XX

XX

INDEED, WE DID HAVE to ration ourselves. Our supply of water could not last more than three days. I found that out for certain when dinnertime came. Dismal prospect, we had little hope of finding a source in those rocks of the Transition period.

The whole next day the tunnel opened its endless arcades before us. We moved on almost without a word. Hans’ silence spread to us.

The road was not ascending now, at least not perceptibly. Sometimes, it even seemed to slope downward. But this tendency, which was at any rate very slight, did not reassure the professor; for there was no change in the nature of the strata, and the Transition period became more and more manifest.

The electric light made the schist, the limestone, and old red sandstone of the walls glitter splendidly. One might have thought that we were passing through an open trench in Devonshire, the region whose name has been given to this kind of soil.as Magnificent marble specimens covered the walls, some of a grayish agate with veins fancifully outlined in white, others in a crimson color, or yellow dotted with spots of red; farther on, samples of dark cherry-red marbles in which limestone showed up in bright hues.

The greater part of this marble bore impressions of primitive organisms. Creation had made obvious progress since the previous day. Instead of rudimentary trilobites, I noticed remains of a more perfect order of beings, amongst others ganoid fishesat and some of those saurians in which paleontologists have discovered the earliest reptile forms. The Devonian seas were inhabited by animals of these species, and deposited them by thousands in the newly formed rocks.

It was obvious that we were ascending the scale of animal life in which man holds the highest place. But Professor Lidenbrock seemed not to care.

He was waiting for one of two events: either that a vertical well would be opening under his feet and allow him to resume his descent , or that an obstacle would prevent him from continuing on this route. But evening came, and this hope was not fulfilled.

On Friday, after a night during which I began to feel the pangs of thirst, our little troop again plunged into the winding passages of the tunnel.

After ten hours’ walking I noticed that the reflection of our lamps on the walls diminished strangely. The marble, the schist, the limestone, and the sandstone were giving way to a dark and lusterless lining. At one moment where the tunnel became very narrow, I leaned against the left wall.

When I pulled my hand back, it was black. I looked more closely. We were in a coal formation.

“A coal mine!” I exclaimed.

“A mine without miners,” my uncle replied.

“Ah! Who knows?” I asked.

“I know,” the professor pronounced decidedly, “I’m certain that this tunnel piercing through layers of coal was never created by the hand of man. But whether it’s the work of nature or not doesn’t matter. Dinnertime has come; let’s have dinner.”

Hans prepared some food. I scarcely ate, and I swallowed the few drops of water rationed out to me. One half-full flask was all we had left to quench the thirst of three men.

After their meal my two companions laid down on their blankets, and found in sleep a remedy for their exhaustion. But I could not sleep, and I counted the hours 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 could not have hollowed out this coal mine; the vaults would have been shored up, and really they seemed to be held up only by a miracle of equilibrium.

This cavern was about a hundred feet wide and a hundred and fifty high. The ground had been pushed aside by a subterranean motion. The massive rock, impacted by a powerful thrust, had been displaced, leaving this large empty space that inhabitants of the earth entered for the first time.

The whole history of the Carboniferous periodau was written on these dark 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 by the strata above.

At the age of the world which preceded the Secondary period, the earth was covered with immense vegetable forms, produced by the double influence of tropical heat and constant moisture; a vaporous atmosphere enveloped the earth, depriving it again of the direct rays of the sun.

Hence the conclusion that the high temperature was due to some other source than the heat of the sun. Perhaps the day star was not ready to play its brilliant role. There were no ‘climates’ as yet, and a torrid heat, equal from pole to equator, spread over the whole surface of the globe. Where did it come from? Was it from the interior of the earth?

Notwithstanding Professor Lidenbrock’s theories, a violent heat did at that time smolder in the bowels of the spheroid. Its effect was felt up to the last layers of the terrestrial crust; the plants, deprived of the beneficent influence of the sun, produced neither flowers nor scent, but their roots drew vigorous life from the burning soil of the first days.

There were only a few trees, only herbaceous plants, enormous meadows, ferns, lycopods, sigillarias, asterophyllites,av rare families whose species numbered in the thousands then.

Coal owes its existence to this period of profuse vegetation. The still flexible crust of the earth followed the movements of the liquid masses it covered. Hence numerous fissures and depressions. The plants, pushed under water, gradually accumulated in considerable quantities.

Then the reactions of natural chemistry intervened; at the bottom of the oceans, the vegetable accumulations first became peat; then, due to the influence of gases and the heat of fermentation, they underwent a process of complete mineralization.

In this way those immense coalfields were formed, which excessive exploitation will nonetheless exhaust in less than three centuries, unless industrialized countries prevent it.

These reflections came to my mind while I was contemplating the mineral wealth stored up in this portion of the globe. Undoubtedly, I thought, these will never be discovered; the exploitation of such deep mines would require too large a sacrifice, and what would be the use as long as coal is spread far and wide close to the surface? Therefore, such as I see these intact layers, such they will be when this world comes to an end.

But still we marched on, and I alone forgot the length of the way by losing myself in the midst of geological contemplations. The temperature remained what it had been during our passage through the lava and schist. Only my sense of smell was affected by an odor of hydrocarbon. I immediately recognized in this tunnel the presence of a considerable quantity of the dangerous gas called firedamp by miners, whose explosion has often caused dreadful catastrophes.

Luckily, our light came from Ruhmkorff’s ingenious device. If by misfortune we had carelessly explored this tunnel with torches, a terrible explosion would have put an end to traveling by eliminating the travelers.

This excursion through the coal formation lasted until night. My uncle could scarcely restrain his impatience at the horizontal road. The darkness, always twenty steps ahead of us, prevented us from estimating the length of the tunnel; and I was beginning to think it must be endless, when suddenly at six o’clock a wall very unexpectedly arose before us. Right or left, top or bottom, there was no passage; we were at the end of a blind alley.

“Well, all the better!” exclaimed my uncle, “I know what the facts are. We’re not on Saknussemm’s route, and all we have to do is go back. Let’s take a night’s rest, and in three days we’ll get back to the point where the two tunnels branch off.”

“Yes,” I said, “if we have any strength left!”

“And why not?”

“Because tomorrow we’ll have no water left at all.”

“Or courage either?” asked my uncle, looking at me severely.

I dared make no answer.