I woke on Sunday morning without the usual feeling that we had to hurry and leave. For once, we could rest.
It was strange to spend a day of rest so far beneath the earth, in a place that seemed completely separated from the world above. But I found the idea strangely pleasant.
We were also beginning to get used to this underground life.
I hardly thought about the sun anymore. The moon, the stars, trees, houses, and towns seemed like things from another world. Down here, those ordinary parts of life no longer seemed important.
The cavern around us was enormous and beautiful. It looked like a gigantic underground hall. A small stream flowed quietly across the granite floor.
It had traveled so far from the hot volcanic regions that its water was now only slightly warm. We could drink it easily.
After our simple breakfast, my uncle decided to spend several hours organizing his notes and calculations.
“In the first place, I have a great deal of information to check,” he said. “We need to know exactly where we are.”
“Why is that so important?”
“Because when we return to the surface, I want to draw a map of our entire journey. It will be a vertical map showing our path through the earth.”
“That would certainly be an interesting map. But can you really be sure that your measurements are accurate?”
“I can. I have carefully recorded every angle and every slope. I am certain I have made no serious mistake.”
He handed me the compass.
“Take a look at it. Which direction is it pointing?”
I examined it carefully.
“East, slightly toward the southeast.”
“Excellent.”
My uncle quickly wrote something down and began making a few calculations.
“According to my figures, we are now about two hundred and fifty miles from where we began.”
“Then the Atlantic Ocean must be directly above us!”
“Certainly.”
“So there could be terrible storms happening above our heads right now. Ships and sailors might be fighting against huge waves and powerful winds while we are down here.”
“That is entirely possible,” my uncle replied with a smile.
“And whales might even be swimming above us in large groups, striking the ocean floor—the roof of our underground prison!”
“Don’t worry. No whale is going to break through the rock.”
He returned to his calculations.
“Now, as I said, we are about two hundred and fifty miles southeast of Sneffels. According to my earlier measurements, we have also descended about sixteen leagues.”
“Sixteen leagues? That’s about fifty miles!”
“Exactly.”
“But according to everything I learned about geology, that’s about the maximum thickness that scientists have estimated for the earth’s crust!”
“I am not disagreeing with you.”
“And according to the known laws about the increase of temperature underground, it should be about fifteen hundred degrees Reaumur down here!”
“It should be, according to those laws.”
“If that were true, this granite would not even be solid. It would have melted!”
My uncle calmly pointed around us.
“But look at it. It hasn’t melted.”
I had to admit that.
“Facts are stubborn things,” he continued. “Sometimes they prove that our theories are wrong.”
“I have to believe what I can see and feel. But I am still very surprised.”
“Then tell me,” he said, “what does the thermometer actually say?”
I checked it.
“Twenty-seven point six degrees.”
My uncle smiled.
“So science is wrong by nearly fourteen hundred and seventy-five degrees!”
He looked pleased with himself.
“That proves the theory that temperature steadily increases with depth is incorrect. Humphry Davy was right after all, and I was wise to trust his ideas.”
I had plenty of arguments I could have made.
I still did not accept Davy’s theory completely. I believed there had to be another explanation.
Perhaps the walls of this old volcanic passage were covered with a special kind of lava that resisted heat. Maybe it was such a poor conductor of heat that the enormous temperature increase could not pass through it.
The hot water we had found seemed to support my idea.
But I knew that arguing with my uncle would only lead to another long and pointless discussion.
So I simply accepted the facts as we found them.
“All right, Uncle. I accept that your calculations are correct. But they lead to one very serious conclusion.”
“Go ahead,” my uncle said cheerfully. “Tell me what you think.”
“At our present latitude, somewhere beneath Iceland, the distance from the surface to the center of the earth is about fifteen hundred and eighty-three leagues.”
“Fifteen hundred and eighty-three and a quarter,” he corrected.
“Fine. Let’s call it sixteen hundred leagues. We have traveled only sixteen leagues downward.”
“Yes. And?”
“We have already spent twenty days doing that.”
“Exactly twenty days.”
“So we have completed only one hundredth of the journey.”
“Go on.”
“If we continue at this speed, it will take us two thousand days to reach the center.”
My uncle folded his arms and listened silently.
“That’s more than five years!”
He still said nothing.
“And that’s not even the worst of it. We have traveled eighty-five leagues sideways just to descend sixteen leagues.”
My uncle’s face began to change.
“At this rate, we would have to travel thousands of leagues southeast. We would probably come back to the surface somewhere else long before we ever reached the center.”
“Enough of your calculations!” my uncle suddenly shouted.
I stopped.
“What are they based on? How do you know this passage won’t take us directly where we need to go?”
He pointed at me.
“And fortunately, I have an example to support me. Another man has already made this journey. If he succeeded, why shouldn’t I?”
“I certainly hope you succeed, Uncle. But surely I am allowed to—”
“You are allowed to keep quiet when you start talking such nonsense!”
I immediately recognized the angry professor who had been hiding inside my uncle all this time.
I decided it was safer to drop the subject.
My uncle took a breath and returned to his scientific manner.
“Now, let us look at the manometer. What does it tell us?”
I checked the instrument.
“The pressure is very high.”
“Good. And you can see that by descending slowly, we are giving our bodies time to adapt to the increasing pressure. We should be able to tolerate it.”
“I suppose so,” I replied. “Except for the pain in our ears.”
“That is nothing to worry about. You can relieve it by allowing the outside air to communicate with the air inside your lungs.”
“Of course.”
I had already decided not to argue with him about anything else.
“In fact,” I added, “I might even enjoy breathing such dense air. Have you noticed how clearly sound travels down here?”
“Certainly.”
My uncle smiled.
“A journey into the earth might be an excellent treatment for deafness!”
“But, Uncle,” I said carefully, “the air will become denser and denser as we descend.”
“Yes. According to a law that we don’t completely understand.”
He continued explaining.
“At the same time, the force of gravity will decrease as we go deeper. You know that gravity is strongest at the earth’s surface. At the very center, objects would have no weight at all.”
“I know that. But won’t the atmosphere eventually become as dense as water?”
“Yes. That happens under a pressure of about seven hundred and ten atmospheres.”
“And what happens if we go even deeper?”
“The air becomes even denser.”
I looked at him anxiously.
“Then how are we supposed to move through such thick air?”
My uncle answered with a completely serious expression.
“My dear nephew, we will simply fill our pockets with stones to give ourselves enough weight.”
I stared at him.
“You really have an answer for everything, Uncle.”
I realized it would be foolish to continue exploring these questions.
Every new question would only create another problem, and every problem would make my uncle angry.
There was, however, one point I could not ignore.
If the pressure increased to thousands of atmospheres, the air would eventually become almost solid. Even if our bodies could somehow withstand the pressure, we would eventually be unable to move any farther.
No argument could change that.
Facts always had the final word.
But I wisely kept this thought to myself.
My uncle would only have brought up Saknussemm again.
And there was an obvious problem with that story.
If the famous Icelander had really reached the center of the earth, how could he possibly have known where the center was?
Saknussemm had lived in the sixteenth century.
The barometer and manometer had not even been invented then.
So how could he have measured the pressure and known that he had reached the center?
It was a strong argument, but I decided to keep it to myself.
Instead, I gathered my courage and waited to see what would happen next.
I had no idea how many strange adventures still lay ahead of us.
The rest of our quiet Sunday passed in conversation and calculations.
I made sure to agree with my uncle whenever possible.
As for Hans, he was completely different.
He did not worry about theories, calculations, or the possible consequences of our journey.
He simply followed wherever fate led him.
I could not help envying his calm acceptance of everything that happened.