Chapter 18 Chapter Eighteen Four Thousand Miles Under the Pacific Ocean

The next day, November 18th, yesterday's fatigue completely subsided, and I went to the platform. The officer of the Nautilus was at this moment saying what he must say every day.So I thought to myself, this sentence has something to do with the situation on the sea surface, or it means: "We can't see anything." At this time, there was nothing on the ocean.Not a single boat in the sky.The heights of Crespo Island were gone during the night.The ocean absorbed all the other colors separated by the prism, and reflected only the blue in all directions, taking on a very nice indigo.It was like a wide-striped sky-blue woolen cloth spread out regularly on the cascading waves.

I was enjoying the beautiful view of the ocean when Captain Nemo came out.As if he didn't see that I cared about the stage, he began to make his series of astronomical observations.After a while, after finishing his observations, he leaned against the searchlight, his eyes fixed on the ocean. At the same time about twenty sailors of the Nautilus, all strong and strong men, came up on the platform to collect the nets that had been cast astern the night before.The sailors, though all appearing to be of European build, were evidently of different nationalities.I don't think I'm mistaken, I recognized Irishmen, Frenchmen, several Slavs, a Greek or a Cretan.These people, however, were not very talkative, and they used among themselves such a dialect that I could not even conjecture its origin.So I have no way to ask them, talk to them.

The nets were drawn aboard.The net was in the form of a bag, similar to that used off the coast of Normandy, a wide bag, with the mouth of the net spread in the water by a floating cross-piece and a chain that strung the lower mesh.These pocket-like nets are hung on the iron frame and pulled behind the boat like a broom sweeping the bottom of the sea. Along the way, all the fish passing by are salvaged.On this day, we caught many novel types of fish, such as: sea frogfish. The movements of this fish are very funny, so it is called clownfish.The black popfish has many tentacles.Rippled swordfish have red markings surrounding them.Crescent-shaped Fu fish, this fish has extremely powerful venom.Several olive hagfish.Seal fish, this fish is covered with silvery white scales.Spiral hair fish, the power of this fish is equivalent to electric eel and electric fish.A scaly finfish, this fish has bronze horizontal stripes.Pale blue turtle fish.Several kinds of gobies etc.Finally there were the larger fish, a bulging-headed kangaroo, several beautiful carp a meter long, in sky blue and silver and white, and three magnificent tunas.No matter how fast they move, they can't escape the bag net and can't get away.

I estimate that this time the bag net caught more than one thousand catties of fish.A good result, but not particularly surprising.Because the net has been dragged behind the boat for several hours, all kinds of aquatic animals are naturally loaded into the net.We were therefore not short of food of good quality, and the speed of the Nautilus, with its electric attraction, kept catching fish. Immediately from the open panels these various marine animals are sent to the food store below, some to be eaten fresh and some to be preserved. The fishing was over, the air was changed, and I thought the Nautilus was about to go on an undersea voyage again; when I was about to go back to my cabin, Captain Nemo turned back to me, without any formality, and said to me directly:

"Look at this ocean, Professor, isn't it endowed with real life? Isn't it full of anger and tenderness? Yesterday it slept as peacefully as we do, and now, after a peaceful night, it's moving again." Don't say good morning, don't say good night!No one should think that this strange figure was now merely continuing a conversation which had already begun. "Look," he added, "it has come to life under the caress of the sun! It is about to live its day life again! It is a very interesting academic study to observe the changing effects of its organic life. It has Pulsating, vascular, undulating, I think the scientist Morley was right when he discovered that the ocean has a real circulation, just like the blood circulation in animals."

Of course Captain Nemo didn't wait for my answer, and I didn't think it would be of much use to say "of course" and "sure" and "you're right" to him.He spoke not so much to me as to himself, and he paused for quite a long time after each sentence.This is really a special form of meditation. "Yes," he said, "there is a real circulatory effect in the ocean, and it is only the Creator who adds heat, salt, and micro-organisms to the sea to cause it. It is heat that causes the different densities of There are many downstream and counter currents in the sea. The evaporation of water vapor, which is completely absent in the arctic regions, is very active in the equatorial regions, causing a perpetual communication between the tropical waters and the polar seas. In addition, I have noticed that those from top to bottom And the water flow from bottom to top forms the real ocean respiration. I saw the molecules of sea water, being heated on the surface of the water, sinking into the deep place of the roots. When it reaches minus two degrees, the density reaches the maximum, and then the temperature drops again. , it loses its weight, and rises again. You will see the results of this phenomenon at the polar circle, and you will learn that the reason why freezing occurs only on the surface of water is due to the far-sighted nature of this law."

When Captain Nemo finished his sentence, I said to myself: "The Polar Circle! Has this bold man been going to take us to the Polar Circle! But the captain was silent for the moment, his eyes fixed on the ocean which he was constantly studying.After a while he spoke again: "Professor, the amount of salt in seawater is extremely large. If you take out the salt dissolved in the sea, you can create a salt pile with a volume of 4.5 million cubic miles, which will spread all over the earth; It can be paved into a layer of skin that is about ten high. Don’t think that the presence of these salts in the sea is an unconscious and capricious behavior of nature! No. The salt quality makes the sea never easy to evaporate, so that the sea breeze cannot take away the excessive water vapor. Otherwise, the water vapor will be re-formed into water, and the temperate zone will be completely submerged. This is really a huge role, and it is a great role in regulating the power of the whole earth and keeping it in balance!"

Captain Nemo fell silent, stood up, took a few steps up the stage, and then came back to me.He said: "As for those native water bugs, there are hundreds of thousands of uncountable microorganisms in a drop of water, and there are 800,000 of them in a milligram of water, and their role is equally important. They absorb the salt in the sea , Digesting the solid matter in the water, they are the creators of the real calcareous continents, for they make the corals and the water! The drop, when its minerals are sucked away, becomes lighter and rises to the surface again When it comes up, it absorbs the salt discarded there due to evaporation on the water surface, becomes heavier again, and sinks, bringing new substances that can be absorbed by those microorganisms. Therefore, an endless cycle of ups and downs occurs, forever It is incessant motion, ever incessant life. The life force, stronger than that on the land, develops more abundantly and infinitely in all parts of the sea. The sea, it is said, is a fatal place for man, but to Countless animals - and to me, it's where real life is!"

When Captain Nemo spoke in this way, his appearance was completely changed, which aroused a special mood in him.He added: "Therefore, there is real life in the ocean! I plan to build a city in the water, a collective underwater dwelling, like the Nautilus, which rises to the surface every morning to breathe. If it succeeds, it must be a free city, An independent city! However, who knows, there won't be some despotic demon kings..." Captain Nemo ended his sentence with a violent gesture.for a while.He came to me directly, as if to drive out some ominous thoughts, and asked: "Mr. Aronnax, do you know how deep the ocean is?"

"Captain, I know at least some of the main results of the bathymetry." "Can you show it to me so I can examine it if necessary?" "Here are some figures I can tell from memory," I replied. "If I remember correctly, the average depth of the North Atlantic is 8,200 meters, and that of the Mediterranean is 2,500 meters. In the South Atlantic, the South At the latitude of 35 degrees, we have made excellent survey results, some of which are 12,000 meters, some of which are 14,091 meters, and some of which are 15,149 meters. According to general estimates, if the seabed is averaged, its average depth may be about seven kilometers."

"Well, Professor," replied Captain Nemo, "I hope we can give you some more exact figures.That is, the part of the Pacific Ocean where we are currently located has an average depth of only four kilometers. " After saying this, Captain Nemo walked towards the panel, went down the iron ladder and disappeared.I followed him down, and I went back into the living room.The thrusters started immediately, and the odometer indicated a speed of twenty knots per hour. Days and weeks passed, and Captain Nemo rarely visited.I also only saw him on very rare occasions.His lieutenant came in time to record the route, and recorded it on the chart one by one, so that I could understand exactly the route the Nautilus took. Conseil and Ned Land talked with me for a long time.Conseil told his friend of the novelty we had seen during our walks under the sea, and the Canadian regretted that he had not gone with us.But I hope to have the opportunity to visit the underwater forest in the future.The parlor panels were opened for hours almost every day, and our eyes were never tired of watching the mysteries of the underwater world. The general direction the Nautilus traveled was southeast, and its depth was always kept between one hundred and one hundred and fifty meters.But one day, I don't know why, it used those two slant planes and dived along the slant line until it reached a depth of 2,000 meters.The thermometer was pointing at 4.25 degrees Celsius, as if in water of this depth, the temperature was the same no matter where it was located: at three o'clock in the morning on the 26th, the Nautilus crossed the 172 degrees west longitude. Tropic of Cancer. 27H, it can see the Hawaiian Islands in the distance, which is the place where the famous navigator Cook was killed on February 14, 1779.We have traveled four thousand eight hundred and sixty miles since we set out.This morning, when I went up to the platform, I saw the island of Hawaii, the largest of the seven islands that make up the archipelago, about two miles downhill.I can clearly see the edge of its developed area, the various mountain ranges parallel to the coastline and the volcanic group at an altitude of one thousand meters above sea level; The nets also caught peacock fan corals, beautiful flat polyps endemic to this part of the Pacific Ocean. " The Nautilus was still heading southeast. On December-January, it crossed the equator at longitude 142 degrees west; on the 4th, after a smooth and rapid drive, we sighted the Marquesas Islands.At a distance of three nautical miles, at latitude 8° 57' south and longitude 139° 32' west, I beheld Martin of Nukayiwa, the most important of the French Marqueses.All I could see were jungle-covered mountains on the horizon, and since Captain Nemo didn't like to come near land, I saw nothing else.In this area of ​​the sea, the fishing nets caught many beautiful fish.For example, Griffon fish, with its sky blue fins and golden tail, has extremely delicious meat.Naked fish, almost without scales, but delicious; gills with gills, black and yellow tarcha, better than carp; all these fish are worthy of human consumption in the ship's mess room. After leaving these fascinating and beautiful islands protected by the French flag, from December 4th to 11th, the Nautilus traveled a total of about four thousand miles.This voyage encountered a large school of snapper squid, a curious mollusc resembling a cuttlefish.French fishermen call them water wasps, and they belong to the cephalopod class.Order Dibranchs, which includes anal fishes and cuttlefish.These fishes, which were especially studied by the ancient biologists, provided many similes to the public orators of ancient Greece. There was also a delicious dish on Qian Minmin's dining table. It was during the night of December 9th and 10th that the Nautilus encountered a large group of nocturnal molluscs.Estimates put their number in the tens of millions.They move from temperate regions to warmer waters, following the route taken by whitefish and sardines.Through very thick clear glass we see them backwards, swimming with extreme rapidity, turning with their motor canals, chasing fish and molluscs, eating small fish, or being eaten by larger ones.They scratched and crawled indescribably with the ten legs and feet that were born on their heads, like a snake-shaped blowing pipe played by a child.The Nautilus, however fast it went, walked for hours among the great herds, and the nets caught innumerable numbers of these snapping squid, of which I saw nine Pacific species classified by Albini . It has been observed that during this voyage the ocean has continually set forth all its wonders, and that its constant changes of scenery and scenes have delighted our eyes, and we are not only drawn to observe creation in the sea. The author's work, but also to understand the most amazing secrets under the ocean. On December 11th, I spent the whole day in the living room reading a book.Ned Land and Conseil gazed at the bright water through the open panels.The Nautilus came to a standstill.Its reservoirs are filled with water.It's at a depth of a thousand meters, an area of ​​the ocean that is rarely inhabited by life, except for the occasional presence of large fish. I was reading an interesting book by Jean Massy at the time——The Regulator of the Stomach. While I was enjoying the wonderful teachings in the book, I was interrupted by Conseil's voice. "Would you please come, sir?" He said to me in a surprised voice. "What's the matter, Conseil? "Come and see, sir." I stood up, I leaned against the glass, I watched. In the light of the lightning, I saw a huge black mass, motionless, hanging in the middle of the water.I observed it with great attention, trying to identify the nature of this gigantic fish.But suddenly he woke up in his heart and shouted: "A boat!" "Yes," replied the Canadian, "a wrecked ship on a rock!" Ned Land was not mistaken.In front of us was a ship with the broken shrouds still hanging on the chains, and the hull looked all right, the ship sank only a few hours ago.Three broken masts were cut from two feet above the deck, showing that the wrecked ship had had to sacrifice the mast walls.But the ship was lying on its side, very full inside, and was heeling to port.Miserable indeed was the sight of this fallen wreck on the waves; and what was still more dismal was the sight of corpses lying on the deck hanging from ropes!I saw four dead bodies--four men, one of them standing at the helm--and a woman standing on the stern lattice with a child in her arms.The woman is still young.Illuminated by the electric lights of the Nautilus, I could see her face, which had not yet been corroded by the sea.In a last desperate effort she lifted the child over her head, and the poor little creature was wrapping its little arms around its mother's neck!The pose of the four sailors struck me as very strange, for their bodies convulsed out of shape, and they made a last effort to free themselves from the ropes that bound them to the boat before they died.Only the helmsman, who watched the course, was calmer, with a clear and serious face, gray hair sticking to his forehead, and his convulsive hand on the steering wheel. He seemed to be still steering his shipwreck in the deep sea. Three-masted ship! What a scene!We were silent and could not make a sound. In the face of this real shipwreck accident, it can be said that in front of this scene of the shipwreck that was stopped at the last moment, our hearts beat violently!I saw some huge sharks again, eyes blazing.Attracted by this bait of human flesh, it has already swam forward! At this moment, the Nautilus moved forward and rounded the sunken ship, so I could see the name of the ship written on the plaque on the stern: USS Florida, Port Thandland.