Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (14 page)

“It is marvelous! and I see, captain, you were right to make use of this agent that takes the place of wind, water, and steam.”

“We have not finished, M. Aronnax,” said Captain Nemo, rising; “if you will follow me, we will examine the stern of the
Nautilus.”

Really, I knew already the anterior part of this submarine boat, of which this is the exact division, starting from the ship’s head: the dining-room, five yards long, separated from the library by a water-tight partition; the library, five yards long; the large drawing-room, ten yards long, separated from the captain’s room by a second water-tight partition; the said room, five yards in length; mine, two and half yards; and lastly, a reservoir of air, seven and a half yards, that extended to the bows. Total length thirty-five yards, or one hundred and five feet. The partitions had doors that were shut hermetically by means of India-rubber instruments, and they insured the safety of the
Nautilus
in case of a leak.

I followed Captain Nemo through the waist, and arrived at the center of the boat. There was a sort of well that opened between two partitions. An iron ladder, fastened with an iron hook to the partition, led to the upper end. I asked the captain what the ladder was used for.

“It leads to the small boat,” he said.

“What! Have you a boat?” I exclaimed, in surprise.

“Of course; an excellent vessel, light and insubmersible, that

serves either as a fishing or as a pleasure boat.”

“But then, when you wish to embark, you are obliged to come to the surface of the water?”

“Not at all. This boat is attached to the upper part of the hull of the
Nautilus,
and occupies a cavity made for it. It is decked, quite water-tight, and held together by solid bolts. This ladder leads to a man-hole made in the hull of the
Nautilus,
that corresponds with a similar hole made in the side of the boat. By this double opening I get into the small vessel. They shut the one belonging, to the
Nautilus
, I shut the other by means of screw pressure. I undo the bolts, and the little boat goes up to the surface of the sea with prodigious rapidity. I then open the panel of the bridge, carefully shut till then; I mast it, hoist my sail, take my oars, and I’m off.”

“But how do you get back on board?”

“I do not come back, M. Aronnax; the
Nautilus
comes to me.”

“By your orders?”

“By my orders. An electric thread connects us. I telegraph to it, and that is enough.”

“Really,” I said, astonished at these marvels, “nothing can be more simple.”

After having passed by the cage of the staircase that led to the platform, I saw a cabin six feet long, in which Conseil and Ned Land, enchanted with their repast, were devouring it with avidity. Then a door opened into a kitchen nine feet long, situated between the large storerooms. There electricity, better than gas itself, did all the cooking. The streams under the furnaces gave out to the sponges of platina a heat which was regularly kept up and distributed. They also heated a distilling apparatus, which, by evaporation, furnished excellent drinkable water. Near this kitchen was a bath-room comfortably furnished, with hot and cold water taps.

Next to the kitchen was the berth-room of the vessel, sixteen feet long. But the door was shut, and I could not see the management of it, which might have given me an idea of the number of men employed on board the
Nautilus.

At the bottom was a fourth partition, that separated this office from the engine-room. A door opened, and I found myself in the compartment where Captain Nemo—certainly an engineer of a very high order—had arranged his locomotive machinery. This engine-room, clearly lighted, did not measure less than sixty-five feet in length. It was divided into two parts; the first contained the materials for producing electricity, and the second the machinery that connected it with the screw. I examined it with great interest, in order to understand the machinery of the
Nautilus.

“You see,” said the captain, “I use Bunsen’s contrivances, not Ruhmkorff’s.
²¹
Those would not have been powerful enough. Bunsen’s are fewer in number, but strong and large, which experience proves to be the best. The electricity produced passes forward, where it works, by electro-magnets of great size, on a system of levers and cog-wheels that transmit the movement to the axle of the screw. This one, the diameter of which is nineteen feet, and the thread twenty-three feet, performs about a hundred and twenty revolutions in a second.”

“And you get then?”

“A speed of fifty miles an hour.”

“I have seen the
Nautilus
maneuver before the
Abraham Lincoln,
and I have my own ideas as to its speed. But this is not enough. We must see where we go. We must be able to direct it to the right, to the left, above, below. How do you get to the great depths, where you find an increasing resistance, which is rated by hundreds of atmospheres? How do you return to the surface of the ocean? And how do you maintain yourselves in the requisite medium? Am I asking too much?”

“Not at all, professor,” replied the captain with some hesitation; “since you may never leave this submarine boat. Come into the saloon; it is our usual study, and there you will learn all you want to know about the
Nautilus.”

A MOMENT AFTER WE were seated on a divan in the saloon smoking. The captain showed me a sketch that gave the plan, section, and elevation of the
Nautilus.
Then he began his description in these words:

“Here, M. Aronnax, are the several dimensions of the boat you are in. It is an elongated cylinder with conical ends. It is very like a cigar in shape, a shape already adopted in London in several constructions of the same sort. The length of this cylinder, from stem to stern, is exactly 232 feet, and its maximum breadth is twenty-six feet. It is not built quite like your long-voyage steamers, but its lines are sufficiently long, and its curves prolonged enough, to allow the water to slide off easily, and oppose no obstacle to its passage. These two dimensions enable you to obtain by a simple calculation the surface and cubic contents of the
Nautilus.
Its area measures 6,032 feet; and its contents about 1,500 cubic yards; that is to say, when completely immersed it displaces 50,000 feet of water, or weighs 1,500 tons.

“When I made the plans for this submarine vessel, I meant that nine-tenths should be submerged; consequently, it ought only to displace nine-tenths of its bulk, that is to say, only to weigh that number of tons. I ought not, therefore, to have exceeded that weight, constructing it on the aforesaid dimensions.

“The
Nautilus
is composed of two hulls, one inside, the other outside, joined by T-shaped irons, which render it very strong. Indeed, owing to this cellular arrangement it resists like a block, as if it were solid. Its sides cannot yield; it coheres spontaneously, and not by the closeness of its rivets; and the homogeneity of its construction, due to the perfect union of the materials, enables it to defy the roughest seas.

“These two hulls are composed of steel plates, whose density is from .07 to .08 that of water.
²²
The first is not less than two inches and a half thick, and weighs 394 tons. The second envelope, the keel, twenty inches high and ten thick, weighs alone sixty-two tons. The engine, the ballast, the several accessories and apparatus appendages, the partitions and bulkheads, weigh 961.62 tons. Do you follow all this?”

“I do.”

“Then, when the
Nautilus
is afloat under these circumstances, one-tenth is out of the water. Now, if I have made reservoirs of a size equal to this tenth, or capable of holding 150 tons, and if I fill them with water, the boat, weighing then 1,507 tons, will be completely immersed. That would happen, professor. These reservoirs are in the lower parts of the
Nautilus.
I turn on taps and they fill, and the vessel sinks that had just been level with the surface.”

“Well, captain, but now we come to the real difficulty. I can understand your rising to the surface; but diving below the surface, does not your submarine contrivance encounter a pressure, and consequently undergo an upward thrust of one atmosphere for every thirty feet of water, just about fifteen pounds per square inch?”

“Just so, sir.”

“Then unless you quite fill the
Nautilus,
I do not see how you can draw it down to those depths.”

“Professor, you must not confound statics with dynamics, or you will be exposed to grave errors. There is very little labor spent in attaining the lower regions of the ocean, for all bodies have a tendency to sink. When I wanted to find out the necessary increase of weight required to sink the
Nautilus,
I had only to calculate the reduction of volume that sea-water acquires according to the depth.”

“That is evident.”

“Now, if water is not absolutely incompressible, it is at least capable of very slight compression. Indeed, after the most recent calculations this reduction is only 0.000436 of an atmosphere for each thirty feet of depth. If we want to sink 3,000 feet, I should keep account of the reduction of bulk under a pressure equal to that of a column of water of a thousand feet. The calculation is easily verified. Now, I have supplementary reservoirs capable of holding a hundred tons. Therefore I can sink to a considerable depth. When I wish to rise to the level of the sea, I only let off the water, and empty all the reservoirs if I want the
Nautilus
to emerge from the tenth part of her total capacity.

I had nothing to object to these reasonings.

“I admit your calculations, captain,” I replied, “I should be wrong to dispute them since daily experience confirms them; but I foresee a real difficulty in the way.”

“What, sir?”

“When you are about 1,000 feet deep, the walls of the
Nautilus
bear a pressure of 100 atmospheres. If, then, just now you were to empty the supplementary reservoirs, to lighten the vessel, and to go up to the surface, the pumps must overcome the pressure of 100 atmospheres, which is 1,500 lbs. per square inch. From that a power ”

“That electricity alone can give,” said the captain hastily. “I repeat, sir, that the dynamic power of my engines is almost infinite. The pumps of the
Nautilus
have an enormous power, as you must have observed when their jets of water burst like a torrent upon the
Abraham Lincoln.
Besides, I use subsidiary reservoirs only to attain a mean depth of 750 to 1,000 fathoms, and that with a view of managing my machines. Also, when I have a mind to visit the depths of the ocean five or six miles below the surface, I make use of slower but not less infallible means.”

“What are they, captain?”

“That involves my telling you how the
Nautilus
is worked.”

“I am impatient to learn.”

“To steer this boat to starboard or port, to turn, in a word, following a horizontal plan, I use an ordinary rudder fixed on the back of the stern post, and with one wheel and some tackle to steer by. But I can also make the
Nautilus
rise and sink, and sink and rise, by a vertical movement by means of two inclined planes fastened to its sides, opposite the center of flotation, planes that move in every direction, and that are worked by powerful levers from the interior. If the planes are kept parallel with the boat, it moves horizontally. If slanted, the
Nautilus,
according to this inclination, and under the influence of the screw, either sinks diagonally or rises diagonally as it suits me. And even if I wish to rise more quickly to the surface, I ship the screw, and the pressure of the water causes the
Nautilus
to rise vertically like a balloon filled with hydrogen.”

“Bravo, captain! But how can the steersman follow the route in the middle of the waters?”

“The steersman is placed in a glazed box, that is raised above the hull of the
Nautilus,
and furnished with lenses.”

“Are these lenses capable of resisting such pressure?”

“Perfectly. Glass, which breaks at a blow, is, nevertheless, capable of offering considerable resistance. During some experiments of fishing by electric light in 1864 in the Northern Seas, we saw plates less than a third of an inch thick resist a pressure of sixteen atmospheres. Now, the glass that I use is not less than thirty times thicker.”

“Granted. But, after all, in order to see, the light must exceed the darkness, and in the midst of the darkness in the water, how can you see?”

“Behind the steersman’s cage is placed a powerful electric reflector, the rays from which light up the sea for half a mile in front.”

“Ah! bravo, bravo, captain! Now I can account for this phosphorescence in the supposed narwhal that puzzled us so. I now ask you if the boarding of the
Nautilus
and of the
Scotia,
that has made such a noise, has been the result of a chance rencounter?”

“Quite accidental, sir. I was sailing only one fathom below the surface of the water when the shock came. It had no bad result.”

“None, sir. But now, about your rencounter with the
Abraham Lincoln?”

“Professor, I am sorry for one of the best vessels in the American navy; but they attacked me, and I was bound to defend myself. I contented myself, however, with putting the frigate
hors de combat:
she will not have any difficulty in getting repaired at the next port.”

“Ah, commander! your
Nautilus
is certainly a marvelous boat.”

“Yes, professor; and I love it as if it were part of myself. If danger threatens one of your vessels on the ocean, the first impression is the feeling of an abyss above and below. On the
Nautilus,
men’s hearts never fail them. No defects to be afraid of, for the double shell is as firm as iron; no rigging to attend to; no sails for the wind to carry away; no boilers to burst; no fire to fear, for the vessel is made of iron, not of wood; no coal to run short, for electricity is the only mechanical agent; no collision to fear, for it alone swims in deep water; no tempest to brave, for when it dives below the water, it reaches absolute tranquillity. There, sir! that is the perfection of vessels! And if it is true that the engineer has more confidence in the vessel than the builder, and the builder than the captain himself, you understand the trust I repose in my
Nautilus;
for I am at once captain, builder, and engineer.”