A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

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.