Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 17 -- Underground Rivers in Continental Fiction
"Hans was not mistaken," he said. "What you hear is the rushing of a torrent."
"A torrent?" I exclaimed.
"There can be no doubt; a subterranean river is flowing around us."
And not much later, they puncture the steam below.
The pick had soon penetrated two feet into the granite partition, and our man had worked for
above an hour. I was in an agony of impatience. My uncle wanted to employ stronger
measures, and I had some difficulty in dissuading him; still he had just taken a pickaxe in his
hand, when a sudden hissing was heard, and a jet of water spurted out with violence against
the opposite wall.
The gallery dipped down a very little way from the horizontal, scarcely more than two inches in
a fathom, and the stream ran gently murmuring at our feet. I compared it to a friendly genius
guiding us underground, and caressed with my hand the soft naiad, whose comforting voice
accompanied our steps. With my reviving spirits these mythological notions seemed to come
unbidden.
The naiad of mythological notion is the Greek nymph who
presides over fresh water fountains, wells, springs, streams,
and brooks. Hylas of the Argo was lost when he was taken
by naiads fascinated by his beauty. To the right is an
engraving after Herbert James Draper's (1864-1920)
painting.
Beyond such allusions to classical myth -- the mention of
Virgil and his entrance to the underworld and Pluto, god of
that realm, being two others -- Verne’s science supersedes
mythology. The journey to the underworld is a young
explorer’s initiation into manhood.
At first I saw absolutely nothing. My eyes, wholly unused to the effulgence of light, could not
bear the sudden brightness; and I was compelled to close them. When I was able to reopen
them, I stood still, far more stupefied than astonished. Not all the wildest effects of imagination
could have conjured up such a scene! “The sea -- the sea,” I cried.
“Yes,” replied my uncle, in a tone of pardonable pride; “the Central Sea.”
We began to walk along the shores of this
extraordinary lake. To our left were abrupt
rocks, piled one upon the other -- a
stupendous titanic pile; down their sides
leaped innumerable cascades, which at
last, becoming limpid and murmuring
streams, were lost in the waters of the
lake. Light vapors, which rose here and
there, and floated in fleecy clouds from
rock to rock, indicated hot springs, which
also poured their superfluity into the vast
reservoir at our feet.
Journey to the Center of the Earth, film
version (2008)
“What,” I cried, rising in astonishment, “did you say the tide, Uncle?”
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