A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

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?