A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

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Produced by Norman M. Wolcott.

A Journey into the Interior of the Earth

by Jules Verne

[Redactor's Note: The following version of Jules Verne's "Journey
into the Interior of the Earth" was published by Ward, Lock, &Co.,
Ltd., London, in 1877. This version is believed to be the most
faithful rendition into English of this classic currently in the
public domain. The few notes of the translator are located near the
point where they are referenced. The Runic characters in Chapter III
are visible in the HTML version of the text. The character set is
ISO-8891-1, mainly the Windows character set. The translation is by
Frederick Amadeus Malleson.

While the translation is fairly literal, and Malleson (a clergyman)
has taken pains with the scientific portions of the work and added
the chapter headings, he has made some unfortunate emendations mainly
concerning biblical references, and has added a few 'improvements' of
his own, which are detailed below:

III. "_pertubata seu inordinata,_ " as Euclid has it."

XXX. cry, "Thalatta! thalatta!" the sea! the sea! The deeply indented
shore was lined with a breadth of fine shining sand, softly

XXXII. hippopotamus. {as if the creator, pressed for time in the
first hours of the world, had assembled several animals into one.}
The colossal mastodon

XXXII. I return to the scriptural periods or ages of the world,
conventionally called 'days,' long before the appearance of man when
the unfinished world was as yet unfitted for his support. {I return
to the biblical epochs of the creation, well in advance of the birth
of man, when the incomplete earth was not yet sufficient for him.}

XXXVIII. (footnote) , and which is illustrated in the negro
countenance and in the lowest savages.

XXXIX. of the geologic period . {antediluvian}

(These corrections have kindly been pointed out by Christian Sánchez
of the Jules Verne Forum.)]

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A JOURNEY

INTO THE

INTERIOR OF THE EARTH

by

Jules Verne

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PREFACE

THE "Voyages Extraordinaires" of M. Jules Verne deserve to be made
widely known in English-speaking countries by means of carefully
prepared translations. Witty and ingenious adaptations of the
researches and discoveries of modern science to the popular taste,
which demands that these should be presented to ordinary readers in
the lighter form of cleverly mingled truth and fiction, these books
will assuredly be read with profit and delight, especially by English
youth. Certainly no writer before M. Jules Verne has been so happy in
weaving together in judicious combination severe scientific truth
with a charming exercise of playful imagination.

Iceland, the starting point of the marvellous underground journey
imagined in this volume, is invested at the present time with. a
painful interest in consequence of the disastrous eruptions last
Easter Day, which covered with lava and ashes the poor and scanty
vegetation upon which four thousand persons were partly dependent for
the means of subsistence. For a long time to come the natives of that
interesting island, who cleave to their desert home with all that
_amor patriae_ which is so much more easily understood than
explained, will look, and look not in vain, for the help of those on
whom fall the smiles of a kindlier sun in regions not torn by
earthquakes nor blasted and ravaged by volcanic fires. Will the
readers of this little book, who, are gifted with the means of
indulging in the luxury of extended beneficence, remember the
distress of their brethren in the far north, whom distance has not
barred from the claim of being counted our "neighbours"? And whatever
their humane feelings may prompt them to bestow will be gladly added
to the Mansion-House Iceland Relief Fund.

In his desire to ascertain how far the picture of Iceland, drawn in
the work of Jules Verne is a correct one, the translator hopes in the
course of a mail or two to receive a communication from a leading man
of science in the island, which may furnish matter for additional
information in a future edition.

The scientific portion of the French original is not without a few
errors, which the translator, with the kind assistance of Mr. Cameron
of H. M. Geological Survey, has ventured to point out and correct. It
is scarcely to be expected in a work in which the element of
amusement is intended to enter more largely than that of scientific
instruction, that any great degree of accuracy should be arrived at.
Yet the translator hopes that what trifling deviations from the text
or corrections in foot notes he is responsible for, will have done a
little towards the increased usefulness of the work.

F. A. M.

The Vicarage,

Broughton-in-Furness

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CONTENTS

I THE PROFESSOR AND HIS FAMILY
II A MYSTERY TO BE SOLVED AT ANY PRICE
III THE RUNIC WRITING EXERCISES THE PROFESSOR
IV THE ENEMY TO BE STARVED INTO SUBMISSION
V FAMINE, THEN VICTORY, FOLLOWED BY DISMAY
VI EXCITING DISCUSSIONS ABOUT AN UNPARALLELED EXERCISE
VII A WOMAN'S COURAGE
VIII SERIOUS PREPARATIONS FOR VERTICAL DESCENT
IX ICELAND, BUT WHAT NEXT?
X INTERESTING CONVERSATIONS WITH ICELANDIC SAVANTS
XI A GUIDE FOUND TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH
XII A BARREN LAND
XIII HOSPITALITY UNDER THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
XIV BUT ARCTICS CAN BE INHOSPITABLE, TOO
XV SNÆFFEL AT LAST
XVI BOLDLY DOWN THE CRATER
XVII VERTICAL DESCENT
XVIII THE WONDERS OF TERRESTIAL DEPTHS
XIX GEOLOGICAL STUDIES IN SITU
XX THE FIRST SIGNS OF DISTRESS
XXI COMPASSION FUSES THE PROFESSOR'S HEART
XXII TOTAL FAILURE OF WATER
XXIII WATER DISCOVERED
XXIV WELL SAID, OLD MOLE! CANST THOU WORK
IN THE GROUND SO FAST?
XXV DE PROFUNDIS
XXVI THE WORST PERIL OF ALL
XXVII LOST IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH
XXVIII THE RESCUE IN THE WHISPERING GALLERY
XXIX THALATTA! THALATTA!
XXX A NEW MARE INTERNUM
XXXI PREPARATIONS FOR A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY
XXXII WONDERS OF THE DEEP
XXXIII A BATTLE OF MONSTERS
XXXIV THE GREAT GEYSER
XXXV AN ELECTRIC STORM
XXXVI CALM PHILOSOPHIC DISCUSSIONS
XXXVII THE LIEDENBROCK MUSEUM OF GEOLOGY
XXXVIII THE PROFESSOR IN HIS CHAIR AGAIN
XXXIX FOREST SCENERY ILLUMINATED BY ELECTRICITY
XL PREPARATIONS FOR BLASTING A PASSAGE
TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH
XLI THE GREAT EXPLOSION AND THE RUSH DOWN BELOW
XLII HEADLONG SPEED UPWARD THROUGH THE HORRORS OF DARKNESS
XLIII SHOT OUT OF A VOLCANO AT LAST!
XLIV SUNNY LANDS IN THE BLUE MEDITERRANEAN
XLV ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

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A JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH

CHAPTER I.

THE PROFESSOR AND HIS FAMILY

On the 24th of May, 1863, my uncle, Professor Liedenbrock, rushed
into his little house, No. 19 Königstrasse, one of the oldest streets
in the oldest portion of the city of Hamburg.

Martha must have concluded that she was very much behindhand, for the
dinner had only just been put into the oven.

"Well, now," said I to myself, "if that most impatient of men is
hungry, what a disturbance he will make!"

"M. Liedenbrock so soon!" cried poor Martha in great alarm, half
opening the dining-room door.

"Yes, Martha; but very likely the dinner is not half cooked, for it
is not two yet. Saint Michael's clock has only just struck half-past
one."

"Then why has the master come home so soon?"

"Perhaps he will tell us that himself."

"Here he is, Monsieur Axel; I will run and hide myself while you
argue with him."

And Martha retreated in safety into her own dominions.

I was left alone. But how was it possible for a man of my undecided
turn of mind to argue successfully with so irascible a person as the
Professor? With this persuasion I was hurrying away to my own little
retreat upstairs, when the street door creaked upon its hinges; heavy
feet made the whole flight of stairs to shake; and the master of the
house, passing rapidly through the dining-room, threw himself in
haste into his own sanctum.

But on his rapid way he had found time to fling his hazel stick into
a corner, his rough broadbrim upon the table, and these few emphatic
words at his nephew:

"Axel, follow me!"

I had scarcely had time to move when the Professor was again shouting
after me:

"What! not come yet?"

And I rushed into my redoubtable master's study.

Otto Liedenbrock had no mischief in him, I willingly allow that; but
unless he very considerably changes as he grows older, at the end he
will be a most original character.

He was professor at the Johannæum, and was delivering a series of
lectures on mineralogy, in the course of every one of which he broke
into a passion once or twice at least. Not at all that he was
over-anxious about the improvement of his class, or about the degree
of attention with which they listened to him, or the success which
might eventually crown his labours. Such little matters of detail
never troubled him much. His teaching was as the German philosophy
calls it, 'subjective'; it was to benefit himself, not others. He was
a learned egotist. He was a well of science, and the pulleys worked
uneasily when you wanted to draw anything out of it. In a word, he
was a learned miser.

Germany has not a few professors of this sort.

To his misfortune, my uncle was not gifted with a sufficiently rapid
utterance; not, to be sure, when he was talking at home, but
certainly in his public delivery; this is a want much to be deplored
in a speaker. The fact is, that during the course of his lectures at
the Johannæum, the Professor often came to a complete standstill; he
fought with wilful words that refused to pass his struggling lips,
such words as resist and distend the cheeks, and at last break out
into the unasked-for shape of a round and most unscientific oath:
then his fury would gradually abate.

Now in mineralogy there are many half-Greek and half-Latin terms,
very hard to articulate, and which would be most trying to a poet's
measures. I don't wish to say a word against so respectable a
science, far be that from me. True, in the august presence of
rhombohedral crystals, retinasphaltic resins, gehlenites, Fassaites,
molybdenites, tungstates of manganese, and titanite of zirconium,
why, the most facile of tongues may make a slip now and then.

It therefore happened that this venial fault of my uncle's came to be
pretty well understood in time, and an unfair advantage was taken of
it; the students laid wait for him in dangerous places, and when he
began to stumble, loud was the laughter, which is not in good taste,
not even in Germans. And if there was always a full audience to
honour the Liedenbrock courses, I should be sorry to conjecture how
many came to make merry at my uncle's expense.

Nevertheless my good uncle was a man of deep learning - a fact I am
most anxious to assert and reassert. Sometimes he might irretrievably
injure a specimen by his too great ardour in handling it; but still
he united the genius of a true geologist with the keen eye of the
mineralogist. Armed with his hammer, his steel pointer, his magnetic
needles, his blowpipe, and his bottle of nitric acid, he was a
powerful man of science. He would refer any mineral to its proper
place among the six hundred [l] elementary substances now enumerated,
by its fracture, its appearance, its hardness, its fusibility, its
sonorousness, its smell, and its taste.

The name of Liedenbrock was honourably mentioned in colleges and
learned societies. Humphry Davy, [2] Humboldt, Captain Sir John
Franklin, General Sabine, never failed to call upon him on their way
through Hamburg. Becquerel, Ebelman, Brewster, Dumas, Milne-Edwards,
Saint-Claire-Deville frequently consulted him upon the most difficult
problems in chemistry, a science which was indebted to him for
considerable discoveries, for in 1853 there had appeared at Leipzig
an imposing folio by Otto Liedenbrock, entitled, "A Treatise upon
Transcendental Chemistry," with plates; a work, however, which failed
to cover its expenses.

To all these titles to honour let me add that my uncle was the
curator of the museum of mineralogy formed by M. Struve, the Russian
ambassador; a most valuable collection, the fame of which is European.

Such was the gentleman who addressed me in that impetuous manner.
Fancy a tall, spare man, of an iron constitution, and with a fair
complexion which took off a good ten years from the fifty he must own
to. His restless eyes were in incessant motion behind his full-sized
spectacles. His long, thin nose was like a knife blade. Boys have
been heard to remark that that organ was magnetised and attracted
iron filings. But this was merely a mischievous report; it had no
attraction except for snuff, which it seemed to draw to itself in
great quantities.

When I have added, to complete my portrait, that my uncle walked by
mathematical strides of a yard and a half, and that in walking he
kept his fists firmly closed, a sure sign of an irritable
temperament, I think I shall have said enough to disenchant any one
who should by mistake have coveted much of his company.

He lived in his own little house in Königstrasse, a structure half
brick and half wood, with a gable cut into steps; it looked upon one
of those winding canals which intersect each other in the middle of
the ancient quarter of Hamburg, and which the great fire of 1842 had
fortunately spared.

[1] Sixty-three. (Tr.)

[2] As Sir Humphry Davy died in 1829, the translator must be pardoned
for pointing out here an anachronism, unless we are to assume that
the learned Professor's celebrity dawned in his earliest years. (Tr.)

It is true that the old house stood slightly off the perpendicular,
and bulged out a little towards the street; its roof sloped a little
to one side, like the cap over the left ear of a Tugendbund student;
its lines wanted accuracy; but after all, it stood firm, thanks to an
old elm which buttressed it in front, and which often in spring sent
its young sprays through the window panes.

My uncle was tolerably well off for a German professor. The house was
his own, and everything in it. The living contents were his
god-daughter Gräuben, a young Virlandaise of seventeen, Martha, and
myself. As his nephew and an orphan, I became his laboratory
assistant.

I freely confess that I was exceedingly fond of geology and all its
kindred sciences; the blood of a mineralogist was in my veins, and in
the midst of my specimens I was always happy.

In a word, a man might live happily enough in the little old house in
the Königstrasse, in spite of the restless impatience of its master,
for although he was a little too excitable - he was very fond of me.
But the man had no notion how to wait; nature herself was too slow
for him. In April, after a had planted in the terra-cotta pots
outside his window seedling plants of mignonette and convolvulus, he
would go and give them a little pull by their leaves to make them
grow faster. In dealing with such a strange individual there was
nothing for it but prompt obedience. I therefore rushed after him.

CHAPTER II.

A MYSTERY TO BE SOLVED AT ANY PRICE

That study of his was a museum, and nothing else. Specimens of
everything known in mineralogy lay there in their places in perfect
order, and correctly named, divided into inflammable, metallic, and
lithoid minerals.

How well I knew all these bits of science! Many a time, instead of
enjoying the company of lads of my own age, I had preferred dusting
these graphites, anthracites, coals, lignites, and peats! And there
were bitumens, resins, organic salts, to be protected from the least
grain of dust; and metals, from iron to gold, metals whose current
value altogether disappeared in the presence of the republican
equality of scientific specimens; and stones too, enough to rebuild
entirely the house in Königstrasse, even with a handsome additional
room, which would have suited me admirably.

But on entering this study now I thought of none of all these
wonders; my uncle alone filled my thoughts. He had thrown himself
into a velvet easy-chair, and was grasping between his hands a book
over which he bent, pondering with intense admiration.

"Here's a remarkable book! What a wonderful book!" he was exclaiming.

These ejaculations brought to my mind the fact that my uncle was
liable to occasional fits of bibliomania; but no old book had any
value in his eyes unless it had the virtue of being nowhere else to
be found, or, at any rate, of being illegible.

"Well, now; don't you see it yet? Why I have got a priceless
treasure, that I found his morning, in rummaging in old Hevelius's
shop, the Jew."

"Magnificent!" I replied, with a good imitation of enthusiasm.

What was the good of all this fuss about an old quarto, bound in
rough calf, a yellow, faded volume, with a ragged seal depending from
it?

But for all that there was no lull yet in the admiring exclamations
of the Professor.

"See," he went on, both asking the questions and supplying the
answers. "Isn't it a beauty? Yes; splendid! Did you ever see such a
binding? Doesn't the book open easily? Yes; it stops open anywhere.
But does it shut equally well? Yes; for the binding and the leaves
are flush, all in a straight line, and no gaps or openings anywhere.
And look at its back, after seven hundred years. Why, Bozerian,
Closs, or Purgold might have been proud of such a binding!"

While rapidly making these comments my uncle kept opening and
shutting the old tome. I really could do no less than ask a question
about its contents, although I did not feel the slightest interest.

"And what is the title of this marvellous work?" I asked with an
affected eagerness which he must have been very blind not to see
through.

"This work," replied my uncle, firing up with renewed enthusiasm,
"this work is the Heims Kringla of Snorre Turlleson, the most famous
Icelandic author of the twelfth century! It is the chronicle of the
Norwegian princes who ruled in Iceland."

"Indeed;" I cried, keeping up wonderfully, "of course it is a German
translation?"

"What!" sharply replied the Professor, "a translation! What should I
do with a translation? This _is_ the Icelandic original, in the
magnificent idiomatic vernacular, which is both rich and simple, and
admits of an infinite variety of grammatical combinations and verbal
modifications."

"Like German." I happily ventured.

"Yes." replied my uncle, shrugging his shoulders; "but, in addition
to all this, the Icelandic has three numbers like the Greek, and
irregular declensions of nouns proper like the Latin."

"Ah!" said I, a little moved out of my indifference; "and is the type
good?"

"Type! What do you mean by talking of type, wretched Axel? Type! Do
you take it for a printed book, you ignorant fool? It is a
manuscript, a Runic manuscript."

"Runic?"

"Yes. Do you want me to explain what that is?"

"Of course not," I replied in the tone of an injured man. But my
uncle persevered, and told me, against my will, of many things I
cared nothing about.

"Runic characters were in use in Iceland in former ages. They were
invented, it is said, by Odin himself. Look there, and wonder,
impious young man, and admire these letters, the invention of the
Scandinavian god!"

Well, well! not knowing what to say, I was going to prostrate myself
before this wonderful book, a way of answering equally pleasing to
gods and kings, and which has the advantage of never giving them any
embarrassment, when a little incident happened to divert conversation
into another channel.

This was the appearance of a dirty slip of parchment, which slipped
out of the volume and fell upon the floor.

My uncle pounced upon this shred with incredible avidity. An old
document, enclosed an immemorial time within the folds of this old
book, had for him an immeasurable value.

"What's this?" he cried.

And he laid out upon the table a piece of parchment, five inches by
three, and along which were traced certain mysterious characters.

Here is the exact facsimile. I think it important to let these
strange signs be publicly known, for they were the means of drawing
on Professor Liedenbrock and his nephew to undertake the most
wonderful expedition of the nineteenth century.

[Runic glyphs occur here]

The Professor mused a few moments over this series of characters;
then raising his spectacles he pronounced:

"These are Runic letters; they are exactly like those of the
manuscript of Snorre Turlleson. But, what on earth is their meaning?"

Runic letters appearing to my mind to be an invention of the learned
to mystify this poor world, I was not sorry to see my uncle suffering
the pangs of mystification. At least, so it seemed to me, judging
from his fingers, which were beginning to work with terrible energy.

"It is certainly old Icelandic," he muttered between his teeth.

And Professor Liedenbrock must have known, for he was acknowledged to
be quite a polyglot. Not that he could speak fluently in the two
thousand languages and twelve thousand dialects which are spoken on
the earth, but he knew at least his share of them.

So he was going, in the presence of this difficulty, to give way to
all the impetuosity of his character, and I was preparing for a
violent outbreak, when two o'clock struck by the little timepiece
over the fireplace.

At that moment our good housekeeper Martha opened the study door,
saying:

"Dinner is ready!"

I am afraid he sent that soup to where it would boil away to nothing,
and Martha took to her heels for safety. I followed her, and hardly
knowing how I got there I found myself seated in my usual place.

I waited a few minutes. No Professor came. Never within my
remembrance had he missed the important ceremonial of dinner. And yet
what a good dinner it was! There was parsley soup, an omelette of ham
garnished with spiced sorrel, a fillet of veal with compote of
prunes; for dessert, crystallised fruit; the whole washed down with
sweet Moselle.

All this my uncle was going to sacrifice to a bit of old parchment.
As an affectionate and attentive nephew I considered it my duty to
eat for him as well as for myself, which I did conscientiously.

"I have never known such a thing," said Martha. "M. Liedenbrock is
not at table!"

"Who could have believed it?" I said, with my mouth full.

"Something serious is going to happen," said the servant, shaking her
head.

My opinion was, that nothing more serious would happen than an awful
scene when my uncle should have discovered that his dinner was
devoured. I had come to the last of the fruit when a very loud voice
tore me away from the pleasures of my dessert. With one spring I
bounded out of the dining-room into the study.

CHAPTER III.

THE RUNIC WRITING EXERCISES THE PROFESSOR

"Undoubtedly it is Runic," said the Professor, bending his brows;
"but there is a secret in it, and I mean to discover the key."

A violent gesture finished the sentence.

"Sit there," he added, holding out his fist towards the table. "Sit
there, and write."

I was seated in a trice.

"Now I will dictate to you every letter of our alphabet which
corresponds with each of these Icelandic characters. We will see what
that will give us. But, by St. Michael, if you should dare to deceive
me -"

The dictation commenced. I did my best. Every letter was given me one
after the other, with the following remarkable result:

mm.rnlls esrevel seecIde
sgtssmf vnteief niedrke
kt,samn atrateS saodrrn
emtnaeI nvaect rrilSa
Atsaar .nvcrc ieaabs
ccrmi eevtVl frAntv
dt,iac oseibo KediiI

[Redactor: In the original version the initial letter is an 'm' with
a superscore over it. It is my supposition that this is the
translator's way of writing 'mm' and I have replaced it accordingly,
since our typography does not allow such a character.]

When this work was ended my uncle tore the paper from me and examined
it attentively for a long time.

"What does it all mean?" he kept repeating mechanically.

Upon my honour I could not have enlightened him. Besides he did not
ask me, and he went on talking to himself.

"This is what is called a cryptogram, or cipher," he said, "in which
letters are purposely thrown in confusion, which if properly arranged
would reveal their sense. Only think that under this jargon there may
lie concealed the clue to some great discovery!"

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