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PREFACE

A Journey into the Interior of the Earth

Jules Verne · 2003

Contents

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  1. 01Front matter
  2. 02PREFACE
  3. 03CHAPTER I.
  4. 04CHAPTER II.
  5. 05CHAPTER III.
  6. 06CHAPTER IV.
  7. 07CHAPTER V.
  8. 08CHAPTER VI.
  9. 09CHAPTER VII.
  10. 10CHAPTER VIII.
  11. 11CHAPTER IX.
  12. 12CHAPTER X.
  13. 13CHAPTER XI.
  14. 14CHAPTER XII.
  15. 15CHAPTER XIII.
  16. 16CHAPTER XIV.
  17. 17CHAPTER XV.
  18. 18CHAPTER XVI.
  19. 19CHAPTER XVII.
  20. 20CHAPTER XVIII.
  21. 21CHAPTER XIX.
  22. 22CHAPTER XX.
  23. 23CHAPTER XXI.
  24. 24CHAPTER XXII.
  25. 25CHAPTER XXIII.
  26. 26CHAPTER XXIV.
  27. 27CHAPTER XXV.
  28. 28CHAPTER XXVI.
  29. 29CHAPTER XXVII.
  30. 30CHAPTER XXVIII.
  31. 31CHAPTER XXIX.
  32. 32CHAPTER XXX.
  33. 33CHAPTER XXXI.
  34. 34CHAPTER XXXII.
  35. 35CHAPTER XXXIII.
  36. 36CHAPTER XXXIV.
  37. 37CHAPTER XXXV.
  38. 38CHAPTER XXXVI.
  39. 39CHAPTER XXXVII.
  40. 40CHAPTER XXXVIII.
  41. 41CHAPTER XXXIX.
  42. 42CHAPTER XL.
  43. 43CHAPTER XLI.
  44. 44CHAPTER XLII.
  45. 45CHAPTER XLIII.
  46. 46CHAPTER XLIV.
  47. 47CHAPTER XLV.
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Text 2 of 47

PREFACE

Jules Verne · about 3 minutes

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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

               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 AN UNPARALLELED EXERCISE
 VII     A WOMAN'S COURAGE
 VIII    SERIOUS PREPARATIONS FOR VERTICAL DESCENT
 IX      ICELAND, BUT WHAT NEXT?
 X       INTERESTING CONVERSATIONS WITH ICELANDIC SAVANTS
 XI      A GUIDE FOUND TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH
 XII     A BARREN LAND
 XIII    HOSPITALITY UNDER THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
 XIV     BUT ARCTICS CAN BE INHOSPITABLE, TOO
 XV      SNÆFFEL AT LAST
 XVI     BOLDLY DOWN THE CRATER
 XVII    VERTICAL DESCENT
 XVIII   THE WONDERS OF TERRESTIAL DEPTHS
 XIX     GEOLOGICAL STUDIES IN SITU
 XX      THE FIRST SIGNS OF DISTRESS
 XXI     COMPASSION FUSES THE PROFESSOR'S HEART
 XXII    TOTAL FAILURE OF WATER
 XXIII   WATER DISCOVERED
 XXIV    WELL SAID, OLD MOLE! CANST THOU WORK
         IN THE GROUND SO FAST?
 XXV     DE PROFUNDIS
 XXVI    THE WORST PERIL OF ALL
 XXVII   LOST IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH
 XXVIII  THE RESCUE IN THE WHISPERING GALLERY
 XXIX    THALATTA! THALATTA!
 XXX     A NEW MARE INTERNUM
 XXXI    PREPARATIONS FOR A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY
 XXXII   WONDERS OF THE DEEP
 XXXIII  A BATTLE OF MONSTERS
 XXXIV   THE GREAT GEYSER
 XXXV    AN ELECTRIC STORM
 XXXVI   CALM PHILOSOPHIC DISCUSSIONS
 XXXVII  THE LIEDENBROCK MUSEUM OF GEOLOGY
 XXXVIII THE PROFESSOR IN HIS CHAIR AGAIN
 XXXIX   FOREST SCENERY ILLUMINATED BY ELECTRICITY
 XL      PREPARATIONS FOR BLASTING A PASSAGE
         TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH
 XLI     THE GREAT EXPLOSION AND THE RUSH DOWN BELOW
 XLII    HEADLONG SPEED UPWARD THROUGH THE HORRORS OF DARKNESS
 XLIII   SHOT OUT OF A VOLCANO AT LAST!
 XLIV    SUNNY LANDS IN THE BLUE MEDITERRANEAN
 XLV     ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

A JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH