XXV

XXV

I THEREFORE WOKE UP on Sunday morning without the usual preoccupations of an immediate departure. And even though we were in the deepest abyss, that was still pleasant. In any case, we had gotten used to this troglodyte life. I hardly thought of sun, stars, moon, trees, houses, and towns anymore, or of any of those earthly superfluities which sublunary beings have turned into necessities. Being fossils, we did not care about such useless wonders.

The grotto was an immense hall. Along its granite floor our faithful stream ran gently. At this distance from its spring, the water had the same temperature as its surroundings and could be drunk without difficulty.

After breakfast the professor wanted to devote a few hours to putting his daily notes in order.

“First,” he said, “I’ll calculate our exact position. I hope, after our return, to draw a map of our journey, a kind of vertical section of the globe which will retrace the itinerary of our expedition.”

“That’ll be very interesting, Uncle; but are your observations sufficiently accurate?”

“Yes; I’ve carefully noted the angles and the slopes. I’m sure there’s no mistake. Let’s see where we are now. Take your compass, and note the direction.”

I looked at the instrument and replied after careful study:

“East-a-quarter-south-east.”

“Good,” answered the professor, writing down the observation and calculating quickly. “I infer that we’ve gone eighty-five leagues from our point of departure.”

“So we’re under the mid-Atlantic?”

“Exactly.”

“And perhaps at this very moment there’s a storm unleashed above, and ships over our heads are being tossed by the waves and the hurricane?”

“Possible.”

“And whales are lashing the roof of our prison with their tails?”

“Don’t worry, Axel, they won’t manage to break it. But let’s go back to our calculation. We’re eighty-five leagues south-east of the foot of Snaefells, and I estimate that we’re at a depth of sixteen leagues.”

“Sixteen leagues!” I exclaimed.

“No doubt.”

“But that’s the upper limit that science has calculated for the thickness of the earth’s crust.”

“I don’t deny it.”

“And here, according to the law of increasing temperature, there should be a heat of 1,500°C!”

“‘Should,’ my boy.”

“And all this solid granite could not remain solid and would be completely molten.”

“You see that it’s not so, and that, as so often happens, facts contradict theories.”

“I’m forced to agree, but it does amaze me.”

“What does the thermometer say?”

“27 and 6/10°C.”

“Therefore the scholars are wrong by 1,474 and 4/10°. So the proportional increase in temperature is a mistake. So Humphry Davy was right. So I am not wrong in following him. What do you say now?”

“Nothing.”

In truth, I had a great deal to say. In no way did I accept Davy’s theory. I still believed in core heat, although I did not feel its effects. I preferred to believe, really, that this chimney of an extinct volcano was covered with a refractive lava coating that did not allow the heat to pass through its walls.

But without bothering to find new arguments, I simply accepted the situation such as it was.

“Uncle,” I resumed, “I believe all your calculations are accurate, but allow me to draw one rigorous conclusion from them.”

“Go ahead, my boy.”

“At the latitude of Iceland, where we now are, the radius of the earth is about 1,583 leagues?”

“1,583 leagues and 1/3.”

“Let’s say 1,600 leagues in round numbers. Out of 1,600 leagues we have covered twelve?”

“Just as you say.”

“Perhaps at this very moment there’s a storm unleashed above.”

“And these twelve by going 85 leagues diagonally?”

“Exactly.”

“In about twenty days?”

“In twenty days.”

“Now, sixteen leagues are the hundredth part of the earth’s radius. At this rate we’ll take two thousand days, or nearly five years and a half, to get to the center.”

The professor gave no answer.

“Without mentioning that if a vertical depth of sixteen leagues can be reached only by a diagonal descent of eighty-four, we have to go eight thousand miles to the south-east, and we’ll emerge from some point in the earth’s circumference long before we get to the center!”

“To Hell with your calculations!” replied my uncle in a fit of rage. “To Hell with your hypotheses! What’s the basis of them all? How do you know that this passage doesn’t run straight to our goal? Besides, we have a precedent. What I’m doing, another man has done before me, and where he’s succeeded, I’ll succeed in my turn.”

“I hope so; but, still, I may be permitted—”

“You’re permitted to hold your tongue, Axel, if you’re going to talk in that irrational way.”

I could see the awful professor threatening to reappear under the surface of the uncle, and I took the hint.

“Now look at your manometer. What does it indicate?”

“Considerable pressure.”

“Good; so you see that by going down gradually, and by getting accustomed to the density of the atmosphere, we don’t suffer at all.”

“Not at all, except a little pain in the ears.”

“That’s nothing, and you can get rid of that discomfort by putting the outside air in rapid contact with the air in your lungs.”

“Exactly,” I said, determined not to say a word that might contradict my uncle. “There’s even genuine pleasure in being immersed in this denser atmosphere. Have you noticed how far the sound carries down here?”

“Undoubtedly. A deaf man would end up hearing perfectly.”

“But won’t this density increase?”

“Yes, according to a rather ill-defined law. It’s well known that gravity decreases as we descend. You know that it’s at the surface of the earth that weight is most acutely felt, and that at the center objects have no weight.”

“I’m aware of that; but tell me, won’t the air at last become as dense as water?”

“No doubt, under a pressure of seven hundred and ten atmospheres.”

“And lower down?”

“Lower down the density will increase even more.”

“So how will we go down then?”

“Well, we’ll fill our pockets with stones.”

“Really, Uncle, you’re never at a loss for an answer.”

I dared venture no farther into the region of hypotheses, for I might once again stumble over an impossibility that would make the professor jump with rage.

Still, it was obvious that the air, under a pressure that might reach thousands of atmospheres, would at last turn solid, and then, even if our bodies could resist, we would have to stop, in spite of all reasoning in the world.

But I did not insist on this argument. My uncle would have held against it his inevitable Saknussemm, a precedent without value, for even if the journey of the Icelandic scholar had really taken place, there was one very simple question to answer: In the sixteenth century neither barometer or manometer had been invented; so how could Saknussemm have determined whether he had arrived at the center of the globe?

But I kept this objection to myself and let events take their course.

The rest of the day was spent in calculations and conversations. I always agreed with Professor Lidenbrock’s opinions, and I envied Hans his complete indifference; without looking so hard for effects and causes, he went blindly wherever his destiny guided him.