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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Chapter 34. THE SARGASSO SEA
That day the Nautilus crossed a strange part of the Atlantic Ocean.
Everyone knows about the warm current called the Gulf Stream.
After leaving the Gulf of Florida, we went toward Spitzbergen.
But before entering the Gulf of Mexico, at about 45 north latitude, this current splits into two branches.
The main one goes toward the coast of Ireland and Norway, while the second bends south near the Azores.
Then it touches the African shore, makes a long oval shape, and returns to the Antilles.
This second branch, which is more like a collar than a branch, surrounds a cold, quiet, still part of the ocean called the Sargasso Sea.
It's like a perfect lake in the middle of the Atlantic.
It takes at least three years for the great current to go around it.
This was the region the Nautilus was now visiting.
It was a perfect meadow, a thick carpet of seaweed, fucus, and tropical plants, so dense that a ship's stem could hardly tear through it.
Captain Nemo, not wanting to get his propeller stuck in this plant mass, stayed a few yards below the surface.
The name Sargasso comes from the Spanish word "sargazzo," which means kelp.
This kelp, or berry-plant, is the main part of this huge bank.
And here's why these plants gather in the calm basin of the Atlantic.
The only explanation, he says, seems to come from an experience known to everyone.
Put some pieces of cork or other floating things in a vase, and make the water spin in a circle.
The scattered pieces will gather in a group in the center of the water's surface, which is the least disturbed part.
Here the Atlantic is the vase, the Gulf Stream the circular current, and the Sargasso Sea the center where floating debris gather.
I agree with Maury's opinion, and I was able to study this phenomenon right in the middle, where ships rarely go.
Above us floated all kinds of things, piled up among these brownish plants.
There were tree trunks torn from the Andes or the Rocky Mountains, carried by the Amazon or the Mississippi.
There were many wrecks, keels and ship bottoms with side planks broken in, so weighted with shells and barnacles they could not rise again.
And time will one day prove Maury's other idea right.
These things, gathered for ages, will become petrified by the water's action and will then form endless coal mines.
This is a precious reserve prepared by far-seeing Nature for the time when people have used up all the mines on the continents.
In the middle of this tangled mass of plants and seaweed, I noticed lovely pink halcyons and actiniae.
Their long tentacles trailed behind them, and medusae floated green, red, and blue.
We spent all of February 22nd in the Sargasso Sea, where fish that like marine plants find plenty of food.
The next day, the ocean returned to its usual look.
From then on, for nineteen days, from February 23rd to March 12th, the Nautilus stayed in the middle of the Atlantic.
It carried us at a steady speed of a hundred leagues every twenty-four hours.
Captain Nemo clearly meant to complete his underwater plan.
And I thought that after going around Cape Horn, he'd return to the Australian seas of the Pacific.
Ned Land had reason to worry, In these large seas, with no islands, we couldn't try to leave the boat.
We also had no way to oppose Captain Nemo's will.
Our only choice was to give in.
But what we couldn't get by force or trickery, I liked to think we might get by persuasion.
After this voyage ended, wouldn't he agree to give us our freedom, under an oath never to reveal his existence?
It would be an oath of honor that we'd keep faithfully.
But we had to think about that delicate question with the Captain.
Was I free to ask for this freedom?
Hadn't he himself said from the start, in the firmest way, that the secret of his life required us to stay forever on the Nautilus?
And wouldn't my four months of silence seem like a silent acceptance of our situation?
And wouldn't bringing up the subject again cause suspicions that could hurt our plans, if a good chance to return to them came later?
During those nineteen days, nothing special happened to mark our voyage.
I saw little of the Captain, he was working.
In the library, I often found his books left open, especially those on natural history.
My work on underwater depths, which he had read, was covered with notes in the margins.
They often disagreed with my theories and systems.
But the Captain was satisfied with just correcting my work.
He very rarely discussed it with me.
Sometimes I heard the sad tones of his organ, but only at night, in the deepest darkness, when the Nautilus slept on the empty ocean.
During this part of our voyage, we sailed whole days on the surface.
The sea seemed empty, a few sailing ships, on the way to India, were heading for the Cape of Good Hope.
One day, the boats of a whaler followed us.
They probably thought we were some huge, valuable whale.
But Captain Nemo didn't want the good men to waste their time and effort, so he ended the chase by diving underwater.
Our journey continued until March 13th, that day, the Nautilus was busy taking depth measurements, which interested me a lot.
We had traveled about 13,000 leagues since leaving the high seas of the Pacific.
Our position was 45 37' south latitude and 37 53' west longitude.
This was the same water where Captain Denham of the Herald had measured 7,000 fathoms without finding the bottom.
There, Lieutenant Parker of the American frigate Congress couldn't reach the bottom with 15,140 fathoms.
Captain Nemo wanted to reach the ocean floor by using a long diagonal path.
He used side planes set at a 45 angle to the Nautilus's waterline.
Then the propeller worked at its top speed, its four blades hitting the waves with incredible force.
Under this strong pressure, the Nautilus's body shook like a musical string and sank steadily underwater.
At 7,000 fathoms, I saw some blackish tops rising from the water.
But these peaks might belong to high mountains like the Himalayas or Mont Blanc, or even higher.
The depth of the abyss remained impossible to measure.
The Nautilus went down even lower, despite the great pressure.
I felt the steel plates shake at the bolt fastenings.
Its bars bent, its walls groaned, the windows of the saloon seemed to curve under the water's pressure.
And this strong structure would surely have broken if, as its Captain had said, it hadn't been able to resist like a solid block.
We reached a depth of 16,000 yards, or four leagues.
The sides of the Nautilus then bore a pressure of 1,600 atmospheres.
That's 3,200 pounds on every two-fifths of an inch of its surface.
"What a situation to be in!" I exclaimed.
"To travel through these deep regions where no man has ever walked!"
"Look, Captain, look at these wonderful rocks, these empty caves, these lowest places on Earth, where life is no longer possible!"
"What unknown sights are here!"
"Why can't we keep a memory of them?"
"Would you like to take away more than a memory?" said Captain Nemo.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that nothing is easier than to take a photograph of this underwater region."
I didn't have time to show my surprise at this new idea when, at Captain Nemo's call, a camera was brought into the saloon.
Through the wide-open panel, the liquid mass was bright with electricity.
The light was spread so evenly that no shadow or change could be seen in our man-made light.
The Nautilus stayed still, the force of its propeller was reduced by the angle of its planes.
The camera was set on the bottom of the ocean site, and in a few seconds we had a perfect negative.
But when the operation was over, Captain Nemo said, "Let's go up. We mustn't abuse our position or expose the Nautilus too long to such great pressure."
"Go up again!" I exclaimed.
"Hold on tight."
I didn't have time to understand why the Captain warned me like that when I was thrown forward onto the carpet.
At a signal from the Captain, the propeller was stopped, and its blades rose straight up.
The Nautilus shot into the air like a balloon, rising with stunning speed, cutting through the water with a loud noise.
Nothing was visible, In four minutes, it had shot through the four leagues that separated it from the ocean.
Then, after coming out like a flying fish, it fell, making the waves bounce up to a huge height.