Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (english reading book .txt) 📕
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A classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne, this work is one of the most well-known subterranean fictions to this day. It inspired many similar works and adaptations. First published in 1864 in French as Voyage au centre de la Terre, it was quickly translated to English by several different publishers in the 1870s. The current edition was based on the translation by Frederick Amadeus Malleson that was published by Ward Lock & Co Ltd. in 1877.
Our protagonist is Axel, whose overcautious and unadventurous spirit contrasts with that of his uncle Professor Otto Lidenbrock, an eccentric professor of geology. When Professor Lidenbrock obtains a mysterious runic-coded note in the manuscript of an Icelandic saga, he is determined to decipher it. Axel inadvertently solves the code and, much to his chagrin, discovers that it is a set of directions left by a sixteenth-century Icelandic alchemist to reach the center of the earth via the volcano Snæfelljökull. Reluctantly, Axel joins his uncle on a trip to Iceland, and with the aid of a local guide, Hans, begins an adventure towards the center of the earth, where they will encounter giant mushrooms and insects, an island with an enormous geyser, and battle pre-historic reptiles. One of Verne’s most well-known works, this novel is a testament to Verne’s love of geology, science, and cryptography.
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- Author: Jules Verne
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In the cipher, audax is written avdas, and quod and quem, hod and ken. —Tr. ↩
The degrees of temperature are given by Jules Verne according to the centigrade system, for which we will in each case substitute the Fahrenheit measurement. —Tr. ↩
Recherche was sent out in 1835 by Admiral Duperré to learn the fate of the lost expedition of M. de Blosseville in the Lilloise which has never been heard of. ↩
In M. Verne’s book a “manometer” is the instrument used, of which very little is known. In a complete list of philosophical instruments the translator cannot find the name. As he is assured by a first-rate instrument maker, Chadburn, of Liverpool, that an aneroid can be constructed to measure any depth, he has thought it best to furnish the adventurous professor with this more familiar instrument. The “manometer” is generally known as a pressure gauge. —Tr. ↩
Ruhmkorff’s apparatus consists of a Bunsen pile worked with bichromate of potash, which makes no smell; an induction coil carries the electricity generated by the pile into communication with a lantern of peculiar construction; in this lantern there is a spiral glass tube from which the air has been excluded, and in which remains only a residuum of carbonic acid gas or of nitrogen. When the apparatus is put in action this gas becomes luminous, producing a white steady light. The pile and coil are placed in a leathern bag which the traveller carries over his shoulders; the lantern outside of the bag throws sufficient light into deep darkness; it enables one to venture without fear of explosions into the midst of the most inflammable gases, and is not extinguished even in the deepest waters. M. Ruhmkorff is a learned and most ingenious man of science; his great discovery is his induction coil, which produces a powerful stream of electricity. He obtained in 1864 the quinquennial prize of 50,000 franc reserved by the French government for the most ingenious application of electricity. ↩
The name given by Sir Roderick Murchison to a vast series of fossiliferous strata, which lies between the non-fossiliferous slaty schists below and the old red sandstone above. The system is well developed in the region of Shropshire, etc., once inhabited by the Silures under Caractacus, or Caradoc. —Tr. ↩
The name of an Ethiopian tribe who lived in caves and holes. Τρώγλη, a hole, and δύω, to creep into. ↩
One hundred and twenty. —Tr. ↩
These animals belonged to a late geological period, the Pliocene, just before the glacial epoch, and therefore could have no connection with the Carboniferous vegetation. —Tr. ↩
This distance carries the travellers as far as under the Pyrénées if the league measures three miles. —Tr. ↩
Rather of the mammoth and the mastodon. —Tr. ↩
The glyptodon and armadillo are mammalian; the tortoise is a chelonian, a reptile, distinct classes of the animal kingdom; therefore the latter cannot be a representative of the former. —Tr. ↩
The facial angle is formed by two lines, one touching the brow and the front teeth, the other from the orifice of the ear to the lower line of the nostrils. The greater this angle, the higher intelligence denoted by the formation of the skull. Prognathism is that projection of the jawbones which sharpens or lessens this angle. ↩
“The shepherd of gigantic herds, and huger still himself.” ↩
List of IllustrationsRunic glyph, arranged in seven rows and three columns.
Runic glyph, arranged in a row.
Runic glyph of the initial A. S.
ColophonJourney to the Center of the Earth
was published in 1864 by
Jules Verne.
It was translated from French in 1877 by
F. A. Malleson.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Matt Chan,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2003 by
Norman M. Wolcott and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Eruption of the Volcano Vesuvius,
a painting completed in 1821 by
Johan Christian Dahl.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
January 1, 1900, 12:00 a.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/jules-verne/journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth/f-a-malleson.
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