menu_book Chapter 31

the sea of the sea of the sea chapter thirty one the mediterranean in forty eight hours the mediterranean your ideal blue sea to the greeks simply the sea to hebrews the great sea to romans mer nostrum bordered by orange trees aloes cactus and maritime pine trees perfumed with the scent of myrtle framed by rugged mountains saturated with clean transparent air but continuously under construction by fires in the earth this sea is a genuine battlefield where neptune and pluto still struggle for world domination here on these beaches and waters says the french historian michelet a man is revived by one of the most invigorating climates in the world but as beautiful as it was i could only get a quick look at this basin whose surface area comprises two million square kilometers even captain nemo's personal insights were denying me because that mystifying individual didn't appear one single time during our high-speed crossing i estimate that the nautilus covered a track of some six hundred leagues under the waves of the sea and this voyage was accomplished in just twenty-four hours times two

departing from the waterways of greece on the morning of february sixteenth we clear the strait of gibraltar by sunrise on the eighteenth it was obvious to me that this mediterranean pinned in the middle of those shores he wanted to avoid gave captain nemo no pleasure its waves and breezes brought back too many memories if not too many regrets here he no longer had the ease of movement and freedom of maneuver that the oceans allowed him and his nautilus felt cramped so close to the coast of both africa and europe accordingly our speed was twenty-five miles that is twelve four kilometer leagues per hour needless to say ned land had to give up his escape plans much to his distress swept along at the rate of twelve to thirteen meters per second he could hardly make use of the skiff leaving the nautilus under these conditions would have been like jumping off a train racing at this speed a rash move if there ever was one moreover to renew our air supply the submersible rose to the surface of the waves only at night and relying solely on compass and log it steered by dead reckoning inside the mediterranean then i could catch no more of its fast-passing scenery than a traveller might see from an express train in other words i could view only the distant horizons because the foregrounds flashed by like lightning

but koncel and i were able to observe these mediterranean fish whose powerful fins kept pace for a while in the nautilus's water we stayed on watch before the lounge windows and our notes enabled me to reconstruct in a few words the icithology of this sea among the various fish inhabiting it some i viewed others i glimpsed and the rest i missed completely because of the nautilus's speed kindly allow me to sort them out using this whimsical system of classification it will at least convey the quickness of my observations in the midst of the watery mass brightly lit by electric beams there snaked past those one metre lamfreys that are common to nearly every clime a type of ray from the genesis oxyrhynchus five feet wide had a white belly with a spotted ash-gray back and was carried along by the currents like a huge wide-open shawl other rays passed by so quickly i couldn't tell if they deserved that name eagle ray coined by the ancient greeks or those designations of rat ray bat ray and toad ray that modern fishermen have inflicted on them

dog-fish known as topes twelve feet long and especially feared by divers were racing with each other looking like big bluish shadows thresher sharks went by eight feet long and gifted with an extremely acute sense of smell dorados from the genus sparrus some measuring up to thirteen decameters appeared in silver and azure costumes encircled with ribbons which contrasted with the dark color of their fins fish sacred to the goddess venus their eyes set in brows of gold a valuable species that patronizes all waters fresh or salt equally at home in rivers lakes and oceans living in every clime tolerating any temperature their line dating back to prehistoric times on this earth yet preserving all its beauty from those far-off days magnificent sturgeons nine to ten metres long and extremely fast bang their powerful tails against the glass of our panels showing bluish blacks with small brown spots they resemble sharks without equalling their strength and are encountered in every sea in the spring they delight in swimming up the great rivers fighting the currents of the volga danube po rhine loire and odare

while feeding on herring mackerel salmon and codfish although they belong to the class of cartilaginous fish they rate as a delicacy they are eaten fresh dried marinated or salt preserved and in olden times they were born in triumph to the table of the roman epicure but whatever the nautilus drew near the surface these denizens of the mediterranean i could observe most productively belonged to the sixty-third genus of bony fish these were tuna from the genus blue-black on top silver on the belly armor their dorsal stripes giving off a golden gleam they are said to follow ships in search of refreshing shade from the hot tropical sun and they did just that with the nautilus as they had once done with the vessels of the count de la for long hours they competed in speed with our submersible i couldn't stop marvelling at these animals so perfectly cut out for racing their heads small their bodies sleek spindle-shaped and in some cases over three metres long their pectoral fins gifted with remarkable strength their casual fins forked like certain flocks of birds whose speed they equal these tunas swim in triangular formation

which prompted the ancients to say they boned up on geometry and military strategy and yet they can't escape the provincial fishermen who prizes them as highly as did the ancient inhabitants of turkey and italy and these valuable animals as oblivious as if they were deaf and blind leap right into the marseilles tuna nets and perish by the thousands just for the record i'll mention those mediterranean fish that koncel and i barely glimpsed they were whitish eels of the species gemolitis fascisus that passed like elusive wisp of steam conjure eels three to four metres long that were tricked out in green blue and yellow three foot hockey with a liver that makes a dainty morsel wormfish drifting like thin sea-wood sea-robins that poets call lear fish and trimmed with filaments some shad spotted with black gray brown blue yellow and green that actually respond to tinkling hand-bells splendid diamond-shaped turbo that were like aquatic pheasants with yellowish fins stippled in brown and the left topside mostly marbled in brown and yellow

finely schools of wonderful red mullet real oceanic birds of paradise that ancient roadmands bought for as much as ten thousand siestres apiece and which they killed at the table so they could heartlessly watch it change color from cinnabar red when alive to pallid white when dead and as for other fish common to the atlantic and mediterranean i was unable to observe miralets trigger fish puffers sea-horses jewel fish trumpet fish blenies gray mullet wrasse smelt flying fish anchovies sea-bream porges gar fish or any of the cheap representatives of the order pleuronecta such as sole flounder place dab and brill simply because of the dizzying speed with which the nautilus hustled through these opulent waters as for marine mammals on passing by the mouth of the adriatic sea i thought i recognized two or three sperm whales equipped with a single dorsal fin denoting the genesis phyceter some pilot whales from the genesis globus cephalus exclusive to the mediterranean the fore part of the head striped with small distinct lines and also a dozen seals with white bellies and black coats known by the name monk seals and just as solemn as if they were three-metre dominicans

for his part koncel thought he spotted a turtle six feet wide and adorned with three protruding ridges that ran lengthwise i was sorry to miss this reptile because from koncel's description i believe i recognized the leather-backed turtle a pretty rare species for my part i noted only some loggerhead turtles with long carpaces as for zoo fights for a few moments i was able to marvel at a wonderful orange-hued hydra from the genesis galliolaria that clung to the glass of our port panel it consisted of a long lean filament that spread out into countless branches and ended in the most delicate lace ever spun by the followers of arcane unfortunately i couldn't fish up this wonderful specimen and surely no other mediterranean zoophytes would have been offered to my gaze if on the evening of the sixteenth the nautilus hadn't slowed down in an odd fashion this was the situation by then we were passing between sicily and the coast of tunisia in the cramped space between cape bone and the strait of messiana the sea bottom rises almost all at once it forms an actual ridge with only seventeen metres of water remaining above it while the depth on either side is a hundred and seventy metres

consequently the nautilus had to manoeuvre with caution so as not to bump into this under-water barrier i showed concel the position of this long reef on our chart of the mediterranean but with all due respect to master consel ventured to observe it's like an actual itmus connecting europe to africa yes my boy i replied it cuts across the whole strait of sicily and smith's soundings prove that in the past these two continents were genuinely connected between cape bowie and cape farina i can easily believe it consel said i might add i went on that there's a similar barrier between gibraltar and ceuta and in prehistoric times it closed off the mediterranean completely gracious consel put in suppose one day some volcanic upheaval raises these two barriers back above the waves that's most unlikely if master will allow me to finish i mean that if this phenomenon occurs it might prove distressing to mr de lesseps who has gone to such pains to cut through his

again but i repeat gonzel such a phenomenon won't occur the intensity of those underground forces continues to diminish volcanoes were quite numerous in the world's early days but they are going extinct one by one the heat inside the earth is growing weaker the temperature in the globe's lower strata is cooling appreciably every century and to our globe's detriment because its heat is its life but the sun-the sun isn't enough koncel can it restore heat to a corpse not that i've heard well my friend some day the earth will be just such a cold corpse like the moon which long ago lost its vital heat our globe will become lifeless and unlivable in how many centuries coincell asked in hundreds of thousands of years my boy then we have ample time to finish our voyage coincell replied if ned land doesn't mess things up thus reassured concel went back to studying the shallows that the nautilus was skimming at moderate speed on the rocky volcanic sea-floor there bloomed quite a collection of moving flora

sponges sea cucumbers jellyfish called sea gooseberries that were adorned with reddish tendrils and gave off a subtle phosphorescence members of the genus bireau that are commonly known by the name melon jellyfish and are bathed in the shimmer of the whole solar spectrum free swimming crinoids one metre wide that redden the waters with their crimson hue tree-like basket stars of the greatest beauty sea-fans from the genus pavonacea with long stems numerous edible sea-urchins of various species plus green sea anemones with a grayish trunk and a brown disc lost beneath the olive-colored tresses of their tentacles concile kept especially busy observing mollusks and articulates and although his catalogue is a little dry i wouldn't want to wrong the gallant lad by leaving out his personal observations from the branch mollusca he mentions numerous comb-shaped scallops hoof-like spiny oysters piled on top of each other triangular coquina three-pronged glass snails with yellow fins and transparent shells orange snails from the genus

pleurobranchis that look like eggs spotted or speckled with greenish dots members of the genus apulacea also known by the name sea-hairs other sea-hairs from the genus dolabella plump paper bubble shells umbrella shells exclusive to the mediterranean abalone whose shell produces a mother-of-pearl much in demand pilgrim scallops saddle shells that diners in the french province at languedoc are said to like better than oysters some of these cockle shells so dear to the citizens of marseilles fat white venous shells that are among the clams so abundant off the coast of north america and eaten in such quantities by new yorkers variously colored comb shells with gill covers burrowing date mussels with a peppery flavor i relish furrowed heart cockles whose shells have rib-like ridges on their arching summits triton shells pocked with scarlet bumps carney era snails with backward curving tips that make them resemble flimsy gondolas

crowned ferola snails atlanta snails with spiral shells gray nudibranches from the genesis tethys that were spotted with white and covered by fringe mantles nudibranches from the suborder elodia that looked like small slugs sea butterflies crawling on their backs sea shells from the genesis auricula including the oval-shaped auricula mysotis tan wintel trap snails common periwinkles violet snails cineraria snails rock borers ear shells capuchon snails pandora shells etc as for the articulates in his notes koncel has very appropriately divided them into six classes three of which belong to the marine world these classes are the crustacea syripedia and anilidia crustaceans are subdivided into nine orders and the first of these consists of the decapods in other words animals whose head and thorax are usually fused whose cheek and mouth mechanism is made up of several pairs of appendages and whose thorax has four five or six pairs of walking legs

concelles used the methods of our mentor professor milne edwards who puts the decapods in three divisions brachura macura and anumura these names may look a tad fierce but they are accurate and appropriate among the brachyra koncel mentioned some amanthea crabs whose fronts were armed with two big diverging tips those innocuous scorpions that lord knows why symbolize wisdom to the ancient greeks spider crabs of the massina and spinaumina varieties that had probably gone astray in these shallows because they usually live in the lower depths xanthied crabs pelumina crabs rhomboid crabs granular box crabs easy on the digestion as koncel ventured to observe toothless mast crabs ebelia crabs simipolia crabs woolly handed crabs etc among the mercura which are subdivided into five families hard shells burlers crayfish prawns and ghost crabs conciel mentions some common spiny lobsters whose females supply a meat highly prized

slippery lobsters or common shrimp waterside jebbia shrimp and all sorts of edible species but he says nothing of the crayfish subdivision that includes the true lobster because spiny lobsters are the only type in the mediterranean finally among the anomura he saw common drachna crabs dwelling inside whatever abandoned sea-shells they could take over homola crabs with spiny fronts hermit crabs hairy porcelain crabs etc there koncel's work came to a halt he didn't have time to finish off the class crustacea through an examination of its stomapoids amphiphoids homopoids isopoids trilobites branchiopods ostracods and entomastraceans and in order to complete his study of marine articulates he needed to mention the class serapedia which contains water-fleas and carp-lice plus the class anylidia which he would have divided without fail into tubifex worms and drossabranchian worms but having gone past the shallows of the strait of sicily the nautilus resumed its usual deep-water speed from then on no more mollusks no more zoophytes no more articulates just a few large fish swimming by like shadows

during the night of february sixteenth and seventeenth we entered the second mediterranean basin whose maximum death we found at three thousand metres the nautilus driven downward by its propeller and slanting fins descended to the lowest strata of this sea there in place of natural wonders the watery mass offered some thrilling and dreadful scenes to my eyes in essence we were then crossing that part of the whole mediterranean so fertile in casualties from the coast of algiers to the beaches of province how many ships have wrecked how many vessels have vanished compared to the vast liquid plains of the pacific the mediterranean is a mere lake but it's an unpredictable lake with fickle waves to-day kindly and affectionate to those frail single masters drifting between a double ultramarine of sky and water to-morrow bad-tempered and turbulent agitated by the winds demolishing the strongest ships beneath sudden waves that smash down with a headlong wallop so in our swift cruise through these deep strata how many vessels i saw lying on the sea-floor some already caked with coral others clad only in a layer of rust plus anchors cannons shells iron fittings propeller blades parts of engines cracked cylinders

staved in boilers then hulls floating in mid-water here upright there overturned some of these wrecked ships had perished in collisions others from hitting granite reefs i saw a few that had sunk straight down their mastings still upright their rigging stiffened by the water they looked like they were at anchor by some immense open off-shore mooring where they were waiting for their departure time when the nautilus passed between them covering them with sheets of electricity they seemed ready to salute us with their colors and send us their serial numbers but no nothing but silence and death filled this field of catastrophes i observed that these mediterranean depths became more and more cluttered with such gruesome wreckage as the nautilus drew nearer to the strait of gibraltar by then the shores of africa and europe were converging and in this narrow space collisions were commonplace there i saw numerous iron undersides the phantasmagoric ruins of steamers some lying down others rearing up like fearsome animals

one of these boats made a dreadful first impression sides torn open funneled bent paddle wheels stripped to the mountings rudder separated from the stern-post and still hanging from an iron chain the board on its stern eaten away by marine salts how many lives were dashed in this shipwreck how many victims were swept under the waves had some sailor on board lived to tell the story of this dreadful disaster or do the waves still keep this casualty a secret it occurred to me lord knows why that this boat buried under the sea might have been the atlas lost with all hands some twenty years ago and never heard from again oh what a gruesome tale these mediterranean depths could tell this huge bone-yard where so much wealth has been lost where so many victims have met their deaths meanwhile briskly unconcerned the nautilus ran at full propeller through the midst of these ruins on february eighteenth near three o'clock in the morning it hove before the entrance to the strait of gibraltar there are two currents here an upper current long known to exist that carries the ocean's water into the mediterranean basin then a lower counter current the only present-day proof of its existence being logic

in essence the mediterranean receives a continual influx of water not only from the atlantic but from rivers emptying into it since local evaporation isn't enough to restore the balance the total amount of added water should make the sea levels higher every year yet this isn't the case and we're naturally forced to believe in the existence of some lower current that carries the mediterranean surplus through the strait of gibraltar and into the atlantic basin and so it turned out the nautilus took full advantage of this counter-current it advanced swiftly through this narrow passageway for an instant i could glimpse the wonderful ruins of the temple of hercules buried under sea as pliny and avenus have mentioned together with the flat island they stand on and a few minutes later we were floating on the waves of the atlantic chapter thirty one recording by rick cornwall