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Updated: May 7, 2025
There, at the water-line, were two large stop-cocks, communicating with the reservoirs employed in the submersion of the vessel. The stop-cocks were opened, the reservoirs filled, and the Nautilus, slowly sinking, disappeared beneath the surface of the lake. But the colonists were yet able to follow its descent through the waves.
Eras of barbarism have overtaken civilizations as pretentious as our own intellectual nights in which the patiently acquired learning of ages was lost. Petrifaction as in China, retrogression begotten of luxury as in Athens, submersion beneath an avalanche of human debris as in Rome, ignorance-breeding despoliation as in Ireland these be the lions in the path of civilization.
Cockchafers drowned, and then dried in the sun, have been revived after a lapse of twenty-four hours, two days, and even five days, after submersion. Frogs, salamanders, and spiders poisoned by curare or nicotine, have returned to life after several days of apparent death. Cold produces some extraordinary effects.
A few cases of preserved meat and biscuit and some barrels of water, that floated between the masts after the submersion of the deck, have been hoisted to the top-masts and fastened firmly to the stays. These are now our only provisions. DECEMBER 5th. The day was very hot. December in latitude 16deg.
And, meanwhile, Sir Reginald and Colonel Sziszkinski continued the examination of the wreck, but unfortunately without any satisfactory result; for although they succeeded in finding the captain's cabin, and bringing therefrom, and from some of the other cabins, a considerable number of documents, it was found that, owing to their long submersion, they had become so completely sodden that any attempt to handle them, while still wet, reduced them to pulp; and when the alternative of carefully drying them was tried, they became so exceedingly brittle that they simply crumbled to pieces, while, even on the fragments that they contrived to preserve, the writing was so nearly obliterated as to be quite undecipherable.
But so unused to navigation was he, so crazy and ill-trimmed his craft, that his first performance would have been his submersion in the Styx had not Berenger, better accustomed to boats than any of the dramatis personoe, caught him by the arms as he was about to step in, pointed out the perils, weighted the frail vessel, and given him a lesson in paddling it to and fro, with such a masterly hand, that, had there been time for a change of dress, the part of Charon would have been unanimously transferred to him; but the delay could not be suffered, and poor Mericour, in fear of a ducking, or worse, of ridicule, balanced himself, pole in hand, in the midst of the river.
Dowlas has his carpenter's tools, we have each a pocket-knife, and O'Ready an old tin pot; of which he takes the most tender care; in addition to these, we are in possession of a sextant, a compass, a chart, and a metal tea-kettle, everything else that was placed on deck in readiness for the first raft having been lost in the partial submersion of the vessel.
It did not appear that the foot of man had ever before trodden these ancient passages, or that his arm had ever displaced one of these blocks, which remained as the volcano had cast them up above the waters, at the time of the submersion of the island.
They could calculate her disappearance to the moment. It was the exact reverse of submersion by the rising tide. The water was not rising towards them; they were sinking towards it. They were digging their own grave. Their own weight was their sexton. They were being executed, not by the law of man, but by the law of things.
The lieutenant showed them how the vessel was submerged, by allowing one of the tanks to fill with water; how it rose again by forcing the water from the compartment by means of compressed air; how the air was purified when a lengthy submersion was necessary, and how the vessel was handled in times of action.
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