![]() ![]() ![]() Shadows gathered and gloom overran the sea until the moon came up. But by this point observing, studying, and classifying were out of the question.īy evening we had cleared 200 leagues up the Atlantic. I could barely glimpse the swift passing of longnose sharks, hammerhead sharks, spotted dogfish that frequent these waters, big eagle rays, swarms of seahorse looking like knights on a chessboard, eels quivering like fireworks serpents, armies of crab that fled obliquely by crossing their pincers over their carapaces, finally schools of porpoise that held contests of speed with the Nautilus. The Nautilus was fleeing northward at a speed of twenty–five miles per hour, sometimes on the surface of the sea, sometimes thirty feet beneath it.Īfter our position had been marked on the chart, I saw that we were passing into the mouth of the English Channel, that our heading would take us to the northernmost seas with incomparable speed. He had made me, if not an accomplice, at least an eyewitness to his vengeance! Even this was intolerable.Īt eleven o'clock the electric lights came back on. Whatever he had once suffered at the hands of humanity, he had no right to mete out such punishment. Captain Nemo filled me with insurmountable horror. I reentered my stateroom, where Ned and Conseil were waiting silently. Where was it going? North or south? Where would the man flee after this horrible act of revenge? It left this place of devastation with prodigious speed, 100 feet beneath the waters. Inside the Nautilus all was gloom and silence. The panels closed over this frightful view, but the lights didn't go on in the lounge. You should visit Browse Happy and update your internet browser today! "The cigar shape is also a clue that Verne might have borrowed his concept from the Explorer because other submersibles of this era came in a variety of shapes.The embedded audio player requires a modern internet browser. "As far as I'm aware the Explorer possessed the world's first lock-out system and its very uniqueness might have stimulated Verne's imagination. "Submarine inventors were keen to sell their products so there would have been none of today's secrecy and technologies would have been keenly scrutinised on both sides of the Atlantic. "If Jules Verne was researching the relatively new world of submersible vessels, he would probably have heard of the Explorer's lock-out system," he said. One of Britain's most noted maritime heritage experts, Wyn Davies, agreed that the Explorer may well have inspired Verne. The Explorer was abandoned after all its crew died of what was reported to be a fever but may well have been the bends. "I realised it was identical to the system used in Nautilus," Col Blashford-Snell said, adding that Verne must have read about the Explorer's lock-out system and used it in his book. It ended up in Panama where the lock-out system made it a useful tool in the pearl trade. The 10-metre long vessel was built by a visionary inventor called Julius Kroehl for the Union forces but it was not used in the war. It was quite an experience because we had an expert with us who said it was much earlier than we had thought and dated from the American civil war." "We waited until high tide so we could dive on it properly and do a full survey. "We were very lucky to find it because at high tide it is totally submerged, but we got there at low tide when about half of it is showing," he said. At first he was told she was a Japanese mini-sub but someone else insisted it was just an old boiler so he forgot about it.īut when he returned to Panama recently looking for ancient ruins, a maritime museum in Canada asked him to examine the object. It was built in 1864, five years before Verne's classic adventure story was published, and it is thought that the French writer would have read about the sub's specifications.Ĭol Blashford-Snell, 67, who runs the Dorset-based Scientific Exploration Society, heard about the object 20 years ago. Like Nautilus, the craft is cigar-shaped and has a lock-out system, which allows submariners to leave, collect items from the seabed and then return to the vessel. ![]()
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