CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The next day I woke up completely well. I decided that I would go for a swim in the Lidenbrock Sea. I came back for breakfast quite hungry. Hans had prepared our meal.

The three of us then went back to the sea to watch the changes in the sea.

"Uncle, where are we now? I haven't asked you for quite some time."

"Horizontally, we're eight hundred and seventy-five miles from Iceland and eighty-eight miles under the surface."

"Then, we're under Scotland now, under an area covered by mountains. This sky is holding up mountains," I said, still amazed. "Now, uncle, what is your plan? Do you plan to go back to the surface yet?"

"Go back? No, of course not! We'll continue our journey, since it's going so well."

"But how can we go under this ocean?"

"We're going to cross this great sea first, then we should be able to find another opening at the opposite side."

"How wide do you think this sea is?"

"Seventy-five to a hundred miles."

"Ah," I said, thinking this estimate to be wrong.

"So, we must leave tomorrow."

I looked around for the ship that would take us across.

"Good, we'll go, but on what ship?"

"No ships down here, but we'll go on a good raft."

"A raft? We can't build a ship or a raft. How will ... "

"Listen, Axel. Hans is building us a raft right now. He is using one of the trees from the forest that was already lying on the ground."

We walked to meet Hans, who was working nearby. I was quite shocked to see a raft half finished.

By the following evening, with Hans' great skill, the raft was finished. It was ten feet long and five feet wide. We soon discovered that this raft floated quite calmly on the water of the Lidenbrock Sea.

(end of section)