All Chapters of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

IT WAS THE ship’s commander who had just spoken.At these words Ned Land stood up quickly. Nearly strangled, the steward staggered out at a signal from his superior; but such was the commander’s authority aboard his vessel, not one gesture gave away the resentment that this man must have felt toward the Canadian. In silence we waited for the outcome of this scene; Conseil, in spite of himself, seemed almost fascinated, I was stunned.Arms crossed, leaning against a corner of the table, the commander studied us with great care. Was he reluctant to speak further? Did he regret those words he had just pronounced in French? You would have thought so.After a few moments of silence, which none of us would have dreamed of interrupting:“Gentlemen,” he said in a calm, penetrating voice, “I speak French, English, German, and Latin with equal fluency. Hence I could have answered you as early as our initial interview, but first I wanted to make your acquaintance and then think things over. Y

“SIR,” CAPTAIN NEMO SAID, showing me the instruments hanging on the walls of his stateroom,“these are the devices needed to navigate the Nautilus. Here, as in the lounge, I always have them before my eyes, and they indicate my position and exact heading in the midst of the ocean. You’re familiar with some of them, such as the thermometer, which gives the temperature inside the Nautilus; the barometer, which measures the heaviness of the outside air and forecasts changes in the weather; the humidistat, which indicates the degree of dryness in the atmosphere; the storm glass, whose mixture decomposes to foretell the arrival of tempests; the compass, which steers my course; the sextant, which takes the sun’s altitude and tells me my latitude; chronometers, which allow me to calculate my longitude; and finally, spyglasses for both day and night, enabling me to scrutinize every point of the horizon once the Nautilus has risen to the surface of the waves.”“These are the normal navigation

THE PART OF THE planet earth that the seas occupy has been assessed at 3,832,558 square myriameters, hence more than 38,000,000,000 hectares. This liquid mass totals 2,250,000,000 cubic miles and could form a sphere with a diameter of sixty leagues, whose weight would be three quintillion metric tons. To appreciate such a number, we should remember that a quintillion is to a billion what a billion is to one, in other words, there are as many billions in a quintillion as ones in a billion! Now then, this liquid mass nearly equals the total amount of water that has poured through all the earth’s rivers for the past 40,000 years!During prehistoric times, an era of fire was followed by an era of water. At first there was ocean everywhere. Then, during the Silurian period, the tops of mountains gradually appeared above the waves, islands emerged, disappeared beneath temporary floods, rose again, were fused to form continents, and finally the earth’s geography settled into what we have tod

THIS CELL, properly speaking, was the Nautilus’s arsenal and wardrobe. Hanging from its walls, a dozen diving outfits were waiting for anybody who wanted to take a stroll.After seeing these, Ned Land exhibited an obvious distaste for the idea of putting one on.“But my gallant Ned,” I told him, “the forests of Crespo Island are simply underwater forests!”“Oh great!” put in the disappointed harpooner, watching his dreams of fresh meat fade away. “And you, Professor Aronnax, are you going to stick yourself inside these clothes?”“It has to be, Mr. Ned.”“Have it your way, sir,” the harpooner replied, shrugging his shoulders. “But speaking for myself, I’ll never get into those things unless they force me!”“No one will force you, Mr. Land,” Captain Nemo said.“And is Conseil going to risk it?” Ned asked.“Where master goes, I go,” Conseil replied.At the captain’s summons, two crewmen came to help us put on these heavy, waterproof clothes, made from seamless India rubber and ex

BY THE NEXT MORNING, November 18, I was fully recovered from my exhaustion of the day before, and I climbed onto the platform just as the Nautilus’s chief officer was pronouncing his daily phrase. It then occurred to me that these words either referred to the state of the sea, or that they meant: “There’s nothing in sight.”And in truth, the ocean was deserted. Not a sail on the horizon. The tips of Crespo Island had disappeared during the night. The sea, absorbing every color of the prism except its blue rays, reflected the latter in every direction and sported a wonderful indigo tint. The undulating waves regularly took on the appearance of watered silk with wide stripes.I was marveling at this magnificent ocean view when Captain Nemo appeared. He didn’t seem to notice my presence and began a series of astronomical observations. Then, his operations finished, he went and leaned his elbows on the beacon housing, his eyes straying over the surface of the ocean.Meanwhile some twent