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A JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH - 35

A JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH

By Jules Verne

CHAPTER 35

DISCOVERY UPON DISCOVERY

In order fully to understand the exclamation made by my uncle, and his

allusions to these illustrious and learned men, it will be necessary to

enter into certain explanations in regard to a circumstance of the

highest importance to paleontology, or the science of fossil life, which

had taken place a short time before our departure from the upper regions

of the earth.

On the 28th of March, 1863, some navigators under the direction of M.

Boucher de Perthes, were at work in the great quarries of

Moulin-Quignon, near Abbeville, in the department of the Somme, in

France. While at work, they unexpectedly came upon a human jawbone

buried fourteen feet below the surface of the soil. It was the first

fossil of the kind that had ever been brought to the light of day. Near

this unexpected human relic were found stone hatchets and carved flints,

colored and clothed by time in one uniform brilliant tint of verdigris.

The report of this extraordinary and unexpected discovery spread not

only all over France, but over England and Germany. Many learned men

belonging to various scientific bodies, and noteworthy among others,

Messrs. Milne-Edwards and De Quatrefages, took the affair very much to

heart, demonstrated the incontestable authenticity of the bone in

question, and became--to use the phrase then recognized in England--the

most ardent supporters of the "jawbone question."

To the eminent geologists of the United Kingdom who looked upon the fact

as certain--Messrs. Falconer, Buck, Carpenter, and others--were soon

united the learned men of Germany, and among those in the first rank,

the most eager, the most enthusiastic, was my worthy uncle, Professor

Hardwigg.

The authenticity of a human fossil of the Quaternary period seemed then

to be incontestably demonstrated, and even to be admitted by the most

skeptical.

This system or theory, call it what you will, had, it is true, a bitter

adversary in M. Elie de Beaumont. This learned man, who holds such a

high place in the scientific world, holds that the soil of

Moulin-Quignon does not belong to the diluvium but to a much less

ancient stratum, and, in accordance with Cuvier in this respect, he

would by no means admit that the human species was contemporary with the

animals of the Quaternary epoch. My worthy uncle, Professor Hardwigg, in

concert with the great majority of geologists, had held firm, had

disputed, discussed, and finally, after considerable talking and

writing, M. Elie de Beaumont had been pretty well left alone in his

opinions.

We were familiar with all the details of this discussion, but were far

from being aware then that since our departure the matter had entered

upon a new phase. Other similar jawbones, though belonging to

individuals of varied types and very different natures, had been found

in the movable grey sands of certain grottoes in France, Switzerland,

and Belgium; together with arms, utensils, tools, bones of children, of

men in the prime of life, and of old men. The existence of men in the

Quaternary period became, therefore, more positive every day.

But this was far from being all. New remains, dug up from the Pliocene

or Tertiary deposits, had enabled the more far-seeing or audacious among

learned men to assign even a far greater degree of antiquity to the

human race. These remains, it is true, were not those of men; that is,

were not the bones of men, but objects decidedly having served the human

race: shinbones, thighbones of fossil animals, regularly scooped out,

and in fact sculptured--bearing the unmistakable signs of human

handiwork.

By means of these wondrous and unexpected discoveries, man ascended

endless centuries in the scale of time; he, in fact, preceded the

mastodon; became the contemporary of the Elephas meridionalis--the

southern elephant; acquired an antiquity of over a hundred thousand

years, since that is the date given by the most eminent geologists to

the Pliocene period of the earth. Such was then the state of

paleontologic science, and what we moreover knew sufficed to explain our

attitude before this great cemetery of the plains of the Hardwigg Ocean.

It will now be easy to understand the Professor's mingled astonishment

and joy when, on advancing about twenty yards, he found himself in the

presence of, I may say face to face with, a specimen of the human race

actually belonging to the Quaternary period!

It was indeed a human skull, perfectly recognizable. Had a soil of very

peculiar nature, like that of the cemetery of St. Michel at Bordeaux,

preserved it during countless ages? This was the question I asked

myself, but which I was wholly unable to answer. But this head with

stretched and parchmenty skin, with the teeth whole, the hair abundant,

was before our eyes as in life!

I stood mute, almost paralyzed with wonder and awe before this dread

apparition of another age. My uncle, who on almost every occasion was a

great talker, remained for a time completely dumfounded. He was too full

of emotion for speech to be possible. After a while, however, we raised

up the body to which the skull belonged. We stood it on end. It seemed,

to our excited imaginations, to look at us with its terrible hollow

eyes.

After some minutes of silence, the man was vanquished by the Professor.

Human instincts succumbed to scientific pride and exultation. Professor

Hardwigg, carried away by his enthusiasm, forgot all the circumstances

of our journey, the extraordinary position in which we were placed, the

immense cavern which stretched far away over our heads. There can be no

doubt that he thought himself at the Institution addressing his

attentive pupils, for he put on his most doctorial style, waved his

hand, and began:

"Gentlemen, I have the honor on this auspicious occasion to present to

you a man of the Quaternary period of our globe. Many learned men have

denied his very existence, while other able persons, perhaps of even

higher authority, have affirmed their belief in the reality of his life.

If the St. Thomases of paleontology were present, they would

reverentially touch him with their fingers and believe in his existence,

thus acknowledging their obstinate heresy. I know that science should be

careful in relation to all discoveries of this nature. I am not without

having heard of the many Barnums and other quacks who have made a trade

of suchlike pretended discoveries. I have, of course, heard of the

discovery of the kneebones of Ajax, of the pretended finding of the body

of Orestes by the Spartiates, and of the body of Asterius, ten spans

long, fifteen feet--of which we read in Pausanias.

"I have read everything in relation to the skeleton of Trapani,

discovered in the fourteenth century, and which many persons chose to

regard as that of Polyphemus, and the history of the giant dug up during

the sixteenth century in the environs of Palmyra. You are well aware as

I am, gentlemen, of the existence of the celebrated analysis made near

Lucerne, in 1577, of the great bones which the celebrated Doctor Felix

Plater declared belonged to a giant about nineteen feet high. I have

devoured all the treatises of Cassanion, and all those memoirs,

pamphlets, speeches, and replies published in reference to the skeleton

of Teutobochus, king of the Cimbri, the invader of Gaul, dug out of a

gravel pit in Dauphine, in 1613. In the eighteenth century I should have

denied, with Peter Campet, the existence of the preadamites of

Scheuchzer. I have had in my hands the writing called Gigans--"

Here my uncle was afflicted by the natural infirmity which prevented him

from pronouncing difficult words in public. It was not exactly

stuttering, but a strange sort of constitutional hesitation.

"The writing named Gigans--" he repeated.

He, however, could get no further.

"Giganteo--"

Impossible! The unfortunate word would not come out. There would have

been great laughter at the Institution, had the mistake happened there.

"Gigantosteology!" at last exclaimed Professor Hardwigg between two

savage growls.

Having got over our difficulty, and getting more and more excited--

"Yes, gentlemen, I am well acquainted with all these matters, and know,

also, that Cuvier and Blumenbach fully recognized in these bones the

undeniable remains of mammoths of the Quaternary period. But after what

we now see, to allow a doubt is to insult scientific inquiry. There is

the body; you can see it; you can touch it. It is not a skeleton, it is

a complete and uninjured body, preserved with an anthropological

object."

I did not attempt to controvert this singular and astounding assertion.

"If I could but wash this corpse in a solution of sulphuric acid,"

continued my uncle, "I would undertake to remove all the earthy

particles, and these resplendent shells, which are incrusted all over

this body. But I am without this precious dissolving medium.

Nevertheless, such as it is, this body will tell its own history."

Here the Professor held up the fossil body, and exhibited it with rare

dexterity. No professional showman could have shown more activity.

"As on examination you will see," my uncle continued, "it is only about

six feet in length, which is a long way from the pretended giants of

early days. As to the particular race to which it belonged, it is

incontestably Caucasian. It is of the white race, that is, of our own.

The skull of this fossil being is a perfect ovoid without any remarkable

or prominent development of the cheekbones, and without any projection

of the jaw. It presents no indication of the prognathism which modifies

the facial angle.[4] Measure the angle for yourselves, and you will find

that it is just ninety degrees. But I will advance still farther on the

road of inquiry and deduction, and I dare venture to say that this human

sample or specimen belongs to the Japhetic family, which spread over the

world from India to the uttermost limits of western Europe. There is no

occasion, gentlemen, to smile at my remarks."

[4] The facial angle is formed by two planes--one more or less vertical

which is in a straight line with the forehead and the incisors; the

other, horizontal, which passes through the organs of hearing, and the

lower nasal bone. Prognathism, in anthropological language, means that

particular projection of the jaw which modifies the facial angle.

Of course nobody smiled. But the excellent Professor was so accustomed

to beaming countenances at his lectures, that he believed he saw all his

audience laughing during the delivery of his learned dissertation.

"Yes," he continued, with renewed animation, "this is a fossil man, a

contemporary of the mastodons, with the bones of which this whole

amphitheater is covered. But if I am called on to explain how he came to

this place, how these various strata by which he is covered have fallen

into this vast cavity, I can undertake to give you no explanation.

Doubtless, if we carry ourselves back to the Quaternary epoch, we shall

find that great and mighty convulsions took place in the crust of the

earth; the continually cooling operation, through which the earth had to

pass, produced fissures, landslips, and chasms, through which a large

portion of the earth made its way. I come to no absolute conclusion, but

there is the man, surrounded by the works of his hands, his hatchets and

his carved flints, which belong to the stony period; and the only

rational supposition is, that, like myself, he visited the centre of the

earth as a traveling tourist, a pioneer of science. At all events, there

can be no doubt of his great age, and of his being one of the oldest

race of human beings."

The Professor with these words ceased his oration, and I burst forth

into loud and "unanimous" applause. Besides, after all, my uncle was

right. Much more learned men than his nephew would have found it rather

hard to refute his facts and arguments.

Another circumstance soon presented itself. This fossilized body was not

the only one in this vast plain of bones--the cemetery of an extinct

world. Other bodies were found, as we trod the dusty plain, and my uncle

was able to choose the most marvelous of these specimens in order to

convince the most incredulous.

In truth, it was a surprising spectacle, the successive remains of

generations and generations of men and animals confounded together in

one vast cemetery. But a great question now presented itself to our

notice, and one we were actually afraid to contemplate in all its

bearings.

Had these once animated beings been buried so far beneath the soil by

some tremendous convulsion of nature, after they had been earth to earth

and ashes to ashes, or had they lived here below, in this subterranean

world, under this factitious sky, borne, married, and given in marriage,

and died at last, just like ordinary inhabitants of the earth?

Up to the present moment, marine monsters, fish, and suchlike animals

had alone been seen alive!

The question which rendered us rather uneasy, was a pertinent one. Were

any of these men of the abyss wandering about the deserted shores of

this wondrous sea of the centre of the earth?

This was a question which rendered me very uneasy and uncomfortable.

How, should they really be in existence, would they receive us men from

above?