Part 1 - Dropped from the Clouds: Chapter 13

by Jules Verne

　　"Well, captain, where are we going to begin?" asked Pencroft next morningof the engineer.

　　"At the beginning," replied Cyrus Harding.

　　And in fact, the settlers were compelled to begin "at the verybeginning." They did not possess even the tools necessary for making tools,and they were not even in the condition of nature, who, "having time,husbands her strength." They had no time, since they had to provide for theimmediate wants of their existence, and though, profiting by acquiredexperience, they had nothing to invent, still they had everything to make;their iron and their steel were as yet only in the state of minerals, theirearthenware in the state of clay, their linen and their clothes in thestate of textile material.

　　It must be said, however, that the settlers were men" in the completeand higher sense of the word. The engineer Harding could not have beenseconded by more intelligent companions, nor with more devotion and zeal.He had tried them. He knew their abilities.

　　Gideon Spilett, a talented reporter, having learned everything so as tobe able to speak of everything, would contribute largely with his head andhands to the colonization of the island. He would not draw back from anytask: a determined sportsman, he would make a business of what till thenhad only been a pleasure to him.

　　Herbert, a gallant boy, already remarkably well informed in the naturalsciences, would render greater service to the common cause.

　　Neb was devotion personified. Clever, intelligent, indefatigable, robust,with iron health, he knew a little about the work of the forge, and couldnot fail to be very useful in the colony.

　　As to Pencroft, he had sailed over every sea, a carpenter in thedockyards in Brooklyn, assistant tailor in the vessels of the state,gardener, cultivator, during his holidays, etc., and like all seamen, fitfor anything, he knew how to do everything.

　　It would have been difficult to unite five men, better fitted to struggleagainst fate, more certain to triumph over it.

　　"At the beginning," Cyrus Harding had said. Now this beginning of whichthe engineer spoke was the construction of an apparatus which would serveto transform the natural substances. The part which heat plays in thesetransformations is known. Now fuel, wood or coal, was ready for immediateuse, an oven must be built to use it.

　　"What is this oven for?" asked Pencroft.

　　"To make the pottery which we have need of," replied Harding.

　　"And of what shall we make the oven?"

　　"With bricks."

　　"And the bricks?"

　　"With clay. Let us start, my friends. To save trouble, we will establishour manufactory at the place of production. Neb will bring provisions, andthere will be no lack of fire to cook the food."

　　"No," replied the reporter; "but if there is a lack of food for want ofinstruments for the chase?"

　　"Ah, if we only had a knife!" cried the sailor.

　　"Well?" asked Cyrus Harding.

　　"Well! I would soon make a bow and arrows, and then there could be plentyof game in the larder!"

　　"Yes, a knife, a sharp blade." said the engineer, as if he was speakingto himself.

　　At this moment his eyes fell upon Top, who was running about on theshore. Suddenly Harding's face became animated.

　　"Top, here," said he.

　　The dog came at his master's call. The latter took Top's head between hishands, and unfastening the collar which the animal wore round his neck, hebroke it in two, saying,--

　　"There are two knives, Pencroft!"

　　Two hurrahs from the sailor was the reply. Top's collar was made of athin piece of tempered steel. They had only to sharpen it on a piece ofsandstone, then to raise the edge on a finer stone. Now sandstone wasabundant on the beach, and two hours after the stock of tools in the colonyconsisted of two sharp blades, which were easily fixed in solid handles.

　　The production of these their first tools was hailed as a triumph. It wasindeed a valuable result of their labor, and a very opportune one. They setout.

　　Cyrus Harding proposed that they should return to the western shore ofthe lake, where the day before he had noticed the clayey ground of which hepossessed a specimen. They therefore followed the bank of the Mercy,traversed Prospect Heights, and alter a walk of five miles or more theyreached a glade, situated two hundred feet from Lake Grant.

　　On the way Herbert had discovered a tree, the branches of which theIndians of South America employ for making their bows. It was the crejimba,of the palm family, which does not bear edible fruit. Long straightbranches were cut, the leaves stripped off; it was shaped, stronger in themiddle, more slender at the extremities, and nothing remained to be donebut to find a plant fit to make the bow-string. This was the "hibiscusheterophyllus," which furnishes fibers of such remarkable tenacity thatthey have been compared to the tendons of animals. Pencroft thus obtainedbows of tolerable strength, for which he only wanted arrows. These wereeasily made with straight stiff branches, without knots, but the pointswith which they must be armed, that is to say, a substance to serve in lieuof iron, could not be met with so easily. But Pencroft said, that havingdone his part of the work, chance would do the rest.

　　The settlers arrived on the ground which had been discovered the daybefore. Being composed of the sort of clay which is used for making bricksand tiles, it was very useful for the work in question. There was no greatdifficulty in it. It was enough to scour the clay with sand, then to moldthe bricks and bake them by the heat of a wood fire.

　　Generally bricks are formed in molds, but the engineer contented himselfwith making them by hand. All that day and the day following were employedin this work. The clay, soaked in water, was mixed by the feet and hands ofthe manipulators, and then divided into pieces of equal size. A practicedworkman can make, without a machine, about ten thousand bricks in twelvehours; but in their two days work the five brickmakers on Lincoln Islandhad not made more than three thousand, which were ranged near each other,until the time when their complete desiccation would permit them to be usedin building the oven, that is to say, in three or four days.

　　It was on the 2nd of April that Harding had employed himself in fixingthe orientation of the island, or, in other words, the precise spot wherethe sun rose. The day before he had noted exactly the hour when the sundisappeared beneath the horizon, making allowance for the refraction. Thismorning he noted, no less exactly, the hour at which it reappeared. Betweenthis setting and rising twelve hours, twenty-four minutes passed. Then, sixhours, twelve minutes after its rising, the sun on this day would exactlypass the meridian and the point of the sky which it occupied at this momentwould be the north. At the said hour, Cyrus marked this point, and puttingin a line with the sun two trees which would serve him for marks, he thusobtained an invariable meridian for his ulterior operations.

　　The settlers employed the two days before the oven was built incollecting fuel. Branches were cut all round the glade, and they picked upall the fallen wood under the trees. They were also able to hunt withgreater success, since Pencroft now possessed some dozen arrows armed withsharp points. It was Top who had famished these points, by bringing in aporcupine, rather inferior eating, but of great value, thanks to the quillswith which it bristled. These quills were fixed firmly at the ends of thearrows, the flight of which was made more certain by some cockatoos'feathers. The reporter and Herbert soon became very skilful archers. Gameof all sorts in consequence abounded at the Chimneys, capybaras, pigeons,agouties, grouse, etc. The greater part of these animals were killed in thepart of the forest on the left bank of the Mercy, to which they gave thename of Jacamar Wood, in remembrance of the bird which Pencroft and Herberthad pursued when on their first exploration.

　　This game was eaten fresh, but they preserved some capybara hams, bysmoking them above a fire of green wood, after having perfumed them withsweet-smelling leaves. However, this food, although very strengthening, wasalways roast upon roast, and the party would have been delighted to hearsome soup bubbling on the hearth, but they must wait till a pot could bemade, and, consequently, till the oven was built.

　　During these excursions, which were not extended far from the brick-field, the hunters could discern the recent passage of animals of a largesize, armed with powerful claws, but they could not recognize the species.Cyrus Harding advised them to be very careful, as the forest probablyenclosed many dangerous beasts.

　　And he did right. Indeed, Gideon Spilett and Herbert one day saw ananimal which resembled a jaguar. Happily the creature did not attack them,or they might not have escaped without a severe wound. As soon as he couldget a regular weapon, that is to say, one of the guns which Pencroft beggedfor, Gideon Spilett resolved to make desperate war against the ferociousbeasts, and exterminate them from the island.

　　The Chimneys during these few days was not made more comfortable, forthe engineer hoped to discover, or build if necessary, a more convenientdwelling. They contented themselves with spreading moss and dry leaves onthe sand of the passages, and on these primitive couches the tired workersslept soundly.

　　They also reckoned the days they had passed on Lincoln Island, and fromthat time kept a regular account. The 5th of April, which was Wednesday,was twelve days from the time when the wind threw the castaways on thisshore.

　　On the 6th of April, at daybreak, the engineer and his companions werecollected in the glade, at the place where they were going to perform theoperation of baking the bricks. Naturally this had to be in the open air,and not in a kiln, or rather, the agglomeration of bricks made an enormouskiln, which would bake itself. The fuel, made of well-prepared fagots, waslaid on the ground and surrounded with several rows of dried bricks, whichsoon formed an enormous cube, to the exterior of which they contrived air-holes. The work lasted all day, and it was not till the evening that theyset fire to the fagots. No one slept that night, all watching carefully tokeep up the fire.

　　The operation lasted forty-eight hours, and succeeded perfectly. It thenbecame necessary to leave the smoking mass to cool, and during this timeNeb and Pencroft, guided by Cyrus Harding, brought, on a hurdle made ofinterlaced branches, loads of carbonate of lime and common stones, whichwere very abundant, to the north of the lake. These stones, when decomposedby heat, made a very strong quicklime, greatly increased by slacking, atleast as pure as if it had been produced by the calcination of chalk ormarble. Mixed with sand the lime made excellent mortar.

　　The result of these different works was, that, on the 9th of April, theengineer had at his disposal a quantity of prepared lime and some thousandsof bricks.

　　Without losing an instant, therefore, they began the construction of akiln to bake the pottery, which was indispensable for their domestic use.They succeeded without much difficulty. Five days after, the kiln wassupplied with coal, which the engineer had discovered lying open to the skytowards the mouth of the Red Creek, and the first smoke escaped from achimney twenty feet high. The glade was transformed into a manufactory, andPencroft was not far wrong in believing that from this kiln would issue allthe products of modern industry.

　　In the meantime what the settlers first manufactured was a common potteryin which to cook their food. The chief material was clay, to which Hardingadded a little lime and quartz. This paste made regular "pipe-clay," withwhich they manufactured bowls, cups molded on stones of a proper size,great jars and pots to hold water, etc. The shape of these objects wasclumsy and defective, but after they had been baked in a high temperature,the kitchen of the Chimneys was provided with a number of utensils, asprecious to the settlers as the most beautifully enameled china. We mustmention here that Pencroft, desirous to know if the clay thus prepared wasworthy of its name of pipe-clay, made some large pipes, which he thoughtcharming, but for which, alas! he had no tobacco, and that was a greatprivation to Pencroft. "But tobacco will come, like everything else!" herepeated, in a burst of absolute confidence.

　　This work lasted till the 15th of April, and the time was well employed.The settlers, having become potters, made nothing but pottery. When itsuited Cyrus Harding to change them into smiths, they would become smiths.But the next day being Sunday, and also Easter Sunday, all agreed tosanctify the day by rest. These Americans were religious men, scrupulousobservers of the precepts of the Bible, and their situation could not butdevelop sentiments of confidence towards the Author of all things.

　　On the evening of the 15th of April they returned to the Chimneys,carrying with them the pottery, the furnace being extinguished until theycould put it to a new use. Their return was marked by a fortunate incident;the engineer discovered a substance which replaced tinder. It is known thata spongy, velvety flesh is procured from a certain mushroom of the genuspolyporous. Properly prepared, it is extremely inflammable, especially whenit has been previously saturated with gunpowder, or boiled in a solution ofnitrate or chlorate of potash. But, till then, they had not found any ofthese polypores or even any of the morels which could replace them. On thisday, the engineer, seeing a plant belonging to the wormwood genus, theprincipal species of which are absinthe, balm-mint, tarragon, etc.,gathered several tufts, and, presenting them to the sailor, said,--

　　"Here, Pencroft, this will please you."

　　Pencroft looked attentively at the plant, covered with long silky hair,the leaves being clothed with soft down.

　　"What's that, captain?" asked Pencroft. "Is it tobacco?"

　　"No," replied Harding, "it is wormwood; Chinese wormwood to the learned,but to us it will be tinder."

　　When the wormwood was properly dried it provided them with a veryinflammable substance, especially afterwards when the engineer hadimpregnated it with nitrate of potash, of which the island possessedseveral beds, and which is in truth saltpeter.

　　The colonists had a good supper that evening. Neb prepared some agoutisoup, a smoked capybara ham, to which was added the boiled tubercules ofthe "caladium macrorhizum," an herbaceous plant of the arum family. Theyhad an excellent taste, and were very nutritious, being something similarto the substance which is sold in England under the name of "Portlandsago"; they were also a good substitute for bread, which the settlers inLincoln Island did not yet possess.

　　When supper was finished, before sleeping, Harding and his companionswent to take the air on the beach. it was eight o'clock in the evening; thenight was magnificent. The moon, which had been full five days before, hadnot yet risen, but the horizon was already silvered by those soft, paleshades which might be called the dawn of the moon. At the southern zenithglittered the circumpolar constellations, and above all the Southern Cross,which some days before the engineer had greeted on the summit of MountFranklin.

　　Cyrus Harding gazed for some time at this splendid constellation, whichhas at its summit and at its base two stars of the first magnitude, at itsleft arm a star of the second, and at its right arm a star of the thirdmagnitude.

　　Then, after some minutes thought--

　　"Herbert," he asked of the lad, "is not this the 15th of April?"

　　"Yes, captain," replied Herbert.

　　"Well, if I am not mistaken, to-morrow will be one of the four days inthe year in which the real time is identical with average time; that is tosay, my boy, that to-morrow, to within some seconds, the sun will pass themeridian just at midday by the clocks. If the weather is fine I think thatI shall obtain the longitude of the island with an approximation of somedegrees."

　　"Without instruments, without sextant?" asked Gideon Spilett.

　　"Yes," replied the engineer. 'Also, since the night is clear, I will try,this very evening, to obtain our latitude by calculating the height of theSouthern Cross, that is, from the southern pole above the horizon. Youunderstand, my friends, that before undertaking the work of installation inearnest it is not enough to have found out that this land is an island; wemust, as nearly as possible, know at what distance it is situated, eitherfrom the American continent or Australia, or from the principalarchipelagoes of the Pacific."

　　"In fact," said the reporter, "instead of building a house it would bemore important to build a boat, if by chance we are not more than a hundredmiles from an inhabited coast."

　　"That is why," returned Harding, "I am going to try this evening tocalculate the latitude of Lincoln Island, and to-morrow, at midday, I willtry to calculate the longitude."

　　If the engineer had possessed a sextant, an apparatus with which theangular distance of objects can be measured with great precision, therewould have been no difficulty in the operation. This evening by the heightof the pole, the next day by the passing of the sun at the meridian, hewould obtain the position of the island. But as they had not one he wouldhave to supply the deficiency.

　　Harding then entered the Chimneys. By the light of the fire he cut twolittle flat rulers, which he joined together at one end so as to form apair of compasses, whose legs could separate or come together. Thefastening was fixed with a strong acacia thorn which was found in the woodpile. This instrument finished, the engineer returned to the beach, but asit was necessary to take the height of the pole from above a clear horizon,that is, a sea horizon, and as Claw Cape hid the southern horizon, he wasobliged to look for a more suitable station. The best would evidently havebeen the shore exposed directly to the south; but the Mercy would have tobe crossed, and that was a difficulty. Harding resolved, in consequence, tomake his observation from Prospect Heights, taking into consideration itsheight above the level of the sea--a height which he intended to calculatenext day by a simple process of elementary geometry.

　　The settlers, therefore, went to the plateau, ascending the left bank ofthe Mercy, and placed themselves on the edge which looked northwest andsoutheast, that is, above the curiously-shaped rocks which bordered theriver.

　　This part of the plateau commanded the heights of the left bank, whichsloped away to the extremity of Claw Cape, and to the southern side of theisland. No obstacle intercepted their gaze, which swept the horizon in asemi-circle from the cape to Reptile End. To the south the horizon, lightedby the first rays of the moon, was very clearly defined against the sky.

　　At this moment the Southern Cross presented itself to the observer in aninverted position, the star Alpha marking its base, which is nearer to thesouthern pole.

　　This constellation is not situated as near to the antarctic pole as thePolar Star is to the arctic pole. The star Alpha is about twenty-sevendegrees from it, but Cyrus Harding knew this and made allowance for it inhis calculation. He took care also to observe the moment when it passed themeridian below the pole, which would simplify the operation.

　　Cyrus Harding pointed one leg of the compasses to the horizon, the otherto Alpha, and the space between the two legs gave him the angular distancewhich separated Alpha from the horizon. In order to fix the angle obtained,he fastened with thorns the two pieces of wood on a third placedtransversely, so that their separation should be properly maintained.

　　That done, there was only the angle to calculate by bringing back theobservation to the level of the sea, taking into consideration thedepression of the horizon, which would necessitate measuring the height ofthe cliff. The value of this angle would give the height of Alpha, andconsequently that of the pole above the horizon, that is to say, thelatitude of the island, since the latitude of a point of the globe isalways equal to the height of the pole above the horizon of this point.

　　The calculations were left for the next day, and at ten o'clock every onewas sleeping soundly.