XXXI

XXXI

THE NEXT MORNING I woke up feeling perfectly well. I thought a bath would do me good, and I went to dive into the waters of this Mediterranean sea for a few minutes. Certainly it deserved this name more than any other ocean.be

I came back to breakfast with a good appetite. Hans knew how to cook our little meal; he had water and fire at his disposal, so that he could change our ordinary fare a bit. For dessert he served us a few cups of coffee, and this delicious beverage never seemed more pleasant to my sense of taste.

“Now,” said my uncle, “this is the time of the high tide, and we mustn’t miss the opportunity to study this phenomenon.”

“What, the tide!” I exclaimed.

“No doubt.”

“Can the influence of the sun and moon be felt even here?”

“Why not? Aren’t all bodies subject to universal gravity in their entirety? So this mass of water can’t escape the general law. And in spite of the heavy atmospheric pressure on the surface, you’ll see it rise like the Atlantic itself.”

At that moment we walked on the sand of the shore, and the waves were gradually encroaching on the pebbles.

“Here’s the beginning of high tide,” I exclaimed.

“Yes, Axel, and judging from these tidemarks of foam, you can see that the ocean rises about ten feet.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“No, it’s natural.”

“It’s easy for you to say, Uncle, but all of this seems extraordinary to me, and I can hardly believe my eyes. Who would ever have imagined an ocean under this terrestrial crust, with ebbing and flowing tides, with winds and storms!”

“Why not? Is there any physical reason against it?”

“I don’t see any, so long as we abandon the theory of core heat.”

“So this far Davy’s theory has been confirmed?”

“Obviously, and therefore nothing contradicts the existence of oceans and continents in the interior of the earth.”

“No doubt, but uninhabited.”

“Well! Why wouldn’t this water be the sanctuary of fishes of an unknown species?”

“At any rate, we haven’t seen a single one so far.”

“Well, let’s make some lines, and see if the bait draws as much here as it does in surface oceans.”

“We’ll try, Axel, because we must penetrate all the secrets of these new regions.”

“But where are we, Uncle? For I haven’t asked you that question yet, which your instruments must be able to answer.”

“Horizontally, three hundred and fifty leagues from Iceland.”

“As much as that?”

“I’m sure that I’m not off even by five hundred fathoms.”

“And does the compass still show south-east?”

“Yes, with a westerly deviation of 19° 45’. just as above ground. As for its dip, something curious is occurring that I’ve observed with the greatest care.”

“What is that?”

“It’s that the needle, instead of dipping toward the pole as in the northern hemisphere, on the contrary points upward.”

“Must we then conclude that the magnetic pole is somewhere between the surface of the globe and the point where we are?”

“Exactly, and it’s likely that if we were to reach the polar regions at about the seventieth degree, where Sir James Rossbf discovered the magnetic pole, we would see the needle point straight up. Therefore that mysterious center of attraction does not lie at a great depth.”

“Indeed, and that’s a fact which science had not anticipated.”

“Science, my boy, is built on errors, but errors which it’s good to commit because they gradually lead to the truth.”

“What depth have we reached now?”

“Thirty-five leagues below the surface.”

“So,” I said, examining the map, “the Highlands of Scotland are over our heads, and the snow-covered peaks of the Grampian Mountains rise up to prodigious heights.”

“Yes,” answered the professor laughing. “It’s a bit of a heavy load to bear, but the vault is solid. The great architect of the universe has built it of the best materials, and man could never have given it such a reach! What are the arches of bridges and the naves of cathedrals compared to this vault with a three-league radius, beneath which an ocean and its storms can unfold at their ease?”

“Oh, I’m not afraid that it’ll fall down on my head. But now, Uncle, what are your plans? Aren’t you thinking of returning to the surface now?”

“Return! No, indeed! We’ll continue our journey, since everything has gone well so far.”

“But I don’t see how we can go down beneath this liquid surface.”

“Oh! I’m not going to dive in head foremost. But if all oceans are properly speaking only lakes, since they are surrounded by land, of course this interior sea is also encircled by a granite coast.”

“That’s beyond question.”

“Well then, on the opposite shores we’ll find new passages opening up.”

“How wide do you estimate this ocean to be?”

“Thirty or forty leagues.”

“Ah!” I remarked, thinking that this estimate might well be inaccurate.

“So we have no time to lose, and we’ll set sail tomorrow.”

Involuntarily I looked about for the ship that was supposed to transport us.

“Ah!” I said, “set sail, will we? Fine! But aboard what ship will we travel?”

“It’ll not be aboard a ship at all, my boy, but on a good, solid raft.”

“A raft!” I exclaimed. “A raft is just as impossible to build as a ship, and I don’t see ...”

“You don’t see, Axel, but if you listened, you might hear.”

“Hear?”

“Yes, certain strikes of the hammer that would tell you that Hans is already at work on it.”

“He’s building a raft?”

“Yes.”

“What! He’s already felled trees with his axe?”

“Oh, the trees were already down. Come, and you’ll see him at work.”

After a walk of a quarter of an hour, on the other side of the promontory which formed the little natural harbor, I saw Hans at work. A few more steps, and I was at his side. To my great surprise, a half-finished raft was already lying on the sand; it was made out of beams of a peculiar wood, and a great number of planks, hinges and frames were strewn about the ground. It was enough material for an entire fleet.

“Uncle,” I exclaimed, “what wood is this?”

“It is pine, fir, birch, all kinds of northern conifers, mineralized by the seawater.”

“Is that possible?”

“It’s called ‘surturbrand’ or fossil wood.”

“But then, like lignite, it must be as hard as stone, and cannot float?”

“Sometimes that happens; some of these woods have become true anthracites; but others, like these, have only gone through the beginnings of fossil transformation. Just look,” added my uncle, throwing one of those precious remains into the sea.

The piece of wood, after disappearing, returned to the surface of the waves and swung back and forth with their movements.

“Are you convinced?” said my uncle.

“Convinced, although it’s incredible!”

The next evening, thanks to our guide’s skill, the raft was completed; it was ten feet by five feet; the beams of surturbrand, tied together with strong rope, offered an even surface, and when it was launched, this improvised vessel floated calmly on the waves of the Lidenbrock Sea.