Chapter 6 Chapter VI Debate

After hearing these words, I trembled all over.Yet I remained outwardly composed.I know that scientific debate alone can influence Professor Liedenbrock—yes, I can use very strong scientific debate to show that such travel is impossible.To the center of the earth!What a crazy idea!But I reserve my offense and go to the dining room first. I will not repeat my uncle's curse for not seeing any food readily available.But then it worked out—Marta was free and ran to the market, she arranged so well that our hunger was gone in an hour. At dinner my uncle was jovial; he made some harmless and scholarly jokes.After dinner he made a sign for me to follow him to his studio.I obeyed.He sat at one end of the desk and I sat at the other.

"Axel," he said softly, "you are a very clever boy, and you did me a great favor just when I was racking my brains and thinking that there was no hope and I wanted to give up. Know how much I will waste! I will never forget, child, that you will share with me the glory we are about to have." "Well!" thought I, "he's looking amiable now; it's a good time to talk to him about his so-called glory." "Above all," resumed the uncle, "I insist on absolute secrecy, you know? I have many rivals who would love to make such a trip, but will only let them know when our trip is successful. "

"Do you think," I asked, "that many people really want to take that risk?" "Of course! Who would hesitate to receive such an honor? If this document is made public, there will be a large number of geologists immediately wanting to track down Arne Saconusan!" "I'm not sure of that, Uncle, because I doubt whether the document is authentic." "What! I found it from that book!" "I also believe that those words were written by Saconusan, but that doesn't mean he actually made the trip—isn't it all a sham?" The last sentence is so presumptuous that I almost regret saying it.The professor's bushy brow furrowed.I worry that this conversation will turn unpleasant.But fortunately, there was nothing.A slight smile played on the lips of my stern interlocutor, who answered me: "We shall find out later."

"Ah!" I said hesitantly, "but I have other opinions that differ from yours on this document, please allow me to express it." "Speak, boy, it's all right. You can express your opinions. From now on, I will no longer regard you as my nephew, but as my colleague. Speak." "Well, I first need to know the meaning of Yao Ke, Snaef, and Skadanlis; I have never heard any of these three words." "Of course. I was lucky enough to get a Leipzig-made world map recently from a friend of mine, Petermann. This map can help us. You put the zigzag on the fourth shelf in the second room of the library. Give me the third map."

Following these instructions, I found the map I needed in no time.Uncle opened the map and said: "This is one of the best maps of Iceland in Anderson's collection, and I think it will solve your difficulties." I bent over to look at the map. "Look at these volcanoes," said my uncle, "note that they are all called Yaoke. The word means glacier. Iceland is at a high latitude, and most of the volcanic eruptions there take place in the ice, so the volcanoes on this island are called Be Yao Ke." "Oh," I replied, "what does Snaff mean, then?"

I thought that the question would not be answered, but I was wrong, and my uncle replied: "Look here: the west coast of Iceland. Do you see Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland? Yes! Well, look up these countless fjords along the sea-eroded coast, and note the latitude A little below sixty-five degrees, do you see anything?" "There is a peninsula that looks like a thin bone, ending in the shape of a huge kneecap." "That's a good analogy, my boy; do you see anything on this kneecap?" "I saw it, a mountain that seemed to reach out into the sea."

"Yes! This is Sniffer." "Snefer?" "That's it. This mountain is about five thousand feet high. It's one of the most famous mountains on this island--if its mouth can reach the center of the earth, it will indeed be the most famous on the earth." "But it's impossible!" I shouted, shrugging wearily. "How is it impossible? Can I ask?" the professor asked solemnly. "Because the hole must be full of burning lava, so—" "What if it is an extinct volcano? There are only three hundred active volcanoes at present; many are extinct volcanoes. Snaefer belongs to extinct volcanoes. According to records, there was only one eruption in total, which was the one in 1219; It's always been completely extinguished."

This affirmative argument left me speechless.I had to turn the topic to other questions about the document. "What does Skadanlis mean?" I asked, "and how does the month of July get in there?" My uncle considered it for a few minutes, giving me a fleeting gleam of hope, and then he replied: "What you think doubtful is a revelation to me. It proves that Saknusan has taught us a serious lesson with ingenuity and care. A notch, which the clever Icelander took advantage of, was the observation that towards the end of July, that is, towards the end of June, the shadow of one of the peaks of the mountain, Skadanlis, fell exactly on the on the notch (doubtless at noon). Could anything be more accurate and helpful? That way we would not have to hesitate which way to go when we reached the top of Snaefell."

Uncle evidently had the answer to everything.I knew it was impossible to stump him with the words written on the old parchment.So I stopped questioning him about it.Still, he had to be persuaded, so I turned to some scientific questions, which I think are more important than what has just been said. "Well," said I, "I have to agree with you. The words written by Saconusan are clear and there is nothing suspicious about them. I may even admit that the document appears to be entirely authentic. The scholar has indeed been to Snaefer; he has indeed seen the crater where the shadow of Skadanlis fell at the end of June; The hole in the center of the earth; as for surviving after going down, it is impossible, absolutely impossible!"

"Why is it impossible?" Uncle asked with a slight mocking tone. "Because according to all scientific theories, it can be proved that such a thing is impossible!" "Oh, can a scientific theory prove it? Bad trite theory, what a nuisance!" I found him teasing me, but I went on: "Yes, it is well known that the temperature rises by one degree Celsius for every seventy feet below, and if this remains true, and the radius of the earth is four thousand miles, the temperature at the center of the earth is about two million degrees. There Everything is like white-hot gas, for gold, platinum, and the hardest rocks are not resistant to such high temperatures. How do you think it is possible to get there?"

"Then it's just the temperature that worries you?" "Of course, we only need to go down thirty miles to reach the bottom of the earth's crust, because the temperature there is already over 1300 degrees." "Are you afraid of being melted?" "I'll let you decide that." I replied with a tantrum. "That's what I've decided," said the professor with airs of superiority. "Neither you nor anyone else knows what's going on inside the Earth. Because we've only gone through twelve thousandths of the Earth's radius, and yet we know, Scientific theories are constantly changing and improving. Before, didn’t people always believe that the temperature of the space between the stars was constantly decreasing? But today we already know that the temperature in the coldest region of the universe does not exceed minus 40 degrees or fifty degrees. So why not the same with the heat of the earth's interior? It may also reach a limit at a certain depth and never rise again, without reaching the melting point of the most refractory minerals." Since my uncle put the question in the realm of imagination, I have nothing to say. "I want to tell you that some scholars, including ones, have proved that if there is a heat of two million degrees in the interior of the earth, the white-hot gases produced from the molten matter will have an elastic force that the earth's crust cannot resist. , the earth's crust will explode like the shell of a boiler due to the action of steam." "That's just Poisson's opinion, uncle." "True, but other famous geologists also think that the interior of the earth is neither gas nor water, nor heavy rocks as we know it, because if so, the earth would be twice as light as it is now." "Ah! You can prove anything you want with numbers!" "But in fact, isn't it true, too, boy? Isn't the number of volcanoes ever decreasing? Why can't we conclude from this that, if there is heat in the earth's interior, it is also constantly decreasing?" "Uncle, if you talk about hypotheses, I won't discuss it with you any further." "But I must tell you that there are some very learned people who agree with me. Do you remember the visit I made in 1825 by the famous English chemist Humphry Davy?" "I can't remember any of it, because it was nineteen years before I was born." "Humphrey Davy came to see me when he was passing through Hamburg. We talked for a long time, and we also talked about the assumption that the earth's interior is liquid. We both thought that such a liquid could not exist. All we have On the grounds for which there is no scientific argument to refute it." "Why?" I asked a little surprised. "It is this kind of liquid that must be attracted by the moon like the ocean, so there will be two tides in the interior of the earth every day. The earth is tilted by the tides, which will cause periodic earthquakes!" "However, it is obvious that the surface of the earth was burned, and then the outer crust cooled first, while the interior contained heat." "That's wrong," replied my uncle, "that's the surface of the earth, which is heated by oxidation. Most of this crust is made up of certain metals, such as sodium and potassium, which, when they come into contact with air and water, are It can start a fire; when it rains, it starts a fire, and when the water passes through the cracks in the earth's crust, the earth's surface is further oxidized, causing explosions and volcanic eruptions. This is the reason why there were countless volcanoes on the earth in the early days. " "What a clever assumption!" I exclaimed, somewhat involuntarily. "This was proposed by Humphry Davy, who proved it by a very simple experiment. He made a metal ball and let water drop on a point on the ball. This part immediately expanded and formed a tower. The hill; the eruption also happened, and the whole ball became so hot that I couldn't handle it with my hands." I began to be swayed by the professor's debates, and with his usual energy and enthusiasm, he took his argument a step further. "You see, Axel," went on my uncle, "geologists have various hypotheses about the state of the earth's core; the claim that the core is hot has not been proven. As far as I can see, it is not It exists; it cannot exist; that we shall know later, and we shall find it out as well as Arne Saconusan." "Yes! We'll find out, we'll see for ourselves—if we can see things when we get there," I replied.I was a little bit as excited as he was. "Why not? There may be electrical phenomena there, and then there will be light, which will illuminate us, and even when it is close to the center of the earth, it can also use the effect of atmospheric pressure, and it can also emit light." "Yes, yes!" I said, "it is possible." "Of course it is possible!" my uncle concluded triumphantly, "but keep quiet, keep quiet about every point, and don't let anyone reach the center of the earth before us!"

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