A Journey to the Center of the Earth E-Book

Jules Verne.

• Herausgeber: Qasim Idrees
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

A Journey to the Center of the Earth is a science fiction novel by Jules Verne.The story involves German professor Otto Lidenbrock who believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the centre of the Earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans descend into the Icelandic volcano Snæfellsjökull, encountering many adventures, including prehistoric animals and natural hazards, before eventually coming to the surface again in southern Italy, at the Stromboli volcano. The genre of subterranean fiction already existed long before Verne. However, the present book considerably added to its popularity and influenced later such writings. For example, Edgar Rice Burroughs explicitly acknowledged Verne's influence on his own Pellucidar series. The book was inspired by Charles Lyell's Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man of 1863 (and probably also influenced by Lyell's earlier ground-breaking work Principles of Geology, published 1830–33). 

Leseprobe

A Journey to the Center of the Earth

Jules Verne

Translated by Frederick Amadeus Malleson

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PREFACE

THE "Voyages Extraordinaires" of M. Jules Verne deserve to be made widely known in English-speaking countries by means of carefully prepared translations. Witty and ingenious adaptations of the researches and discoveries of modern science to the popular taste, which demands that these should be presented to ordinary readers in the lighter form of cleverly mingled truth and fiction, these books will assuredly be read with profit and delight, especially by English youth. Certainly no writer before M. Jules Verne has been so happy in weaving together in judicious combination severe scientific truth with a charming exercise of playful imagination.

Iceland, the starting point of the marvellous underground journey imagined in this volume, is invested at the present time with a painful interest in consequence of the disastrous eruptions last Easter Day, which covered with lava and ashes the poor and scanty vegetation upon which four thousand persons were partly dependent for the means of subsistence. For a long time to come the natives of that interesting island, who cleave to their desert home with all that amor patriae which is so much more easily understood than explained, will look, and look not in vain, for the help of those on whom fall the smiles of a kindlier sun in regions not torn by earthquakes nor blasted and ravaged by volcanic fires. Will the readers of this little book, who, are gifted with the means of indulging in the luxury of extended beneficence, remember the distress of their brethren in the far north, whom distance has not barred from the claim of being counted our "neighbours"? And whatever their humane feelings may prompt them to bestow will be gladly added to the Mansion-House Iceland Relief Fund.

In his desire to ascertain how far the picture of Iceland, drawn in the work of Jules Verne is a correct one, the translator hopes in the course of a mail or two to receive a communication from a leading man of science in the island, which may furnish matter for additional information in a future edition.

The scientific portion of the French original is not without a few errors, which the translator, with the kind assistance of Mr. Cameron of H. M. Geological Survey, has ventured to point out and correct. It is scarcely to be expected in a work in which the element of amusement is intended to enter more largely than that of scientific instruction, that any great degree of accuracy should be arrived at. Yet the translator hopes that what trifling deviations from the text or corrections in foot notes he is responsible for, will have done a little towards the increased usefulness of the work.

F. A. M.

The Vicarage,

Broughton-in-Furness

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CONTENTS

I THE PROFESSOR AND HIS FAMILY II A MYSTERY TO BE SOLVED AT ANY PRICE III THE RUNIC WRITING EXERCISES THE PROFESSOR IV THE ENEMY TO BE STARVED INTO SUBMISSION V FAMINE, THEN VICTORY, FOLLOWED BY DISMAY VI EXCITING DISCUSSIONS ABOUT AN UNPARALLELED EXERCISE VII A WOMAN'S COURAGE VIII SERIOUS PREPARATIONS FOR VERTICAL DESCENT IX ICELAND, BUT WHAT NEXT? X INTERESTING CONVERSATIONS WITH ICELANDIC SAVANTS XI A GUIDE FOUND TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH XII A BARREN LAND XIII HOSPITALITY UNDER THE ARCTIC CIRCLE XIV BUT ARCTICS CAN BE INHOSPITABLE, TOO XV SNÆFFEL AT LAST XVI BOLDLY DOWN THE CRATER XVII VERTICAL DESCENT XVIII THE WONDERS OF TERRESTIAL DEPTHS XIX GEOLOGICAL STUDIES IN SITU XX THE FIRST SIGNS OF DISTRESS XXI COMPASSION FUSES THE PROFESSOR'S HEART XXII TOTAL FAILURE OF WATER XXIII WATER DISCOVERED XXIV WELL SAID, OLD MOLE! CANST THOU WORK IN THE GROUND SO FAST? XXV DE PROFUNDIS XXVI THE WORST PERIL OF ALL XXVII LOST IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH XXVIII THE RESCUE IN THE WHISPERING GALLERY XXIX THALATTA! THALATTA! XXX A NEW MARE INTERNUM XXXI PREPARATIONS FOR A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY XXXII WONDERS OF THE DEEP XXXIII A BATTLE OF MONSTERS XXXIV THE GREAT GEYSER XXXV AN ELECTRIC STORM XXXVI CALM PHILOSOPHIC DISCUSSIONS XXXVII THE LIEDENBROCK MUSEUM OF GEOLOGY XXXVIII THE PROFESSOR IN HIS CHAIR AGAIN XXXIX FOREST SCENERY ILLUMINATED BY ELECTRICITY XL PREPARATIONS FOR BLASTING A PASSAGE TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH XLI THE GREAT EXPLOSION AND THE RUSH DOWN BELOW XLII HEADLONG SPEED UPWARD THROUGH THE HORRORS OF DARKNESS XLIII SHOT OUT OF A VOLCANO AT LAST! XLIV SUNNY LANDS IN THE BLUE MEDITERRANEAN XLV ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL