Part One.: Chapter 2: Pro and Con

by Jules Verne

　　At the period when these events took place, I had just returnedfrom a scientific research in the disagreeable territoryof Nebraska, in the United States. In virtue of my officeas Assistant Professor in the Museum of Natural History in Paris,the French Government had attached me to that expedition.After six months in Nebraska, I arrived in New York towardsthe end of March, laden with a precious collection.My departure for France was fixed for the first days in May.Meanwhile I was occupying myself in classifying my mineralogical,botanical, and zoological riches, when the accident happenedto the Scotia.

　　I was perfectly up in the subject which was the question of the day.How could I be otherwise? I had read and reread all the Americanand European papers without being any nearer a conclusion.This mystery puzzled me. Under the impossibility of formingan opinion, I jumped from one extreme to the other.That there really was something could not be doubted,and the incredulous were invited to put their finger on the woundof the Scotia.

　　On my arrival at New York the question was at its height.The theory of the floating island, and the unapproachable sandbank,supported by minds little competent to form a judgment, was abandoned.And, indeed, unless this shoal had a machine in its stomach,how could it change its position with such astonishing rapidity?

　　From the same cause, the idea of a floating hull of an enormouswreck was given up.

　　There remained, then, only two possible solutions of the question,which created two distinct parties: on one side, those who werefor a monster of colossal strength; on the other, those who werefor a submarine vessel of enormous motive power.

　　But this last theory, plausible as it was, could not stand againstinquiries made in both worlds. That a private gentleman should havesuch a machine at his command was not likely. Where, when, and howwas it built? and how could its construction have been kept secret?Certainly a Government might possess such a destructive machine.And in these disastrous times, when the ingenuity of man hasmultiplied the power of weapons of war, it was possible that,without the knowledge of others, a State might try to work sucha formidable engine.

　　But the idea of a war machine fell before the declaration of Governments.As public interest was in question, and transatlantic communicationssuffered, their veracity could not be doubted. But how admit thatthe construction of this submarine boat had escaped the public eye?For a private gentleman to keep the secret under such circumstances wouldbe very difficult, and for a State whose every act is persistently watchedby powerful rivals, certainly impossible.

　　Upon my arrival in New York several persons did methe honour of consulting me on the phenomenon in question.I had published in France a work in quarto, in two volumes,entitled Mysteries of the Great Submarine Grounds. This book,highly approved of in the learned world, gained for me a specialreputation in this rather obscure branch of Natural History.My advice was asked. As long as I could deny the realityof the fact, I confined myself to a decided negative.But soon, finding myself driven into a corner, I wasobliged to explain myself point by point. I discussedthe question in all its forms, politically and scientifically;and I give here an extract from a carefully-studied articlewhich I published in the number of the 30th of April.It ran as follows:

　　"After examining one by one the different theories, rejecting allother suggestions, it becomes necessary to admit the existenceof a marine animal of enormous power.

　　"The great depths of the ocean are entirely unknown to us.Soundings cannot reach them. What passes in those remote depths--what beings live, or can live, twelve or fifteen miles beneaththe surface of the waters--what is the organisation of these animals,we can scarcely conjecture. However, the solution of the problemsubmitted to me may modify the form of the dilemma. Either we do knowall the varieties of beings which people our planet, or we do not.If we do not know them all--if Nature has still secrets in the deepsfor us, nothing is more conformable to reason than to admit the existenceof fishes, or cetaceans of other kinds, or even of new species,of an organisation formed to inhabit the strata inaccessible to soundings,and which an accident of some sort has brought at long intervalsto the upper level of the ocean.

　　"If, on the contrary, we do know all living kinds, we mustnecessarily seek for the animal in question amongst those marinebeings already classed; and, in that case, I should be disposedto admit the existence of a gigantic narwhal.

　　"The common narwhal, or unicorn of the sea, often attainsa length of sixty feet. Increase its size fivefold or tenfold,give it strength proportionate to its size, lengthen itsdestructive weapons, and you obtain the animal required.It will have the proportions determined by the officersof the Shannon, the instrument required by the perforationof the Scotia, and the power necessary to pierce the hullof the steamer.

　　"Indeed, the narwhal is armed with a sort of ivory sword,a halberd, according to the expression of certain naturalists.The principal tusk has the hardness of steel. Some of these tuskshave been found buried in the bodies of whales, which the unicornalways attacks with success. Others have been drawn out,not without trouble, from the bottoms of ships, which theyhad pierced through and through, as a gimlet pierces a barrel.The Museum of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris possesses oneof these defensive weapons, two yards and a quarter in length,and fifteen inches in diameter at the base.

　　"Very well! suppose this weapon to be six times stronger and the animalten times more powerful; launch it at the rate of twenty miles an hour,and you obtain a shock capable of producing the catastrophe required.Until further information, therefore, I shall maintain it to bea sea-unicorn of colossal dimensions, armed not with a halberd,but with a real spur, as the armoured frigates, or the `rams' of war,whose massiveness and motive power it would possess at the same time.Thus may this puzzling phenomenon be explained, unless there be something overand above all that one has ever conjectured, seen, perceived, or experienced;which is just within the bounds of possibility."

　　These last words were cowardly on my part; but, up to a certain point,I wished to shelter my dignity as professor, and not givetoo much cause for laughter to the Americans, who laugh wellwhen they do laugh. I reserved for myself a way of escape.In effect, however, I admitted the existence of the "monster."My article was warmly discussed, which procured it a high reputation.It rallied round it a certain number of partisans. The solutionit proposed gave, at least, full liberty to the imagination.The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings.And the sea is precisely their best vehicle, the only mediumthrough which these giants (against which terrestrial animals,such as elephants or rhinoceroses, are as nothing) can be producedor developed.

　　The industrial and commercial papers treated the question chiefly from thispoint of view. The Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, the Lloyd's List,the Packet-Boat, and the Maritime and Colonial Review, all papers devotedto insurance companies which threatened to raise their rates of premium,were unanimous on this point. Public opinion had been pronounced.The United States were the first in the field; and in New York theymade preparations for an expedition destined to pursue this narwhal.A frigate of great speed, the Abraham Lincoln, was put in commissionas soon as possible. The arsenals were opened to Commander Farragut,who hastened the arming of his frigate; but, as it always happens,the moment it was decided to pursue the monster, the monster did not appear.For two months no one heard it spoken of. No ship met with it.It seemed as if this unicorn knew of the plots weaving around it.It had been so much talked of, even through the Atlantic cable, that jesterspretended that this slender fly had stopped a telegram on its passage and wasmaking the most of it.

　　So when the frigate had been armed for a long campaign, and provided withformidable fishing apparatus, no one could tell what course to pursue.Impatience grew apace, when, on the 2nd of July, they learned that asteamer of the line of San Francisco, from California to Shanghai,had seen the animal three weeks before in the North Pacific Ocean.The excitement caused by this news was extreme. The ship was revictualledand well stocked with coal.

　　Three hours before the Abraham Lincoln left Brooklyn pier,I received a letter worded as follows:

　　To M. ARONNAX, Professor in the Museum of Paris, Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York.

　　SIR,--If you will consent to join the Abraham Lincolnin this expedition, the Government of the United Stateswill with pleasure see France represented in the enterprise.Commander Farragut has a cabin at your disposal.

　　Very cordially yours, J.B. HOBSON, Secretary of Marine.