The Mysterious Island Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Captain Grant's Children

Chapter 81: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (12)
"Ah! Captain, how great, how great! I now understand at last what is the cause of that so-called narwhal phosphorescence, which has puzzled scholars! Let me ask you again, by the way. , was the sensational collision between the Nautilus and the Scotia an accident?"

"Sir, it was purely an accident. I was sailing two meters below the surface when the collision occurred. However, I saw that the Scotia did not suffer much damage."

"Yes, sir, there was no serious injury. But what about your encounter with the Lincoln..."

"Professor, I'm a little sorry about that, it's really one of the bravest and best warships in the United States Department of the Navy. But I did it in self-defense, because it came at me! And I just put the The battleship hit a point where it can no longer hurt me, and its damage is not serious, and it can be repaired in the nearby harbor."

I exclaimed earnestly, "Captain, your 'Nautilus' is a truly remarkable ship!"

"Professor, you are absolutely right," Captain Nemo replied excitedly. "I love it very much, as if I love my own flesh and blood! Staying on your ship is always subject to the unexpected attacks of the sea, and everything is dangerous. , can only be resigned to fate. The Dutchman Jansen is right, the first feeling people come to the sea is as if they are facing an abyss. But on the "Nautilus" ship, people will not have a little fear in their hearts, because this ship It has a double-hull as hard as steel; it has no cables, and it is not damaged by the tossing or bumping of the wind and waves; it has no sails, and it is not worried about the storm blowing away; It is steel, not wood, so there is no fear of terrible fires; its mechanical driving force is electricity, not coals that will burn out at any time; because it walks alone in deep water, there is no fear of terrible collisions; Because there is absolute calm a few meters below the surface, there is no need to fight the storm. That's it, sir, what a great submarine is! My submarine is definitely a special one, unique! For this boat, The designer may have more confidence than the architect, and the architect may have more confidence than the captain. If this is the case, then you can understand why I trust my "Nautilus" so much, because the captain, architect and I'm the engineer!"

Captain Nemo's eloquence is very eloquent and very attractive.Those passionate eyes and enthusiastic movements seemed to make him a completely different person.yes!He loved the submarine like a father loves his child!
However, one question, which perhaps should not have been asked, naturally came to my mind, and I had to ask him again:

"Captain Nemo, are you the engineer who designed this submarine?"

He replied: "Yes, Professor. When I was a resident of the land, I studied design in London, Paris and New York."

"But how did you manage to build the stunningly bizarre 'Nautilus' without anyone knowing?"

"Mr. Aronnax, every piece of material in this ship was obtained from different places on the earth, and all of them concealed their uses. The keel of the ship was produced by the Krulen factory in France, and the main shaft of the propeller was from London. Manufactured by Penny Company, the steel plate of the hull was cast by the Liverpool Lia factory, the propeller was made by the Scott factory in Glasgow. The water storage tank on the ship was made by the Paris Jiayi Company, and the main machinery on the ship was made by the Prussian Kruppen Factory made, the bow spurs are made by Modara factory in Sweden, the precision instruments are made by Harti Brothers in New York, etc. I provide the drawings to the suppliers and they make them according to my drawings , but I signed the names of different people on the drawings."

"But," I said, "these individual parts need to be assembled and debugged, right?"

"Professor, I built a workshop on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. There, my workers, my faithful companions who had been trained by me, installed the Nautilus together with me. When all the work was over Finally, I set a fire and wiped out all traces of it. If possible, I would blow up the whole island."

"So it must have cost a lot to build this ship?"

"Mr. Aronnax, the cost of building a steel ship is 120 and five francs per ton. 170 francs, plus decoration costs, a total of 200 million francs, including all the artwork and collections on board, the value of this submarine is 500 million francs.”

"Captain Nemo, I have one last question for you."

"Professor, please ask."

"You must be rich?"

"It can be said that even I don't know how much money I have. Sir, let's put it this way, I can easily pay off France's billions of national debts!"

I stared straight at the weirdo who was talking to me.Did he think I was so deceitful and deliberately bragging in front of me?I think, in the future, I will have a chance to figure this out.

Kuroshio Current
The area occupied by seawater on the earth is about 380 square kilometers, or 550 million hectares.The volume of seawater is 800 billion cubic meters, which can form a sphere with a diameter of 22 kilometers and a weight of 300 billion tons.If you want to have an idea of ​​the above numbers, you have to think like this: the ratio of 100 billion to 100 billion is like the ratio of 4 billion to [-], that is to say, how many ones there are in a billion, there are [-] in [-] billion. How many billions.The total amount of seawater is almost the total amount of water that all rivers on land have flowed into the sea for [-] years.

In the long geological epoch, the age of water followed the age of fire.In the beginning, the whole earth was ocean.Then, in the early Silurian period, some mountain peaks gradually emerged, and some islands also surfaced. During the flood period, the peaks and islands disappeared again, and then exposed again, joining together to form the continent.In the end, the land took shape as we see it today.The solid continents occupy an area of ​​760 square miles, or 910 hectares, from the fluid seawater.

The land divides the ocean into five major parts: the Arctic Ocean, the Southern Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

The Pacific Ocean is extremely vast, extending from the Arctic Circle in the north to the Antarctic Circle in the south, Asia in the west, and America in the east, across a longitude of 145°.The Pacific Ocean is the calmest ocean, with gentle currents, low waves, and abundant rain.It was this ocean that fate called me to cross first under a singular circumstance.

"Professor," said Captain Nemo to me, "if you will, we will take down the exact bearing as the starting point of our journey. The time is a quarter to twelve. I will now The boat surfaced."

The captain rang the bell three times.The water pump began to discharge the water in the storage tank, and the pointer of the barometer indicated the upward movement of the "Nautilus" according to the pressure, and then the ship stopped.

"Well, we've reached the surface," said the captain.

I walked towards the ladder leading directly to the platform, stepped on a series of steel steps, and came to the top of the "Nautilus" from the open hatch.

The platform is only eighty centimeters above the water. The shape of the "Nautilus" from front to back presents a front spindle, much like a long cigar.I noticed that the steel plates on the hull were covered with scales, much like the scales on large reptiles on land.Then it dawned on me that even with the best glasses I could see the ship as an animal in the sea.

In the middle of the platform, the skiff was half lodged in the hull, forming a small bulge.At the front and back of the platform, there is a cage that is not high and slopes to the side, part of which is equipped with a thick concave-convex glass mirror. One of the two cages is the cockpit of the "Nautilus" helmsman, and the other houses a lamp Bright navigation lights.

The sea was calm and the sky was blue and cloudless.The long submarine barely feels the great waves of the waves.A gentle breeze blew slowly from the east, causing ripples on the sea.The fog has dissipated, and the field of vision has become wider, and the end of the sky can be seen all the time.

We can see nothing but a vast ocean.No reef, no isle, no Lincoln.

Captain Nemo, holding a sextant in his hand, is measuring the altitude of the sun, so he can know the latitude of the ship.He waited a few minutes until the sun was level with the horizon.When he was making observations, his muscles did not move at all, and the instrument was as stable as being held in the hands of iron stone.

He said: "Professor, it is exactly twelve noon, do you think we can leave at this time?"

Now, the submarine is approaching the coast of Japan, and the color of the sea is a little yellowish.I looked at the ocean, then turned and went back to the living room.

In the living room, the captain recorded the current position on the map, and adjusted the calculation according to the observation just now.Then he said to me:
"Mr. Aronnax, we are now located at longitude 137°15′ West..."

"Which meridian do you base your calculations on?" I asked him hastily, hoping to learn his nationality from his answer.

"Sir," he answered me, "I have various chronometers, some measured on the meridian of Paris, some on the meridian of Greenwich, some on the meridian of Washington. But for In honor of you, I intend from now on to refer to the meridian of Paris."

This kind of answer didn't get me the answer I wanted, so I just nodded my thanks.

The captain went on to say: "We are at 137°15′ west longitude of the meridian of Paris, 30°7′ north latitude, about 11 nautical miles from the coast of Japan. Today is November 8th, and it is noon at this time, and our underwater exploration trip officially begins. .”

"God bless us!" I replied.

The captain said again: "Professor, I'm leaving now. You can use the living room as you like. You can do your research alone. I have determined the course now to be east-northeast and dive 50 meters. Here is the navigation chart. You are on the chart. You can see our route on the Internet. Well, Professor, I bid you farewell."

Captain Nemo saluted me and left.I was left alone in silent contemplation, preoccupied with the captain of the Nautilus.This eccentric thinks he does not belong to any country, so which country he is from I shall never know?Will he seek revenge on those he hates?Is he a buried scholar?As Conseil said, a genius with a "broken heart"?A modern Galileo?Or was he, like Morley the American, a scientist whose life's work had been ruined by political upheaval?None of this I can be sure of.I was a man cast overboard by chance, my life at his mercy, and he took me in coldly but politely.He never shook the hand I offered him, though, and he never extended his hand to me.

For a whole hour I was in deep thought, trying to figure out this mystery that interested me so much.Later, the large flat map on the table caught my attention, so I put my finger on the intersection of longitude and latitude obtained by observation.

Like continents, oceans have their own rivers.These are special currents, recognizable by their temperature and colour, the most notable of which is known as the "warm current".On Earth, science has determined the following five major current routes: the first in the northern Atlantic, the second in the southern Atlantic, the third in the northern Pacific, the fourth in the southern Pacific, and the fifth in the Southern Indian Ocean.Perhaps a sixth current may well have existed in the northern part of the Indian Ocean at a time when the Caspian and Arabian Seas were joined to the waters of Asia to form one great ocean.

At the point recorded on the flat map of the earth, there is a warm current flowing through it, which the Japanese call black water current.The black water flow originates from the Bay of Bengal and is very warm after being exposed to the direct rays of the tropical sun. It passes through the Strait of Malacca, goes north along the Asian coast, makes a loop in the northern Pacific Ocean, and then flows to the Aleutian Islands.It transports camphor tree trunks and various native products from various places. The water in the black water is hot and blue in color, which is completely different from the sea water in the Pacific Ocean.This current is the course that the "Nautilus" will take.I kept my eyes on the current, saw it disappear into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, and felt that I, too, had been carried away by this warm current.Just then, Ned Land and Conseil appeared at the door of the living room.

My two loyal companions were stunned when they saw the magical items piled up in front of them:
"Where are we? Where are we?" cried the Canadian. "In a museum in Quebec?"

"If Monsieur prefers," Conseil replied, "it might as well be at the Somera Mansion!"

"Dear friends," I said to them, gesturing for them to come in, "you are now neither in Canada nor in France, but on board the Nautilus fifty meters below the sea. "

"Sir, you are so sure, of course we have to believe it." Conseil replied, "However, to be honest, the arrangement of this living room surprised even a Flemish like me."

"You're surprised, my friend, that there's so much to do here for a taxonomist as good as yourself. Just look at it..."

Before I finished those words of encouragement, Conseil, an honest man, had already looked at the window, and he had already muttered all the words used by biologists: Gastropoda, The snail family, the genus, the Madagascar clam species...

At this time, Ned Land, who knew nothing about conchology, asked me about my meeting with Captain Nemo.He asked me if I knew the nationality of the captain, where he came from, where he was going, and how deep it would take us to the bottom of the sea?His questions were like a cannonball, and I couldn't answer them at all.

I told him everything I knew, or even didn't know, and asked him what he had seen and heard.

The Canadian replied: "I neither saw nor heard anything, not even a shadow of the crew on the ship. I'm telling the truth. Aren't they all electric men?"

"Electric man!"

"To tell you the truth, I did have such a thought. But, Mr. Aronnax," Ned Land asked, who never forgot his thought, "how many people are there on this boat? Ten, Twenty, fifty, or a hundred? Can you tell me?"

"I really can't give you an answer to this, Master Ned Land. I just want you to believe me. Now you can no longer have the idea of ​​capturing or escaping the Nautilus. This ship is a masterpiece of modern industry. If I I would be very sorry if I didn't see it! I think many people would wish to be in our situation in order to see such an amazing masterpiece. So you must keep calm and we must try to find a way to deal with all the things around us. Take a closer look at things."

"What can we observe here!" shouted the harpooner. "This is a prison made of steel plates. We can't see anything at all. We can't see anything now, and we won't see anything in the future! We just shut it up." Eyes are sailing..."

Before Ned Land could finish his last sentence, the bright ceiling went out, and it went out very quickly.Then the whole hall was completely dark, too dark to see.My eyes couldn't adjust at once, and there was a feeling of pain, just like when I suddenly turned from extreme darkness to light.

Not knowing what unexpected event was about to befall us, we all held our breath and remained motionless.There was a slipping sound that reached our ears, and it sounded like the side panels of the Nautilus were moving.

Ned Land said: "It looks like it's really going to be over!"

"It's a jellyfish!" Conseil whispered.

Suddenly, light came in from the two rectangular holes, and every corner of the living room was illuminated again.The sea water was illuminated very brightly by the electric light.There are two glass wafers between us and the water.At first I thought that this kind of partition was likely to be broken in an instant, and I was so scared that my heart was about to jump out. Then I found out that the glass is supported by a strong frame of red copper, so that it has almost infinite resistance. I'm relieved.

We can now clearly see the water within a nautical mile of the Nautilus.The novel scenery produced by the light passing through the transparent water flow, and the soft luminosity of the light shining on the upper and lower sides of the ocean, gradually decreasing, this kind of beauty is really beyond words!
The sea water is transparent, and its clarity surpasses the clear springs in the mountains. This is the truth that everyone knows.The minerals and organic substances contained in seawater even increase its transparency.In some parts of the Pacific Ocean, such as the Antilles, the sand bed beneath the bottom is clearly visible in water below 140 meters, and the penetration of sunlight can reach a depth of 300 meters.However, in the sea area where the "Nautilus" traveled, the electric light radiated from the water, which was no longer illuminated water, but flowing light.

If we are to believe the hypothesis of Ellenburg, that the bottom of the sea is illuminated by brilliant phosphorescence, nature must be sure to bequeath to its inhabitants a most astonishing spectacle.Now, based on the infinite changes of this light, I can imagine how gorgeous the world under the sea will be.There was a window on each side of the parlour, opening into the unexplored abyss.The darkness in the living room makes the outside appear brighter.When we looked out, we felt that this piece of pure crystal was like the glass of a huge aquarium.

(End of this chapter)