Путешествие к центру Земли / A Journey to the Centre of the Earth

“Axel,” said he very mildly; “you are a very ingenious young man, you have done me a splendid service, when I was going to abandon the contest. Never, my lad, shall I forget it. But I want to preserve the secrecy: you understand? There are people in the scientific world who envy my success.”

“Do you really think there are many people bold enough?” said I.

“Certainly! A whole army of geologists is ready to follow Arne Saknussemm.”

“But, uncle,” I replied; “we have no proof of the authenticity of this document.

“What! Not of the book, inside which we have discovered it?”

“I admit that Saknussemm wrote these lines. But has he really accomplished such a journey?”

A smile flitted across the lip of my uncle, and he answered:

“That is what we shall see.”

“Ah!” said I. “But let me present all the possible objections against this document.”

“Speak, my boy, don’t be afraid.

“Well, I want to ask what are this �Jokul’, this �Sneffels’, and this �Scartaris’?”

“Nothing easier. I received not long ago a map from my friend. Take that atlas in the second shelf in the large bookcase.”

I rose from my seat and found the required atlas. My uncle opened it and said:

“Here is one of the best maps of Iceland, and I believe this will solve the worst of our difficulties.

I bent over the map.

“You see this volcanic island?” said the Professor; “All the volcanoes are called jokuls, a word which means glacier in Icelandic.”

“Very good,” said I; “but what of �Sneffels’?”

My uncle replied:

“Follow my finger along the west coast of Iceland. Do you see Reykjavik[27 - Reykjavik – Рейкьявик], the capital? You do.

“I see a peninsula, and a mountain rising out of the sea.”

“Right. That is Sneffels. It is a mountain five thousand feet high, one of the most remarkable in the world, if its crater leads down to the centre of the Earth.”

“But that is impossible,” I disgusted at such a ridiculous supposition.