CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Wednesday, August 19

The wind was blowing hard, which helped us sail quickly across the sea.

Thursday, August 20

Temperature high, speed also high.

Around noon, we began to hear a sound from faraway, but I did not know where the sound had come from.

"Somewhere in the distance," the professor said, "there is a little island."

Three hours went by and I realized that the sound was coming from a waterfall. My uncle disagreed, however. At four o'clock, we saw that the water was being shot into the sky, although it was nearly thirty miles from us. We decided to get closer, and some time later, we were only five miles from it. We were afraid it was another sea monster, perhaps a whale, but it was nearly one hundred times larger than whales on the surface of the Earth. We looked at it in wonder, and I looked with fear.

Suddenly, Hans pointed, and my uncle translated that he had said, "island," which we then discovered it was. The water that we saw flying into the air was a natural geyser, just as we have on the surface of the Earth. My uncle then decided we should explore this mysterious island. We landed immediately and went to the mysterious geyser. The water was terribly hot. I measured it to be nearly three hundred and twenty-five degrees. So the water came from a source of heat. I then feared that perhaps closer to the Earth, the temperatures rose dramatically, producing this geyser of extremely hot water. My uncle still doubted that the center of the Earth was fire hot.

We stayed on the island for a short time before sailing again. My uncle calculated that we had sailed six hundred and seventy-five miles from Port Grauben and we are now one thousand five hundred and fifty miles from Iceland, under England.

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