A Voyage Of Discovery

: A Journey To The Centre Of The Earth

It would be altogether impossible for me to give any idea of the utter

astonishment which overcame the Professor on making this extraordinary

discovery. Amazement, incredulity, and rage were blended in such a way

as to alarm me.



During the whole course of my Life I had never seen a man at first so

chapfallen; and then so furiously indignant.



The terrible fatigues of our sea voyage, the fearf
l dangers we had

passed through, had all, all, gone for nothing. We had to begin them all

over again.



Instead of progressing, as we fondly expected, during a voyage of so

many days, we had retreated. Every hour of our expedition on the raft

had been so much lost time!



Presently, however, the indomitable energy of my uncle overcame every

other consideration.



"So," he said, between his set teeth, "fatality will play me these

terrible tricks. The elements themselves conspire to overwhelm me with

mortification. Air, fire, and water combine their united efforts to

oppose my passage. Well, they shall see what the earnest will of a

determined man can do. I will not yield, I will not retreat even one

inch; and we shall see who shall triumph in this great contest man or

nature."



Standing upright on a rock, irritated and menacing, Professor Hardwigg,

like the ferocious Ajax, seemed to defy the fates. I, however, took upon

myself to interfere, and to impose some sort of check upon such

insensate enthusiasm.



"Listen to me, Uncle," I said, in a firm but temperate tone of voice,

"there must be some limit to ambition here below. It is utterly useless

to struggle against the impossible. Pray listen to reason. We are

utterly unprepared for a sea voyage; it is simply madness to think of

performing a journey of five hundred leagues upon a wretched pile of

beams, with a counterpane for a sail, a paltry stick for a mast, and a

tempest to contend with. As we are totally incapable of steering our

frail craft, we shall become the mere plaything of the storm, and it is

acting the part of madmen if we, a second time, run any risk upon this

dangerous and treacherous Central Sea."



These are only a few of the reasons and arguments I put

together reasons and arguments which to me appeared unanswerable. I was

allowed to go on without interruption for about ten minutes. The

explanation to this I soon discovered. The Professor was not even

listening, and did not hear a word of all my eloquence.



"To the raft!" he cried in a hoarse voice, when I paused for a reply.



Such was the result of my strenuous effort to resist his iron will. I

tried again; I begged and implored him; I got into a passion; but I had

to deal with a will more determined than my own. I seemed to feel like

the waves which fought and battled against the huge mass of granite at

our feet, which had smiled grimly for so many ages at their puny

efforts.



Hans, meanwhile, without taking part in our discussion, had been

repairing the raft. One would have supposed that he instinctively

guessed at the further projects of my uncle.



By means of some fragments of cordage, he had again made the raft

seaworthy.



While I had been speaking, he had hoisted a new mast and sail, the

latter already fluttering and waving in the breeze.



The worthy Professor spoke a few words to our imperturbable guide, who

immediately began to put our baggage on board and to prepare for our

departure. The atmosphere was now tolerably clear and pure, and the

northeast wind blew steadily and serenely. It appeared likely to last

for some time.



What, then, could I do? Could I undertake to resist the iron will of two

men? It was simply impossible if even I could have hoped for the support

of Hans. This, however, was out of the question. It appeared to me that

the Icelander had set aside all personal will and identity. He was a

picture of abnegation.



I could hope for nothing from one so infatuated with and devoted to his

master. All I could do, therefore, was to swim with the stream.



In a mood of stolid and sullen resignation, I was about to take my

accustomed place on the raft when my uncle placed his hand upon my

shoulder.



"There is no hurry, my boy," he said, "we shall not start until

tomorrow."



I looked the picture of resignation to the dire will of fate.



"Under the circumstances," he said, "I ought to neglect no precautions.

As fate has cast me upon these shores, I shall not leave without having

completely examined them."



In order to understand this remark, I must explain that though we had

been driven back to the northern shore, we had landed at a very

different spot from that which had been our starting point.



Port Gretchen must, we calculated, be very much to the westward.

Nothing, therefore, was more natural and reasonable than that we should

reconnoiter this new shore upon which we had so unexpectedly landed.



"Let us go on a journey of discovery," I cried.



And leaving Hans to his important operation, we started on our

expedition. The distance between the foreshore at high water and the

foot of the rocks was considerable. It would take about half an hour's

walking to get from one to the other.



As we trudged along, our feet crushed innumerable shells of every shape

and size once the dwelling place of animals of every period of

creation.



I particularly noticed some enormous shells carapaces (turtle and

tortoise species) the diameter of which exceeded fifteen feet.



They had in past ages belonged to those gigantic Glyptodons of the

Pliocene period, of which the modern turtle is but a minute specimen. In

addition, the whole soil was covered by a vast quantity of stony relics,

having the appearance of flints worn by the action of the waves, and

lying in successive layers one above the other. I came to the conclusion

that in past ages the sea must have covered the whole district. Upon the

scattered rocks, now lying far beyond its reach, the mighty waves of

ages had left evident marks of their passage.



On reflection, this appeared to me partially to explain the existence of

this remarkable ocean, forty leagues below the surface of the earth's

crust. According to my new, and perhaps fanciful, theory, this liquid

mass must be gradually lost in the deep bowels of the earth. I had also

no doubt that this mysterious sea was fed by infiltration of the ocean

above, through imperceptible fissures.



Nevertheless, it was impossible not to admit that these fissures must

now be nearly choked up, for if not, the cavern, or rather the immense

and stupendous reservoir, would have been completely filled in a short

space of time. Perhaps even this water, having to contend against the

accumulated subterraneous fires of the interior of the earth, had become

partially vaporized. Hence the explanation of those heavy clouds

suspended over our heads, and the superabundant display of that

electricity which occasioned such terrible storms in this deep and

cavernous sea.



This lucid explanation of the phenomena we had witnessed appeared to me

quite satisfactory. However great and mighty the marvels of nature may

seem to us, they are always to be explained by physical reasons.

Everything is subordinate to some great law of nature.



It now appeared clear that we were walking upon a kind of sedimentary

soil, formed like all the soils of that period, so frequent on the

surface of the globe, by the subsidence of the waters. The Professor,

who was now in his element, carefully examined every rocky fissure. Let

him only find an opening and it directly became important to him to

examine its depth.



For a whole mile we followed the windings of the Central Sea, when

suddenly an important change took place in the aspect of the soil. It

seemed to have been rudely cast up, convulsionized, as it were, by a

violent upheaving of the lower strata. In many places, hollows here and

hillocks there attested great dislocations at some other period of the

terrestrial mass.



We advanced with great difficulty over the broken masses of granite

mixed with flint, quartz, and alluvial deposits, when a large field,

more even than a field, a plain of bones, appeared suddenly before our

eyes! It looked like an immense cemetery, where generation after

generation had mingled their mortal dust.



Lofty barrows of early remains rose at intervals. They undulated away to

the limits of the distant horizon and were lost in a thick and brown

fog.



On that spot, some three square miles in extent, was accumulated the

whole history of animal life scarcely one creature upon the

comparatively modern soil of the upper and inhabited world had not there

existed.



Nevertheless, we were drawn forward by an all-absorbing and impatient

curiosity. Our feet crushed with a dry and crackling sound the remains

of those prehistoric fossils, for which the museums of great cities

quarrel, even when they obtain only rare and curious morsels. A thousand

such naturalists as Cuvier would not have sufficed to recompose the

skeletons of the organic beings which lay in this magnificent osseous

collection.



I was utterly confounded. My uncle stood for some minutes with his arms

raised on high towards the thick granite vault which served us for a

sky. His mouth was wide open; his eyes sparkled wildly behind his

spectacles (which he had fortunately saved), his head bobbed up and down

and from side to side, while his whole attitude and mien expressed

unbounded astonishment.



He stood in the presence of an endless, wondrous, and inexhaustibly rich

collection of antediluvian monsters, piled up for his own private and

peculiar satisfaction.



Fancy an enthusiastic lover of books carried suddenly into the very

midst of the famous library of Alexandria burned by the sacrilegious

Omar, and which some miracle had restored to its pristine splendor! Such

was something of the state of mind in which Uncle Hardwigg was now

placed.



For some time he stood thus, literally aghast at the magnitude of his

discovery.



But it was even a greater excitement when, darting wildly over this mass

of organic dust, he caught up a naked skull and addressed me in a

quivering voice:



"Harry, my boy Harry this is a human head!"



"A human head, Uncle!" I said, no less amazed and stupefied than

himself.



"Yes, nephew. Ah! Mr. Milne-Edwards ah! Mr. De Quatrefages why are you

not here where I am I, Professor Hardwigg!"



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