by Marie Sexton
But what part of the globe could this be, this land swallowed by cataclysms? Who had set up these rocks and stones like the dolmens of prehistoric times? Where was I, where had Captain Nemo’s fancies taken me?
I wanted to ask him. Unable to, I stopped him. I seized his arm. But he shook his head, pointed to the mountain’s topmost peak, and seemed to tell me, “Come on. Come with me.
Come higher.”
I followed him with one last burst of energy, and in a few minutes I had scaled the peak, which crowned the whole rocky mass by some ten metres.
I looked back down the side we had just cleared. There the mountain rose only 700 to 800 feet above the plains, but on its far slope it crowned the receding bottom of this part of the Atlantic by a height twice that. My eyes scanned the distance and took in a vast area lit by intense flashes of light. In essence, this mountain was a volcano. Fifty feet below its peak, amid a shower of stones and slag, a wide crater vomited torrents of lava that were dispersed in fiery cascades into the heart of the liquid mass. So situated, this volcano was an immense torch that lit up the lower plains all the way to the horizon.
As I said, this underwater crater spewed lava, but not flames. Flames need oxygen from the air and are unable to spread underwater, but a lava flow, which contains in itself the principle of its incandescence, can rise to a white heat, overpower the liquid element, and turn it into steam on contact. Swift currents swept away all this diffuse gas, and torrents of lava slid to the foot of the mountain, like the disgorgings of a Mt. Vesuvius over the city limits of a second Torre del Greco.
In fact, there beneath my eyes was a town in ruins, demolished, overwhelmed, laid low, its roofs caved in, its temples pulled down, its arches dislocated, its columns stretching over the earth. In these ruins you could still detect the solid proportions of a sort of Tuscan architecture, and farther off, the remains of a gigantic aqueduct, here, the caked heights of an acropolis along with the fluid forms of a Parthenon, there, the remnants of a wharf, as if some bygone port had long ago harboured merchant vessels and triple-tiered war galleys on the shores of some lost ocean. Still farther off were long rows of collapsing walls, deserted thoroughfares, a whole Pompeii buried under the waters, which Captain Nemo had resurrected before my eyes.
Where was I? Where was I? I had to find out at all cost, I wanted to speak, I wanted to rip off the copper sphere imprisoning my head.
But Captain Nemo came over and stopped me with a gesture. Then, picking up a piece of chalky stone, he advanced to a black basaltic rock and scrawled this one word: ATLANTIS
I had this land right under my eyes, furnishing its own unimpeachable evidence of the catastrophe that had overtaken it. Thus, led by the strangest of fates, I was treading underfoot one of the mountains of that continent. My hands were touching ruins many thousands of years old, contemporary with prehistoric times. I was walking in the very place where contemporaries of early man had walked. My heavy soles were crushing the skeletons of animals from the age of fable, animals that used to take cover in the shade of these trees now turned to stone.
Oh, why was I so short of time? I would have gone down the steep slopes of this mountain, crossed this entire immense continent, which surely connects Africa with America, and visited its great prehistoric cities. Under my eyes there perhaps lay the warlike town of Makhimos or the pious village of Eusebes, whose gigantic inhabitants lived for whole centuries and had the strength to raise blocks of stone that still withstood the action of the waters. One day perhaps, some volcanic phenomenon will bring these sunken ruins back to the surface of the waves. Numerous underwater volcanoes have been sighted in this part of the ocean, and many ships have felt terrific tremors when passing over these turbulent depths. A few have heard hollow noises that announced some struggle of the elements far below, others have hauled in volcanic ash hurled above the waves. As far as the equator this whole seafloor is still under construction by plutonic forces. And in some remote epoch, built up by volcanic disgorgings and successive layers of lava, who knows whether the peaks of these fire-belching mountains may reappear above the surface of the Atlantic?
As I mused in this way, trying to establish in my memory every detail of this impressive landscape, Captain Nemo was leaning his elbows on a moss-covered monument, motionless as if petrified in some mute trance. Was he dreaming of those lost generations, asking them for the secret of human destiny? Was it here that this strange man came to revive himself, basking in historical memories, reliving that bygone life, he who had no desire for our modern one? I would have given anything to know his thoughts, to share them, understand them.
We stayed in this place an entire hour, contemplating its vast plains in the lava’s glow, which sometimes took on a startling intensity. Inner boilings sent quick shivers running through the mountain’s crust. Noises from deep underneath, clearly transmitted by the liquid medium, reverberated with majestic amplitude.
Just then the moon appeared for an instant through the watery mass, casting a few pale rays over this submerged continent. It was only a fleeting glimmer, but its effect was indescribable. The captain stood up and took one last look at these immense plains, then his hand signalled me to follow him.
We went swiftly down the mountain. Once past the petrified forest, I could see the Nautilus’s beacon twinkling like a star. The captain walked straight towards it, and we were back on board just as the first glimmers of dawn were whitening the surface of the ocean.
Chapter Ten
The Underwater Coalfields
The next day, February 20, I overslept. I was so exhausted from the night before, I didn’t get up until eleven o’clock. I dressed quickly. I hurried to find out the Nautilus’s heading. The instruments indicated that it was running southward at a speed of twenty miles per hour and a depth of one-hundred metres.
Conseil entered. I was painfully aware of Ned’s absence, but dared not ask my companion about my lover’s mood. Instead, I described our nocturnal excursion to him, and since the panels were open, he could still catch a glimpse of this submerged continent.
In fact, the Nautilus was skimming only ten metres over the soil of these Atlantis plains.
The ship scudded along like an air balloon borne by the wind over some prairie on land, but it would be more accurate to say that we sat in the lounge as if we were riding in a coach on an express train. As for the foregrounds passing before our eyes, they were fantastically carved rocks, forests of trees that had crossed over from the vegetable kingdom into the mineral kingdom, their motionless silhouettes sprawling beneath the waves. There also were stony masses buried beneath carpets of axidia and sea anemone, bristling with long, vertical water plants, then strangely contoured blocks of lava that testified to all the fury of those plutonic developments.
While this bizarre scenery was glittering under our electric beams, I told Conseil the story of the Atlanteans, who had inspired the old French scientist Jean Bailly, who believed that Atlantis was located at the North Pole, to write so many entertaining—albeit utterly fictitious—pages. I told the lad about the wars of these heroic people. I discussed the question of Atlantis with the fervour of a man who no longer had any doubts. But Conseil was so distracted he barely heard me, and his lack of interest in any commentary on this historical topic was soon explained.
In essence, numerous fish had caught his eye, and when fish pass by, Conseil vanishes into his world of classifying and leaves real life behind. In which case I could only tag along and resume our ichthyologic research.
Even so, these Atlantic fish were not noticeably different from those we had observed earlier.
But while observing these different specimens of marine fauna, I didn’t stop examining the long plains of Atlantis. Sometimes an unpredictable irregularity in the seafloor would force the Nautilus to slow down, and then it would glide into the narrow channels between the hills with a cetacean’s dexterity. If the labyrinth became hopelessly tangled, the submersible would rise above it li
ke an airship, and after clearing the obstacle, it would resume its speedy course just a few metres above the ocean floor. It was an enjoyable and impressive way of navigating that did indeed recall the manoeuvres of an airship ride, with the major difference that the Nautilus faithfully obeyed the hands of its helmsman.
The terrain consisted mostly of thick slime mixed with petrified branches, but it changed little by little near four o’clock in the afternoon—it grew rockier and seemed to be strewn with pudding stones and a basaltic gravel called ‘tuff’, together with bits of lava and sulphurous obsidian. I expected these long plains to change into mountain regions, and in fact, as the Nautilus was executing certain turns, I noticed that the southerly horizon was blocked by a high wall that seemed to close off every exit. Its summit obviously poked above the level of the ocean. It had to be a continent or at least an island, either one of the Canaries or one of the Cape Verde Islands. Our bearings hadn’t been marked on the chart—perhaps deliberately—and I had no idea what our position was. In any case this wall seemed to signal the end of Atlantis, of which, all in all, we had crossed only a small part.
Nightfall didn’t interrupt my observations. I was left to myself. Conseil had repaired to his cabin. Ned had presumably never left it. The Nautilus slowed down, hovering above the muddled masses on the seafloor, sometimes grazing them as if wanting to come to rest, sometimes rising unpredictably to the surface of the waves. Then I glimpsed a few bright constellations through the crystal waters, specifically five or six of those zodiacal stars trailing from the tail end of Orion.
I would have stayed longer at my window, marvelling at these beauties of sea and sky, but the panels closed. Just then the Nautilus had arrived at the perpendicular face of that high wall. How the ship would manoeuvre I hadn’t a guess. I repaired to my stateroom which felt barren without Ned’s solid presence. The Nautilus did not stir. I fell asleep with the firm intention of waking up in just a few hours.
But it was eight o’clock the next day when I returned to the lounge. I stared at the pressure gauge. It told me that the Nautilus was afloat on the surface of the ocean.
Furthermore, I heard the sound of footsteps on the platform. Yet there were no rolling movements to indicate the presence of waves undulating above me.
I climbed as far as the hatch. It was open. But instead of the broad daylight I was expecting, I found that I was surrounded by total darkness. Where were we? Had I been mistaken? Was it still night? No. Not one star was twinkling, and nighttime is never so utterly black.
I wasn’t sure what to think, when a voice said to me, “Is that you, Professor?”
“Ah, Captain Nemo.” I replied. “Where are we?”
“Underground, Professor.”
“Underground,” I exclaimed. “And the Nautilus is still floating?”
“It always floats.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“Wait a little while. Our beacon is about to go on, and if you want some light on the subject, you’ll be satisfied.”
I set foot on the platform and waited. The darkness was so profound I couldn’t see even Captain Nemo. However, looking at the zenith directly overhead, I thought I caught sight of a feeble glimmer, a sort of twilight filtering through a circular hole. Just then the beacon suddenly went on, and its intense brightness made that hazy light vanish.
This stream of electricity dazzled my eyes, and after momentarily shutting them, I looked around. The Nautilus was stationary. It was floating next to an embankment shaped like a wharf. As for the water now buoying the ship, it was a lake completely encircled by an inner wall about two miles in diameter, hence six miles around. Its level—as indicated by the pressure gauge—would be the same as the outside level, because some connection had to exist between this lake and the sea. Slanting inward over their base, these high walls converged to form a vault shaped like an immense upside-down funnel that measured five-hundred or six-hundred metres in height. At its summit there gaped the circular opening through which I had detected that faint glimmer, obviously daylight.
Before more carefully examining the interior features of this enormous cavern, and before deciding if it was the work of nature or humankind, I went over to Captain Nemo.
“Where are we?” I said.
“In the very heart of an extinct volcano,” the captain answered me, “a volcano whose interior was invaded by the sea after some convulsion in the earth. While you were sleeping, Professor, the Nautilus entered this lagoon through a natural channel that opens ten metres below the surface of the ocean. This is our home port, secure, convenient, secret, and sheltered against winds from any direction. Along the coasts of your continents or islands, show me any offshore mooring that can equal this safe refuge for withstanding the fury of hurricanes.”
“Indeed,” I replied, “here you’re in perfect safety, Captain Nemo. Who could reach you in the heart of a volcano? But don’t I see an opening at its summit?”
“Yes, its crater, a crater formerly filled with lava, steam, and flames, but which now lets in this life-giving air we’re breathing.”
“But which volcanic mountain is this?” I asked.
“It’s one of the many islets with which this sea is strewn. For ships a mere reef, for us an immense cavern. I discovered it by chance, and chance served me well.”
“But couldn’t someone enter through the mouth of its crater?”
“No more than I could exit through it. You can climb about one-hundred feet up the inner base of this mountain, but then the walls overhang, they lean too far in to be scaled.”
“I can see, Captain, that nature is your obedient servant, any time or any place. You’re safe on this lake, and nobody else can visit its waters. But what’s the purpose of this refuge?
The Nautilus doesn’t need a harbour.”
“No, Professor, but it needs electricity to run, batteries to generate its electricity, sodium to feed its batteries, coal to make its sodium, and coalfields from which to dig its coal. Now then, right at this spot the sea covers entire forests that sank underwater in prehistoric times, today, turned to stone, transformed into carbon fuel, they offer me inexhaustible coal mines.”
“So, Captain, your men practice the trade of miners here?”
“Precisely. These mines extend under the waves like the coalfields at Newcastle. Here, dressed in diving suits, pick and mattock in hand, my men go out and dig this carbon fuel for which I don’t need a single mine on land. When I burn this combustible to produce sodium, the smoke escaping from the mountain’s crater gives it the appearance of a still-active volcano.”
“And will we see your companions at work?”
“No, at least not this time, because I’m eager to continue our underwater tour of the world. Accordingly, I’ll rest content with drawing on my reserve stock of sodium. We’ll stay here long enough to load it on board, in other words, a single workday, then we’ll resume our voyage. So, Professor Aronnax, if you’d like to explore this cavern and circle its lagoon, seize the day.”
I thanked the captain and went to look for my two companions, who hadn’t yet left their cabin. Ned was still sulking, I could tell, but he did his best to smile at me. I hoped my news would cheer him. I invited them both to follow me, not telling them where we were.
They climbed onto the platform. Conseil, whom nothing could startle, saw it as a perfectly natural thing to fall asleep under the waves and wake up under a mountain. But not surprisingly, Ned Land had no idea in his head other than to see if this cavern offered some way out.
After breakfast near ten o’clock, we went down onto the embankment.
“So here we are, back on shore,” Conseil said.
“I’d hardly call this shore,” the Canadian replied. “And besides, we aren’t on it but under it.”
A sandy beach unfolded before us, measuring five-hundred feet at its widest point between the waters of the lake and the foot of the mountain’s walls. Via this strand you could easily circle
the lake. But the base of these high walls consisted of broken soil over which there lay picturesque piles of volcanic blocks and enormous pumice stones. All these crumbling masses were covered with an enamel polished by the action of underground fires, and they glistened under the stream of electric light from our beacon. Stirred up by our footsteps, the mica-rich dust on this beach flew into the air like a cloud of sparks.
The ground rose appreciably as it moved away from the sand flats by the waves, and we soon arrived at some long, winding gradients, genuinely steep paths that allowed us to climb little by little, but we had to tread cautiously in the midst of pudding stones that weren’t cemented together, and our feet kept skidding on glassy trachyte, made of feldspar and quartz crystals.
The volcanic nature of this enormous pit was apparent all around us. I ventured to comment on it to my companions.
“Can you picture,” I asked them, “what this funnel must have been like when it was filled with boiling lava, and the level of that incandescent liquid rose right to the mountain’s mouth, like cast iron up the insides of a furnace?”
“I can picture it perfectly,” Conseil replied. “But will master tell me why this huge smelter suspended operations, and how it is that an oven was replaced by the tranquil waters of a lake?”
“In all likelihood, Conseil, because some convulsion created an opening below the surface of the ocean, the opening that serves as a passageway for the Nautilus. Then the waters of the Atlantic rushed inside the mountain. There ensued a dreadful struggle between the elements of fire and water, a struggle ending in King Neptune’s favour. But many centuries have passed since then, and this submerged volcano has changed into a peaceful cavern.”
“That’s fine,” Ned Land answered. “I accept the explanation, but in our personal interests, I’m sorry this opening the professor mentions wasn’t made above sea level.”
