by Marie Sexton
Perhaps they wouldn’t sufficiently increase the Nautilus’s specific gravity. Moreover, in order to come back up, it would be necessary to expel the excess water, and our pumps might not have been strong enough to overcome the outside pressure.
Captain Nemo decided to make for the ocean floor by submerging on an appropriately gradual diagonal with the help of his side fins, which were set at a 45 degree angle to the Nautilus’s waterline. Then the propeller was brought to its maximum speed, and its four blades churned the waves with indescribable violence.
Under this powerful thrust the Nautilus’s hull quivered like a resonating chord, and the ship sank steadily under the waters. Stationed in the lounge, the captain and I watched the needle swerving swiftly over the pressure gauge. Soon we had gone below the liveable zone where most fish reside. Some of these animals can thrive only at the surface of seas or rivers, but a minority can dwell at fairly great depths. Among the latter I observed a species of dogfish called the cow shark that’s equipped with six respiratory slits, the telescope fish with its enormous eyes, the armoured gurnard with grey thoracic fins plus black pectoral fins and a breastplate protected by pale red slabs of bone, then finally the grenadier, living at a depth of one-thousand, two-hundred metres, by that point tolerating a pressure of one-hundred and twenty atmospheres.
I asked Captain Nemo if he had observed any fish at more considerable depths.
“Fish? Rarely,” he answered me.
My eyes flew back to the pressure gauge. The instrument indicated a depth of six-thousand metres. Our submergence had been going on for an hour. The Nautilus slid downward on its slanting fins, still sinking. These deserted waters were wonderfully clear, with a transparency impossible to convey. An hour later we were at thirteen-thousand metres—about three and a quarter vertical leagues—and the ocean floor was nowhere in sight.
However, at fourteen-thousand metres I saw blackish peaks rising in the midst of the waters. But these summits could have belonged to mountains as high or even higher than the Himalayas or Mt. Blanc, and the extent of these depths remained incalculable.
Despite the powerful pressures it was undergoing, the Nautilus sank still deeper. I could feel its sheet-iron plates trembling down to their riveted joins, metal bars arched, bulkheads groaned and the lounge windows seemed to be warping inward under the water’s pressure.
And this whole sturdy mechanism would surely have given way, if, as its captain had said, it weren’t capable of resisting like a solid block.
While grazing these rocky slopes lost under the waters, I still spotted some seashells, tube worms, lively annelid worms from the genus Spirorbis, and certain starfish specimens.
But soon these last representatives of animal life vanished, and three vertical leagues down, the Nautilus passed below the limits of underwater existence just as an air balloon rises above the breathable zones in the sky. We reached a depth of sixteen-thousand metres—
four vertical leagues—and by then the Nautilus’s plating was tolerating a pressure of one-thousand, six-hundred atmospheres, in other words, one-thousand, six-hundred kilograms per each square centimetre on its surface.
“What an experience.” I exclaimed. “Travelling these deep regions where no man has ever ventured before. Look, captain. Look at these magnificent rocks, these uninhabited caves, these last global haunts where life is no longer possible. What unheard-of scenery, and why are we reduced to preserving it only as a memory?”
“Would you like,” Captain Nemo asked me, “to bring back more than just a memory?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that nothing could be easier than taking a photograph of this underwater region.”
Before I had time to express the surprise this new proposition caused me, a camera was carried into the lounge at Captain Nemo’s request. The liquid setting, electrically lit, unfolded with perfect clarity through the wide-open panels. No shadows, no blurs, thanks to our artificial light. Not even sunshine could have been better for our purposes. With the thrust of its propeller curbed by the slant of its fins, the Nautilus stood still. The camera was aimed at the scenery on the ocean floor, and in a few seconds we had a perfect negative.
I attach a print of the positive. In it you can view these primordial rocks that have never seen the light of day, this nether granite that forms the powerful foundation of our globe, the deep caves cut into the stony mass, the outlines of incomparable distinctness whose far edges stand out in black as if from the brush of certain Flemish painters. In the distance is a mountainous horizon, a wondrously undulating line that makes up the background of this landscape. The general effect of these smooth rocks is indescribable—black, polished, without moss or other blemish, carved into strange shapes, sitting firmly on a carpet of sand that sparkled beneath our streams of electric light.
Meanwhile, his photographic operations over, Captain Nemo told me, “Let’s go back up, Professor. We mustn’t push our luck and expose the Nautilus too long to these pressures.”
“Let’s go back up,” I replied.
“Hold on tight.”
Before I had time to realise why the captain made this recommendation, I was hurled to the carpet.
Its fins set vertically, its propeller thrown in gear at the captain’s signal, the Nautilus rose with lightning speed, shooting upward like an air balloon into the sky. Vibrating resonantly, it knifed through the watery mass. Not a single detail was visible. In four minutes it had cleared the four vertical leagues separating it from the surface of the ocean, and after emerging like a flying fish, it fell back into the sea, making the waves leap to prodigious heights.
Chapter Twelve
Sperm Whales and Baleen Whales
During the night of March 13-14, the Nautilus resumed its southward heading. Once it was abreast of Cape Horn, I thought it would strike west of the cape, make for Pacific seas, and complete its tour of the world. It did nothing of the sort and kept moving towards the southernmost regions. So where was it bound? The pole? That was insanity. I was beginning to think that the captain’s recklessness more than justified Ned Land’s worst fears.
For a good while the Canadian had said nothing more to me about his escape plans. He had once again become less sociable, almost sullen. I knew he struggled to maintain his cheerfulness when were alone, but I could see how heavily this protracted imprisonment was weighing on him. I could feel the anger building in him. Whenever he encountered the captain, his eyes would flicker with dark fire, and I was in constant dread that his natural vehemence would cause him to do something rash.
That day, March 14, he and Conseil managed to find me in my stateroom. I asked them the purpose of their visit.
“To put a simple question to you, sir,” the Canadian answered me.
“Go on, Ned.”
“How many men do you think are on board the Nautilus?”
“I’m unable to say, my friend.”
“It seems to me,” Ned Land went on, “that it wouldn’t take much of a crew to run a ship like this one.”
“Correct,” I replied. “Under existing conditions some ten men at the most should be enough to operate it.”
“All right,” the Canadian said, “then why should there be any more than that?”
“Why?” I answered.
I stared at Ned Land, whose motives were easy to guess.
“Because,” I said, “if I can trust my hunches, if I truly understand the captain’s way of life, his Nautilus isn’t simply a ship. It’s meant to be a refuge for people like its commander, people who have severed all ties with the shore.”
“Perhaps,” Conseil said, “but in a nutshell, the Nautilus can hold only a certain number of men, so couldn’t master estimate their maximum?”
“How, Conseil?”
“By calculating it. Master is familiar with the ship’s capacity, hence the amount of air it contains. On the other hand, master knows how much air each man consumes in the act of breathing, and he can
compare this data with the fact that the Nautilus must rise to the surface every twenty-four hours…”
Conseil didn’t finish his sentence, but I could easily see what he was driving at.
“I follow you,” I said. “But while they’re simple to do, such calculations can give only a very uncertain figure.”
“No problem,” the Canadian went on insistently.
“Then here’s how to calculate it,” I replied. “In one hour each man consumes the oxygen contained in one-hundred litres of air, hence during twenty-four hours the oxygen contained in two-thousand, four-hundred litres. Therefore, we must look for the multiple of two-thousand, four-hundred litres of air that gives us the amount found in the Nautilus.”
“Precisely,” Conseil said.
“Now then,” I went on, “the Nautilus’s capacity is one-thousand, five-hundred metric tons, and that of a ton is one-thousand litres, so the Nautilus holds one-million, five-hundred thousand litres of air, which, divided by two-thousand, four-hundred…”
I did a quick pencil calculation.
“… gives us the quotient of six-hundred and twenty-five. Which is tantamount to saying that the air contained in the Nautilus would be exactly enough for six-hundred and twenty-five men over twenty-four hours.”
“Six-hundred and twenty-five?” Ned repeated.
“But rest assured,” I added, “that between passengers, seamen, or officers, we don’t total one-tenth of that figure.”
“Which is still too many for three men,” Conseil muttered.
“So, my poor Ned, I can only counsel patience.”
“And,” Conseil replied, “even more than patience, resignation.”
Conseil had said the true word.
“Even so,” he went on, “Captain Nemo can’t go south forever. He’ll surely have to stop, if only at the Ice Bank, and he’ll return to the seas of civilisation. Then it will be time to resume Ned Land’s plans.”
The Canadian shook his head, passed his hand over his brow, made no reply, and left us.
“With master’s permission, I’ll make an observation to him,” Conseil then told me.
“Our poor Ned broods about all the things he can’t have. He’s haunted by his former life. He seems to miss everything that’s denied us. He’s obsessed by his old memories and it’s breaking his heart. We must understand him. What does he have to occupy him here?
Nothing.”
“Nothing?” I snapped, my anger and heartache getting the better of me at last. “Am I
‘nothing’ now? Do I mean so little to him as that?”
“Master is deliberately misunderstanding me,” Conseil chided patiently. “Ned may love master with all his heart, but despite what the romantics would have us believe, love is not enough to replace all else in the world.”
I covered my eyes, wanting to deny my friend’s words, but as always, his counsel was sound.
“He isn’t a scientist like master,” Conseil went on, “and he doesn’t share our enthusiasm for the sea’s wonders. It’s not that he doesn’t care for master, but it’s not enough.
He would risk anything just to enter a tavern in his own country.”
To be sure, when I looked at it rationally, I knew he was right. Had not Ned told me so himself? I could see how the monotony of life on board must have seemed unbearable to the Canadian, who was accustomed to freedom and activity. It was a rare event that could excite him. That day, however, a development occurred that reminded him of his happy years as a harpooner.
Near eleven o’clock in the morning, while on the surface of the ocean, the Nautilus fell in with a herd of baleen whales. This encounter didn’t surprise me, because I knew these animals were being hunted so relentlessly that they took refuge in the ocean basins of the high latitudes. We were seated on the platform next to a tranquil sea. The month of March, since it’s the equivalent of October in these latitudes, was giving us some fine autumn days.
It was the Canadian—on this topic he was never mistaken—who sighted a baleen whale on the eastern horizon. If you looked carefully, you could see its blackish back alternately rise and fall above the waves, five miles from the Nautilus.
“Wow,” Ned Land exclaimed. “If I were on board a whaler, there’s an encounter that would be great fun. That’s one big animal. Look how high its blowholes are spouting all that air and steam. Damnation. Why am I chained to this hunk of sheet iron?”
“Why, Ned,” I replied, “you still aren’t over your old fishing urges?”
“How could a whale fisherman forget his old trade, sir? Who could ever get tired of such exciting hunting?”
“You’ve never fished these seas, Ned?”
“Never, sir. Just the northernmost seas, equally in the Bering Strait and the Davis Strait.”
“So the southern right whale is still unknown to you. Until now it’s the bowhead whale you’ve hunted, and it won’t risk going past the warm waters of the equator.”
“Oh, Professor, what are you feeding me?” the Canadian answered in a tolerably sceptical tone.
“I’m feeding you the facts.”
“By thunder. In ‘65, just two and a half years ago, I to whom you speak, I myself stepped onto the carcass of a whale near Greenland, and its flank still carried the marked harpoon of a whaling ship from the Bering Sea. Now I ask you, after it had been wounded west of America, how could this animal be killed in the east, unless it had cleared the equator and doubled Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope?”
“I agree with our friend Ned,” Conseil said, “and I’m waiting to hear how master will reply to him.”
“Master will reply, my friends, that baleen whales are localised, according to species, within certain seas that they never leave. And if one of these animals went from the Bering Strait to the Davis Strait, it’s quite simply because there’s some passageway from the one sea to the other, either along the coasts of Canada or Siberia.”
“You expect us to fall for that?” the Canadian asked, tipping me a wink.
“If master says so,” Conseil replied.
“Which means,” the Canadian went on, “since I’ve never fished these waterways, I don’t know the whales that frequent them?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you, Ned.”
“All the more reason to get to know them,” Conseil answered.
“Look! Look!” the Canadian exclaimed, his voice full of excitement. “It’s approaching.
It’s coming towards us. It’s thumbing its nose at me. It knows I can’t do a blessed thing to it.”
Ned stamped his foot. Brandishing an imaginary harpoon, his hands positively trembled.
“These cetaceans,” he asked, “are they as big as the ones in the northernmost seas?”
“Pretty nearly, Ned.”
“Because I’ve seen big baleen whales, sir, whales measuring up to one-hundred feet long. I’ve even heard that those rorqual whales off the Aleutian Islands sometimes get over one-hundred and fifty feet.”
“That strikes me as exaggerated,” I replied. “Those animals are only members of the genus Balaenoptera furnished with dorsal fins, and like sperm whales, they’re generally smaller than the bowhead whale.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the Canadian, whose eyes hadn’t left the ocean. “It’s getting closer, it’s coming into the Nautilus’s waters.”
Then, going on with his conversation, “You talk about sperm whales,” he said, “as if they were little beasts. But there are stories of gigantic sperm whales. They’re shrewd cetaceans. I hear that some will cover themselves with algae and fucus plants. People mistake them for islets. They pitch camp on top, make themselves at home, light a fire—”
“Build houses,” Conseil said.
“Yes, funny man,” Ned Land replied. “Then one fine day the animal dives and drags all its occupants down into the depths.”
“Like in the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor,” I answered, laughing. “Oh, Mr Land, you’re addicted to tall tales. What sper
m whales you’re handing us. I hope you don’t really believe in them.”
“Mr Naturalist,” the Canadian replied in all seriousness, “when it comes to whales, you can believe anything. Look at that one move. Look at it stealing away. People claim these animals can circle around the world in just fifteen days.”
“I don’t say nay.”
“But what you undoubtedly don’t know, Professor Aronnax, is that at the beginning of the world, whales travelled even quicker.”
“Oh really, Ned. And why so?”
“Because in those days their tails moved side to side, like those on fish, in other words, their tails were straight up, thrashing the water from left to right, right to left. But spotting that they swam too fast, our Creator twisted their tails, and ever since they’ve been thrashing the waves up and down, at the expense of their speed.”
“Fine, Ned,” I said, then resurrected one of the Canadian’s expressions. “You expect us to fall for that?”
“Not too terribly,” Ned Land replied, “and no more than if I told you there are whales that are three-hundred feet long and weigh one-million pounds.”
“That’s indeed considerable,” I said. “But you must admit that certain cetaceans do grow to significant size, since they’re said to supply as much as one-hundred and twenty metric tons of oil.”
“That I’ve seen,” the Canadian said.
“I can easily believe it, Ned, just as I can believe that certain baleen whales equal one-hundred elephants in bulk. Imagine the impact of such a mass if it were launched at full speed.”
“Is it true,” Conseil asked, “that they can sink ships?”
“Ships? I doubt it,” I replied. “However, they say that in 1820, right in these southern seas, a baleen whale rushed at the Essex and pushed it backward at a speed of four metres per second. Its stern was flooded, and the Essex went down fast.”
Ned looked at me with a bantering expression.
“Speaking for myself,” he said, “I once got walloped by a whale’s tail—in my longboat, needless to say. My companions and I were launched to an altitude of six metres. But next to the Professor’s whale, mine was just a baby.”
