it would be altogether impossible for me to give any idea of the utter astonishment which overcame the professor on making this extraordinary discovery. amazement, incredulity, and rage were blended in such a way as to alarm me.
during the whole course of my life i had never seen a man at first so chapfallen; and then so furiously indignant.
the terrible fatigues of our sea voyage, the fearful dangers we had passed through, had all, all, gone for nothing. we had to begin them all over again.
instead of progressing, as we fondly expected, during a voyage of so many days, we had retreated. every hour of our expedition on the raft had been so much lost time!
presently, however, the indomitable energy of my uncle overcame every other consideration.
"so," he said, between his set teeth, "fatality will play me these terrible tricks. the elements themselves conspire to overwhelm me with mortification. air, fire, and water combine their united efforts to oppose my passage. well, they shall see what the earnest will of a determined man can do. i will not yield, i will not retreat even one inch; and we shall see who shall triumph in this great contest—man or nature."
standing upright on a rock, irritated and menacing, professor hardwigg, like the ferocious ajax, seemed to defy the fates. i, however, took upon myself to interfere, and to impose some sort of check upon such insensate enthusiasm.
"listen to me, uncle," i said, in a firm but temperate tone of voice, "there must be some limit to ambition here below. it is utterly useless to struggle against the impossible. pray listen to reason. we are utterly unprepared for a sea voyage; it is simply madness to think of performing a journey of five hundred leagues upon a wretched pile of beams, with a counterpane for a sail, a paltry stick for a mast, and a tempest to contend with. as we are totally incapable of steering our frail craft, we shall become the mere plaything of the storm, and it is acting the part of madmen if we, a second time, run any risk upon this dangerous and treacherous central sea."
these are only a few of the reasons and arguments i put together—reasons and arguments which to me appeared unanswerable. i was allowed to go on without interruption for about ten minutes. the explanation to this i soon discovered. the professor was not even listening, and did not hear a word of all my eloquence.
"to the raft!" he cried in a hoarse voice, when i paused for a reply.
such was the result of my strenuous effort to resist his iron will. i tried again; i begged and implored him; i got into a passion; but i had to deal with a will more determined than my own. i seemed to feel like the waves which fought and battled against the huge mass of granite at our feet, which had smiled grimly for so many ages at their puny efforts.
hans, meanwhile, without taking part in our discussion, had been repairing the raft. one would have supposed that he instinctively guessed at the further projects of my uncle.
by means of some fragments of cordage, he had again made the raft seaworthy.
while i had been speaking, he had hoisted a new mast and sail, the latter already fluttering and waving in the breeze.
the worthy professor spoke a few words to our imperturbable guide, who immediately began to put our baggage on board and to prepare for our departure. the atmosphere was now tolerably clear and pure, and the northeast wind blew steadily and serenely. it appeared likely to last for some time.
what, then, could i do? could i undertake to resist the iron will of two men? it was simply impossible if even i could have hoped for the support of hans. this, however, was out of the question. it appeared to me that the icelander had set aside all personal will and identity. he was a picture of abnegation.
i could hope for nothing from one so infatuated with and devoted to his master. all i could do, therefore, was to swim with the stream.
in a mood of stolid and sullen resignation, i was about to take my accustomed place on the raft when my uncle placed his hand upon my shoulder.
"there is no hurry, my boy," he said, "we shall not start until tomorrow."
i looked the picture of resignation to the dire will of fate.
"under the circumstances," he said, "i ought to neglect no precautions. as fate has cast me upon these shores, i shall not leave without having completely examined them."
in order to understand this remark, i must explain that though we had been driven back to the northern shore, we had landed at a very different spot from that which had been our starting point.
port gretchen must, we calculated, be very much to the westward. nothing, therefore, was more natural and reasonable than that we should reconnoiter this new shore upon which we had so unexpectedly landed.
"let us go on a journey of discovery," i cried.
and leaving hans to his important operation, we started on our expedition. the distance between the foreshore at high water and the foot of the rocks was considerable. it would take about half an hour's walking to get from one to the other.
as we trudged along, our feet crushed innumerable shells of every shape and size—once the dwelling place of animals of every period of creation.
i particularly noticed some enormous shells—carapaces (turtle and tortoise species) the diameter of which exceeded fifteen feet.
they had in past ages belonged to those gigantic glyptodons of the pliocene period, of which the modern turtle is but a minute specimen. in addition, the whole soil was covered by a vast quantity of stony relics, having the appearance of flints worn by the action of the waves, and lying in successive layers one above the other. i came to the conclusion that in past ages the sea must have covered the whole district. upon the scattered rocks, now lying far beyond its reach, the mighty waves of ages had left evident marks of their passage.
on reflection, this appeared to me partially to explain the existence of this remarkable ocean, forty leagues below the surface of the earth's crust. according to my new, and perhaps fanciful, theory, this liquid mass must be gradually lost in the deep bowels of the earth. i had also no doubt that this mysterious sea was fed by infiltration of the ocean above, through imperceptible fissures.
nevertheless, it was impossible not to admit that these fissures must now be nearly choked up, for if not, the cavern, or rather the immense and stupendous reservoir, would have been completely filled in a short space of time. perhaps even this water, having to contend against the accumulated subterraneous fires of the interior of the earth, had become partially vaporized. hence the explanation of those heavy clouds suspended over our heads, and the superabundant display of that electricity which occasioned such terrible storms in this deep and cavernous sea.
this lucid explanation of the phenomena we had witnessed appeared to me quite satisfactory. however great and mighty the marvels of nature may seem to us, they are always to be explained by physical reasons. everything is subordinate to some great law of nature.
it now appeared clear that we were walking upon a kind of sedimentary soil, formed like all the soils of that period, so frequent on the surface of the globe, by the subsidence of the waters. the professor, who was now in his element, carefully examined every rocky fissure. let him only find an opening and it directly became important to him to examine its depth.
for a whole mile we followed the windings of the central sea, when suddenly an important change took place in the aspect of the soil. it seemed to have been rudely cast up, convulsionized, as it were, by a violent upheaving of the lower strata. in many places, hollows here and hillocks there attested great dislocations at some other period of the terrestrial mass.
we advanced with great difficulty over the broken masses of granite mixed with flint, quartz, and alluvial deposits, when a large field, more even than a field, a plain of bones, appeared suddenly before our eyes! it looked like an immense cemetery, where generation after generation had mingled their mortal dust.
lofty barrows of early remains rose at intervals. they undulated away to the limits of the distant horizon and were lost in a thick and brown fog.
on that spot, some three square miles in extent, was accumulated the whole history of animal life—scarcely one creature upon the comparatively modern soil of the upper and inhabited world had not there existed.
nevertheless, we were drawn forward by an all-absorbing and impatient curiosity. our feet crushed with a dry and crackling sound the remains of those prehistoric fossils, for which the museums of great cities quarrel, even when they obtain only rare and curious morsels. a thousand such naturalists as cuvier would not have sufficed to recompose the skeletons of the organic beings which lay in this magnificent osseous collection.
i was utterly confounded. my uncle stood for some minutes with his arms raised on high towards the thick granite vault which served us for a sky. his mouth was wide open; his eyes sparkled wildly behind his spectacles (which he had fortunately saved), his head bobbed up and down and from side to side, while his whole attitude and mien expressed unbounded astonishment.
he stood in the presence of an endless, wondrous, and inexhaustibly rich collection of antediluvian monsters, piled up for his own private and peculiar satisfaction.
fancy an enthusiastic lover of books carried suddenly into the very midst of the famous library of alexandria burned by the sacrilegious omar, and which some miracle had restored to its pristine splendor! such was something of the state of mind in which uncle hardwigg was now placed.
for some time he stood thus, literally aghast at the magnitude of his discovery.
but it was even a greater excitement when, darting wildly over this mass of organic dust, he caught up a naked skull and addressed me in a quivering voice:
"harry, my boy—harry—this is a human head!"
"a human head, uncle!" i said, no less amazed and stupefied than himself.
"yes, nephew. ah! mr. milne-edwards—ah! mr. de quatrefages—why are you not here where i am—i, professor hardwigg!"
