20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (2nd version) | Page 5

proves especially authoritative. His
specifications for an open-sea submarine and a self-contained diving
suit were decades before their time, yet modern technology bears them
out triumphantly.
True, today's scientists know a few things he didn't: the South Pole isn't
at the water's edge but far inland; sharks don't flip over before attacking;
giant squid sport ten tentacles not eight; sperm whales don't prey on
their whalebone cousins. This notwithstanding, Verne furnishes the
most evocative portrayal of the ocean depths before the arrival of
Jacques Cousteau and technicolor film.
Lastly the book has stature as a novel of character. Even the supporting
cast is shrewdly drawn: Professor Aronnax, the career scientist caught
in an ethical conflict; Conseil, the compulsive classifier who supplies
humorous tag lines for Verne's fast facts; the harpooner Ned Land, a
creature of constant appetites, man as heroic animal.
But much of the novel's brooding power comes from Captain Nemo.
Inventor, musician, Renaissance genius, he's a trail-blazing creation,
the prototype not only for countless renegade scientists in popular
fiction, but even for such varied figures as Sherlock Holmes or Wolf
Larsen. However, Verne gives his hero's brilliance and benevolence a
dark underside--the man's obsessive hate for his old enemy. This

compulsion leads Nemo into ugly contradictions: he's a fighter for
freedom, yet all who board his ship are imprisoned there for good; he
works to save lives, both human and animal, yet he himself creates a
holocaust; he detests imperialism, yet he lays personal claim to the
South Pole. And in this last action he falls into the classic sin of Pride.
He's swiftly punished. The Nautilus nearly perishes in the Antarctic and
Nemo sinks into a growing depression.
Like Shakespeare's King Lear he courts death and madness in a great
storm, then commits mass murder, collapses in catatonic paralysis, and
suicidally runs his ship into the ocean's most dangerous whirlpool. Hate
swallows him whole.
For many, then, this book has been a source of fascination, surely one
of the most influential novels ever written, an inspiration for such
scientists and discoverers as engineer Simon Lake, oceanographer
William Beebe, polar traveler Sir Ernest Shackleton. Likewise Dr.
Robert D. Ballard, finder of the sunken Titanic, confesses that this was
his favorite book as a teenager, and Cousteau himself, most renowned
of marine explorers, called it his shipboard bible.
The present translation is a faithful yet communicative rendering of the
original French texts published in Paris by J. Hetzel et Cie.-- the
hardcover first edition issued in the autumn of 1871, collated with the
softcover editions of the First and Second Parts issued separately in the
autumn of 1869 and the summer of 1870. Although prior English
versions have often been heavily abridged, this new translation is
complete to the smallest substantive detail.
Because, as that Time cover story suggests, we still haven't caught up
with Verne. Even in our era of satellite dishes and video games, the
seas keep their secrets. We've seen progress in sonar, torpedoes, and
other belligerent machinery, but sailors and scientists-- to say nothing
of tourists--have yet to voyage in a submarine with the luxury and
efficiency of the Nautilus.
F. P. WALTER

University of Houston

Units of Measure
CABLE LENGTH In Verne's context, 600 feet
CENTIGRADE 0 degrees centigrade = freezing water
37 degrees centigrade = human body temperature
100 degrees centigrade = boiling water
FATHOM 6 feet
GRAM Roughly 1/28 of an ounce
- MILLIGRAM Roughly 1/28,000 of an ounce
- KILOGRAM (KILO) Roughly 2.2 pounds
HECTARE Roughly 2.5 acres
KNOT 1.15 miles per hour
LEAGUE In Verne's context, 2.16 miles
LITER Roughly 1 quart
METER Roughly 1 yard, 3 inches
- MILLIMETER Roughly 1/25 of an inch
- CENTIMETER Roughly 2/5 of an inch
- DECIMETER Roughly 4 inches
- KILOMETER Roughly 6/10 of a mile

- MYRIAMETER Roughly 6.2 miles
TON, METRIC Roughly 2,200 pounds viii

FIRST PART
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CHAPTER 1

A Runaway Reef

THE YEAR 1866 was marked by a bizarre development, an
unexplained and downright inexplicable phenomenon that surely no
one has forgotten. Without getting into those rumors that upset civilians
in the seaports and deranged the public mind even far inland, it must be
said that professional seamen were especially alarmed. Traders,
shipowners, captains of vessels, skippers, and master mariners from
Europe and America, naval officers from every country, and at their
heels the various national governments on these two continents, were
all extremely disturbed by the business.
In essence, over a period of time several ships had encountered "an
enormous thing" at sea, a long spindle-shaped object, sometimes giving
off a phosphorescent glow, infinitely bigger and faster than any whale.
The relevant data on this apparition, as recorded in various logbooks,
agreed pretty closely as to the structure of the object or creature in