Chapter 32 - Page 2

could have produced such plants, and what musthave been the appearance of the earth in the first ages of itsformation, when, under the action of heat and moisture, the vegetablekingdom alone was developing on its surface?

Evening came, and, as on the previous day, I perceived no change inthe luminous condition of the air. It was a constant condition, thepermanency of which might be relied upon.

After supper I laid myself down at the foot of the mast, and fellasleep in the midst of fantastic reveries.

Hans, keeping fast by the helm, let the raft run on, which, afterall, needed no steering, the wind blowing directly aft.

Since our departure from Port Gräuben, Professor Liedenbrock hadentrusted the log to my care; I was to register every observation,make entries of interesting phenomena, the direction of the wind, therate of sailing, the way we made - in a word, every particular of oursingular voyage.

I shall therefore reproduce here these daily notes, written, so tospeak, as the course of events directed, in order to furnish an exactnarrative of our passage.

_Friday, August 14_. - Wind steady, N.W. The raft makes rapid way ina direct line. Coast thirty leagues to leeward. Nothing in sightbefore us. Intensity of light the same. Weather fine; that is to say,that the clouds are flying high, are light, and bathed in a whiteatmosphere resembling silver in a state of fusion. Therm. 89° Fahr.

At noon Hans prepared a hook at the end of a line. He baited it witha small piece of meat and flung it into the sea. For two hoursnothing was caught. Are these waters, then, bare of inhabitants? No,there's a pull at the line. Hans draws it in and brings out astruggling fish.

"A sturgeon," I cried; "a small sturgeon."

The Professor eyes the creature attentively, and his opinion differsfrom mine.

The head of this fish was flat, but rounded in front, and theanterior part of its body was plated with bony, angular scales; ithad no teeth, its pectoral fins were large, and of tail there wasnone. The animal belonged to the same order as the sturgeon, butdiffered from that fish in many essential particulars. After a shortexamination my uncle pronounced his opinion.

"This fish belongs to an extinct family, of which only fossil tracesare found in the devonian formations."

"What!" I cried. "Have we taken alive an inhabitant of the seas ofprimitive ages?"

"Yes; and you will observe that these fossil fishes have no identitywith any living species. To have in one's possession a livingspecimen is a happy event for a naturalist."

"But to what family does it belong?"

"It is of the order of ganoids, of the family of the cephalaspidae;and a species of pterichthys. But this one displays a peculiarityconfined to all fishes that inhabit subterranean waters. It is blind,and not only blind, but actually has no eyes at