A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE GREAT GEYSER

_Wednes­day, Au­gust 19_. - For­tu­nate­ly the wind blows vi­olent­ly, and has en­abled us to flee from the scene of the late ter­ri­ble strug­gle. Hans keeps at his post at the helm. My un­cle, whom the ab­sorb­ing in­ci­dents of the com­bat had drawn away from his con­tem­pla­tions, be­gan again to look im­pa­tient­ly around him.

The voy­age re­sumes its uni­form tenor, which I don’t care to break with a rep­eti­tion of such events as yes­ter­day’s.

Thurs­day, Aug. 20. - Wind N.N.E., un­steady and fit­ful. Tem­per­ature high. Rate three and a half leagues an hour.

About noon a dis­tant noise is heard. I note the fact with­out be­ing able to ex­plain it. It is a con­tin­uous roar.

“In the dis­tance,” says the Pro­fes­sor, “there is a rock or islet, against which the sea is break­ing.”

Hans climbs up the mast, but sees no break­ers. The ocean’ is smooth and un­bro­ken to its far­thest lim­it.

Three hours pass away. The roar­ings seem to pro­ceed from a very dis­tant wa­ter­fall.

I re­mark up­on this to my un­cle, who replies doubt­ful­ly: “Yes, I am con­vinced that I am right.” Are we, then, speed­ing for­ward to some cataract which will cast us down an abyss? This method of get­ting on may please the Pro­fes­sor, be­cause it is ver­ti­cal; but for my part I pre­fer the more or­di­nary modes of hor­izon­tal pro­gres­sion.

At any rate, some leagues to the wind­ward there must be some noisy phe­nomenon, for now the roar­ings are heard with in­creas­ing loud­ness. Do they pro­ceed from the sky or the ocean?

I look up to the at­mo­spher­ic vapours, and try to fath­om their depths. The sky is calm and mo­tion­less. The clouds have reached the ut­most lim­it of the lofty vault, and there lie still bathed in the bright glare of the elec­tric light. It is not there that we must seek for the cause of this phe­nomenon. Then I ex­am­ine the hori­zon, which is un­bro­ken and clear of all mist. There is no change in its as­pect. But if this noise aris­es from a fall, a cataract, if all this ocean flows away head­long in­to a low­er basin yet, if that deaf­en­ing roar is pro­duced by a mass of falling wa­ter, the cur­rent must needs ac­cel­er­ate, and its in­creas­ing speed will give me the mea­sure of the per­il that threat­ens us. I con­sult the cur­rent: there is none. I throw an emp­ty bot­tle in­to the sea: it lies still.

About four Hans ris­es, lays hold of the mast, climbs to its top. Thence his eye sweeps a large area of sea, and it is fixed up­on a point. His coun­te­nance ex­hibits no sur­prise, but his eye is im­mov­ably steady.

“He sees some­thing,” says my un­cle.

“I be­lieve he does.”

Hans comes down, then stretch­es his arm to the south, say­ing:

“_Dere nere!_”

“Down there?” re­peat­ed my un­cle.

Then, seiz­ing his glass, he gazes at­ten­tive­ly for a minute, which seems to me an age.

“Yes, yes!” he cried. “I see a vast in­vert­ed cone ris­ing from the sur­face.”

“Is it an­oth­er sea beast?”

“Per­haps it is.”

“Then let us steer far­ther west­ward, for we know some­thing of the dan­ger of com­ing across mon­sters of that sort.”

“Let us go straight on,” replied my un­cle.

I ap­pealed to Hans. He main­tained his course in­flex­ibly.

Yet, if at our present dis­tance from the an­imal, a dis­tance of twelve leagues at the least, the col­umn of wa­ter driv­en through its blow­ers may be dis­tinct­ly seen, it must needs be of vast size. The com­mon­est pru­dence would coun­sel im­me­di­ate flight; but we did not come so far to be pru­dent.

Im­pru­dent­ly, there­fore, we pur­sue our way. The near­er we ap­proach, the high­er mounts the jet of wa­ter. What mon­ster can pos­si­bly fill it­self with such a quan­ti­ty of wa­ter, and spurt it up so con­tin­uous­ly?

At eight in the evening we are not two leagues dis­tant from it. Its body -dusky, enor­mous, hillocky - lies spread up­on the sea like an islet. Is it il­lu­sion or fear? Its length seems to me a cou­ple of thou­sand yards. What can be this cetacean, which nei­ther Cu­vi­er nor Blu­men­bach knew any­thing about? It lies mo­tion­less, as if asleep; the sea seems un­able to move it in the least; it is the waves that un­du­late up­on its sides. The col­umn of wa­ter thrown up to a height of five hun­dred feet falls in rain with a deaf­en­ing up­roar. And here are we scud­ding like lu­natics be­fore the wind, to get near to a mon­ster that a hun­dred whales a day would not sat­is­fy!

Ter­ror seizes up­on me. I refuse to go fur­ther. I will cut the hal­liards if nec­es­sary! I am in open mutiny against the Pro­fes­sor, who vouch­safes no an­swer.

Sud­den­ly Hans ris­es, and point­ing with his fin­ger at the men­ac­ing ob­ject, he says:

“_Holm._”

“An is­land!” cries my un­cle.

“That’s not an is­land!” I cried scep­ti­cal­ly.

“It’s noth­ing else,” shout­ed the Pro­fes­sor, with a loud laugh.

“But that col­umn of wa­ter?”

“_Geyser,_” said Hans.

“No doubt it is a geyser, like those in Ice­land.”

At first I protest against be­ing so wide­ly mis­tak­en as to have tak­en an is­land for a ma­rine mon­ster. But the ev­idence is against me, and I have to con­fess my er­ror. It is noth­ing worse than a nat­ural phe­nomenon.

As we ap­proach near­er the di­men­sions of the liq­uid col­umn be­come mag­nif­icent. The islet re­sem­bles, with a most de­ceiv­ing like­ness, an enor­mous cetacean, whose head dom­inates the waves at a height of twen­ty yards. The geyser, a word mean­ing ‘fury,’ ris­es ma­jes­ti­cal­ly from its ex­trem­ity. Deep and heavy ex­plo­sions are heard from time to time, when the enor­mous jet, pos­sessed with more fu­ri­ous vi­olence, shakes its plumy crest, and springs with a bound till it reach­es the low­est stra­tum of the clouds. It stands alone. No steam vents, no hot springs sur­round it, and all the vol­canic pow­er of the re­gion is con­cen­trat­ed here. Sparks of elec­tric fire min­gle with the daz­zling sheaf of light­ed flu­id, ev­ery drop of which re­fracts the pris­mat­ic colours.

“Let us land,” said the Pro­fes­sor.

“But we must care­ful­ly avoid this wa­ter­spout, which would sink our raft in a mo­ment.”

Hans, steer­ing with his usu­al skill, brought us to the oth­er ex­trem­ity of the islet.

I leaped up on the rock; my un­cle light­ly fol­lowed, while our hunter re­mained at his post, like a man too wise ev­er to be as­ton­ished.

We walked up­on gran­ite min­gled with siliceous tu­fa. The soil shiv­ers and shakes un­der our feet, like the sides of an over­heat­ed boil­er filled with steam strug­gling to get loose. We come in sight of a small cen­tral basin, out of which the geyser springs. I plunge a reg­is­ter ther­mome­ter in­to the boil­ing wa­ter. It marks an in­tense heat of 325°, which is far above the boil­ing point; there­fore this wa­ter is­sues from an ar­dent fur­nace, which is not at all in har­mo­ny with Pro­fes­sor Lieden­brock’s the­ories. I can­not help mak­ing the re­mark.

“Well,” he replied, “how does that make against my doc­trine?”

“Oh, noth­ing at all,” I said, see­ing that I was go­ing in op­po­si­tion to im­mov­able ob­sti­na­cy.

Still I am con­strained to con­fess that hith­er­to we have been won­der­ful­ly favoured, and that for some rea­son un­known to my­self we have ac­com­plished our jour­ney un­der sin­gu­lar­ly favourable con­di­tions of tem­per­ature. But it seems man­ifest to me that some day we shall reach a re­gion where the cen­tral heat at­tains its high­est lim­its, and goes be­yond a point that can be reg­is­tered by our ther­mome­ters.

“That is what we shall see.” So says the Pro­fes­sor, who, hav­ing named this vol­canic islet af­ter his nephew, gives the sig­nal to em­bark again.

For some min­utes I am still con­tem­plat­ing the geyser. I no­tice that it throws up its col­umn of wa­ter with vari­able force: some­times send­ing it to a great height, then again to a low­er, which I at­tribute to the vari­able pres­sure of the steam ac­cu­mu­lat­ed in its reser­voir.

At last we leave the is­land, round­ing away past the low rocks on its south­ern shore. Hans has tak­en ad­van­tage of the halt to re­fit his rud­der.

But be­fore go­ing any far­ther I make a few ob­ser­va­tions, to cal­cu­late the dis­tance we have gone over, and note them in my jour­nal. We have crossed two hun­dred and sev­en­ty leagues of sea since leav­ing Port Gräuben; and we are six hun­dred and twen­ty leagues from Ice­land, un­der Eng­land. [1]

[1] This dis­tance car­ries the trav­ellers as far as un­der the Pyre­nees if the league mea­sures three miles. (Trans.)