The Incredible Science Fiction Tales of Jules Verne (Illustrated Edition). Жюль Верн

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ XXV. De Profundis

       CHAPTER XXVI. The Worst Peril Of All

       CHAPTER XXVII. Lost In The Bowels Of The Earth

       CHAPTER XXVIII. The Rescue In The Whispering Gallery

       CHAPTER XXIX. Thalatta! Thalatta!

       CHAPTER XXX. A New Mare Internum

       CHAPTER XXXI. Preparations For A Voyage Of Discovery

       CHAPTER XXXII. Wonders Of The Deep

       CHAPTER XXXIII. A Battle Of Monsters

       CHAPTER XXXIV. The Great Geyser

       CHAPTER XXXV. An Electric Storm

       CHAPTER XXXVI. Calm Philosophic Discussions

       CHAPTER XXXVII. The Liedenbrock Museum Of Geology

       CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Professor In His Chair Again

       CHAPTER XXXIX. Forest Scenery Illuminated By Eletricity

       CHAPTER XL. Preparations For Blasting A Passage To The Centre Of The Earth

       CHAPTER XLI. The Great Explosion And The Rush Down Below

       CHAPTER XLII. Headlong Speed Upward Through The Horrors Of Darkness

       CHAPTER XLIII. Shot Out Of A Volcano At Last!

       CHAPTER XLIV. Sunny Lands In The Blue Mediterranean

       CHAPTER XLV. All’s Well That Ends Well

      Preface

       Table of Contents

      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

      CHAPTER I.

      The Professor And His Family

       Table of Contents

      On the 24th of May, 1863, my uncle, Professor Liedenbrock, rushed into his little house, No. 19 Königstrasse, one of the oldest streets in the oldest portion of the city of Hamburg.

      Martha must have concluded that she was very much behindhand, for the dinner had only just been put into the oven.

      “Well, now,” said I to myself, “if that most impatient of men is hungry, what a disturbance he will make!”

      “M. Liedenbrock so soon!” cried poor Martha in great alarm, half opening the diningroom door.

      “Yes, Martha; but very likely the dinner is not half cooked, for it is not two yet. Saint Michael’s clock has only just struck half-past one.”

      “Then why has the master come home so soon?”

      “Perhaps he will tell us that himself.”

      “Here he is, Monsieur Axel; I will run and hide myself while you argue with him.”

      And Martha retreated in safety into her own dominions.

      I was left alone. But how was it possible СКАЧАТЬ