A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE LIEDEN­BROCK MU­SE­UM OF GE­OL­OGY

How shall I de­scribe the strange se­ries of pas­sions which in suc­ces­sion shook the breast of Pro­fes­sor Lieden­brock? First stu­pe­fac­tion, then in­creduli­ty, last­ly a down­right burst of rage. Nev­er had I seen the man so put out of coun­te­nance and so dis­turbed. The fa­tigues of our pas­sage across, the dan­gers met, had all to be be­gun over again. We had gone back­wards in­stead of for­wards!

But my un­cle rapid­ly re­cov­ered him­self.

“Aha! will fate play tricks up­on me? Will the el­ements lay plots against me? Shall fire, air, and wa­ter make a com­bined at­tack against me? Well, they shall know what a de­ter­mined man can do. I will not yield. I will not stir a sin­gle foot back­wards, and it will be seen whether man or na­ture is to have the up­per hand!”

Erect up­on the rock, an­gry and threat­en­ing, Ot­to Lieden­brock was a rather grotesque fierce par­ody up­on the fierce Achilles de­fy­ing the light­ning. But I thought it my du­ty to in­ter­pose and at­tempt to lay some re­straint up­on this un­mea­sured fa­nati­cism.

“Just lis­ten to me,” I said firm­ly. “Am­bi­tion must have a lim­it some­where; we can­not per­form im­pos­si­bil­ities; we are not at all fit for an­oth­er sea voy­age; who would dream of un­der­tak­ing a voy­age of five hun­dred leagues up­on a heap of rot­ten planks, with a blan­ket in rags for a sail, a stick for a mast, and fierce winds in our teeth? We can­not steer; we shall be buf­fet­ed by the tem­pests, and we should be fools and mad­men to at­tempt to cross a sec­ond time.”

I was able to de­vel­op this se­ries of unan­swer­able rea­sons for ten min­utes with­out in­ter­rup­tion; not that the Pro­fes­sor was pay­ing any re­spect­ful at­ten­tion to his nephew’s ar­gu­ments, but be­cause he was deaf to all my elo­quence.

“To the raft!” he shout­ed.

Such was his on­ly re­ply. It was no use for me to en­treat, sup­pli­cate, get an­gry, or do any­thing else in the way of op­po­si­tion; it would on­ly have been op­pos­ing a will hard­er than the gran­ite rock.

Hans was fin­ish­ing the re­pairs of the raft. One would have thought that this strange be­ing was guess­ing at my un­cle’s in­ten­tions. With a few more pieces of sur­tur­brand he had re­fit­ted our ves­sel. A sail al­ready hung from the new mast, and the wind was play­ing in its wav­ing folds.

The Pro­fes­sor said a few words to the guide, and im­me­di­ate­ly he put ev­ery­thing on board and ar­ranged ev­ery nec­es­sary for our de­par­ture. The air was clear - and the north-​west wind blew steadi­ly.

What could I do? Could I stand against the two? It was im­pos­si­ble? If Hans had but tak­en my side! But no, it was not to be. The Ice­lander seemed to have re­nounced all will of his own and made a vow to for­get and de­ny him­self. I could get noth­ing out of a ser­vant so feu­dalised, as it were, to his mas­ter. My on­ly course was to pro­ceed.

I was there­fore go­ing with as much res­ig­na­tion as I could find to re­sume my ac­cus­tomed place on the raft, when my un­cle laid his hand up­on my shoul­der.

“We shall not sail un­til to-​mor­row,” he said.

I made a move­ment in­tend­ed to ex­press res­ig­na­tion.

“I must ne­glect noth­ing,” he said; “and since my fate has driv­en me on this part of the coast, I will not leave it un­til I have ex­am­ined it.”

To un­der­stand what fol­lowed, it must be borne in mind that, through cir­cum­stances here­after to be ex­plained, we were not re­al­ly where the Pro­fes­sor sup­posed we were. In fact we were not up­on the north shore of the sea.

“Now let us start up­on fresh dis­cov­er­ies,” I said.

And leav­ing Hans to his work we start­ed off to­geth­er. The space be­tween the wa­ter and the foot of the cliffs was con­sid­er­able. It took half an hour to bring us to the wall of rock. We tram­pled un­der our feet num­ber­less shells of all the forms and sizes which ex­ist­ed in the ear­li­est ages of the world. I al­so saw im­mense cara­paces more than fif­teen feet in di­am­eter. They had been the cov­er­ings of those gi­gan­tic glyptodons or ar­madil­loes of the pleiocene pe­ri­od, of which the mod­ern tor­toise is but a minia­ture rep­re­sen­ta­tive. [1] The soil was be­sides this scat­tered with stony frag­ments, boul­ders round­ed by wa­ter ac­tion, and ridged up in suc­ces­sive lines. I was there­fore led to the con­clu­sion that at one time the sea must have cov­ered the ground on which we were tread­ing. On the loose and scat­tered rocks, now out of the reach of the high­est tides, the waves had left man­ifest traces of their pow­er to wear their way in the hard­est stone.

This might up to a cer­tain point ex­plain the ex­is­tence of an ocean forty leagues be­neath the sur­face of the globe. But in my opin­ion this liq­uid mass would be lost by de­grees far­ther and far­ther with­in the in­te­ri­or of the earth, and it cer­tain­ly had its ori­gin in the wa­ters of the ocean over­head, which had made their way hith­er through some fis­sure. Yet it must be be­lieved that that fis­sure is now closed, and that all this cav­ern or im­mense reser­voir was filled in a very short time. Per­haps even this wa­ter, sub­ject­ed to the fierce ac­tion of cen­tral heat, had part­ly been re­solved in­to vapour. This would ex­plain the ex­is­tence of those clouds sus­pend­ed over our heads and the de­vel­op­ment of that elec­tric­ity which raised such tem­pests with­in the bow­els of the earth.

This the­ory of the phe­nom­ena we had wit­nessed seemed sat­is­fac­to­ry to me; for how­ev­er great and stu­pen­dous the phe­nom­ena of na­ture, fixed phys­ical laws will or may al­ways ex­plain them.

We were there­fore walk­ing up­on sed­imen­ta­ry soil, the de­posits of the wa­ters of for­mer ages. The Pro­fes­sor was care­ful­ly ex­am­in­ing ev­ery lit­tle fis­sure in the rocks. Wher­ev­er he saw a hole he al­ways want­ed to know the depth of it. To him this was im­por­tant.

We had tra­versed the shores of the Lieden­brock sea for a mile when we ob­served a sud­den change in the ap­pear­ance of the soil. It seemed up­set, con­tort­ed, and con­vulsed by a vi­olent up­heaval of the low­er stra­ta. In many places de­pres­sions or el­eva­tions gave wit­ness to some tremen­dous pow­er ef­fect­ing the dis­lo­ca­tion of stra­ta.

[1] The glyptodon and ar­madil­lo are mam­malian; the tor­toise is a ch­elo­ni­an, a rep­tile, dis­tinct class­es of the an­imal king­dom; there­fore the lat­ter can­not be a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the for­mer. (Trans.)

We moved with dif­fi­cul­ty across these gran­ite fis­sures and chasms min­gled with silex, crys­tals of quartz, and al­lu­vial de­posits, when a field, nay, more than a field, a vast plain, of bleached bones lay spread be­fore us. It seemed like an im­mense ceme­tery, where the re­mains of twen­ty ages min­gled their dust to­geth­er. Huge mounds of bony frag­ments rose stage af­ter stage in the dis­tance. They un­du­lat­ed away to the lim­its of the hori­zon, and melt­ed in the dis­tance in a faint haze. There with­in three square miles were ac­cu­mu­lat­ed the ma­te­ri­als for a com­plete his­to­ry of the an­imal life of ages, a his­to­ry scarce­ly out­lined in the too re­cent stra­ta of the in­hab­it­ed world.

But an im­pa­tient cu­rios­ity im­pelled our steps; crack­ling and rat­tling, our feet were tram­pling on the re­mains of pre­his­toric an­imals and in­ter­est­ing fos­sils, the pos­ses­sion of which is a mat­ter of ri­val­ry and con­tention be­tween the mu­se­ums of great cities. A thou­sand Cu­viers could nev­er have re­con­struct­ed the or­gan­ic re­mains de­posit­ed in this mag­nif­icent and un­par­al­leled col­lec­tion.

I stood amazed. My un­cle had up­lift­ed his long arms to the vault which was our sky; his mouth gap­ing wide, his eyes flash­ing be­hind his shin­ing spec­ta­cles, his head bal­anc­ing with an up-​and-​down mo­tion, his whole at­ti­tude de­not­ed un­lim­it­ed as­ton­ish­ment. Here he stood fac­ing an im­mense col­lec­tion of scat­tered lep­tothe­ria, meri­cothe­ria, lophio­dia, anoplothe­ria, megath­eria, mastodons, pro­to­pithecæ, ptero­dactyles, and all sorts of ex­tinct mon­sters here as­sem­bled to­geth­er for his spe­cial sat­is­fac­tion. Fan­cy an en­thu­si­as­tic bib­lio­ma­ni­ac sud­den­ly brought in­to the midst of the fa­mous Alexan­dri­an li­brary burnt by Omar and re­stored by a mir­acle from its ash­es! just such a crazed en­thu­si­ast was my un­cle, Pro­fes­sor Lieden­brock.

But more was to come, when, with a rush through clouds of bone dust, he laid his hand up­on a bare skull, and cried with a voice trem­bling with ex­cite­ment:

“Ax­el! Ax­el! a hu­man head!”

“A hu­man skull?” I cried, no less as­ton­ished.

“Yes, nephew. Aha! M. Milne-​Ed­wards! Ah! M. de Qua­tre­fages, how I wish you were stand­ing here at the side of Ot­to Lieden­brock!”