CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The next morning, we had already forgotten our past sufferings. At first, I was surprised to find that I wasn't thirsty. We had breakfast and drank some more iron-filled water. I was now determined to go far. I was confident that my uncle would achieve his goal of going to the center of the Earth. If anyone had suggested that I go back to the top of Sneffels, I would have angrily refused.

"Let's go!" I called to Hans and my uncle.

It was eight o'clock on Thursday morning when we began walking. We were walking southeast. My uncle kept looking at his instruments showing our direction very carefully to remember how we had come. The passage was now almost horizontal. My uncle was becoming quite upset as we continued to walk horizontally, without going deeper into the Earth.

On Friday evening, July 10, we figured that we were now seventy-five miles southeast of Reykjavik and six and a quarter miles down. Then, we suddenly saw a steep drop in the path, going almost straight down. My uncle was delighted to see the change in the path.

"This will take us far, and easily," he said, "because the rocks sticking out from the wall make stairs for us to climb down."

We then began our climb down. This passageway was only a large crack in the Earth, which was produced while the Earth was cooling after the long period of time when the fire from the inside of the Earth heated the surface.

On July 11 and 12, we continued down the passage. We went five miles deeper into the Earth. We were now about twelve miles below sea level. But on July 13, at noon, the passage was a great deal more horizontal, and we were easily about to walk down the passageway, still going deep into the Earth.

On Wednesday, July 15, we were more than seventeen miles underground and about a hundred and twenty-five miles from Sneffels. Although we were tired, we were still healthy.

Every hour, my uncle made his calculations about how far we had walked, the temperature and the pressure. When he told me we had gone a hundred and twenty-five miles, I realized we were no longer under Iceland. I looked at the map and discovered that we were now under the sea.

"Under the sea," my uncle said.

"So the ocean is over our heads!" I exclaimed.

"Of course, Axel. What's wrong with that? There are coal mines around the world that are under the sea." The professor did not seem worried about our situation, but I still had many fears.

Four days later, on the evening of Saturday, July 18, we came to a large cave. My uncle paid Hans his weekly salary and we decided we would all rest the next day.

(end of section)