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Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

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Title: Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

Author: Jules Verne

 
Release date: September 1, 1994 [eBook #164]
 Most recently updated: March 18, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/164

Credits: a number of anonymous Gutenberg Project volunteers

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA ***

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

by Jules Verne

Contents

 PART I
 CHAPTER I A SHIFTING REEF
 CHAPTER II PRO AND CON
 CHAPTER III I FORM MY RESOLUTION
 CHAPTER IV NED LAND
 CHAPTER V AT A VENTURE
 CHAPTER VI AT FULL STEAM
 CHAPTER VII AN UNKNOWN SPECIES OF WHALE
 CHAPTER VIII MOBILIS IN MOBILI
 CHAPTER IX NED LAND'S TEMPERS
 CHAPTER X THE MAN OF THE SEAS
 CHAPTER XI ALL BY ELECTRICITY
 CHAPTER XII SOME FIGURES
 CHAPTER XIII THE BLACK RIVER
 CHAPTER XIV A NOTE OF INVITATION
 CHAPTER XV A WALK ON THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA
 CHAPTER XVI A SUBMARINE FOREST
 CHAPTER XVII FOUR THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE PACIFIC
 CHAPTER XVIII VANIKORO
 CHAPTER XIX TORRES STRAITS
 CHAPTER XX A FEW DAYS ON LAND
 CHAPTER XXI CAPTAIN NEMO'S THUNDERBOLT
 CHAPTER XXII "ÆGRI SOMNIA"
 CHAPTER XXIII THE CORAL KINGDOM

 PART II
 CHAPTER I THE INDIAN OCEAN
 CHAPTER II A NOVEL PROPOSAL OF CAPTAIN NEMO'S
 CHAPTER III A PEARL OF TEN MILLIONS
 CHAPTER IV THE RED SEA
 CHAPTER V THE ARABIAN TUNNEL
 CHAPTER VI THE GRECIAN ARCHIPELAGO
 CHAPTER VII THE MEDITERRANEAN IN FORTY-EIGHT HOURS
 CHAPTER VIII VIGO BAY
 CHAPTER IX A VANISHED CONTINENT
 CHAPTER X THE SUBMARINE COAL-MINES
 CHAPTER XI THE SARGASSO SEA
 CHAPTER XII CACHALOTS AND WHALES
 CHAPTER XIII THE ICEBERG
 CHAPTER XIV THE SOUTH POLE
 CHAPTER XV ACCIDENT OR INCIDENT?
 CHAPTER XVI WANT OF AIR
 CHAPTER XVII FROM CAPE HORN TO THE AMAZON
 CHAPTER XVIII THE POULPS
 CHAPTER XIX THE GULF STREAM
 CHAPTER XX FROM LATITUDE 47° 24′ TO LONGITUDE 17° 28′
 CHAPTER XXI A HECATOMB
 CHAPTER XXII THE LAST WORDS OF CAPTAIN NEMO
 CHAPTER XXIII CONCLUSION

List of Illustrations

 An old grey-bearded gunner . . . .
 Captain Nemo's state-room
 Captain Nemo took the Sun's altitude
 I was ready to set out
 Conseil seized his gun
 All fell on their knees in an attitude of prayer
 A terrible combat began
 "A man! A shipwrecked sailor!" I cried
 The _Nautilus_ was floating near a mountain
 The _Nautilus_ was blocked up
 One of these long arms glided through the opening
 The unfortunate vessel sank more rapidly

PART ONE

CHAPTER I
A SHIFTING REEF

The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and
puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to
mention rumours which agitated the maritime population and excited the
public mind, even in the interior of continents, seafaring men were
particularly excited. Merchants, common sailors, captains of vessels,
skippers, both of Europe and America, naval officers of all countries,
and the Governments of several states on the two continents, were
deeply interested in the matter.

For some time past, vessels had been met by "an enormous thing," a long
object, spindle-shaped, occasionally phosphorescent, and infinitely
larger and more rapid in its movements than a whale.

The facts relating to this apparition (entered in various log-books)
agreed in most respects as to the shape of the object or creature in
question, the untiring rapidity of its movements, its surprising power
of locomotion, and the peculiar life with which it seemed endowed. If
it was a cetacean, it surpassed in size all those hitherto classified
in science. Taking into consideration the mean of observations made at
divers times,-rejecting the timid estimate of those who assigned to
this object a length of two hundred feet, equally with the exaggerated
opinions which set it down as a mile in width and three in length,-we
might fairly conclude that this mysterious being surpassed greatly all
dimensions admitted by the ichthyologists of the day, if it existed at
all. And that it _did_ exist was an undeniable fact; and, with that
tendency which disposes the human mind in favour of the marvellous, we
can understand the excitement produced in the entire world by this
supernatural apparition. As to classing it in the list of fables, the
idea was out of the question.

On the 20th of July, 1866, the steamer _Governor Higginson_, of the
Calcutta and Burnach Steam Navigation Company, had met this moving mass
five miles off the east coast of Australia. Captain Baker thought at
first that he was in the presence of an unknown sandbank; he even
prepared to determine its exact position, when two columns of water,
projected by the inexplicable object, shot with a hissing noise a
hundred and fifty feet up into the air. Now, unless the sandbank had
been submitted to the intermittent eruption of a geyser, the _Governor
Higginson_ had to do neither more nor less than with an aquatic mammal,
unknown till then, which threw up from its blow-holes columns of water
mixed with air and vapour.

Similar facts were observed on the 23rd of July in the same year, in
the Pacific Ocean, by the _Columbus_, of the West India and Pacific
Steam Navigation Company. But this extraordinary cetaceous creature
could transport itself from one place to another with surprising
velocity; as, in an interval of three days, the _Governor Higginson_
and the _Columbus_ had observed it at two different points of the
chart, separated by a distance of more than seven hundred nautical
leagues.

Fifteen days later, two thousand miles farther off, the _Helvetia_, of
the Compagnie-Nationale, and the _Shannon_, of the Royal Mail Steamship
Company, sailing to windward in that portion of the Atlantic lying
between the United States and Europe, respectively signalled the
monster to each other in 42° 15′ N. lat. and 60° 35′ W. long. In these
simultaneous observations they thought themselves justified in
estimating the minimum length of the mammal at more than three hundred
and fifty feet, as the _Shannon_ and _Helvetia_ were of smaller
dimensions than it, though they measured three hundred feet over all.

Now the largest whales, those which frequent those parts of the sea
round the Aleutian, Kulammak, and Umgullich islands, have never
exceeded the length of sixty yards, if they attain that.

These reports arriving one after the other, with fresh observations
made on board the transatlantic ship _Pereire_, a collision which
occurred between the _Etna_ of the Inman line and the monster, a
_procès verbal_ d

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