A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

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 fights 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.