Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

d by orange-trees, aloes, cacti, and sea-pines; embalmed with the perfume of the myrtle, surrounded by rude mountains, saturated with pure and tra

ea is two million of square yards. Even Captain Nemo's knowledge was lost to me, for this puzzling person did not appear once during our passage at full speed. I estimated the course which the Nautilus took under the waves

emo. Those waves and those breezes brought back too many remembrances, if not too many regrets. Here he had no longer that independence and

nace, going at the rate of twelve or thirteen yards every second. To quit the Nautilus under such conditions would be as bad as jumping from a train going at full speed-an impruden

rain perceives of the landscape which flies before his eyes; that is to say, the

the Straits of Messina the bottom of the sea rose almost suddenly. There was a perfect bank, on whi

ry carefully so as not to strike

p of the Mediterranean, the

ed Conseil, "it is like a real i

and the soundings of Smith have proved that in former times

believe it,"

er exists between Gibraltar and Ceuta, which in

should one day raise these

probable,

menon should take place, it will be troublesome for M. Le

anoes, so plentiful in the first days of the world, are being extinguished by degrees; the internal heat is weakened, the temperature of

the

ent, Conseil. Can it gi

at I kn

orpse; it will become uninhabitable and uninhabited like

many cen

s of thousands o

time to finish our journey-that is, i

he study of the bank, which the Nauti

basin, the greatest depth of which was 1,450 fathoms. The Nautilus, by the action of it

anean, incessantly added to by the waves of the Atlantic and by rivers falling into it, would each year raise the level of this sea, for its evaporation is not sufficient to restore the equilibrium. As it is not so, we must necessarily admit the existence of an under-current, which empties into the basin of the Atlantic through the Straits of Gibraltar the surplus wate