A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

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: “Grauben. 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 palaeon­tol­ogy. Though awake I fell in­to a dream. I thought I could see float­ing on the sur­face of the wa­ters enor­mous ch­elo­nia, preadamite 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 my­dream 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 foods 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.