Tuesday 27 April 2010

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea



Adventures under the sea, mysterious Captain Nemo, grand life experiences for the invicible enterprises NAUTILUS-the crew and the 3 "life prizoners".
This novel finds the question, asked six thousand years ago by the book of Ecclesiastes:" Who has ever fathomed the depths of the abyss?"


The sea is a vast reservoir of nature. It was through the sea that the earth, so to speak, began, and who knows but what it might not come to an end through the sea!
Here we have perfect tranquillity, for the sea does not belong to despots.
"On the surface, they can still exercise their iniquitous laws, flight, devour each other, and indulge in all their earthly horrors. But thirty feet below its surface their power ceases, their influences fades, and their dominion vanishes! Ah, monsieur, to live in the bosom of the sea! Only there can independence be found! There I recognize no master! There I am free!"

At about midday, I was on the platform with Council. I was initianting him into the mysteries of the Gulf Stream. When I was through with my explanations, I asked him to put his hands in the water.
Council obeyed, and was very surprised to feel no sensation of cold or heat.
"The reason for that" I told him " is that the temperature of the Gulf Stream, as it leaves the Gulf of Mexico, differs very little from that of the human body. The Gulf Streams is a vast distributor of warmth, which enables the coast of Europe to be continually decked in green. If it were fully exploited, would supply enough warmth to prevent a river of molten metal as big as the Amazons or the Missouri from solidifying".

The unfortunate Council had attacked an electric ray of the most dangerous kind, the cumana. This strange animal, immersed in water, which is an exellent conductor of electricity, can electrocute fish at a distance of several yards, so great is the power of its electric organ, whose two surfaces are not less than twenty-seven square feet in area.

Enjoy the rest of the book :)

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