the arrangement of which is often very surprising. Here nature had done her work geometrically, with square and compass and plummet. Everywhere else her art consists alone in throwing down huge masses together in disorder. You see cones imperfectly formed, irregular pyramids, with a fantastic disarrangement of lines. But here, as if to exhibit an example of regularity, though in advance of the very earliest architects, she has created a severely simple order of architecture, never surpassed either by the splendors of Babylon or the wonders of Greece. I had heard of the giants causeway in Ireland and Fingals Cave in Stapha, one of the Hebrides, but I had never yet seen a basaltic formation. At Stoppy I beheld this phenomenon in all its beauty. The wall that confined the fjord, like all the coast of the peninsula, was composed of a series of vertical columns thirty feet high. These straight shafts, of fair proportions, supported an architrave of horizontal slabs, the overhanging portion of which formed a semi-arch over the sea. At intervals, under this natural shelter, there spread out vaulted entrances in beautiful curves, into which the waves came dashing with foam and spray. A few shafts of basalt, torn from their hold by the fury of tempests, lay along the soil like remains of an ancient temple, in ruins forever fresh and over which centuries passed without leaving a trace of age upon them. This was our last stage upon the earth. Hans had exhibited great intelligence, and it gave me some little comfort to think then that he was not going to leave us. On arriving at the door of the rector's house, which was not different from the others, I saw a man shoeing a horse, hammer in hand, with a leather nape on. Selvertu, said the hunter. Godag, said the blacksmith, in good Danish. Kierke Herde, said Hans, turning around to my uncle. The rector, repeated the professor. It seems, Axel, that this good man is the rector. Our guide in the meanwhile was making the Kierke Herde aware of the position of things. When the latter, suspending his labors for a moment, uttered a sound no doubt understood between horses and ferriers, and immediately a tall and ugly hag appeared from the hut. She must have been six feet at the least. I was in great alarm lest she should treat me to the Icelandic kiss. But there was no occasion to fear, nor did she do the honors at all too gracefully. The visitor's room seemed to me the worst in the whole cabin. It was close, dirty, and evil smelling. But we had to be content. The rector did not go in for antique hospitality, very far from it. Before the day was over, I saw that we had to do with the blacksmith, a fisherman, a hunter, a joiner, but not at all with a minister of the gospel. To be sure, it was a weekday. Perhaps on a Sunday he made amends. I don't mean to say anything against these poor priests, who after all are very wretched. They receive from the Danish government a ridiculously small pittance, and they get from the parish the fourth part of the tithe, which does not come to sixty marks a year, about four pounds. Hence the necessity to work for their livelihood. But after fishing, hunting, and shoeing horses for any length of time, one soon gets into the ways and manners of fishermen, hunters, and farriers, and other rather crude and uncultivated people. And that evening I found out that temperance was not among the virtues that distinguished my host. My uncle soon discovered what sort of a man he had to do with. Instead of a good and learned man, he found a rude and coarse peasant. He therefore resolved to commence the grand expedition at once, and to leave this inhospitable parsonage. He cared nothing about fatigue, and resolved to spend some days upon the mountain. The preparations for our departure were therefore made the very day after our arrival at Staphi. Hans hired the services of three Icelanders to do the duty of the horses in the transport of the burdens. But as soon as we had arrived at the crater, these natives were to turn back and leave us to our own devices. This was to be clearly understood. My uncle now took the opportunity to explain to Hans that it was his intention to explore the interior of the volcano to its farthest limits. Hans merely nodded. There or elsewhere, down in the boughs of the earth, or anywhere on the surface, all was alike to him. For my own part the incidents of the journey had hitherto kept me amused and made me forgetful of coming evils. But now my fears again were beginning to get the better of me. But what could I do? The place to resist the Professor would have been Hamburg, not the foot of Snafell. One thought above all others, harassed and alarmed me. It was one calculated to shake firmer nerves than mine. Now, thought I, here we are, about to climb Snafell. Very good. We will explore the crater. Very good, too. Others have done as much without dying for it. But that is not all. If there is a way to penetrate into the very boughs of the island, if that ill-advised sagnosome has told a true tale, we shall lose our way amidst the deep subterranean passages of this volcano. Now there is no proof that Snafell is extinct. Who can assure us that an eruption is not brewing at this very moment? Does it follow that because the monster has slept since 1229 he must therefore never awake again? And, if he wakes up presently, where shall we be? It was worth while debating this question, and I did debate it. I could not sleep for dreaming about eruptions. Now, the part of the ejected scoriae and ashes seemed to my mind a very rough one to act. So at last, when I could hold out no longer, I resolved to lay the case before my uncle, as prudently and as cautiously as possible, just under the form of an almost impossible hypothesis. I went to him. I communicated my fears to him, and drew back a step to give him room for the explosion which I knew must follow. But I was mistaken. I was thinking of that, he replied with great simplicity. What could those words mean? Was he actually going to listen to reason? Was he contemplating the abandonment of his plans? This was too good to be true. After a few moments' silence, during which I dare not question him, he resumed. I was thinking of that. Ever since we arrived at Stoppy, I have been occupied with the important question you have just opened, for we must not be guilty of imprudence. No, indeed! I replied with forcible emphasis. For six hundred years, Snafell has been dumb, but he may speak again. Now, eruptions are always preceded by certain well-known phenomena. I have therefore examined the natives. I have studied external appearances, and I can assure you, Axel, that there will be no eruption. At this positive affirmation I stood amazed and speechless. You don't doubt my word? said my uncle. Well, follow me. I obeyed like an automaton. Coming out from the priest's house, the professor took a straight road, which, through an opening in the basaltic wall, led away from the sea. We were soon in the open country, if one may give that name to a vast extent of mounds of volcanic products. This tract seemed crushed under a rain of enormous ejected rocks of trap, basalt, granite, and all kinds of igneous rocks. Here and there I could see puffs and jets of steam curling up into the air, called an Icelandic raker, issuing from thermal springs and indicating by their motion the volcanic energy underneath. This seemed to justify my fears. But I fell from the height of my newborn hopes when my uncle said, You see all these volumes of steam, Axel? Well, they demonstrate that we have nothing to fear from the fury of a volcanic eruption. Am I to believe that? I cried. Understand this clearly, added the professor. At the approach of an eruption, these jets would redouble their activity, but disappear altogether during the period of the eruption. For the elastic fluids, being no longer under pressure, go off by way of the crater instead of escaping by their usual passages through the fishes in the soil. Therefore, if these vapors remain in their usual condition, if they display no augmentation of force, and if you add to this the observation that the wind and rain are not ceasing and being replaced by a still and heavy atmosphere, then you may affirm that no eruption is preparing. But no more. That is sufficient. When science has uttered her voice, let babblers hold their peace. I returned to the parsonage, very crestfallen. My uncle had beaten me with the weapons of science. Still, I had one hope left, and this was that when we had reached the bottom of the crater, it would be impossible for one of a passage to go deeper in spite of all the sacnesomes in Iceland. I spent the whole night in one constant nightmare. In the heart of a volcano, and from the deepest depths of the earth, I saw myself tossed up amongst the interplanetary spaces under the form of an eruptive rock. The next day, June 23rd, Hans was awaiting us with his companions carrying provisions, tools, and instruments. Two iron pointed sticks, two rifles, and two shot belts were for my uncle and myself. Hans, as a cautious man, had added to our luggage a leathern bottle full of water, which, with that in our flasks, would ensure us a supply of water for eight days. It was nine in the morning. The priest and his tall Magyra were awaiting us at the door. We supposed they were standing there to bid us a kind farewell. But the farewell was put in the unexpected form of a heavy bill in which everything was charged, even to the very air we breathed in the pastoral house infected as it was. This worthy couple were fleecing us just as a Swiss innkeeper might have done and estimated their imperfect hospitality at the highest price. My uncle paid without a remark. A man who was starting for the center of the earth need not be particular about a few ricks dollars. This point being settled, Hans gave the signal and we soon left Stoppy behind us. End of CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XV Snafell is five thousand feet high. Its double cone forms the limit of a trachetic belt which stands out distinctly in the mountain system of the island. From our starting point we could see the two peaks boldly projected against the dark gray sky. I could see an enormous cap of snow coming low down upon the giant's brow. We walked in single file, headed by the hunter, who assented by narrow tracks, where two could not have gone abreast. There was therefore no room for conversation. After we had passed the basaltic wall of the fjord of Stoppy, we passed over a vegetable fibrous peat bog left from the ancient vegetation of this peninsula. The vast quantity of this unworked fuel would be sufficient to warm the whole population of Iceland for a century. This vast turberry, measured in certain ravines, had in many places a depth of seventy feet and presented layers of carbonized remains of vegetation alternating with thinner layers of tufacious pumice. As a true nephew of the Professor Liedenbrock, and in spite of my dismal prospects, I could not help observing with interest the mineralogical curiosities which lay about me as in a vast museum, and I constructed for myself a complete geological account of Iceland. This most curious island has evidently been projected from the bottom of the sea at a comparatively recent date. Possibly it may still be subject to gradual elevation. If this is the case, its origin may well be attributed to subterranean fires. Therefore, in this case, the theory of Sir Humphrey Davy, Sacknessum's document, and my uncle's theories would all go off in smoke. This hypothesis led me to examine with more attention the appearance of a surface, and I soon arrived at a conclusion as to the nature of the forces which presided at its birth. Iceland, which is entirely devoid of alluvial soil, is wholly composed of volcanic tufa, that is to say, an agglomeration of porous rocks and stones. Before the volcanoes broke out, it consisted of trap rocks slowly upraised to the level of the sea by the action of central forces. The internal fires had not yet forced their way through. But at a later period, a wide chasm formed diagonally from southwest to northeast, the which was gradually forced out the trackite which was to form a mountain chain. No violence accompanied this change. The matter thrown out was in vast quantities, and the liquid material oozing out from the abyss of the earth slowly spread in extensive plains or in helicy masses. To this period belonged the fell spar, cyanites, and porphyries. But with the help of this outflow, the thickness of the crust of the island increased materially, and therefore also its powers of resistance. It may easily be conceived what vast quantities of elastic gases, what masses of molten matter accumulated beneath its solid surface whilst no exit was practicable after the cooling of the trachitic crust. Therefore a time would come when the elastic and explosive forces of the imprisoned gases would upheave this ponderous cover and drive out for themselves openings through tall chimneys. Hence then the volcano would distend and lift up the crust, and then burst through a crater suddenly formed at the summit or thinnest part of the volcano. To the eruption succeeded other volcanic phenomena. Through the outlets now made, first escaped the ejected basalt of which the plain we had just left presented such marvellous specimens. We were moving over gray rocks of dense and massive formation, which in cooling had formed into hexagonal prisms. Everywhere around us we saw truncated cones, formerly so many fiery mouths. After the exhaustion of the basalt, the volcano, the power of which grew by the extinction of the lesser craters, supplied an egress to lava, ashes, and scoriae of which I could see lengthened screes streaming down the sides of the mountain like flowing hair. Such was the succession of phenomena which produced Iceland, all arising from the action of internal fire. And to suppose that the mass within did not still exist in a state of liquid incandescence was absurd, and nothing could surpass the absurdity of fancying that it was possible to reach the Earth's center. So I felt a little comforted as we advanced to the assault of Snafell. The way was growing more and more arduous, the ascent steeper and steeper, the loose fragments of rock trembled beneath us, and the utmost care was needed to avoid dangerous falls. Hans went on as quietly as if he were on level ground. Sometimes he disappeared altogether behind the huge blocks, then a shrill whistle would direct us on our way to him. Sometimes he would halt, pick up a few bits of stone, build them up into a recognizable form, and thus made landmarks to guide us in our way back. A very wise precaution in itself, but as things turned out, quite useless. Three hours fatiguing march had only brought us to the base of the mountain. There Hans Bittus come to a halt, and a hasty breakfast was served out. My uncle swallowed two mouthfuls at a time to get on faster. But whether he liked it or not, this was a rest as well as a breakfast hour, and he had to wait till it pleased our guide to move on, which came to pass in an hour. The three Icelanders, just as taciturn as their comrade the hunter, never spoke, and ate their breakfasts in silence. We were now beginning to scale the steep sides of Snafell. Its snowy summit, by an optical illusion not unfrequent in mountains, seemed close to us, and yet how many weary hours it took to reach it. The stones, adhering by no soil or fibrous roots of vegetation, rolled away from under our feet and rushed on the precipice below with the swiftness of an avalanche. At some places the flanks of the mountain formed an angle with the horizon of at least thirty-six degrees. It was impossible to climb them, and these stony cliffs had to be tacked round, not without great difficulty. Then we helped each other with our sticks. I must admit that my uncle kept as close to me as he could. He never lost sight of me, and in many straits his arm furnished me with a powerful support. He himself seemed to possess an instinct for equilibrium, for he never stumbled. The Icelanders, though burdened with our loads, climbed with the agility of mountaineers. To judge by the distant appearance of the summit of Snafell it would have seemed too steep to ascend on our side. Fortunately, after an hour of fatigue and athletic exercises in the midst of the vast surface of snow presented by the hollow between the two peaks, a kind of staircase appeared unexpectedly which greatly facilitated our ascent. It was formed by one of those torrents of stones flung up by the eruptions, called Sting by the Icelanders. If this torrent had not been arrested in his fall by the formation of the sides of the mountain, it would have gone on to the sea and formed more islands. Such as it was, it did us good service. The steepness increased, but these stone steps allowed us to rise with facility, and even with such rapidity that, having rested for a moment while my companions continued their ascent, I perceived them already reduced by distance to microscopic dimensions. At seven we had ascended the two thousand steps of this grand staircase, and we had attained a bulge in the mountain, a kind of bed on which rested the cone proper of the crater. Three thousand two hundred feet below us stretched the sea. We had passed the limit of perpetual snow, which, on account of the moisture of the climate, is at a greater elevation in Iceland than the high latitude would give reason to suppose. The cold was excessively keen. The wind was blowing violently. I was exhausted. The professor saw that my limbs were refusing to perform their office, and in spite of his impatience he decided on stopping. He therefore spoke to the hunter, who shook his head saying, It seems we must go higher, said my uncle. Then he asked Hans for his reason. Mr. replied the guide. Yeah, Mr. said one of the Icelanders in a tone of alarm. What does that word mean? I asked uneasily. Look, said my uncle. I looked down upon the plain. An immense column of pulverized pumice, sand and dust, was rising with a whirling circular motion like a water spout. The wind was lashing it on to that side of Snafell where we were holding on. This dense veil hung across the sun through a deep shadow over the mountain. If that huge revolving pillar sloped down it would involve us in its whirling eddies. This phenomenon, which is not infrequent when the wind blows from the glaciers, is called in Icelandic misdor. Hostigt, hostigt, cried our guide. Without knowing Danish I understood at once that we must follow Hans at the top of our speed. He began to circle round the cone of the crater, but in a diagonal direction so as to facilitate our progress. Presently the dust storm fell upon the mountain, which quivered under the shock. The loose stones, caught with the irresistible blasts of wind, flew about in a perfect hail as in an eruption. Happily we were on the opposite side and sheltered from all harm. But for the precaution of our guide our mangled bodies torn and pouted into fragments would have been carried afar like the ruins hurled along by some unknown meteor. Yet Hans did not think it prudent to spend the night upon the sides of the cone. We continued our zigzag climb. The fifteen hundred remaining feet took us five hours to clear. The circuitous route, the diagonal, and the counter-marches must have measured at least three leagues. I could stand it no longer. I was yielding to the effects of hunger and cold. The rarefied air scarcely gave play to the action of my lungs. At last, at eleven in the sunlight night, the summit of Snafell was reached, and before going in for shelter into the crater, I had time to observe the midnight sun at his lowest point gilding with his pale rays the island that slept at my feet. End of Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Of A Journey Into The Interior Of The Earth by Jules Verne Translated by Frederick Mellison This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 16 Boldly Down The Crater Supper was rapidly devoured, and the little company housed themselves as best they could. The bed was hard, the shelter not very substantial, and our position an anxious one at five thousand feet above the sea level. Yet I slept particularly well. It was one of the best nights I had ever had, and I did not even dream. Next morning we awoke half-frozen by the sharp keen air, but with the light of a splendid sun. I rose for my granted bed, and went out to enjoy the magnificent spectacle that lay unrolled before me. I stood on the very summit of the southern most of Snafell's peaks. The range of the eye extended over the whole island. By an optical law which obtains at all great heights the shore seemed raised and the centre depressed. It seemed as if one of Helbesmer's raised maps lay at my feet. I could see deep valleys intersecting each other in every direction. Precipices like low walls, lakes reduced to ponds, rivers abbreviated into streams. On my right were numberless glaciers and innumerable peaks, some plumed with feathery clouds of smoke. The undulating surface of these endless mountains, crested with sheets of snow, reminded one of a stormy sea. If I looked westward there the ocean lay spread out in all its magnificence, like a mere continuation of those flock-like summits. The eye could hardly tell where the snowy ridges ended and the foaming waves began. I was thus steeped in the marvellous ecstasy which all high summits develop in the mind, and now without giddiness, for I was beginning to be a custom to the sublime aspects of nature. My dazzled eyes were bathed in the bright flood of the solar rays. I was forgetting where and who I was to live the life of elves and sylphs, the fanciful creation of Scandinavian superstitions. I felt intoxicated with the sublime pleasure of lofty elevations, without thinking of the profound abysses into which I was shortly to be plunged. But I was brought back to the realities of things by the arrival of Hans and the Professor, who joined me on the summit. My uncle pointed out to me in the far west a light steam or mist, a semblance of land which bounded the distant horizon of waters. Greenland, said he. Greenland, I cried. Yes, we are only thirty-five leagues from it, and during thaws the white bears, born by the ice fields from the north, are carried even into Iceland. But never mind that. Here we are at the top of Snafell, and here are two peaks, one north and one south. Hans will tell us the name of that on which we are now standing. The question being put, Hans replied, Skartaris. My uncle shot a triumphant glance at me. Now for the crater, he cried. The crater of Snafell resembled an inverted cone, the opening of which might be half a league in diameter. Its depth appeared to be about two thousand feet. Imagine the aspect of such a reservoir, brim full and running over with liquid fire amid the rolling thunder. The bottom of the funnel was about two hundred fifty feet in circuit, so that the gentle slope allowed its lower brim to be reached without much difficulty. Involuntarily I compared the whole crater to an enormous erected mortar, and the comparison put me in a terrible fright. What madness, I thought, to go down into a mortar, perhaps a loaded mortar, to be shot up into the air at a moment's notice. But I did not try to back out of it. Hans, with perfect coolness, resumed the lead, and I followed him without a word. In order to facilitate the descent, Hans wound his way down the cone by a spiral path. Our route lay amidst eruptive rocks, some of which, shaken out of their loosened beds, rushed bounding down the abyss, and in their fall awoke echoes remarkable for their loud and well-defined sharpness. In certain parts of the cone there were glaciers. Here Hans advanced only with extreme precaution, sounding his way with his iron-pointed pole to discover any crevasses in it. At particularly dubious passages we were obliged to connect ourselves with each other by a long cord, in order that any man who missed his footing might be held up by his companions. This solid formation was prudent, but did not remove all danger. Yet, notwithstanding the difficulties of the descent, down steeps unknown to the guide, the journey was accomplished without accidents, except the loss of a coil of rope, which escaped from the hands of an Icelander and took the shortest way to the bottom of the abyss. At midday we arrived. I raised my head and saw straight above me the upper aperture of the cone, framing a bit of sky a very small circumference, but almost perfectly round. Just upon the edge appeared the snowy peak of Saras, standing out sharp and clear against the endless space. At the bottom of the crater were three chimneys, through which, in its eruptions, Snafelt had driven forth fire and lava from its central furnace. Each of these chimneys was a hundred feet in diameter, the gaped before us right in our path. I had not the courage to look down either of them, but Professor Liedembrock had hastily surveyed all three. He was panting, running for one to the other, gesticulating and uttering incoherent expressions. Hans and his comrades seated upon loose lava rocks looked at him with as much wonder as they knew how to express, and perhaps taking him for an escaped lunatic. Suddenly my uncle uttered a cry. I thought his foot must have slipped and that he had fallen down one of the holes. But no, I saw him, with arms outstretched and legs straddling wide apart, erect before a granite rock that stood in the center of the crater, just like a pedestal made ready to receive a statue of Pluto. He stood like a man stupefied, but the stupefaction soon gave way to a delirious rapture. Axel, Axel! he cried, Come, come! I ran. Hans and the Icelanders never stirred. Look! cried the Professor. And, sharing his astonishment, but I think not his joy, I read on the western face of the block in runic characters, half moldered away with laps of ages, this thrice-accursed name. Aren't sacked is him? replied my uncle. Do you yet doubt? I made no answer, and I returned in silence to my lava seat in a state of utter speechless consternation. Here was crushing evidence. How long I remained plunged in agonizing reflections I cannot tell. All that I know is that unraising my head again I saw only my uncle and Hans at the bottom of the crater. The Icelanders had been dismissed, and they were now descending the outer slopes of Snafell to return to Stapi. Hans slept peaceably at the foot of a rock in a lava bed, where he had found a suitable couch for himself, but my uncle was pacing around the bottom of the crater like a wild beast in a cage. I had neither the wish nor the strength to rise, and following the guide's example I went off into an unhappy slumber, fancying I could hear ominous noises or feel trembling within the recesses of the mountain. Thus the first night in the crater passed away. The next morning a gray, heavy, cloudy sky seemed to droop over the summit of the Cone. I did not know this first from the appearances of nature, but I found it out by my uncle's impetuous wrath. I soon found out the cause, and hoped dawned again in my heart, for this reason. Of the three ways open before us, one had been taken by Sagnisim. The indications of the learned Icelander hinted at in the cryptogram pointed to this fact that the shadow of Skartaris came to touch that particular way during the latter days of the month of June. That sharp peak might hence be considered as the nomen of a vast sundial, the shadow projected from which on a certain day would point out the road to the center of the earth. Now, no sun, no shadow, and therefore no guide. Here was June twenty-fifth. If the sun was clouded for six days we must postpone our visit till next year. My limited powers of description would fail were I to attempt a picture of the Professor's angry impatience. The day wore on, and no shadow came to lay itself along the bottom of the crater. Hans did not move from the spot he had selected, yet he must be asking himself what we were waiting for, if he asked himself anything at all. My uncle spoke not a word to me. His gaze, ever directed upwards, was lost in the gray and misty space beyond. On the twenty-sixth nothing yet. Rain mingled with snow was falling all day long. Hans built a hut of pieces of lava. I felt a malicious pleasure in watching the thousand rills and cascades that came tumbling down the sides of the cone, and the deafening continuous din awakened by every stone against which they bounded. My uncle's rage knew no bounds. It was enough to irritate a meeker man than he, for it was foundering almost within the port. But Heaven never sends unmixed grief, and for Professor Liedenbrock there was a satisfaction in store proportion to his desperate anxieties. The next day the sky was again overcast, but on the twenty-ninth of June, the last day but one of the month, with the change of the moon, came a change of weather. The sun poured a flood of light down the crater. Every hillock, every rock and stone, every projecting surface had its share of the beaming torrent and threw its shadow on the ground. Amongst them all, Scartaris laid down his sharp pointed angular shadow which began to move slowly in the opposite direction to that of the radiant orb. My uncle turned to and followed it. At noon, being at its least extent, it came and softly fell upon the edge of the middle chimney. There it is! There it is! shouted the Professor. Now for the center of the globe, he added in Danish. I looked at Hans to hear what he would say. Forut was his tranquil answer. Forward, replied my uncle. It was thirteen minutes past one. End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Of A Journey Into The Interior Of The Earth by Jules Verne Translated by Frederick Malison This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 17 Vertical Descent Now began a real journey. Hitherto our toil had overcome all difficulties. Now difficulties would spring up at every step. I had not yet ventured to look down the bottomless pit into which I was about to take a plunge. The supreme hour had come. I might now either share in the Enterprise or refuse to move forward. But I was ashamed to recoil in the presence of the Hunter. Hans accepted the Enterprise with such calmness, such indifference, such perfect disregard of any possible danger that I blushed at the idea of being less brave than he. If I had been alone, I might have once more tried the effect of argument. But in the presence of the guide I held my peace. My heart flew back to my sweet Verlindes and I approached the central chimney. I have already mentioned that it was a hundred feet in diameter and three hundred feet round. I bent over a projecting rock and gazed down. My hair stood on end with terror. The bewildering feeling of vacuity laid hold upon me. I felt my center of gravity shifting its place, and giddiness mounting into my brain like drunkenness. There is nothing more treacherous than this attraction down deep abysses.  It was that of Hans. I suppose I had not taken as many lessons on gulf exploration as I ought to have done in the Frelser's Kirk at Copenhagen. But, however short was my examination of this well, I had taken some account of its confirmation. Its almost perpendicular walls were bristling with innumerable projections which would facilitate the descent. But if there was no want of steps, still there was no rail. A rope fastened to the edge of the aperture might have helped us down. But how were we to unfasten it when arrived at the other end? My uncle employed a very simple expedient to obviate this difficulty. He uncoiled a cord of the thickness of a finger and four hundred feet long. First, he dropped half of it down, then he passed it round a lava block that projected conveniently, and threw the other half down the chimney. Each of us could then descend by holding with the hand both halves of the rope, which would not be able to unroll itself from its hold. When two hundred feet down, it would be easy to get possession of the hole of the rope by letting one end go and pulling down by the other. Then the exercise would go on again, add infinitum. Now, said my uncle, after having completed these preparations, now let us look to our loads. I will divide them into three lots. Each of us will strap one upon his back. I mean only fragile articles. Of course, we were not included under that head. Hans, said he, will take charge of the tools and a portion of the provisions. You, Axel, will take another third of the provisions and the arms, and I will take the rest of the provisions and the delicate instruments. But, said I, the clothes and that mass of ladders and ropes, what is to become of them? They will go down by themselves. How so, I asked. You will see presently. My uncle was always willing to employ magnificent resources. Obeying orders, Hans tied all the non-fragile articles in one bundle, corded them firmly, and sent them bodily down the gulf before us. I listened to the dull thuds of the descending bale. My uncle, leaning over the abyss, followed the descent of the luggage with a satisfied nod, and only rose erect when he had quite lost sight of it. Very well, now it is our turn. Now I ask any sensible man if it was possible to hear those words without a shudder. The Professor fastened his package of instruments upon his shoulders. Hans took the tools, I took the arms, and the descent commenced in the following order, Hans, my uncle, and myself. It was affected in profound silence, broken only by the descent of looseened stones down the dark gulf. I dropped, as it were, frantically clutching the double cord with one hand and buttressing myself from the wall with the other by means of my stick. One idea overpowered me almost. Fear lest the rock should give way from which I was hanging. This cord seemed a fragile thing for three persons to be suspended from. I made as little use of it as possible, performing wondrous feats of equilibrium upon the lava projections which my foot seemed to catch hold of like a hand. When one of these slippery steps shook under the heavier form of Hans, he said in his tranquil voice, Gifacht! Attention! repeated my uncle. In half an hour we were standing upon the surface of a rock jammed in across the chimney from one side to the other. Hans pulled the rope by one of its ends, the other rose in the air. After passing the higher rock it came down again, bringing with it a rather dangerous shower of bits of stone and lava. Leaning over the edge of our narrow standing ground I observed that the bottom of the hole was still invisible. The same maneuver was repeated with the cord, and half an hour after we had descended another two hundred feet. I don't suppose the maddest geologist under such circumstances would have studied the nature of the rocks that we were passing. I am sure I did trouble my head about them. Pliocene, Myocene, Eocene, Cretaceous, Jurassic, Triassic, Permian, Carboniferous, Devonian, Silurian, or Primitive was all one to me. But the Professor, no doubt, was pursuing his observations or taking notes, for in one of our halts he said to me, The farther I go, the more confidence I feel. The order of these volcanic formations affords the strongest confirmation to the theories of Davy. We are now among the Primitive rocks upon which the chemical operations took place which are produced by the contact of elementary bases of metals with water. I repudiate the notion of central heat altogether. We shall see further proof of that very soon. No variation, always the same conclusion. Of course, I was not inclined to argue. My silence was taken for consent and the descent went on. Another three hours and I saw no bottom to the chimney yet. When I lifted my head I perceived the gradual contraction of its aperture. Its walls, by a gentle incline, were drawing closer to each other, and it was beginning to grow darker. Still we kept descending. It seemed to me that the falling stones were meeting with an earlier resistance and that the concussion gave a more abrupt and deaden sound. As I had taken care to keep an exact account of our maneuvers with the rope, which I knew that we had repeated fourteen times, each descent occupying half an hour, the conclusion was easy that we had been seven hours plus fourteen quarters of rest, making ten hours and a half. We had started at one. It must therefore now be eleven o'clock, and the depth to which we had descended was fourteen times two hundred feet or twenty-eight hundred feet. At this moment I heard the voice of Hans. Holt! he cried.  We are there, he cried. Where, said I, stepping near to him? At the bottom of the perpendicular chimney, he answered. Is there no way farther? Yes, there is a sort of passage which inclines to the right. We will see about that tomorrow. Let us have our supper and go to sleep. The darkness was not yet complete. The provision-case was opened. We refreshed ourselves, and went to sleep as well as we could upon a bed of stones and lava fragments. When lying on my back, I opened my eyes and saw a bright, sparkling point of light at the extremity of the gigantic tube three thousand feet long, now a vast telescope. It was a star which, seen from this depth, had lost all scintillation, and which by my computation should be forty-six or so minor. Then I fell fast to sleep. End of Chapter Seventeen, Chapter Eighteen of A Journey Into the Interior of the Earth by Jules Verne, translated by Frederick Mallison. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. CHAPTER 18 THE WONDERS OF TERRESTRIAL DEPTHS At eight in the morning a ray of daylight came to wake us up. The thousand shining surfaces of lava on the walls received it on its passage, and scattered it like a shower of sparks. There was light enough to distinguish surrounding objects. "'Well, Axel, what do you say to it?' cried my uncle, rubbing his hands.  No noise of cartwheels, no cries of basket women, no boatmen shouting. No doubt it is very quiet at the bottom of this well, but there is something alarming in the quietness itself. "'Now come,' my uncle cried. "'If you are frightened already, what will you be by and by? We have not gone a single inch yet into the boughs of the earth. "'What do you mean?' "'I mean that we have only reached the level of the island, long vertical tube, which terminates at the mouth of the crater, has its lower end only at the level of the sea.' "'Are you sure of that?' "'Quite sure. Consult the barometer.' "'In fact, the mercury, which had risen in the instrument as fast as we descended, had stopped at twenty-nine inches. "'You'll see,' said the professor, "'we have now only the pressure of our atmosphere, and I shall be glad when the aneroid takes the place of the barometer. "'And in truth, this instrument will become useless as soon as the weight of the atmosphere should exceed the pressure ascertained at the level of the sea. "'But,' I said, "'is there not reason to fear that this ever-increasing pressure will become at last very painful to bear? "'No, we shall descend at a slow rate, and our lungs will become enured to a denser atmosphere. "'Aeronauts find the want of air as they rise to high elevations, but we shall perhaps have too much. Of the two, this is what I should prefer. Don't let us lose a moment. Where is the bundle we sent down before us?' "'I then remembered that we had searched for it in vain the evening before.' My uncle questioned Hans, who, after having examined attentively with the eye of a huntsman, replied, "'Der Hupe.'" "'Up there.' And so it was. The bundle hadn't caught by a projection a hundred feet above us. Immediately the Icelander climbed up like a cat, and in a few minutes the package was in our possession. "'Now,' said my uncle, "'let us breakfast. But we must lay in a good stock, for we don't know how long we may have to go on.'" The biscuit and extractive meat were washed down with a draft of water mingled with a little gin. Breakfast over, my uncle drew from his pocket a small notebook intended for scientific observations. He consulted his instruments and recorded, Monday, July 1, chronometer, 8.17 a.m., barometer, 297 inches, thermometer, six degrees, direction, east, southeast. This last observation applied to the dark gallery and was indicated by the compass. "'Now, Axel,' cried the professor with enthusiasm, "'now we are really going into the interior of the earth. At this precise moment the journey commences.'" So saying, my uncle took in one hand rum-corps apparatus, which was hanging from his neck, and with the other he formed an electric communication with the coil in the lantern and a sufficiently bright light dispersed the darkness of the passage. Hans carried the other apparatus, which was also put into action. This ingenious application of electricity would enable us to go on for a long time by creating an artificial light even in the midst of the most inflammable gases. "'Now, march!' cried my uncle. Each shouldered his package. Hans drove before him the load of cords and clothes, and myself walking last we entered the gallery. At the moment of becoming engulfed in this dark gallery I raced my head and saw for the last time through the length of that vast tube the sky of Iceland which I was never to behold again. The lava, in the last eruption of 1229, had forced a passage through this tunnel. It still lined the walls with a thick and glistening coat. The electric light was here intensified a hundredfold by reflection. The only difficulty in proceeding lay in not sliding too fast down an incline of about forty-five degrees. Happily certain asperities and a few blisterings here and there formed steps and we descended, letting our baggage slip before us from the end of a long rope. But that which formed steps under our feet became stalactites overhead. The lava, which was porous in many places, had formed a surface covered with small rounded blisters, crystals of opaque quartz set with limpid tears of glass, and hanging like clustered chandeliers from the vaulted roof, seemed as if we were to kindle and form a sudden illumination as we passed on our way. It seemed as if the genie of the depths were lighting up their palace to receive their terrestrial guests. It is magnificent, I cried spontaneously. My uncle, what a sight! Don't you admire those blending hues of lava passing from reddish brown to bright yellow by imperceptible shades, and these crystals are just like globes of light? Ah, you think so, do you axel, my boy? Well, you will see greater splendors than these, I hope. Now let us march, march! He had better have said slide, for we did nothing but drop down the steep inclines. It was the facif's descensus of Ernie of Virgil. The compass, which I consulted frequently, gave our direction as southeast with inflexible steadiness. This lava stream deviated neither to the right nor to the left. Yet there was no sensible increase of temperature. This justified Davy's theory, and more than once I consulted the thermometer with surprise. Two hours after our departure it only marked ten degrees, an increase of only four degrees. This gave reason for believing that our descent was more horizontal than vertical. As for the exact depth reached, it was very easy to ascertain that. The professor measured accurately the angles of deviation and inclination on the road, but he kept the results to himself. About eight in the evening he signaled to stop. Han sat down at once. The lamps were hung upon a projection in the lava. We were in a sort of cavern where there was plenty of air. Certain puffs of air reached us. What atmospheric disturbance was the cause of them? I could not answer that question at the moment. Hunger and fatigue made me incapable of reasoning. A descent of seven hours consecutively is not made without considerable expenditure of strength. I was exhausted. The order to halt, therefore, gave me pleasure. Hans laid our provisions upon a block of lava, and we ate with a good appetite. But one thing troubled me. Our supply of water was half consumed. My uncle reckoned upon a fresh supply from subterranean sources, but hitherto we had met with none. I could not help drawing his attention to the circumstance. Are you surprised at this want of springs? He said. More than that. I am anxious about it. We have only water enough for five days. Don't be an easy axle. We shall find more than we want. When? When we have left this bed of lava behind us. How could springs break through such walls as these? But perhaps this passage runs to a very great depth. It seems to me that we have made no great progress vertically. Why do you suppose that? Because if we had gone deep into the crust of the earth we should have encountered greater heat. According to your system, said my uncle, but what does the thermometer say? Hardly fifteen degrees, nine degrees only since our departure. Well, what is your conclusion? This is my conclusion. According to exact observations, the increase of temperature in the interior of the globe advances at the rate of one degree for every hundred feet, but certain local conditions may modify this rate. Thus, at Yakutsk in Siberia, the increase of a degree is ascertained to be reached every thirty-six feet. This difference depends upon the heat-conducting power of the rocks. Moreover, in the neighborhood of an extinct volcano, through NICE, it has been observed that the increase of a degree is only attained at every one hundred twenty-five feet. Let us therefore assume this last hypothesis is the most suitable to our situation and calculate. Well, do calculate, my boy. Nothing is easier, said I, putting down figures in my notebook.  Very accurate indeed. Well, by my observation we are ten thousand feet below the level of the sea. Is that possible? Yes, or figures are of no use. The professor's calculations were quite correct. We had already attained a depth of six thousand feet beyond that hitherto reached by the foot of man, such as the minds of kids bald in Tyrol and those of Wuttenberg in Bohemia. The temperature, which ought to have been eighty-one degrees, was scarcely fifteen. Here was cause for reflection. End of Chapter 18 Chapter 19 OF A JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH by Jules Verne, translated by Frederick Malison. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 19 Geological Studies in Situ Next day, Tuesday, June thirty, at six a.m., the descent began again. We were still following the gallery of lava, a real natural staircase, and as gently sloping as those inclined planes which in some old houses are still found instead of flights of steps. And so we went on until twelve seventeen, the precise moment when we overtook Hans, who had stopped. Ah, here we are, exclaimed my uncle, at the very end of the chimney. I looked around me. We were standing at the intersection of two roads, both dark and narrow. Which were we to take? This was a difficulty. Still my uncle refused to admit an appearance of hesitation, either before me or the guide. He pointed out the eastern tunnel, and we were soon all three in it. Besides, there would have been interminable hesitation before this choice of roads, for since there was no indication whatever to guide our choice, we were obliged to trust to chance. The slope of this gallery was scarcely perceptible, and its sections were very unequal. Sometimes we passed a series of arches succeeding each other, like the majestic arcades of a Gothic cathedral. Here the architects of the Middle Ages might have found studies for every form of the sacred art which sprang from the development of the pointed arch. A mile farther we had to bow our heads under cornest elliptic arches in the Romanesque style, and massive pillars standing out from the wall bent under the spring of the vault that rested heavily upon them. In other places, this magnificence gave way to narrow channels between low structures which looked like beavers' huts, and we had to creep along through extremely narrow passages. The heat was perfectly bearable. Involuntarily I began to think of its heat when the lava thrown out by Snafell was boiling and working through this now silent road. I imagined the torrents of fire hurled back at every angle in the gallery, and the accumulation of intensely heated vapours in the midst of this confined channel. I only hope, thought I, that this so-called extinct volcano wouldn't take a fancy in his old age to begin his sports again. I abstained from communicating these fears to Professor Liedenbrock. He would never have understood them at all. He had but one idea, forward. He walked, he slid, he scrambled, he tumbled with a persistency which one could not but admire. By six in the evening, after a not very fatiguing walk, we had gone two leagues south, but scarcely a quarter of a mile down. My uncle said it was time to go to sleep. We ate without talking and went to sleep without reflection. Our arrangements for the night were very simple. A railway rug each into which we rode ourselves was our sole covering. We had neither cold nor intrusive visits to fear. Travellers who penetrate into the wilds of Central Africa and into the pathless forests of the New World are obliged to watch over each other by night.  No savages or wild beasts infested these silent depths. Next morning we awoke fresh and in good spirits. The road was resumed. As the day before, we followed the path of the lava. It was impossible to tell what rocks we were passing. The tunnel, instead of tending lower, approached more and more nearly to a horizontal direction. I even fancied a slight rise. But about ten this upward tendency became so evident and therefore so fatiguing that I was obliged to slacken my pace. Well, Axel, demanded the Professor impatiently. Well, I cannot stand it any longer, I replied. What, after three hours' walk over such easy ground? It may be easy, but it is tiring all the same. What, when we have nothing to do but keep going down? Going up, if you please. Going up, said my uncle with a shrug. No doubt, for the last half hour the inclines have gone the other way, and at this rate we shall soon arrive upon the level soil of Iceland. The Professor nodded slowly and uneasily, like a man that declines to be convinced. I tried to resume the conversation. He answered not a word, and gave the signal for a start. I saw that his silence was nothing but ill-humour. Still, I had courageously shouldered my burden again, and was rapidly following Hans, whom my uncle preceded. I was anxious not to be left behind. My greatest care was not to lose sight of my companions. I shuddered at the thought of being lost in the mazes of this vast, subterranean labyrinth. Besides, if the ascending road did become steeper, I was comforted with the thought that it was bringing us nearer to the surface. There was hope in this. Every step confirmed me in it, and I was rejoicing at the thought of meeting my little grauben again. By midday there was a change in the appearance of this wall of the gallery. I noticed it by a diminution of the amount of light reflected from the sides. Solid rock was appearing in the place of the lava coating. The mass was composed of inclined and sometimes vertical strata. We were passing through rocks of the transition or Silurian system. It is evident, I cried, the marine deposits formed in the second period, the shales, limestones, and sandstones. We are turning away from the primary granite. We are just as if we were people of Humber going to Lubeck by way of Hanover. I had better have kept my observations to myself, but my geological instinct was stronger than my prudence, and Uncle Liedenbrock heard my exclamation. What's that you are saying? he asked. See, I said, pointing to the varied series of sandstones and limestones and the first indication of slate. Well, we are at the period when the first plants and animals appeared. Do you think so? Look close and examine. I obliged the professor to move his lamp over the walls of the gallery. I expected some signs of astonishment, but he spoke not a word and went on. Had he understood me or not? Did he refuse to admit, out of self-love as an uncle and a philosopher, that he had mistaken his way when he chose the eastern tunnel, or was he determined to examine this passage to his farthest extremity? It was evident that we had left the Lava Path, and that this road could not possibly lead to the extinct furnace of Snafell. Yet I asked myself if I was not depending too much on this change in the rock. Might I not myself be mistaken? Were we really crossing the layers of rock which overlaid the granite foundation?  I will look. I had not gone a hundred paces before incontestable proofs presented themselves. It could not be otherwise, for in the Silurian age the seas contained at least fifteen hundred vegetable and animal species. My feet, which had become accustomed to the indurated lava floor, suddenly rested upon a dust composed of the debris of plants and shells. In the walls were distinct impressions of fucoids and lycopodites. Professor Liedembrach could not be mistaken, I thought, and yet he pushed on, with, I suppose, his eyes resolutely shut. This was only invincible obstinacy. I could hold out no longer. I picked out a perfectly formed shell which had belonged to an animal not unlike the woodlouse. Then, joining my uncle, I said, Look at this. Very well, said he quietly, it is the shell of a crustacean of an extinct species called a trilobite. Nothing more. But don't you conclude? Just what you conclude yourself. Yes, I do perfectly. We have left the granite and the lava. It is possible that I may be mistaken, but I cannot be sure of that until I have reached the very end of this gallery. You are right in doing this, my uncle, and I should quite approve of your determination if there were not a danger threatening us nearer and nearer. What danger? The want of water. Well, Axel, we will put ourselves upon rations. End of Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Of A Journey Into The Interior Of The Earth, by Jules Verne, translated by Fredric Mallison. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 20. The First Signs Of Distress In fact, we had to ration ourselves. Our provision of water could not last more than three days. I found that out for certain when suppertime came. And to our sorrow we had little reason to expect to find a spring in these transition beds. The whole of the next day the gallery opened before us its endless arcades. We moved on almost without a word. Han's silence seemed to be infecting us. The road was now not ascending, at least not perceptibly. Sometimes even it seemed to have a slight fall. But this tendency, which was very trifling, could not do anything to reassure the Professor. For there was no change in the beds, and the transitional characteristics became more and more decided. The electric light was reflected in sparkling splendor from the schist, limestone, and old red sandstone of the walls. It might have been thought that we were passing through a section of whales, of which an ancient people gave its name to this system. Specimens of magnificent marbles clothed the walls, some of a grayish agate fantastically veined with white, others of rich crimson or yellow dashed with splotches of red. Then came dark cherry-colored marbles relieved by the lighter tints of limestone. The greater part of these bore impressions of primitive organisms. Creation had evidently advanced since the day before. Instead of rudimentary trilobites, I noticed remains of a more perfect order of beings, amongst others, ganoid fishes, and some of those soroids in which paleontologists have discovered the earliest reptile farms. The Devonian seas were people by animals of these species, and deposited them by thousands in the rocks of the newer formation. It was evident that we were sending that scale of animal life in which man fills the highest place, but Professor Liedembrock seemed not to notice it. He was awaiting one of two events, either the appearance of a vertical well opening before his feet down which our descent might be resumed, or that of some obstacle which should effectually turn us back on our own footsteps. But evening came, and neither wish was gratified. On Friday, after a night during which I felt pangs of thirst, our little troop again plunged into the winding passages of the gallery. After ten hours walking, I observed a singular deadening of the reflection of our lamps on the side walls. The marble, the schist, the limestone, and the sandstone were giving way to a dark and lusterless lining. At one moment the tunnel becoming very narrow I leaned against the wall. When I removed my hand it was black. I looked nearer and found we were in a coal formation. A coal mine, I cried. A mine without miners, my uncle replied. Who knows, I asked. I know, the Professor pronounced decidedly. I am certain that this gallery driven through beds of coal was never pierced by the hand of man, but whether it be the hand of nature or not does not matter. Some time has come, let us sup. Hans prepared some food. I scarcely ate, and I swallowed down the few drops of water rationed out to me. One flask half full was all we had left to slake the thirst of three men. After their meal my two companions laid themselves down upon their rugs and found in sleep a solace for their fatigue, but I could not sleep, and I counted every hour until morning. On Saturday at six we started afresh. In twenty minutes we reached a vast open space. I then knew that the hand of man had not hollowed out this mine. The vaults would have been shored up, and as it was they seemed to be held up by a miracle of equilibrium. This cavern was about a hundred feet wide and a hundred and fifty in height. A large mass had been rent asunder by a subterranean disturbance. Yielding to some vast power from below it had broken asunder, leaving this great hollow into which human beings were now penetrating for the first time. The whole history of the Carboniferous period was written upon these gloomy walls, and a geologist might with ease trace all its diverse phases. The beds of coal were separated by strata of sandstone or compact clays, and appeared crushed under the weight of overlaying strata. At the age of the world which preceded the Secondary period the earth was clothed with immense vegetable forms, the product of the double influence of tropical heat and constant moisture. A vapory atmosphere surrounded the earth, still veiling the direct rays of the sun. Then surrises the conclusion that the high temperature then existing was due to some other source than the heat of the sun. Perhaps even the orb of day may not have been ready yet to play the splendid part he now acts. There were no climates as yet, and a torrid heat equal from pole to equator was spread over the whole surface of the globe. Whence this heat? Was it from the interior of the earth? Notwithstanding the theories of Professor Liedembrock, a violent heat did at that time brood within the body of the spheroid. Its action was felt to the very last coats of the terrestrial crust. The plants, unacquainted with the beneficent influences of the sun, yielded neither flowers nor scent, but the roots drew vigorous life from the burning soil of the early days of this planet. There were but few trees. Herbaceous plants alone existed. There were tall grasses, ferns, lycopods, besides ciglaria, asteriflites, now scarce plants, but then the species might be counted by thousands. The coal measures owe their origin to this period of perfuse vegetation. The yet elastic and euling crust of the earth obeyed the fluid forces beneath. Thence innumerable fissures and depressions. The plants, sunk underneath the waters, formed by degrees into vast accumulated masses. Then came the chemical action of nature. In the depths of the seas the vegetable accumulations first became peat, then acted upon by generated gases and the heat of fermentation, the underwent a process of complete mineralization. Thus were formed those immense coal fields, which nevertheless are not inexhaustible, and which three centuries at the present accelerated rate of consumption will exhaust unless the industrial world will devise a remedy. These reflections came into my mind whilst I was contemplating the general wealth stored up in this portion of the globe. These, no doubt, I thought, will never be discovered. The working of such deep mines would involve too large an outlay, and where would be the use as long as coal is yet spread far and wide near the surface? Such as my eyes behold these virgin stores, such they will be when this world comes to an end. But still we marched on, and I alone was forgetting the length of the way by losing myself in the midst of geological contemplations. The temperature remained what it had been during our passage during the lava and schists. Only my sense of smell was forcibly affected by an odor of protocarbonate of hydrogen. I immediately recognized in this gallery the presence of a considerable quantity of a dangerous gas called by miners fire-damp, the explosion of which has often occasioned such dreadful catastrophes. Happily our light was from Rumcorp's ingenious apparatus. If, unfortunately, we had explored this gallery with torches, a terrible explosion would have put an end to traveling and travelers at one stroke. This excursion through the coal mine lasted till night. My uncle scarcely could restrain his impatience at the horizontal road. The darkness, always deep twenty yards before us, prevented us from estimating the length of the gallery, and I was beginning to think it must be endless, when suddenly, at six o'clock, a wall very unexpectedly stood before us. Right or left, top or bottom, there was no road farther. We were at the end of a blind alley. Very well, it's all right, cried my uncle. Now at any rate we shall know what we are about. We are not in Sacknessam's road, and all we have to do is to go back. Let us take a night's rest, and in three days we shall get to the fork in the road. Yes, said I, if we have any strength left. Why not? Because tomorrow we shall have no water. No courage either, asked my uncle severely. I dared make no answer. End of Chapter 20 Chapter 21 of A Journey Into The Interior Of The Earth by Jules Verne, translated by Frederick Mallison. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 21 Compassion Fuses The Professor's Heart Next day we started early. We had to hasten forward. It was a three days march to the crossroads. I will not speak of the sufferings we endured in our return. My uncle bore them with the angry impatience of a man obliged to his own weakness. Hans, with the resignation of his passive nature, I, I confess, with complaints and expressions of despair. I had no spirit to oppose this ill fortune. As I had foretold, the water failed entirely by the end of the first day's retrograde march. Our fluid element was now nothing but gin. But this infernal fluid burned my throat, and I could not even endure the sight of it. I found the temperature in the air stifling. Fatigue paralyzed my limbs. More than once I dropped down motionless. Then there was a halt, and my uncle and the Icelander did their best to restore me. But I saw that the former was struggling painfully against excessive fatigue and the tortures of thirst. At last on Tuesday, July 8th, we arrived on our hands and knees and half dead at the junction of the two roads. There I dropped like a lifeless lump, extended on the lava soil. It was ten in the morning. Hans and my uncle, clinging to the wall, tried to nibble a few bits of biscuit. Long moans escaped from my swollen lips. After some time my uncle approached me and raced me in his arms. Poor boy! said he in genuine tones of compassion. I was touched with these words, not being accustomed to see the excitable professor in a softened mood. I grasped his trembling hands in mine. He let me hold them and looked at me. His eyes were moistened. Then I saw him take the flask that was hanging at his side. To my amazement he placed it on my lips. Drink! said he. Had I heard him, was my uncle beside himself? I stared at him stupidly and felt as if I could not understand him. Drink! he said again. And raising his flask, he emptied at every drop between my lips. Oh, infinite pleasure! A slender sip of water came to moisten my burning mouth. It was but one sip, but it was enough to recall my ebbing life. I thanked my uncle with clasped hands. Yes, he said, a draft of water. But it is the very last, you hear, the last. I had kept it as a precious treasure at the bottom of my flask.  But, no, Axel, I kept it for you. My dear uncle, I said, whilst hot tears trickled down my face. Yes, my poor boy, I knew that as soon as you arrived at these crossroads you would drop half-dead, and I kept my last drop of water to reanimate you. Thank you, thank you, I said. Although my thirst was only partially quenched, yet some strength had returned. The muscles of my throat, until then contracted, now relaxed again, and the inflammation of my lips abated somewhat, and I was now able to speak. Let us see, I said. We have now but one thing to do. We have no water, we must go back. While I spoke, my uncle avoided looking at me.  We must return, I exclaimed vehemently. We must go back on our way to Snefell. Make God give us strength to climb up that crater again. Return, said my uncle, as if he was rather answering himself than me. Yes, return, without the loss of a minute. A long silence followed. So then, Axel, replied the Professor ironically, you have found no courage or energy in these few drops of water? Courage? I see you just as feeble-minded as you were before, and still expressing only despair. What sort of a man was this I had to do with, and what schemes was he now revolving in his fearless mind? What?  Should I renounce this expedition just when we have the fairest chance of success? Never. Then must we resign ourselves to destruction? No, Axel, no, go back. Hans will go with you. Leave me to myself. Leave you here?  I have undertaken this expedition. I will carry it out to the end, and I will not return. Go, Axel, go! My uncle was in a high state of excitement. His voice, which had for a moment been tender and gentle, had now become hard and threatening. He was struggling with gloomy resolutions against impossibilities. I would not leave him in this bottomless abyss, and on the other hand, the instinct of self-preservation prompted me to fly. The guide watched the scene with his usual phlegmatic unconcern, yet he understood perfectly well what was going on between his two companions. The gestures themselves were sufficient to show that we were each bent on taking a different road, but Hans seemed to take no part in a question upon which depended his life. He was ready to start at a given signal, or to stay, if his master so willed it. How I wished at this moment I could have made him understand me. My words, my complaints, my sorrow would have had some influence over that frigid nature. Those dangers which our guide could not understand I could have demonstrated and proved to him. Together we might have overruled the obstinate professor. If it were needed, we might perhaps have compelled him to regain the heights of Snafell. I drew near to Hans. I placed my hand upon his. He made no movement. My parted lips sufficiently revealed my sufferings. The Icelanders slowly moved his head, and calmly pointing to my uncle said, Master. Master! I shouted. You madman! No, he is not the master of our life! We must fly! We must drag him! Do you hear me?  I had seized Hans by the arm. I wished to oblige him to rise. I strove with him. My uncle interposed. Be calm, Axel. You will get nothing from that immovable servant. Therefore listen to my proposal. I crossed my arms and confronted my uncle boldly. The want of water, he said, is the only obstacle in our way. In this eastern gallery, made above lavas, schists, and coal, we have not met with a single particle of moisture. Perhaps we shall be more fortunate if we follow the western tunnel. I shook my head incredulously. Hear me to the end. The professor went on with a firm voice. Whilst you were lying there motionless, I went to examine the conformation of that gallery. It penetrates directly downward, and in a few hours it will bring us to the granite rocks. There we must meet with abundant springs. The nature of the rock assures me of this, and instinct agrees with logic to support my conviction. Now this is my proposal. When Columbus asked of his ship's crews for three days more to discover a new world, those crews, disheartened and sick as they were, recognized the justice of the claim, and he discovered America. I am the Columbus of this netherworld, and I only ask for one more day. If in a single day I have not met with the water that we want, I swear to you we will return to the surface of the earth. In spite of my irritation, I was moved with these words, as well as with the violence my uncle was doing to his own wishes and making so hazardous a proposal. Well, I said, do as you will, and God reward your superhuman energy. You have now but a few hours to tempt fortune. Let us start. This time the descent commenced by the new gallery. Hans walked first, as was his custom. We had not gone a hundred yards when the professor, moving his lantern along the walls, cried, Here are primitive rocks! Now we are in the right way! Forward! When in its early stages the earth was slowly cooling, its contraction gave rise in its crust to disruptions, distortions, fissures, and chasms. The passage through which we were moving was such a fissure, through which at one time granite poured out in a molten state. Its thousands of windings formed an inextricable labyrinth through the primeval mass. As fast as we descended the succession of beds forming the primitive foundation came out with increasing distinctness. Geologists consider this primitive matter to be the base of the mineral crust of the earth, and have ascertained it to be composed of three different formations, Schist, Nice, and Micah Schist, resting upon that unchangeable foundation, the granite. Never had mineralogists found themselves in so marvellous a situation to study nature in situ. What the boring machine, an insensible inert instrument, was unable to bring to the surface of the inner structure of the globe, we were able to peruse with our own eyes and handle with our own hands. Through the beds of Schist, coloured with delicate shades of green, ran in winding coarse threads of copper and manganese, with traces of platinum and gold. I thought, what riches are here buried at an unapproachable depth in the earth, hidden forever from the covetous eyes of the human race. These treasures have been buried at such a profound depth by the convulsions of primeval times, that they run no chance of ever being molested by the pickaxe or the spade. To the Schists succeeded Nice, partially stratified, remarkable for the parallelism and regularity of its lamina. Then Micah Schists, laid in large plates or flakes, revealing their laminated structure by the sparkle of the white shiny Micah. The light from our apparatus, reflected from the small facets of quartz, shot sparkling rays at every angle, and I seemed to be moving through a diamond, within which the quickly darting rays broke across each other in a thousand flashing coruscations. About six o'clock, this brilliant fed of illuminations underwent a sensible abatement of splendour, then almost ceased. The walls assumed a crystallized though somber appearance. Micah was more closely mingled with the felled spar and quartz to form the proper rocky foundations of the earth, which bears without distortion or crushing the weight of the four terrestrial systems. We were mirrored within prison walls of granite. It was eight in the evening. No signs of water had yet appeared. I was suffering horribly. My uncle strode on. He refused to stop. He was listening anxiously for the murmur of distant springs. But no, there was dead silence. And now my limbs were failing beneath me. I resisted pain and torture that I might stop my uncle, which would have driven him to despair, for the day was drawing near to its end, and it was his last. At last I failed utterly. I uttered a cry and fell. Come to me! I am dying! My uncle retraced his steps. He gazed upon me with his arms crossed, then these muttered words passed his lips. It's all over. The last thing I saw was a fearful gesture of rage, and my eyes closed. When I reopened them I saw my two companions motionless and rolled up in their coverings. Were they asleep? As for me I could not get one moment's sleep. I was suffering too keenly, and what embittered my thoughts was that there was no remedy. My uncle's last words echoed painfully in my ears. It's all over. For in such a fearful state of debility it was madness to think of ever reaching the upper world again. We had above us a league and a half of terrestrial crust. The weight of it seemed to be crushing down upon my shoulders. I felt weighed down, and I exhausted myself with imaginary violent exertions to turn round upon my granite couch. A few hours passed away. A deep silence reigned around us, the silence of the grave. No sound could reach us through walls, the thinnest of which were five miles thick. Yet in the midst of my stupefaction I seemed to be aware of a noise. It was dark down the tunnel, but I seemed to see the Icelander vanishing from our sight with the lamp in his hand. Why was he leaving us? Was Hans going to forsake us? My uncle was fast asleep. I wanted to shout, but my voice died upon my parched and swollen lips. The darkness became deeper, and the last sound died away in the far distance. Hans has abandoned us, I cried. Hans! Hans! But these words were only spoken within me. They went no farther. Yet after the first moment of terror I felt ashamed of suspecting a man of such extraordinary faithfulness. Instead of ascending he was descending the gallery. An evil design would have taken him up, not down. This reflection restored me to calmness, and I turned to other thoughts. None but some weighty motive could have induced so quiet a man to forfeit his sleep. Was he on a journey of discovery? Had he during the silence of the night caught a sound, a murmuring of something in the distance which had failed to affect my hearing? End of Chapter 22, Chapter 23 of A Journey Into the Interior of the Earth by Jules Verne, translated by Frederick Mellison. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 23 Water Discovered For a whole hour I was trying to work out in my delirious brain the reasons which might have influenced this seemingly tranquil huntsman. The absurdist notions ran in utter confusion through my mind. I thought madness was coming on. But at last a noise of footsteps was heard in the dark abyss. Hans was approaching. A flickering light was beginning to glimmer on the wall of our darksome prison. Then it came out full at the mouth of a gallery. Hans appeared. He drew close to my uncle, laid his hand upon his shoulder, and gently woke him. My uncle rose up. What is the matter? he asked. Watten replied the huntsman. No doubt under the inspiration of intense pain everybody becomes endowed with the gift of diverse tongues. I did not know a word of Danish, yet instinctively I understood the word he had uttered. Water! Water! I cried, clapping my hands and gesticulating like a madman. Water! repeated my uncle. Var! he asked in Icelandic. Nadat! replied Hans. Where? Down below. I understood it all. I seized the hunter's hands and pressed them while he looked on me without moving a muscle of his countenance. The preparations for our departure were not long in making, and we were soon on our way down a passage inclining two feet and seven. In an hour we had gone a mile and a quarter and ascended two thousand feet. Then I began to hear distinctly quite a new sound of something running within the thickness of the granite wall, a kind of dull, dead rumbling, like distant thunder. During the first part of our walk, not meeting with the promised spring, I felt my agony returning. But then my uncle acquainted me with the cause of the strange noise. Hans was not mistaken, he said. What you hear is the rushing of a torrent. A torrent, I exclaimed. There can be no doubt. A subterranean river is flowing around us. We hurried forward in the greatest excitement. I was no longer sensible of my fatigue. This murmuring of water's close at hand was already refreshing me. It was audibly increasing. The torrent, after having for some time flowed over our heads, was now running within the left wall, roaring and rushing. Frequently I touched the wall, hoping to feel some indications of moisture. But there was no hope here. Yet another half hour, another half lee was passed. Then it became clear that the hunter had gone no farther. Guided by an instinct peculiar to Mountaineers, he had, as it were, felt this torrent through the rock. But he had certainly seen none of the precious liquid. He had drunk nothing himself. Soon it became evident that if we continued our walk we should widen the distance between ourselves and the stream, the noise of which was becoming fainter. We returned. Hans stopped where the torrent seemed closest. I sat near the wall, while the waters were flowing past me at a distance of two feet with extreme violence. But there was a thick granite wall between us and the object of our desires. Without reflection, without asking if there were any means of procuring the water, I gave way to a movement of despair. Hans glanced at me with, I thought, a smile of compassion. He rose and took the lamp. I followed him. He moved towards the wall. I looked on. He applied his ear against the dry stone and moved it slowly to and fro, listening intently. I perceived at once that he was examining to find the exact place where the torrent could be heard the loudest. He met with that point on the left side of the tunnel, at three feet from the ground. I was stirred up with excitement. I hardly dared guess what the hunter was about to do. But I could not but understand, and applaud and cheer him on when I saw him lay hold of the pickaxe to make an attack upon the rock. We are saved, I cried. Yes, cried my uncle, almost frantic with excitement. Hans is right. Capital fellow! Who but he would have thought of it! Yes, who but he? Such an expedient, however simple, would never have entered into our minds. True, it seemed most hazardous to strike a blow of the hammer in this part of the earth's structure. Suppose some displacement should occur and crush us all. Suppose the torrent bursting through should drown us in a sudden flood. There was nothing vain in these fancies. But still no fears of falling rocks or rushing floods could stay us now, and our thirst was so intense that, to satisfy it, we would have dared the waves of the North Atlantic. Hans said about the task which my uncle and I together could not have accomplished. If our impatience had armed our hands with power, we should have shattered the rock into a thousand fragments. Not so, Hans. Full of self-possession, he calmly wore his way through the rock with a steady succession of light and skillful strokes. Working through an aperture six inches wide at the outside. I could hear a louder noise of flowing waters, and I fancied I could feel the delicious fluid for refreshing my parched lips. The pick had soon penetrated two feet into the granite partition, and our man worked for above an hour. I was in an agony of impatience. My uncle wanted to employ stronger measures, and I had some difficulty in dissuading him. Still, he had just taken a pickaxe in his hand, when a sudden hissing was heard, and a jet of water spurred it out with violence against the opposite wall. Hans, almost thrown off his feet by the violence of the shock, uttered a cry of grief and disappointment, of which I soon understood the cause. When plunging my hands into the spouting torrent, I withdrew them in haste, for the water was scalding hot. The water is at the boiling point, I cried. Well, never mind, let it cool, my uncle replied. The tunnel was filling with steam, whilst a stream was forming, which by degrees wandered away into the subterranean windings, and soon we had the satisfaction of swaddling our first draft. Could anything be more delicious than the sensation that our burning intolerable thirst was passing away, and leaving us to enjoy comfort and pleasure? But where was this water from? No matter. It was water, and though still warm, it brought life back to the dying. I kept drinking without stopping, and almost without tasting. At last, after a most delightful time of reviving energy, I cried, Why, this is a colibit spring. Nothing could be better for the digestion, said my uncle. It is highly impregnated with iron. It will be as good for us as going to the spa, or to toplitz. Well, it is delicious. Of course it is. Water should be, found six miles underground. It has an inky flavor, which is not at all unpleasant. What a capital source of strength Hans has found for us here. We will call it after his name. Agreed, I cried. And Hans' bucket was from that moment. Hans was none the prouder. After a moderate draft, he went quietly into a corner to rest. Now, I said, we must not lose this water. What is the use of troubling ourselves? My uncle replied. I fancy it will never fail. Never mind, we cannot be sure. Let us fill the water bottle and our flasks, and then stop up the opening. My advice was followed so far as getting in a supply, but the stopping up of the hole was not so easy to accomplish. It was in vain that we took up fragments of granite and stuffed them in with tow. We only scalded our hands without succeeding. The pressure was too great, and our efforts were fruitless. It is quite plain, said I, that the higher body of this water is at a considerable elevation. The force of the jet shows that. No doubt, answered my uncle. If this column of water is thirty-two thousand feet high, that is, from the surface of the earth, it is equal to the weight of a thousand atmospheres. But I have got an idea. Well, why should we trouble ourselves to stop the stream from coming out at all? Because... well, I could not assign a reason. When our flasks are empty, where shall we fill them again? Can we tell that? No, there was no certainty. Well, let us allow the water to run on. It will flow down, and will both guide and refresh us. That is well planned, I cried. With this stream for our guide, there is no reason why we should not succeed in our undertaking. Ah, my boy, you agree with me now, cried the Professor, laughing. I agree with you most heartily. Well, let us rest a while, and then we will start again. I was forgetting that it was night. The chronometer soon informed me of that fact, and in a very short time, refreshed and thankful, we all three fell into a sound sleep. End of Chapter 23. Chapter 24 Of A Journey Into The Interior Of The Earth, by Jules Verne, translated by Frederick Mallison. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 24. Well said, old Mole, canst thou work on the ground so fast? By the next day we have forgotten all our sufferings. At first I was wondering that I was no longer thirsty, and I was for asking for the reason. The answer came in the murmuring of the stream at my feet. We breakfasted and drank of this excellent calibate water. I felt wonderfully stronger and quite decided upon pushing on. Why should not so firmly convince to man as my uncle, furnished with so industrious a guide as Hans, and accompanied by so determined a nephew as myself, go on to final success? Such were the magnificent plans which struggled for mastery within me. If it had been proposed to me to return to the summit of Snafell, I should have indignantly declined. Most fortunately, all we had to do was to descend. Let us start, I cried, awakening by my shouts the echoes of the vaulted hollows of the earth. On Thursday at eight a.m. we started afresh. The granite tunnel winding from side to side earned us past unexpected turns, and seemed almost to form a labyrinth. But on the hull, its directions seemed to be southeasterly. My uncle never ceased to consult his compass to keep account of the ground gone over. The gallery dipped down a very little way from the horizontal, scarcely more than two inches in a fathom, and the stream ran gently murmuring at our feet. I compared it to a friendly genius guiding us underground, and caressed with my hand the soft niad, whose comforting voice accompanied our steps. With my reviving spirits these mythological notions seemed to come unbidden. As for my uncle, he was beginning to storm against the horizontal road. He loved nothing better than a vertical path. But this way seemed indefinitely prolonged, and instead of sliding along the hypotenuse as we were now doing, he would willingly have dropped down the terrestrial radius. But there was no help for it, and as long as we were approaching the center at all, we felt that we must not complain. From time to time a steeper path appeared. Our niad then began to tumble before us with a horse or murmur, and we went down with her to a greater depth. On the hull, that day and the next we made considerable way horizontally, very little vertically. On Friday evening, the tenth of July, according to our calculations, we were thirty leagues southeast of Reykjavik, and at a depth of two leagues and a half. At our feet there now opened a frightful abyss. My uncle, however, was not to be daunted, and he clapped his hands at the steepness of the descent. This would take us a long way, he cried, and without much difficulty, for the projections in the rock formed quite a staircase. The ropes were so fastened by hounds as to guard against accident, and the descent commenced. I can hardly call it perilous, for I was beginning to be familiar with this kind of exercise. This well or abyss was a narrow cleft in the mass of the granite, called by geologists, a fault, and caused by the unequal cooling of the globe of the earth. If it had at one time been a passage for eruptive matter thrown out by Nefell, I still could not understand why no trace was left of its passage. We kept going down a kind of winding staircase, which seemed almost to have been made by the hand of man. Every quarter of an hour we were obliged to halt, to take a little necessary repose, and restore the action of our limbs. We then sat down upon a fragment of rock, and we talked as we aid and drank from the stream. Of course, down this fault the Hansbach fell in a cascade, and lost some of its volume. But there was enough and despair to slake our thirst. Besides, when the incline became more gentle, it would of course resume its peaceable course. At this moment it reminded me of my worthy uncle, in his frequent fits of impatience and anger, while below it ran with the calmness of the Icelandic hunter. On the sixth and seventh of July we kept following the spiral curves of this singular well, penetrating an actual distance no more than two leagues, but being carried to a depth of five leagues below the level of the sea. But on the eighth, about noon, the fault took towards the southeast a much gentler slope, one of about forty-five degrees. Then the road became monotonously easy. It could not be otherwise, for there was no landscape to vary the stages of our journey. On Wednesday the fifteenth we were seven leagues underground, and had traveled fifty leagues away from Snafell. Although we were tired, our health was perfect, and the medicine chest had not yet had occasion to be opened. My uncle noted every hour the indications of the compass, the chronometer, the aneroid, and the thermometer, the very same which he has published in his scientific report of our journey. It was therefore not difficult to know exactly our whereabouts. When he told me that we had gone fifty leagues horizontally, I could not repress an exclamation of astonishment at the thought that we had now long left Iceland behind us. What is the matter? he cried. I was reflecting that if your calculations are correct, we are no longer under Iceland. Do you think so? I am not mistaken, I said, and examining the map I added. We have passed Cape Portland, and those fifty leagues bring us under the wide expanse of the ocean. Under the sea, my uncle repeated, rubbing his hands with delight. Can it be, I said, is the ocean spread above our heads? Of course, Axel, what can be more natural? At Newcastle, are there not coal mines extending far under the sea? It was all very well for the professor to call this so simple, but I could not feel quite easy at the thought that the boundless ocean was rolling over my head. And yet it really mattered very little whether it was the plains and mountains that covered our heads or the Atlantic waves, as long as we were arched over by solid granite. And besides, I was getting used to this idea. For the tunnel, now running straight, now winding as capriciously in its inclines as in its turnings, but constantly preserving its south-easterly direction and always running deeper, was gradually carrying us to very great depths indeed. Four days later, Saturday the 18th of July in the evening, we arrived at a kind of vast grotto, and here my uncle paid Hans his weekly wages, and it was settled that the next day Sunday should be a day of rest. CHAPTER XXV I therefore awoke next day relieved from the preoccupation of an immediate start. Although we were in the very deepest of known depths, there was something not unpleasant about it. And besides, we were beginning to get accustomed to this troglodyte life. I no longer thought of sun, moon, and stars, trees, houses, and towns, nor of any of those terrestrial superfluities which are necessaries of men who live upon the earth's surface. Being fossils, we looked upon all those things as mere jokes. The grotto was an immense apartment. Along its granite floor ran our fateful stream. At this distance from its spring the water was scarcely tepid, and we drank of it with pleasure. After breakfast the professor gave a few hours to the arrangement of his daily notes. First, said he, I will make a calculation to ascertain our exact position. I hope, after I return, to draw a map of our journey, which will be in reality a vertical section of the globe containing the track of our expedition. That will be curious, uncle, but are your observations sufficiently accurate to enable you to do this correctly? Yes. I have everywhere observed the angles and the inclines. I am sure there is no error. Let us see where we are now. Take your compass and take the direction. I looked and replied carefully. Southeast by east. Well, answered the professor after a rapid calculation, I infer that we have gone eighty-five leagues since we started. Therefore we are under mid-Atlantic? To be sure we are. And perhaps at this very moment there is a storm above, and ships over our heads are being rudely tossed by the tempest. Quite probable. And whales are lashing the roof of our prison with their tails. It may be, Axel, but they won't shake us here. But let us go back to our calculation. Here we are eighty-five leagues southeast of Snafell, and I reckon that we are at a depth of sixteen leagues. Sixteen leagues? I cried. No doubt. Why, this is the very limit assigned by science to the thickness of the crust of the earth. I don't deny it. And here, according to the law of increasing temperature, there ought to be a heat of two thousand seven hundred thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. So there should, my lad. And all this solid granite ought to be running in fusion. You see that it is not so, and that, as so often happens, facts come to overthrow theories. I am obliged to agree, but after all, it is surprising. What does the thermometer say? Twenty-seven six tenths. Therefore the savants are wrong by two thousand seven hundred five degrees, and the proportion increase is a mistake. Therefore Humphrey Davy was right, and I am not wrong in following him. What do you say now? Nothing. In truth I had a good deal to say. I gave way in no respect to Davy's theory. I still held to the central heat, although I did not feel its effects. I prefer to admit in truth that this chimney of an extinct volcano lined with lavas, which are non-conductors of heat, did not suffer the heat to pass through its walls. But without stopping to look upon new arguments, I simply took up our situation such as it was. Well, admitting all your calculations to be quite correct, you must allow me to draw one rigid result therefrom. What is it? Speak freely. At the latitude of Iceland, where we now are, the radius of the earth, the distance from the center to the surface, is about one thousand five hundred eighty-three leagues. Let us say in round numbers sixteen hundred leagues, or forty-eight hundred miles. Out of sixteen hundred leagues we have gone twelve. So you say. And these twelve at a cost of eighty-five leagues diagonally? Exactly so. In twenty days? Yes. Now, sixteen leagues are the hundredth part of the earth's radius. At this rate we shall be two thousand days, or nearly five years and a half in getting to the center. No answer was about safe to this rational conclusion. Without reckoning, too, that if a vertical depth of sixteen leagues can be attained only by a diagonal descent of eighty-four, it follows that we must go eight thousand miles in a south-easterly direction so that we shall emerge from some point in the earth's circumference instead of getting to the center. Confusion to all your figures and all your hypotheses besides, shouted my uncle in a sudden rage. What is the basis of them all? How do you know that this passage does not run straight to our destination? Besides, there is a precedent. What one man has done, another may do. I hope so, but still I may be permitted. You shall have my leave to hold your tongue, Axel, but not to talk in that irrational way. I could see the awful professor bursting through my uncle's skin and I took timely warning. Now, look at your aneroid. What does that say? It says we are under considerable pressure. Very good. So you see that by going gradually down and getting accustomed to the density of the atmosphere we don't suffer at all. Nothing except a little pain in the ears. That's nothing, and you may get rid of even that by quick breathing whenever you feel the pain. Exactly so, I said, determined not to say a word that might cross my uncle's prejudices. There is even positive pleasure in living in this dense atmosphere. Have you observed how intense sound is down here? No doubt it is. A deaf man would soon learn to hear perfectly. But won't this density augment? Yes, according to a rather obscure law. It is well known that the weight of bodies diminishes as fast as we descend. You know that it is at the surface of the globe that weight is most sensibly felt, and that at the center there is no weight at all. I am aware of that, but tell me, will not air at last acquire the density of water? Of course, under a pressure of 710 atmospheres. And how lower down still? Lower down the density will still increase. But how shall we go down, then? Why, we must fill our pockets with stones! Well, indeed, my worthy uncle, you are never at a loss for an answer. I dared venture no farther into the region of probabilities, for I might presently have stumbled upon an impossibility which would have brought the Professor on the scene when he was not wanted. Still, it was evident that the air, under a pressure which might reach that of thousands of atmospheres, would at last reach the solid state, and then, even if our bodies could resist the strain, we should be stopped, and no reasonings would be able to get us on any farther. But I did not advance this argument. My uncle would have met it with his inevitable sacnesome, a precedent which possessed no weight with me. For even if the journey of the learned Icelander were really attested, there was one very simple answer, that in the sixteenth century there was neither barometer nor aneroid and therefore a sacnesome could not tell how far he had gone. But I kept this objection to myself, and waited the course of events. The rest of the day was passed in calculations and in conversations. I remained a steadfast adherent of the opinions of Professor Liedenbrock, and I envied the stalled indifference of Hans, who, without going into causes and effects, went on with his eyes shut wherever his destiny guided him. End of Chapter 25 Chapter 26 of A Journey Into the Interior of the Earth by Jules Verne, translated by Frederick Mallison. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 26 The Worst Peril of All It must be confessed that hitherto things had not gone on so badly, and that I had small reason to complain. If our difficulties became no worse, we might hope to reach our end. And to what a height of scientific glory we should then attain. I had become quite a Liedenbrock in my reasonings. Seriously, I had. But would this state of things last in the strange place we had come to? Perhaps it might. For several days steeper inclines, some even frightfully near to the perpendicular, brought us deeper and deeper into the mass of the interior of the earth. Some days we advanced nearer to the center by a league and a half, or nearly two leagues. These were perilous descents, in which the skill and marvellous coolness of Hans were invaluable to us. That unimpassioned Icelander devoted himself with incomprehensible deliberation, and thanks to him we crossed many a dangerous spot which we should never have cleared alone. But his habit of silence gained upon him day by day, and was infecting us. External objects produced decided effects upon the brain.  How many prisoners in solitary confinement become idiots, if not mad, for one of exercise for the thinking faculty. During the fortnight following our last conversation, no incident occurred worthy of being recorded. But I have good reason for remembering one very serious event which took place at this time, and of which I could scarcely now forget the smallest details. By the 7th of August our successive descents had brought us to a depth of thirty leagues, that is, that for a space of thirty leagues there were over our heads solid beds of rock, ocean, continents and towns. We must have been two hundred leagues from Iceland. On that day the tunnel went down a gentle slope. I was ahead of the others. My uncle was carrying one of Rumkorf's lamps and I the other. I was examining the beds of granite. Suddenly turning round I observed that I was alone. Well, well, I thought. I have been going too fast, or Hans and my uncle have stopped on the way. Come, this won't do. I must join them. Fortunately there is not much of an ascent. I retraced my steps. I walked for a quarter of an hour. I gazed into the darkness. I shouted. No reply. My voice was lost in the midst of the cavernous echoes which alone replied to my call. I began to feel uneasy. A shudder ran through me. Calmly, I said aloud to myself, I am sure to find my companions again. There are not two roads. I was too far ahead. I will return. For half an hour I climbed up. I listened for a call, and in that dense atmosphere a voice could reach very far. But there was a dreary silence in all that long gallery. I stopped. I could not believe that I was lost. I was only bewildered for a time, not lost. I was sure I should find my way again. Come, I repeated, since there is but one road, and they are on it, I must find them again. I have but to ascend still. Unless, indeed, missing me and supposing me to be behind, they too should have gone back. But even in this case I have only to make the greater haste. I shall find them, I am sure. I repeated these words in the fainter tones of a half-convinced man. Besides, to associate even such simple ideas with words and reason with them was a work of time. A doubt then seized upon me. Was I indeed in advance when we became separated? Yes, to be sure I was. Hans was after me preceding my uncle. He had even stopped for a while to strap his baggage better over his shoulders. I could remember this little incident. It was at that very moment that I must have gone on. Besides, I thought, have not I a guarantee that I shall not lose my way, a clue in the labyrinth that cannot be broken, my faithful stream? I have but to trace it back and I must come upon them. This conclusion revived my spirits, and I resolved to resume my march without loss of time.  This beneficent spring, after having satisfied our thirst on the road, would now be my guide among the windings of the terrestrial crust. Before starting afresh I thought a wash would do me good. I stooped to bathe my face in the Hansbock. To my stupefaction and utter dismay my feet tried only the rough dry granite. The stream was no longer at my feet. End of Chapter 26 Chapter 27 of A Journey Into The Interior Of The Earth by Jules Verne translated by Frederick Malison. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 27 Lost In The Bows Of The Earth To describe my despair would be impossible. No words could tell it. I was buried alive, with the prospect before me of dying of hunger and thirst. Mechanically I swept the ground with my hands. How dry and hard the rocks seemed to me! But how had I left the course of the stream? For it was a terrible fact that it no longer ran at my side. Then I understood the reason of that fearful silence, when for the last time I listened to hear if any sound from my companions could reach my ears. At the moment when I left the right road I had not noticed the absence of the stream. It is evident that at that moment a deviation had presented itself before me, whilst the Hansbock, following the caprice of another incline, had gone with my companions away into unknown depths. How was I to return? There was not a trace of their footsteps or of my own, for the foot left no mark upon the granite floor. I racked my brain for a solution of this impracticable problem. One word described my position. Lost. Lost at an immeasurable depth. Thirty leagues of rock seemed to weigh upon my shoulders with a dreadful pressure. I felt crushed. I tried to carry back my ideas to things on the surface of the earth. I could scarcely succeed. Hamburg, the house in the Kunigstrasse, my poor grauben, all that busy world underneath which I was wandering about, was passing in rapid confusion before my terrified memory. I could revive with vivid reality all the incidents of our voyage, Iceland, Monsieur Friedrichsen, Snafell. I said to myself that if in such a position as I was in now I was full enough to cling to one glimpse of hope it would be madness, and that the best thing I could do was to despair. What human power could restore me to the light of the sun by rending asunder the huge arches of rock which united over my head, buttressing each other with impregnable strength? Who could place my feet on the right path and bring me back to my company? Oh, my uncle, burst from my lips in the tone of despair. It was my only word of reproach, for I knew how much he must be suffering in seeking me wherever he might be. When I saw myself thus far removed from all earthly help I had recourse to heavenly succor, the remembrance of my childhood, the recollection of my mother, whom I had only known in my tender early years, came back to me, and I knelt in prayer imploring for the divine help of which I was so little worthy. This return of trust in God's providence allayed the turbulence of my fears, and I was unable to concentrate upon my situation all the force of my intelligence. I had three days' provisions with me and my flask was full, but I could not remain alone for long. Should I go up or down? Up, of course, up continually. I must thus arrive at the point where I had left the stream, that fatal turn in the road. With the stream at my feet I might hope to regain the summit of Snafell. Why had I not thought of that sooner? Here was evidently a chance of safety. The most pressing duty was to find out again the course of the Hansbach. I rose, and leaning upon my iron-pointed stick I ascended the gallery. The slope was rather steep. I walked on without hope, but without indecision, like a man who was made up his mind. For half an hour I met with no obstacle. I tried to recognize my way by the form of the tunnel, by the projections of certain rocks, by the disposition of the fractures. But no particular sign appeared, and I soon saw that this gallery could not bring me back to the turning point. It came to an abrupt end. I struck against an impenetrable wall and fell down upon the rock. Unspeakable despair then seized upon me. I lay overwhelmed, aghast. My last hope was shattered against this granite wall. Lost in this labyrinth whose windings crossed each other in all directions, it was no use to think of flight any longer. Here I must die the most dreadful of deaths. And strange to say, the thought came across me that when some day my petrified remains should be found thirty leagues below the surface in the bowels of the Earth, the discovery might lead to grave scientific discussions. I tried to speak aloud, but hoarse sounds alone passed my dry lips. I panted for breath. In the midst of my agony, a new terror laid hold of me. In falling, my lamp had got wrong. I could not set it right, and its light was pailing and would soon disappear altogether. I gazed painfully upon the luminous current growing weaker and weaker in the wire coil. A dim procession of moving shadows seemed slowly unfolding down the darkening walls. I scarcely dared to shut my eyes for one moment, for fear of losing the least glimmer of this precious light. Every instant it seemed about to vanish and the dense blackness to come rolling in palpably upon me.  I watched it in trembling and anxiety. I drank it in as if I could preserve it, concentrating upon it the full power of my eyes as upon the very last sensation of light which they were ever to experience. In the next moment I lay in the heavy gloom of deep, thick, unfathomable darkness. A terrible cry of anguish burst from me. Upon earth, in the midst of the darkest night, light never abdicates its functions altogether. It is still subtle and diffusive, but whatever little there may be, the eye still catches that little. Here there was not an atom. The total darkness made me totally blind. Then I began to lose my head. I arose with my arms stretched out before me, attempting painfully to feel my way. I began to run wildly, hurrying through the inextricable maze, still descending, still running through the substance of the earth's thick crust, a struggling denizen of geological faults, crying, shouting, yelling, soon bruised by contact with the jagged rock, falling and rising again bleeding, trying to drink the blood which covered my face, and even waiting for some rock to shatter by skull against. I shall never know whether my mad career took me. After the lapse of some hours, no doubt exhausted, I fell like a lifeless lump at the foot of the wall and lost all consciousness. End of Chapter 27 Chapter 28 of A Journey Into The Interior Of The Earth by Jules Verne translated by Frederick Melison. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 28 The Rescue In The Whispering Gallery When I returned to partial life my face was wet with tears. How long that state of insensibility had lasted, I cannot say. I had no means now of taking account of time. Never was solitude equal to this. Never had any living being been so utterly forsaken. After my fall I had lost a good deal of blood. I felt it flowing over me. Ah, how happy I should have been could I have died, and if death were not yet to be gone through. I would think no longer. I drove away every idea and conquered by my grief I rolled myself to the foot of the opposite wall. Already I was feeling the approach of another faint and was hoping for complete annihilation when a loud noise reached me. It was like the distant rumble of continuous thunder, and I could hear its sounding undulations rolling far away into the remote recesses of the abyss. Whence could this noise proceed? It must be from some phenomenon proceeding in the great depths amidst which I lay helpless. Was it an explosion of gas? Was it the fall of some mighty pillar of the globe? I listened still. I wanted to know if the noise would be repeated. A quarter of an hour passed away. Silence reigned in this gallery. I could not hear even the beating of my heart. Suddenly my ear, resting by chance against the wall, caught or seemed to catch certain vague, indescribable, distant, articulate sounds, as of words. This is a delusion, I thought. But it was not. Listening more attentively, I heard in reality a murmuring of voices. But my weakness prevented me from understanding what the voices said. Yet it was language. I was sure of it. For a moment I feared the words might be my own, brought back by the echo. Perhaps I had been crying out, unknown to myself. I closed my lips firmly and laid my ear against the wall again. Yes, truly, someone is speaking. Those are words. Even a few feet from the wall I could hear distinctly. I succeeded in catching uncertain, strange, undistinguishable words. They came as if pronounced in low, murmured whispers. The word forlorad was several times repeated in a tone of sympathy and sorrow. Help! I cried with all my might. Help! I listened. I watched in the darkness for an answer. A cry, a mere breath of sound, but nothing came. Some minutes passed. A whole world of ideas had opened in my mind. I thought that my weakened voice could never penetrate to my companions. It is they, I repeated, what other men can be thirty leagues underground? I again began to listen. Passing my ear over the wall from one place to another, I found the point where the voices seemed to be best heard. The word forlorad again returned, then the rolling of thunder which had roused me from my lethargy. No, I said. No. It is not through such a mass that a voice can be heard. I am surrounded by granite walls, and the loudest explosion could never be heard here. This noise comes along the gallery. There must be here some remarkable exercise of acoustic laws. I listened again, and this time, yes, this time, I did distinctly hear my name pronounced across the wide interval. It was my uncle's own voice. He was talking to the guide, and forlorad is a Danish word. Then I understood it all. To make myself heard, I must speak along this wall, which would conduct the sound of my voice just as a wire conducts electricity. But there was no time to lose. If my companions moved but a few steps away, the acoustic phenomenon would cease. I therefore approached the wall and pronounced these words as clearly as possible. Uncle Leed and Brock! I waited with the deepest anxiety. Sound does not travel with great velocity. Even increased density air has no effect upon its rate of traveling. It merely augments its intensity. Seconds which seemed ages passed away, and at last these words reached me. Axel! Axel! Is it you? Yes! Yes! I replied. My boy, where are you? Lost in the deepest darkness. Where is your lamp? It is out. And the stream? Disappeared. Axel! Axel! Take courage! Wait! I am exhausted. I can't answer. Speak to me! Urge! resumed my uncle. Don't speak. Listen to me. We have looked for you up the gallery and down the gallery. Could not find you.  At last, supposing you were still on the Hansbach, we fired our guns. Our voices are audible to each other, but our hands cannot touch. But don't despair, Axel. It is a great thing that we can hear each other. During this time, I had been reflecting. A vague hope was returning to my heart. There was one thing I must know to begin with. I placed my lips close to the wall, saying, My uncle! My boy! came to me after a few seconds. We must know how far we are apart. That is easy. You have your chronometer? Yes. Well, take it. Pronounce my name, noting exactly the second when you speak. I will repeat it as soon as it shall come to me, and you will observe the exact moment when you get my answer. Yes, and half the time between my called and your answer will exactly indicate that which my voice would take in coming to you. Just so, my uncle. Are you ready? Yes.  I put my ear to the wall, and as soon as the name Axel came, I immediately replied, Axel! Then waited. Forty seconds, said my uncle. Forty seconds between the two words. So the sound takes twenty seconds in coming. Now, at the rate of one thousand one hundred twenty feet in a second, this is twenty two thousand four hundred feet, or four miles and a quarter nearly. Four miles and a quarter, I murmured. It was soon be over, Axel. Must I go up or down? Down. For this reason, we are in a vast chamber within this galleries. Yours must lead into it, for it seems as if all the clefts and fractions of the globe radiated round this vast cavern. So get up and begin walking. Walk on, drag yourself along. If necessary, slide down the steep places, and at the end, you will find us ready to receive you. Now, begin moving. These words cheered me up. Good-bye, uncle. I cried. I am going. There will be no more voices heard when once I have started. So, good-bye. Good-bye, Axel. Au revoir. These were the last words I heard. This wonderful underground conversation, carried on with the distance of four miles and a quarter between us, concluded with these words of hope. I thanked God from my heart, for it was he who had conducted me through those vast solitudes to the point where, alone of all others, perhaps, the voices of my companions could have reached me. This acoustic effect is easily explained on scientific grounds. It arose from the concave form of the gallery and the conducting power of the rock. There are many examples of this propagation of sounds which remain unheard in the intermediate space. I remember that a similar phenomenon has been observed in many places. Amongst others, on the internal surface of the gallery of the Dome of St. Paul's in London, and especially in the midst of the curious caverns among the quarries near Syracuse, the most wonderful of which is called Dionysius here. These were members as came into my mind, and I clearly saw that since my uncle's voice really reached me, there could be no obstacle between us. Following the directions by which the sound came, of course I should arrive in his presence if my strength did not fail me. I therefore rose. I rather dragged myself than walked. The slope was rapid, and I slid down. Soon the swiftness of the descent increased horribly and threatened to become a fall. I no longer had the strength to stop myself. Suddenly there was no ground under me. I felt myself revolving in air, striking and rebounding against the craggy projections of a vertical gallery, quite a well. My head struck against a sharp corner of the rock, and I became unconscious. End of Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Of A Journey Into The Interior Of The Earth by Jules Verne Translated by Frederick Mallison This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 29 The Lada, The Lada When I came to myself I was stretched in half-darkness covered with thick coats and blankets. My uncle was watching over me to discover the least sign of life. At my first sigh he took my hand. When I opened my eyes he uttered a cry of joy. He lives! He lives! he cried. Yes, I am still alive, I answered feebly. My dear nephew, said my uncle, pressing me to his breast, you are saved! I was deeply touched with the tenderness of his manner as he uttered these words, and still more with the care with which he watched over me. But such trials were wanted to bring out the Professor's tenderer qualities. At this moment Hans came. He saw my hand in my uncle's, and I may safely say that there was joy in his countenance. Goddag, said he. How do you do, Hans? How are you? And now, uncle, tell me where we are at the present moment. Tomorrow, Axel, tomorrow. Now you are too faint and weak. I have bandaged your head with compresses which must not be disturbed. Sleep now, and tomorrow I will tell you all. But do tell me what time it is and what day. It is Sunday, the eighth of August, and it is ten at night. You must ask me no more questions until the tenth. In truth I was very weak, and my eyes involuntarily closed. I wanted a good night's rest, and I therefore went off to sleep, with the knowledge that I had been four long days alone in the heart of the earth. Next morning, on awakening, I looked round me. My couch, made up of all or travelling gear, was in a charming grotto, adorned with splendid stalactites, and the soil of which was a fine sand. It was half light. There was no torch, no lamp, yet certain mysterious glimpses of light came from without through a narrow opening in the grotto. I heard too a vague and indistinct noise, something like the murmuring of waves breaking upon a shingly shore, and at times I seemed to hear the whistling of wind. I wondered whether I was awake, whether I was dreaming, whether my brain, crazed by my fall, was not affected by imaginary noises. Yet neither eyes nor ears could be so utterly deceived. It is a ray of daylight, I thought, sliding in through this cleft in the rock. That is indeed the murmuring of waves. That is the rustling noise of wind. Am I quite mistaken, or have we returned to the surface of the earth? Has my uncle given up the expedition, or is it happily terminated? I was asking myself these unanswerable questions when the Professor entered. Good morning, Axel! he cried cheerily. I feel sure you are better. Yes, I am indeed, said I, sitting up on my couch. You can hardly fail to be better, for you have slept quietly. Hans and I watched you by turns, and we have noticed you were evidently recovering. Indeed, I do feel a great deal better, and I will give you a proof of that presently if you will let me have my breakfast. You shall eat, lad. The fever has left you. Hans rubbed your wounds with some ointment or other of which the ice-landers keep the secret, and they have healed marvelously. Our hunter is a splendid fellow. While he went on talking, my uncle prepared a few provisions, which I devoured eagerly, notwithstanding his advice to the contrary. All the while I was overwhelming him with questions which he answered readily. I then learnt that my providential fall had brought me exactly to the extremity of an almost perpendicular shaft, and as I had landed in the midst of an accompanying torrent of stones, the least of which would have been enough to crush me, the conclusion was that a loose portion of the rock had come down with me. This frightful conveyance had thus carried me into the arms of my uncle, where I fell bruised, bleeding, and insensible.  But for the love of God, don't let us ever separate again, or we may never see each other more. Not separate! Is the journey not over then? I opened a pair of astonished eyes, which immediately called for the question. What is the matter, Axel? I have a question to ask you. You say that I am safe and sound? No doubt you are. And all my limbs unbroken? Certainly. And my head? Your head, except for a few bruises, is all right, and it is on your shoulders where it ought to be. Well, I am afraid my brain is affected. Your mind affected? Yes, I fear so. Are we again on the surface of the globe? No, certainly not. Then I must be mad, for don't I see the light of day and don't I hear the wind blowing and the sea breaking on the shore? Ah, is that all? Do tell me all about it. I can't explain the inexplicable, but you will soon see and understand that geology has not yet learnt all it has to learn. Then let us go, I answered quickly. No, Axel, the open air might be bad for you. Open air? Yes, the wind is rather strong. You must not expose yourself. But I assure you I am perfectly well. A little patience, my nephew. A relapse might get us into trouble, and we have no time to lose, for the voyage may be a long one. The voyage. Yes, rest today, and tomorrow we will set sail. Set sail? And I almost leaped up. What did it all mean? Had we a river, a lake, a sea to depend upon? Was there a ship at our disposal in some underground harbor? My curiosity was highly excited. My uncle vainly tried to restrain me. When he saw that my impatience was doing me harm, he yielded. I dressed in haste. For greater safety I wrapped myself in a blanket and came out of the grotto. End of Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Of A Journey Into The Interior Of The Earth by Jules Verne Translated by Fred Dick Mellison This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 30 A New Mare Internum At first I could hardly see anything. My eyes, unaccustomed to the light, quickly closed. When I was able to reopen them, I stood more stupefied even than surprised. The sea, I cried. Yes, my uncle replied, the lead in Brocksea, and I don't suppose any other discoverer will ever dispute my claim to name it after myself as its first discoverer. A vast sheet of water, the commencement of a lake or an ocean, spread far away beyond the range of the eye, reminding me forcibly of that open sea which drew from Xenophon's ten thousand Greeks, after their long retreat, the simultaneous cry, T'lata, T'lata, the sea, the sea. The deeply indented shore was lined with a breath of fine shining sand, softly lapped by the waves, and strewn with the small shells which had been inhabited by the first of created beings. The waves broke on the shore with the hollow equi murmur peculiar to vast enclosed spaces.  On this slightly inclining shore, about a hundred fathoms from the limit of the waves, came down the foot of a huge wall of vast cliffs which rose majestically to an enormous height. Some of these, dividing the beach with their sharp spurs, formed capes and promontories, worn away by the ceaseless action of the surf. Farther on the eye discerned their massive outline sharply defined against the hazy distant horizon. It was quite an ocean, with the irregular shores of earth, but desert and frightfully wild in appearance. If my eyes were able to range afar over this great sea, it was because a peculiar light brought to view every detail of it. It was not the light of the sun, with his dazzling shafts of brightness and the splendor of his rays, nor was it the pale and uncertain shimmer of the moonbeams, the dim reflection of a nobler body of light. No, the illuminating power of this light, its trembling diffusiveness, its bright clear whiteness and its low temperature, showed that it must be of electric origin. It was like an aurora borealis, a continuous, cosmical phenomenon, filling a cavern of sufficient extent to contain an ocean. The vault that spanned the space above, the sky, if it could be called so, seemed composed of vast planes of cloud, shifting and variable vapors, which by their condensation must at certain times fall in torrents of rain. I should have thought that under so powerful a pressure of the atmosphere there could be no evaporation, and yet under a law unknown to me there were broad tracks of vapor suspended in the air. But then the weather was fine, the play of the electric light produced singular effects upon the upper strata of cloud. Deep shadows were posed upon their lower wreaths, and often between two separated fields of cloud, there glided down a ray of unspeakable luster. But it was not solar light, and there was no heat. The general effect was sad, supremely melancholy. Instead of the shining firmament, spangled with its innumerable stars, shining singly or in clusters, I felt that all these subdued and shaded lights were ribbed in by vast walls of granite, which seemed to overpower me with their weight, and that all this space, great as it was, would not be enough for the march of the humblest of satellites. Then I remembered the theory of an English captain, who likened the earth to a vast hollow sphere, in the interior of which the air became luminous because of the vast pressure that weighed upon it, while two stars, Pluto and Proserpony, rolled within upon the circuit of their mysterious orbits.  Its width could not be estimated, since the shore ran whitening as far as the eye could reach, nor could its length, for the dim horizon bounded the new. As for its height, it must have been several leagues. Where this vault rested upon its granite base, no eye could tell, but there was a cloud hanging far above, the height of which we estimated at twelve thousand feet, a greater height than that of any terrestrial vapor, and no doubt due to the great density of the air. The word cavern does not convey any idea of this immense space. Words of human tongue are inadequate to describe the discoveries of him who ventures into the deep abysses of earth. Besides, I could not tell upon what geological theory to account for the existence of such an excavation. Had the cooling of the globe produced it? I knew of celebrated caverns from the descriptions of travellers, but had never heard of any of such dimensions as this. If the Grotto of O'Hara in Columbia visited by Humboldt, and not given up the whole of the secret of its depth to the philosopher, who investigated it to the depth of twenty-five hundred feet, it probably did not extend much farther. The immense mammoth cave in Kentucky is of gigantic proportions, since its vaulted roof rises five hundred feet above the level of an unfathomable lake, and travellers have explored its ramifications to the extent of forty miles. But what were these cavities compared to that in which I stood with wonder and admiration, with its sky of luminous vapours, its bursts of electric light, and a vast sea filling its bed? My imagination fell powerless before such immensity. I gazed upon these wonders in silence. Words failed me to express my feelings. I felt as if I was in some distant planet, Uranus, or Neptune, and in the presence a phenomenon of which my terrestrial experience gave me no cognizance. For such novel sensations new words were wanted, and my imagination failed to supply them. I gazed, I thought, I admired, with a stupifaction mingled with a certain amount of fear. The unforeseen nature of this spectacle brought back the color to my cheeks. I was under a new course of treatment with the aid of astonishment, and my convalescence was promoted by this novel system of therapeutics. Besides, the dense and breezy air invigorated me, supplying more oxygen to my lungs. It will be easily conceived that after an imprisonment of forty-seven days in a narrow gallery, it was the height of physical enjoyment to breathe a moist air impregnated with saline particles. I was delighted to leave my dark grotto. My uncle, already familiar with these wonders, had ceased to feel surprised. You feel strong enough to walk a little way now? he asked. Yes, certainly, and nothing could be more delightful. Well, take my arm, Axel, and let us follow the windings of the shore. I eagerly accepted, and we began to coast along this new sea. On the left huge pyramids of rock, piled one