A Journey to the Interior of the Earth | Page 4

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.)]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A JOURNEY
INTO THE
INTERIOR OF THE EARTH
by
Jules Verne
----------------------------------------------------------------------

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
----------------------------------------------------------------------

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 SN?FFEL 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