Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 21

From this time Pen­croft did not let a sin­gle day pass with­out go­ing to vis­it what he grave­ly called his “corn-​field.” And woe to the in­sects which dared to ven­ture there! No mer­cy was shown them.

To­wards the end of the month of June, af­ter in­ces­sant rain, the weath­er be­came de­cid­ed­ly cold­er, and on the 29th a Fahren­heit ther­mome­ter would cer­tain­ly have an­nounced on­ly twen­ty de­grees above ze­ro, that is con­sid­er­ably be­low the freez­ing-​point. The next day, the 30th of June, the day which cor­re­sponds to the 31st of De­cem­ber in the north­ern year, was a Fri­day. Neb re­marked that the year fin­ished on a bad day, but Pen­croft replied that nat­ural­ly the next would be­gin on a good one, which was bet­ter.

At any rate it com­menced by very se­vere cold. Ice ac­cu­mu­lat­ed at the mouth of the Mer­cy, and it was not long be­fore the whole ex­panse of the lake was frozen.

The set­tlers had fre­quent­ly been obliged to re­new their store of wood. Pen­croft al­so had wise­ly not wait­ed till the riv­er was frozen, but had brought enor­mous rafts of wood to their des­ti­na­tion. The cur­rent was an in­de­fati­ga­ble mov­ing pow­er, and it was em­ployed in con­vey­ing the float­ing wood to the mo­ment when the frost en­chained it. To the fu­el which was so abun­dant­ly sup­plied by the for­est, they added sev­er­al cart­loads of coal, which had to be brought from the foot of the spurs of Mount Franklin. The pow­er­ful heat of the coal was great­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed in the low tem­per­ature, which on the 4th of Ju­ly fell to eight de­grees of Fahren­heit, that is, thir­teen de­grees be­low ze­ro. A sec­ond fire­place had been es­tab­lished in the din­ing-​room, where they all worked to­geth­er at their dif­fer­ent av­oca­tions. Dur­ing this pe­ri­od of cold, Cyrus Hard­ing had great cause to con­grat­ulate him­self on hav­ing brought to Gran­ite House the lit­tle stream of wa­ter from Lake Grant. Tak­en be­low the frozen sur­face, and con­duct­ed through the pas­sage, it pre­served its flu­id­ity, and ar­rived at an in­te­ri­or reser­voir which had been hol­lowed out at the back part of the store­room, while the over­flow ran through the well to the sea.

About this time, the weath­er be­ing ex­treme­ly dry, the colonists, clothed as warm­ly as pos­si­ble, re­solved to de­vote a day to the ex­plo­ration of that part of the is­land be­tween the Mer­cy and Claw Cape. It was a wide ex­tent of marshy land, and they would prob­ably find good sport, for wa­ter-​birds ought to swarm there.

They reck­oned that it would be about eight or nine miles to go there, and as much to re­turn, so that the whole of the day would be oc­cu­pied. As an un­known part of the is­land was about to be ex­plored, the whole colony took part in the ex­pe­di­tion. Ac­cord­ing­ly, on the 5th of Ju­ly, at six o’clock in the morn­ing, when day had scarce­ly bro­ken, Cyrus Hard­ing, Gideon Spilett, Her­bert, Neb, and Pen­croft, armed with spears, snares, bows and ar­rows, and pro­vid­ed with pro­vi­sions, left Gran­ite House, pre­ced­ed by Top, who bound­ed be­fore them.

Their short­est way was to cross the Mer­cy on the ice, which then cov­ered it.

“But,” as the en­gi­neer just­ly ob­served, “that could not take the place of a reg­ular bridge!” So, the con­struc­tion of a reg­ular bridge was not­ed in the list of fu­ture works.

It was the first time that the set­tlers had set foot on the right bank of the Mer­cy, and ven­tured in­to the midst of those gi­gan­tic and su­perb conifer­ae now sprin­kled over with snow.

But they had not gone half a mile when from a thick­et a whole fam­ily of quadrupeds, who had made a home there, dis­turbed by Top, rushed forth in­to the open coun­try.

“Ah! I should say those are fox­es!” cried Her­bert, when he saw the troop rapid­ly de­camp­ing.

They were fox­es, but of a very large size, who ut­tered a sort of bark­ing, at which Top seemed to be very much as­ton­ished, for he stopped short in the chase, and gave the swift an­imals time to dis­ap­pear.

The dog had rea­son to be sur­prised, as he did not know Nat­ural His­to­ry. But, by their bark­ing, these fox­es, with red­dish-​gray hair, black tails ter­mi­nat­ing in a white tuft, had be­trayed their ori­gin. So Her­bert was able, with­out hes­itat­ing, to give them their re­al name of “Arc­tic fox­es.” They are fre­quent­ly met with in Chile, in the Falk­land Is­lands, and in all parts of Amer­ica tra­versed by the thir­ti­eth and for­ti­eth par­al­lels. Her­bert much re­gret­ted that Top had not been able to catch one of these car­nivo­ra.

“Are they good to eat?” asked Pen­croft, who on­ly re­gard­ed the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the fau­na in the is­land from one spe­cial point of view.

“No,” replied Her­bert; “but zo­ol­ogists have not yet found out if the eye of these fox­es is di­ur­nal or noc­tur­nal, or whether it is cor­rect to class them in the genus dog, prop­er­ly so called.”

Hard­ing could not help smil­ing on hear­ing the lad’s re­flec­tion, which showed a thought­ful mind. As to the sailor, from the mo­ment when he found that the fox­es were not classed in the genus eat­able, they were noth­ing to him. How­ev­er, when a poul­try-​yard was es­tab­lished at Gran­ite House, he ob­served that it would be best to take some pre­cau­tions against a prob­able vis­it from these four-​legged plun­der­ers, and no one dis­put­ed this.

Af­ter hav­ing turned the point, the set­tlers saw a long beach washed by the open sea. It was then eight o’clock in the morn­ing. The sky was very clear, as it of­ten is af­ter pro­longed cold; but warmed by their walk, nei­ther Hard­ing nor his com­pan­ions felt the sharp­ness of the at­mo­sphere too severe­ly. Be­sides there was no wind, which made it much more bear­able. A bril­liant sun, but with­out any calorif­ic ac­tion, was just is­su­ing from the ocean. The sea was as tran­quil and blue as that of a Mediter­ranean gulf, when the sky is clear. Claw Cape, bent in the form of a yataghan, ta­pered away near­ly four miles to the south­east. To the left the edge of the marsh was abrupt­ly end­ed by a lit­tle point. Cer­tain­ly, in this part of Union Bay, which noth­ing shel­tered from the open sea, not even a sand­bank, ships beat­en by the east winds would have found no shel­ter. They per­ceived by the tran­quil­li­ty of the sea, in which no shal­lows trou­bled the wa­ters, by its uni­form col­or, which was stained by no yel­low shades, by the ab­sence of even a reef, that the coast was steep and that the ocean there cov­ered a deep abyss. Be­hind in the west, but at a dis­tance of four miles, rose the first trees of the forests of the Far West. They might have be­lieved them­selves to be on the des­olate coast of some is­land in the Antarc­tic re­gions which the ice had in­vad­ed. The colonists halt­ed at this place for break­fast. A fire of brush­wood and dried sea­weed was light­ed, and Neb pre­pared the break­fast of cold meat, to which he added some cups of Os­wego tea.

While eat­ing they looked around them. This part of Lin­coln Is­land was very ster­ile, and con­trast­ed with all the west­ern part. The re­porter was thus led to ob­serve that if chance had thrown them at first on the shore, they would have had but a de­plorable idea of their fu­ture do­main.

“I be­lieve that we should not have been able to reach it,” replied the en­gi­neer, “for the sea is deep, and there is not a rock on which we could have tak­en refuge. Be­fore Gran­ite House, at least, there were sand­banks, an islet, which mul­ti­plied our chances of safe­ty. Here, noth­ing but the depths!”

“It is sin­gu­lar enough,” re­marked Spilett, “that this com­par­ative­ly small is­land should present such var­ied ground. This di­ver­si­ty of as­pect, log­ical­ly on­ly be­longs to con­ti­nents of a cer­tain ex­tent. One would re­al­ly say, that the west­ern part of Lin­coln Is­land, so rich and so fer­tile, is washed by the warm wa­ters of the Gulf of Mex­ico, and that its shores to the north and the south­east ex­tend over a sort of Arc­tic sea.”

“You are right, my dear Spilett,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing, “I have al­so ob­served this. I think the form and al­so the na­ture of this is­land strange. It is a sum­ma­ry of all the as­pects which a con­ti­nent presents, and I should not be sur­prised if it was a con­ti­nent for­mer­ly.”

“What! a con­ti­nent in the mid­dle of the Pa­cif­ic?” cried Pen­croft.

“Why not?” replied Cyrus Hard­ing. “Why should not Aus­tralia, New Ire­land, Aus­trala­sia, unit­ed to the archipela­goes of the Pa­cif­ic, have once formed a sixth part of the world, as im­por­tant as Eu­rope or Asia, as Africa or the two Amer­ic­as? To my mind, it is quite pos­si­ble that all these is­lands, emerg­ing from this vast ocean, are but the sum­mits of a con­ti­nent, now sub­merged, but which was above the wa­ters at a pre­his­toric pe­ri­od.”

“As the At­lantis was for­mer­ly,” replied Her­bert.

“Yes, my boy… if, how­ev­er, it ex­ist­ed.”

“And would Lin­coln Is­land have been a part of that con­ti­nent?” asked Pen­croft.

“It is prob­able,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing, “and that would suf­fi­cient­ly, ex­plain the va­ri­ety of pro­duc­tions which are seen on its sur­face.”

“And the great num­ber of an­imals which still in­hab­it it,” added Her­bert.

“Yes, my boy,” replied the en­gi­neer, “and you fur­nish me with an ar­gu­ment to sup­port my the­ory. It is cer­tain, af­ter what we have seen, that an­imals are nu­mer­ous in this is­land, and what is more strange, that the species are ex­treme­ly var­ied. There is a rea­son for that, and to me it is that Lin­coln Is­land may have for­mer­ly been a part of some vast con­ti­nent which had grad­ual­ly sunk be­low the Pa­cif­ic.”

“Then, some fine day,” said Pen­croft, who did not ap­pear to be en­tire­ly con­vinced, “the rest of this an­cient con­ti­nent may dis­ap­pear in its turn, and there will be noth­ing be­tween Amer­ica and Asia.”

“Yes,” replied Hard­ing, “there will be new con­ti­nents which mil­lions and mil­lions of an­imal­cu­lae are build­ing at this mo­ment.”

“And what are these ma­sons?” asked Pen­croft.

“Coral in­sects,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing. “By con­stant work they made the is­land of Cler­mont-​Ton­nerre, and nu­mer­ous oth­er coral is­lands in the Pa­cif­ic Ocean. Forty-​sev­en mil­lions of these in­sects are need­ed to weigh a grain, and yet, with the sea-​salt they ab­sorb, the sol­id el­ements of wa­ter which they as­sim­ilate, these an­imal­cu­lae pro­duce lime­stone, and this lime­stone forms enor­mous sub­ma­rine erec­tions, of which the hard­ness and so­lid­ity equal gran­ite. For­mer­ly, at the first pe­ri­ods of cre­ation, na­ture em­ploy­ing fire, heaved up the land, but now she en­trusts to these mi­cro­scop­ic crea­tures the task of re­plac­ing this agent, of which the dy­nam­ic pow­er in the in­te­ri­or of the globe has ev­ident­ly di­min­ished–which is proved by the num­ber of vol­ca­noes on the sur­face of the earth, now ac­tu­al­ly ex­tinct. And I be­lieve that cen­turies suc­ceed­ing to cen­turies, and in­sects to in­sects, this Pa­cif­ic may one day be changed in­to a vast con­ti­nent, which new gen­er­ations will in­hab­it and civ­ilize in their turn.”

“That will take a long time,” said Pen­croft.

“Na­ture has time for it,” replied the en­gi­neer.

“But what would be the use of new con­ti­nents?” asked Her­bert. “It ap­pears to me that the present ex­tent of hab­it­able coun­tries is suf­fi­cient for hu­man­ity. Yet na­ture does noth­ing use­less­ly.”

“Noth­ing use­less­ly, cer­tain­ly,” replied the en­gi­neer, “but this is how the ne­ces­si­ty of new con­ti­nents for the fu­ture, and ex­act­ly on the trop­ical zone oc­cu­pied by the coral is­lands, may be ex­plained. At least to me this ex­pla­na­tion ap­pears plau­si­ble.”

“We are lis­ten­ing, cap­tain,” said Her­bert.

“This is my idea: philoso­phers gen­er­al­ly ad­mit that some day our globe will end, or rather that an­imal and veg­etable life will no longer be pos­si­ble, be­cause of the in­tense cold to which it will be sub­ject­ed. What they are not agreed up­on, is the cause of this cold. Some think that it will arise from the falling of the tem­per­ature, which the sun will ex­pe­ri­ence al­ter mil­lions of years; oth­ers, from the grad­ual ex­tinc­tion of the fires in the in­te­ri­or of our globe, which have a greater in­flu­ence on it than is gen­er­al­ly sup­posed. I hold to this last hy­poth­esis, ground­ing it on the fact that the moon is re­al­ly a cold star, which is no longer hab­it­able, al­though the sun con­tin­ues to throw on its sur­face the same amount of heat. If, then, the moon has be­come cold, it is be­cause the in­te­ri­or fires to which, as do all the stars of the stel­lar world, it owes its ori­gin, are com­plete­ly ex­tinct. Last­ly, what­ev­er may be the cause, our globe will be­come cold some day, but this cold will on­ly op­er­ate grad­ual­ly. What will hap­pen, then? The tem­per­ate zones, at a more or less dis­tant pe­ri­od, will not be more hab­it­able than the po­lar re­gions now are. Then the pop­ula­tion of men, as well as the an­imals, will flow to­wards the lat­itudes which are more di­rect­ly un­der the so­lar in­flu­ence. An im­mense em­igra­tion will take place. Eu­rope, Cen­tral Asia, North Amer­ica, will grad­ual­ly be aban­doned, as well as Aus­trala­sia and the low­er parts of South Amer­ica. The veg­eta­tion will fol­low the hu­man em­igra­tion. The flo­ra will re­treat to­wards the Equa­tor at the same time as the fau­na. The cen­tral parts of South Amer­ica and Africa will be the con­ti­nents chiefly in­hab­it­ed. The La­plan­ders and the Samoides will find the cli­mate of the po­lar re­gions on the shores of the Mediter­ranean. Who can say, that at this pe­ri­od, the equa­to­ri­al re­gions will not be too small, to con­tain and nour­ish ter­res­tri­al hu­man­ity? Now, may not prov­ident na­ture, so as to give refuge to all the veg­etable and an­imal em­igra­tion, be at present lay­ing the foun­da­tion of a new con­ti­nent un­der the Equa­tor, and may she not have en­trust­ed these in­sects with the con­struc­tion of it? I have of­ten thought of all these things, my friends, and I se­ri­ous­ly be­lieve that the as­pect of our globe will some day be com­plete­ly changed; that by the rais­ing of new con­ti­nents the sea will cov­er the old, and that, in fu­ture ages, a Colum­bus will go to dis­cov­er the is­lands of Chimb­ora­zo, of the Hi­malayas, or of Mont Blanc, re­mains of a sub­merged Amer­ica, Asia, and Eu­rope. Then these new con­ti­nents will be­come, in their turn, un­in­hab­it­able; heat will die away, as does the heat from a body when the soul has left it; and life will dis­ap­pear from the globe, if not for ev­er, at least for a pe­ri­od. Per­haps then, our spheroid will rest– will be left to death–to re­vive some day un­der su­pe­ri­or con­di­tions! But all that, my friends, is the se­cret of the Au­thor of all things; and be­gin­ning by the work of the in­sects, I have per­haps let my­self be car­ried too far, in in­ves­ti­gat­ing the se­crets of the fu­ture.

“My dear Cyrus,” replied Spilett, “these the­ories are prophe­cies to me, and they will be ac­com­plished some day.”

“That is the se­cret of God,” said the en­gi­neer.

“All that is well and good,” then said Pen­croft, who had lis­tened with all his might, “but will you tell me, cap­tain, if Lin­coln Is­land has been made by your in­sects?”

“No,” replied Hard­ing; “it is of a pure­ly vol­canic ori­gin.”

“Then it will dis­ap­pear some day?”

“That is prob­able.

“I hope we won’t be here then.”

“No, don’t be un­easy, Pen­croft; we shall not be here then, as we have no wish to die here, and hope to get away some time.”

“In the mean­time,” replied Gideon Spilett, “let us es­tab­lish our­selves here as if for­ev­er. There is no use in do­ing things by halves.”

This end­ed the con­ver­sa­tion. Break­fast was fin­ished, the ex­plo­ration was con­tin­ued, and the set­tlers ar­rived at the bor­der of the marshy re­gion. It was a marsh of which the ex­tent, to the round­ed coast which ter­mi­nat­ed the is­land at the south­east, was about twen­ty square miles. The soil was formed of clayey flint-​earth, min­gled with veg­etable mat­ter, such as the re­mains of rush­es, reeds, grass, etc. Here and there beds of grass, thick as a car­pet, cov­ered it. In many places icy pools sparkled in the sun. Nei­ther rain nor any riv­er, in­creased by a sud­den swelling, could sup­ply these ponds. They there­fore nat­ural­ly con­clud­ed that the marsh was fed by the in­fil­tra­tions of the soil and it was re­al­ly so. It was al­so to be feared that dur­ing the heat mi­as­mas would arise, which might pro­duce fevers.

Above the aquat­ic plants, on the sur­face of the stag­nant wa­ter, flut­tered num­bers of birds. Wild duck, teal, snipe lived there in flocks, and those fear­less birds al­lowed them­selves to be eas­ily ap­proached.

One shot from a gun would cer­tain­ly have brought down some dozen of the birds, they were so close to­geth­er. The ex­plor­ers were, how­ev­er, obliged to con­tent them­selves with bows and ar­rows. The re­sult was less, but the silent ar­row had the ad­van­tage of not fright­en­ing the birds, while the noise of firearms would have dis­persed them to all parts of the marsh. The hunters were sat­is­fied, for this time, with a dozen ducks, which had white bod­ies with a band of cin­na­mon, a green head, wings black, white, and red, and flat­tened beak. Her­bert called them ta­dorns. Top helped in the cap­ture of these birds, whose name was giv­en to this marshy part of the is­land. The set­tlers had here an abun­dant re­serve of aquat­ic game. At some fu­ture time they meant to ex­plore it more care­ful­ly, and it was prob­able that some of the birds there might be do­mes­ti­cat­ed, or at least brought to the shores of the lake, so that they would be more with­in their reach.

About five o’clock in the evening Cyrus Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions re­traced their steps to their dwelling by travers­ing Ta­dorn’s Fens, and crossed the Mer­cy on the ice-​bridge.

At eight in the evening they all en­tered Gran­ite House.