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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 Liedenbrock Sea; 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, “Thalatta! thalatta!” the sea! the sea! The
deeply indented shore was lined with a breadth 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 this shore with the hollow
echoing murmur peculiar to vast inclosed spaces. A light foam flew over the
waves before the breath of a moderate breeze, and some of the spray fell upon
my face. 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 splendour 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 plains of cloud, shifting and variable vapours,
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
tracts of vapour 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 reposed upon their lower wreaths; and
often, between two separated fields of cloud, there glided down a ray of
unspeakable lustre. 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 fights 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
Proserpine, rolled within upon the circuit of their mysterious orbits.
We were in reality shut up inside an immeasurable excavation. Its width
could not be estimated, since the shore ran widening as far as 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 12,000 feet, a greater height than that of any
terrestrial vapour, 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 Guachara, in Colombia, visited by Humboldt, had not
given up the whole of the secret of its depth to the philosopher, who
investigated it to the depth of 2,500 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 [1] 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 of phenomena of which my terrestrial experience gave me no
cognisance. For such novel sensations, new words were wanted; and my
imagination failed to supply them. I gazed, I thought, I admired, with a
stupefaction mingled with a certain amount of fear.
The unforeseen nature of this spectacle brought back the colour 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.
[1] One hundred and twenty. (Trans.)
I was delighted to leave my dark grotto. My uncle, already familiar with
these wonders, had ceased to feel surprise.
“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 upon another, produced a prodigious
titanic effect. Down their sides flowed numberless waterfalls, which went on
their way in brawling but pellucid streams. A few light vapours, leaping from
rock to rock, denoted the place of hot springs; and streams flowed softly down
to the common basin, gliding down the gentle slopes with a softer murmur.
Amongst these streams I recognised our faithful travelling companion,
the Hansbach, coming to lose its little volume quietly in the mighty sea, just
as if it had done nothing else since the beginning of the world.
“We shall see it no more,” I said, with a sigh.
“What matters,” replied the philosopher, “whether this
or another serves to guide us?”
I thought him rather ungrateful.
But at that moment my attention was drawn to an unexpected sight. At a
distance of five hundred paces, at the turn of a high promontory, appeared a
high, tufted, dense forest. It was composed of trees of moderate height, formed
like umbrellas, with exact geometrical outlines. The currents of wind seemed to
have had no effect upon their shape, and in the midst of the windy blasts they
stood unmoved and firm, just like a clump of petrified cedars.
I hastened forward. I could not give any name to these singular
creations. Were they some of the two hundred thousand species of vegetables
known hitherto, and did they claim a place of their own in the lacustrine
flora? No; when we arrived under their shade my surprise turned into admiration.
There stood before me productions of earth, but of gigantic stature, which my
uncle immediately named.
“It is only a forest of mushrooms,” said he.
And he was right. Imagine the large development attained by these
plants, which prefer a warm, moist climate. I knew that the Lycopodon
giganteum attains, according to Bulliard, a circumference of eight or nine
feet; but here were pale mushrooms, thirty to forty feet high, and crowned with
a cap of equal diameter. There they stood in thousands. No light could
penetrate between their huge cones, and complete darkness reigned beneath those
giants; they formed settlements of domes placed in close array like the round,
thatched roofs of a central African city.
Yet I wanted to penetrate farther underneath, though a chill fell upon
me as soon as I came under those cellular vaults. For half an hour we wandered
from side to side in the damp shades, and it was a comfortable and pleasant
change to arrive once more upon the sea shore.
But the subterranean vegetation was not confined to these fungi. Farther
on rose groups of tall trees of colourless foliage and easy to recognise. They
were lowly shrubs of earth, here attaining gigantic size; lycopodiums, a
hundred feet high; the huge sigillaria, found in our coal mines; tree ferns, as
tall as our fir-trees in northern latitudes; lepidodendra, with cylindrical
forked stems, terminated by long leaves, and bristling with rough hairs like
those of the cactus.
“Wonderful, magnificent, splendid!” cried my uncle. “Here
is the entire flora of the second period of the world — the transition
period. These, humble garden plants with us, were tall trees in the early ages.
Look, Axel, and admire it all. Never had botanist such a feast as this!”
“You are right, my uncle. Providence seems to have preserved in
this immense conservatory the antediluvian plants which the wisdom of
philosophers has so sagaciously put together again.”
“It is a conservatory, Axel; but is it not also a
menagerie?”
“Surely not a menagerie!”
“Yes; no doubt of it. Look at that dust under your feet; see the
bones scattered on the ground.”
“So there are!” I cried; “bones of extinct
animals.”
I had rushed upon these remains, formed of indestructible phosphates of
lime, and without hesitation I named these monstrous bones, which lay scattered
about like decayed trunks of trees.
“Here is the lower jaw of a mastodon,” [1] I said. “These
are the molar teeth of the deinotherium; this femur must have belonged to the
greatest of those beasts, the megatherium. It certainly is a menagerie, for
these remains were not brought here by a deluge. The animals to which they
belonged roamed on the shores of this subterranean sea, under the shade of
those arborescent trees. Here are entire skeletons. And yet I cannot understand
the appearance of these quadrupeds in a granite cavern.”
[1] These animals belonged to a late geological period, the Pliocene,
just before the glacial epoch, and therefore could have no connection with the
carboniferous vegetation. (Trans.)
“Why?”
“Because animal life existed upon the earth only in the secondary
period, when a sediment of soil had been deposited by the rivers, and taken the
place of the incandescent rocks of the primitive period.”
“Well, Axel, there is a very simple answer to your objection that
this soil is alluvial.”
“What! at such a depth below the surface of the earth?”
“No doubt; and there is a geological explanation of the fact. At a
certain period the earth consisted only of an elastic crust or bark,
alternately acted on by forces from above or below, according to the laws of
attraction and gravitation. Probably there were subsidences of the outer crust,
when a portion of the sedimentary deposits was carried down sudden
openings.”
“That may be,” I replied; “but if there have been
creatures now extinct in these underground regions, why may not some of those
monsters be now roaming through these gloomy forests, or hidden behind the
steep crags?”
And as this unpleasant notion got hold of me, I surveyed with anxious
scrutiny the open spaces before me; but no living creature appeared upon the
barren strand.
I felt rather tired, and went to sit down at the end of a promontory, at
the foot of which the waves came and beat themselves into spray. Thence my eye
could sweep every part of the bay; within its extremity a little harbour was
formed between the pyramidal cliffs, where the still waters slept untouched by
the boisterous winds. A brig and two or three schooners might have moored
within it in safety. I almost fancied I should presently see some ship issue
from it, full sail, and take to the open sea under the southern breeze.
But this illusion lasted a very short time. We were the only living
creatures in this subterranean world. When the wind lulled, a deeper silence
than that of the deserts fell upon the arid, naked rocks, and weighed upon the
surface of the ocean. I then desired to pierce the distant haze, and to rend
asunder the mysterious curtain that hung across the horizon. Anxious queries
arose to my lips. Where did that sea terminate? Where did it lead to? Should we
ever know anything about its opposite shores?
My uncle made no doubt about it at all; I both desired and feared.
After spending an hour in the contemplation of this marvellous
spectacle, we returned to the shore to regain the grotto, and I fell asleep in
the midst of the strangest thoughts.
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