A Journey to the Interior of the Earth | Page 4

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