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38 - No Outlet - Blasting the Rock - Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne · Classic Sci Fi Books - Daily

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  Chapter thirty eight, no outlet blasting the rock. Ever since the commencement of
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  our marvelous journey, I had experienced many surprises, had suffered from many illusions.
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  I thought that I was case hardened against all surprises, and could neither
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  see nor hear anything to amaze me again. I was like a man who,
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  having been round the world, finds himself folly, blassy, and proof
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  against the marvelous. When, however, I saw these two letters, which
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  have been engraven three hundred years before, I stood fixed in an attitude of
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  mute surprise. Not only was there the signature of the learned and enterprising alchemists
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  written in the rock, but I held in my hand the very identical instrument
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  with which he had laboriously engrayed it. It was impossible, without showing an
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  amount of incredulities, scarcely becoming a sane man, to deny the existence of
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  the traveler and the reality of that voyage, which I believed all along to
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  have been a myth, the mystification of some fertile brain. While these reflections
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  were passing through my mind, my uncle the Professor, gave way to an
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  excess of feverish and poetical excitement, wonderful and glorious genius, Great Sacknossem,
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  he cried, You have left no stone unturned, no resource omitted, to
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  show to other mortals the way into the interior of our mighty globe. And
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  your fellow creatures can find the trail left by your illustrious footsteps three hundred years
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  ago at the bottom of these obscure subterranean abodes. You have been careful to
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  secure for others the contemplation of these wonders and marvels of creation. Your name,
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  engraved at every important stage of our glorious journey, leads the hopeful traveler
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  direct to the great and mighty discovery to which you devoted such energy and courage.
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  The audashous traveler, who shall follow your footsteps to the last, will
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  doubtless find your initials ingrade with your own hand upon the center of the earth.
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  I will be that udashus traveler. I too will sign my name upon
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  the very same spot upon the central granite stone of this wondrous work of the
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  Creator. But in justice to your devotion, to your courage, and to
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  your being the first to indicate the road, let this cape seen by you
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  upon the shores of the sea discover'd by you be called of all time Cape
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  Sacnossem. This is what I heard word, and I began to be roused
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  to the pitch of enthusiasm indicated by those words, A fierce excitement roused me.
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  I forgot everything. The dangers of the voyage and the perils of the
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  return journey were now as nothing what another man had done in ages past could,
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  I felt be done again. I was determined to do it myself,
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  and now nothing that man had accomplished appeared to me impossible. Forward Forward,
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  I cried, in a burst of genuine and hearty enthusiasm. I had already
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  started in the direction of the somber and gloomy gallery when the professor stopped me.
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  He the man so rash and hasty, He, the man so easily
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  roused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, checked me and asked me to be
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  patient and show more calm. Let us return on our good friend Hans,
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  He said, we will then bring the raft down to this place. I
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  must say that though I at once yielded to my uncle's request, it was
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  not without dissatisfaction. And I hastened along the rocks of that wonderful coast.
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  Do you know, my dear uncle, I said, as we walked along,
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  that we have been singularly helped by a concurrence of circumstances right up to
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  this very moment. So you begin to see it, do you? Hurrym
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  said the professor with a smile. Doubtless, I responded, And strangely enough,
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  even the tempest has been the means of putting us on the right road.
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  Blessings on the tempest. It brought us safely back to the very spot
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  from which fine weather would have driven us forever. Supposing we had succeeded in
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  reaching the southern and distant shores of this extraordinary sea, what would have become
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  of us? The name of Sagnussem would never have appeared to us, And
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  at this moment we should have been cast away upon an inhospitable coast, probably
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  without an outlet. Yes, hurry, my boy, there is certainly something
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  providential in that. Wondering at the mercy of wind and waves towards the south,
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  we have come back exactly north. And what is better still, we
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  fall upon this great discovery of Cape Sagnussem. I mean to say that it
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  is more than surprising there is something in it which is far beyond my comprehension.
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  The coincidence is unheard of, marvelous. What matter, it is not
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  our duty to explain facts, but to make the best possible use of them,
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  doubtless, my boy. But if you will allow me, said the
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  really delighted professor. Excuse me, sir, but I see exactly how it
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  will be. We shall take the northern route. We shall pass under the
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  northern regions of Europe, under Sweden, under Russia, under Siberia, and
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  who knows where, instead of burying ourselves under the burning plains and deserts of
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  Africa, or beneath the mighty waves of the ocean. And that is all
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  at this stage of our journey that I care to know. Let us advance,
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  and Heaven will be our guide. Yes, hurry, you are right,
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  quite right, All is for the best. Let us abandon this horizontal
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  sea, which could never have led to anything satisfactory. We shall descend,
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  descend, and everlastingly descend. Do you know, my dear boy, that
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  to reach the interior of the Earth, we have only five thousand miles to
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  travel? Bah, I cried, carried away by burst of enthusiasms, that
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  as is scarcely worth speaking about the thing is to make a start. My
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  wild, mad and incoherent speeches continued until we rejoined our patient and phlegmatic guide.
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  All was we found prepared for an immediate departure. There was not a
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  single parcel, but what was in its proper place. We all took up
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  our posts on the raft, and the sail being hoisted Hans received its directions
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  and guided the frail bark towards Cape Sagnussen, as we had definitely named it.
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  The wind was very unfavorable to a craft that was unable to sail close
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  to the wind. It was constructed to go before the blast. We were
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  continually reduced to pushing ourselves forward by means of poles. On several occasions the
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  rocks ran far out into deep water, and we were compelled to make a
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  long round. At last, after three long and weary hour some navigation,
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  that is to say, about six o'clock in the evening, we found a
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  place at which we could land. I jumped on shore first, in my
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  present state of excitement and enthusiast, I was always first. My uncle and
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  the icelander followed the voyage from the port to this point of the sea had
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  by no means calmed me. It had rather produced the opposite effect. I
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  even proposed to burn our vessel, that is, to destroy a raft,
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  in order to completely cut off our retreat. But my uncle sternly opposed this
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  wild project. I began to think in particularly lukewarm and unenthusiastic. At any
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  rate, my dear uncle, I said, let us start without delay.
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  Yes, my boy, I am quite as eager to do so as you
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  can be. But in the first place, let us examine this mysterious gallery
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  in order to find if we shall need to prepare and mend our ladders.
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  My uncle now began to see the efficiency of our rumkorff coil, which would
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  doubtless soon be needed. The raft, securely fastened to a rock, was
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  left alone. Moreover, the opening into the new gallery was not twenty paces
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  distant from the spot. Our little troop, with myself at the head,
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  advanced The orifice, which was almost circular, presented a diameter of about five
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  feet. The somber tunnel was cut in the living rock and coated on the
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  inside by the different materials which had once passed through it in a state of
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  fusion. The lower part was about level with the water, so that we
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  were able to penetrate to the interior without difficulty, which followed an almost horizontal
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  direction. When at the end of about a dozen paces, our further advance
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  was checked by the interposition of an enormous block of granite rock, a cursed
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  stone. I cried furiously on perceiving that we were stopped by what seemed an
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  insurmountable obstacle. In vain, we looked to the right. In vain,
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  we looked to the left. In vain, examined it above and below.
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  There existed no passage, no sign of any other tunnel. I experienced the
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  most bitter and painful disappointment. So enraged was I that I would not admit
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  the reality of any obstacle. I stooped to my knees. I looked under
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  the mass of stone, no hole, no interstice. I then looked about
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  the same barrier of granite. Hence, with the lamp, examined the sides
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  of the tunnel in every direction, but all in vain. It was necessary
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  to renounce all hope of passing through. I had seated myself upon the ground.
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  My uncle walked angrily and hopelessly up and down. He was evidently desperate.
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  But I cried, after some moments, thought, what about honor Sacknossem.
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  You are right, replied my uncle. He can never have been checked
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  by a lump of rock. No. Ten thousand times no, I cried
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  with extreme vivacity. This huge lump of rock, in consequence of some singular
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  concussion or process, one of those magnetic phenomena which have so often shaken the
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  terrestrial crust, has in some unexpected way closed up the passage. Many and
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  many years have passed away since the return of Sacknussm and the fall of this
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  huge block of granite. Is it not quite evident that this gallery was formerly
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  the outlet for the pent up lava in the interior of the earth, and
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  that these eruptive matters then circulated freely. Look at these recent fissures in the
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  granite roof. It is evidently formed of pieces of enormous stone, placed here
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  as if by the hand of a giant who had worked to make a strong
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  and substantial arch. One day, after an unusually strong shock, the vast
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  rock which stands in our way, and which was doubtless the key of a
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  kind of arch, fell through to a level with the soil, and has
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  barred our further progress. We are right, then, in thinking that this
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  is an unexpected obstacle with which Sacnosm did not meet, and if we do
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  not upset it in some way, we are unworthy of following in the footsteps
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  of the great discoverer, and incapable of finding our way to the center of
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  the earth. In this wild way, I addressed my uncle the seal of
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  the Professor. His earnest longing for success had become part and parcel on my
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  being. I fully forgot the past, I utterly despised the future. Nothing
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  existed for me upon the surface of this fair wied in the bosom of which
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  I was engulfed, No towns, no country, no Hamburg, no Kernigstrasse,
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  not even my poor Gretchen, who by this time would believe me utterly
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  lost in the interior of the earth. Well, cried my uncle, roused
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  to enthusiasm by my words. Let us go to work with pickaxes, with
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  crowbars, with anything that comes to hand. But down with these terrible walls,
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  it is far too tough and too big to be destroyed by a pickaxe
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  or crow bar. I replied, what then, as I said, it
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  is use less to think of overcoming such a difficulty by means of ordinary tools.
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  What then, what else but gunpowder a subterranean mine. Let us blow
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  up the obstacle that stands in our way gunpowder. Yes, all we have
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  to do is to get rid of this paltry obstacle. To work, hands,
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  to work, cried the professor. The icelander went back to the raft,
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  and soon returned with a huge crowbar, with which she began to dig
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  a hole in the rock which was to serve as a mine. It was,
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  by no means a slight task. It was necessary for our purpose to
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  make a cavity large enough to hold fifty pounds of fulminating gun cotton, the
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  expansive power of which is four times as great as that of ordinary gunpowder.
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  I had now roused myself to an almost miraculous state of excitement. While Hans
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  was at work, I act assisted my uncle to prepare a long week made
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  from damp gunpowder, the mass of which we finally enclosed in a bag of
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  linen. We are bound to go through, I cried, enthusiastically. We
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  are bound to go through, responded the professor, tapping me on the back.
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  At midnight, our work as miners was completely finished. The charge of
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  fulminating cotton was thrust into the hollow, and the match which we had made
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  of considerable length was ready. A spark was now sufficient to ignite this formidable
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  engine and to blow the rock to atoms. We will now rest until to
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  morrow. It was absolutely necessary to resign myself to my fate, and to
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  consent to wait for the explosion for six weary hours. End of Chapter thirty eight eight