A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER XL.

PREPA­RA­TIONS FOR BLAST­ING A PAS­SAGE TO THE CEN­TRE OF THE EARTH

Since the start up­on this mar­vel­lous pil­grim­age I had been through so many as­ton­ish­ments that I might well be ex­cused for think­ing my­self well hard­ened against any fur­ther sur­prise. Yet at the sight of these two let­ters, en­graved on this spot three hun­dred years ago, I stood aghast in dumb amaze­ment. Not on­ly were the ini­tials of the learned al­chemist vis­ible up­on the liv­ing rock, but there lay the iron point with which the let­ters had been en­graved. I could no longer doubt of the ex­is­tence of that won­der­ful trav­eller and of the fact of his un­par­al­leled jour­ney, with­out the most glar­ing in­creduli­ty.

Whilst these re­flec­tions were oc­cu­py­ing me, Pro­fes­sor Lieden­brock had launched in­to a some­what rhap­sod­ical eu­logium, of which Arne Saknussemm was, of course, the hero.

“Thou mar­vel­lous ge­nius!” he cried, “thou hast not for­got­ten one in­di­ca­tion which might serve to lay open to mor­tals the road through the ter­res­tri­al crust; and thy fel­low-​crea­tures may even now, af­ter the lapse of three cen­turies, again trace thy foot­steps through these deep and dark­some ways. You re­served the con­tem­pla­tion of these won­ders for oth­er eyes be­sides your own. Your name, graven from stage to stage, leads the bold fol­low­er of your foot­steps to the very cen­tre of our plan­et’s core, and there again we shall find your own name writ­ten with your own hand. I too will in­scribe my name up­on this dark gran­ite page. But for ev­er hence­forth let this cape that ad­vances in­to the sea dis­cov­ered by your­self be known by your own il­lus­tri­ous name - Cape Saknussemm.”

Such were the glow­ing words of pan­egyric which fell up­on my at­ten­tive ear, and I could not re­sist the sen­ti­ment of en­thu­si­asm with which I too was in­fect­ed. The fire of zeal kin­dled afresh in me. I for­got ev­ery­thing. I dis­missed from my mind the past per­ils of the jour­ney, the fu­ture dan­ger of our re­turn. That which an­oth­er had done I sup­posed we might al­so do, and noth­ing that was not su­per­hu­man ap­peared im­pos­si­ble to me.

“For­ward! for­ward!” I cried.

I was al­ready dart­ing down the gloomy tun­nel when the Pro­fes­sor stopped me; he, the man of im­pulse, coun­selled pa­tience and cool­ness.

“Let us first re­turn to Hans,” he said, “and bring the raft to this spot.”

I obeyed, not with­out dis­sat­is­fac­tion, and passed out rapid­ly among the rocks on the shore.

I said: “Un­cle, do you know it seems to me that cir­cum­stances have won­der­ful­ly be­friend­ed us hith­er­to?”

“You think so, Ax­el?”

“No doubt; even the tem­pest has put us on the right way. Bless­ings on that storm! It has brought us back to this coast from which fine weath­er would have car­ried us far away. Sup­pose we had touched with our prow (the prow of a rud­der!) the south­ern shore of the Lieden­brock sea, what would have be­come of us? We should nev­er have seen the name of Saknussemm, and we should at this mo­ment be im­pris­oned on a rock­bound, im­pass­able coast.”

“Yes, Ax­el, it is prov­iden­tial that whilst sup­pos­ing we were steer­ing south we should have just got back north at Cape Saknussemm. I must say that this is as­ton­ish­ing, and that I feel I have no way to ex­plain it.”

“What does that sig­ni­fy, un­cle? Our busi­ness is not to ex­plain facts, but to use them!”

“Cer­tain­ly; but -“

“Well, un­cle, we are go­ing to re­sume the north­ern route, and to pass un­der the north coun­tries of Eu­rope - un­der Swe­den, Rus­sia, Siberia: who knows where? -in­stead of bur­row­ing un­der the deserts of Africa, or per­haps the waves of the At­lantic; and that is all I want to know.”

“Yes, Ax­el, you are right. It is all for the best, since we have left that weary, hor­izon­tal sea, which led us nowhere. Now we shall go down, down, down! Do you know that it is now on­ly 1,500 leagues. to the cen­tre of the globe?”

“Is that all?” I cried. “Why, that’s noth­ing. Let us start: march!”

All this crazy talk was go­ing on still when we met the hunter. Ev­ery­thing was made ready for our in­stant de­par­ture. Ev­ery bit of cordage was put on board. We took our places, and with our sail set, Hans steered us along the coast to Cape Saknussemm.

The wind was un­favourable to a species of launch not cal­cu­lat­ed for shal­low wa­ter. In many places we were obliged to push our­selves along with iron-​point­ed sticks. Of­ten the sunken rocks just be­neath the sur­face obliged us to de­vi­ate from our straight course. At last, af­ter three hours’ sail­ing, about six in the evening we reached a place suit­able for our land­ing. I jumped ashore, fol­lowed by my un­cle and the Ice­lander. This short pas­sage had not served to cool my ar­dour. On the con­trary, I even pro­posed to burn ‘our ship,’ to pre­vent the pos­si­bil­ity of re­turn; but my un­cle would not con­sent to that. I thought him sin­gu­lar­ly luke­warm.

“At least,” I said, “don’t let us lose a minute.”

“Yes, yes, lad,” he replied; “but first let us ex­am­ine this new gallery, to see if we shall re­quire our lad­ders.”

My un­cle put his Ruhmko­rff’s ap­pa­ra­tus in ac­tion; the raft moored to the shore was left alone; the mouth of the tun­nel was not twen­ty yards from us; and our par­ty, with my­self at the head, made for it with­out a mo­ment’s de­lay.

The aper­ture, which was al­most round, was about five feet in di­am­eter; the dark pas­sage was cut out in the live rock and lined with a coat of the erup­tive mat­ter which for­mer­ly is­sued from it; the in­te­ri­or was lev­el with the ground out­side, so that we were able to en­ter with­out dif­fi­cul­ty. We were fol­low­ing a hor­izon­tal plane, when, on­ly six paces in, our progress was in­ter­rupt­ed by an enor­mous block just across our way.

“Ac­cursed rock!” I cried in a pas­sion, find­ing my­self sud­den­ly con­front­ed by an im­pass­able ob­sta­cle.

Right and left we searched in vain for a way, up and down, side to side; there was no get­ting any far­ther. I felt fear­ful­ly dis­ap­point­ed, and I would not ad­mit that the ob­sta­cle was fi­nal. I stopped, I looked un­der­neath the block: no open­ing. Above: gran­ite still. Hans passed his lamp over ev­ery por­tion of the bar­ri­er in vain. We must give up all hope of pass­ing it.

I sat down in de­spair. My un­cle strode from side to side in the nar­row pas­sage.

“But how was it with Saknussemm?” I cried.

“Yes,” said my un­cle, “was he stopped by this stone bar­ri­er?”

“No, no,” I replied with an­ima­tion. “This frag­ment of rock has been shak­en down by some shock or con­vul­sion, or by one of those mag­net­ic storms which ag­itate these re­gions, and has blocked up the pas­sage which lay open to him. Many years have elapsed since the re­turn of Saknussemm to the sur­face and the fall of this huge frag­ment. Is it not ev­ident that this gallery was once the way open to the course of the la­va, and that at that time there must have been a free pas­sage? See here are re­cent fis­sures groov­ing and chan­nelling the gran­ite roof. This roof it­self is formed of frag­ments of rock car­ried down, of enor­mous stones, as if by some gi­ant’s hand; but at one time the ex­pul­sive force was greater than usu­al, and this block, like the falling key­stone of a ru­ined arch, has slipped down to the ground and blocked up the way. It is on­ly an ac­ci­den­tal ob­struc­tion, not met by Saknussemm, and if we don’t de­stroy it we shall be un­wor­thy to reach the cen­tre of the earth.”

Such was my sen­tence! The soul of the Pro­fes­sor had passed in­to me. The ge­nius of dis­cov­ery pos­sessed me whol­ly. I for­got the past, I scorned the fu­ture. I gave not a thought to the things of the sur­face of this globe in­to which I had dived; its cities and its sun­ny plains, Ham­burg and the Königstrasse, even poor Gräuben, who must have giv­en us up for lost, all were for the time dis­missed from the pages of my mem­ory.

“Well,” cried my un­cle, “let us make a way with our pick­ax­es.”

“Too hard for the pick­axe.”

“Well, then, the spade.”

“That would take us too long.”

“What, then?”

“Why gun­pow­der, to be sure! Let us mine the ob­sta­cle and blow it up.”

“Oh, yes, it is on­ly a bit of rock to blast!”

“Hans, to work!” cried my un­cle.

The Ice­lander re­turned to the raft and soon came back with an iron bar which he made use of to bore a hole for the charge. This was no easy work. A hole was to be made large enough to hold fifty pounds of gun­cot­ton, whose ex­pan­sive force is four times that of gun­pow­der.

I was ter­ri­bly ex­cit­ed. Whilst Hans was at work I was ac­tive­ly help­ing my un­cle to pre­pare a slow match of wet­ted pow­der en­cased in linen.

“This will do it,” I said.

“It will,” replied my un­cle.

By mid­night our min­ing prepa­ra­tions were over; the charge was rammed in­to the hole, and the slow match un­coiled along the gallery showed its end out­side the open­ing.

A spark would now de­vel­op the whole of our prepa­ra­tions in­to ac­tiv­ity.

“To-​mor­row,” said the Pro­fes­sor.

I had to be re­signed and to wait six long hours.