A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

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 or 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 mid­day 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 [l] 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 Lubeck 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.”