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Journey to the Center of the Earth
Chapter 38. NO OUTLET. BLASTING THE ROCK
Ever since the start of our marvelous journey, I had felt many surprises, had suffered from many illusions.
I thought that I was hard against all surprises and couldn't see or hear anything to amaze me again.
I was like a man who, having been round the world, finds himself completely blase and proof against the marvelous.
When, however, I saw these two letters, which had been engraved three hundred years before, I stood still in an attitude of silent surprise.
Not only was there the signature of the learned and bold alchemist written in the rock.
But I held in my hand the very same instrument with which he had carefully engraved it.
It was impossible, without showing an amount of disbelief scarcely fitting a sane man, to deny the existence of the traveler.
Nor could I deny the reality of that voyage, which I had believed all along to be a myth, the trick of some fertile brain.
While these thoughts were passing through my mind, my uncle, the Professor, gave way to a fit of feverish and poetic excitement.
"Wonderful and glorious genius, great Saknussemm," he cried.
"You have left no stone unturned and no resource missed to show other mortals the way into the interior of our mighty globe."
"Your fellow creatures can still find the trail left by your famous footsteps three hundred years ago at the bottom of these dark underground homes."
You have been careful to secure for others the sight of these wonders and marvels of creation.
Your name, engraved at every important stage of your journey, guides the hopeful traveler to the discovery you pursued with energy and courage.
The bold traveler who follows your steps will find your initials engraved by your hand upon the centre of the earth.
I'll be that bold traveler, following his footsteps to the very centre of the earth.
I, too, will sign my name upon the very same spot, upon the central granite stone of this wonderful work of the Creator.
But in fairness to your devotion, to your courage, and to your being the first to show the road.
Let this cape, seen by you on the shores of this sea discovered by you, be called for all time Cape Saknussemm.
This is what I heard, and I began to be moved to the level of enthusiasm shown by those words.
A fierce excitement woke in me, I forgot everything.
The dangers of the voyage and the risks of the return journey were now as nothing.
What another man had done in ages past could, I felt, be done again.
I was determined to do it myself, and now nothing that man had achieved seemed impossible to me.
"Forward forward," I cried in a burst of genuine and warm enthusiasm.
I had already started toward the dark and gloomy gallery when the Professor stopped me.
He, so rash and hasty, so easily excited to the highest pitch, checked me and asked me to be patient and calmer.
"Let us return to our good friend, Hans," he said.
"We'll then bring the raft down to this place."
I must say that though I at once gave in to my uncle's request, it wasn't without displeasure.
And I hurried along the rocks of that wonderful coast.
"Do you know, my dear uncle,"
I said as we walked along, "that we have been strangely helped by a set of chances, right up to this very moment."
"So you begin to see it, do you, Harry?" said the Professor with a smile.
"Certainly," I replied, "and strangely enough, even the storm helped put us on the right road."
"Blessings on the storm."
"It brought us safely back to the very spot from which fine weather would have driven us forever."
"Suppose we had reached the southern and distant shores of this strange sea, what would have become of us"?
"Yes, Harry, my boy, there's certainly something providential in that wandering at the mercy of wind and waves toward the south."
"We have come back exactly north."
"And what's better still, we have found this great discovery of Cape Saknussemm."
"I mean to say that it's more than surprising."
"There's something in it which is far beyond my understanding."
"The coincidence is unheard of, marvelous."
"What matter! It isn't our duty to explain facts, but to make the best possible use of them."
"Certainly, my boy. But if you'll allow me" said the really pleased Professor.
"Excuse me, sir, but I see exactly how it'll be."
"We'll take the northern route."
"We'll pass under the northern parts of Europe, under Sweden, under Russia, under Siberia, and who knows where."
"This will be instead of burying ourselves under the hot plains and deserts of Africa, or beneath the mighty waves of the ocean."
"And that's all, at this stage of our journey, that I care to know."
"Let us move on, and Heaven will be our guide."
"Yes, Harry, you're right, quite right."
"All is for the best."
"Let us leave this horizontal sea, which could never have led to anything good."
"We'll descend descend and always descend."
"Do you know, my dear boy, that to reach the interior of the earth we have only five thousand miles to travel."
"Bah," I cried, carried away by a burst of enthusiasm, "the distance is hardly worth speaking about. The thing is to make a start."
My wild, mad, and confused speeches went on until we rejoined our patient and calm guide.
All was, we found, ready for an immediate departure.
There wasn't a single parcel that wasn't in its proper place.
We all took up our posts on the raft, and the sail was hoisted.
Hans received his directions and guided the frail craft toward Cape Saknussemm, which we had firmly named.
The wind was very bad for a craft that couldn't sail close to the wind.
It was built to go before the blast.
We were continually forced to push ourselves forward by poles.
On several occasions the rocks ran far out into deep water and we had to make a long detour.
At last, after three hours of travel, about six o'clock in the evening, we found a place where we could land.
I jumped on shore first, In my present state of excitement and enthusiasm, I was always first.
My uncle and the Icelander followed, the trip from the port to this point of the sea had by no means calmed me.
It had done the opposite, I even proposed to burn our vessel, that's, to destroy our raft, to completely cut off our retreat.
But my uncle strongly opposed this wild plan.
I began to think him particularly lukewarm and unenthusiastic.
"At any rate, my dear uncle," I said, "let us start without delay."
"Yes, my boy, I'm just as eager to do so as you can be."
"But, first, let us look at this strange gallery, to see if we need to prepare and mend our ladders."
My uncle now began to check our Ruhmkorff coil, which would doubtless soon be needed.
The raft, fastened to a rock, was left alone.
Moreover, the opening into the new gallery wasn't twenty paces away from the spot.
Our little troop, with myself at the head, moved forward.
The opening, which was almost circular, was about five feet wide.
The dark tunnel was cut in living rock and lined with material that had once flowed through it molten.
The lower part was about level with the water, so we could go inside easily.
We continued on, following an almost horizontal course along the dark, narrow tunnel.
At the end of about a dozen paces our further advance was stopped by the crossing of an enormous block of granite rock.
"Accursed stone!" I cried furiously on seeing that we were stopped by what seemed an impossible obstacle.
In vain we looked to the right, in vain we looked to the left.
In vain we examined it above and below.
There was no passage, no sign of any other tunnel.
I felt the most bitter and painful disappointment.
So angry was I that I wouldn't admit the reality of any obstacle.
I stooped to my knees and looked under the mass of stone.
No hole, no crack, I then looked above.
The same barrier of granite, Hans, with the lamp, examined the sides of the tunnel in every direction.
But all in vain, it was necessary to give up all hope of passing through.
I had seated myself on the ground.
My uncle walked angrily and hopelessly up and down, he was clearly desperate.
"But," I cried after a few moments' thought, "what about Arne Saknussemm?"
"You're right," replied my uncle, "he can never have been stopped by a lump of rock."
"No ten thousand times no," I cried with strong feeling.
This huge lump of rock, from some strange shock, one of those magnetic events that have shaken the earth's crust, has unexpectedly closed the passage.
"Many and many years have passed since the return of Saknussemm, and the fall of this huge block of granite."
"Is it not clear that this gallery was once the outlet for the pent up lava in the interior of the earth, and that these eruptive materials then flowed freely?"
"Look at these recent cracks in the granite roof."
"It's clearly formed of pieces of enormous stone placed here as if by the hand of a giant who had worked to make a strong and solid arch."
"One day, after an unusually strong shock, the vast rock which stands in our way fell through to a level with the ground."
"It was no doubt the key of a kind of arch and has barred our further progress."
"We're right, then, in thinking that this is an unexpected obstacle which Saknussemm didn't meet."
And if we don't remove it, we're unworthy to follow the great discoverer and unable to reach the centre of the earth.
In this wild way I spoke to my uncle.
The zeal of the Professor, his strong wish for success, had become part of my being.
I completely forgot the past, I utterly despised the future.
Nothing existed for me on the surface of this sphere in the heart of which I was swallowed.
No towns, no country, no Hamburg, no Koenigstrasse, nor my poor Gretchen, who by now would believe me lost in the earth's interior.
"Well," cried my uncle, moved to enthusiasm by my words.
"Let us go to work with pickaxes, with crowbars, with anything that comes to hand but down with these terrible walls."
"It's far too hard and too big to be destroyed by a pickax or crowbar," I replied.
"What then?"
"As I said, it's useless to think of overcoming such a difficulty by ordinary tools."
"What then?"
"What else but gunpowder a subterranean mine. Let us blow up the obstacle that stands in our way."
"Gunpowder!"
"Yes. All we have to do is to get rid of this small obstacle."
"To work Hans to work!" cried the Professor.
The Icelander returned to the raft, brought a huge crowbar and began digging a hole in the rock to serve as a mine.
It was by no means a slight task.
We had to make a cavity large enough to hold fifty pounds of fulminating gun cotton.
Its force is four times that of ordinary gunpowder.
I had now roused myself to an almost miraculous state of excitement.
While Hans worked, I helped my uncle prepare a long wick of damp gunpowder, which we enclosed in a linen bag.
"We're bound to go through," I cried enthusiastically.
"We're bound to go through," answered the Professor, tapping me on the back.
At midnight our work as miners was completely finished.
The charge of fulminating cotton was put into the hollow and the match which we had made of considerable length was ready.
A spark was now enough to ignite this fearsome engine and to blow the rock to pieces.
"We'll now rest until tomorrow."
It was absolutely necessary to give in to my fate and to agree to wait for the explosion for six weary hours.