20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Жюль Верн
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The harpooner looked at me for some minutes before replying, struck his forehead with a gesture habitual to him, shut his eyes as if to collect himself, and said at last, –
‘Perhaps I have, M. Arronax.’
‘Yet you, Ned, are a whaler by profession. You are familiar with the great marine mammalia, and your imagination ought easily to accept the hypothesis of enormous cetaceans. You ought to be the last to doubt in such circumstances.’
‘That is what deceives you, sir,’ answered Ned. ‘It is not strange that common people should believe in extraordinary comets, or the existence of antediluvian monsters peopling the interior of the globe, but no astronomer or geologist would believe in such chimeras. The whaler is the same. I have pursued many cetaceans, harpooned a great number, and killed some few; but however powerful or well armed they were, neither their tails nor their defences could ever have made an incision in the iron plates of a steamer.’
‘Yet, Ned, it is said that ships have been bored through by the tusk of a narwhal.’
‘Wooden ships, perhaps,’ answered the Canadian, ‘though I have never seen it, and until I get proof to the contrary I deny that whales, cachalots, or sea-unicorns could produce such an effect.’
‘Listen to me, Ned.’
‘No, sir, no; anything you like but that – a gigantic poulp, perhaps?’
‘No, that can’t be. The poulp is only a mollusc; its flesh has no more consistency than its name indicates.’
‘Then you really do believe in this cetacean, sir?’ said Ned.
‘Yes, Ned. I repeat it with a conviction resting on the logic of facts. I believe in the existence of a mammal, powerfully organised, belonging to the branch of vertebrata, like whales, cachalots, and dolphins, and furnished with a horn tusk, of which the force of penetration is extreme.’
‘Hum!’ said the harpooner, shaking his head like a man who will not let himself be convinced.
‘Remark, my worthy Canadian,’ I continued, ‘if such an animal exists and inhabits the depths of the ocean, it necessarily possesses an organisation the strength of which would defy all comparison.’
‘Why must it have such an organisation?’ asked Ned.
‘Because it requires an incalculable strength to keep in such deep water and resist its pressure. Admitting that the pressure of the atmosphere is represented by that of a column of water thirty-two feet high. In reality the column of water would not be so high, as it is sea-water that is in question, and its density is greater than that of fresh water. When you dive, Ned, as many times thirty-two feet of water as there are above you, so many times does your body support a pressure equal to that of the atmosphere – that is to say, 15 lbs. for each square inch of its surface. It hence follows that at 320 feet this pressure equals that of 10 atmospheres; at 3200 feet, 100 atmospheres; and at 32,000 feet, 1000 atmospheres – that is, about six and a half miles, which is equivalent to saying that if you can reach this depth in the ocean, each square inch of the surface of your body would bear a pressure of 14,933 1/3 lbs. Do you know how many square inches you have on the surface of your body?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘About 6500; and as in reality the atmospheric pressure is about 15 lbs. to the square inch, your 6500 square inches support at this minute a pressure of 97,000 lbs.’
‘Without my perceiving it?’
‘Yes; and if you are not crushed by such a pressure, it is because the air penetrates the interior of your body with equal pressure, and there is a perfect equilibrium between the interior and exterior pressure, which thus neutralise each other, and allow you to bear it without inconvenience. But it is another thing in water.’
‘Yes, I understand,’ answered Ned, becoming more attentive, ‘because I am in water, but it is not in me.’
‘Precisely, Ned; so that at 32 feet below the surface of the sea you would undergo a pressure of 97,500 lbs.; at 320 feet, 975,000 lbs.; and at 32,000 feet the pressure would be 97,500,000 lbs. – that is to say, you would be crushed as flat as a pancake.’
‘The devil!’ exclaimed Ned.
‘If vertebrata can maintain themselves in such depths, especially those whose surface is represented by millions of square inches, it is by hundreds of millions of pounds we must estimate the pressure they bear. Calculate, then, what must be the resistance of their bony structure and the strength of their organisation to withstand such a pressure.’
‘They must be made of iron plate eight inches thick, like the ironclads!’ said Ned.
‘Yes, and think what destruction such a mass could cause if hurled with the speed of an express against the hull of a ship.’
Ned would not give in.
‘Have I not convinced you?’ I said.
‘You have convinced me of one thing, sir, which is, that if such animals do exist at the bottom of the sea, they must be as strong as you say.’
‘But if they do not exist, Mr Obstinate, how do you account for the Scotia’s accident?’
‘Because it is—’ began Ned hesitatingly.
‘Go on!’
‘Because – it is not true!’ answered the Canadian, repeating, without knowing it, a celebrated answer of Arago.
But this answer proved the obstinacy of the harpooner and nothing else. That day I did not press him further. The accident to the Scotia was undeniable. The hole existed so really that they were obliged to stop it up, and I do not think that the existence of a hole can be more categorically demonstrated. Now the hole had not made itself, and since it had not been done by submarine rocks or submarine machines, it was certainly due to the perforating tool of an animal.
Now, in my opinion, and for all the reasons previously deduced, this animal belonged to the embranchment of the vertebrata, to the class of mammals, to the group of pisciforma, and, finally, to the order of cetaceans. As to the family in which it took rank, whale, cachalot, or dolphin, as to the genus of which it formed a part, as to the species in which it would be convenient to put it, that was a question to be elucidated subsequently. In order to solve it the unknown monster must be dissected; to dissect it, it must be taken, to take it, it must be harpooned – which was Ned Land’s business – to harpoon it, it must be seen – which was the crew’s business – and to see it, it must be encountered – which was the business of hazard.
The voyage of the Abraham Lincoln for some time was marked by no incident. At last a circumstance happened which showed off the wonderful skill of Ned Land and the confidence that might be placed in him.
On the 30th of June, the frigate, being then off the Falkland Islands, spoke some American whalers, who told us they had not met with the narwhal. But one of them, the captain of the Munroe, knowing that Ned Land was on board the Abraham Lincoln, asked for his help in capturing a whale they had in sight. Captain Farragut, desirous of seeing Ned Land at work, allowed him to go on board the Munroe, and fortune favoured our Canadian so well, that instead of one whale he harpooned two with a double blow, striking one right in the heart, and capturing the other after a pursuit of some minutes.
Certainly if the monster ever had Ned Land to deal with I would not bet in its favour.
On the 6th of July, about 3 p.m., we doubled, fifteen miles to the south, the solitary island to which some Dutch sailors gave the name of their native town, Cape Horn. The next day the frigate was in the Pacific.
‘Keep a sharp look-out!’ cried all the sailors.
Both eyes