The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne (beach read .txt) 📗

that part of Union Bay, which was not protected from the open sea, even by a sand bank, ships beaten by an east wind could not have found shelter.

By the perfect calm of the sea, with no shoals to disturb its waters, by its uniform color, with no tinge of yellow, and, finally, by the entire absence of reefs, they knew that this side was steep, and that here the ocean was fathoms deep. Behind them, in the west, at a distance of about four miles, they saw the beginning of the Forests of the Far West. They could almost have believed themselves upon some desolate island in the Antarctic regions surrounded by ice.

The party halted here for breakfast; a fire of brushwood and seaweed was lighted, and Neb prepared the meal of cold meat, to which he added some cups of Oswego tea. While eating they looked around them. This side of Lincoln island was indeed barren, and presented a strong contrast to the western part.

The reporter thought that if the castaways had been thrown upon this coast, they would have had a very melancholy impression of their future home.

“I do not believe we could even have reached it,” said the engineer, “for the sea is very deep here, and there is not even a rock which would have served as a refuge; before Granite House there were shoals, at least, and a little island which multiplied our chances of safety; here is only the bottomless sea.”

“It is curious enough,” said Spilett, “that this island, relatively so small, presents so varied a soil. This diversity of appearance belongs, logically, only to continents of a considerable area. One would really think that the western side of Lincoln Island, so rich and fertile, was washed by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and that the northern and southern coasts extended into a sort of Arctic Sea.”

“You are right, my dear Spilett,” replied the engineer, “I have observed the same thing. I have found this island curious both in its shape and in its character. It has all the peculiarities of a continent, and I would not be surprised if it had been a continent formerly.”

“What! a continent in the middle of the Pacific!” cried Pencroff.

“Why not?” answered Smith. “Why should not Australia, New Ireland, all that the English geographers call Australasia, joined to the Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean, have formed in times past a sixth part of the world as important as Europe or Asia, Africa or the two Americas. My mind does not refuse to admit that all the islands rising from this vast ocean are the mountains of a continent now engulfed, but which formerly rose majestically from these waters.”

“Like Atlantis?” asked Herbert.

“Yes, my boy, if that ever existed.”

“And Lincoln Island may have been a part of this continent?” asked Pencroff.

“It is probable,” replied Smith.

“And that would explain the diversity of products upon the surface, and the number of animals which still live here,” added Herbert.

“Yes, my boy,” answered the engineer, “and that gives me a new argument in support of my theory. It is certain after what we have seen that the animals in the island are numerous, and what is more curious, is that the species are extremely varied. There must be a reason for this, and mine is that Lincoln Island was formerly a part of some vast continent, which has, little by little, sunk beneath the surface of the Pacific.”

“Then,” said Pencroff, who did not seem entirely convinced, “what remains of this old continent may disappear in its turn and leave nothing between America and Asia.”

“Yes,” said Smith, “there will be new continents which millions upon millions of animalculæ are building at this moment.”

“And who are these masons?” inquired Pencroff.

“The coral insects,” answered Smith. “It is these who have built by their constant labor the Island of Clermont Tonnerre, the Atolls and many other coral islands which abound in the Pacific. It takes 47,000,000 of these insects to deposit one particle; and yet with the marine salt which they absorb, and the solid elements of the water which they assimilate, these animalculæ produce limestone, and limestone forms those enormous submarine structures whose hardness and solidity is equal to that of granite.

“Formerly, during the first epochs of creation, Nature employed heat to produce land by upheaval, but now she lets these microscopic insects replace this agent, whose dynamic power at the interior of this globe has evidently diminished. This fact is sufficiently proved by the great number of volcanoes actually extinct on the surface of the earth. I verily believe that century after century, and infusoria after infusoria will change the Pacific someday into a vast continent, which new generations will, in their turn, inhabit and civilize.”

“It will take a long time,” said Pencroff.

“Nature has time on her side,” replied the engineer.

“But what is the good of new continents?” asked Herbert.

“It seems to me that the present extent of habitable countries is enough for mankind. Now Nature does nothing in vain.”

“Nothing in vain, indeed,” replied the engineer; “but let us see how we can explain the necessity of new continents in the future, and precisely in these tropical regions occupied by these coral islands. Here is an explanation, which seems to me at least plausible.”

“We are listening, Mr. Smith,” replied Herbert.

“This is my idea: Scientists generally admit that someday the globe must come to an end, or rather the animal and vegetable life will be no longer possible, on account of the intense cold which will prevail. What they cannot agree upon is the cause of this cold. Some think that it will be produced by the cooling of the sun in the course of millions of years; others by the gradual extinction of the internal fires of our own globe, which have a more decided influence than is generally supposed. I hold to this last hypothesis, based upon the fact that the moon is without doubt a refrigerated planet, which is no longer