CHAPTER SEVEN

The Mediterranean in Forty-Eight

During our short time in the Mediterranean Sea, the captain did not appear once. I estimated that we traveled nearly six hundred leagues in forty-eight hours. Starting on the morning of the 16th of February from the Greek coast, we had crossed into the Atlantic Ocean on the morning of the 18th of February. I realized during this journey through the Mediterranean that this trip was not pleasant for the captain. He had too many terrible memories from that area. On that land, he had not had the independence he now had with his Nautilus.

We were traveling at nearly twenty-five miles an hour, the Nautilus' top speed. Ned Land was quite upset about such a quick journey through these familiar waters. We were now unable to attempt an escape. To leave the Nautilus at such a high speed would be as bad as jumping from a train moving at the same speed.

One afternoon, Conseil and I were observing the thick coral of the ocean that made up a large land mass underwater. This region was actually a land separating Europe from northern Africa, though it was many feet below the surface.

"What if some explosion within the center of the earth should one day raise these land masses about the waves?" Conseil asked.

"It is not probable, Conseil. This will never happen because the heat at the center of the earth is slowly cooling. In the first days of the world, there were many explosions on earth coming from the heat at the center of the earth, but now the temperatures at the center are cooling with every century, which will eventually die. Every plant and animal of the earth will die with it, as well."

"But the sun can heat the earth."

"The sun does not provide us with enough heat, Conseil. Can the sun's heat give heat to a dead body?"

"No, I don't believe so."

"Well, my friend, this earth will one day be like a dead body. Nothing will be able to live here; it'll become like the moon, which has lost its heat quite a long time ago."

"In how many centuries?"

"In hundreds of thousands of years, my boy."

"Then," said Conseil, "we will have time to finish our journey, if Ned allows us to."

(end of section)