it had the virtue of being nowhere else to be found, or, at any rate, of
being illegible.

"Well, now; don't you see it yet? Why I have got a priceless treasure, that
I found his morning, in rummaging in old Hevelius's shop, the Jew."

"Magnificent!" I replied, with a good imitation of enthusiasm.

What was the good of all this fuss about an old quarto, bound in rough
calf, a yellow, faded volume, with a ragged seal depending from it?

But for all that there was no lull yet in the admiring exclamations of the
Professor.

"See," he went on, both asking the questions and supplying the answers.
"Isn't it a beauty? Yes; splendid! Did you ever see such a binding? Doesn't
the book open easily? Yes; it stops open anywhere. But does it shut equally
well? Yes; for the binding and the leaves are flush, all in a straight line, and
no gaps or openings anywhere. And look at its back, after seven hundred
years. Why, Bozerian, Closs, or Purgold might have been proud of such a
binding!"

While rapidly making these comments my uncle kept opening and
shutting the old tome. I really could do no less than ask a question about its
contents, although I did not feel the slightest interest.

"And what is the title of this marvellous work?" I asked with an affected
eagerness which he must have been very blind not to see through.

"This work," replied my uncle, firing up with renewed enthusiasm,
"this work is the Heims Kringla of Snorre Turlleson, the most famous

Icelandic author of the twelfth century! It is the chronicle of the
Norwegian princes who ruled in Iceland."

"Indeed;" I cried, keeping up wonderfully, "of course it is a German
translation?"

"What!" sharply replied the Professor, "a translation! What should I do
with a translation? This is the Icelandic original, in the magnificent
idiomatic vernacular, which is both rich and simple, and admits of an
infinite variety of grammatical combinations and verbal modifications."

"Like German." I happily ventured.

"Yes," replied my uncle, shrugging his shoulders; "but, in addition to all
this, the Icelandic has three numbers like the Greek, and irregular
declensions of nouns proper like the Latin."

"Ah!" said I, a little moved out of my indifference; "and is the type
good?"

"Type! What do you mean by talking of type, wretched Axel? Type! Do
you take it for a printed book, you ignorant fool? It is a manuscript, a Runic
manuscript."

"Runic?"

"Yes. Do you want me to explain what that is?"

"Of course not," I replied in the tone of an injured man. But my uncle
persevered, and told me, against my will, of many things I cared nothing
about.

"Runic characters were in use in Iceland in former ages. They were
invented, it is said, by Odin himself. Look there, and wonder, impious
young man, and admire these letters, the invention of the Scandinavian
god!"

Well, well! not knowing what to say, I was going to prostrate myself
before this wonderful book, a way of answering equally pleasing to gods
and kings, and which has the advantage of never giving them any
embarrassment, when a little incident happened to divert conversation into
another channel.

This was the appearance of a dirty slip of parchment, which slipped out
of the volume and fell upon the floor.

My uncle pounced upon this shred with incredible avidity. An old
document, enclosed an immemorial time within the folds of this old book,
had for him an immeasurable value.

"What's this?" he cried.

And he laid out upon the table a piece of parchment, five inches by three,
and along which were traced certain mysterious characters.

Here is the exact facsimile. I think it important to let these strange signs
be publicly known, for they were the means of drawing on Professor
Liedenbrock and his nephew to undertake the most wonderful expedition of
the nineteenth century.

[Runic glyphs occur here]

The Professor mused a few moments over this series of characters; then
raising his spectacles he pronounced:

"These are Runic letters; they are exactly like those of the manuscript of
Snorre Turlleson. But, what on earth is their meaning?"

Runic letters appearing to my mind to be an invention of the learned to
mystify this poor world, I was not sorry to see my uncle suffering the pangs
of mystification. At least, so it seemed to me, judging from his fingers,
which were beginning to work with terrible energy.

"It is certainly old Icelandic," he muttered between his teeth.

And Professor Liedenbrock must have known, for he was acknowledged
to be quite a polyglot. Not that he could speak fluently in the two thousand
languages and twelve thousand dialects which are spoken on the earth, but
he knew at least his share of them.

So he was going, in the presence of this difficulty, to give way to all the
impetuosity of his character, and I was preparing for a violent outbreak,
when two o'clock struck by the little timepiece over the fireplace.

At that moment our good housekeeper Martha opened the study door,
saying:

"Dinner is ready!"

I am afraid he sent that soup to where it would boil away to nothing, and
Martha took to her heels for safety. I followed her, and hardly knowing how
I got there I found myself seated in my usual place.

I waited a few minutes. No Professor came. Never within my
remembrance had he missed the important ceremonial of dinner. And yet
what a good dinner it was! There was parsley soup, an omelette of ham
garnished with spiced sorrel, a fillet of veal with compote of prunes; for
dessert, crystallised fruit; the whole washed down with sweet Moselle.

All this my uncle was going to sacrifice to a bit of old parchment. As an
affectionate and attentive nephew I considered it my duty to eat for him as
well as for myself, which I did conscientiously.

"I have never known such a thing," said Martha. "M. Liedenbrock is not
at table!"

"Who could have believed it?" I said, with my mouth full.

"Something serious is going to happen," said the servant, shaking her
head.

My opinion was, that nothing more serious would happen than an awful
scene when my uncle should have discovered that his dinner was devoured.
I had come to the last of the fruit when a very loud voice tore me away from
the pleasures of my dessert. With one spring I bounded out of the dining-
room into the study.

CHAPTER III.

THE RUNIC WRITING EXERCISES THE PROFESSOR

"Undoubtedly it is Runic," said the Professor, bending his brows; "but
there is a secret in it, and I mean to discover the key."

A violent gesture finished the sentence.

"Sit there," he added, holding out his fist towards the table. "Sit there,
and write."

I was seated in a trice.

"Now I will dictate to you every letter of our alphabet which corresponds
with each of these Icelandic characters. We will see what that will give us.
But, by St. Michael, if you should dare to deceive me—"

The dictation commenced. I did my best. Every letter was given me one
after the other, with the following remarkable result:

mm.rnlls esrevel seecIde sgtssmf vnteief niedrke kt,samn
atrateS saodrrn emtnaeI nvaect rrilSa Atsaar .nvcrc ieaabs ccrmi
eevtVl frAntv dt,iac oseibo KediiI

[Redactor: In the original version the initial letter is an 'm' with a
superscore over it. It is my supposition that this is the translator's way of
writing 'mm' and I have replaced it accordingly, since our typography does
not allow such a character.]

When this work was ended my uncle tore the paper from me and
examined it attentively for a long time.

"What does it all mean?" he kept repeating mechanically.

Upon my honour I could not have enlightened him. Besides he did not
ask me, and he went on talking to himself.

"This is what is called a cryptogram, or cipher," he said, "in which letters
are purposely thrown in confusion, which if properly arranged would reveal
their sense. Only think that under this jargon there may lie concealed the
clue to some great discovery!"

As for me, I was of opinion that there was nothing at all, in it; though, of
course, I took care not to say so.

Then the Professor took the book and the parchment, and diligently
compared them together.

"These two writings are not by the same hand," he said; "the cipher is of
later date than the book, an undoubted proof of which I see in a moment.
The first letter is a double m, a letter which is not to be found in Turlleson's
book, and which was only added to the alphabet in the fourteenth century.
Therefore there are two hundred years between the manuscript and the
document."

I admitted that this was a strictly logical conclusion.

"I am therefore led to imagine," continued my uncle, "that some
possessor of this book wrote these mysterious letters. But who was that
possessor? Is his name nowhere to be found in the manuscript?"

My uncle raised his spectacles, took up a strong lens, and carefully
examined the blank pages of the book. On the front of the second, the title-
page, he noticed a sort of stain which looked like an ink blot. But in looking
at it very closely he thought he could distinguish some half-effaced letters.
My uncle at once fastened upon this as the centre of interest, and he
laboured at that blot, until by the help of his microscope he ended by
making out the following Runic characters which he read without difficulty.

"Arne Saknussemm!" he cried in triumph. "Why that is the name of
another Icelander, a savant of the sixteenth century, a celebrated alchemist!"

I gazed at my uncle with satisfactory admiration.

"Those alchemists," he resumed, "Avicenna, Bacon, Lully, Paracelsus,
were the real and only savants of their time. They made discoveries at
which we are astonished. Has not this Saknussemm concealed under his
cryptogram some surprising invention? It is so; it must be so!"

The Professor's imagination took fire at this hypothesis.

"No doubt," I ventured to reply, "but what interest would he have in thus
hiding so marvellous a discovery?"

"Why? Why? How can I tell? Did not Galileo do the same by Saturn? We
shall see. I will get at the secret of this document, and I will neither sleep
nor eat until I have found it out."

My comment on this was a half-suppressed "Oh!"

"Nor you either, Axel," he added.

"The deuce!" said I to myself; "then it is lucky I have eaten two dinners
to-day!"

"First of all we must find out the key to this cipher; that cannot be
difficult."

At these words I quickly raised my head; but my uncle went on
soliloquising.

"There's nothing easier. In this document there are a hundred and thirty-
two letters, viz., seventy-seven consonants and fifty-five vowels. This is the
proportion found in southern languages, whilst northern tongues are much
richer in consonants; therefore this is in a southern language."

These were very fair conclusions, I thought.

"But what language is it?"

Here I looked for a display of learning, but I met instead with profound
analysis.

"This Saknussemm," he went on, "was a very well-informed man; now
since he was not writing in his own mother tongue, he would naturally
select that which was currently adopted by the choice spirits of the sixteenth
century; I mean Latin. If I am mistaken, I can but try Spanish, French,
Italian, Greek, or Hebrew. But the savants of the sixteenth century generally
wrote in Latin. I am therefore entitled to pronounce this, à priori, to be
Latin. It is Latin."

I jumped up in my chair. My Latin memories rose in revolt against the
notion that these barbarous words could belong to the sweet language of

Virgil.

"Yes, it is Latin," my uncle went on; "but it is Latin confused and in
disorder; "pertubata seu inordinata," as Euclid has it."

"Very well," thought I, "if you can bring order out of that confusion, my
dear uncle, you are a clever man."

"Let us examine carefully," said he again, taking up the leaf upon which I
had written. "Here is a series of one hundred and thirty-two letters in
apparent disorder. There are words consisting of consonants only, as nrrlls;
others, on the other hand, in which vowels predominate, as for instance the
fifth, uneeief, or the last but one, oseibo. Now this arrangement has
evidently not been premeditated; it has arisen mathematically in obedience
to the unknown law which has ruled in the succession of these letters. It
appears to me a certainty that the original sentence was written in a proper
manner, and afterwards distorted by a law which we have yet to discover.
Whoever possesses the key of this cipher will read it with fluency. What is
that key? Axel, have you got it?"

I answered not a word, and for a very good reason. My eyes had fallen
upon a charming picture, suspended against the wall, the portrait of
Gräuben. My uncle's ward was at that time at Altona, staying with a
relation, and in her absence I was very downhearted; for I may confess it to
you now, the pretty Virlandaise and the professor's nephew loved each other
with a patience and a calmness entirely German. We had become engaged
unknown to my uncle, who was too much taken up with geology to be able
to enter into such feelings as ours. Gräuben was a lovely blue-eyed blonde,
rather given to gravity and seriousness; but that did not prevent her from
loving me very sincerely. As for me, I adored her, if there is such a word in
the German language. Thus it happened that the picture of my pretty

Virlandaise threw me in a moment out of the world of realities into that of
memory and fancy.

There looked down upon me the faithful companion of my labours and
my recreations. Every day she helped me to arrange my uncle's precious
specimens; she and I labelled them together. Mademoiselle Gräuben was an
accomplished mineralogist; she could have taught a few things to a savant.
She was fond of investigating abstruse scientific questions. What pleasant
hours we have spent in study; and how often I envied the very stones which
she handled with her charming fingers.

Then, when our leisure hours came, we used to go out together and turn
into the shady avenues by the Alster, and went happily side by side up to the
old windmill, which forms such an improvement to the landscape at the
head of the lake. On the road we chatted hand in hand; I told her amusing
tales at which she laughed heartily. Then we reached the banks of the Elbe,
and after having bid good-bye to the swan, sailing gracefully amidst the
white water lilies, we returned to the quay by the steamer.

That is just where I was in my dream, when my uncle with a vehement
thump on the table dragged me back to the realities of life.

"Come," said he, "the very first idea which would come into any one's
head to confuse the letters of a sentence would be to write the words
vertically instead of horizontally."

"Indeed!" said I.

"Now we must see what would be the effect of that, Axel; put down upon
this paper any sentence you like, only instead of arranging the letters in the
usual way, one after the other, place them in succession in vertical columns,
so as to group them together in five or six vertical lines."

I caught his meaning, and immediately produced the following literary
wonder:

Iyloaulolwrbou,nGevwmdrneeyea!

"Good," said the professor, without reading them, "now set down those
words in a horizontal line."

I obeyed, and with this result:

Iyloau lolwrb ou,nGe vwmdrn eeyea!

"Excellent!" said my uncle, taking the paper hastily out of my hands.
"This begins to look just like an ancient document: the vowels and the
consonants are grouped together in equal disorder; there are even capitals in
the middle of words, and commas too, just as in Saknussemm's parchment."

I considered these remarks very clever.

"Now," said my uncle, looking straight at me, "to read the sentence which
you have just written, and with which I am wholly unacquainted, I shall
only have to take the first letter of each word, then the second, the third, and
so forth."

And my uncle, to his great astonishment, and my much greater, read:

"I love you well, my own dear Gräuben!"

"Hallo!" cried the Professor.

Yes, indeed, without knowing what I was about, like an awkward and
unlucky lover, I had compromised myself by writing this unfortunate
sentence.

"Aha! you are in love with Gräuben?" he said, with the right look for a
guardian.

"Yes; no!" I stammered.

"You love Gräuben," he went on once or twice dreamily. "Well, let us
apply the process I have suggested to the document in question."

My uncle, falling back into his absorbing contemplations, had already
forgotten my imprudent words. I merely say imprudent, for the great mind
of so learned a man of course had no place for love affairs, and happily the
grand business of the document gained me the victory.

Just as the moment of the supreme experiment arrived the Professor's
eyes flashed right through his spectacles. There was a quivering in his
fingers as he grasped the old parchment. He was deeply moved. At last he
gave a preliminary cough, and with profound gravity, naming in succession
the first, then the second letter of each word, he dictated me the following:

mmessvnkaSenrA.icefdoK.segnittamvrtn
ecertserrette,rotaisadva,ednecsedsadne
lacartniiilvIsiratracSarbmvtabiledmek meretarcsilvcoIsleffenSnI.

I confess I felt considerably excited in coming to the end; these letters
named, one at a time, had carried no sense to my mind; I therefore waited
for the Professor with great pomp to unfold the magnificent but hidden
Latin of this mysterious phrase.

But who could have foretold the result? A violent thump made the
furniture rattle, and spilt some ink, and my pen dropped from between my
fingers.

"That's not it," cried my uncle, "there's no sense in it."

Then darting out like a shot, bowling down stairs like an avalanche, he
rushed into the Königstrasse and fled.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ENEMY TO BE STARVED INTO SUBMISSION

"He is gone!" cried Martha, running out of her kitchen at the noise of the
violent slamming of doors.

"Yes," I replied, "completely gone."

"Well; and how about his dinner?" said the old servant.

"He won't have any."

"And his supper?"

"He won't have any."

"What?" cried Martha, with clasped hands.

"No, my dear Martha, he will eat no more. No one in the house is to eat
anything at all. Uncle Liedenbrock is going to make us all fast until he has
succeeded in deciphering an undecipherable scrawl."

"Oh, my dear! must we then all die of hunger?"

I hardly dared to confess that, with so absolute a ruler as my uncle, this
fate was inevitable.

The old servant, visibly moved, returned to the kitchen, moaning
piteously.

When I was alone, I thought I would go and tell Gräuben all about it. But
how should I be able to escape from the house? The Professor might return
at any moment. And suppose he called me? And suppose he tackled me
again with this logomachy, which might vainly have been set before ancient
Oedipus. And if I did not obey his call, who could answer for what might
happen?

The wisest course was to remain where I was. A mineralogist at
Besançon had just sent us a collection of siliceous nodules, which I had to
classify: so I set to work; I sorted, labelled, and arranged in their own glass
case all these hollow specimens, in the cavity of each of which was a nest
of little crystals.

But this work did not succeed in absorbing all my attention. That old
document kept working in my brain. My head throbbed with excitement,
and I felt an undefined uneasiness. I was possessed with a presentiment of
coming evil.

In an hour my nodules were all arranged upon successive shelves. Then I
dropped down into the old velvet armchair, my head thrown back and my
hands joined over it. I lighted my long crooked pipe, with a painting on it of
an idle-looking naiad; then I amused myself watching the process of the
conversion of the tobacco into carbon, which was by slow degrees making
my naiad into a negress. Now and then I listened to hear whether a well-
known step was on the stairs. No. Where could my uncle be at that
moment? I fancied him running under the noble trees which line the road to
Altona, gesticulating, making shots with his cane, thrashing the long grass,
cutting the heads off the thistles, and disturbing the contemplative storks in
their peaceful solitude.

Would he return in triumph or in discouragement? Which would get the
upper hand, he or the secret? I was thus asking myself questions, and
mechanically taking between my fingers the sheet of paper mysteriously
disfigured with the incomprehensible succession of letters I had written
down; and I repeated to myself "What does it all mean?"

I sought to group the letters so as to form words. Quite impossible! When
I put them together by twos, threes, fives or sixes, nothing came of it but
nonsense. To be sure the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth letters made the
English word 'ice'; the eighty-third and two following made 'sir'; and in the
midst of the document, in the second and third lines, I observed the words,
"rots," "mutabile," "ira," "net," "atra."

"Come now," I thought, "these words seem to justify my uncle's view
about the language of the document. In the fourth line appeared the word
"luco", which means a sacred wood. It is true that in the third line was the
word "tabiled", which looked like Hebrew, and in the last the purely French
words "mer", "arc", "mere.""

All this was enough to drive a poor fellow crazy. Four different
languages in this ridiculous sentence! What connection could there possibly
be between such words as ice, sir, anger, cruel, sacred wood, changeable,
mother, bow, and sea? The first and the last might have something to do
with each other; it was not at all surprising that in a document written in
Iceland there should be mention of a sea of ice; but it was quite another
thing to get to the end of this cryptogram with so small a clue. So I was
struggling with an insurmountable difficulty; my brain got heated, my eyes
watered over that sheet of paper; its hundred and thirty-two letters seemed
to flutter and fly around me like those motes of mingled light and darkness
which float in the air around the head when the blood is rushing upwards
with undue violence. I was a prey to a kind of hallucination; I was stifling; I

wanted air. Unconsciously I fanned myself with the bit of paper, the back
and front of which successively came before my eyes. What was my
surprise when, in one of those rapid revolutions, at the moment when the
back was turned to me I thought I caught sight of the Latin words
"craterem," "terrestre," and others.

A sudden light burst in upon me; these hints alone gave me the first
glimpse of the truth; I had discovered the key to the cipher. To read the
document, it would not even be necessary to read it through the paper. Such
as it was, just such as it had been dictated to me, so it might be spelt out
with ease. All those ingenious professorial combinations were coming right.
He was right as to the arrangement of the letters; he was right as to the
language. He had been within a hair's breadth of reading this Latin
document from end to end; but that hair's breadth, chance had given it to
me!

You may be sure I felt stirred up. My eyes were dim, I could scarcely see.
I had laid the paper upon the table. At a glance I could tell the whole secret.

At last I became more calm. I made a wise resolve to walk twice round
the room quietly and settle my nerves, and then I returned into the deep gulf
of the huge armchair.

"Now I'll read it," I cried, after having well distended my lungs with air.

I leaned over the table; I laid my finger successively upon every letter;
and without a pause, without one moment's hesitation, I read off the whole
sentence aloud.

Stupefaction! terror! I sat overwhelmed as if with a sudden deadly blow.
What! that which I read had actually, really been done! A mortal man had
had the audacity to penetrate! . . .

"Ah!" I cried, springing up. "But no! no! My uncle shall never know it.
He would insist upon doing it too. He would want to know all about it.
Ropes could not hold him, such a determined geologist as he is! He would
start, he would, in spite of everything and everybody, and he would take me
with him, and we should never get back. No, never! never!"

My over-excitement was beyond all description.

"No! no! it shall not be," I declared energetically; "and as it is in my
power to prevent the knowledge of it coming into the mind of my tyrant, I
will do it. By dint of turning this document round and round, he too might
discover the key. I will destroy it."

There was a little fire left on the hearth. I seized not only the paper but
Saknussemm's parchment; with a feverish hand I was about to fling it all
upon the coals and utterly destroy and abolish this dangerous secret, when
the study door opened, and my uncle appeared.

CHAPTER V.

FAMINE, THEN VICTORY, FOLLOWED BY DISMAY

I had only just time to replace the unfortunate document upon the table.

Professor Liedenbrock seemed to be greatly abstracted.

The ruling thought gave him no rest. Evidently he had gone deeply into
the matter, analytically and with profound scrutiny. He had brought all the
resources of his mind to bear upon it during his walk, and he had come back
to apply some new combination.

He sat in his armchair, and pen in hand he began what looked very much
like algebraic formula: I followed with my eyes his trembling hands, I took
count of every movement. Might not some unhoped-for result come of it? I
trembled, too, very unnecessarily, since the true key was in my hands, and
no other would open the secret.

For three long hours my uncle worked on without a word, without lifting
his head; rubbing out, beginning again, then rubbing out again, and so on a
hundred times.

I knew very well that if he succeeded in setting down these letters in
every possible relative position, the sentence would come out. But I knew

also that twenty letters alone could form two quintillions, four hundred and
thirty-two quadrillions, nine hundred and two trillions, eight billions, a
hundred and seventy-six millions, six hundred and forty thousand
combinations. Now, here were a hundred and thirty-two letters in this
sentence, and these hundred and thirty-two letters would give a number of
different sentences, each made up of at least a hundred and thirty-three
figures, a number which passed far beyond all calculation or conception.

So I felt reassured as far as regarded this heroic method of solving the
difficulty.

But time was passing away; night came on; the street noises ceased; my
uncle, bending over his task, noticed nothing, not even Martha half opening
the door; he heard not a sound, not even that excellent woman saying:

"Will not monsieur take any supper to-night?"

And poor Martha had to go away unanswered. As for me, after long
resistance, I was overcome by sleep, and fell off at the end of the sofa,
while uncle Liedenbrock went on calculating and rubbing out his
calculations.

When I awoke next morning that indefatigable worker was still at his
post. His red eyes, his pale complexion, his hair tangled between his
feverish fingers, the red spots on his cheeks, revealed his desperate struggle
with impossibilities, and the weariness of spirit, the mental wrestlings he
must have undergone all through that unhappy night.

To tell the plain truth, I pitied him. In spite of the reproaches which I
considered I had a right to lay upon him, a certain feeling of compassion
was beginning to gain upon me. The poor man was so entirely taken up
with his one idea that he had even forgotten how to get angry. All the

strength of his feelings was concentrated upon one point alone; and as their
usual vent was closed, it was to be feared lest extreme tension should give
rise to an explosion sooner or later.

I might with a word have loosened the screw of the steel vice that was
crushing his brain; but that word I would not speak.

Yet I was not an ill-natured fellow. Why was I dumb at such a crisis?
Why so insensible to my uncle's interests?

"No, no," I repeated, "I shall not speak. He would insist upon going;
nothing on earth could stop him. His imagination is a volcano, and to do
that which other geologists have never done he would risk his life. I will
preserve silence. I will keep the secret which mere chance has revealed to
me. To discover it, would be to kill Professor Liedenbrock! Let him find it
out himself if he can. I will never have it laid to my door that I led him to
his destruction."

Having formed this resolution, I folded my arms and waited. But I had
not reckoned upon one little incident which turned up a few hours after.

When our good Martha wanted to go to Market, she found the door
locked. The big key was gone. Who could have taken it out? Assuredly, it
was my uncle, when he returned the night before from his hurried walk.

Was this done on purpose? Or was it a mistake? Did he want to reduce us
by famine? This seemed like going rather too far! What! should Martha and
I be victims of a position of things in which we had not the smallest
interest? It was a fact that a few years before this, whilst my uncle was
working at his great classification of minerals, he was forty-eight hours
without eating, and all his household were obliged to share in this scientific

fast. As for me, what I remember is, that I got severe cramps in my
stomach, which hardly suited the constitution of a hungry, growing lad.

Now it appeared to me as if breakfast was going to be wanting, just as
supper had been the night before. Yet I resolved to be a hero, and not to be
conquered by the pangs of hunger. Martha took it very seriously, and, poor
woman, was very much distressed. As for me, the impossibility of leaving
the house distressed me a good deal more, and for a very good reason. A
caged lover's feelings may easily be imagined.

My uncle went on working, his imagination went off rambling into the
ideal world of combinations; he was far away from earth, and really far
away from earthly wants.

About noon hunger began to stimulate me severely. Martha had, without
thinking any harm, cleared out the larder the night before, so that now there
was nothing left in the house. Still I held out; I made it a point of honour.

Two o'clock struck. This was becoming ridiculous; worse than that,
unbearable. I began to say to myself that I was exaggerating the importance
of the document; that my uncle would surely not believe in it, that he would
set it down as a mere puzzle; that if it came to the worst, we should lay
violent hands on him and keep him at home if he thought on venturing on
the expedition; that, after all, he might himself discover the key of the
cipher, and that then I should be clear at the mere expense of my
involuntary abstinence.

These reasons seemed excellent to me, though on the night before I
should have rejected them with indignation; I even went so far as to
condemn myself for my absurdity in having waited so long, and I finally
resolved to let it all out.

I was therefore meditating a proper introduction to the matter, so as not to
seem too abrupt, when the Professor jumped up, clapped on his hat, and
prepared to go out.

Surely he was not going out, to shut us in again! no, never!

"Uncle!" I cried.

He seemed not to hear me.

"Uncle Liedenbrock!" I cried, lifting up my voice.

"Ay," he answered like a man suddenly waking.

"Uncle, that key!"

"What key? The door key?"

"No, no!" I cried. "The key of the document."

The Professor stared at me over his spectacles; no doubt he saw
something unusual in the expression of my countenance; for he laid hold of
my arm, and speechlessly questioned me with his eyes. Yes, never was a
question more forcibly put.

I nodded my head up and down.

He shook his pityingly, as if he was dealing with a lunatic. I gave a more
affirmative gesture.

His eyes glistened and sparkled with live fire, his hand was shaken
threateningly.

This mute conversation at such a momentous crisis would have riveted
the attention of the most indifferent. And the fact really was that I dared not
speak now, so intense was the excitement for fear lest my uncle should
smother me in his first joyful embraces. But he became so urgent that I was
at last compelled to answer.

"Yes, that key, chance—"

"What is that you are saying?" he shouted with indescribable emotion.

"There, read that!" I said, presenting a sheet of paper on which I had
written.

"But there is nothing in this," he answered, crumpling up the paper.

"No, nothing until you proceed to read from the end to the beginning."

I had not finished my sentence when the Professor broke out into a cry,
nay, a roar. A new revelation burst in upon him. He was transformed!

"Aha, clever Saknussemm!" he cried. "You had first written out your
sentence the wrong way."

And darting upon the paper, with eyes bedimmed, and voice choked with
emotion, he read the whole document from the last letter to the first.

It was conceived in the following terms:

In Sneffels Joculis craterem quem delibat
Umbra Scartaris Julii intra calendas descende,
Audax viator, et terrestre centrum attinges.
Quod feci, Arne Saknussemm.[1]

Which bad Latin may be translated thus:

"Descend, bold traveller, into the crater of the jokul of Sneffels, which
the shadow of Scartaris touches before the kalends of July, and you will
attain the centre of the earth; which I have done, Arne Saknussemm."

In reading this, my uncle gave a spring as if he had touched a Leyden jar.
His audacity, his joy, and his convictions were magnificent to behold. He
came and he went; he seized his head between both his hands; he pushed
the chairs out of their places, he piled up his books; incredible as it may
seem, he rattled his precious nodules of flints together; he sent a kick here,
a thump there. At last his nerves calmed down, and like a man exhausted by
too lavish an expenditure of vital power, he sank back exhausted into his
armchair.

"What o'clock is it?" he asked after a few moments of silence.

"Three o'clock," I replied.

"Is it really? The dinner-hour is past, and I did not know it. I am half dead
with hunger. Come on, and after dinner—"

[1] In the cipher, audax is written avdas, and quod and quem, hod and
ken. (Tr.)

"Well?"

"After dinner, pack up my trunk."

"What?" I cried.

"And yours!" replied the indefatigable Professor, entering the dining-
room.

CHAPTER VI.

EXCITING DISCUSSIONS ABOUT AN UNPARALLELED ENTERPRISE

At these words a cold shiver ran through me. Yet I controlled myself; I
even resolved to put a good face upon it. Scientific arguments alone could
have any weight with Professor Liedenbrock. Now there were good ones
against the practicability of such a journey. Penetrate to the centre of the
earth! What nonsense! But I kept my dialectic battery in reserve for a
suitable opportunity, and I interested myself in the prospect of my dinner,
which was not yet forthcoming.

It is no use to tell of the rage and imprecations of my uncle before the
empty table. Explanations were given, Martha was set at liberty, ran off to
the market, and did her part so well that in an hour afterwards my hunger
was appeased, and I was able to return to the contemplation of the gravity
of the situation.

During all dinner time my uncle was almost merry; he indulged in some
of those learned jokes which never do anybody any harm. Dessert over, he
beckoned me into his study.

I obeyed; he sat at one end of his table, I at the other.

"Axel," said he very mildly; "you are a very ingenious young man, you
have done me a splendid service, at a moment when, wearied out with the
struggle, I was going to abandon the contest. Where should I have lost
myself? None can tell. Never, my lad, shall I forget it; and you shall have
your share in the glory to which your discovery will lead."

"Oh, come!" thought I, "he is in a good way. Now is the time for
discussing that same glory."

"Before all things," my uncle resumed, "I enjoin you to preserve the most
inviolable secrecy: you understand? There are not a few in the scientific
world who envy my success, and many would be ready to undertake this
enterprise, to whom our return should be the first news of it."

"Do you really think there are many people bold enough?" said I.

"Certainly; who would hesitate to acquire such renown? If that document
were divulged, a whole army of geologists would be ready to rush into the
footsteps of Arne Saknussemm."

"I don't feel so very sure of that, uncle," I replied; "for we have no proof
of the authenticity of this document."

"What! not of the book, inside which we have discovered it?"

"Granted. I admit that Saknussemm may have written these lines. But
does it follow that he has really accomplished such a journey? And may it
not be that this old parchment is intended to mislead?"

I almost regretted having uttered this last word, which dropped from me
in an unguarded moment. The Professor bent his shaggy brows, and I feared
I had seriously compromised my own safety. Happily no great harm came

of it. A smile flitted across the lip of my severe companion, and he
answered:

"That is what we shall see."

"Ah!" said I, rather put out. "But do let me exhaust all the possible
objections against this document."

"Speak, my boy, don't be afraid. You are quite at liberty to express your
opinions. You are no longer my nephew only, but my colleague. Pray go
on."

"Well, in the first place, I wish to ask what are this Jokul, this
Sneffels, and this Scartaris, names which I have never heard before?"

"Nothing easier. I received not long ago a map from my friend, Augustus
Petermann, at Liepzig. Nothing could be more apropos. Take down the third
atlas in the second shelf in the large bookcase, series Z, plate 4."

I rose, and with the help of such precise instructions could not fail to find
the required atlas. My uncle opened it and said:

"Here is one of the best maps of Iceland, that of Handersen, and I believe
this will solve the worst of our difficulties."

I bent over the map.

"You see this volcanic island," said the Professor; "observe that all the
volcanoes are called jokuls, a word which means glacier in Icelandic, and
under the high latitude of Iceland nearly all the active volcanoes discharge
through beds of ice. Hence this term of jokul is applied to all the eruptive
mountains in Iceland."

"Very good," said I; "but what of Sneffels?"

I was hoping that this question would be unanswerable; but I was
mistaken. My uncle replied:

"Follow my finger along the west coast of Iceland. Do you see Rejkiavik,
the capital? You do. Well; ascend the innumerable fiords that indent those
sea-beaten shores, and stop at the sixty-fifth degree of latitude. What do you
see there?"

"I see a peninsula looking like a thigh bone with the knee bone at the end
of it."

"A very fair comparison, my lad. Now do you see anything upon that
knee bone?"

"Yes; a mountain rising out of the sea."

"Right. That is Snæfell."

"That Snæfell?"

"It is. It is a mountain five thousand feet high, one of the most
remarkable in the world, if its crater leads down to the centre of the earth."

"But that is impossible," I said shrugging my shoulders, and disgusted at
such a ridiculous supposition.

"Impossible?" said the Professor severely; "and why, pray?"

"Because this crater is evidently filled with lava and burning rocks, and
therefore—"

"But suppose it is an extinct volcano?"

"Extinct?"

"Yes; the number of active volcanoes on the surface of the globe is at the
present time only about three hundred. But there is a very much larger
number of extinct ones. Now, Snæfell is one of these. Since historic times
there has been but one eruption of this mountain, that of 1219; from that
time it has quieted down more and more, and now it is no longer reckoned
among active volcanoes."

To such positive statements I could make no reply. I therefore took refuge
in other dark passages of the document.

"What is the meaning of this word Scartaris, and what have the kalends
of July to do with it?"

My uncle took a few minutes to consider. For one short moment I felt a
ray of hope, speedily to be extinguished. For he soon answered thus:

"What is darkness to you is light to me. This proves the ingenious care
with which Saknussemm guarded and defined his discovery. Sneffels, or
Snæfell, has several craters. It was therefore necessary to point out which of
these leads to the centre of the globe. What did the Icelandic sage do? He
observed that at the approach of the kalends of July, that is to say in the last
days of June, one of the peaks, called Scartaris, flung its shadow down the
mouth of that particular crater, and he committed that fact to his document.
Could there possibly have been a more exact guide? As soon as we have
arrived at the summit of Snæfell we shall have no hesitation as to the proper
road to take."

Decidedly, my uncle had answered every one of my objections. I saw that
his position on the old parchment was impregnable. I therefore ceased to
press him upon that part of the subject, and as above all things he must be

convinced, I passed on to scientific objections, which in my opinion were
far more serious.

"Well, then," I said, "I am forced to admit that Saknussemm's sentence is
clear, and leaves no room for doubt. I will even allow that the document
bears every mark and evidence of authenticity. That learned philosopher did
get to the bottom of Sneffels, he has seen the shadow of Scartaris touch the
edge of the crater before the kalends of July; he may even have heard the
legendary stories told in his day about that crater reaching to the centre of
the world; but as for reaching it himself, as for performing the journey, and
returning, if he ever went, I say no—he never, never did that."

"Now for your reason?" said my uncle ironically.

"All the theories of science demonstrate such a feat to be impracticable."

"The theories say that, do they?" replied the Professor in the tone of a
meek disciple. "Oh! unpleasant theories! How the theories will hinder us,
won't they?"

I saw that he was only laughing at me; but I went on all the same.

"Yes; it is perfectly well known that the internal temperature rises one
degree for every 70 feet in depth; now, admitting this proportion to be
constant, and the radius of the earth being fifteen hundred leagues, there
must be a temperature of 360,032 degrees at the centre of the earth.
Therefore, all the substances that compose the body of this earth must exist
there in a state of incandescent gas; for the metals that most resist the action
of heat, gold, and platinum, and the hardest rocks, can never be either solid
or liquid under such a temperature. I have therefore good reason for asking
if it is possible to penetrate through such a medium."

"So, Axel, it is the heat that troubles you?"

"Of course it is. Were we to reach a depth of thirty miles we should have
arrived at the limit of the terrestrial crust, for there the temperature will be
more than 2372 degrees."

"Are you afraid of being put into a state of fusion?"

"I will leave you to decide that question," I answered rather sullenly.
"This is my decision," replied Professor Liedenbrock, putting on one of his
grandest airs. "Neither you nor anybody else knows with any certainty what
is going on in the interior of this globe, since not the twelve thousandth part
of its radius is known; science is eminently perfectible; and every new
theory is soon routed by a newer. Was it not always believed until Fourier
that the temperature of the interplanetary spaces decreased perpetually? and
is it not known at the present time that the greatest cold of the ethereal
regions is never lower than 40 degrees below zero Fahr.? Why should it not
be the same with the internal heat? Why should it not, at a certain depth,
attain an impassable limit, instead of rising to such a point as to fuse the
most infusible metals?"

As my uncle was now taking his stand upon hypotheses, of course, there
was nothing to be said.

"Well, I will tell you that true savants, amongst them Poisson, have
demonstrated that if a heat of 360,000 degrees [1] existed in the interior of
the globe, the fiery gases arising from the fused matter would acquire an
elastic force which the crust of the earth would be unable to resist, and that
it would explode like the plates of a bursting boiler."

"That is Poisson's opinion, my uncle, nothing more."

"Granted. But it is likewise the creed adopted by other distinguished
geologists, that the interior of the globe is neither gas nor water, nor any of
the heaviest minerals known, for in none of these cases would the earth
weigh what it does."

"Oh, with figures you may prove anything!"

"But is it the same with facts! Is it not known that the number of
volcanoes has diminished since the first days of creation? and if there is
central heat may we not thence conclude that it is in process of
diminution?"

"My good uncle, if you will enter into the legion of speculation, I can
discuss the matter no longer."

"But I have to tell you that the highest names have come to the support of
my views. Do you remember a visit paid to me by the celebrated chemist,
Humphry Davy, in 1825?"

"Not at all, for I was not born until nineteen years afterwards."

"Well, Humphry Davy did call upon me on his way through Hamburg.
We were long engaged in discussing, amongst other problems, the
hypothesis of the liquid structure of the terrestrial nucleus. We were agreed
that it could not be in a liquid state, for a reason which science has never
been able to confute."

[1] The degrees of temperature are given by Jules Verne according to the
centigrade system, for which we will in each case substitute the Fahrenheit
measurement. (Tr.)

"What is that reason?" I said, rather astonished.

"Because this liquid mass would be subject, like the ocean, to the lunar
attraction, and therefore twice every day there would be internal tides,
which, upheaving the terrestrial crust, would cause periodical earthquakes!"

"Yet it is evident that the surface of the globe has been subject to the
action of fire," I replied, "and it is quite reasonable to suppose that the
external crust cooled down first, whilst the heat took refuge down to the
centre."

"Quite a mistake," my uncle answered. "The earth has been heated by
combustion on its surface, that is all. Its surface was composed of a great
number of metals, such as potassium and sodium, which have the peculiar
property of igniting at the mere contact with air and water; these metals
kindled when the atmospheric vapours fell in rain upon the soil; and by and
by, when the waters penetrated into the fissures of the crust of the earth,
they broke out into fresh combustion with explosions and eruptions. Such
was the cause of the numerous volcanoes at the origin of the earth."

"Upon my word, this is a very clever hypothesis," I exclaimed, in spite
rather of myself.

"And which Humphry Davy demonstrated to me by a simple experiment.
He formed a small ball of the metals which I have named, and which was a
very fair representation of our globe; whenever he caused a fine dew of rain
to fall upon its surface, it heaved up into little monticules, it became
oxydized and formed miniature mountains; a crater broke open at one of its
summits; the eruption took place, and communicated to the whole of the
ball such a heat that it could not be held in the hand."

In truth, I was beginning to be shaken by the Professor's arguments,
besides which he gave additional weight to them by his usual ardour and
fervent enthusiasm.

"You see, Axel," he added, "the condition of the terrestrial nucleus has
given rise to various hypotheses among geologists; there is no proof at all
for this internal heat; my opinion is that there is no such thing, it cannot be;
besides we shall see for ourselves, and, like Arne Saknussemm, we shall
know exactly what to hold as truth concerning this grand question."

"Very well, we shall see," I replied, feeling myself carried off by his
contagious enthusiasm. "Yes, we shall see; that is, if it is possible to see
anything there."

"And why not? May we not depend upon electric phenomena to give us
light? May we not even expect light from the atmosphere, the pressure of
which may render it luminous as we approach the centre?"

"Yes, yes," said I; "that is possible, too."

"It is certain," exclaimed my uncle in a tone of triumph. "But silence, do
you hear me? silence upon the whole subject; and let no one get before us in
this design of discovering the centre of the earth."

CHAPTER VII.

A WOMAN'S COURAGE

Thus ended this memorable seance. That conversation threw me into a
fever. I came out of my uncle's study as if I had been stunned, and as if
there was not air enough in all the streets of Hamburg to put me right again.
I therefore made for the banks of the Elbe, where the steamer lands her
passengers, which forms the communication between the city and the
Hamburg railway.

Was I convinced of the truth of what I had heard? Had I not bent under
the iron rule of the Professor Liedenbrock? Was I to believe him in earnest
in his intention to penetrate to the centre of this massive globe? Had I been
listening to the mad speculations of a lunatic, or to the scientific
conclusions of a lofty genius? Where did truth stop? Where did error begin?

I was all adrift amongst a thousand contradictory hypotheses, but I could
not lay hold of one.

Yet I remembered that I had been convinced, although now my
enthusiasm was beginning to cool down; but I felt a desire to start at once,
and not to lose time and courage by calm reflection. I had at that moment
quite courage enough to strap my knapsack to my shoulders and start.

But I must confess that in another hour this unnatural excitement abated,
my nerves became unstrung, and from the depths of the abysses of this
earth I ascended to its surface again.

"It is quite absurd!" I cried, "there is no sense about it. No sensible young
man should for a moment entertain such a proposal. The whole thing is non-
existent. I have had a bad night, I have been dreaming of horrors."

But I had followed the banks of the Elbe and passed the town. After
passing the port too, I had reached the Altona road. I was led by a
presentiment, soon to be realised; for shortly I espied my little Gräuben
bravely returning with her light step to Hamburg.

"Gräuben!" I cried from afar off.

The young girl stopped, rather frightened perhaps to hear her name called
after her on the high road. Ten yards more, and I had joined her.

"Axel!" she cried surprised. "What! have you come to meet me? Is this
why you are here, sir?"

But when she had looked upon me, Gräuben could not fail to see the
uneasiness and distress of my mind.

"What is the matter?" she said, holding out her hand.

"What is the matter, Gräuben?" I cried.

In a couple of minutes my pretty Virlandaise was fully informed of the
position of affairs. For a time she was silent. Did her heart palpitate as mine
did? I don't know about that, but I know that her hand did not tremble in
mine. We went on a hundred yards without speaking.

At last she said, "Axel!"

"My dear Gräuben."

"That will be a splendid journey!"

I gave a bound at these words.

"Yes, Axel, a journey worthy of the nephew of a savant; it is a good thing
for a man to be distinguished by some great enterprise."

"What, Gräuben, won't you dissuade me from such an undertaking?"

"No, my dear Axel, and I would willingly go with you, but that a poor
girl would only be in your way."

"Is that quite true?"

"It is true."

Ah! women and young girls, how incomprehensible are your feminine
hearts! When you are not the timidest, you are the bravest of creatures.
Reason has nothing to do with your actions. What! did this child encourage
me in such an expedition! Would she not be afraid to join it herself? And
she was driving me to it, one whom she loved!

I was disconcerted, and, if I must tell the whole truth, I was ashamed.

"Gräuben, we will see whether you will say the same thing to-morrow."

"To-morrow, dear Axel, I will say what I say to-day."

Gräuben and I, hand in hand, but in silence, pursued our way. The
emotions of that day were breaking my heart.

After all, I thought, the kalends of July are a long way off, and between
this and then many things may take place which will cure my uncle of his
desire to travel underground.

It was night when we arrived at the house in Königstrasse. I expected to
find all quiet there, my uncle in bed as was his custom, and Martha giving
her last touches with the feather brush.

But I had not taken into account the Professor's impatience. I found him
shouting—and working himself up amidst a crowd of porters and
messengers who were all depositing various loads in the passage. Our old
servant was at her wits' end.

"Come, Axel, come, you miserable wretch," my uncle cried from as far
off as he could see me. "Your boxes are not packed, and my papers are not
arranged; where's the key of my carpet bag? and what have you done with
my gaiters?"

I stood thunderstruck. My voice failed. Scarcely could my lips utter the
words:

"Are we really going?"

"Of course, you unhappy boy! Could I have dreamed that you would
have gone out for a walk instead of hurrying your preparations forward?"

"Are we to go?" I asked again, with sinking hopes.

"Yes; the day after to-morrow, early."

I could hear no more. I fled for refuge into my own little room.

All hope was now at an end. My uncle had been all the morning making
purchases of a part of the tools and apparatus required for this desperate
undertaking. The passage was encumbered with rope ladders, knotted cords,
torches, flasks, grappling irons, alpenstocks, pickaxes, iron shod sticks,
enough to load ten men.

I spent an awful night. Next morning I was called early. I had quite
decided I would not open the door. But how was I to resist the sweet voice
which was always music to my ears, saying, "My dear Axel?"

I came out of my room. I thought my pale countenance and my red and
sleepless eyes would work upon Gräuben's sympathies and change her
mind.

"Ah! my dear Axel," she said. "I see you are better. A night's rest has
done you good."

"Done me good!" I exclaimed.

I rushed to the glass. Well, in fact I did look better than I had expected. I
could hardly believe my own eyes.

"Axel," she said, "I have had a long talk with my guardian. He is a bold
philosopher, a man of immense courage, and you must remember that his
blood flows in your veins. He has confided to me his plans, his hopes, and
why and how he hopes to attain his object. He will no doubt succeed. My
dear Axel, it is a grand thing to devote yourself to science! What honour
will fall upon Herr Liedenbrock, and so be reflected upon his companion!
When you return, Axel, you will be a man, his equal, free to speak and to
act independently, and free to —"

The dear girl only finished this sentence by blushing. Her words revived
me. Yet I refused to believe we should start. I drew Gräuben into the
Professor's study.

"Uncle, is it true that we are to go?"

"Why do you doubt?"

"Well, I don't doubt," I said, not to vex him; "but, I ask, what need is
there to hurry?"

"Time, time, flying with irreparable rapidity."

"But it is only the 16th May, and until the end of June—"

"What, you monument of ignorance! do you think you can get to Iceland
in a couple of days? If you had not deserted me like a fool I should have
taken you to the Copenhagen office, to Liffender & Co., and you would
have learned then that there is only one trip every month from Copenhagen
to Rejkiavik, on the 22nd."

"Well?"

"Well, if we waited for the 22nd June we should be too late to see the
shadow of Scartaris touch the crater of Sneffels. Therefore we must get to
Copenhagen as fast as we can to secure our passage. Go and pack up."

There was no reply to this. I went up to my room. Gräuben followed me.
She undertook to pack up all things necessary for my voyage. She was no
more moved than if I had been starting for a little trip to Lübeck or
Heligoland. Her little hands moved without haste. She talked quietly. She
supplied me with sensible reasons for our expedition. She delighted me, and
yet I was angry with her. Now and then I felt I ought to break out into a

passion, but she took no notice and went on her way as methodically as
ever.

Finally the last strap was buckled; I came downstairs. All that day the
philosophical instrument makers and the electricians kept coming and
going. Martha was distracted.

"Is master mad?" she asked.

I nodded my head.

"And is he going to take you with him?"

I nodded again.

"Where to?"

I pointed with my finger downward.

"Down into the cellar?" cried the old servant.

"No," I said. "Lower down than that."

Night came. But I knew nothing about the lapse of time.

"To-morrow morning at six precisely," my uncle decreed "we start."

At ten o'clock I fell upon my bed, a dead lump of inert matter. All
through the night terror had hold of me. I spent it dreaming of abysses. I
was a prey to delirium. I felt myself grasped by the Professor's sinewy hand,
dragged along, hurled down, shattered into little bits. I dropped down
unfathomable precipices with the accelerating velocity of bodies falling
through space. My life had become an endless fall. I awoke at five with
shattered nerves, trembling and weary. I came downstairs. My uncle was at

table, devouring his breakfast. I stared at him with horror and disgust. But
dear Gräuben was there; so I said nothing, and could eat nothing.

At half-past five there was a rattle of wheels outside. A large carriage was
there to take us to the Altona railway station. It was soon piled up with my
uncle's multifarious preparations.

"Where's your box?" he cried.

"It is ready," I replied, with faltering voice.

"Then make haste down, or we shall lose the train."

It was now manifestly impossible to maintain the struggle against
destiny. I went up again to my room, and rolling my portmanteaus
downstairs I darted after him.

At that moment my uncle was solemnly investing Gräuben with the reins
of government. My pretty Virlandaise was as calm and collected as was her
wont. She kissed her guardian; but could not restrain a tear in touching my
cheek with her gentle lips.

"Gräuben!" I murmured.

"Go, my dear Axel, go! I am now your betrothed; and when you come
back I will be your wife."

I pressed her in my arms and took my place in the carriage. Martha and
the young girl, standing at the door, waved their last farewell. Then the
horses, roused by the driver's whistling, darted off at a gallop on the road to
Altona.

CHAPTER VIII.

SERIOUS PREPARATIONS FOR VERTICAL DESCENT

Altona, which is but a suburb of Hamburg, is the terminus of the Kiel
railway, which was to carry us to the Belts. In twenty minutes we were in
Holstein.

At half-past six the carriage stopped at the station; my uncle's numerous
packages, his voluminous impedimenta, were unloaded, removed, labelled,
weighed, put into the luggage vans, and at seven we were seated face to
face in our compartment. The whistle sounded, the engine started, we were
off.

Was I resigned? No, not yet. Yet the cool morning air and the scenes on
the road, rapidly changed by the swiftness of the train, drew me away
somewhat from my sad reflections.

As for the Professor's reflections, they went far in advance of the swiftest
express. We were alone in the carriage, but we sat in silence. My uncle
examined all his pockets and his travelling bag with the minutest care. I saw
that he had not forgotten the smallest matter of detail.

Amongst other documents, a sheet of paper, carefully folded, bore the
heading of the Danish consulate with the signature of W. Christiensen,

consul at Hamburg and the Professor's friend. With this we possessed the
proper introductions to the Governor of Iceland.

I also observed the famous document most carefully laid up in a secret
pocket in his portfolio. I bestowed a malediction upon it, and then
proceeded to examine the country.

It was a very long succession of uninteresting loamy and fertile flats, a
very easy country for the construction of railways, and propitious for the
laying-down of these direct level lines so dear to railway companies.

I had no time to get tired of the monotony; for in three hours we stopped
at Kiel, close to the sea.

The luggage being labelled for Copenhagen, we had no occasion to look
after it. Yet the Professor watched every article with jealous vigilance, until
all were safe on board. There they disappeared in the hold.

My uncle, notwithstanding his hurry, had so well calculated the relations
between the train and the steamer that we had a whole day to spare. The
steamer Ellenora, did not start until night. Thence sprang a feverish state of
excitement in which the impatient irascible traveller devoted to perdition
the railway directors and the steamboat companies and the governments
which allowed such intolerable slowness. I was obliged to act chorus to him
when he attacked the captain of the Ellenora upon this subject. The captain
disposed of us summarily.

At Kiel, as elsewhere, we must do something to while away the time.
What with walking on the verdant shores of the bay within which nestles
the little town, exploring the thick woods which make it look like a nest
embowered amongst thick foliage, admiring the villas, each provided with a

little bathing house, and moving about and grumbling, at last ten o'clock
came.

The heavy coils of smoke from the Ellenora's funnel unrolled in the sky,
the bridge shook with the quivering of the struggling steam; we were on
board, and owners for the time of two berths, one over the other, in the only
saloon cabin on board.

At a quarter past the moorings were loosed and the throbbing steamer
pursued her way over the dark waters of the Great Belt.

The night was dark; there was a sharp breeze and a rough sea, a few
lights appeared on shore through the thick darkness; later on, I cannot tell
when, a dazzling light from some lighthouse threw a bright stream of fire
along the waves; and this is all I can remember of this first portion of our
sail.

At seven in the morning we landed at Korsor, a small town on the west
coast of Zealand. There we were transferred from the boat to another line of
railway, which took us by just as flat a country as the plain of Holstein.

Three hours' travelling brought us to the capital of Denmark. My uncle
had not shut his eyes all night. In his impatience I believe he was trying to
accelerate the train with his feet.

At last he discerned a stretch of sea.

"The Sound!" he cried.

At our left was a huge building that looked like a hospital.

"That's a lunatic asylum," said one of our travelling companions.

Very good! thought I, just the place we want to end our days in; and great
as it is, that asylum is not big enough to contain all Professor Liedenbrock's
madness!

At ten in the morning, at last, we set our feet in Copenhagen; the luggage
was put upon a carriage and taken with ourselves to the Phoenix Hotel in
Breda Gate. This took half an hour, for the station is out of the town. Then
my uncle, after a hasty toilet, dragged me after him. The porter at the hotel
could speak German and English; but the Professor, as a polyglot,
questioned him in good Danish, and it was in the same language that that
personage directed him to the Museum of Northern Antiquities.

The curator of this curious establishment, in which wonders are gathered
together out of which the ancient history of the country might be
reconstructed by means of its stone weapons, its cups and its jewels, was a
learned savant, the friend of the Danish consul at Hamburg, Professor
Thomsen.

My uncle had a cordial letter of introduction to him. As a general rule one
savant greets another with coolness. But here the case was different. M.
Thomsen, like a good friend, gave the Professor Liedenbrock a cordial
greeting, and he even vouchsafed the same kindness to his nephew. It is
hardly necessary to say the secret was sacredly kept from the excellent
curator; we were simply disinterested travellers visiting Iceland out of
harmless curiosity.

M. Thomsen placed his services at our disposal, and we visited the quays
with the object of finding out the next vessel to sail.

I was yet in hopes that there would be no means of getting to Iceland. But
there was no such luck. A small Danish schooner, the Valkyria, was to set
sail for Rejkiavik on the 2nd of June. The captain, M. Bjarne, was on board.

His intending passenger was so joyful that he almost squeezed his hands till
they ached. That good man was rather surprised at his energy. To him it
seemed a very simple thing to go to Iceland, as that was his business; but to
my uncle it was sublime. The worthy captain took advantage of his
enthusiasm to charge double fares; but we did not trouble ourselves about
mere trifles. .

"You must be on board on Tuesday, at seven in the morning," said
Captain Bjarne, after having pocketed more dollars than were his due.

Then we thanked M. Thomsen for his kindness, "and we returned to the
Phoenix Hotel.

"It's all right, it's all right," my uncle repeated. "How fortunate we are to
have found this boat ready for sailing. Now let us have some breakfast and
go about the town."

We went first to Kongens-nye-Torw, an irregular square in which are two
innocent-looking guns, which need not alarm any one. Close by, at No. 5,
there was a French "restaurant," kept by a cook of the name of Vincent,
where we had an ample breakfast for four marks each (2_s_. 4_d_.).

Then I took a childish pleasure in exploring the city; my uncle let me
take him with me, but he took notice of nothing, neither the insignificant
king's palace, nor the pretty seventeenth century bridge, which spans the
canal before the museum, nor that immense cenotaph of Thorwaldsen's,
adorned with horrible mural painting, and containing within it a collection
of the sculptor's works, nor in a fine park the toylike chateau of Rosenberg,
nor the beautiful renaissance edifice of the Exchange, nor its spire
composed of the twisted tails of four bronze dragons, nor the great windmill
on the ramparts, whose huge arms dilated in the sea breeze like the sails of
a ship.

What delicious walks we should have had together, my pretty Virlandaise
and I, along the harbour where the two-deckers and the frigate slept
peaceably by the red roofing of the warehouse, by the green banks of the
strait, through the deep shades of the trees amongst which the fort is half
concealed, where the guns are thrusting out their black throats between
branches of alder and willow.

But, alas! Gräuben was far away; and I never hoped to see her again.

But if my uncle felt no attraction towards these romantic scenes he was
very much struck with the aspect of a certain church spire situated in the
island of Amak, which forms the south-west quarter of Copenhagen.

I was ordered to direct my feet that way; I embarked on a small steamer
which plies on the canals, and in a few minutes she touched the quay of the
dockyard.

After crossing a few narrow streets where some convicts, in trousers half
yellow and half grey, were at work under the orders of the gangers, we
arrived at the Vor Frelsers Kirk. There was nothing remarkable about the
church; but there was a reason why its tall spire had attracted the Professor's
attention. Starting from the top of the tower, an external staircase wound
around the spire, the spirals circling up into the sky.

"Let us get to the top," said my uncle.

"I shall be dizzy," I said.

"The more reason why we should go up; we must get used to it."

"But—"

"Come, I tell you; don't waste our time."

I had to obey. A keeper who lived at the other end of the street handed us
the key, and the ascent began.

My uncle went ahead with a light step. I followed him not without alarm,
for my head was very apt to feel dizzy; I possessed neither the equilibrium
of an eagle nor his fearless nature.

As long as we were protected on the inside of the winding staircase up
the tower, all was well enough; but after toiling up a hundred and fifty steps
the fresh air came to salute my face, and we were on the leads of the tower.
There the aerial staircase began its gyrations, only guarded by a thin iron
rail, and the narrowing steps seemed to ascend into infinite space!

"Never shall I be able to do it," I said.

"Don't be a coward; come up, sir"; said my uncle with the coldest cruelty.

I had to follow, clutching at every step. The keen air made me giddy; I
felt the spire rocking with every gust of wind; my knees began to fail; soon
I was crawling on my knees, then creeping on my stomach; I closed my
eyes; I seemed to be lost in space.

At last I reached the apex, with the assistance of my uncle dragging me
up by the collar.

"Look down!" he cried. "Look down well! You must take a lesson in
abysses."

I opened my eyes. I saw houses squashed flat as if they had all fallen
down from the skies; a smoke fog seemed to drown them. Over my head
ragged clouds were drifting past, and by an optical inversion they seemed
stationary, while the steeple, the ball and I were all spinning along with
fantastic speed. Far away on one side was the green country, on the other

the sea sparkled, bathed in sunlight. The Sound stretched away to Elsinore,
dotted with a few white sails, like sea-gulls' wings; and in the misty east
and away to the north-east lay outstretched the faintly-shadowed shores of
Sweden. All this immensity of space whirled and wavered, fluctuating
beneath my eyes.

But I was compelled to rise, to stand up, to look. My first lesson in
dizziness lasted an hour. When I got permission to come down and feel the
solid street pavements I was afflicted with severe lumbago.

"To-morrow we will do it again," said the Professor.

And it was so; for five days in succession, I was obliged to undergo this
anti-vertiginous exercise; and whether I would or not, I made some
improvement in the art of "lofty contemplations."

CHAPTER IX.

ICELAND! BUT WHAT NEXT?

The day for our departure arrived. The day before it our kind friend
M. Thomsen brought us letters of introduction to Count Trampe, the
Governor of Iceland, M. Picturssen, the bishop's suffragan, and M.
Finsen, mayor of Rejkiavik. My uncle expressed his gratitude by
tremendous compressions of both his hands.

On the 2nd, at six in the evening, all our precious baggage being safely
on board the Valkyria, the captain took us into a very narrow cabin.

"Is the wind favourable?" my uncle asked.

"Excellent," replied Captain Bjarne; "a sou'-easter. We shall pass down
the Sound full speed, with all sails set."

In a few minutes the schooner, under her mizen, brigantine, topsail, and
topgallant sail, loosed from her moorings and made full sail through the
straits. In an hour the capital of Denmark seemed to sink below the distant
waves, and the Valkyria was skirting the coast by Elsinore. In my nervous
frame of mind I expected to see the ghost of Hamlet wandering on the
legendary castle terrace.

"Sublime madman!" I said, "no doubt you would approve of our
expedition. Perhaps you would keep us company to the centre of the globe,
to find the solution of your eternal doubts."

But there was no ghostly shape upon the ancient walls. Indeed, the castle
is much younger than the heroic prince of Denmark. It now answers the
purpose of a sumptuous lodge for the doorkeeper of the straits of the Sound,
before which every year there pass fifteen thousand ships of all nations.

The castle of Kronsberg soon disappeared in the mist, as well as the
tower of Helsingborg, built on the Swedish coast, and the schooner passed
lightly on her way urged by the breezes of the Cattegat.

The Valkyria was a splendid sailer, but on a sailing vessel you can place
no dependence. She was taking to Rejkiavik coal, household goods,
earthenware, woollen clothing, and a cargo of wheat. The crew consisted of
five men, all Danes.

"How long will the passage take?" my uncle asked.

"Ten days," the captain replied, "if we don't meet a nor'-wester in passing
the Faroes."

"But are you not subject to considerable delays?"

"No, M. Liedenbrock, don't be uneasy, we shall get there in very good
time."

At evening the schooner doubled the Skaw at the northern point of
Denmark, in the night passed the Skager Rack, skirted Norway by Cape
Lindness, and entered the North Sea.

In two days more we sighted the coast of Scotland near Peterhead, and
the Valkyria turned her lead towards the Faroe Islands, passing between the
Orkneys and Shetlands.

Soon the schooner encountered the great Atlantic swell; she had to tack
against the north wind, and reached the Faroes only with some difficulty.
On the 8th the captain made out Myganness, the southernmost of these
islands, and from that moment took a straight course for Cape Portland, the
most southerly point of Iceland.

The passage was marked by nothing unusual. I bore the troubles of the
sea pretty well; my uncle, to his own intense disgust, and his greater shame,
was ill all through the voyage.

He therefore was unable to converse with the captain about Snæfell, the
way to get to it, the facilities for transport, he was obliged to put off these
inquiries until his arrival, and spent all his time at full length in his cabin, of
which the timbers creaked and shook with every pitch she took. It must be
confessed he was not undeserving of his punishment.

On the 11th we reached Cape Portland. The clear open weather gave us a
good view of Myrdals jokul, which overhangs it. The cape is merely a low
hill with steep sides, standing lonely by the beach.

The Valkyria kept at some distance from the coast, taking a westerly
course amidst great shoals of whales and sharks. Soon we came in sight of
an enormous perforated rock, through which the sea dashed furiously. The
Westman islets seemed to rise out of the ocean like a group of rocks in a
liquid plain. From that time the schooner took a wide berth and swept at a
great distance round Cape Rejkianess, which forms the western point of
Iceland.

The rough sea prevented my uncle from coming on deck to admire these
shattered and surf-beaten coasts.

Forty-eight hours after, coming out of a storm which forced the schooner
to scud under bare poles, we sighted east of us the beacon on Cape Skagen,
where dangerous rocks extend far away seaward. An Icelandic pilot came
on board, and in three hours the Valkyria dropped her anchor before
Rejkiavik, in Faxa Bay.

The Professor at last emerged from his cabin, rather pale and wretched-
looking, but still full of enthusiasm, and with ardent satisfaction shining in
his eyes.

The population of the town, wonderfully interested in the arrival of a
vessel from which every one expected something, formed in groups upon
the quay.

My uncle left in haste his floating prison, or rather hospital. But before
quitting the deck of the schooner he dragged me forward, and pointing with
outstretched finger north of the bay at a distant mountain terminating in a
double peak, a pair of cones covered with perpetual snow, he cried:

"Snæfell! Snæfell!"

Then recommending me, by an impressive gesture, to keep silence, he
went into the boat which awaited him. I followed, and presently we were
treading the soil of Iceland.

The first man we saw was a good-looking fellow enough, in a general's
uniform. Yet he was not a general but a magistrate, the Governor of the
island, M. le Baron Trampe himself. The Professor was soon aware of the
presence he was in. He delivered him his letters from Copenhagen, and then

followed a short conversation in the Danish language, the purport of which
I was quite ignorant of, and for a very good reason. But the result of this
first conversation was, that Baron Trampe placed himself entirely at the
service of Professor Liedenbrock.

My uncle was just as courteously received by the mayor, M. Finsen,
whose appearance was as military, and disposition and office as pacific, as
the Governor's.

As for the bishop's suffragan, M. Picturssen, he was at that moment
engaged on an episcopal visitation in the north. For the time we must be
resigned to wait for the honour of being presented to him. But M.
Fridrikssen, professor of natural sciences at the school of Rejkiavik, was a
delightful man, and his friendship became very precious to me. This modest
philosopher spoke only Danish and Latin. He came to proffer me his good
offices in the language of Horace, and I felt that we were made to
understand each other. In fact he was the only person in Iceland with whom
I could converse at all.

This good-natured gentleman made over to us two of the three rooms
which his house contained, and we were soon installed in it with all our
luggage, the abundance of which rather astonished the good people of
Rejkiavik.

"Well, Axel," said my uncle, "we are getting on, and now the worst is
over."

"The worst!" I said, astonished.

"To be sure, now we have nothing to do but go down."

"Oh, if that is all, you are quite right; but after all, when we have gone
down, we shall have to get up again, I suppose?"

"Oh I don't trouble myself about that. Come, there's no time to lose;
I am going to the library. Perhaps there is some manuscript of
Saknussemm's there, and I should be glad to consult it."

"Well, while you are there I will go into the town. Won't you?"

"Oh, that is very uninteresting to me. It is not what is upon this island,
but what is underneath, that interests me."

I went out, and wandered wherever chance took me.

It would not be easy to lose your way in Rejkiavik. I was therefore under
no necessity to inquire the road, which exposes one to mistakes when the
only medium of intercourse is gesture.

The town extends along a low and marshy level, between two hills. An
immense bed of lava bounds it on one side, and falls gently towards the sea.
On the other extends the vast bay of Faxa, shut in at the north by the
enormous glacier of the Snæfell, and of which the Valkyria was for the time
the only occupant. Usually the English and French conservators of fisheries
moor in this bay, but just then they were cruising about the western coasts
of the island.

The longest of the only two streets that Rejkiavik possesses was parallel
with the beach. Here live the merchants and traders, in wooden cabins made
of red planks set horizontally; the other street, running west, ends at the
little lake between the house of the bishop and other non-commercial
people.

I had soon explored these melancholy ways; here and there I got a
glimpse of faded turf, looking like a worn-out bit of carpet, or some
appearance of a kitchen garden, the sparse vegetables of which (potatoes,
cabbages, and lettuces), would have figured appropriately upon a Lilliputian
table. A few sickly wallflowers were trying to enjoy the air and sunshine.

About the middle of the tin-commercial street I found the public
cemetery, inclosed with a mud wall, and where there seemed plenty of
room.

Then a few steps brought me to the Governor's house, a but compared
with the town hall of Hamburg, a palace in comparison with the cabins of
the Icelandic population.

Between the little lake and the town the church is built in the Protestant
style, of calcined stones extracted out of the volcanoes by their own labour
and at their own expense; in high westerly winds it was manifest that the
red tiles of the roof would be scattered in the air, to the great danger of the
faithful worshippers.

On a neighbouring hill I perceived the national school, where, as I was
informed later by our host, were taught Hebrew, English, French, and
Danish, four languages of which, with shame I confess it, I don't know a
single word; after an examination I should have had to stand last of the
forty scholars educated at this little college, and I should have been held
unworthy to sleep along with them in one of those little double closets,
where more delicate youths would have died of suffocation the very first
night.

In three hours I had seen not only the town but its environs. The general
aspect was wonderfully dull. No trees, and scarcely any vegetation.
Everywhere bare rocks, signs of volcanic action. The Icelandic huts are

made of earth and turf, and the walls slope inward; they rather resemble
roofs placed on the ground. But then these roofs are meadows of
comparative fertility. Thanks to the internal heat, the grass grows on them to
some degree of perfection. It is carefully mown in the hay season; if it were
not, the horses would come to pasture on these green abodes.

In my excursion I met but few people. On returning to the main street I
found the greater part of the population busied in drying, salting, and
putting on board codfish, their chief export. The men looked like robust but
heavy, blond Germans with pensive eyes, conscious of being far removed
from their fellow creatures, poor exiles relegated to this land of ice, poor
creatures who should have been Esquimaux, since nature had condemned
them to live only just outside the arctic circle! In vain did I try to detect a
smile upon their lips; sometimes by a spasmodic and involuntary
contraction of the muscles they seemed to laugh, but they never smiled.

Their costume consisted of a coarse jacket of black woollen cloth called
in Scandinavian lands a 'vadmel,' a hat with a very broad brim, trousers
with a narrow edge of red, and a bit of leather rolled round the foot for
shoes.

The women looked as sad and as resigned as the men; their faces were
agreeable but expressionless, and they wore gowns and petticoats of dark
'vadmel'; as maidens, they wore over their braided hair a little knitted brown
cap; when married, they put around their heads a coloured handkerchief,
crowned with a peak of white linen.

After a good walk I returned to M. Fridrikssen's house, where I found my
uncle already in his host's company.

CHAPTER X.

INTERESTING CONVERSATIONS WITH ICELANDIC SAVANTS

Dinner was ready. Professor Liedenbrock devoured his portion
voraciously, for his compulsory fast on board had converted his stomach
into a vast unfathomable gulf. There was nothing remarkable in the meal
itself; but the hospitality of our host, more Danish than Icelandic, reminded
me of the heroes of old. It was evident that we were more at home than he
was himself.

The conversation was carried on in the vernacular tongue, which my
uncle mixed with German and M. Fridrikssen with Latin for my benefit. It
turned upon scientific questions as befits philosophers; but Professor
Liedenbrock was excessively reserved, and at every sentence spoke to me
with his eyes, enjoining the most absolute silence upon our plans.

In the first place M. Fridrikssen wanted to know what success my uncle
had had at the library.

"Your library! why there is nothing but a few tattered books upon almost
deserted shelves."

"Indeed!" replied M. Fridrikssen, "why we possess eight thousand
volumes, many of them valuable and scarce, works in the old Scandinavian

language, and we have all the novelties that Copenhagen sends us every
year."

"Where do you keep your eight thousand volumes? For my part—"

"Oh, M. Liedenbrock, they are all over the country. In this icy region we
are fond of study. There is not a farmer nor a fisherman that cannot read and
does not read. Our principle is, that books, instead of growing mouldy
behind an iron grating, should be worn out under the eyes of many readers.
Therefore, these volumes are passed from one to another, read over and
over, referred to again and again; and it often happens that they find their
way back to their shelves only after an absence of a year or two."

"And in the meantime," said my uncle rather spitefully, "strangers—"

"Well, what would you have? Foreigners have their libraries at home, and
the first essential for labouring people is that they should be educated. I
repeat to you the love of reading runs in Icelandic blood. In 1816 we
founded a prosperous literary society; learned strangers think themselves
honoured in becoming members of it. It publishes books which educate our
fellow-countrymen, and do the country great service. If you will consent to
be a corresponding member, Herr Liedenbrock, you will be giving us great
pleasure."

My uncle, who had already joined about a hundred learned societies,
accepted with a grace which evidently touched M. Fridrikssen.

"Now," said he, "will you be kind enough to tell me what books you
hoped to find in our library and I may perhaps enable you to consult them?"

My uncle's eyes and mine met. He hesitated. This direct question went to
the root of the matter. But after a moment's reflection he decided on

speaking.

"Monsieur Fridrikssen, I wished to know if amongst your ancient books
you possessed any of the works of Arne Saknussemm?"

"Arne Saknussemm!" replied the Rejkiavik professor. "You mean that
learned sixteenth century savant, a naturalist, a chemist, and a traveller?"

"Just so!"

"One of the glories of Icelandic literature and science?"

"That's the man."

"An illustrious man anywhere!"

"Quite so."

"And whose courage was equal to his genius!"

"I see that you know him well."

My uncle was bathed in delight at hearing his hero thus described. He
feasted his eyes upon M. Fridrikssen's face.

"Well," he cried, "where are his works?"

"His works, we have them not."

"What—not in Iceland?"

"They are neither in Iceland nor anywhere else."

"Why is that?"

"Because Arne Saknussemm was persecuted for heresy, and in 1573 his
books were burned by the hands of the common hangman."

"Very good! Excellent!" cried my uncle, to the great scandal of the
professor of natural history.

"What!" he cried.

"Yes, yes; now it is all clear, now it is all unravelled; and I see why
Saknussemm, put into the Index Expurgatorius, and compelled to hide the
discoveries made by his genius, was obliged to bury in an incomprehensible
cryptogram the secret—"

"What secret?" asked M. Fridrikssen, starting.

"Oh, just a secret which—" my uncle stammered.

"Have you some private document in your possession?" asked our host.

"No; I was only supposing a case."

"Oh, very well," answered M. Fridrikssen, who was kind enough not to
pursue the subject when he had noticed the embarrassment of his friend. "I
hope you will not leave our island until you have seen some of its
mineralogical wealth."

"Certainly," replied my uncle; "but I am rather late; or have not others
been here before me?"

"Yes, Herr Liedenbrock; the labours of MM. Olafsen and Povelsen,
pursued by order of the king, the researches of Troïl the scientific mission
of MM. Gaimard and Robert on the French corvette La Recherche, [1] and
lately the observations of scientific men who came in the Reine Hortense,

have added materially to our knowledge of Iceland. But I assure you there
is plenty left."

"Do you think so?" said my uncle, pretending to look very modest, and
trying to hide the curiosity was flashing out of his eyes.

"Oh, yes; how many mountains, glaciers, and volcanoes there are to
study, which are as yet but imperfectly known! Then, without going any
further, that mountain in the horizon. That is Snæfell."

"Ah!" said my uncle, as coolly as he was able, "is that Snæfell?"

"Yes; one of the most curious volcanoes, and the crater of which has
scarcely ever been visited."

"Is it extinct?"

"Oh, yes; more than five hundred years."

"Well," replied my uncle, who was frantically locking his legs together to
keep himself from jumping up in the air, "that is where I mean to begin my
geological studies, there on that Seffel—Fessel—what do you call it?"

"Snæfell," replied the excellent M. Fridrikssen.

This part of the conversation was in Latin; I had understood every word
of it, and I could hardly conceal my amusement at seeing my uncle trying to
keep down the excitement and satisfaction which were brimming over in
every limb and every feature. He tried hard to put on an innocent little
expression of simplicity; but it looked like a diabolical grin.

[1] Recherche was sent out in 1835 by Admiral Duperré to learn the fate
of the lost expedition of M. de Blosseville in the Lilloise which has never

been heard of.

"Yes," said he, "your words decide me. We will try to scale that
Snæfell; perhaps even we may pursue our studies in its crater!"

"I am very sorry," said M. Fridrikssen, "that my engagements will not
allow me to absent myself, or I would have accompanied you myself with
both pleasure and profit."

"Oh, no, no!" replied my uncle with great animation, "we would not
disturb any one for the world, M. Fridrikssen. Still, I thank you with all my
heart: the company of such a talented man would have been very
serviceable, but the duties of your profession—"

I am glad to think that our host, in the innocence of his Icelandic soul,
was blind to the transparent artifices of my uncle.

"I very much approve of your beginning with that volcano, M.
Liedenbrock. You will gather a harvest of interesting observations.
But, tell me, how do you expect to get to the peninsula of Snæfell?"

"By sea, crossing the bay. That's the most direct way."

"No doubt; but it is impossible."

"Why?"

"Because we don't possess a single boat at Rejkiavik."

"You don't mean to say so?"

"You will have to go by land, following the shore. It will be longer, but
more interesting."

"Very well, then; and now I shall have to see about a guide."

"I have one to offer you."

"A safe, intelligent man."

"Yes; an inhabitant of that peninsula. He is an eider-down hunter, and
very clever. He speaks Danish perfectly."

"When can I see him?"

"To-morrow, if you like."

"Why not to-day?"

"Because he won't be here till to-morrow."

"To-morrow, then," added my uncle with a sigh.

This momentous conversation ended in a few minutes with warm
acknowledgments paid by the German to the Icelandic Professor. At this
dinner my uncle had just elicited important facts, amongst others, the
history of Saknussemm, the reason of the mysterious document, that his
host would not accompany him in his expedition, and that the very next day
a guide would be waiting upon him.

CHAPTER XI.

A GUIDE FOUND TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH

In the evening I took a short walk on the beach and returned at night to
my plank-bed, where I slept soundly all night.

When I awoke I heard my uncle talking at a great rate in the next room. I
immediately dressed and joined him.

He was conversing in the Danish language with a tall man, of robust
build. This fine fellow must have been possessed of great strength. His
eyes, set in a large and ingenuous face, seemed to me very intelligent; they
were of a dreamy sea-blue. Long hair, which would have been called red
even in England, fell in long meshes upon his broad shoulders. The
movements of this native were lithe and supple; but he made little use of his
arms in speaking, like a man who knew nothing or cared nothing about the
language of gestures. His whole appearance bespoke perfect calmness and
self-possession, not indolence but tranquillity. It was felt at once that he
would be beholden to nobody, that he worked for his own convenience, and
that nothing in this world could astonish or disturb his philosophic
calmness.

I caught the shades of this Icelander's character by the way in which he
listened to the impassioned flow of words which fell from the Professor. He

stood with arms crossed, perfectly unmoved by my uncle's incessant
gesticulations. A negative was expressed by a slow movement of the head
from left to right, an affirmative by a slight bend, so slight that his long hair
scarcely moved. He carried economy of motion even to parsimony.

Certainly I should never have dreamt in looking at this man that he was a
hunter; he did not look likely to frighten his game, nor did he seem as if he
would even get near it. But the mystery was explained when M. Fridrikssen
informed me that this tranquil personage was only a hunter of the eider
duck, whose under plumage constitutes the chief wealth of the island. This
is the celebrated eider down, and it requires no great rapidity of movement
to get it.

Early in summer the female, a very pretty bird, goes to build her nest
among the rocks of the fiords with which the coast is fringed. After building
the nest she feathers it with down plucked from her own breast.
Immediately the hunter, or rather the trader, comes and robs the nest, and
the female recommences her work. This goes on as long as she has any
down left. When she has stripped herself bare the male takes his turn to
pluck himself. But as the coarse and hard plumage of the male has no
commercial value, the hunter does not take the trouble to rob the nest of
this; the female therefore lays her eggs in the spoils of her mate, the young
are hatched, and next year the harvest begins again.

Now, as the eider duck does not select steep cliffs for her nest, but rather
the smooth terraced rocks which slope to the sea, the Icelandic hunter might
exercise his calling without any inconvenient exertion. He was a farmer
who was not obliged either to sow or reap his harvest, but merely to gather
it in.

This grave, phlegmatic, and silent individual was called Hans Bjelke; and
he came recommended by M. Fridrikssen. He was our future guide. His

manners were a singular contrast with my uncle's.

Nevertheless, they soon came to understand each other. Neither looked at
the amount of the payment: the one was ready to accept whatever was
offered; the other was ready to give whatever was demanded. Never was
bargain more readily concluded.

The result of the treaty was, that Hans engaged on his part to conduct us
to the village of Stapi, on the south shore of the Snæfell peninsula, at the
very foot of the volcano. By land this would be about twenty-two miles, to
be done, said my uncle, in two days.

But when he learnt that the Danish mile was 24,000 feet long, he was
obliged to modify his calculations and allow seven or eight days for the
march.

Four horses were to be placed at our disposal—two to carry him and me,
two for the baggage. Hans, as was his custom, would go on foot. He knew
all that part of the coast perfectly, and promised to take us the shortest way.

His engagement was not to terminate with our arrival at Stapi; he was to
continue in my uncle's service for the whole period of his scientific
researches, for the remuneration of three rixdales a week (about twelve
shillings), but it was an express article of the covenant that his wages
should be counted out to him every Saturday at six o'clock in the evening,
which, according to him, was one indispensable part of the engagement.

The start was fixed for the 16th of June. My uncle wanted to pay the
hunter a portion in advance, but he refused with one word:

"Efter," said he.

"After," said the Professor for my edification.

The treaty concluded, Hans silently withdrew.

"A famous fellow," cried my uncle; "but he little thinks of the marvellous
part he has to play in the future."

"So he is to go with us as far as—"

"As far as the centre of the earth, Axel."

Forty-eight hours were left before our departure; to my great regret I had
to employ them in preparations; for all our ingenuity was required to pack
every article to the best advantage; instruments here, arms there, tools in
this package, provisions in that: four sets of packages in all.

The instruments were:

1. An Eigel's centigrade thermometer, graduated up to 150 degrees (302
degrees Fahr.), which seemed to me too much or too little. Too much if the
internal heat was to rise so high, for in this case we should be baked, not
enough to measure the temperature of springs or any matter in a state of
fusion.

2. An aneroid barometer, to indicate extreme pressures of the atmosphere.
An ordinary barometer would not have answered the purpose, as the
pressure would increase during our descent to a point which the mercurial
barometer [1] would not register.

3. A chronometer, made by Boissonnas, jun., of Geneva, accurately set to
the meridian of Hamburg.

4. Two compasses, viz., a common compass and a dipping needle.

5. A night glass.

6. Two of Ruhmkorff's apparatus, which, by means of an electric current,
supplied a safe and handy portable light [2]

The arms consisted of two of Purdy's rifles and two brace of pistols. But
what did we want arms for? We had neither savages nor wild beasts to fear,
I supposed. But my uncle seemed to believe in his arsenal as in his
instruments, and more especially in a considerable quantity of gun cotton,
which is unaffected by moisture, and the explosive force of which exceeds
that of gunpowder.

[1] In M. Verne's book a 'manometer' is the instrument used, of which
very little is known. In a complete list of philosophical instruments the
translator cannot find the name. As he is assured by a first-rate instrument
maker, Chadburn, of Liverpool, that an aneroid can be constructed to
measure any depth, he has thought it best to furnish the adventurous
professor with this more familiar instrument. The 'manometer' is generally
known as a pressure gauge.—TRANS.

[2] Ruhmkorff's apparatus consists of a Bunsen pile worked with
bichromate of potash, which makes no smell; an induction coil carries the
electricity generated by the pile into communication with a lantern of
peculiar construction; in this lantern there is a spiral glass tube from which
the air has been excluded, and in which remains only a residuum of
carbonic acid gas or of nitrogen. When the apparatus is put in action this
gas becomes luminous, producing a white steady light. The pile and coil are
placed in a leathern bag which the traveller carries over his shoulders; the
lantern outside of the bag throws sufficient light into deep darkness; it
enables one to venture without fear of explosions into the midst of the most
inflammable gases, and is not extinguished even in the deepest waters. M.
Ruhmkorff is a learned and most ingenious man of science; his great
discovery is his induction coil, which produces a powerful stream of

electricity. He obtained in 1864 the quinquennial prize of 50,000 franc
reserved by the French government for the most ingenious application of
electricity.

The tools comprised two pickaxes, two spades, a silk ropeladder, three
iron-tipped sticks, a hatchet, a hammer, a dozen wedges and iron spikes,
and a long knotted rope. Now this was a large load, for the ladder was 300
feet long.

And there were provisions too: this was not a large parcel, but it was
comforting to know that of essence of beef and biscuits there were six
months' consumption. Spirits were the only liquid, and of water we took
none; but we had flasks, and my uncle depended on springs from which to
fill them. Whatever objections I hazarded as to their quality, temperature,
and even absence, remained ineffectual.

To complete the exact inventory of all our travelling accompaniments, I
must not forget a pocket medicine chest, containing blunt scissors, splints
for broken limbs, a piece of tape of unbleached linen, bandages and
compresses, lint, a lancet for bleeding, all dreadful articles to take with one.
Then there was a row of phials containing dextrine, alcoholic ether, liquid
acetate of lead, vinegar, and ammonia drugs which afforded me no comfort.
Finally, all the articles needful to supply Ruhmkorff's apparatus.

My uncle did not forget a supply of tobacco, coarse grained powder, and
amadou, nor a leathern belt in which he carried a sufficient quantity of gold,
silver, and paper money. Six pairs of boots and shoes, made waterproof with
a composition of indiarubber and naphtha, were packed amongst the tools.

"Clothed, shod, and equipped like this," said my uncle, "there is no
telling how far we may go."

The 14th was wholly spent in arranging all our different articles. In the
evening we dined with Baron Tramps; the mayor of Rejkiavik, and Dr.
Hyaltalin, the first medical man of the place, being of the party. M.
Fridrikssen was not there. I learned afterwards that he and the Governor
disagreed upon some question of administration, and did not speak to each
other. I therefore knew not a single word of all that was said at this semi-
official dinner; but I could not help noticing that my uncle talked the whole
time.

On the 15th our preparations were all made. Our host gave the Professor
very great pleasure by presenting him with a map of Iceland far more
complete than that of Hendersen. It was the map of M. Olaf Nikolas Olsen,
in the proportion of 1 to 480,000 of the actual size of the island, and
published by the Icelandic Literary Society. It was a precious document for
a mineralogist.

Our last evening was spent in intimate conversation with M. Fridrikssen,
with whom I felt the liveliest sympathy; then, after the talk, succeeded, for
me, at any rate, a disturbed and restless night.

At five in the morning I was awoke by the neighing and pawing of four
horses under my window. I dressed hastily and came down into the street.
Hans was finishing our packing, almost as it were without moving a limb;
and yet he did his work cleverly. My uncle made more noise than execution,
and the guide seemed to pay very little attention to his energetic directions.

At six o'clock our preparations were over. M. Fridrikssen shook hands
with us. My uncle thanked him heartily for his extreme kindness. I
constructed a few fine Latin sentences to express my cordial farewell. Then
we bestrode our steeds and with his last adieu M. Fridrikssen treated me to
a line of Virgil eminently applicable to such uncertain wanderers as we
were likely to be:

"Et quacumque viam dedent fortuna sequamur."

"Therever fortune clears a way,
Thither our ready footsteps stray."

CHAPTER XII.

A BARREN LAND

We had started under a sky overcast but calm. There was no fear of heat,
none of disastrous rain. It was just the weather for tourists.

The pleasure of riding on horseback over an unknown country made me
easy to be pleased at our first start. I threw myself wholly into the pleasure
of the trip, and enjoyed the feeling of freedom and satisfied desire. I was
beginning to take a real share in the enterprise.

"Besides," I said to myself, "where's the risk? Here we are travelling all
through a most interesting country! We are about to climb a very
remarkable mountain; at the worst we are going to scramble down an
extinct crater. It is evident that Saknussemm did nothing more than this. As
for a passage leading to the centre of the globe, it is mere rubbish! perfectly
impossible! Very well, then; let us get all the good we can out of this
expedition, and don't let us haggle about the chances."

This reasoning having settled my mind, we got out of Rejkiavik.

Hans moved steadily on, keeping ahead of us at an even, smooth, and
rapid pace. The baggage horses followed him without giving any trouble.

Then came my uncle and myself, looking not so very ill-mounted on our
small but hardy animals.

Iceland is one of the largest islands in Europe. Its surface is 14,000
square miles, and it contains but 16,000 inhabitants. Geographers have
divided it into four quarters, and we were crossing diagonally the south-
west quarter, called the 'Sudvester Fjordungr.'

On leaving Rejkiavik Hans took us by the seashore. We passed lean
pastures which were trying very hard, but in vain, to look green; yellow
came out best. The rugged peaks of the trachyte rocks presented faint
outlines on the eastern horizon; at times a few patches of snow,
concentrating the vague light, glittered upon the slopes of the distant
mountains; certain peaks, boldly uprising, passed through the grey clouds,
and reappeared above the moving mists, like breakers emerging in the
heavens.

Often these chains of barren rocks made a dip towards the sea, and
encroached upon the scanty pasturage: but there was always enough room
to pass. Besides, our horses instinctively chose the easiest places without
ever slackening their pace. My uncle was refused even the satisfaction of
stirring up his beast with whip or voice. He had no excuse for being
impatient. I could not help smiling to see so tall a man on so small a pony,
and as his long legs nearly touched the ground he looked like a six-legged
centaur.

"Good horse! good horse!" he kept saying. "You will see, Axel, that there
is no more sagacious animal than the Icelandic horse. He is stopped by
neither snow, nor storm, nor impassable roads, nor rocks, glaciers, or
anything. He is courageous, sober, and surefooted. He never makes a false
step, never shies. If there is a river or fiord to cross (and we shall meet with
many) you will see him plunge in at once, just as if he were amphibious,

and gain the opposite bank. But we must not hurry him; we must let him
have his way, and we shall get on at the rate of thirty miles a day."

"We may; but how about our guide?"

"Oh, never mind him. People like him get over the ground without a
thought. There is so little action in this man that he will never get tired; and
besides, if he wants it, he shall have my horse. I shall get cramped if I don't
have a little action. The arms are all right, but the legs want exercise."

We were advancing at a rapid pace. The country was already almost a
desert. Here and there was a lonely farm, called a boër built either of wood,
or of sods, or of pieces of lava, looking like a poor beggar by the wayside.
These ruinous huts seemed to solicit charity from passers-by; and on very
small provocation we should have given alms for the relief of the poor
inmates. In this country there were no roads and paths, and the poor
vegetation, however slow, would soon efface the rare travellers' footsteps.

Yet this part of the province, at a very small distance from the capital, is
reckoned among the inhabited and cultivated portions of Iceland. What,
then, must other tracts be, more desert than this desert? In the first half mile
we had not seen one farmer standing before his cabin door, nor one
shepherd tending a flock less wild than himself, nothing but a few cows and
sheep left to themselves. What then would be those convulsed regions upon
which we were advancing, regions subject to the dire phenomena of
eruptions, the offspring of volcanic explosions and subterranean
convulsions?

We were to know them before long, but on consulting Olsen's map, I saw
that they would be avoided by winding along the seashore. In fact, the great
plutonic action is confined to the central portion of the island; there, rocks
of the trappean and volcanic class, including trachyte, basalt, and tuffs and

agglomerates associated with streams of lava, have made this a land of
supernatural horrors. I had no idea of the spectacle which was awaiting us
in the peninsula of Snæfell, where these ruins of a fiery nature have formed
a frightful chaos.

In two hours from Rejkiavik we arrived at the burgh of Gufunes, called
Aolkirkja, or principal church. There was nothing remarkable here but a
few houses, scarcely enough for a German hamlet.

Hans stopped here half an hour. He shared with us our frugal breakfast;
answering my uncle's questions about the road and our resting place that
night with merely yes or no, except when he said "Gardär."

I consulted the map to see where Gardär was. I saw there was a small
town of that name on the banks of the Hvalfiord, four miles from Rejkiavik.
I showed it to my uncle.

"Four miles only!" he exclaimed; "four miles out of twenty-eight.
What a nice little walk!"

He was about to make an observation to the guide, who without
answering resumed his place at the head, and went on his way.

Three hours later, still treading on the colourless grass of the pasture
land, we had to work round the Kolla fiord, a longer way but an easier one
than across that inlet. We soon entered into a 'pingstaoer' or parish called
Ejulberg, from whose steeple twelve o'clock would have struck, if Icelandic
churches were rich enough to possess clocks. But they are like the
parishioners who have no watches and do without.

There our horses were baited; then taking the narrow path to left between
a chain of hills and the sea, they carried us to our next stage, the aolkirkja of

Brantär and one mile farther on, to Saurboër 'Annexia,' a chapel of ease
built on the south shore of the Hvalfiord.

It was now four o'clock, and we had gone four Icelandic miles, or twenty-
four English miles.

In that place the fiord was at least three English miles wide; the waves
rolled with a rushing din upon the sharp-pointed rocks; this inlet was
confined between walls of rock, precipices crowned by sharp peaks 2,000
feet high, and remarkable for the brown strata which separated the beds of
reddish tuff. However much I might respect the intelligence of our
quadrupeds, I hardly cared to put it to the test by trusting myself to it on
horseback across an arm of the sea.

If they are as intelligent as they are said to be, I thought, they won't try it.
In any case, I will tax my intelligence to direct theirs.

But my uncle would not wait. He spurred on to the edge. His steed
lowered his head to examine the nearest waves and stopped. My uncle, who
had an instinct of his own, too, applied pressure, and was again refused by
the animal significantly shaking his head. Then followed strong language,
and the whip; but the brute answered these arguments with kicks and
endeavours to throw his rider. At last the clever little pony, with a bend of
his knees, started from under the Professor's legs, and left him standing
upon two boulders on the shore just like the colossus of Rhodes.

"Confounded brute!" cried the unhorsed horseman, suddenly degraded
into a pedestrian, just as ashamed as a cavalry officer degraded to a foot
soldier.

"Färja," said the guide, touching his shoulder.

"What! a boat?"

"Der," replied Hans, pointing to one.

"Yes," I cried; "there is a boat."

"Why did not you say so then? Well, let us go on."

"Tidvatten," said the guide.

"What is he saying?"

"He says tide," said my uncle, translating the Danish word.

"No doubt we must wait for the tide."

"Förbida," said my uncle.

"Ja," replied Hans.

My uncle stamped with his foot, while the horses went on to the boat.

I perfectly understood the necessity of abiding a particular moment of the
tide to undertake the crossing of the fiord, when, the sea having reached its
greatest height, it should be slack water. Then the ebb and flow have no
sensible effect, and the boat does not risk being carried either to the bottom
or out to sea.

That favourable moment arrived only with six o'clock; when my uncle,
myself, the guide, two other passengers and the four horses, trusted
ourselves to a somewhat fragile raft. Accustomed as I was to the swift and
sure steamers on the Elbe, I found the oars of the rowers rather a slow
means of propulsion. It took us more than an hour to cross the fiord; but the
passage was effected without any mishap.

In another half hour we had reached the aolkirkja of Gardär

CHAPTER XIII.

HOSPITALITY UNDER THE ARCTIC CIRCLE

It ought to have been night-time, but under the 65th parallel there was
nothing surprising in the nocturnal polar light. In Iceland during the months
of June and July the sun does not set.

But the temperature was much lower. I was cold and more hungry than
cold. Welcome was the sight of the boër which was hospitably opened to
receive us.

It was a peasant's house, but in point of hospitality it was equal to a
king's. On our arrival the master came with outstretched hands, and without
more ceremony he beckoned us to follow him.

To accompany him down the long, narrow, dark passage, would have
been impossible. Therefore, we followed, as he bid us. The building was
constructed of roughly squared timbers, with rooms on both sides, four in
number, all opening out into the one passage: these were the kitchen, the
weaving shop, the badstofa, or family sleeping-room, and the visitors' room,
which was the best of all. My uncle, whose height had not been thought of
in building the house, of course hit his head several times against the beams
that projected from the ceilings.

We were introduced into our apartment, a large room with a floor of earth
stamped hard down, and lighted by a window, the panes of which were
formed of sheep's bladder, not admitting too much light. The sleeping
accommodation consisted of dry litter, thrown into two wooden frames
painted red, and ornamented with Icelandic sentences. I was hardly
expecting so much comfort; the only discomfort proceeded from the strong
odour of dried fish, hung meat, and sour milk, of which my nose made
bitter complaints.

When we had laid aside our travelling wraps the voice of the host was
heard inviting us to the kitchen, the only room where a fire was lighted even
in the severest cold.

My uncle lost no time in obeying the friendly call, nor was I slack in
following.

The kitchen chimney was constructed on the ancient pattern; in the
middle of the room was a stone for a hearth, over it in the roof a hole to let
the smoke escape. The kitchen was also a dining-room.

At our entrance the host, as if he had never seen us, greeted us with the
word "Sællvertu," which means "be happy," and came and kissed us on the
cheek.

After him his wife pronounced the same words, accompanied with the
same ceremonial; then the two placing their hands upon their hearts,
inclined profoundly before us.

I hasten to inform the reader that this Icelandic lady was the mother of
nineteen children, all, big and little, swarming in the midst of the dense
wreaths of smoke with which the fire on the hearth filled the chamber.
Every moment I noticed a fair-haired and rather melancholy face peeping

out of the rolling volumes of smoke—they were a perfect cluster of
unwashed angels.

My uncle and I treated this little tribe with kindness; and in a very short
time we each had three or four of these brats on our shoulders, as many on
our laps, and the rest between our knees. Those who could speak kept
repeating "Sællvertu," in every conceivable tone; those that could not speak
made up for that want by shrill cries.

This concert was brought to a close by the announcement of dinner. At
that moment our hunter returned, who had been seeing his horses provided
for; that is to say, he had economically let them loose in the fields, where
the poor beasts had to content themselves with the scanty moss they could
pull off the rocks and a few meagre sea weeds, and the next day they would
not fail to come of themselves and resume the labours of the previous day.

"Sællvertu," said Hans.

Then calmly, automatically, and dispassionately he kissed the host, the
hostess, and their nineteen children.

This ceremony over, we sat at table, twenty-four in number, and therefore
one upon another. The luckiest had only two urchins upon their knees.

But silence reigned in all this little world at the arrival of the soup, and
the national taciturnity resumed its empire even over the children. The host
served out to us a soup made of lichen and by no means unpleasant, then an
immense piece of dried fish floating in butter rancid with twenty years'
keeping, and, therefore, according to Icelandic gastronomy, much preferable
to fresh butter. Along with this, we had 'skye,' a sort of clotted milk, with
biscuits, and a liquid prepared from juniper berries; for beverage we had a
thin milk mixed with water, called in this country 'blanda.' It is not for me to

decide whether this diet is wholesome or not; all I can say is, that I was
desperately hungry, and that at dessert I swallowed to the very last gulp of a
thick broth made from buckwheat.

As soon as the meal was over the children disappeared, and their elders
gathered round the peat fire, which also burnt such miscellaneous fuel as
briars, cow-dung, and fishbones. After this little pinch of warmth the
different groups retired to their respective rooms. Our hostess hospitably
offered us her assistance in undressing, according to Icelandic usage; but on
our gracefully declining, she insisted no longer, and I was able at last to curl
myself up in my mossy bed.

At five next morning we bade our host farewell, my uncle with difficulty
persuading him to accept a proper remuneration; and Hans signalled the
start.

At a hundred yards from Gardär the soil began to change its aspect; it
became boggy and less favourable to progress. On our right the chain of
mountains was indefinitely prolonged like an immense system of natural
fortifications, of which we were following the counter-scarp or lesser steep;
often we were met by streams, which we had to ford with great care, not to
wet our packages.

The desert became wider and more hideous; yet from time to time we
seemed to descry a human figure that fled at our approach, sometimes a
sharp turn would bring us suddenly within a short distance of one of these
spectres, and I was filled with loathing at the sight of a huge deformed
head, the skin shining and hairless, and repulsive sores visible through the
gaps in the poor creature's wretched rags.

The unhappy being forbore to approach us and offer his misshapen hand.
He fled away, but not before Hans had saluted him with the customary

"Sællvertu."

"Spetelsk," said he.

"A leper!" my uncle repeated.

This word produced a repulsive effect. The horrible disease of leprosy is
too common in Iceland; it is not contagious, but hereditary, and lepers are
forbidden to marry.

These apparitions were not cheerful, and did not throw any charm over
the less and less attractive landscapes. The last tufts of grass had
disappeared from beneath our feet. Not a tree was to be seen, unless we
except a few dwarf birches as low as brushwood. Not an animal but a few
wandering ponies that their owners would not feed. Sometimes we could
see a hawk balancing himself on his wings under the grey cloud, and then
darting away south with rapid flight. I felt melancholy under this savage
aspect of nature, and my thoughts went away to the cheerful scenes I had
left in the far south.

We had to cross a few narrow fiords, and at last quite a wide gulf; the
tide, then high, allowed us to pass over without delay, and to reach the
hamlet of Alftanes, one mile beyond.

That evening, after having forded two rivers full of trout and pike, called
Alfa and Heta, we were obliged to spend the night in a deserted building
worthy to be haunted by all the elfins of Scandinavia. The ice king certainly
held court here, and gave us all night long samples of what he could do.

No particular event marked the next day. Bogs, dead levels, melancholy
desert tracks, wherever we travelled. By nightfall we had accomplished half
our journey, and we lay at Krösolbt.

On the 19th of June, for about a mile, that is an Icelandic mile, we
walked upon hardened lava; this ground is called in the country 'hraun'; the
writhen surface presented the appearance of distorted, twisted cables,
sometimes stretched in length, sometimes contorted together; an immense
torrent, once liquid, now solid, ran from the nearest mountains, now extinct
volcanoes, but the ruins around revealed the violence of the past eruptions.
Yet here and there were a few jets of steam from hot springs.

We had no time to watch these phenomena; we had to proceed on our
way. Soon at the foot of the mountains the boggy land reappeared,
intersected by little lakes. Our route now lay westward; we had turned the
great bay of Faxa, and the twin peaks of Snæfell rose white into the cloudy
sky at the distance of at least five miles.

The horses did their duty well, no difficulties stopped them in their
steady career. I was getting tired; but my uncle was as firm and straight as
he was at our first start. I could not help admiring his persistency, as well as
the hunter's, who treated our expedition like a mere promenade.

June 20. At six p.m. we reached Büdir, a village on the sea shore; and the
guide there claiming his due, my uncle settled with him. It was Hans' own
family, that is, his uncles and cousins, who gave us hospitality; we were
kindly received, and without taxing too much the goodness of these folks, I
would willingly have tarried here to recruit after my fatigues. But my uncle,
who wanted no recruiting, would not hear of it, and the next morning we
had to bestride our beasts again.

The soil told of the neighbourhood of the mountain, whose granite
foundations rose from the earth like the knotted roots of some huge oak. We
were rounding the immense base of the volcano. The Professor hardly took
his eyes off it. He tossed up his arms and seemed to defy it, and to declare,
"There stands the giant that I shall conquer." After about four hours'

walking the horses stopped of their own accord at the door of the priest's
house at Stapi.

CHAPTER XIV.

BUT ARCTICS CAN BE INHOSPITABLE, TOO

Stapi is a village consisting of about thirty huts, built of lava, at the south
side of the base of the volcano. It extends along the inner edge of a small
fiord, inclosed between basaltic walls of the strangest construction.

Basalt is a brownish rock of igneous origin. It assumes regular forms, the
arrangement of which is often very surprising. Here nature had done her
work geometrically, with square and compass and plummet. Everywhere
else her art consists alone in throwing down huge masses together in
disorder. You see cones imperfectly formed, irregular pyramids, with a
fantastic disarrangement of lines; but here, as if to exhibit an example of
regularity, though in advance of the very earliest architects, she has created
a severely simple order of architecture, never surpassed either by the
splendours of Babylon or the wonders of Greece.

I had heard of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, and Fingal's Cave in
Staffa, one of the Hebrides; but I had never yet seen a basaltic formation.

At Stapi I beheld this phenomenon in all its beauty.

The wall that confined the fiord, like all the coast of the peninsula, was
composed of a series of vertical columns thirty feet high. These straight

shafts, of fair proportions, supported an architrave of horizontal slabs, the
overhanging portion of which formed a semi-arch over the sea. At intervals,
under this natural shelter, there spread out vaulted entrances in beautiful
curves, into which the waves came dashing with foam and spray. A few
shafts of basalt, torn from their hold by the fury of tempests, lay along the
soil like remains of an ancient temple, in ruins for ever fresh, and over
which centuries passed without leaving a trace of age upon them.

This was our last stage upon the earth. Hans had exhibited great
intelligence, and it gave me some little comfort to think then that he was not
going to leave us.

On arriving at the door of the rector's house, which was not different
from the others, I saw a man shoeing a horse, hammer in hand, and with a
leathern apron on.

"Sællvertu," said the hunter.

"God dag," said the blacksmith in good Danish.

"Kyrkoherde," said Hans, turning round to my uncle.

"The rector," repeated the Professor. "It seems, Axel, that this good man
is the rector."

Our guide in the meanwhile was making the 'kyrkoherde' aware of the
position of things; when the latter, suspending his labours for a moment,
uttered a sound no doubt understood between horses and farriers, and
immediately a tall and ugly hag appeared from the hut. She must have been
six feet at the least. I was in great alarm lest she should treat me to the
Icelandic kiss; but there was no occasion to fear, nor did she do the honours
at all too gracefully.

The visitors' room seemed to me the worst in the whole cabin. It was
close, dirty, and evil smelling. But we had to be content. The rector did not
to go in for antique hospitality. Very far from it. Before the day was over I
saw that we had to do with a blacksmith, a fisherman, a hunter, a joiner, but
not at all with a minister of the Gospel. To be sure, it was a week-day;
perhaps on a Sunday he made amends.

I don't mean to say anything against these poor priests, who after all are
very wretched. They receive from the Danish Government a ridiculously
small pittance, and they get from the parish the fourth part of the tithe,
which does not come to sixty marks a year (about £4). Hence the necessity
to work for their livelihood; but after fishing, hunting, and shoeing horses
for any length of time, one soon gets into the ways and manners of
fishermen, hunters, and farriers, and other rather rude and uncultivated
people; and that evening I found out that temperance was not among the
virtues that distinguished my host.

My uncle soon discovered what sort of a man he had to do with; instead
of a good and learned man he found a rude and coarse peasant. He therefore
resolved to commence the grand expedition at once, and to leave this
inhospitable parsonage. He cared nothing about fatigue, and resolved to
spend some days upon the mountain.

The preparations for our departure were therefore made the very day after
our arrival at Stapi. Hans hired the services of three Icelanders to do the
duty of the horses in the transport of the burdens; but as soon as we had
arrived at the crater these natives were to turn back and leave us to our own
devices. This was to be clearly understood.

My uncle now took the opportunity to explain to Hans that it was his
intention to explore the interior of the volcano to its farthest limits.

Hans merely nodded. There or elsewhere, down in the bowels of the
earth, or anywhere on the surface, all was alike to him. For my own part the
incidents of the journey had hitherto kept me amused, and made me
forgetful of coming evils; but now my fears again were beginning to get the
better of me. But what could I do? The place to resist the Professor would
have been Hamburg, not the foot of Snæfell.

One thought, above all others, harassed and alarmed me; it was one
calculated to shake firmer nerves than mine.

Now, thought I, here we are, about to climb Snæfell. Very good. We will
explore the crater. Very good, too, others have done as much without dying
for it. But that is not all. If there is a way to penetrate into the very bowels
of the island, if that ill-advised Saknussemm has told a true tale, we shall
lose our way amidst the deep subterranean passages of this volcano. Now,
there is no proof that Snæfell is extinct. Who can assure us that an eruption
is not brewing at this very moment? Does it follow that because the monster
has slept since 1229 he must therefore never awake again? And if he wakes
up presently, where shall we be?

It was worth while debating this question, and I did debate it. I could not
sleep for dreaming about eruptions. Now, the part of ejected scoriae and
ashes seemed to my mind a very rough one to act.

So, at last, when I could hold out no longer, I resolved to lay the case
before my uncle, as prudently and as cautiously as possible, just under the
form of an almost impossible hypothesis.

I went to him. I communicated my fears to him, and drew back a step to
give him room for the explosion which I knew must follow. But I was
mistaken.

"I was thinking of that," he replied with great simplicity.

What could those words mean?—Was he actually going to listen to
reason? Was he contemplating the abandonment of his plans? This was too
good to be true.

After a few moments' silence, during which I dared not question him, he
resumed:

"I was thinking of that. Ever since we arrived at Stapi I have been
occupied with the important question you have just opened, for we must not
be guilty of imprudence."

"No, indeed!" I replied with forcible emphasis.

"For six hundred years Snæfell has been dumb; but he may speak again.
Now, eruptions are always preceded by certain well-known phenomena. I
have therefore examined the natives, I have studied external appearances,
and I can assure you, Axel, that there will be no eruption."

At this positive affirmation I stood amazed and speechless.

"You don't doubt my word?" said my uncle. "Well, follow me."

I obeyed like an automaton. Coming out from the priest's house, the
Professor took a straight road, which, through an opening in the basaltic
wall, led away from the sea. We were soon in the open country, if one may
give that name to a vast extent of mounds of volcanic products. This tract
seemed crushed under a rain of enormous ejected rocks of trap, basalt,
granite, and all kinds of igneous rocks.

Here and there I could see puffs and jets of steam curling up into the air,
called in Icelandic 'reykir,' issuing from thermal springs, and indicating by

their motion the volcanic energy underneath. This seemed to justify my
fears: But I fell from the height of my new-born hopes when my uncle said:

"You see all these volumes of steam, Axel; well, they demonstrate that
we have nothing to fear from the fury of a volcanic eruption."

"Am I to believe that?" I cried.

"Understand this clearly," added the Professor. "At the approach of an
eruption these jets would redouble their activity, but disappear altogether
during the period of the eruption. For the elastic fluids, being no longer
under pressure, go off by way of the crater instead of escaping by their
usual passages through the fissures in the soil. Therefore, if these vapours
remain in their usual condition, if they display no augmentation of force,
and if you add to this the observation that the wind and rain are not ceasing
and being replaced by a still and heavy atmosphere, then you may affirm
that no eruption is preparing."

"But—"

'No more; that is sufficient. When science has uttered her voice, let
babblers hold their peace.'

I returned to the parsonage, very crestfallen. My uncle had beaten me
with the weapons of science. Still I had one hope left, and this was, that
when we had reached the bottom of the crater it would be impossible, for
want of a passage, to go deeper, in spite of all the Saknussemm's in Iceland.

I spent that whole night in one constant nightmare; in the heart of a
volcano, and from the deepest depths of the earth I saw myself tossed up
amongst the interplanetary spaces under the form of an eruptive rock.

The next day, June 23, Hans was awaiting us with his companions
carrying provisions, tools, and instruments; two iron pointed sticks, two
rifles, and two shot belts were for my uncle and myself. Hans, as a cautious
man, had added to our luggage a leathern bottle full of water, which, with
that in our flasks, would ensure us a supply of water for eight days.

It was nine in the morning. The priest and his tall Megæra were awaiting
us at the door. We supposed they were standing there to bid us a kind
farewell. But the farewell was put in the unexpected form of a heavy bill, in
which everything was charged, even to the very air we breathed in the
pastoral house, infected as it was. This worthy couple were fleecing us just
as a Swiss innkeeper might have done, and estimated their imperfect
hospitality at the highest price.

My uncle paid without a remark: a man who is starting for the centre of
the earth need not be particular about a few rix dollars.

This point being settled, Hans gave the signal, and we soon left
Stapi behind us.

CHAPTER XV.

SNÆFELL AT LAST

Snæfell is 5,000 feet high. Its double cone forms the limit of a trachytic
belt which stands out distinctly in the mountain system of the island. From
our starting point we could see the two peaks boldly projected against the
dark grey sky; I could see an enormous cap of snow coming low down upon
the giant's brow.

We walked in single file, headed by the hunter, who ascended by narrow
tracks, where two could not have gone abreast. There was therefore no
room for conversation.

After we had passed the basaltic wall of the fiord of Stapi we passed over
a vegetable fibrous peat bog, left from the ancient vegetation of this
peninsula. The vast quantity of this unworked fuel would be sufficient to
warm the whole population of Iceland for a century; this vast turbary
measured in certain ravines had in many places a depth of seventy feet, and
presented layers of carbonized remains of vegetation alternating with
thinner layers of tufaceous pumice.

As a true nephew of the Professor Liedenbrock, and in spite of my dismal
prospects, I could not help observing with interest the mineralogical

curiosities which lay about me as in a vast museum, and I constructed for
myself a complete geological account of Iceland.

This most curious island has evidently been projected from the bottom of
the sea at a comparatively recent date. Possibly, it may still be subject to
gradual elevation. If this is the case, its origin may well be attributed to
subterranean fires. Therefore, in this case, the theory of Sir Humphry Davy,
Saknussemm's document, and my uncle's theories would all go off in
smoke. This hypothesis led me to examine with more attention the
appearance of the surface, and I soon arrived at a conclusion as to the nature
of the forces which presided at its birth.

Iceland, which is entirely devoid of alluvial soil, is wholly composed of
volcanic tufa, that is to say, an agglomeration of porous rocks and stones.
Before the volcanoes broke out it consisted of trap rocks slowly upraised to
the level of the sea by the action of central forces. The internal fires had not
yet forced their way through.

But at a later period a wide chasm formed diagonally from south-west to
north-east, through which was gradually forced out the trachyte which was
to form a mountain chain. No violence accompanied this change; the matter
thrown out was in vast quantities, and the liquid material oozing out from
the abysses of the earth slowly spread in extensive plains or in hillocky
masses. To this period belong the felspar, syenites, and porphyries.

But with the help of this outflow the thickness of the crust of the island
increased materially, and therefore also its powers of resistance. It may
easily be conceived what vast quantities of elastic gases, what masses of
molten matter accumulated beneath its solid surface whilst no exit was
practicable after the cooling of the trachytic crust. Therefore a time would
come when the elastic and explosive forces of the imprisoned gases would
upheave this ponderous cover and drive out for themselves openings

through tall chimneys. Hence then the volcano would distend and lift up the
crust, and then burst through a crater suddenly formed at the summit or
thinnest part of the volcano.

To the eruption succeeded other volcanic phenomena. Through the
outlets now made first escaped the ejected basalt of which the plain we had
just left presented such marvellous specimens. We were moving over grey
rocks of dense and massive formation, which in cooling had formed into
hexagonal prisms. Everywhere around us we saw truncated cones, formerly
so many fiery mouths.

After the exhaustion of the basalt, the volcano, the power of which grew
by the extinction of the lesser craters, supplied an egress to lava, ashes, and
scoriae, of which I could see lengthened screes streaming down the sides of
the mountain like flowing hair.

Such was the succession of phenomena which produced Iceland, all
arising from the action of internal fire; and to suppose that the mass within
did not still exist in a state of liquid incandescence was absurd; and nothing
could surpass the absurdity of fancying that it was possible to reach the
earth's centre.

So I felt a little comforted as we advanced to the assault of Snæfell.

The way was growing more and more arduous, the ascent steeper and
steeper; the loose fragments of rock trembled beneath us, and the utmost
care was needed to avoid dangerous falls.

Hans went on as quietly as if he were on level ground; sometimes he
disappeared altogether behind the huge blocks, then a shrill whistle would
direct us on our way to him. Sometimes he would halt, pick up a few bits of
stone, build them up into a recognisable form, and thus made landmarks to

guide us in our way back. A very wise precaution in itself, but, as things
turned out, quite useless.

Three hours' fatiguing march had only brought us to the base of the
mountain. There Hans bid us come to a halt, and a hasty breakfast was
served out. My uncle swallowed two mouthfuls at a time to get on faster.
But, whether he liked it or not, this was a rest as well as a breakfast hour
and he had to wait till it pleased our guide to move on, which came to pass
in an hour. The three Icelanders, just as taciturn as their comrade the hunter,
never spoke, and ate their breakfasts in silence.

We were now beginning to scale the steep sides of Snæfell. Its snowy
summit, by an optical illusion not unfrequent in mountains, seemed close to
us, and yet how many weary hours it took to reach it! The stones, adhering
by no soil or fibrous roots of vegetation, rolled away from under our feet,
and rushed down the precipice below with the swiftness of an avalanche.

At some places the flanks of the mountain formed an angle with the
horizon of at least 36 degrees; it was impossible to climb them, and these
stony cliffs had to be tacked round, not without great difficulty. Then we
helped each other with our sticks.

I must admit that my uncle kept as close to me as he could; he never lost
sight of me, and in many straits his arm furnished me with a powerful
support. He himself seemed to possess an instinct for equilibrium, for he
never stumbled. The Icelanders, though burdened with our loads, climbed
with the agility of mountaineers.

To judge by the distant appearance of the summit of Snæfell, it would
have seemed too steep to ascend on our side. Fortunately, after an hour of
fatigue and athletic exercises, in the midst of the vast surface of snow
presented by the hollow between the two peaks, a kind of staircase appeared

unexpectedly which greatly facilitated our ascent. It was formed by one of
those torrents of stones flung up by the eruptions, called 'sting' by the
Icelanders. If this torrent had not been arrested in its fall by the formation of
the sides of the mountain, it would have gone on to the sea and formed
more islands.

Such as it was, it did us good service. The steepness increased, but these
stone steps allowed us to rise with facility, and even with such rapidity that,
having rested for a moment while my companions continued their ascent, I
perceived them already reduced by distance to microscopic dimensions.

At seven we had ascended the two thousand steps of this grand staircase,
and we had attained a bulge in the mountain, a kind of bed on which rested
the cone proper of the crater.

Three thousand two hundred feet below us stretched the sea. We had
passed the limit of perpetual snow, which, on account of the moisture of the
climate, is at a greater elevation in Iceland than the high latitude would give
reason to suppose. The cold was excessively keen. The wind was blowing
violently. I was exhausted. The Professor saw that my limbs were refusing
to perform their office, and in spite of his impatience he decided on
stopping. He therefore spoke to the hunter, who shook his head, saying:

"Ofvanför."

"It seems we must go higher," said my uncle.

Then he asked Hans for his reason.

"Mistour," replied the guide.

"Ja Mistour," said one of the Icelanders in a tone of alarm.

"What does that word mean?" I asked uneasily.

"Look!" said my uncle.

I looked down upon the plain. An immense column of pulverized pumice,
sand and dust was rising with a whirling circular motion like a waterspout;
the wind was lashing it on to that side of Snæfell where we were holding
on; this dense veil, hung across the sun, threw a deep shadow over the
mountain. If that huge revolving pillar sloped down, it would involve us in
its whirling eddies. This phenomenon, which is not unfrequent when the
wind blows from the glaciers, is called in Icelandic 'mistour.'

"Hastigt! hastigt!" cried our guide.

Without knowing Danish I understood at once that we must follow Hans
at the top of our speed. He began to circle round the cone of the crater, but
in a diagonal direction so as to facilitate our progress. Presently the dust
storm fell upon the mountain, which quivered under the shock; the loose
stones, caught with the irresistible blasts of wind, flew about in a perfect
hail as in an eruption. Happily we were on the opposite side, and sheltered
from all harm. But for the precaution of our guide, our mangled bodies, torn
and pounded into fragments, would have been carried afar like the ruins
hurled along by some unknown meteor.

Yet Hans did not think it prudent to spend the night upon the sides of the
cone. We continued our zigzag climb. The fifteen hundred remaining feet
took us five hours to clear; the circuitous route, the diagonal and the counter
marches, must have measured at least three leagues. I could stand it no
longer. I was yielding to the effects of hunger and cold. The rarefied air
scarcely gave play to the action of my lungs.

At last, at eleven in the sunlight night, the summit of Snæfell was
reached, and before going in for shelter into the crater I had time to observe
the midnight sun, at his lowest point, gilding with his pale rays the island
that slept at my feet.

CHAPTER XVI.

BOLDLY DOWN THE CRATER

Supper was rapidly devoured, and the little company housed themselves
as best they could. The bed was hard, the shelter not very substantial, and
our position an anxious one, at five thousand feet above the sea level. Yet I
slept particularly well; it was one of the best nights I had ever had, and I did
not even dream.

Next morning we awoke half frozen by the sharp keen air, but with the
light of a splendid sun. I rose from my granite bed and went out to enjoy the
magnificent spectacle that lay unrolled before me.

I stood on the very summit of the southernmost of Snæfell's peaks. The
range of the eye extended over the whole island. By an optical law which
obtains at all great heights, the shores seemed raised and the centre
depressed. It seemed as if one of Helbesmer's raised maps lay at my feet. I
could see deep valleys intersecting each other in every direction, precipices
like low walls, lakes reduced to ponds, rivers abbreviated into streams. On
my right were numberless glaciers and innumerable peaks, some plumed
with feathery clouds of smoke. The undulating surface of these endless
mountains, crested with sheets of snow, reminded one of a stormy sea. If I
looked westward, there the ocean lay spread out in all its magnificence, like

a mere continuation of those flock-like summits. The eye could hardly tell
where the snowy ridges ended and the foaming waves began.

I was thus steeped in the marvellous ecstasy which all high summits
develop in the mind; and now without giddiness, for I was beginning to be
accustomed to these sublime aspects of nature. My dazzled eyes were
bathed in the bright flood of the solar rays. I was forgetting where and who
I was, to live the life of elves and sylphs, the fanciful creation of
Scandinavian superstitions. I felt intoxicated with the sublime pleasure of
lofty elevations without thinking of the profound abysses into which I was
shortly to be plunged. But I was brought back to the realities of things by
the arrival of Hans and the Professor, who joined me on the summit.

My uncle pointed out to me in the far west a light steam or mist, a
semblance of land, which bounded the distant horizon of waters.

"Greenland!" said he.

"Greenland?" I cried.

"Yes; we are only thirty-five leagues from it; and during thaws the white
bears, borne by the ice fields from the north, are carried even into Iceland.
But never mind that. Here we are at the top of Snæfell and here are two
peaks, one north and one south. Hans will tell us the name of that on which
we are now standing."

The question being put, Hans replied:

"Scartaris."

My uncle shot a triumphant glance at me.

"Now for the crater!" he cried.

The crater of Snæfell resembled an inverted cone, the opening of which
might be half a league in diameter. Its depth appeared to be about two
thousand feet. Imagine the aspect of such a reservoir, brim full and running
over with liquid fire amid the rolling thunder. The bottom of the funnel was
about 250 feet in circuit, so that the gentle slope allowed its lower brim to
be reached without much difficulty. Involuntarily I compared the whole
crater to an enormous erected mortar, and the comparison put me in a
terrible fright.

"What madness," I thought, "to go down into a mortar, perhaps a loaded
mortar, to be shot up into the air at a moment's notice!"

But I did not try to back out of it. Hans with perfect coolness resumed the
lead, and I followed him without a word.

In order to facilitate the descent, Hans wound his way down the cone by
a spiral path. Our route lay amidst eruptive rocks, some of which, shaken
out of their loosened beds, rushed bounding down the abyss, and in their
fall awoke echoes remarkable for their loud and well-defined sharpness.

In certain parts of the cone there were glaciers. Here Hans advanced only
with extreme precaution, sounding his way with his iron-pointed pole, to
discover any crevasses in it. At particularly dubious passages we were
obliged to connect ourselves with each other by a long cord, in order that
any man who missed his footing might be held up by his companions. This
solid formation was prudent, but did not remove all danger.

Yet, notwithstanding the difficulties of the descent, down steeps unknown
to the guide, the journey was accomplished without accidents, except the
loss of a coil of rope, which escaped from the hands of an Icelander, and
took the shortest way to the bottom of the abyss.

At mid-day we arrived. I raised my head and saw straight above me the
upper aperture of the cone, framing a bit of sky of very small
circumference, but almost perfectly round. Just upon the edge appeared the
snowy peak of Saris, standing out sharp and clear against endless space.

At the bottom of the crater were three chimneys, through which, in its
eruptions, Snæfell had driven forth fire and lava from its central furnace.
Each of these chimneys was a hundred feet in diameter. They gaped before
us right in our path. I had not the courage to look down either of them. But
Professor Liedenbrock had hastily surveyed all three; he was panting,
running from one to the other, gesticulating, and uttering incoherent
expressions. Hans and his comrades, seated upon loose lava rocks, looked
at him with as much wonder as they knew how to express, and perhaps
taking him for an escaped lunatic.

Suddenly my uncle uttered a cry. I thought his foot must have slipped and
that he had fallen down one of the holes. But, no; I saw him, with arms
outstretched and legs straddling wide apart, erect before a granite rock that
stood in the centre of the crater, just like a pedestal made ready to receive a
statue of Pluto. He stood like a man stupefied, but the stupefaction soon
gave way to delirious rapture.

"Axel, Axel," he cried. "Come, come!"

I ran. Hans and the Icelanders never stirred.

"Look!" cried the Professor.

And, sharing his astonishment, but I think not his joy, I read on the
western face of the block, in Runic characters, half mouldered away with
lapse of ages, this thrice-accursed name:

[At this point a Runic text appears]

"Arne Saknussemm!" replied my uncle. "Do you yet doubt?"

I made no answer; and I returned in silence to my lava seat in a state of
utter speechless consternation. Here was crushing evidence.

How long I remained plunged in agonizing reflections I cannot tell; all
that I know is, that on raising my head again, I saw only my uncle and Hans
at the bottom of the crater. The Icelanders had been dismissed, and they
were now descending the outer slopes of Snæfell to return to Stapi.

Hans slept peaceably at the foot of a rock, in a lava bed, where he had
found a suitable couch for himself; but my uncle was pacing around the
bottom of the crater like a wild beast in a cage. I had neither the wish nor
the strength to rise, and following the guide's example I went off into an
unhappy slumber, fancying I could hear ominous noises or feel tremblings
within the recesses of the mountain.

Thus the first night in the crater passed away.

The next morning, a grey, heavy, cloudy sky seemed to droop over the
summit of the cone. I did not know this first from the appearances of nature,
but I found it out by my uncle's impetuous wrath.

I soon found out the cause, and hope dawned again in my heart. For this
reason.

Of the three ways open before us, one had been taken by Saknussemm.
The indications of the learned Icelander hinted at in the cryptogram, pointed
to this fact that the shadow of Scartaris came to touch that particular way
during the latter days of the month of June.

That sharp peak might hence be considered as the gnomon of a vast sun
dial, the shadow projected from which on a certain day would point out the
road to the centre of the earth.

Now, no sun no shadow, and therefore no guide. Here was June 25. If the
sun was clouded for six days we must postpone our visit till next year.

My limited powers of description would fail, were I to attempt a picture
of the Professor's angry impatience. The day wore on, and no shadow came
to lay itself along the bottom of the crater. Hans did not move from the spot
he had selected; yet he must be asking himself what were we waiting for, if
he asked himself anything at all. My uncle spoke not a word to me. His
gaze, ever directed upwards, was lost in the grey and misty space beyond.

On the 26th nothing yet. Rain mingled with snow was falling all day
long. Hans built a hut of pieces of lava. I felt a malicious pleasure in
watching the thousand rills and cascades that came tumbling down the sides
of the cone, and the deafening continuous din awaked by every stone
against which they bounded.

My uncle's rage knew no bounds. It was enough to irritate a meeker man
than he; for it was foundering almost within the port.

But Heaven never sends unmixed grief, and for Professor Liedenbrock
there was a satisfaction in store proportioned to his desperate anxieties.

The next day the sky was again overcast; but on the 29th of June, the last
day but one of the month, with the change of the moon came a change of
weather. The sun poured a flood of light down the crater. Every hillock,
every rock and stone, every projecting surface, had its share of the beaming
torrent, and threw its shadow on the ground. Amongst them all, Scartaris

laid down his sharp-pointed angular shadow which began to move slowly in
the opposite direction to that of the radiant orb.

My uncle turned too, and followed it.

At noon, being at its least extent, it came and softly fell upon the edge of
the middle chimney.

"There it is! there it is!" shouted the Professor.

"Now for the centre of the globe!" he added in Danish.

I looked at Hans, to hear what he would say.

"Forüt!" was his tranquil answer.

"Forward!" replied my uncle.

It was thirteen minutes past one.

CHAPTER XVII.

VERTICAL DESCENT

Now began our real journey. Hitherto our toil had overcome all
difficulties, now difficulties would spring up at every step.

I had not yet ventured to look down the bottomless pit into which I was
about to take a plunge. The supreme hour had come. I might now either
share in the enterprise or refuse to move forward. But I was ashamed to
recoil in the presence of the hunter. Hans accepted the enterprise with such
calmness, such indifference, such perfect disregard of any possible danger
that I blushed at the idea of being less brave than he. If I had been alone I
might have once more tried the effect of argument; but in the presence of
the guide I held my peace; my heart flew back to my sweet Virlandaise, and
I approached the central chimney.

I have already mentioned that it was a hundred feet in diameter, and three
hundred feet round. I bent over a projecting rock and gazed down. My hair
stood on end with terror. The bewildering feeling of vacuity laid hold upon
me. I felt my centre of gravity shifting its place, and giddiness mounting
into my brain like drunkenness. There is nothing more treacherous than this
attraction down deep abysses. I was just about to drop down, when a hand
laid hold of me. It was that of Hans. I suppose I had not taken as many

lessons on gulf exploration as I ought to have done in the Frelsers Kirk at
Copenhagen.

But, however short was my examination of this well, I had taken some
account of its conformation. Its almost perpendicular walls were bristling
with innumerable projections which would facilitate the descent. But if
there was no want of steps, still there was no rail. A rope fastened to the
edge of the aperture might have helped us down. But how were we to
unfasten it, when arrived at the other end?

My uncle employed a very simple expedient to obviate this difficulty. He
uncoiled a cord of the thickness of a finger, and four hundred feet long; first
he dropped half of it down, then he passed it round a lava block that
projected conveniently, and threw the other half down the chimney. Each of
us could then descend by holding with the hand both halves of the rope,
which would not be able to unroll itself from its hold; when two hundred
feet down, it would be easy to get possession of the whole of the rope by
letting one end go and pulling down by the other. Then the exercise would
go on again ad infinitum.

"Now," said my uncle, after having completed these preparations, "now
let us look to our loads. I will divide them into three lots; each of us will
strap one upon his back. I mean only fragile articles."

Of course, we were not included under that head.

"Hans," said he, "will take charge of the tools and a portion of the
provisions; you, Axel, will take another third of the provisions, and the
arms; and I will take the rest of the provisions and the delicate instruments."

"But," said I, "the clothes, and that mass of ladders and ropes, what is to
become of them?"

"They will go down by themselves."

"How so?" I asked.

"You will see presently."

My uncle was always willing to employ magnificent resources. Obeying
orders, Hans tied all the non-fragile articles in one bundle, corded them
firmly, and sent them bodily down the gulf before us.

I listened to the dull thuds of the descending bale. My uncle, leaning over
the abyss, followed the descent of the luggage with a satisfied nod, and only
rose erect when he had quite lost sight of it.

"Very well, now it is our turn."

Now I ask any sensible man if it was possible to hear those words
without a shudder.

The Professor fastened his package of instruments upon his shoulders;
Hans took the tools; I took the arms: and the descent commenced in the
following order; Hans, my uncle, and myself. It was effected in profound
silence, broken only by the descent of loosened stones down the dark gulf.

I dropped as it were, frantically clutching the double cord with one hand
and buttressing myself from the wall with the other by means of my stick.
One idea overpowered me almost, fear lest the rock should give way from
which I was hanging. This cord seemed a fragile thing for three persons to
be suspended from. I made as little use of it as possible, performing
wonderful feats of equilibrium upon the lava projections which my foot
seemed to catch hold of like a hand.

When one of these slippery steps shook under the heavier form of
Hans, he said in his tranquil voice:

"Gif akt!"

"Attention!" repeated my uncle.

In half an hour we were standing upon the surface of a rock jammed in
across the chimney from one side to the other.

Hans pulled the rope by one of its ends, the other rose in the air; after
passing the higher rock it came down again, bringing with it a rather
dangerous shower of bits of stone and lava.

Leaning over the edge of our narrow standing ground, I observed that the
bottom of the hole was still invisible.

The same manoeuvre was repeated with the cord, and half an hour after
we had descended another two hundred feet.

I don't suppose the maddest geologist under such circumstances would
have studied the nature of the rocks that we were passing. I am sure I did
trouble my head about them. Pliocene, miocene, eocene, cretaceous,
jurassic, triassic, permian, carboniferous, devonian, silurian, or primitive
was all one to me. But the Professor, no doubt, was pursuing his
observations or taking notes, for in one of our halts he said to me:

"The farther I go the more confidence I feel. The order of these volcanic
formations affords the strongest confirmation to the theories of Davy. We
are now among the primitive rocks, upon which the chemical operations
took place which are produced by the contact of elementary bases of metals
with water. I repudiate the notion of central heat altogether. We shall see
further proof of that very soon."

No variation, always the same conclusion. Of course, I was not inclined
to argue. My silence was taken for consent and the descent went on.

Another three hours, and I saw no bottom to the chimney yet. When I
lifted my head I perceived the gradual contraction of its aperture. Its walls,
by a gentle incline, were drawing closer to each other, and it was beginning
to grow darker.

Still we kept descending. It seemed to me that the falling stones were
meeting with an earlier resistance, and that the concussion gave a more
abrupt and deadened sound.

As I had taken care to keep an exact account of our manoeuvres with the
rope, which I knew that we had repeated fourteen times, each descent
occupying half an hour, the conclusion was easy that we had been seven
hours, plus fourteen quarters of rest, making ten hours and a half. We had
started at one, it must therefore now be eleven o'clock; and the depth to
which we had descended was fourteen times 200 feet, or 2,800 feet.

At this moment I heard the voice of Hans.

"Halt!" he cried.

I stopped short just as I was going to place my feet upon my uncle's head.

"We are there," he cried.

"Where?" said I, stepping near to him.

"At the bottom of the perpendicular chimney," he answered.

"Is there no way farther?"

"Yes; there is a sort of passage which inclines to the right. We will see
about that to-morrow. Let us have our supper, and go to sleep."

The darkness was not yet complete. The provision case was opened; we
refreshed ourselves, and went to sleep as well as we could upon a bed of
stones and lava fragments.

When lying on my back, I opened my eyes and saw a bright sparkling
point of light at the extremity of the gigantic tube 3,000 feet long, now a
vast telescope.

It was a star which, seen from this depth, had lost all scintillation, and
which by my computation should be 46; Ursa minor. Then I fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WONDERS OF TERRESTRIAL DEPTHS

At eight in the morning a ray of daylight came to wake us up. The
thousand shining surfaces of lava on the walls received it on its passage,
and scattered it like a shower of sparks.

There was light enough to distinguish surrounding objects.

"Well, Axel, what do you say to it?" cried my uncle, rubbing his hands.
"Did you ever spend a quieter night in our little house at Königsberg? No
noise of cart wheels, no cries of basket women, no boatmen shouting!"

"No doubt it is very quiet at the bottom of this well, but there is
something alarming in the quietness itself."

"Now come!" my uncle cried; "if you are frightened already, what will
you be by and by? We have not gone a single inch yet into the bowels of the
earth."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that we have only reached the level of the island, long vertical
tube, which terminates at the mouth of the crater, has its lower end only at
the level of the sea."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Quite sure. Consult the barometer."

In fact, the mercury, which had risen in the instrument as fast as we
descended, had stopped at twenty-nine inches.

"You see," said the Professor, "we have now only the pressure of our
atmosphere, and I shall be glad when the aneroid takes the place of the
barometer."

And in truth this instrument would become useless as soon as the weight
of the atmosphere should exceed the pressure ascertained at the level of the
sea.

"But," I said, "is there not reason to fear that this ever-increasing pressure
will become at last very painful to bear?"

"No; we shall descend at a slow rate, and our lungs will become inured to
a denser atmosphere. Aeronauts find the want of air as they rise to high
elevations, but we shall perhaps have too much: of the two, this is what I
should prefer. Don't let us lose a moment. Where is the bundle we sent
down before us?"

I then remembered that we had searched for it in vain the evening before.
My uncle questioned Hans, who, after having examined attentively with the
eye of a huntsman, replied:

"Der huppe!"

"Up there."

And so it was. The bundle had been caught by a projection a hundred feet
above us. Immediately the Icelander climbed up like a cat, and in a few
minutes the package was in our possession.

"Now," said my uncle, "let us breakfast; but we must lay in a good stock,
for we don't know how long we may have to go on."

The biscuit and extract of meat were washed down with a draught of
water mingled with a little gin.

Breakfast over, my uncle drew from his pocket a small notebook,
intended for scientific observations. He consulted his instruments, and
recorded:

"Monday, July 1.

"Chronometer, 8.17 a.m.; barometer, 297 in.; thermometer, 6° (43°
F.). Direction, E.S.E."

This last observation applied to the dark gallery, and was indicated by the
compass.

"Now, Axel," cried the Professor with enthusiasm, "now we are really
going into the interior of the earth. At this precise moment the journey
commences."

So saying, my uncle took in one hand Ruhmkorff's apparatus, which was
hanging from his neck; and with the other he formed an electric
communication with the coil in the lantern, and a sufficiently bright light
dispersed the darkness of the passage.

Hans carried the other apparatus, which was also put into action. This
ingenious application of electricity would enable us to go on for a long time

by creating an artificial light even in the midst of the most inflammable
gases.

"Now, march!" cried my uncle.

Each shouldered his package. Hans drove before him the load of cords
and clothes; and, myself walking last, we entered the gallery.

At the moment of becoming engulfed in this dark gallery, I raised my
head, and saw for the last time through the length of that vast tube the sky
of Iceland, which I was never to behold again.

The lava, in the last eruption of 1229, had forced a passage through this
tunnel. It still lined the walls with a thick and glistening coat. The electric
light was here intensified a hundredfold by reflection.

The only difficulty in proceeding lay in not sliding too fast down an
incline of about forty-five degrees; happily certain asperities and a few
blisterings here and there formed steps, and we descended, letting our
baggage slip before us from the end of a long rope.

But that which formed steps under our feet became stalactites overhead.
The lava, which was porous in many places, had formed a surface covered
with small rounded blisters; crystals of opaque quartz, set with limpid tears
of glass, and hanging like clustered chandeliers from the vaulted roof,
seemed as it were to kindle and form a sudden illumination as we passed on
our way. It seemed as if the genii of the depths were lighting up their palace
to receive their terrestrial guests.

"It is magnificent!" I cried spontaneously. "My uncle, what a sight! Don't
you admire those blending hues of lava, passing from reddish brown to

bright yellow by imperceptible shades? And these crystals are just like
globes of light."

"Ah, you think so, do you, Axel, my boy? Well, you will see greater
splendours than these, I hope. Now let us march: march!"

He had better have said slide, for we did nothing but drop down the steep
inclines. It was the facilis descensus Averni of Virgil. The compass, which I
consulted frequently, gave our direction as south-east with inflexible
steadiness. This lava stream deviated neither to the right nor to the left.

Yet there was no sensible increase of temperature. This justified Davy's
theory, and more than once I consulted the thermometer with surprise. Two
hours after our departure it only marked 10° (50° Fahr.), an increase of only
4°. This gave reason for believing that our descent was more horizontal than
vertical. As for the exact depth reached, it was very easy to ascertain that;
the Professor measured accurately the angles of deviation and inclination on
the road, but he kept the results to himself.

About eight in the evening he signalled to stop. Hans sat down at once.
The lamps were hung upon a projection in the lava; we were in a sort of
cavern where there was plenty of air. Certain puffs of air reached us. What
atmospheric disturbance was the cause of them? I could not answer that
question at the moment. Hunger and fatigue made me incapable of
reasoning. A descent of seven hours consecutively is not made without
considerable expenditure of strength. I was exhausted. The order to 'halt'
therefore gave me pleasure. Hans laid our provisions upon a block of lava,
and we ate with a good appetite. But one thing troubled me, our supply of
water was half consumed. My uncle reckoned upon a fresh supply from
subterranean sources, but hitherto we had met with none. I could not help
drawing his attention to this circumstance.

"Are you surprised at this want of springs?" he said.

"More than that, I am anxious about it; we have only water enough for
five days."

"Don't be uneasy, Axel, we shall find more than we want."

"When?"

"When we have left this bed of lava behind us. How could springs break
through such walls as these?"

"But perhaps this passage runs to a very great depth. It seems to me that
we have made no great progress vertically."

"Why do you suppose that?"

"Because if we had gone deep into the crust of earth, we should have
encountered greater heat."

"According to your system," said my uncle. "But what does the
thermometer say?"

"Hardly fifteen degrees (59° Fahr), nine degrees only since our
departure."

"Well, what is your conclusion?"

"This is my conclusion. According to exact observations, the increase of
temperature in the interior of the globe advances at the rate of one degree (1
4/5° Fahr.) for every hundred feet. But certain local conditions may modify
this rate. Thus at Yakoutsk in Siberia the increase of a degree is ascertained
to be reached every 36 feet. This difference depends upon the heat-
conducting power of the rocks. Moreover, in the neighbourhood of an

extinct volcano, through gneiss, it has been observed that the increase of a
degree is only attained at every 125 feet. Let us therefore assume this last
hypothesis as the most suitable to our situation, and calculate."

"Well, do calculate, my boy."

"Nothing is easier," said I, putting down figures in my note book. "Nine
times a hundred and twenty-five feet gives a depth of eleven hundred and
twenty-five feet."

"Very accurate indeed."

"Well?"

"By my observation we are at 10,000 feet below the level of the sea."

"Is that possible?"

"Yes, or figures are of no use."

The Professor's calculations were quite correct. We had already attained a
depth of six thousand feet beyond that hitherto reached by the foot of man,
such as the mines of Kitz Bahl in Tyrol, and those of Wuttembourg in
Bohemia.

The temperature, which ought to have been 81° (178° Fahr.) was scarcely
15° (59° Fahr.). Here was cause for reflection.

CHAPTER XIX.

GEOLOGICAL STUDIES IN SITU

Next day, Tuesday, June 30, at 6 a.m., the descent began again.

We were still following the gallery of lava, a real natural staircase, and as
gently sloping as those inclined planes which in some old houses are still
found instead of flights of steps. And so we went on until 12.17, the precise
moment when we overtook Hans, who had stopped.

"Ah! here we are," exclaimed my uncle, "at the very end of the chimney."

I looked around me. We were standing at the intersection of two roads,
both dark and narrow. Which were we to take? This was a difficulty.

Still my uncle refused to admit an appearance of hesitation, either before
me or the guide; he pointed out the Eastern tunnel, and we were soon all
three in it.

Besides there would have been interminable hesitation before this choice
of roads; for since there was no indication whatever to guide our choice, we
were obliged to trust to chance.

The slope of this gallery was scarcely perceptible, and its sections very
unequal. Sometimes we passed a series of arches succeeding each other like

the majestic arcades of a gothic cathedral. Here the architects of the middle
ages might have found studies for every form of the sacred art which sprang
from the development of the pointed arch. A mile farther we had to bow our
heads under corniced elliptic arches in the romanesque style; and massive
pillars standing out from the wall bent under the spring of the vault that
rested heavily upon them. In other places this magnificence gave way to
narrow channels between low structures which looked like beaver's huts,
and we had to creep along through extremely narrow passages.

The heat was perfectly bearable. Involuntarily I began to think of its heat
when the lava thrown out by Snæfell was boiling and working through this
now silent road. I imagined the torrents of fire hurled back at every angle in
the gallery, and the accumulation of intensely heated vapours in the midst of
this confined channel.

I only hope, thought I, that this so-called extinct volcano won't take a
fancy in his old age to begin his sports again!

I abstained from communicating these fears to Professor Liedenbrock.
He would never have understood them at all. He had but one idea—
forward! He walked, he slid, he scrambled, he tumbled, with a persistency
which one could not but admire.

By six in the evening, after a not very fatiguing walk, we had gone two
leagues south, but scarcely a quarter of a mile down.

My uncle said it was time to go to sleep. We ate without talking, and
went to sleep without reflection.

Our arrangements for the night were very simple; a railway rug each, into
which we rolled ourselves, was our sole covering. We had neither cold nor
intrusive visits to fear. Travellers who penetrate into the wilds of central

Africa, and into the pathless forests of the New World, are obliged to watch
over each other by night. But we enjoyed absolute safety and utter
seclusion; no savages or wild beasts infested these silent depths.

Next morning, we awoke fresh and in good spirits. The road was
resumed. As the day before, we followed the path of the lava. It was
impossible to tell what rocks we were passing: the tunnel, instead of tending
lower, approached more and more nearly to a horizontal direction, I even
fancied a slight rise. But about ten this upward tendency became so evident,
and therefore so fatiguing, that I was obliged to slacken my pace.

"Well, Axel?" demanded the Professor impatiently.

"Well, I cannot stand it any longer," I replied.

"What! after three hours' walk over such easy ground."

"It may be easy, but it is tiring all the same."

"What, when we have nothing to do but keep going down!"

"Going up, if you please."

"Going up!" said my uncle, with a shrug.

"No doubt, for the last half-hour the inclines have gone the other way,
and at this rate we shall soon arrive upon the level soil of Iceland."

The Professor nodded slowly and uneasily like a man that declines to be
convinced. I tried to resume the conversation. He answered not a word, and
gave the signal for a start. I saw that his silence was nothing but ill-humour.

Still I had courageously shouldered my burden again, and was rapidly
following Hans, whom my uncle preceded. I was anxious not to be left

behind. My greatest care was not to lose sight of my companions. I
shuddered at the thought of being lost in the mazes of this vast subterranean
labyrinth.

Besides, if the ascending road did become steeper, I was comforted with
the thought that it was bringing us nearer to the surface. There was hope in
this. Every step confirmed me in it, and I was rejoicing at the thought of
meeting my little Gräuben again.

By mid-day there was a change in the appearance of this wall of the
gallery. I noticed it by a diminution of the amount of light reflected from the
sides; solid rock was appearing in the place of the lava coating. The mass
was composed of inclined and sometimes vertical strata. We were passing
through rocks of the transition or silurian [1] system.

"It is evident," I cried, "the marine deposits formed in the second period,
these shales, limestones, and sandstones. We are turning away from the
primary granite. We are just as if we were people of Hamburg going to
Lübeck by way of Hanover!"

I had better have kept my observations to myself. But my geological
instinct was stronger than my prudence, and uncle Liedenbrock heard my
exclamation.

"What's that you are saying?" he asked.

"See," I said, pointing to the varied series of sandstones and limestones,
and the first indication of slate.

"Well?"

"We are at the period when the first plants and animals appeared."

"Do you think so?"

"Look close, and examine."

I obliged the Professor to move his lamp over the walls of the gallery. I
expected some signs of astonishment; but he spoke not a word, and went
on.

Had he understood me or not? Did he refuse to admit, out of self-love as
an uncle and a philosopher, that he had mistaken his way when he chose the
eastern tunnel? or was he determined to examine this passage to its farthest
extremity? It was evident that we had left the lava path, and that this road
could not possibly lead to the extinct furnace of Snæfell.

Yet I asked myself if I was not depending too much on this change in the
rock. Might I not myself be mistaken? Were we really crossing the layers of
rock which overlie the granite foundation?

[1]The name given by Sir Roderick Murchison to a vast series of
fossiliferous strata, which lies between the non-fossiliferous slaty schists
below and the old red sandstone above. The system is well developed in the
region of Shropshire, etc., once inhabited by the Silures under Caractacus,
or Caradoc. (Tr.)

If I am right, I thought, I must soon find some fossil remains of primitive
life; and then we must yield to evidence. I will look.

I had not gone a hundred paces before incontestable proofs presented
themselves. It could not be otherwise, for in the Silurian age the seas
contained at least fifteen hundred vegetable and animal species. My feet,
which had become accustomed to the indurated lava floor, suddenly rested

upon a dust composed of the debris of plants and shells. In the walls were
distinct impressions of fucoids and lycopodites.

Professor Liedenbrock could not be mistaken, I thought, and yet he
pushed on, with, I suppose, his eyes resolutely shut.

This was only invincible obstinacy. I could hold out no longer. I picked
up a perfectly formed shell, which had belonged to an animal not unlike the
woodlouse: then, joining my uncle, I said:

"Look at this!"

"Very well," said he quietly, "it is the shell of a crustacean, of an extinct
species called a trilobite. Nothing more."

"But don't you conclude—?"

"Just what you conclude yourself. Yes; I do, perfectly. We have left the
granite and the lava. It is possible that I may be mistaken. But I cannot be
sure of that until I have reached the very end of this gallery."

"You are right in doing this, my uncle, and I should quite approve of your
determination, if there were not a danger threatening us nearer and nearer."

"What danger?"

"The want of water."

"Well, Axel, we will put ourselves upon rations."

CHAPTER XX.

THE FIRST SIGNS OF DISTRESS

In fact, we had to ration ourselves. Our provision of water could not last
more than three days. I found that out for certain when supper-time came.
And, to our sorrow, we had little reason to expect to find a spring in these
transition beds.

The whole of the next day the gallery opened before us its endless
arcades. We moved on almost without a word. Hans' silence seemed to be
infecting us.

The road was now not ascending, at least not perceptibly. Sometimes,
even, it seemed to have a slight fall. But this tendency, which was very
trifling, could not do anything to reassure the Professor; for there was no
change in the beds, and the transitional characteristics became more and
more decided.

The electric light was reflected in sparkling splendour from the schist,
limestone, and old red sandstone of the walls. It might have been thought
that we were passing through a section of Wales, of which an ancient people
gave its name to this system. Specimens of magnificent marbles clothed the
walls, some of a greyish agate fantastically veined with white, others of rich

crimson or yellow dashed with splotches of red; then came dark cherry-
coloured marbles relieved by the lighter tints of limestone.

The greater part of these bore impressions of primitive organisms.
Creation had evidently advanced since the day before. Instead of
rudimentary trilobites, I noticed remains of a more perfect order of beings,
amongst others ganoid fishes and some of those sauroids in which
palaeontologists have discovered the earliest reptile forms. The Devonian
seas were peopled by animals of these species, and deposited them by
thousands in the rocks of the newer formation.

It was evident that we were ascending that scale of animal life in which
man fills the highest place. But Professor Liedenbrock seemed not to notice
it.

He was awaiting one of two events, either the appearance of a vertical
well opening before his feet, down which our descent might be resumed, or
that of some obstacle which should effectually turn us back on our own
footsteps. But evening came and neither wish was gratified.

On Friday, after a night during which I felt pangs of thirst, our little troop
again plunged into the winding passages of the gallery.

After ten hours' walking I observed a singular deadening of the reflection
of our lamps from the side walls. The marble, the schist, the limestone, and
the sandstone were giving way to a dark and lustreless lining. At one
moment, the tunnel becoming very narrow, I leaned against the wall.

When I removed my hand it was black. I looked nearer, and found we
were in a coal formation.

"A coal mine!" I cried.

"A mine without miners," my uncle replied.

"Who knows?" I asked.

"I know," the Professor pronounced decidedly, "I am certain that this
gallery driven through beds of coal was never pierced by the hand of man.
But whether it be the hand of nature or not does not matter. Supper time is
come; let us sup."

Hans prepared some food. I scarcely ate, and I swallowed down the few
drops of water rationed out to me. One flask half full was all we had left to
slake the thirst of three men.

After their meal my two companions laid themselves down upon their
rugs, and found in sleep a solace for their fatigue. But I could not sleep, and
I counted every hour until morning.

On Saturday, at six, we started afresh. In twenty minutes we reached a
vast open space; I then knew that the hand of man had not hollowed out this
mine; the vaults would have been shored up, and, as it was, they seemed to
be held up by a miracle of equilibrium.

This cavern was about a hundred feet wide and a hundred and fifty in
height. A large mass had been rent asunder by a subterranean disturbance.
Yielding to some vast power from below it had broken asunder, leaving this
great hollow into which human beings were now penetrating for the first
time.

The whole history of the carboniferous period was written upon these
gloomy walls, and a geologist might with ease trace all its diverse phases.
The beds of coal were separated by strata of sandstone or compact clays,
and appeared crushed under the weight of overlying strata.

At the age of the world which preceded the secondary period, the earth
was clothed with immense vegetable forms, the product of the double
influence of tropical heat and constant moisture; a vapoury atmosphere
surrounded the earth, still veiling the direct rays of the sun.

Thence arises the conclusion that the high temperature then existing was
due to some other source than the heat of the sun. Perhaps even the orb of
day may not have been ready yet to play the splendid part he now acts.
There were no 'climates' as yet, and a torrid heat, equal from pole to
equator, was spread over the whole surface of the globe. Whence this heat?
Was it from the interior of the earth?

Notwithstanding the theories of Professor Liedenbrock, a violent heat did
at that time brood within the body of the spheroid. Its action was felt to the
very last coats of the terrestrial crust; the plants, unacquainted with the
beneficent influences of the sun, yielded neither flowers nor scent. But their
roots drew vigorous life from the burning soil of the early days of this
planet.

There were but few trees. Herbaceous plants alone existed. There were
tall grasses, ferns, lycopods, besides sigillaria, asterophyllites, now scarce
plants, but then the species might be counted by thousands.

The coal measures owe their origin to this period of profuse vegetation.
The yet elastic and yielding crust of the earth obeyed the fluid forces
beneath. Thence innumerable fissures and depressions. The plants, sunk
underneath the waters, formed by degrees into vast accumulated masses.

Then came the chemical action of nature; in the depths of the seas the
vegetable accumulations first became peat; then, acted upon by generated
gases and the heat of fermentation, they underwent a process of complete
mineralization.

Thus were formed those immense coalfields, which nevertheless, are not
inexhaustible, and which three centuries at the present accelerated rate of
consumption will exhaust unless the industrial world will devise a remedy.

These reflections came into my mind whilst I was contemplating the
mineral wealth stored up in this portion of the globe. These no doubt, I
thought, will never be discovered; the working of such deep mines would
involve too large an outlay, and where would be the use as long as coal is
yet spread far and wide near the surface? Such as my eyes behold these
virgin stores, such they will be when this world comes to an end.

But still we marched on, and I alone was forgetting the length of the way
by losing myself in the midst of geological contemplations. The
temperature remained what it had been during our passage through the lava
and schists. Only my sense of smell was forcibly affected by an odour of
protocarburet of hydrogen. I immediately recognised in this gallery the
presence of a considerable quantity of the dangerous gas called by miners
firedamp, the explosion of which has often occasioned such dreadful
catastrophes.

Happily, our light was from Ruhmkorff's ingenious apparatus. If
unfortunately we had explored this gallery with torches, a terrible explosion
would have put an end to travelling and travellers at one stroke.

This excursion through the coal mine lasted till night. My uncle scarcely
could restrain his impatience at the horizontal road. The darkness, always
deep twenty yards before us, prevented us from estimating the length of the
gallery; and I was beginning to think it must be endless, when suddenly at
six o'clock a wall very unexpectedly stood before us. Right or left, top or
bottom, there was no road farther; we were at the end of a blind alley. "Very
well, it's all right!" cried my uncle, "now, at any rate, we shall know what
we are about. We are not in Saknussemm's road, and all we have to do is to

go back. Let us take a night's rest, and in three days we shall get to the fork
in the road." "Yes," said I, "if we have any strength left." "Why not?"
"Because to-morrow we shall have no water." "Nor courage either?" asked
my uncle severely. I dared make no answer.

CHAPTER XXI.

COMPASSION FUSES THE PROFESSOR'S HEART

Next day we started early. We had to hasten forward. It was a three days'
march to the cross roads.

I will not speak of the sufferings we endured in our return. My uncle bore
them with the angry impatience of a man obliged to own his weakness;
Hans with the resignation of his passive nature; I, I confess, with
complaints and expressions of despair. I had no spirit to oppose this ill
fortune.

As I had foretold, the water failed entirely by the end of the first day's
retrograde march. Our fluid aliment was now nothing but gin; but this
infernal fluid burned my throat, and I could not even endure the sight of it. I
found the temperature and the air stifling. Fatigue paralysed my limbs.
More than once I dropped down motionless. Then there was a halt; and my
uncle and the Icelander did their best to restore me. But I saw that the
former was struggling painfully against excessive fatigue and the tortures of
thirst.

At last, on Tuesday, July 8, we arrived on our hands and knees, and half
dead, at the junction of the two roads. There I dropped like a lifeless lump,
extended on the lava soil. It was ten in the morning.

Hans and my uncle, clinging to the wall, tried to nibble a few bits of
biscuit. Long moans escaped from my swollen lips.

After some time my uncle approached me and raised me in his arms.

"Poor boy!" said he, in genuine tones of compassion.

I was touched with these words, not being accustomed to see the
excitable Professor in a softened mood. I grasped his trembling hands in
mine. He let me hold them and looked at me. His eyes were moistened.

Then I saw him take the flask that was hanging at his side. To my
amazement he placed it on my lips.

"Drink!" said he.

Had I heard him? Was my uncle beside himself? I stared at, him stupidly,
and felt as if I could not understand him.

"Drink!" he said again.

And raising his flask he emptied it every drop between my lips.

Oh! infinite pleasure! a slender sip of water came to moisten my burning
mouth. It was but one sip but it was enough to recall my ebbing life.

I thanked my uncle with clasped hands.

"Yes," he said, "a draught of water; but it is the very last—you hear!—the
last. I had kept it as a precious treasure at the bottom of my flask. Twenty
times, nay, a hundred times, have I fought against a frightful impulse to
drink it off. But no, Axel, I kept it for you."

"My dear uncle," I said, whilst hot tears trickled down my face.

"Yes, my poor boy, I knew that as soon as you arrived at these cross
roads you would drop half dead, and I kept my last drop of water to
reanimate you."

"Thank you, thank you," I said. Although my thirst was only partially
quenched, yet some strength had returned. The muscles of my throat, until
then contracted, now relaxed again; and the inflammation of my lips abated
somewhat; and I was now able to speak. .

"Let us see," I said, "we have now but one thing to do. We have no water;
we must go back."

While I spoke my uncle avoided looking at me; he hung his head down;
his eyes avoided mine.

"We must return," I exclaimed vehemently; "we must go back on our way
to Snæfell. May God give us strength to climb up the crater again!"

"Return!" said my uncle, as if he was rather answering himself than me.

"Yes, return, without the loss of a minute."

A long silence followed.

"So then, Axel," replied the Professor ironically, "you have found no
courage or energy in these few drops of water?"

"Courage?"

"I see you just as feeble-minded as you were before, and still expressing
only despair!"

What sort of a man was this I had to do with, and what schemes was he
now revolving in his fearless mind?

"What! you won't go back?"

"Should I renounce this expedition just when we have the fairest chance
of success! Never!"

"Then must we resign ourselves to destruction?"

"No, Axel, no; go back. Hans will go with you. Leave me to myself!"

"Leave you here!"

"Leave me, I tell you. I have undertaken this expedition. I will carry it
out to the end, and I will not return. Go, Axel, go!"

My uncle was in high state of excitement. His voice, which had for a
moment been tender and gentle, had now become hard and threatening. He
was struggling with gloomy resolutions against impossibilities. I would not
leave him in this bottomless abyss, and on the other hand the instinct of
self-preservation prompted me to fly.

The guide watched this scene with his usual phlegmatic unconcern. Yet
he understood perfectly well what was going on between his two
companions. The gestures themselves were sufficient to show that we were
each bent on taking a different road; but Hans seemed to take no part in a
question upon which depended his life. He was ready to start at a given
signal, or to stay, if his master so willed it.

How I wished at this moment I could have made him understand me. My
words, my complaints, my sorrow would have had some influence over that
frigid nature. Those dangers which our guide could not understand I could
have demonstrated and proved to him. Together we might have over-ruled
the obstinate Professor; if it were needed, we might perhaps have compelled
him to regain the heights of Snæfell.

I drew near to Hans. I placed my hand upon his. He made no movement.
My parted lips sufficiently revealed my sufferings. The Icelander slowly
moved his head, and calmly pointing to my uncle said:

"Master."

"Master!" I shouted; "you madman! no, he is not the master of our life;
we must fly, we must drag him. Do you hear me? Do you understand?"

I had seized Hans by the arm. I wished to oblige him to rise. I strove with
him. My uncle interposed.

"Be calm, Axel! you will get nothing from that immovable servant.
Therefore, listen to my proposal."

I crossed my arms, and confronted my uncle boldly.

"The want of water," he said, "is the only obstacle in our way. In this
eastern gallery made up of lavas, schists, and coal, we have not met with a
single particle of moisture. Perhaps we shall be more fortunate if we follow
the western tunnel."

I shook my head incredulously.

"Hear me to the end," the Professor went on with a firm voice. "Whilst
you were lying there motionless, I went to examine the conformation of that
gallery. It penetrates directly downward, and in a few hours it will bring us
to the granite rocks. There we must meet with abundant springs. The nature
of the rock assures me of this, and instinct agrees with logic to support my
conviction. Now, this is my proposal. When Columbus asked of his ships'
crews for three days more to discover a new world, those crews,
disheartened and sick as they were, recognised the justice of the claim, and
he discovered America. I am the Columbus of this nether world, and I only

ask for one more day. If in a single day I have not met with the water that
we want, I swear to you we will return to the surface of the earth."

In spite of my irritation I was moved with these words, as well as with
the violence my uncle was doing to his own wishes in making so hazardous
a proposal.

"Well," I said, "do as you will, and God reward your superhuman energy.
You have now but a few hours to tempt fortune. Let us start!"

CHAPTER XXII.

TOTAL FAILURE OF WATER

This time the descent commenced by the new gallery. Hans walked first
as was his custom.

We had not gone a hundred yards when the Professor, moving his lantern
along the walls, cried:

"Here are primitive rocks. Now we are in the right way. Forward!"

When in its early stages the earth was slowly cooling, its contraction
gave rise in its crust to disruptions, distortions, fissures, and chasms. The
passage through which we were moving was such a fissure, through which
at one time granite poured out in a molten state. Its thousands of windings
formed an inextricable labyrinth through the primeval mass.

As fast as we descended, the succession of beds forming the primitive
foundation came out with increasing distinctness. Geologists consider this
primitive matter to be the base of the mineral crust of the earth, and have
ascertained it to be composed of three different formations, schist, gneiss,
and mica schist, resting upon that unchangeable foundation, the granite.

Never had mineralogists found themselves in so marvellous a situation to
study nature in situ. What the boring machine, an insensible, inert
instrument, was unable to bring to the surface of the inner structure of the
globe, we were able to peruse with our own eyes and handle with our own
hands.

Through the beds of schist, coloured with delicate shades of green, ran in
winding course threads of copper and manganese, with traces of platinum
and gold. I thought, what riches are here buried at an unapproachable depth
in the earth, hidden for ever from the covetous eyes of the human race!
These treasures have been buried at such a profound depth by the
convulsions of primeval times that they run no chance of ever being
molested by the pickaxe or the spade.

To the schists succeeded gneiss, partially stratified, remarkable for the
parallelism and regularity of its lamina, then mica schists, laid in large
plates or flakes, revealing their lamellated structure by the sparkle of the
white shining mica.

The light from our apparatus, reflected from the small facets of quartz,
shot sparkling rays at every angle, and I seemed to be moving through a
diamond, within which the quickly darting rays broke across each other in a
thousand flashing coruscations.

About six o'clock this brilliant fete of illuminations underwent a sensible
abatement of splendour, then almost ceased. The walls assumed a
crystallised though sombre appearance; mica was more closely mingled
with the feldspar and quartz to form the proper rocky foundations of the
earth, which bears without distortion or crushing the weight of the four
terrestrial systems. We were immured within prison walls of granite.

It was eight in the evening. No signs of water had yet appeared. I was
suffering horribly. My uncle strode on. He refused to stop. He was listening
anxiously for the murmur of distant springs. But, no, there was dead
silence.

And now my limbs were failing beneath me. I resisted pain and torture,
that I might not stop my uncle, which would have driven him to despair, for
the day was drawing near to its end, and it was his last.

At last I failed utterly; I uttered a cry and fell.

"Come to me, I am dying."

My uncle retraced his steps. He gazed upon me with his arms crossed;
then these muttered words passed his lips:

"It's all over!"

The last thing I saw was a fearful gesture of rage, and my eyes closed.

When I reopened them I saw my two companions motionless and rolled
up in their coverings. Were they asleep? As for me, I could not get one
moment's sleep. I was suffering too keenly, and what embittered my
thoughts was that there was no remedy. My uncle's last words echoed
painfully in my ears: "it's all over!" For in such a fearful state of debility it
was madness to think of ever reaching the upper world again.

We had above us a league and a half of terrestrial crust. The weight of it
seemed to be crushing down upon my shoulders. I felt weighed down, and I
exhausted myself with imaginary violent exertions to turn round upon my
granite couch.

A few hours passed away. A deep silence reigned around us, the silence
of the grave. No sound could reach us through walls, the thinnest of which
were five miles thick.

Yet in the midst of my stupefaction I seemed to be aware of a noise. It
was dark down the tunnel, but I seemed to see the Icelander vanishing from
our sight with the lamp in his hand.

Why was he leaving us? Was Hans going to forsake us? My uncle was
fast asleep. I wanted to shout, but my voice died upon my parched and
swollen lips. The darkness became deeper, and the last sound died away in
the far distance.

"Hans has abandoned us," I cried. "Hans! Hans!"

But these words were only spoken within me. They went no farther. Yet
after the first moment of terror I felt ashamed of suspecting a man of such
extraordinary faithfulness. Instead of ascending he was descending the
gallery. An evil design would have taken him up not down. This reflection
restored me to calmness, and I turned to other thoughts. None but some
weighty motive could have induced so quiet a man to forfeit his sleep. Was
he on a journey of discovery? Had he during the silence of the night caught
a sound, a murmuring of something in the distance, which had failed to
affect my hearing?

CHAPTER XXIII.

WATER DISCOVERED

For a whole hour I was trying to work out in my delirious brain the
reasons which might have influenced this seemingly tranquil huntsman. The
absurdest notions ran in utter confusion through my mind. I thought
madness was coming on!

But at last a noise of footsteps was heard in the dark abyss. Hans was
approaching. A flickering light was beginning to glimmer on the wall of our
darksome prison; then it came out full at the mouth of the gallery. Hans
appeared.

He drew close to my uncle, laid his hand upon his shoulder, and gently
woke him. My uncle rose up.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"Watten!" replied the huntsman.

No doubt under the inspiration of intense pain everybody becomes
endowed with the gift of divers tongues. I did not know a word of Danish,
yet instinctively I understood the word he had uttered.

"Water! water!" I cried, clapping my hands and gesticulating like a
madman.

"Water!" repeated my uncle. "Hvar?" he asked, in Icelandic.

"Nedat," replied Hans.

"Where? Down below!" I understood it all. I seized the hunter's hands,
and pressed them while he looked on me without moving a muscle of his
countenance.

The preparations for our departure were not long in making, and we were
soon on our way down a passage inclining two feet in seven. In an hour we
had gone a mile and a quarter, and descended two thousand feet.

Then I began to hear distinctly quite a new sound of something running
within the thickness of the granite wall, a kind of dull, dead rumbling, like
distant thunder. During the first part of our walk, not meeting with the
promised spring, I felt my agony returning; but then my uncle acquainted
me with the cause of the strange noise.

"Hans was not mistaken," he said. "What you hear is the rushing of a
torrent."

"A torrent?" I exclaimed.

"There can be no doubt; a subterranean river is flowing around us."

We hurried forward in the greatest excitement. I was no longer sensible
of my fatigue. This murmuring of waters close at hand was already
refreshing me. It was audibly increasing. The torrent, after having for some
time flowed over our heads, was now running within the left wall, roaring

and rushing. Frequently I touched the wall, hoping to feel some indications
of moisture: But there was no hope here.

Yet another half hour, another half league was passed.

Then it became clear that the hunter had gone no farther. Guided by an
instinct peculiar to mountaineers he had as it were felt this torrent through
the rock; but he had certainly seen none of the precious liquid; he had drunk
nothing himself.

Soon it became evident that if we continued our walk we should widen
the distance between ourselves and the stream, the noise of which was
becoming fainter.

We returned. Hans stopped where the torrent seemed closest. I sat near
the wall, while the waters were flowing past me at a distance of two feet
with extreme violence. But there was a thick granite wall between us and
the object of our desires.

Without reflection, without asking if there were any means of procuring
the water, I gave way to a movement of despair.

Hans glanced at me with, I thought, a smile of compassion.

He rose and took the lamp. I followed him. He moved towards the wall. I
looked on. He applied his ear against the dry stone, and moved it slowly to
and fro, listening intently. I perceived at once that he was examining to find
the exact place where the torrent could be heard the loudest. He met with
that point on the left side of the tunnel, at three feet from the ground.

I was stirred up with excitement. I hardly dared guess what the hunter
was about to do. But I could not but understand, and applaud and cheer him

on, when I saw him lay hold of the pickaxe to make an attack upon the
rock.

"We are saved!" I cried.

"Yes," cried my uncle, almost frantic with excitement. "Hans is right.
Capital fellow! Who but he would have thought of it?"

Yes; who but he? Such an expedient, however simple, would never have
entered into our minds. True, it seemed most hazardous to strike a blow of
the hammer in this part of the earth's structure. Suppose some displacement
should occur and crush us all! Suppose the torrent, bursting through, should
drown us in a sudden flood! There was nothing vain in these fancies. But
still no fears of falling rocks or rushing floods could stay us now; and our
thirst was so intense that, to satisfy it, we would have dared the waves of
the north Atlantic.

Hans set about the task which my uncle and I together could not have
accomplished. If our impatience had armed our hands with power, we
should have shattered the rock into a thousand fragments. Not so Hans. Full
of self possession, he calmly wore his way through the rock with a steady
succession of light and skilful strokes, working through an aperture six
inches wide at the outside. I could hear a louder noise of flowing waters,
and I fancied I could feel the delicious fluid refreshing my parched lips.

The pick had soon penetrated two feet into the granite partition, and our
man had worked for above an hour. I was in an agony of impatience. My
uncle wanted to employ stronger measures, and I had some difficulty in
dissuading him; still he had just taken a pickaxe in his hand, when a sudden
hissing was heard, and a jet of water spurted out with violence against the
opposite wall.

Hans, almost thrown off his feet by the violence of the shock, uttered a
cry of grief and disappointment, of which I soon under-. stood the cause,
when plunging my hands into the spouting torrent, I withdrew them in
haste, for the water was scalding hot.

"The water is at the boiling point," I cried.

"Well, never mind, let it cool," my uncle replied.

The tunnel was filling with steam, whilst a stream was forming, which by
degrees wandered away into subterranean windings, and soon we had the
satisfaction of swallowing our first draught.

Could anything be more delicious than the sensation that our burning
intolerable thirst was passing away, and leaving us to enjoy comfort and
pleasure? But where was this water from? No matter. It was water; and
though still warm, it brought life back to the dying. I kept drinking without
stopping, and almost without tasting.

At last after a most delightful time of reviving energy, I cried,
"Why, this is a chalybeate spring!"

"Nothing could be better for the digestion," said my uncle. "It is highly
impregnated with iron. It will be as good for us as going to the Spa, or to
Töplitz."

"Well, it is delicious!"

"Of course it is, water should be, found six miles underground. It has an
inky flavour, which is not at all unpleasant. What a capital source of
strength Hans has found for us here. We will call it after his name."

"Agreed," I cried.

And Hansbach it was from that moment.

Hans was none the prouder. After a moderate draught, he went quietly
into a corner to rest.

"Now," I said, "we must not lose this water."

"What is the use of troubling ourselves?" my uncle, replied. "I fancy it
will never fail."

"Never mind, we cannot be sure; let us fill the water bottle and our flasks,
and then stop up the opening."

My advice was followed so far as getting in a supply; but the stopping up
of the hole was not so easy to accomplish. It was in vain that we took up
fragments of granite, and stuffed them in with tow, we only scalded our
hands without succeeding. The pressure was too great, and our efforts were
fruitless.

"It is quite plain," said I, "that the higher body of this water is at a
considerable elevation. The force of the jet shows that."

"No doubt," answered my uncle. "If this column of water is 32,000 feet
high—that is, from the surface of the earth, it is equal to the weight of a
thousand atmospheres. But I have got an idea."

"Well?"

"Why should we trouble ourselves to stop the stream from coming out at
all?"

"Because—" Well, I could not assign a reason.

"When our flasks are empty, where shall we fill them again? Can we tell
that?"

No; there was no certainty.

"Well, let us allow the water to run on. It will flow down, and will both
guide and refresh us."

"That is well planned," I cried. "With this stream for our guide, there is
no reason why we should not succeed in our undertaking."

"Ah, my boy! you agree with me now," cried the Professor, laughing.

"I agree with you most heartily."

"Well, let us rest awhile; and then we will start again."

I was forgetting that it was night. The chronometer soon informed me of
that fact; and in a very short time, refreshed and thankful, we all three fell
into a sound sleep.

CHAPTER XXIV.

WELL SAID, OLD MOLE! CANST THOU WORK I' THE GROUND SO FAST?

By the next day we had forgotten all our sufferings. At first, I was
wondering that I was no longer thirsty, and I was for asking for the reason.
The answer came in the murmuring of the stream at my feet.

We breakfasted, and drank of this excellent chalybeate water. I felt
wonderfully stronger, and quite decided upon pushing on. Why should not
so firmly convinced a man as my uncle, furnished with so industrious a
guide as Hans, and accompanied by so determined a nephew as myself, go
on to final success? Such were the magnificent plans which struggled for
mastery within me. If it had been proposed to me to return to the summit of
Snæfell, I should have indignantly declined.

Most fortunately, all we had to do was to descend.

"Let us start!" I cried, awakening by my shouts the echoes of the vaulted
hollows of the earth.

On Thursday, at 8 a.m., we started afresh. The granite tunnel winding
from side to side, earned us past unexpected turns, and seemed almost to
form a labyrinth; but, on the whole, its direction seemed to be south-

easterly. My uncle never ceased to consult his compass, to keep account of
the ground gone over.

The gallery dipped down a very little way from the horizontal, scarcely
more than two inches in a fathom, and the stream ran gently murmuring at
our feet. I compared it to a friendly genius guiding us underground, and
caressed with my hand the soft naiad, whose comforting voice accompanied
our steps. With my reviving spirits these mythological notions seemed to
come unbidden.

As for my uncle, he was beginning to storm against the horizontal road.
He loved nothing better than a vertical path; but this way seemed
indefinitely prolonged, and instead of sliding along the hypothenuse as we
were now doing, he would willingly have dropped down the terrestrial
radius. But there was no help for it, and as long as we were approaching the
centre at all we felt that we must not complain.

From time to time, a steeper path appeared; our naiad then began to
tumble before us with a hoarser murmur, and we went down with her to a
greater depth.

On the whole, that day and the next we made considerable way
horizontally, very little vertically.

On Friday evening, the 10th of July, according to our calculations, we
were thirty leagues south-east of Rejkiavik, and at a depth of two leagues
and a half.

At our feet there now opened a frightful abyss. My uncle, however, was
not to be daunted, and he clapped his hands at the steepness of the descent.

"This will take us a long way," he cried, "and without much difficulty; for
the projections in the rock form quite a staircase."

The ropes were so fastened by Hans as to guard against accident, and the
descent commenced. I can hardly call it perilous, for I was beginning to be
familiar with this kind of exercise.

This well, or abyss, was a narrow cleft in the mass of the granite, called
by geologists a 'fault,' and caused by the unequal cooling of the globe of the
earth. If it had at one time been a passage for eruptive matter thrown out by
Snæfell, I still could not understand why no trace was left of its passage. We
kept going down a kind of winding staircase, which seemed almost to have
been made by the hand of man.

Every quarter of an hour we were obliged to halt, to take a little
necessary repose and restore the action of our limbs. We then sat down
upon a fragment of rock, and we talked as we ate and drank from the
stream.

Of course, down this fault the Hansbach fell in a cascade, and lost some
of its volume; but there was enough and to spare to slake our thirst. Besides,
when the incline became more gentle, it would of course resume its
peaceable course. At this moment it reminded me of my worthy uncle, in
his frequent fits of impatience and anger, while below it ran with the
calmness of the Icelandic hunter.

On the 6th and 7th of July we kept following the spiral curves of this
singular well, penetrating in actual distance no more than two leagues; but
being carried to a depth of five leagues below the level of the sea. But on
the 8th, about noon, the fault took, towards the south-east, a much gentler
slope, one of about forty-five degrees.

Then the road became monotonously easy. It could not be otherwise, for
there was no landscape to vary the stages of our journey.

On Wednesday, the 15th, we were seven leagues underground, and had
travelled fifty leagues away from Snæfell. Although we were tired, our
health was perfect, and the medicine chest had not yet had occasion to be
opened.

My uncle noted every hour the indications of the compass, the
chronometer, the aneroid, and the thermometer the very same which he has
published in his scientific report of our journey. It was therefore not
difficult to know exactly our whereabouts. When he told me that we had
gone fifty leagues horizontally, I could not repress an exclamation of
astonishment, at the thought that we had now long left Iceland behind us.

"What is the matter?" he cried.

"I was reflecting that if your calculations are correct we are no longer
under Iceland."

"Do you think so?"

"I am not mistaken," I said, and examining the map, I added, "We have
passed Cape Portland, and those fifty leagues bring us under the wide
expanse of ocean."

"Under the sea," my uncle repeated, rubbing his hands with delight.

"Can it be?" I said. "Is the ocean spread above our heads?"

"Of course, Axel. What can be more natural? At Newcastle are there not
coal mines extending far under the sea?"

It was all very well for the Professor to call this so simple, but I could not
feel quite easy at the thought that the boundless ocean was rolling over my
head. And yet it really mattered very little whether it was the plains and
mountains that covered our heads, or the Atlantic waves, as long as we were
arched over by solid granite. And, besides, I was getting used to this idea;
for the tunnel, now running straight, now winding as capriciously in its
inclines as in its turnings, but constantly preserving its south-easterly
direction, and always running deeper, was gradually carrying us to very
great depths indeed.

Four days later, Saturday, the 18th of July, in the evening, we arrived at a
kind of vast grotto; and here my uncle paid Hans his weekly wages, and it
was settled that the next day, Sunday, should be a day of rest.

CHAPTER XXV.

DE PROFUNDIS

I therefore awoke next day relieved from the preoccupation of an
immediate start. Although we were in the very deepest of known depths,
there was something not unpleasant about it. And, besides, we were
beginning to get accustomed to this troglodyte [1] life. I no longer thought
of sun, moon, and stars, trees, houses, and towns, nor of any of those
terrestrial superfluities which are necessaries of men who live upon the
earth's surface. Being fossils, we looked upon all those things as mere jokes.

The grotto was an immense apartment. Along its granite floor ran our
faithful stream. At this distance from its spring the water was scarcely tepid,
and we drank of it with pleasure.

After breakfast the Professor gave a few hours to the arrangement of his
daily notes.

"First," said he, "I will make a calculation to ascertain our exact position.
I hope, after our return, to draw a map of our journey, which will be in
reality a vertical section of the globe, containing the track of our
expedition."

"That will be curious, uncle; but are your observations sufficiently
accurate to enable you to do this correctly?"

"Yes; I have everywhere observed the angles and the inclines. I am sure
there is no error. Let us see where we are now. Take your compass, and note
the direction."

I looked, and replied carefully:

[1] tpwgln, a hole; dnw, to creep into. The name of an Ethiopian tribe
who lived in caves and holes. ??????, a hole, and ???, to creep into.

"South-east by east."

"Well," answered the Professor, after a rapid calculation, "I infer that we
have gone eighty-five leagues since we started."

"Therefore we are under mid-Atlantic?"

"To be sure we are."

"And perhaps at this very moment there is a storm above, and ships over
our heads are being rudely tossed by the tempest."

"Quite probable."

"And whales are lashing the roof of our prison with their tails?"

"It may be, Axel, but they won't shake us here. But let us go back to our
calculation. Here we are eighty-five leagues south-east of Snæfell, and I
reckon that we are at a depth of sixteen leagues."

"Sixteen leagues?" I cried.

"No doubt."

"Why, this is the very limit assigned by science to the thickness of the
crust of the earth."

"I don't deny it."

"And here, according to the law of increasing temperature, there ought to
be a heat of 2,732° Fahr.!"

"So there should, my lad."

"And all this solid granite ought to be running in fusion."

"You see that it is not so, and that, as so often happens, facts come to
overthrow theories."

"I am obliged to agree; but, after all, it is surprising."

"What does the thermometer say?"

"Twenty-seven, six tenths (82° Fahr.)."

"Therefore the savants are wrong by 2,705°, and the proportional
increase is a mistake. Therefore Humphry Davy was right, and I am not
wrong in following him. What do you say now?"

"Nothing."

In truth, I had a good deal to say. I gave way in no respect to Davy's
theory. I still held to the central heat, although I did not feel its effects. I
preferred to admit in truth, that this chimney of an extinct volcano, lined
with lavas, which are non-conductors of heat, did not suffer the heat to pass
through its walls.

But without stopping to look up new arguments I simply took up our
situation such as it was.

"Well, admitting all your calculations to be quite correct, you must allow
me to draw one rigid result therefrom."

"What is it. Speak freely."

"At the latitude of Iceland, where we now are, the radius of the earth, the
distance from the centre to the surface is about 1,583 leagues; let us say in
round numbers 1,600 leagues, or 4,800 miles. Out of 1,600 leagues we have
gone twelve!"

"So you say."

"And these twelve at a cost of 85 leagues diagonally?"

"Exactly so."

"In twenty days?"

"Yes."

"Now, sixteen leagues are the hundredth part of the earth's radius. At this
rate we shall be two thousand days, or nearly five years and a half, in
getting to the centre."

No answer was vouchsafed to this rational conclusion. "Without
reckoning, too, that if a vertical depth of sixteen leagues can be attained
only by a diagonal descent of eighty-four, it follows that we must go eight
thousand miles in a south-easterly direction; so that we shall emerge from
some point in the earth's circumference instead of getting to the centre!"

"Confusion to all your figures, and all your hypotheses besides," shouted
my uncle in a sudden rage. "What is the basis of them all? How do you
know that this passage does not run straight to our destination? Besides,
there is a precedent. What one man has done, another may do."

"I hope so; but, still, I may be permitted—"

"You shall have my leave to hold your tongue, Axel, but not to talk in
that irrational way."

I could see the awful Professor bursting through my uncle's skin, and
I took timely warning.

"Now look at your aneroid. What does that say?"

"It says we are under considerable pressure."

"Very good; so you see that by going gradually down, and getting
accustomed to the density of the atmosphere, we don't suffer at all."

"Nothing, except a little pain in the ears."

"That's nothing, and you may get rid of even that by quick breathing
whenever you feel the pain."

"Exactly so," I said, determined not to say a word that might cross my
uncle's prejudices. "There is even positive pleasure in living in this dense
atmosphere. Have you observed how intense sound is down here?"

"No doubt it is. A deaf man would soon learn to hear perfectly."

"But won't this density augment?"

"Yes; according to a rather obscure law. It is well known that the weight
of bodies diminishes as fast as we descend. You know that it is at the
surface of the globe that weight is most sensibly felt, and that at the centre
there is no weight at all."

"I am aware of that; but, tell me, will not air at last acquire the density of
water?"

"Of course, under a pressure of seven hundred and ten atmospheres."

"And how, lower down still?"

"Lower down the density will still increase."

"But how shall we go down then."

"Why, we must fill our pockets with stones."

"Well, indeed, my worthy uncle, you are never at a loss for an answer."

I dared venture no farther into the region of probabilities, for I might
presently have stumbled upon an impossibility, which would have brought
the Professor on the scene when he was not wanted.

Still, it was evident that the air, under a pressure which might reach that
of thousands of atmospheres, would at last reach the solid state, and then,
even if our bodies could resist the strain, we should be stopped, and no
reasonings would be able to get us on any farther.

But I did not advance this argument. My uncle would have met it with his
inevitable Saknussemm, a precedent which possessed no weight with me;
for even if the journey of the learned Icelander were really attested, there
was one very simple answer, that in the sixteenth century there was neither

barometer or aneroid and therefore Saknussemm could not tell how far he
had gone.

But I kept this objection to myself, and waited the course of events.

The rest of the day was passed in calculations and in conversations. I
remained a steadfast adherent of the opinions of Professor Liedenbrock, and
I envied the stolid indifference of Hans, who, without going into causes and
effects, went on with his eyes shut wherever his destiny guided him.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE WORST PERIL OF ALL

It must be confessed that hitherto things had not gone on so badly, and
that I had small reason to complain. If our difficulties became no worse, we
might hope to reach our end. And to what a height of scientific glory we
should then attain! I had become quite a Liedenbrock in my reasonings;
seriously I had. But would this state of things last in the strange place we
had come to? Perhaps it might.

For several days steeper inclines, some even frightfully near to the
perpendicular, brought us deeper and deeper into the mass of the interior of
the earth. Some days we advanced nearer to the centre by a league and a
half, or nearly two leagues. These were perilous descents, in which the skill
and marvellous coolness of Hans were invaluable to us. That
unimpassioned Icelander devoted himself with incomprehensible
deliberation; and, thanks to him, we crossed many a dangerous spot which
we should never have cleared alone.

But his habit of silence gained upon him day by day, and was infecting
us. External objects produce decided effects upon the brain. A man shut up
between four walls soon loses the power to associate words and ideas
together. How many prisoners in solitary confinement become idiots, if not
mad, for want of exercise for the thinking faculty!

During the fortnight following our last conversation, no incident occurred
worthy of being recorded. But I have good reason for remembering one
very serious event which took place at this time, and of which I could
scarcely now forget the smallest details.

By the 7th of August our successive descents had brought us to a depth of
thirty leagues; that is, that for a space of thirty leagues there were over our
heads solid beds of rock, ocean, continents, and towns. We must have been
two hundred leagues from Iceland.

On that day the tunnel went down a gentle slope. I was ahead of the
others. My uncle was carrying one of Ruhmkorff's lamps and I the other. I
was examining the beds of granite.

Suddenly turning round I observed that I was alone.

Well, well, I thought; I have been going too fast, or Hans and my uncle
have stopped on the way. Come, this won't do; I must join them.
Fortunately there is not much of an ascent.

I retraced my steps. I walked for a quarter of an hour. I gazed into the
darkness. I shouted. No reply: my voice was lost in the midst of the
cavernous echoes which alone replied to my call.

I began to feel uneasy. A shudder ran through me.

"Calmly!" I said aloud to myself, "I am sure to find my companions
again. There are not two roads. I was too far ahead. I will return!"

For half an hour I climbed up. I listened for a call, and in that dense
atmosphere a voice could reach very far. But there was a dreary silence in
all that long gallery. I stopped. I could not believe that I was lost. I was only
bewildered for a time, not lost. I was sure I should find my way again.

"Come," I repeated, "since there is but one road, and they are on it, I must
find them again. I have but to ascend still. Unless, indeed, missing me, and
supposing me to be behind, they too should have gone back. But even in
this case I have only to make the greater haste. I shall find them, I am sure."

I repeated these words in the fainter tones of a half-convinced man.
Besides, to associate even such simple ideas with words, and reason with
them, was a work of time.

A doubt then seized upon me. Was I indeed in advance when we became
separated? Yes, to be sure I was. Hans was after me, preceding my uncle.
He had even stopped for a while to strap his baggage better over his
shoulders. I could remember this little incident. It was at that very moment
that I must have gone on.

Besides, I thought, have not I a guarantee that I shall not lose my way, a
clue in the labyrinth, that cannot be broken, my faithful stream? I have but
to trace it back, and I must come upon them.

This conclusion revived my spirits, and I resolved to resume my march
without loss of time.

How I then blessed my uncle's foresight in preventing the hunter from
stopping up the hole in the granite. This beneficent spring, after having
satisfied our thirst on the road, would now be my guide among the windings
of the terrestrial crust.

Before starting afresh I thought a wash would do me good. I stooped to
bathe my face in the Hansbach.

To my stupefaction and utter dismay my feet trod only—the rough dry
granite. The stream was no longer at my feet.

CHAPTER XXVII.

LOST IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH

To describe my despair would be impossible. No words could tell it. I
was buried alive, with the prospect before me of dying of hunger and thirst.

Mechanically I swept the ground with my hands. How dry and hard the
rock seemed to me!

But how had I left the course of the stream? For it was a terrible fact that
it no longer ran at my side. Then I understood the reason of that fearful
silence, when for the last time I listened to hear if any sound from my
companions could reach my ears. At the moment when I left the right road I
had not noticed the absence of the stream. It is evident that at that moment a
deviation had presented itself before me, whilst the Hansbach, following the
caprice of another incline, had gone with my companions away into
unknown depths.

How was I to return? There was not a trace of their footsteps or of my
own, for the foot left no mark upon the granite floor. I racked my brain for a
solution of this impracticable problem. One word described my position.
Lost!

Lost at an immeasurable depth! Thirty leagues of rock seemed to weigh
upon my shoulders with a dreadful pressure. I felt crushed.

I tried to carry back my ideas to things on the surface of the earth. I could
scarcely succeed. Hamburg, the house in the Königstrasse, my poor
Gräuben, all that busy world underneath which I was wandering about, was
passing in rapid confusion before my terrified memory. I could revive with
vivid reality all the incidents of our voyage, Iceland, M. Fridrikssen,
Snæfell. I said to myself that if, in such a position as I was now in, I was
fool enough to cling to one glimpse of hope, it would be madness, and that
the best thing I could do was to despair.

What human power could restore me to the light of the sun by rending
asunder the huge arches of rock which united over my head, buttressing
each other with impregnable strength? Who could place my feet on the right
path, and bring me back to my company?

"Oh, my uncle!" burst from my lips in the tone of despair.

It was my only word of reproach, for I knew how much he must be
suffering in seeking me, wherever he might be.

When I saw myself thus far removed from all earthly help I had recourse
to heavenly succour. The remembrance of my childhood, the recollection of
my mother, whom I had only known in my tender early years, came back to
me, and I knelt in prayer imploring for the Divine help of which I was so
little worthy.

This return of trust in God's providence allayed the turbulence of my
fears, and I was enabled to concentrate upon my situation all the force of
my intelligence.

I had three days' provisions with me and my flask was full. But I could
not remain alone for long. Should I go up or down?

Up, of course; up continually.

I must thus arrive at the point where I had left the stream, that fatal turn
in the road. With the stream at my feet, I might hope to regain the summit
of Snæfell.

Why had I not thought of that sooner? Here was evidently a chance of
safety. The most pressing duty was to find out again the course of the
Hansbach. I rose, and leaning upon my iron-pointed stick I ascended the
gallery. The slope was rather steep. I walked on without hope but without
indecision, like a man who has made up his mind.

For half an hour I met with no obstacle. I tried to recognise my way by
the form of the tunnel, by the projections of certain rocks, by the disposition
of the fractures. But no particular sign appeared, and I soon saw that this
gallery could not bring me back to the turning point. It came to an abrupt
end. I struck against an impenetrable wall, and fell down upon the rock.

Unspeakable despair then seized upon me. I lay overwhelmed, aghast!
My last hope was shattered against this granite wall.

Lost in this labyrinth, whose windings crossed each other in all
directions, it was no use to think of flight any longer. Here I must die the
most dreadful of deaths. And, strange to say, the thought came across me
that when some day my petrified remains should be found thirty leagues
below the surface in the bowels of the earth, the discovery might lead to
grave scientific discussions.

I tried to speak aloud, but hoarse sounds alone passed my dry lips. I
panted for breath.

In the midst of my agony a new terror laid hold of me. In falling my lamp
had got wrong. I could not set it right, and its light was paling and would
soon disappear altogether.

I gazed painfully upon the luminous current growing weaker and weaker
in the wire coil. A dim procession of moving shadows seemed slowly
unfolding down the darkening walls. I scarcely dared to shut my eyes for
one moment, for fear of losing the least glimmer of this precious light.
Every instant it seemed about to vanish and the dense blackness to come
rolling in palpably upon me.

One last trembling glimmer shot feebly up. I watched it in trembling and
anxiety; I drank it in as if I could preserve it, concentrating upon it the full
power of my eyes, as upon the very last sensation of light which they were
ever to experience, and the next moment I lay in the heavy gloom of deep,
thick, unfathomable darkness.

A terrible cry of anguish burst from me. Upon earth, in the midst of the
darkest night, light never abdicates its functions altogether. It is still subtle
and diffusive, but whatever little there may be, the eye still catches that
little. Here there was not an atom; the total darkness made me totally blind.

Then I began to lose my head. I arose with my arms stretched out before
me, attempting painfully to feel my way. I began to run wildly, hurrying
through the inextricable maze, still descending, still running through the
substance of the earth's thick crust, a struggling denizen of geological
'faults,' crying, shouting, yelling, soon bruised by contact with the jagged
rock, falling and rising again bleeding, trying to drink the blood which

covered my face, and even waiting for some rock to shatter my skull
against.

I shall never know whither my mad career took me. After the lapse of
some hours, no doubt exhausted, I fell like a lifeless lump at the foot of the
wall, and lost all consciousness.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE RESCUE IN THE WHISPERING GALLERY

When I returned to partial life my face was wet with tears. How long that
state of insensibility had lasted I cannot say. I had no means now of taking
account of time. Never was solitude equal to this, never had any living
being been so utterly forsaken.

After my fall I had lost a good deal of blood. I felt it flowing over me.
Ah! how happy I should have been could I have died, and if death were not
yet to be gone through. I would think no longer. I drove away every idea,
and, conquered by my grief, I rolled myself to the foot of the opposite wall.

Already I was feeling the approach of another faint, and was hoping for
complete annihilation, when a loud noise reached me. It was like the distant
rumble of continuous thunder, and I could hear its sounding undulations
rolling far away into the remote recesses of the abyss.

Whence could this noise proceed? It must be from some phenomenon
proceeding in the great depths amidst which I lay helpless. Was it an
explosion of gas? Was it the fall of some mighty pillar of the globe?

I listened still. I wanted to know if the noise would be repeated. A quarter
of an hour passed away. Silence reigned in this gallery. I could not hear

even the beating of my heart.

Suddenly my ear, resting by chance against the wall, caught, or seemed to
catch, certain vague, indescribable, distant, articulate sounds, as of words.

"This is a delusion," I thought.

But it was not. Listening more attentively, I heard in reality a murmuring
of voices. But my weakness prevented me from understanding what the
voices said. Yet it was language, I was sure of it.

For a moment I feared the words might be my own, brought back by the
echo. Perhaps I had been crying out unknown to myself. I closed my lips
firmly, and laid my ear against the wall again.

"Yes, truly, some one is speaking; those are words!"

Even a few feet from the wall I could hear distinctly. I succeeded in
catching uncertain, strange, undistinguishable words. They came as if
pronounced in low murmured whispers. The word 'forlorad' was several
times repeated in a tone of sympathy and sorrow.

"Help!" I cried with all my might. "Help!"

I listened, I watched in the darkness for an answer, a cry, a mere breath of
sound, but nothing came. Some minutes passed. A whole world of ideas had
opened in my mind. I thought that my weakened voice could never
penetrate to my companions.

"It is they," I repeated. "What other men can be thirty leagues under
ground?"

I again began to listen. Passing my ear over the wall from one place to
another, I found the point where the voices seemed to be best heard. The
word 'forlorad' again returned; then the rolling of thunder which had roused
me from my lethargy.

"No," I said, "no; it is not through such a mass that a voice can be heard.
I am surrounded by granite walls, and the loudest explosion could never be
heard here! This noise comes along the gallery. There must be here some
remarkable exercise of acoustic laws!"

I listened again, and this time, yes this time, I did distinctly hear my
name pronounced across the wide interval.

It was my uncle's own voice! He was talking to the guide. And 'forlorad'
is a Danish word.

Then I understood it all. To make myself heard, I must speak along this
wall, which would conduct the sound of my voice just as wire conducts
electricity.

But there was no time to lose. If my companions moved but a few steps
away, the acoustic phenomenon would cease. I therefore approached the
wall, and pronounced these words as clearly as possible:

"Uncle Liedenbrock!"

I waited with the deepest anxiety. Sound does not travel with great
velocity. Even increased density air has no effect upon its rate of travelling;
it merely augments its intensity. Seconds, which seemed ages, passed away,
and at last these words reached me:

"Axel! Axel! is it you?"

....

"Yes, yes," I replied.

....

"My boy, where are you?"

....

"Lost, in the deepest darkness."

....

"Where is your lamp?"

....

"It is out."

....

"And the stream?"

....

"Disappeared."

....

"Axel, Axel, take courage!"

....

"Wait! I am exhausted! I can't answer. Speak to me!"

....

"Courage," resumed my uncle. "Don't speak. Listen to me. We have
looked for you up the gallery and down the gallery. Could not find you. I
wept for you, my poor boy. At last, supposing you were still on the
Hansbach, we fired our guns. Our voices are audible to each other, but our
hands cannot touch. But don't despair, Axel! It is a great thing that we can
hear each other."

....

During this time I had been reflecting. A vague hope was returning to my
heart. There was one thing I must know to begin with. I placed my lips
close to the wall, saying:

"My uncle!"

....

"My boy!" came to me after a few seconds.

....

"We must know how far we are apart."

....

"That is easy."

....

"You have your chronometer?"

...

"Yes."

....

"Well, take it. Pronounce my name, noting exactly the second when you
speak. I will repeat it as soon as it shall come to me, and you will observe
the exact moment when you get my answer."

"Yes; and half the time between my call and your answer will exactly
indicate that which my voice will take in coming to you."

....

"Just so, my uncle."

....

"Are you ready?"

....

"Yes."

......

"Now, attention. I am going to call your name."

....

I put my ear to the wall, and as soon as the name 'Axel' came I
immediately replied "Axel," then waited.

....

"Forty seconds," said my uncle. "Forty seconds between the two words;
so the sound takes twenty seconds in coming. Now, at the rate of 1,120 feet
in a second, this is 22,400 feet, or four miles and a quarter, nearly."

....

"Four miles and a quarter!" I murmured.

....

"It will soon be over, Axel."

....

"Must I go up or down?"

....

"Down—for this reason: We are in a vast chamber, with endless galleries.
Yours must lead into it, for it seems as if all the clefts and fractures of the
globe radiated round this vast cavern. So get up, and begin walking. Walk
on, drag yourself along, if necessary slide down the steep places, and at the
end you will find us ready to receive you. Now begin moving."

....

These words cheered me up.

"Good bye, uncle." I cried. "I am going. There will be no more voices
heard when once I have started. So good bye!"

....

"Good bye, Axel, au revoir!"

....

These were the last words I heard.

This wonderful underground conversation, carried on with a distance of
four miles and a quarter between us, concluded with these words of hope. I
thanked God from my heart, for it was He who had conducted me through
those vast solitudes to the point where, alone of all others perhaps, the
voices of my companions could have reached me.

This acoustic effect is easily explained on scientific grounds. It arose
from the concave form of the gallery and the conducting power of the rock.
There are many examples of this propagation of sounds which remain
unheard in the intermediate space. I remember that a similar phenomenon
has been observed in many places; amongst others on the internal surface of
the gallery of the dome of St. Paul's in London, and especially in the midst
of the curious caverns among the quarries near Syracuse, the most
wonderful of which is called Dionysius' Ear.

These remembrances came into my mind, and I clearly saw that since my
uncle's voice really reached me, there could be no obstacle between us.
Following the direction by which the sound came, of course I should arrive
in his presence, if my strength did not fail me.

I therefore rose; I rather dragged myself than walked. The slope was
rapid, and I slid down.

Soon the swiftness of the descent increased horribly, and threatened to
become a fall. I no longer had the strength to stop myself.

Suddenly there was no ground under me. I felt myself revolving in air,
striking and rebounding against the craggy projections of a vertical gallery,

quite a well; my head struck against a sharp corner of the rock, and I
became unconscious.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THALATTA! THALATTA!

When I came to myself, I was stretched in half darkness, covered with
thick coats and blankets. My uncle was watching over me, to discover the
least sign of life. At my first sigh he took my hand; when I opened my eyes
he uttered a cry of joy.

"He lives! he lives!" he cried.

"Yes, I am still alive," I answered feebly.

"My dear nephew," said my uncle, pressing me to his breast, "you are
saved."

I was deeply touched with the tenderness of his manner as he uttered
these words, and still more with the care with which he watched over me.
But such trials were wanted to bring out the Professor's tenderer qualities.

At this moment Hans came, he saw my hand in my uncle's, and I may
safely say that there was joy in his countenance.

"God dag," said he.

"How do you do, Hans? How are you? And now, uncle, tell me where we
are at the present moment?"

"To-morrow, Axel, to-morrow. Now you are too faint and weak. I have
bandaged your head with compresses which must not be disturbed. Sleep
now, and to-morrow I will tell you all."

"But do tell me what time it is, and what day."

"It is Sunday, the 8th of August, and it is ten at night. You must ask me
no more questions until the 10th."

In truth I was very weak, and my eyes involuntarily closed. I wanted a
good night's rest; and I therefore went off to sleep, with the knowledge that
I had been four long days alone in the heart of the earth.

Next morning, on awakening, I looked round me. My couch, made up of
all our travelling gear, was in a charming grotto, adorned with splendid
stalactites, and the soil of which was a fine sand. It was half light. There
was no torch, no lamp, yet certain mysterious glimpses of light came from
without through a narrow opening in the grotto. I heard too a vague and
indistinct noise, something like the murmuring of waves breaking upon a
shingly shore, and at times I seemed to hear the whistling of wind.

I wondered whether I was awake, whether I was dreaming, whether my
brain, crazed by my fall, was not affected by imaginary noises. Yet neither
eyes, nor ears could be so utterly deceived.

It is a ray of daylight, I thought, sliding in through this cleft in the rock!
That is indeed the murmuring of waves! That is the rustling noise of wind.
Am I quite mistaken, or have we returned to the surface of the earth? Has
my uncle given up the expedition, or is it happily terminated?

I was asking myself these unanswerable questions when the Professor
entered.

"Good morning, Axel," he cried cheerily. "I feel sure you are better."

"Yes, I am indeed," said I, sitting up on my couch.

"You can hardly fail to be better, for you have slept quietly. Hans and I
watched you by turns, and we have noticed you were evidently recovering."

"Indeed, I do feel a great deal better, and I will give you a proof of that
presently if you will let me have my breakfast."

"You shall eat, lad. The fever has left you. Hans rubbed your wounds
with some ointment or other of which the Icelanders keep the secret, and
they have healed marvellously. Our hunter is a splendid fellow!"

Whilst he went on talking, my uncle prepared a few provisions, which I
devoured eagerly, notwithstanding his advice to the contrary. All the while I
was overwhelming him with questions which he answered readily.

I then learnt that my providential fall had brought me exactly to the
extremity of an almost perpendicular shaft; and as I had landed in the midst
of an accompanying torrent of stones, the least of which would have been
enough to crush me, the conclusion was that a loose portion of the rock had
come down with me. This frightful conveyance had thus carried me into the
arms of my uncle, where I fell bruised, bleeding, and insensible.

"Truly it is wonderful that you have not been killed a hundred times over.
But, for the love of God, don't let us ever separate again, or we may never
see each other more."

"Not separate! Is the journey not over, then?" I opened a pair of
astonished eyes, which immediately called for the question:

"What is the matter, Axel?"

"I have a question to ask you. You say that I am safe and sound?"

"No doubt you are."

"And all my limbs unbroken?"

"Certainly."

"And my head?"

"Your head, except for a few bruises, is all right; and it is on your
shoulders, where it ought to be."

"Well, I am afraid my brain is affected."

"Your mind affected!"

"Yes, I fear so. Are we again on the surface of the globe?"

"No, certainly not."

"Then I must be mad; for don't I see the light of day, and don't I hear the
wind blowing, and the sea breaking on the shore?"

"Ah! is that all?"

"Do tell me all about it."

"I can't explain the inexplicable, but you will soon see and understand
that geology has not yet learnt all it has to learn."

"Then let us go," I answered quickly.

"No, Axel; the open air might be bad for you."

"Open air?"

"Yes; the wind is rather strong. You must not expose yourself."

"But I assure you I am perfectly well."

"A little patience, my nephew. A relapse might get us into trouble, and we
have no time to lose, for the voyage may be a long one."

"The voyage!"

"Yes, rest to-day, and to-morrow we will set sail."

"Set sail!"—and I almost leaped up.

What did it all mean? Had we a river, a lake, a sea to depend upon?
Was there a ship at our disposal in some underground harbour?

My curiosity was highly excited, my uncle vainly tried to restrain me.
When he saw that my impatience was doing me harm, he yielded.

I dressed in haste. For greater safety I wrapped myself in a blanket, and
came out of the grotto.

CHAPTER XXX.

A NEW MARE INTERNUM

At first I could hardly see anything. My eyes, unaccustomed to the light,
quickly closed. When I was able to reopen them, I stood more stupefied
even than surprised.

"The sea!" I cried.

"Yes," my uncle replied, "the Liedenbrock Sea; and I don't suppose any
other discoverer will ever dispute my claim to name it after myself as its
first discoverer."

A vast sheet of water, the commencement of a lake or an ocean, spread
far away beyond the range of the eye, reminding me forcibly of that open
sea which drew from Xenophon's ten thousand Greeks, after their long
retreat, the simultaneous cry, "Thalatta! thalatta!" the sea! the sea! The
deeply indented shore was lined with a breadth of fine shining sand, softly
lapped by the waves, and strewn with the small shells which had been
inhabited by the first of created beings. The waves broke on this shore with
the hollow echoing murmur peculiar to vast inclosed spaces. A light foam
flew over the waves before the breath of a moderate breeze, and some of the
spray fell upon my face. On this slightly inclining shore, about a hundred
fathoms from the limit of the waves, came down the foot of a huge wall of

vast cliffs, which rose majestically to an enormous height. Some of these,
dividing the beach with their sharp spurs, formed capes and promontories,
worn away by the ceaseless action of the surf. Farther on the eye discerned
their massive outline sharply defined against the hazy distant horizon.

It was quite an ocean, with the irregular shores of earth, but desert and
frightfully wild in appearance.

If my eyes were able to range afar over this great sea, it was because a
peculiar light brought to view every detail of it. It was not the light of the
sun, with his dazzling shafts of brightness and the splendour of his rays; nor
was it the pale and uncertain shimmer of the moonbeams, the dim reflection
of a nobler body of light. No; the illuminating power of this light, its
trembling diffusiveness, its bright, clear whiteness, and its low temperature,
showed that it must be of electric origin. It was like an aurora borealis, a
continuous cosmical phenomenon, filling a cavern of sufficient extent to
contain an ocean.

The vault that spanned the space above, the sky, if it could be called so,
seemed composed of vast plains of cloud, shifting and variable vapours,
which by their condensation must at certain times fall in torrents of rain. I
should have thought that under so powerful a pressure of the atmosphere
there could be no evaporation; and yet, under a law unknown to me, there
were broad tracts of vapour suspended in the air. But then 'the weather was
fine.' The play of the electric light produced singular effects upon the upper
strata of cloud. Deep shadows reposed upon their lower wreaths; and often,
between two separated fields of cloud, there glided down a ray of
unspeakable lustre. But it was not solar light, and there was no heat. The
general effect was sad, supremely melancholy. Instead of the shining
firmament, spangled with its innumerable stars, shining singly or in
clusters, I felt that all these subdued and shaded lights were ribbed in by

vast walls of granite, which seemed to overpower me with their weight, and
that all this space, great as it was, would not be enough for the march of the
humblest of satellites.

Then I remembered the theory of an English captain, who likened the
earth to a vast hollow sphere, in the interior of which the air became
luminous because of the vast pressure that weighed upon it; while two stars,
Pluto and Proserpine, rolled within upon the circuit of their mysterious
orbits.

We were in reality shut up inside an immeasurable excavation. Its width
could not be estimated, since the shore ran widening as far as eye could
reach, nor could its length, for the dim horizon bounded the new. As for its
height, it must have been several leagues. Where this vault rested upon its
granite base no eye could tell; but there was a cloud hanging far above, the
height of which we estimated at 12,000 feet, a greater height than that of
any terrestrial vapour, and no doubt due to the great density of the air.

The word cavern does not convey any idea of this immense space; words
of human tongue are inadequate to describe the discoveries of him who
ventures into the deep abysses of earth.

Besides I could not tell upon what geological theory to account for the
existence of such an excavation. Had the cooling of the globe produced it? I
knew of celebrated caverns from the descriptions of travellers, but had
never heard of any of such dimensions as this.

If the grotto of Guachara, in Colombia, visited by Humboldt, had not
given up the whole of the secret of its depth to the philosopher, who
investigated it to the depth of 2,500 feet, it probably did not extend much
farther. The immense mammoth cave in Kentucky is of gigantic
proportions, since its vaulted roof rises five hundred feet [1] above the level

of an unfathomable lake and travellers have explored its ramifications to the
extent of forty miles. But what were these cavities compared to that in
which I stood with wonder and admiration, with its sky of luminous
vapours, its bursts of electric light, and a vast sea filling its bed? My
imagination fell powerless before such immensity.

I gazed upon these wonders in silence. Words failed me to express my
feelings. I felt as if I was in some distant planet Uranus or Neptune—and in
the presence of phenomena of which my terrestrial experience gave me no
cognisance. For such novel sensations, new words were wanted; and my
imagination failed to supply them. I gazed, I thought, I admired, with a
stupefaction mingled with a certain amount of fear.

The unforeseen nature of this spectacle brought back the colour to my
cheeks. I was under a new course of treatment with the aid of astonishment,
and my convalescence was promoted by this novel system of therapeutics;
besides, the dense and breezy air invigorated me, supplying more oxygen to
my lungs.

It will be easily conceived that after an imprisonment of forty seven days
in a narrow gallery it was the height of physical enjoyment to breathe a
moist air impregnated with saline particles.

[1] One hundred and twenty. (Trans.)

I was delighted to leave my dark grotto. My uncle, already familiar with
these wonders, had ceased to feel surprise.

"You feel strong enough to walk a little way now?" he asked.

"Yes, certainly; and nothing could be more delightful."

"Well, take my arm, Axel, and let us follow the windings of the shore."

I eagerly accepted, and we began to coast along this new sea. On the left
huge pyramids of rock, piled one upon another, produced a prodigious
titanic effect. Down their sides flowed numberless waterfalls, which went
on their way in brawling but pellucid streams. A few light vapours, leaping
from rock to rock, denoted the place of hot springs; and streams flowed
softly down to the common basin, gliding down the gentle slopes with a
softer murmur.

Amongst these streams I recognised our faithful travelling companion,
the Hansbach, coming to lose its little volume quietly in the mighty sea, just
as if it had done nothing else since the beginning of the world.

"We shall see it no more," I said, with a sigh.

"What matters," replied the philosopher, "whether this or another serves
to guide us?"

I thought him rather ungrateful.

But at that moment my attention was drawn to an unexpected sight. At a
distance of five hundred paces, at the turn of a high promontory, appeared a
high, tufted, dense forest. It was composed of trees of moderate height,
formed like umbrellas, with exact geometrical outlines. The currents of
wind seemed to have had no effect upon their shape, and in the midst of the
windy blasts they stood unmoved and firm, just like a clump of petrified
cedars.

I hastened forward. I could not give any name to these singular creations.
Were they some of the two hundred thousand species of vegetables known
hitherto, and did they claim a place of their own in the lacustrine flora? No;
when we arrived under their shade my surprise turned into admiration.

There stood before me productions of earth, but of gigantic stature, which
my uncle immediately named.

"It is only a forest of mushrooms," said he.

And he was right. Imagine the large development attained by these
plants, which prefer a warm, moist climate. I knew that the Lycopodon
giganteum attains, according to Bulliard, a circumference of eight or nine
feet; but here were pale mushrooms, thirty to forty feet high, and crowned
with a cap of equal diameter. There they stood in thousands. No light could
penetrate between their huge cones, and complete darkness reigned beneath
those giants; they formed settlements of domes placed in close array like
the round, thatched roofs of a central African city.

Yet I wanted to penetrate farther underneath, though a chill fell upon me
as soon as I came under those cellular vaults. For half an hour we wandered
from side to side in the damp shades, and it was a comfortable and pleasant
change to arrive once more upon the sea shore.

But the subterranean vegetation was not confined to these fungi. Farther
on rose groups of tall trees of colourless foliage and easy to recognise. They
were lowly shrubs of earth, here attaining gigantic size; lycopodiums, a
hundred feet high; the huge sigillaria, found in our coal mines; tree ferns, as
tall as our fir-trees in northern latitudes; lepidodendra, with cylindrical
forked stems, terminated by long leaves, and bristling with rough hairs like
those of the cactus.

"Wonderful, magnificent, splendid!" cried my uncle. "Here is the entire
flora of the second period of the world—the transition period. These,
humble garden plants with us, were tall trees in the early ages. Look, Axel,
and admire it all. Never had botanist such a feast as this!"

"You are right, my uncle. Providence seems to have preserved in this
immense conservatory the antediluvian plants which the wisdom of
philosophers has so sagaciously put together again."

"It is a conservatory, Axel; but is it not also a menagerie?"

"Surely not a menagerie!"

"Yes; no doubt of it. Look at that dust under your feet; see the bones
scattered on the ground."

"So there are!" I cried; "bones of extinct animals."

I had rushed upon these remains, formed of indestructible phosphates of
lime, and without hesitation I named these monstrous bones, which lay
scattered about like decayed trunks of trees.

"Here is the lower jaw of a mastodon," [1] I said. "These are the molar
teeth of the deinotherium; this femur must have belonged to the greatest of
those beasts, the megatherium. It certainly is a menagerie, for these remains
were not brought here by a deluge. The animals to which they belonged
roamed on the shores of this subterranean sea, under the shade of those
arborescent trees. Here are entire skeletons. And yet I cannot understand the
appearance of these quadrupeds in a granite cavern."

[1] These animals belonged to a late geological period, the Pliocene, just
before the glacial epoch, and therefore could have no connection with the
carboniferous vegetation. (Trans.)

"Why?"

"Because animal life existed upon the earth only in the secondary period,
when a sediment of soil had been deposited by the rivers, and taken the

place of the incandescent rocks of the primitive period."

"Well, Axel, there is a very simple answer to your objection that this soil
is alluvial."

"What! at such a depth below the surface of the earth?"

"No doubt; and there is a geological explanation of the fact. At a certain
period the earth consisted only of an elastic crust or bark, alternately acted
on by forces from above or below, according to the laws of attraction and
gravitation. Probably there were subsidences of the outer crust, when a
portion of the sedimentary deposits was carried down sudden openings."

"That may be," I replied; "but if there have been creatures now extinct in
these underground regions, why may not some of those monsters be now
roaming through these gloomy forests, or hidden behind the steep crags?"

And as this unpleasant notion got hold of me, I surveyed with anxious
scrutiny the open spaces before me; but no living creature appeared upon
the barren strand.

I felt rather tired, and went to sit down at the end of a promontory, at the
foot of which the waves came and beat themselves into spray. Thence my
eye could sweep every part of the bay; within its extremity a little harbour
was formed between the pyramidal cliffs, where the still waters slept
untouched by the boisterous winds. A brig and two or three schooners might
have moored within it in safety. I almost fancied I should presently see
some ship issue from it, full sail, and take to the open sea under the
southern breeze.

But this illusion lasted a very short time. We were the only living
creatures in this subterranean world. When the wind lulled, a deeper silence

than that of the deserts fell upon the arid, naked rocks, and weighed upon
the surface of the ocean. I then desired to pierce the distant haze, and to
rend asunder the mysterious curtain that hung across the horizon. Anxious
queries arose to my lips. Where did that sea terminate? Where did it lead
to? Should we ever know anything about its opposite shores?

My uncle made no doubt about it at all; I both desired and feared.

After spending an hour in the contemplation of this marvellous spectacle,
we returned to the shore to regain the grotto, and I fell asleep in the midst of
the strangest thoughts.

CHAPTER XXXI.

PREPARATIONS FOR A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

The next morning I awoke feeling perfectly well. I thought a bathe would
do me good, and I went to plunge for a few minutes into the waters of this
mediterranean sea, for assuredly it better deserved this name than any other
sea.

I came back to breakfast with a good appetite. Hans was a good caterer
for our little household; he had water and fire at his disposal, so that he was
able to vary our bill of fare now and then. For dessert he gave us a few cups
of coffee, and never was coffee so delicious.

"Now," said my uncle, "now is the time for high tide, and we must not
lose the opportunity to study this phenomenon."

"What! the tide!" I cried. "Can the influence of the sun and moon be felt
down here?"

"Why not? Are not all bodies subject throughout their mass to the power
of universal attraction? This mass of water cannot escape the general law.
And in spite of the heavy atmospheric pressure on the surface, you will see
it rise like the Atlantic itself."

At the same moment we reached the sand on the shore, and the waves
were by slow degrees encroaching on the shore.

"Here is the tide rising," I cried.

"Yes, Axel; and judging by these ridges of foam, you may observe that
the sea will rise about twelve feet."

"This is wonderful," I said.

"No; it is quite natural."

"You may say so, uncle; but to me it is most extraordinary, and I can
hardly believe my eyes. Who would ever have imagined, under this
terrestrial crust, an ocean with ebbing and flowing tides, with winds and
storms?"

"Well," replied my uncle, "is there any scientific reason against it?"

"No; I see none, as soon as the theory of central heat is given up." "So
then, thus far," he answered, "the theory of Sir Humphry Davy is
confirmed."

"Evidently it is; and now there is no reason why there should not be seas
and continents in the interior of the earth."

"No doubt," said my uncle; "and inhabited too."

"To be sure," said I; "and why should not these waters yield to us fishes
of unknown species?"

"At any rate," he replied, "we have not seen any yet."

"Well, let us make some lines, and see if the bait will draw here as it does
in sublunary regions."

"We will try, Axel, for we must penetrate all secrets of these newly
discovered regions."

"But where are we, uncle? for I have not yet asked you that question, and
your instruments must be able to furnish the answer."

"Horizontally, three hundred and fifty leagues from Iceland."

"So much as that?"

"I am sure of not being a mile out of my reckoning."

"And does the compass still show south-east?"

"Yes; with a westerly deviation of nineteen degrees forty-five minutes,
just as above ground. As for its dip, a curious fact is coming to light, which
I have observed carefully: that the needle, instead of dipping towards the
pole as in the northern hemisphere, on the contrary, rises from it."

"Would you then conclude," I said, "that the magnetic pole is somewhere
between the surface of the globe and the point where we are?"

"Exactly so; and it is likely enough that if we were to reach the spot
beneath the polar regions, about that seventy-first degree where Sir James
Ross has discovered the magnetic pole to be situated, we should see the
needle point straight up. Therefore that mysterious centre of attraction is at
no great depth."

I remarked: "It is so; and here is a fact which science has scarcely
suspected."

"Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors
which it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth."

"What depth have we now reached?"

"We are thirty-five leagues below the surface."

"So," I said, examining the map, "the Highlands of Scotland are over our
heads, and the Grampians are raising their rugged summits above us."

"Yes," answered the Professor laughing. "It is rather a heavy weight to
bear, but a solid arch spans over our heads. The great Architect has built it
of the best materials; and never could man have given it so wide a stretch.
What are the finest arches of bridges and the arcades of cathedrals,
compared with this far reaching vault, with a radius of three leagues,
beneath which a wide and tempest-tossed ocean may flow at its ease?"

"Oh, I am not afraid that it will fall down upon my head. But now what
are your plans? Are you not thinking of returning to the surface now?"

"Return! no, indeed! We will continue our journey, everything having
gone on well so far."

"But how are we to get down below this liquid surface?"

"Oh, I am not going to dive head foremost. But if all oceans are properly
speaking but lakes, since they are encompassed by land, of course this
internal sea will be surrounded by a coast of granite, and on the opposite
shores we shall find fresh passages opening."

"How long do you suppose this sea to be?"

"Thirty or forty leagues; so that we have no time to lose, and we shall set
sail to-morrow."

I looked about for a ship.

"Set sail, shall we? But I should like to see my boat first."

"It will not be a boat at all, but a good, well-made raft."

"Why," I said, "a raft would be just as hard to make as a boat, and I don't
see—"

"I know you don't see; but you might hear if you would listen. Don't you
hear the hammer at work? Hans is already busy at it."

"What, has he already felled the trees?"

"Oh, the trees were already down. Come, and you will see for yourself."

After half an hour's walking, on the other side of the promontory which
formed the little natural harbour, I perceived Hans at work. In a few more
steps I was at his side. To my great surprise a half-finished raft was already
lying on the sand, made of a peculiar kind of wood, and a great number of
planks, straight and bent, and of frames, were covering the ground, enough
almost for a little fleet.

"Uncle, what wood is this?" I cried.

"It is fir, pine, or birch, and other northern coniferae, mineralised by the
action of the sea. It is called surturbrand, a variety of brown coal or lignite,
found chiefly in Iceland."

"But surely, then, like other fossil wood, it must be as hard as stone, and
cannot float?"

"Sometimes that may happen; some of these woods become true
anthracites; but others, such as this, have only gone through the first stage
of fossil transformation. Just look," added my uncle, throwing into the sea
one of those precious waifs.

The bit of wood, after disappearing, returned to the surface and oscillated
to and fro with the waves.

"Are you convinced?" said my uncle.

"I am quite convinced, although it is incredible!"

By next evening, thanks to the industry and skill of our guide, the raft
was made. It was ten feet by five; the planks of surturbrand, braced strongly
together with cords, presented an even surface, and when launched this
improvised vessel floated easily upon the waves of the Liedenbrock Sea.

CHAPTER XXXII.

WONDERS OF THE DEEP

On the 13th of August we awoke early. We were now to begin to adopt a
mode of travelling both more expeditious and less fatiguing than hitherto.

A mast was made of two poles spliced together, a yard was made of a
third, a blanket borrowed from our coverings made a tolerable sail. There
was no want of cordage for the rigging, and everything was well and firmly
made.

The provisions, the baggage, the instruments, the guns, and a good
quantity of fresh water from the rocks around, all found their proper places
on board; and at six the Professor gave the signal to embark. Hans had fitted
up a rudder to steer his vessel. He took the tiller, and unmoored; the sail
was set, and we were soon afloat. At the moment of leaving the harbour, my
uncle, who was tenaciously fond of naming his new discoveries, wanted to
give it a name, and proposed mine amongst others.

"But I have a better to propose," I said: "Gräuben. Let it be called
Port Gräuben; it will look very well upon the map."

"Port Gräuben let it be then."

And so the cherished remembrance of my Virlandaise became associated
with our adventurous expedition.

The wind was from the north-west. We went with it at a high rate of
speed. The dense atmosphere acted with great force and impelled us swiftly
on.

In an hour my uncle had been able to estimate our progress. At this rate,
he said, we shall make thirty leagues in twenty-four hours, and we shall
soon come in sight of the opposite shore.

I made no answer, but went and sat forward. The northern shore was
already beginning to dip under the horizon. The eastern and western strands
spread wide as if to bid us farewell. Before our eyes lay far and wide a vast
sea; shadows of great clouds swept heavily over its silver-grey surface; the
glistening bluish rays of electric light, here and there reflected by the
dancing drops of spray, shot out little sheaves of light from the track we left
in our rear. Soon we entirely lost sight of land; no object was left for the eye
to judge by, and but for the frothy track of the raft, I might have thought we
were standing still.

About twelve, immense shoals of seaweeds came in sight. I was aware of
the great powers of vegetation that characterise these plants, which grow at
a depth of twelve thousand feet, reproduce themselves under a pressure of
four hundred atmospheres, and sometimes form barriers strong enough to
impede the course of a ship. But never, I think, were such seaweeds as those
which we saw floating in immense waving lines upon the sea of
Liedenbrock.

Our raft skirted the whole length of the fuci, three or four thousand feet
long, undulating like vast serpents beyond the reach of sight; I found some

amusement in tracing these endless waves, always thinking I should come
to the end of them, and for hours my patience was vying with my surprise.

What natural force could have produced such plants, and what must have
been the appearance of the earth in the first ages of its formation, when,
under the action of heat and moisture, the vegetable kingdom alone was
developing on its surface?

Evening came, and, as on the previous day, I perceived no change in the
luminous condition of the air. It was a constant condition, the permanency
of which might be relied upon.

After supper I laid myself down at the foot of the mast, and fell asleep in
the midst of fantastic reveries.

Hans, keeping fast by the helm, let the raft run on, which, after all,
needed no steering, the wind blowing directly aft.

Since our departure from Port Gräuben, Professor Liedenbrock had
entrusted the log to my care; I was to register every observation, make
entries of interesting phenomena, the direction of the wind, the rate of
sailing, the way we made—in a word, every particular of our singular
voyage.

I shall therefore reproduce here these daily notes, written, so to speak, as
the course of events directed, in order to furnish an exact narrative of our
passage.

Friday, August 14.—Wind steady, N.W. The raft makes rapid way in a
direct line. Coast thirty leagues to leeward. Nothing in sight before us.
Intensity of light the same. Weather fine; that is to say, that the clouds are

flying high, are light, and bathed in a white atmosphere resembling silver in
a state of fusion. Therm. 89° Fahr.

At noon Hans prepared a hook at the end of a line. He baited it with a
small piece of meat and flung it into the sea. For two hours nothing was
caught. Are these waters, then, bare of inhabitants? No, there's a pull at the
line. Hans draws it in and brings out a struggling fish.

"A sturgeon," I cried; "a small sturgeon."

The Professor eyes the creature attentively, and his opinion differs from
mine.

The head of this fish was flat, but rounded in front, and the anterior part
of its body was plated with bony, angular scales; it had no teeth, its pectoral
fins were large, and of tail there was none. The animal belonged to the same
order as the sturgeon, but differed from that fish in many essential
particulars. After a short examination my uncle pronounced his opinion.

"This fish belongs to an extinct family, of which only fossil traces are
found in the devonian formations."

"What!" I cried. "Have we taken alive an inhabitant of the seas of
primitive ages?"

"Yes; and you will observe that these fossil fishes have no identity with
any living species. To have in one's possession a living specimen is a happy
event for a naturalist."

"But to what family does it belong?"

"It is of the order of ganoids, of the family of the cephalaspidae; and a
species of pterichthys. But this one displays a peculiarity confined to all

fishes that inhabit subterranean waters. It is blind, and not only blind, but
actually has no eyes at all."

I looked: nothing could be more certain. But supposing it might be a
solitary case, we baited afresh, and threw out our line. Surely this ocean is
well peopled with fish, for in another couple of hours we took a large
quantity of pterichthydes, as well as of others belonging to the extinct
family of the dipterides, but of which my uncle could not tell the species;
none had organs of sight. This unhoped-for catch recruited our stock of
provisions.

Thus it is evident that this sea contains none but species known to us in
their fossil state, in which fishes as well as reptiles are the less perfectly and
completely organised the farther back their date of creation.

Perhaps we may yet meet with some of those saurians which science has
reconstructed out of a bit of bone or cartilage. I took up the telescope and
scanned the whole horizon, and found it everywhere a desert sea. We are far
away removed from the shores.

I gaze upward in the air. Why should not some of the strange birds
restored by the immortal Cuvier again flap their 'sail-broad vans' in this
dense and heavy atmosphere? There are sufficient fish for their support. I
survey the whole space that stretches overhead; it is as desert as the shore
was.

Still my imagination carried me away amongst the wonderful
speculations of palæontology. Though awake I fell into a dream. I thought I
could see floating on the surface of the waters enormous chelonia, pre-
adamite tortoises, resembling floating islands. Over the dimly lighted strand
there trod the huge mammals of the first ages of the world, the leptotherium
(slender beast), found in the caverns of Brazil; the merycotherium

(ruminating beast), found in the 'drift' of iceclad Siberia. Farther on, the
pachydermatous lophiodon (crested toothed), a gigantic tapir, hides behind
the rocks to dispute its prey with the anoplotherium (unarmed beast), a
strange creature, which seemed a compound of horse, rhinoceros, camel,
and hippopotamus. The colossal mastodon (nipple-toothed) twists and
untwists his trunk, and brays and pounds with his huge tusks the fragments
of rock that cover the shore; whilst the megatherium (huge beast),
buttressed upon his enormous hinder paws, grubs in the soil, awaking the
sonorous echoes of the granite rocks with his tremendous roarings. Higher
up, the protopitheca—the first monkey that appeared on the globe—is
climbing up the steep ascents. Higher yet, the pterodactyle (wing-fingered)
darts in irregular zigzags to and fro in the heavy air. In the uppermost
regions of the air immense birds, more powerful than the cassowary, and
larger than the ostrich, spread their vast breadth of wings and strike with
their heads the granite vault that bounds the sky.

All this fossil world rises to life again in my vivid imagination. I return to
the scriptural periods or ages of the world, conventionally called 'days,' long
before the appearance of man, when the unfinished world was as yet
unfitted for his support. Then my dream backed even farther still into the
ages before the creation of living beings. The mammals disappear, then the
birds vanish, then the reptiles of the secondary period, and finally the fish,
the crustaceans, molluscs, and articulated beings. Then the zoophytes of the
transition period also return to nothing. I am the only living thing in the
world: all life is concentrated in my beating heart alone. There are no more
seasons; climates are no more; the heat of the globe continually increases
and neutralises that of the sun. Vegetation becomes accelerated. I glide like
a shade amongst arborescent ferns, treading with unsteady feet the coloured
marls and the particoloured clays; I lean for support against the trunks of
immense conifers; I lie in the shade of sphenophylla (wedge-leaved),
asterophylla (star-leaved), and lycopods, a hundred feet high.

Ages seem no more than days! I am passed, against my will, in
retrograde order, through the long series of terrestrial changes. Plants
disappear; granite rocks soften; intense heat converts solid bodies into thick
fluids; the waters again cover the face of the earth; they boil, they rise in
whirling eddies of steam; white and ghastly mists wrap round the shifting
forms of the earth, which by imperceptible degrees dissolves into a gaseous
mass, glowing fiery red and white, as large and as shining as the sun.

And I myself am floating with wild caprice in the midst of this nebulous
mass of fourteen hundred thousand times the volume of the earth into which
it will one day be condensed, and carried forward amongst the planetary
bodies. My body is no longer firm and terrestrial; it is resolved into its
constituent atoms, subtilised, volatilised. Sublimed into imponderable
vapour, I mingle and am lost in the endless floods of those vast globular
volumes of vaporous mists, which roll upon their flaming orbits through
infinite space.

But is it not a dream? Whither is it carrying me? My feverish hand has
vainly attempted to describe upon paper its strange and wonderful details. I
have forgotten everything that surrounds me. The Professor, the guide, the
raft—are all gone out of my ken. An illusion has laid hold upon me.

"What is the matter?" my uncle breaks in.

My staring eyes are fixed vacantly upon him.

"Take care, Axel, or you will fall overboard."

At that moment I felt the sinewy hand of Hans seizing me vigorously.
But for him, carried away by my dream, I should have thrown myself into
the sea.

"Is he mad?" cried the Professor.

"What is it all about?" at last I cried, returning to myself.

"Do you feel ill?" my uncle asked.

"No; but I have had a strange hallucination; it is over now. Is all going on
right?"

"Yes, it is a fair wind and a fine sea; we are sailing rapidly along, and if I
am not out in my reckoning, we shall soon land."

At these words I rose and gazed round upon the horizon, still everywhere
bounded by clouds alone.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A BATTLE OF MONSTERS

Saturday, August 15.—The sea unbroken all round. No land in sight. The
horizon seems extremely distant.

My head is still stupefied with the vivid reality of my dream.

My uncle has had no dreams, but he is out of temper. He examines the
horizon all round with his glass, and folds his arms with the air of an
injured man.

I remark that Professor Liedenbrock has a tendency to relapse into an
impatient mood, and I make a note of it in my log. All my danger and
sufferings were needed to strike a spark of human feeling out of him; but
now that I am well his nature has resumed its sway. And yet, what cause
was there for anger? Is not the voyage prospering as favourably as possible
under the circumstances? Is not the raft spinning along with marvellous
speed?

"-You seem anxious, my uncle," I said, seeing him continually with his
glass to his eye.

"Anxious! No, not at all."

"Impatient, then?"

"One might be, with less reason than now."

"Yet we are going very fast."

"What does that signify? I am not complaining that the rate is slow, but
that the sea is so wide."

I then remembered that the Professor, before starting, had estimated the
length of this underground sea at thirty leagues. Now we had made three
times the distance, yet still the southern coast was not in sight.

"We are not descending as we ought to be," the Professor declares. "We
are losing time, and the fact is, I have not come all this way to take a little
sail upon a pond on a raft."

He called this sea a pond, and our long voyage, taking a little sail!

"But," I remarked, "since we have followed the road that Saknussemm
has shown us—"

"That is just the question. Have we followed that road? Did Saknussemm
meet this sheet of water? Did he cross it? Has not the stream that we
followed led us altogether astray?"

"At any rate we cannot feel sorry to have come so far. This prospect is
magnificent, and—"

"But I don't care for prospects. I came with an object, and I mean to
attain it. Therefore don't talk to me about views and prospects."

I take this as my answer, and I leave the Professor to bite his lips with
impatience. At six in the evening Hans asks for his wages, and his three rix

dollars are counted out to him.

Sunday, August 16. —Nothing new. Weather unchanged. The wind
freshens. On awaking, my first thought was to observe the intensity of the
light. I was possessed with an apprehension lest the electric light should
grow dim, or fail altogether. But there seemed no reason to fear. The
shadow of the raft was clearly outlined upon the surface of the waves.

Truly this sea is of infinite width. It must be as wide as the
Mediterranean or the Atlantic—and why not?

My uncle took soundings several times. He tied the heaviest of our
pickaxes to a long rope which he let down two hundred fathoms. No bottom
yet; and we had some difficulty in hauling up our plummet.

But when the pick was shipped again, Hans pointed out on its surface
deep prints as if it had been violently compressed between two hard bodies.

I looked at the hunter.

"Tänder," said he.

I could not understand him, and turned to my uncle who was entirely
absorbed in his calculations. I had rather not disturb him while he is quiet. I
return to the Icelander. He by a snapping motion of his jaws conveys his
ideas to me.

"Teeth!" I cried, considering the iron bar with more attention.

Yes, indeed, those are the marks of teeth imprinted upon the metal! The
jaws which they arm must be possessed of amazing strength. Is there some
monster beneath us belonging to the extinct races, more voracious than the

shark, more fearful in vastness than the whale? I could not take my eyes off
this indented iron bar. Surely will my last night's dream be realised?

These thoughts agitated me all day, and my imagination scarcely calmed
down after several hours' sleep.

Monday, August 17.— I am trying to recall the peculiar instincts of the
monsters of the pre-adamite world, who, coming next in succession after
the molluscs, the crustaceans and the fishes, preceded the animals of
mammalian race upon the earth. The world then belonged to reptiles. Those
monsters held the mastery in the seas of the secondary period. They
possessed a perfect organisation, gigantic proportions, prodigious strength.
The saurians of our day, the alligators and the crocodiles, are but feeble
reproductions of their forefathers of primitive ages.

I shudder as I recall these monsters to my remembrance. No human eye
has ever beheld them living. They burdened this earth a thousand ages
before man appeared, but their fossil remains, found in the argillaceous
limestone called by the English the lias, have enabled their colossal
structure to be perfectly built up again and anatomically ascertained.

I saw at the Hamburg museum the skeleton of one of these creatures
thirty feet in length. Am I then fated—I, a denizen of earth—to be placed
face to face with these representatives of long extinct families? No; surely it
cannot be! Yet the deep marks of conical teeth upon the iron pick are
certainly those of the crocodile.

My eyes are fearfully bent upon the sea. I dread to see one of these
monsters darting forth from its submarine caverns. I suppose Professor
Liedenbrock was of my opinion too, and even shared my fears, for after
having examined the pick, his eyes traversed the ocean from side to side.
What a very bad notion that was of his, I thought to myself, to take

soundings just here! He has disturbed some monstrous beast in its remote
den, and if we are not attacked on our voyage—

I look at our guns and see that they are all right. My uncle notices it, and
looks on approvingly.

Already widely disturbed regions on the surface of the water indicate
some commotion below. The danger is approaching. We must be on the
look out.

Tuesday, August 18. —Evening came, or rather the time came when sleep
weighs down the weary eyelids, for there is no night here, and the ceaseless
light wearies the eyes with its persistency just as if we were sailing under an
arctic sun. Hans was at the helm. During his watch I slept.

Two hours afterwards a terrible shock awoke me. The raft was heaved up
on a watery mountain and pitched down again, at a distance of twenty
fathoms.

"What is the matter?" shouted my uncle. "Have we struck land?"

Hans pointed with his finger at a dark mass six hundred yards away,
rising and falling alternately with heavy plunges. I looked and cried:

"It is an enormous porpoise."

"Yes," replied my uncle, "and there is a sea lizard of vast size."

"And farther on a monstrous crocodile. Look at its vast jaws and its rows
of teeth! It is diving down!"

"There's a whale, a whale!" cried the Professor. "I can see its great fins.
See how he is throwing out air and water through his blowers."

And in fact two liquid columns were rising to a considerable height
above the sea. We stood amazed, thunderstruck, at the presence of such a
herd of marine monsters. They were of supernatural dimensions; the
smallest of them would have crunched our raft, crew and all, at one snap of
its huge jaws.

Hans wants to tack to get away from this dangerous neighbourhood; but
he sees on the other hand enemies not less terrible; a tortoise forty feet long,
and a serpent of thirty, lifting its fearful head and gleaming eyes above the
flood.

Flight was out of the question now. The reptiles rose; they wheeled
around our little raft with a rapidity greater than that of express trains. They
described around us gradually narrowing circles. I took up my rifle. But
what could a ball do against the scaly armour with which these enormous
beasts were clad?

We stood dumb with fear. They approach us close: on one side the
crocodile, on the other the serpent. The remainder of the sea monsters have
disappeared. I prepare to fire. Hans stops me by a gesture. The two
monsters pass within a hundred and fifty yards of the raft, and hurl
themselves the one upon the other, with a fury which prevents them from
seeing us.

At three hundred yards from us the battle was fought. We could distinctly
observe the two monsters engaged in deadly conflict. But it now seems to
me as if the other animals were taking part in the fray—the porpoise, the
whale, the lizard, the tortoise. Every moment I seem to see one or other of
them. I point them to the Icelander. He shakes his head negatively.

"Tva," says he.

"What two? Does he mean that there are only two animals?"

"He is right," said my uncle, whose glass has never left his eye.

"Surely you must be mistaken," I cried.

"No: the first of those monsters has a porpoise's snout, a lizard's head, a
crocodile's teeth; and hence our mistake. It is the ichthyosaurus (the fish
lizard), the most terrible of the ancient monsters of the deep."

"And the other?"

"The other is a plesiosaurus (almost lizard), a serpent, armoured with the
carapace and the paddles of a turtle; he is the dreadful enemy of the other."

Hans had spoken truly. Two monsters only were creating all this
commotion; and before my eyes are two reptiles of the primitive world. I
can distinguish the eye of the ichthyosaurus glowing like a red-hot coal, and
as large as a man's head. Nature has endowed it with an optical apparatus of
extreme power, and capable of resisting the pressure of the great volume of
water in the depths it inhabits. It has been appropriately called the saurian
whale, for it has both the swiftness and the rapid movements of this monster
of our own day. This one is not less than a hundred feet long, and I can
judge of its size when it sweeps over the waters the vertical coils of its tail.
Its jaw is enormous, and according to naturalists it is armed with no less
than one hundred and eighty-two teeth.

The plesiosaurus, a serpent with a cylindrical body and a short tail, has
four flappers or paddles to act like oars. Its body is entirely covered with a
thick armour of scales, and its neck, as flexible as a swan's, rises thirty feet
above the waves.

Those huge creatures attacked each other with the greatest animosity.
They heaved around them liquid mountains, which rolled even to our raft
and rocked it perilously. Twenty times we were near capsizing. Hissings of
prodigious force are heard. The two beasts are fast locked together; I cannot
distinguish the one from the other. The probable rage of the conqueror
inspires us with intense fear.

One hour, two hours, pass away. The struggle continues with unabated
ferocity. The combatants alternately approach and recede from our raft. We
remain motionless, ready to fire. Suddenly the ichthyosaurus and the
plesiosaurus disappear below, leaving a whirlpool eddying in the water.
Several minutes pass by while the fight goes on under water.

All at once an enormous head is darted up, the head of the plesiosaurus.
The monster is wounded to death. I no longer see his scaly armour. Only his
long neck shoots up, drops again, coils and uncoils, droops, lashes the
waters like a gigantic whip, and writhes like a worm that you tread on. The
water is splashed for a long way around. The spray almost blinds us. But
soon the reptile's agony draws to an end; its movements become fainter, its
contortions cease to be so violent, and the long serpentine form lies a
lifeless log on the labouring deep.

As for the ichthyosaurus—has he returned to his submarine cavern? or
will he reappear on the surface of the sea?

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE GREAT GEYSER

Wednesday, August 19.—Fortunately the wind blows violently, and has
enabled us to flee from the scene of the late terrible struggle. Hans keeps at
his post at the helm. My uncle, whom the absorbing incidents of the combat
had drawn away from his contemplations, began again to look impatiently
around him.

The voyage resumes its uniform tenor, which I don't care to break with a
repetition of such events as yesterday's.

Thursday, Aug. 20.—Wind N.N.E., unsteady and fitful. Temperature
high. Rate three and a half leagues an hour.

About noon a distant noise is heard. I note the fact without being able to
explain it. It is a continuous roar.

"In the distance," says the Professor, "there is a rock or islet, against
which the sea is breaking."

Hans climbs up the mast, but sees no breakers. The ocean' is smooth and
unbroken to its farthest limit.

Three hours pass away. The roarings seem to proceed from a very distant
waterfall.

I remark upon this to my uncle, who replies doubtfully: "Yes, I am
convinced that I am right." Are we, then, speeding forward to some cataract
which will cast us down an abyss? This method of getting on may please
the Professor, because it is vertical; but for my part I prefer the more
ordinary modes of horizontal progression.

At any rate, some leagues to the windward there must be some noisy
phenomenon, for now the roarings are heard with increasing loudness. Do
they proceed from the sky or the ocean?

I look up to the atmospheric vapours, and try to fathom their depths. The
sky is calm and motionless. The clouds have reached the utmost limit of the
lofty vault, and there lie still bathed in the bright glare of the electric light.
It is not there that we must seek for the cause of this phenomenon. Then I
examine the horizon, which is unbroken and clear of all mist. There is no
change in its aspect. But if this noise arises from a fall, a cataract, if all this
ocean flows away headlong into a lower basin yet, if that deafening roar is
produced by a mass of falling water, the current must needs accelerate, and
its increasing speed will give me the measure of the peril that threatens us. I
consult the current: there is none. I throw an empty bottle into the sea: it lies
still.

About four Hans rises, lays hold of the mast, climbs to its top. Thence his
eye sweeps a large area of sea, and it is fixed upon a point. His countenance
exhibits no surprise, but his eye is immovably steady.

"He sees something," says my uncle.

"I believe he does."

Hans comes down, then stretches his arm to the south, saying:

"Dere nere!"

"Down there?" repeated my uncle.

Then, seizing his glass, he gazes attentively for a minute, which seems to
me an age.

"Yes, yes!" he cried. "I see a vast inverted cone rising from the surface."

"Is it another sea beast?"

"Perhaps it is."

"Then let us steer farther westward, for we know something of the danger
of coming across monsters of that sort."

"Let us go straight on," replied my uncle.

I appealed to Hans. He maintained his course inflexibly.

Yet, if at our present distance from the animal, a distance of twelve
leagues at the least, the column of water driven through its blowers may be
distinctly seen, it must needs be of vast size. The commonest prudence
would counsel immediate flight; but we did not come so far to be prudent.

Imprudently, therefore, we pursue our way. The nearer we approach, the
higher mounts the jet of water. What monster can possibly fill itself with
such a quantity of water, and spurt it up so continuously?

At eight in the evening we are not two leagues distant from it. Its body—
dusky, enormous, hillocky—lies spread upon the sea like an islet. Is it
illusion or fear? Its length seems to me a couple of thousand yards. What

can be this cetacean, which neither Cuvier nor Blumenbach knew anything
about? It lies motionless, as if asleep; the sea seems unable to move it in the
least; it is the waves that undulate upon its sides. The column of water
thrown up to a height of five hundred feet falls in rain with a deafening
uproar. And here are we scudding like lunatics before the wind, to get near
to a monster that a hundred whales a day would not satisfy!

Terror seizes upon me. I refuse to go further. I will cut the halliards if
necessary! I am in open mutiny against the Professor, who vouchsafes no
answer.

Suddenly Hans rises, and pointing with his finger at the menacing object,
he says:

"Holm."

"An island!" cries my uncle.

"That's not an island!" I cried sceptically.

"It's nothing else," shouted the Professor, with a loud laugh.

"But that column of water?"

"Geyser," said Hans.

"No doubt it is a geyser, like those in Iceland."

At first I protest against being so widely mistaken as to have taken an
island for a marine monster. But the evidence is against me, and I have to
confess my error. It is nothing worse than a natural phenomenon.

As we approach nearer the dimensions of the liquid column become
magnificent. The islet resembles, with a most deceiving likeness, an

enormous cetacean, whose head dominates the waves at a height of twenty
yards. The geyser, a word meaning 'fury,' rises majestically from its
extremity. Deep and heavy explosions are heard from time to time, when
the enormous jet, possessed with more furious violence, shakes its plumy
crest, and springs with a bound till it reaches the lowest stratum of the
clouds. It stands alone. No steam vents, no hot springs surround it, and all
the volcanic power of the region is concentrated here. Sparks of electric fire
mingle with the dazzling sheaf of lighted fluid, every drop of which refracts
the prismatic colours.

"Let us land," said the Professor.

"But we must carefully avoid this waterspout, which would sink our raft
in a moment."

Hans, steering with his usual skill, brought us to the other extremity of
the islet.

I leaped up on the rock; my uncle lightly followed, while our hunter
remained at his post, like a man too wise ever to be astonished.

We walked upon granite mingled with siliceous tufa. The soil shivers and
shakes under our feet, like the sides of an overheated boiler filled with
steam struggling to get loose. We come in sight of a small central basin, out
of which the geyser springs. I plunge a register thermometer into the boiling
water. It marks an intense heat of 325°, which is far above the boiling point;
therefore this water issues from an ardent furnace, which is not at all in
harmony with Professor Liedenbrock's theories. I cannot help making the
remark.

"Well," he replied, "how does that make against my doctrine?"

"Oh, nothing at all," I said, seeing that I was going in opposition to
immovable obstinacy.

Still I am constrained to confess that hitherto we have been wonderfully
favoured, and that for some reason unknown to myself we have
accomplished our journey under singularly favourable conditions of
temperature. But it seems manifest to me that some day we shall reach a
region where the central heat attains its highest limits, and goes beyond a
point that can be registered by our thermometers.

"That is what we shall see." So says the Professor, who, having named
this volcanic islet after his nephew, gives the signal to embark again.

For some minutes I am still contemplating the geyser. I notice that it
throws up its column of water with variable force: sometimes sending it to a
great height, then again to a lower, which I attribute to the variable pressure
of the steam accumulated in its reservoir.

At last we leave the island, rounding away past the low rocks on its
southern shore. Hans has taken advantage of the halt to refit his rudder.

But before going any farther I make a few observations, to calculate the
distance we have gone over, and note them in my journal. We have crossed
two hundred and seventy leagues of sea since leaving Port Gräuben; and we
are six hundred and twenty leagues from Iceland, under England. [1]

[1] This distance carries the travellers as far as under the Pyrenees if the
league measures three miles. (Trans.)

CHAPTER XXXV.

AN ELECTRIC STORM

Friday, August 21.—On the morrow the magnificent geyser has
disappeared. The wind has risen, and has rapidly carried us away from Axel
Island. The roarings become lost in the distance.

The weather—if we may use that term—will change before long. The
atmosphere is charged with vapours, pervaded with the electricity generated
by the evaporation of saline waters. The clouds are sinking lower, and
assume an olive hue. The electric light can scarcely penetrate through the
dense curtain which has dropped over the theatre on which the battle of the
elements is about to be waged.

I feel peculiar sensations, like many creatures on earth at the approach of
violent atmospheric changes. The heavily voluted cumulus clouds lower
gloomily and threateningly; they wear that implacable look which I have
sometimes noticed at the outbreak of a great storm. The air is heavy; the sea
is calm.

In the distance the clouds resemble great bales of cotton, piled up in
picturesque disorder. By degrees they dilate, and gain in huge size what
they lose in number. Such is their ponderous weight that they cannot rise
from the horizon; but, obeying an impulse from higher currents, their dense

consistency slowly yields. The gloom upon them deepens; and they soon
present to our view a ponderous mass of almost level surface. From time to
time a fleecy tuft of mist, with yet some gleaming light left upon it, drops
down upon the dense floor of grey, and loses itself in the opaque and
impenetrable mass.

The atmosphere is evidently charged and surcharged with electricity. My
whole body is saturated; my hair bristles just as when you stand upon an
insulated stool under the action of an electrical machine. It seems to me as
if my companions, the moment they touched me, would receive a severe
shock like that from an electric eel.

At ten in the morning the symptoms of storm become aggravated. The
wind never lulls but to acquire increased strength; the vast bank of heavy
clouds is a huge reservoir of fearful windy gusts and rushing storms.

I am loth to believe these atmospheric menaces, and yet I cannot help
muttering:

"Here's some very bad weather coming on."

The Professor made no answer. His temper is awful, to judge from the
working of his features, as he sees this vast length of ocean unrolling before
him to an indefinite extent. He can only spare time to shrug his shoulders
viciously.

"There's a heavy storm coming on," I cried, pointing towards the horizon.
"Those clouds seem as if they were going to crush the sea."

A deep silence falls on all around. The lately roaring winds are hushed
into a dead calm; nature seems to breathe no more, and to be sinking into
the stillness of death. On the mast already I see the light play of a lambent

St. Elmo's fire; the outstretched sail catches not a breath of wind, and hangs
like a sheet of lead. The rudder stands motionless in a sluggish, waveless
sea. But if we have now ceased to advance why do we yet leave that sail
loose, which at the first shock of the tempest may capsize us in a moment?

"Let us reef the sail and cut the mast down!" I cried. "That will be
safest."

"No, no! Never!" shouted my impetuous uncle. "Never! Let the wind
catch us if it will! What I want is to get the least glimpse of rock or shore,
even if our raft should be smashed into shivers!"

The words were hardly out of his mouth when a sudden change took
place in the southern sky. The piled-up vapours condense into water; and
the air, put into violent action to supply the vacuum left by the condensation
of the mists, rouses itself into a whirlwind. It rushes on from the farthest
recesses of the vast cavern. The darkness deepens; scarcely can I jot down a
few hurried notes. The helm makes a bound. My uncle falls full length; I
creep close to him. He has laid a firm hold upon a rope, and appears to
watch with grim satisfaction this awful display of elemental strife.

Hans stirs not. His long hair blown by the pelting storm, and laid flat
across his immovable countenance, makes him a strange figure; for the end
of each lock of loose flowing hair is tipped with little luminous radiations.
This frightful mask of electric sparks suggests to me, even in this dizzy
excitement, a comparison with pre-adamite man, the contemporary of the
ichthyosaurus and the megatherium. [1]

[1] Rather of the mammoth and the mastodon. (Trans.)

The mast yet holds firm. The sail stretches tight like a bubble ready to
burst. The raft flies at a rate that I cannot reckon, but not so fast as the

foaming clouds of spray which it dashes from side to side in its headlong
speed.

"The sail! the sail!" I cry, motioning to lower it.

"No!" replies my uncle.

"Nej!" repeats Hans, leisurely shaking his head.

But now the rain forms a rushing cataract in front of that horizon toward
which we are running with such maddening speed. But before it has reached
us the rain cloud parts asunder, the sea boils, and the electric fires are
brought into violent action by a mighty chemical power that descends from
the higher regions. The most vivid flashes of lightning are mingled with the
violent crash of continuous thunder. Ceaseless fiery arrows dart in and out
amongst the flying thunder-clouds; the vaporous mass soon glows with
incandescent heat; hailstones rattle fiercely down, and as they dash upon
our iron tools they too emit gleams and flashes of lurid light. The heaving
waves resemble fiery volcanic hills, each belching forth its own interior
flames, and every crest is plumed with dancing fire. My eyes fail under the
dazzling light, my ears are stunned with the incessant crash of thunder. I
must be bound to the mast, which bows like a reed before the mighty
strength of the storm.

(Here my notes become vague and indistinct. I have only been able to
find a few which I seem to have jotted down almost unconsciously. But
their very brevity and their obscurity reveal the intensity of the excitement
which dominated me, and describe the actual position even better than my
memory could do.)

Sunday, 23.—Where are we? Driven forward with a swiftness that cannot
be measured.

The night was fearful; no abatement of the storm. The din and uproar are
incessant; our ears are bleeding; to exchange a word is impossible.

The lightning flashes with intense brilliancy, and never seems to cease
for a moment. Zigzag streams of bluish white fire dash down upon the sea
and rebound, and then take an upward flight till they strike the granite vault
that overarches our heads. Suppose that solid roof should crumble down
upon our heads! Other flashes with incessant play cross their vivid fires,
while others again roll themselves into balls of living fire which explode
like bombshells, but the music of which scarcely adds to the din of the
battle strife that almost deprives us of our senses of hearing and sight; the
limit of intense loudness has been passed within which the human ear can
distinguish one sound from another. If all the powder magazines in the
world were to explode at once, we should hear no more than we do now.

From the under surface of the clouds there are continual emissions of
lurid light; electric matter is in continual evolution from their component
molecules; the gaseous elements of the air need to be slaked with moisture;
for innumerable columns of water rush upwards into the air and fall back
again in white foam.

Whither are we flying? My uncle lies full length across the raft.

The heat increases. I refer to the thermometer; it indicates . . . (the figure
is obliterated).

Monday, August 24.—Will there be an end to it? Is the atmospheric
condition, having once reached this density, to become final?

We are prostrated and worn out with fatigue. But Hans is as usual. The
raft bears on still to the south-east. We have made two hundred leagues
since we left Axel Island.

At noon the violence of the storm redoubles. We are obliged to secure as
fast as possible every article that belongs to our cargo. Each of us is lashed
to some part of the raft. The waves rise above our heads.

For three days we have never been able to make each other hear a word.
Our mouths open, our lips move, but not a word can be heard. We cannot
even make ourselves heard by approaching our mouth close to the ear.

My uncle has drawn nearer to me. He has uttered a few words. They
seem to be 'We are lost'; but I am not sure.

At last I write down the words: "Let us lower the sail."

He nods his consent.

Scarcely has he lifted his head again before a ball of fire has bounded
over the waves and lighted on board our raft. Mast and sail flew up in an
instant together, and I saw them carried up to prodigious height, resembling
in appearance a pterodactyle, one of those strong birds of the infant world.

We lay there, our blood running cold with unspeakable terror. The
fireball, half of it white, half azure blue, and the size of a ten-inch shell,
moved slowly about the raft, but revolving on its own axis with astonishing
velocity, as if whipped round by the force of the whirlwind. Here it comes,
there it glides, now it is up the ragged stump of the mast, thence it lightly
leaps on the provision bag, descends with a light bound, and just skims the
powder magazine. Horrible! we shall be blown up; but no, the dazzling disk
of mysterious light nimbly leaps aside; it approaches Hans, who fixes his
blue eye upon it steadily; it threatens the head of my uncle, who falls upon
his knees with his head down to avoid it. And now my turn comes; pale and
trembling under the blinding splendour and the melting heat, it drops at my

feet, spinning silently round upon the deck; I try to move my foot away, but
cannot.

A suffocating smell of nitrogen fills the air, it enters the throat, it fills the
lungs. We suffer stifling pains.

Why am I unable to move my foot? Is it riveted to the planks? Alas! the
fall upon our fated raft of this electric globe has magnetised every iron
article on board. The instruments, the tools, our guns, are clashing and
clanking violently in their collisions with each other; the nails of my boots
cling tenaciously to a plate of iron let into the timbers, and I cannot draw
my foot away from the spot. At last by a violent effort I release myself at
the instant when the ball in its gyrations was about to seize upon it, and
carry me off my feet ….

Ah! what a flood of intense and dazzling light! the globe has burst, and
we are deluged with tongues of fire!

Then all the light disappears. I could just see my uncle at full length on
the raft, and Hans still at his helm and spitting fire under the action of the
electricity which has saturated him.

But where are we going to? Where?

****

Tuesday, August 25.—I recover from a long swoon. The storm continues
to roar and rage; the lightnings dash hither and thither, like broods of fiery
serpents filling all the air. Are we still under the sea? Yes, we are borne at
incalculable speed. We have been carried under England, under the channel,
under France, perhaps under the whole of Europe.

****

A fresh noise is heard! Surely it is the sea breaking upon the rocks!
But then . . . .

CHAPTER XXXVI.

CALM PHILOSOPHIC DISCUSSIONS

Here I end what I may call my log, happily saved from the wreck, and
I resume my narrative as before.

What happened when the raft was dashed upon the rocks is more than I
can tell. I felt myself hurled into the waves; and if I escaped from death, and
if my body was not torn over the sharp edges of the rocks, it was because
the powerful arm of Hans came to my rescue.

The brave Icelander carried me out of the reach of the waves, over a
burning sand where I found myself by the side of my uncle.

Then he returned to the rocks, against which the furious waves were
beating, to save what he could. I was unable to speak. I was shattered with
fatigue and excitement; I wanted a whole hour to recover even a little.

But a deluge of rain was still falling, though with that violence which
generally denotes the near cessation of a storm. A few overhanging rocks
afforded us some shelter from the storm. Hans prepared some food, which I
could not touch; and each of us, exhausted with three sleepless nights, fell
into a broken and painful sleep.

The next day the weather was splendid. The sky and the sea had sunk
into sudden repose. Every trace of the awful storm had disappeared. The
exhilarating voice of the Professor fell upon my ears as I awoke; he was
ominously cheerful.

"Well, my boy," he cried, "have you slept well?"

Would not any one have thought that we were still in our cheerful little
house on the Königstrasse and that I was only just coming down to
breakfast, and that I was to be married to Gräuben that day?

Alas! if the tempest had but sent the raft a little more east, we should
have passed under Germany, under my beloved town of Hamburg, under
the very street where dwelt all that I loved most in the world. Then only
forty leagues would have separated us! But they were forty leagues
perpendicular of solid granite wall, and in reality we were a thousand
leagues asunder!

All these painful reflections rapidly crossed my mind before I could
answer my uncle's question.

"Well, now," he repeated, "won't you tell me how you have slept?"

"Oh, very well," I said. "I am only a little knocked up, but I shall soon be
better."

"Oh," says my uncle, "that's nothing to signify. You are only a little bit
tired."

"But you, uncle, you seem in very good spirits this morning."

"Delighted, my boy, delighted. We have got there."

"To our journey's end?"

"No; but we have got to the end of that endless sea. Now we shall go by
land, and really begin to go down! down! down!"

"But, my dear uncle, do let me ask you one question."

"Of course, Axel."

"How about returning?"

"Returning? Why, you are talking about the return before the arrival."

"No, I only want to know how that is to be managed."

"In the simplest way possible. When we have reached the centre of the
globe, either we shall find some new way to get back, or we shall come
back like decent folks the way we came. I feel pleased at the thought that it
is sure not to be shut against us."

"But then we shall have to refit the raft."

"Of course."

"Then, as to provisions, have we enough to last?"

"Yes; to be sure we have. Hans is a clever fellow, and I am sure he must
have saved a large part of our cargo. But still let us go and make sure."

We left this grotto which lay open to every wind. At the same time I
cherished a trembling hope which was a fear as well. It seemed to me
impossible that the terrible wreck of the raft should not have destroyed
everything on board. On my arrival on the shore I found Hans surrounded
by an assemblage of articles all arranged in good order. My uncle shook

hands with him with a lively gratitude. This man, with almost superhuman
devotion, had been at work all the while that we were asleep, and had saved
the most precious of the articles at the risk of his life.

Not that we had suffered no losses. For instance, our firearms; but we
might do without them. Our stock of powder had remained uninjured after
having risked blowing up during the storm.

"Well," cried the Professor, "as we have no guns we cannot hunt, that's
all."

"Yes, but how about the instruments?"

"Here is the aneroid, the most useful of all, and for which I would have
given all the others. By means of it I can calculate the depth and know
when we have reached the centre; without it we might very likely go
beyond, and come out at the antipodes!"

Such high spirits as these were rather too strong.

"But where is the compass? I asked.

"Here it is, upon this rock, in perfect condition, as well as the
thermometers and the chronometer. The hunter is a splendid fellow."

There was no denying it. We had all our instruments. As for tools and
appliances, there they all lay on the ground—ladders, ropes, picks, spades,
etc.

Still there was the question of provisions to be settled, and I asked
—"How are we off for provisions?"

The boxes containing these were in a line upon the shore, in a perfect
state of preservation; for the most part the sea had spared them, and what
with biscuits, salt meat, spirits, and salt fish, we might reckon on four
months' supply.

"Four months!" cried the Professor. "We have time to go and to return;
and with what is left I will give a grand dinner to my friends at the
Johannæum."

I ought by this time to have been quite accustomed to my uncle's ways;
yet there was always something fresh about him to astonish me.

"Now," said he, "we will replenish our supply of water with the rain
which the storm has left in all these granite basins; therefore we shall have
no reason to fear anything from thirst. As for the raft, I will recommend
Hans to do his best to repair it, although I don't expect it will be of any
further use to us."

"How so?" I cried.

"An idea of my own, my lad. I don't think we shall come out by the way
that we went in."

I stared at the Professor with a good deal of mistrust. I asked, was he not
touched in the brain? And yet there was method in his madness.

"And now let us go to breakfast," said he.

I followed him to a headland, after he had given his instructions to the
hunter. There preserved meat, biscuit, and tea made us an excellent meal,
one of the best I ever remember. Hunger, the fresh air, the calm quiet
weather, after the commotions we had gone through, all contributed to give
me a good appetite.

Whilst breakfasting I took the opportunity to put to my uncle the question
where we were now.

"That seems to me," I said, "rather difficult to make out."

"Yes, it is difficult," he said, "to calculate exactly; perhaps even
impossible, since during these three stormy days I have been unable to keep
any account of the rate or direction of the raft; but still we may get an
approximation."

"The last observation," I remarked, "was made on the island, when the
geyser was—"

"You mean Axel Island. Don't decline the honour of having given your
name to the first island ever discovered in the central parts of the globe."

"Well," said I, "let it be Axel Island. Then we had cleared two hundred
and seventy leagues of sea, and we were six hundred leagues from Iceland."

"Very well," answered my uncle; "let us start from that point and count
four days' storm, during which our rate cannot have been less than eighty
leagues in the twenty-four hours."

"That is right; and this would make three hundred leagues more."

"Yes, and the Liedenbrock sea would be six hundred leagues from shore
to shore. Surely, Axel, it may vie in size with the Mediterranean itself."

"Especially," I replied, "if it happens that we have only crossed it in its
narrowest part. And it is a curious circumstance," I added, "that if my
computations are right, and we are nine hundred leagues from Rejkiavik,
we have now the Mediterranean above our head."

"That is a good long way, my friend. But whether we are under Turkey or
the Atlantic depends very much upon the question in what direction we
have been moving. Perhaps we have deviated."

"No, I think not. Our course has been the same all along, and I believe
this shore is south-east of Port Gräuben."

"Well," replied my uncle, "we may easily ascertain this by consulting the
compass. Let us go and see what it says."

The Professor moved towards the rock upon which Hans had laid down
the instruments. He was gay and full of spirits; he rubbed his hands, he
studied his attitudes. I followed him, curious to know if I was right in my
estimate. As soon as we had arrived at the rock my uncle took the compass,
laid it horizontally, and questioned the needle, which, after a few
oscillations, presently assumed a fixed position. My uncle looked, and
looked, and looked again. He rubbed his eyes, and then turned to me
thunderstruck with some unexpected discovery.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

He motioned to me to look. An exclamation of astonishment burst from
me. The north pole of the needle was turned to what we supposed to be the
south. It pointed to the shore instead of to the open sea! I shook the box,
examined it again, it was in perfect condition. In whatever position I placed
the box the needle pertinaciously returned to this unexpected quarter.
Therefore there seemed no reason to doubt that during the storm there had
been a sudden change of wind unperceived by us, which had brought our
raft back to the shore which we thought we had left so long a distance
behind us.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE LIEDENBROCK MUSEUM OF GEOLOGY

How shall I describe the strange series of passions which in succession
shook the breast of Professor Liedenbrock? First stupefaction, then
incredulity, lastly a downright burst of rage. Never had I seen the man so
put out of countenance and so disturbed. The fatigues of our passage across,
the dangers met, had all to be begun over again. We had gone backwards
instead of forwards!

But my uncle rapidly recovered himself.

"Aha! will fate play tricks upon me? Will the elements lay plots against
me? Shall fire, air, and water make a combined attack against me? Well,
they shall know what a determined man can do. I will not yield. I will not
stir a single foot backwards, and it will be seen whether man or nature is to
have the upper hand!"

Erect upon the rock, angry and threatening, Otto Liedenbrock was a
rather grotesque fierce parody upon the fierce Ajax defying the lightning.
But I thought it my duty to interpose and attempt to lay some restraint upon
this unmeasured fanaticism.

"Just listen to me," I said firmly. "Ambition must have a limit
somewhere; we cannot perform impossibilities; we are not at all fit for
another sea voyage; who would dream of undertaking a voyage of five
hundred leagues upon a heap of rotten planks, with a blanket in rags for a
sail, a stick for a mast, and fierce winds in our teeth? We cannot steer; we
shall be buffeted by the tempests, and we should be fools and madmen to
attempt to cross a second time."

I was able to develop this series of unanswerable reasons for ten minutes
without interruption; not that the Professor was paying any respectful
attention to his nephew's arguments, but because he was deaf to all my
eloquence.

"To the raft!" he shouted.

Such was his only reply. It was no use for me to entreat, supplicate, get
angry, or do anything else in the way of opposition; it would only have been
opposing a will harder than the granite rock.

Hans was finishing the repairs of the raft. One would have thought that
this strange being was guessing at my uncle's intentions. With a few more
pieces of surturbrand he had refitted our vessel. A sail already hung from
the new mast, and the wind was playing in its waving folds.

The Professor said a few words to the guide, and immediately he put
everything on board and arranged every necessary for our departure. The air
was clear—and the north-west wind blew steadily.

What could I do? Could I stand against the two? It was impossible? If
Hans had but taken my side! But no, it was not to be. The Icelander seemed
to have renounced all will of his own and made a vow to forget and deny

himself. I could get nothing out of a servant so feudalised, as it were, to his
master. My only course was to proceed.

I was therefore going with as much resignation as I could find to resume
my accustomed place on the raft, when my uncle laid his hand upon my
shoulder.

"We shall not sail until to-morrow," he said.

I made a movement intended to express resignation.

"I must neglect nothing," he said; "and since my fate has driven me on
this part of the coast, I will not leave it until I have examined it."

To understand what followed, it must be borne in mind that, through
circumstances hereafter to be explained, we were not really where the
Professor supposed we were. In fact we were not upon the north shore of
the sea.

"Now let us start upon fresh discoveries," I said.

And leaving Hans to his work we started off together. The space between
the water and the foot of the cliffs was considerable. It took half an hour to
bring us to the wall of rock. We trampled under our feet numberless shells
of all the forms and sizes which existed in the earliest ages of the world. I
also saw immense carapaces more than fifteen feet in diameter. They had
been the coverings of those gigantic glyptodons or armadilloes of the
pleiocene period, of which the modern tortoise is but a miniature
representative. [1] The soil was besides this scattered with stony fragments,
boulders rounded by water action, and ridged up in successive lines. I was
therefore led to the conclusion that at one time the sea must have covered
the ground on which we were treading. On the loose and scattered rocks,

now out of the reach of the highest tides, the waves had left manifest traces
of their power to wear their way in the hardest stone.

This might up to a certain point explain the existence of an ocean forty
leagues beneath the surface of the globe. But in my opinion this liquid mass
would be lost by degrees farther and farther within the interior of the earth,
and it certainly had its origin in the waters of the ocean overhead, which
had made their way hither through some fissure. Yet it must be believed that
that fissure is now closed, and that all this cavern or immense reservoir was
filled in a very short time. Perhaps even this water, subjected to the fierce
action of central heat, had partly been resolved into vapour. This would
explain the existence of those clouds suspended over our heads and the
development of that electricity which raised such tempests within the
bowels of the earth.

This theory of the phenomena we had witnessed seemed satisfactory to
me; for however great and stupendous the phenomena of nature, fixed
physical laws will or may always explain them.

We were therefore walking upon sedimentary soil, the deposits of the
waters of former ages. The Professor was carefully examining every little
fissure in the rocks. Wherever he saw a hole he always wanted to know the
depth of it. To him this was important.

We had traversed the shores of the Liedenbrock sea for a mile when we
observed a sudden change in the appearance of the soil. It seemed upset,
contorted, and convulsed by a violent upheaval of the lower strata. In many
places depressions or elevations gave witness to some tremendous power
effecting the dislocation of strata.

[1] The glyptodon and armadillo are mammalian; the tortoise is a
chelonian, a reptile, distinct classes of the animal kingdom; therefore the

latter cannot be a representative of the former. (Trans.)

We moved with difficulty across these granite fissures and chasms
mingled with silex, crystals of quartz, and alluvial deposits, when a field,
nay, more than a field, a vast plain, of bleached bones lay spread before us.
It seemed like an immense cemetery, where the remains of twenty ages
mingled their dust together. Huge mounds of bony fragments rose stage
after stage in the distance. They undulated away to the limits of the horizon,
and melted in the distance in a faint haze. There within three square miles
were accumulated the materials for a complete history of the animal life of
ages, a history scarcely outlined in the too recent strata of the inhabited
world.

But an impatient curiosity impelled our steps; crackling and rattling, our
feet were trampling on the remains of prehistoric animals and interesting
fossils, the possession of which is a matter of rivalry and contention
between the museums of great cities. A thousand Cuviers could never have
reconstructed the organic remains deposited in this magnificent and
unparalleled collection.

I stood amazed. My uncle had uplifted his long arms to the vault which
was our sky; his mouth gaping wide, his eyes flashing behind his shining
spectacles, his head balancing with an up-and-down motion, his whole
attitude denoted unlimited astonishment. Here he stood facing an immense
collection of scattered leptotheria, mericotheria, lophiodia, anoplotheria,
megatheria, mastodons, protopithecæ, pterodactyles, and all sorts of extinct
monsters here assembled together for his special satisfaction. Fancy an
enthusiastic bibliomaniac suddenly brought into the midst of the famous
Alexandrian library burnt by Omar and restored by a miracle from its ashes!
just such a crazed enthusiast was my uncle, Professor Liedenbrock.

But more was to come, when, with a rush through clouds of bone dust, he
laid his hand upon a bare skull, and cried with a voice trembling with
excitement:

"Axel! Axel! a human head!"

"A human skull?" I cried, no less astonished.

"Yes, nephew. Aha! M. Milne-Edwards! Ah! M. de Quatrefages, how I
wish you were standing here at the side of Otto Liedenbrock!"

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE PROFESSOR IN HIS CHAIR AGAIN

To understand this apostrophe of my uncle's, made to absent French
savants, it will be necessary to allude to an event of high importance in a
palæontological point of view, which had occurred a little while before our
departure.

On the 28th of March, 1863, some excavators working under the
direction of M. Boucher de Perthes, in the stone quarries of Moulin
Quignon, near Abbeville, in the department of Somme, found a human
jawbone fourteen feet beneath the surface. It was the first fossil of this
nature that had ever been brought to light. Not far distant were found stone
hatchets and flint arrow-heads stained and encased by lapse of time with a
uniform coat of rust.

The noise of this discovery was very great, not in France alone, but in
England and in Germany. Several savants of the French Institute, and
amongst them MM. Milne-Edwards and de Quatrefages, saw at once the
importance of this discovery, proved to demonstration the genuineness of
the bone in question, and became the most ardent defendants in what the
English called this 'trial of a jawbone.' To the geologists of the United
Kingdom, who believed in the certainty of the fact—Messrs. Falconer,
Busk, Carpenter, and others—scientific Germans were soon joined, and

amongst them the forwardest, the most fiery, and the most enthusiastic, was
my uncle Liedenbrock.

Therefore the genuineness of a fossil human relic of the quaternary
period seemed to be incontestably proved and admitted.

It is true that this theory met with a most obstinate opponent in M. Elie
de Beaumont. This high authority maintained that the soil of Moulin
Quignon was not diluvial at all, but was of much more recent formation;
and, agreeing in that with Cuvier, he refused to admit that the human
species could be contemporary with the animals of the quaternary period.
My uncle Liedenbrock, along with the great body of the geologists, had
maintained his ground, disputed, and argued, until M. Elie de Beaumont
stood almost alone in his opinion.

We knew all these details, but we were not aware that since our departure
the question had advanced to farther stages. Other similar maxillaries,
though belonging to individuals of various types and different nations, were
found in the loose grey soil of certain grottoes in France, Switzerland, and
Belgium, as well as weapons, tools, earthen utensils, bones of children and
adults. The existence therefore of man in the quaternary period seemed to
become daily more certain.

Nor was this all. Fresh discoveries of remains in the pleiocene formation
had emboldened other geologists to refer back the human species to a
higher antiquity still. It is true that these remains were not human bones, but
objects bearing the traces of his handiwork, such as fossil leg-bones of
animals, sculptured and carved evidently by the hand of man.

Thus, at one bound, the record of the existence of man receded far back
into the history of the ages past; he was a predecessor of the mastodon; he
was a contemporary of the southern elephant; he lived a hundred thousand

years ago, when, according to geologists, the pleiocene formation was in
progress.

Such then was the state of palæontological science, and what we knew of
it was sufficient to explain our behaviour in the presence of this stupendous
Golgotha. Any one may now understand the frenzied excitement of my
uncle, when, twenty yards farther on, he found himself face to face with a
primitive man!

It was a perfectly recognisable human body. Had some particular soil,
like that of the cemetery St. Michel, at Bordeaux, preserved it thus for so
many ages? It might be so. But this dried corpse, with its parchment-like
skin drawn tightly over the bony frame, the limbs still preserving their
shape, sound teeth, abundant hair, and finger and toe nails of frightful
length, this desiccated mummy startled us by appearing just as it had lived
countless ages ago. I stood mute before this apparition of remote antiquity.
My uncle, usually so garrulous, was struck dumb likewise. We raised the
body. We stood it up against a rock. It seemed to stare at us out of its empty
orbits. We sounded with our knuckles his hollow frame.

After some moments' silence the Professor was himself again. Otto
Liedenbrock, yielding to his nature, forgot all the circumstances of our
eventful journey, forgot where we were standing, forgot the vaulted cavern
which contained us. No doubt he was in mind back again in his
Johannæum, holding forth to his pupils, for he assumed his learned air; and
addressing himself to an imaginary audience, he proceeded thus:

"Gentlemen, I have the honour to introduce to you a man of the
quaternary or post-tertiary system. Eminent geologists have denied his
existence, others no less eminent have affirmed it. The St. Thomases of
palæontology, if they were here, might now touch him with their fingers,
and would be obliged to acknowledge their error. I am quite aware that

science has to be on its guard with discoveries of this kind. I know what
capital enterprising individuals like Barnum have made out of fossil men. I
have heard the tale of the kneepan of Ajax, the pretended body of Orestes
claimed to have been found by the Spartans, and of the body of Asterius,
ten cubits long, of which Pausanias speaks. I have read the reports of the
skeleton of Trapani, found in the fourteenth century, and which was at the
time identified as that of Polyphemus; and the history of the giant unearthed
in the sixteenth century near Palermo. You know as well as I do, gentlemen,
the analysis made at Lucerne in 1577 of those huge bones which the
celebrated Dr. Felix Plater affirmed to be those of a giant nineteen feet high.
I have gone through the treatises of Cassanion, and all those memoirs,
pamphlets, answers, and rejoinders published respecting the skeleton of
Teutobochus, the invader of Gaul, dug out of a sandpit in the Dauphiné, in
1613. In the eighteenth century I would have stood up for Scheuchzer's pre-
adamite man against Peter Campet. I have perused a writing, entitled Gigan
—"

Here my uncle's unfortunate infirmity met him—that of being unable in
public to pronounce hard words.

"The pamphlet entitled Gigan—"

He could get no further.

"Giganteo—"

It was not to be done. The unlucky word would not come out. At the
Johannæum there would have been a laugh.

"Gigantosteologie," at last the Professor burst out, between two words
which I shall not record here.