Chapter 24 - Page 2

of exercise.

This well, or abyss, was a narrow cleft in the mass of the granite,called by geologists a 'fault,' and caused by the unequal cooling ofthe globe of the earth. If it had at one time been a passage foreruptive matter thrown out by Snæfell, I still could not understandwhy no trace was left of its passage. We kept going down a kind ofwinding staircase, which seemed almost to have been made by the handof man.

Every quarter of an hour we were obliged to halt, to take a littlenecessary repose and restore the action of our limbs. We then satdown upon a fragment of rock, and we talked as we ate and drank fromthe stream.

Of course, down this fault the Hansbach fell in a cascade, and lostsome of its volume; but there was enough and to spare to slake ourthirst. Besides, when the incline became more gentle, it would ofcourse resume its peaceable course. At this moment it reminded me ofmy worthy uncle, in his frequent fits of impatience and anger, whilebelow it ran with the calmness of the Icelandic hunter.

On the 6th and 7th of July we kept following the spiral curves ofthis singular well, penetrating in actual distance no more than twoleagues; but being carried to a depth of five leagues below the levelof the sea. But on the 8th, about noon, the fault took, towards thesouth-east, a much gentler slope, one of about forty-five degrees.

Then the road became monotonously easy. It could not be otherwise,for there was no landscape to vary the stages of our journey.

On Wednesday, the 15th, we were seven leagues underground, and hadtravelled fifty leagues away from Snæfell. Although we were tired,our health was perfect, and the medicine chest had not yet hadoccasion to be opened.

My uncle noted every hour the indications of the compass, thechronometer, the aneroid, and the thermometer the very same which hehas published in his scientific report of our journey. It wastherefore not difficult to know exactly our whereabouts. When he toldme that we had gone fifty leagues horizontally, I could not repressan exclamation of astonishment, at the thought that we had now longleft Iceland behind us.

"What is the matter?" he cried.

"I was reflecting that if your calculations are correct we are nolonger under Iceland."

"Do you think so?"

"I am not mistaken," I said, and examining the map, I added, "We havepassed Cape Portland, and those fifty leagues bring us under the wideexpanse of ocean."

"Under the sea," my uncle repeated, rubbing his hands with delight.

"Can it be?" I said. "Is the ocean spread above our heads?"

"Of course, Axel. What can be more natural? At Newcastle are therenot coal mines extending far under the sea?"

It was all very well for the Professor to call this so simple, but Icould not feel quite easy at the thought that the boundless ocean wasrolling over my head. And yet it