Part 19 (1/2)

It was a star which, seen from this depth, had lost all scintillation, and which by my computation should be 46; _Ursa minor._ Then I fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WONDERS OF TERRESTRIAL DEPTHS

At eight in the morning a ray of daylight came to wake us up. The thousand s.h.i.+ning surfaces of lava on the walls received it on its pa.s.sage, and scattered it like a shower of sparks.

There was light enough to distinguish surrounding objects.

”Well, Axel, what do you say to it?” cried my uncle, rubbing his hands. ”Did you ever spend a quieter night in our little house at Konigsberg? No noise of cart wheels, no cries of basket women, no boatmen shouting!”

”No doubt it is very quiet at the bottom of this well, but there is something alarming in the quietness itself.”

”Now come!” my uncle cried; ”if you are frightened already, what will you be by and by? We have not gone a single inch yet into the bowels of the earth.”

”What do you mean?”

”I mean that we have only reached the level of the island, long vertical tube, which terminates at the mouth of the crater, has its lower end only at the level of the sea.”

”Are you sure of that?”

”Quite sure. Consult the barometer.”

In fact, the mercury, which had risen in the instrument as fast as we descended, had stopped at twenty-nine inches.

”You see,” said the Professor, ”we have now only the pressure of our atmosphere, and I shall be glad when the aneroid takes the place of the barometer.”

And in truth this instrument would become useless as soon as the weight of the atmosphere should exceed the pressure ascertained at the level of the sea.

”But,” I said, ”is there not reason to fear that this ever-increasing pressure will become at last very painful to bear?”

”No; we shall descend at a slow rate, and our lungs will become inured to a denser atmosphere. Aeronauts find the want of air as they rise to high elevations, but we shall perhaps have too much: of the two, this is what I should prefer. Don't let us lose a moment. Where is the bundle we sent down before us?”

I then remembered that we had searched for it in vain the evening before. My uncle questioned Hans, who, after having examined attentively with the eye of a huntsman, replied:

”_Der huppe!_”

”Up there.”

And so it was. The bundle had been caught by a projection a hundred feet above us. Immediately the Icelander climbed up like a cat, and in a few minutes the package was in our possession.

”Now,” said my uncle, ”let us breakfast; but we must lay in a good stock, for we don't know how long we may have to go on.”

The biscuit and extract of meat were washed down with a draught of water mingled with a little gin.

Breakfast over, my uncle drew from his pocket a small notebook, intended for scientific observations. He consulted his instruments, and recorded:

”Monday, July 1.