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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, gneiss,
and mica 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 course 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 for ever 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 gneiss, partially stratified, remarkable for
the parallelism and regularity of its lamina, then mica schists, laid in large
plates or flakes, revealing their lamellated structure by the sparkle of the
white shining mica.
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 fete of illuminations underwent a
sensible abatement of splendour, then almost ceased. The walls assumed a
crystallised though sombre appearance; mica was more closely mingled with the
feldspar 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 immured 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 not 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?
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