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 chocked 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 unheaving of the lower strata. In many places, hollows here and hillocks there attested great dislocations of 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.