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De Beauxchamps's plan was immediately adopted. The Jules Verne descended, and pushed with all her force, while the engines of the Ark were reversed, and within fifteen minutes they were once more afloat.
The radio-control, which is so familiar in its thousand applications to-day, was then a new thing, having been invented only a year or so before the deluge, and De Beauxchamps's form of the apparatus was crude. The underlying principle, however, was the same as that now employed transmission through a metallic wall of impulses capable of being turned into mechanic energy.
It would have all the amphibious advantages of a whale." The others were decidedly of De Beauxchamps's opinion, and it was enthusiastically resolved that a vessel of this kind should be begun at once. "If we don't need it for a flood," said De Beauxchamps, "we can employ it for a pleasure vessel to visit the wonders of the deep.
"The most beautiful specimen of amethyst I ever beheld!" cried a mineralogist enthusiastically, taking it from De Beauxchamps's hand. "What was the rock?" "Unfortunately, I am no mineralogist," replied the Frenchman, "and I cannot tell you, but these gems were abundant. I could have almost filled the boat if I had had time.
So, without a suspicion of what was going on entering the minds of any person in the great company outside the small company of men who were actually employed in the work, the construction of De Beauxchamps's great diving-bell was begun, and pushed with all possible speed, consistent with the proper execution of the work. In the meantime the Ark continued its course toward the west.
There was a period of profound silence while De Beauxchamps's face worked spasmodically under the influence of emotions, the sight of which would alone have sufficed to convince his hearers of the truth of what he had been telling. Finally Cosmo Versal, breaking the silence, asked: "Did you find your home?" "Yes. It was there. I found it out. I illuminated it with the searchlight.
M. Versal, will you permit me to land upon it with one of your boats?" De Beauxchamps's suggestion was greeted with cheers, and twenty others immediately expressed a desire to go. "No," said Cosmo to the eager applicants, "it is M. De Beauxchamps's idea; let him go alone. Yes," he continued, addressing the Frenchman, "you can have a boat, and I will send two men with you to manage it.
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