menu_book Chapter 35

CHAPTER XI. THE SARGASSO SEA. The Nautilus didn't change direction. For the time being, then, we had to set aside any hope of returning to the European seas. Captain Nemo kept his prow pointing south. Where was he taking us? I was afraid to guess. That day the Nautilus crossed an odd part of the Atlantic Ocean. No one is unaware of the existence of that great warm water current known by name as the Gulf Stream.

After emerging from channels off Florida, it heads towards Spitsbergen. But before entering the Gulf of Mexico near latitude 44 degrees north, this current divides into two arms. Its chief arm makes for the shores of Ireland and Norway, while the second flexes southward at the level of the Azores. Then it hits the coast of Africa, sweeps in a long oval, and returns to the Caribbean Sea. Now then, this second arm, more accurately a collar, forms a ring of warm water around a section of cool, tranquil, motionless ocean called the Sargasso Sea.

This is an actual lake in the open Atlantic, and the great currents' waters take at least three years to circle it. Properly speaking, the Sargasso Sea covers every submerged part of Atlantis. Certain authors have even held that many weeds strewn over the sea were torn loose from the prairies of that ancient continent. but it's more likely that these grasses algae and fucus plants were carried off from the beaches of europe and america then taken as far as this zone by the gulf stream this is one of the reasons why christopher columbus assumed the existence of a new world when the ships of that bold investigator arrived in the sargasso sea

they had great difficulty navigating in the midst of these weeds which much to their crew's dismay slowed them down to a halt and they wasted three long weeks crossing this sector such was the region our nautilus was visiting just then a genuine prairie a tightly woven carpet of algae gulfweed and bladder-rack so dense and compact a craft's stem-post couldn't tear through it without difficulty accordingly not wanting to entangle his propeller in this weed choked mass captain nemo stayed at a depth some meters below the surface of the waves the name sargasso comes from the spanish word sargazo meaning gulfweed this gulfweed the swimming gulfweed or berry carrier is the chief substance making up this immense shoal and here's why these water plants collect in this placid atlantic basin according to the expert on the subject commander maury author of the physical geography of the sea

the explanation he gives seems to entail a set of conditions that everybody knows now maury says if bits of cork or chaff or any floating substance be put into a basin and a circular motion be given to the water all the light substances will be found crowding together near the centre of the pool where there is the least motion just such a basin in the atlantic ocean to the gulf stream and the sargasso sea is the centre of the whirl i share maury's view and i was able to study the phenomenon in this exclusive setting where ships rarely go above us huddled among the brown weeds there floated objects originating from all over tree trunks ripped from rocky mountains or the andes and sent floating down the amazon or the mississippi numerous pieces of wreckage remnants of keels or undersides bulwarks staved in and so waded down with sea-shells and barnacles they couldn't rise to the surface of the ocean and the passing years will some day bear out

maury's other view that by collecting in this way over the centuries these substances will be turned to stone by the action of the waters and will then form inexhaustible coal-fields valuable reserves prepared by far-seeing nature for that time when man will have exhausted his minds on the continents in the midst of this hopelessly tangled fabric of weeds and fuccus plants i noted some delightful pink-colored star-shaped alcion coral sea anemone trailing the long tresses of their tentacles some green red and blue jellyfish and especially those big rhizostome jellyfish that cuvier described whose bluish parasols are trimmed with violet festoons we spent the whole day of february twenty second in the sargasso sea where fish that dote on marine plants and crustaceans find plenty to eat the next day the ocean resumed its usual appearance

from this moment on for nineteen days from february twenty third to march twelfth the nautilus stayed in the middle of the atlantic hustling us along at a constant speed of one hundred leagues every twenty-four hours it was obvious that captain nemo wanted to carry out his underwater program and i had no doubt that he intended after doubling cape horn to return to the pacific south seas so ned land had good reason to worry in these wide seas empty of islands it was no longer feasible to jump ship nor did we have any way to counter captain nemo's whims we had no choice but to acquiesce but if we couldn't attain our end through force or cunning i'd like to think that we might achieve it through persuasion once this voyage was over might not captain nemo consent to set us free in return for our promise never to reveal his existence

our word of honor which we sincerely would have kept however this delicate question would have to be negotiated with the captain but how would he receive our demands for freedom at the very outset and in no uncertain terms hadn't he declared that the secret of his life required that we be permanently imprisoned on board the nautilus wouldn't he see my four months silence as a tacit acceptance of this situation would my returning to this subject arouse suspicions that could jeopardize our escape plans if we had promising circumstances for trying again later on weighed all these considerations turned them over in my mind submitted them to conse but he was as baffled as i was in short although i am not easily discouraged i realized that my chances of ever seeing my fellow-men again were shrinking by the day especially at a time when captain nemo was recklessly racing toward the south atlantic during those nineteen days just mentioned no unique incidents distinguished our voyage

i saw little of the captain he was at work in the library i often found books he had left open especially books on natural history he had thumbed through my work on the great ocean depths and the margins were covered with his notes which sometimes contradicted my theories and formulations but the captain remained content with this method of refining my work and he rarely discussed it with me sometimes i heard melancholy sounds reverberating from the organ which he played very expressively but only at night in the midst of the most secretive darkness while the nautilus slumbered in the wilderness of the ocean during this part of our voyage we navigated on the surface of the waves for entire days the sea was nearly deserted a few sailing ships laden for the east indies were heading toward the cape of good hope one day we were chased by the long boats of a whaling vessel which undoubtedly viewed us as some enormous baleen whale of great value but captain nemo didn't want these gallant gentlemen wasting their time and energy so he ended the hunt by diving beneath the waters

this incident seemed to fascinate ned land intensely i'm sure the canadian was sorry that these fishermen couldn't harpoon our sheet-iron cetacean and mortally wounded during this period the fish conce and i observed differed little from those we had already studied in other latitudes chief among them were specimens of that dreadful cartilaginous genus that's divided into three subgenera numbering at least thirty-two species striped sharks five meters long the head squat and wider than the body the caudal fin curved the back with seven big black parallel lines running lengthwise then perillon sharks ash-gray pierced with seven gill openings furnished with a single dorsal fin placed almost exactly in the middle of the body some big dogfish also passed by a voracious species of shark if there ever was one with some justice fishermen's yarns aren't to be trusted but here's what a few of them relate

inside the corpse of one of these animals there were found a buffalo head and a whole calf in another two tuna and a sailor in uniform in yet another a soldier with his sabre in another finally a horse with its rider in candor none of these sounds like divinely inspired truth but the fact remains that not a single dogfish let itself get caught in the nautilus's nets so i can't vouch for their veracity schools of elegant playful dolphin swam alongside for entire days they went in groups of five or six hunting in packs like wolves over the countryside moreover they're just as voracious as dog-fish if i can believe a certain copenhagen professor who says that from one dolphin's stomach he removed thirteen porpoises and fifteen seals true it was a killer whale belonging to the biggest known species whose length sometimes exceeds twenty-four feet the family delphinia numbers ten genera and the dolphins i saw were akin to the genus delphineur

remarkable for an extremely narrow muzzle four times as long as the cranium measuring three meters their bodies were black on top underneath a pinkish white strewn with small very scattered spots from these seas i'll also mention some unusual specimens of croakers fish from the order acanthropyregia family cyanidia some authors more artistic than scientific claim that these fish are melodious singers that their voices in unison put on concerts unmatched by human choristers i don't say nay but to my regret these croakers didn't serenade us as we passed finally to conclude concede classified a large number of flying fish nothing could have made a more unusual sight than the marvelous timing with which dolphins hunt these fish whatever the range of its flight however evasive its trajectory even up and over the nautilus the hapless flying fish always found a dolphin to welcome it with open mouth these were either flying

gunnards or kite-like sea-robins whose lips glowed in the dark at night scrawling fiery streaks in the air before plunging into the murky waters like so many shooting stars our navigating continued under these conditions until march thirteenth that day the nautilus was put to work in some depth sounding experiments that fascinated me deeply by then we had fared nearly thirteen thousand leagues from our starting point in the pacific high seas our position fixed placed us in latitude forty five degrees thirty seven minutes south and longitude thirty seven degrees fifty three minutes west these were the same waterways where captain denham aboard the herald paid out fourteen thousand meters of sounding line without finding bottom it was here too that lieutenant parker above the american frigate congress was unable to reach the underwater soil at fifteen thousand one hundred forty nine meters

captain nemo decided to take his nautilus down to the lowest depths in order to double check these different soundings i got ready to record the results of this experiment the panels in the lounge opened and manoeuvres began for reaching those strata so prodigiously far removed it was apparently considered out of the question to dive by filling the ballast tanks perhaps they wouldn't sufficiently increase the nautilus's specific gravity moreover in order to come back up it would be necessary to expel the excess water and our pumps might not have been strong enough to overcome the outside pressure captain nemo decided to make for the ocean floor by submerging on an appropriately gradual diagonal with the help of his side fins which were set at a forty five degree angle to the nautilus's waterline then the propeller was brought to its maximum speed and its four blades churned the waves with indescribable violence under this powerful thrust the nautilus hull quivered like a resonating chord and the ship sank steadily under the waters

stationed in the lounge the captain and i watched the needle swerving swiftly over the pressure gauge soon we had gone below the livable zone where most fish reside some of these animals can thrive only at the surface of seas or rivers but a minority can dwell at fairly great depths among the latter i observed a species of dog-fish called the cow-shark that's equipped with six respiratory slits the telescope fish with its enormous eyes the armored gurnard with gray thoracic fins plus black pectoral fins and a breastplate protected by pale red slabs of bone then finally the grenadier living at a depth of one thousand two hundred meters by that point tolerating a pressure of a hundred and twenty atmospheres

i asked captain nemo if he had observed any fish at more considerable depths fish rarely he answered me but given the current state of marine science who are we to presume what do we really know of these depths just this captain in going toward the ocean's lower strata we know that vegetable life disappears more quickly than animal life we know that moving creatures can still be encountered where water plants no longer grow we know that oysters and pilgrim scallops live in two thousand meters of water and that admiral mcclintock england's hero of the polar seas pulled in a live sea star from a depth of two thousand five hundred meters we know that the crew of the royal navy's bulldog fished up a starfish from two thousand six hundred twenty fathoms hence from a depth of more than one vertical league would you still say captain nemo that we really know nothing no professor the captain replied i wouldn't be so discourteous yet i'll ask you to explain how these creatures can live at such depths

i explained it on two grounds i replied in the first place because vertical currents which are caused by differences in the water's salinity and density can produce enough motion to sustain the rudimentary lifestyles of sea-lilies and starfish true the captain put in in the second place because oxygen is the basis of life and we know that the amount of oxygen dissolved in salt water increases rather than decreases with depth that the pressure in these lower strata helps to concentrate their oxygen content oho we know that do we captain nemo replied in a tone of mild surprise well professor we have a good reason to know it because it's the truth i might add in fact that the air-bladders of fish contain more nitrogen than oxygen when these animals are caught at the surface of the water and conversely more oxygen than nitrogen when they're pulled up from the lower depths which bears out your formulation but let's continue our observations my eyes flew back to the pressure gauge the instrument indicated a depth of six thousand metres our submergence had been going on for an hour the nautilus slid downward on its slanting fins still sinking

these deserted waters were wonderfully clear with a transparency impossible to convey an hour later we were at thirteen thousand metres about three and a quarter vertical leagues and the ocean floor was nowhere in sight however at fourteen thousand meters i saw blackish peaks rising in the midst of the waters but these summits could have belonged to mountains as high or even higher than the himalayas or mount and the extent of these depths remained incalculable despite the powerful pressures it was undergoing the nautilus sank still deeper i could feel its sheet-iron plates trembling down to their riveted joints metal bars arched bull heads groaned the lounge windows seemed to be warping inward under the water's pressure and this whole sturdy mechanism would surely have given way if as the captain had said it weren't capable of resisting like a solid block while grazing these rocky slopes lost under the waters i still spotted some sea-shells tube-worms lively annelid worms from the genus spirobus and certain star-fish specimens

but soon these last representatives of animal life vanished and three vertical leagues down the nautilus passed below the limits of under-water existence just as an air balloon rises above the breathable zones in the sky we reached a depth of sixteen thousand meters four vertical leagues and by then the nautilus's plating was tolerating a pressure of one thousand six hundred atmospheres in other words one thousand six hundred kilograms per each square metre centimetre on its surface what an experience i exclaimed travelling these deep regions where no man has ever ventured before look captain look at these magnificent rocks these uninhabited caves these last global haunts where life is no longer possible what unheard of of scenery and why are we reduced to preserving it only as a memory would you like captain nemo asked me to bring back more than just a memory what do you mean i mean that nothing could be easier than taking a photograph of this under-water region

before i had time to express the surprise this new proposition caused me a camera was carried into the lounge at captain nemo's request the liquid setting electronically lit unfolded with perfect clarity through the wide-open panels no shadows no blurs thanks to our artificial light not even sunshine could have been better for our purposes with the thrust of its propeller curved by the slant of its fins the nautilus stood still the camera was aimed at the scenery on the ocean floor and in a few seconds we had a perfect negative i attach a print of the positive in it you can view these primordial rocks that have never seen the light of day this nether granite that forms the powerful foundation of our globe the deep caves cut into the stony mass the outlines of incomparable distinctness whose far edges stand out in black as if from the brush of certain flemish painters in the distance is a mountainous horizon a wondrously undulating line that makes up the background of this landscape the general effect of these smooth rocks is indescribable black polished without moss or other blemish

carved into strange shapes sitting firmly on a carpet of sand that sparkled beneath our streams of electric light meanwhile his photographic operations over captain nemo told me let's go back up professor let's go back up i replied hold on tight before i had time to realize why the captain made this recommendation i was hurled to the carpet its fins set vertically its propeller thrown in gear at the captain's signal the nautilus rose with lightning speed shooting upward like an air balloon into the sky vibrating resonantly it knifed through the watery mass not a single detail was visible in four minutes it had cleared the four vertical leagues separating it from the surface of the ocean and after emerging like a flying fish it fell back into the sea making the waves leap to prodigious heights chapter eleven recording by teresa sheridan