Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the thirtieth chapter of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
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Take it chapter by chapter, one bite at a time so many adventures and mountains we can climb take it word for word like by line.
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One bite at a time.
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My name is Brie Carlyle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.
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Today we'll be continuing 20,000 leagues under.
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The Sea by Jules Verne chapter seven.
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The Mediterranean in 48 hours the Mediterranean.
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The blue sea par excellence.
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The great sea of the Hebrews.
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The Sea of the Greeks.
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The mere nostrum of the romans mortared by orange trees, aloes, cacti, and sea pines embalmed with the perfume of the myrtle, surrounded by rude mountains saturated with pure and transparent air but incessantly worked by underground fires.
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A perfect battlefield in which Neptune and Pluto still disputed the empire of the world.
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It is upon these banks and on these waters, says Michelet, that man is renewed in one of the most powerful climates of the globe.
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But beautiful as it was, I could only take a rapid glance at the basin, whose superficial area is 2 million of square yards.
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Even Captain Nemo's knowledge was lost to me, for this puzzling person did not appear once during our passage.
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At full speed, I estimated the course which the Nautilus took under the waves of the sea at about 600 leagues, and it was accomplished in 48 hours, starting on the morning of the 16 February from the shores of Greece.
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We had crossed the straits of Gibraltar by sunrise on the 18th.
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It was plain to me that this Mediterranean, enclosed in the midst of those countries which he wished to avoid, was distasteful to Captain Nemo.
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Those waves and those breezes brought back too many remembrances, if not too many regrets.
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Here he had no longer that independence and that liberty of gate which he had when in the open seas and his nautilus felt itself cramped between the closed shores of Africa and Europe.
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Our speed was now 25 miles an hour.
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It may be well understood that Ned land, to his great disgust, was obliged to renounce his intended flight.
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He could not launch the pennies, going at the rate of twelve or 13 yards every second.
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To quit the Nautilus under such conditions would be as bad as jumping from a train going at full speed.
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An imprudent thing, to say the least of it.
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Besides, our vessel only mounted to the surface of the waves at night to renew its stock of air.
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It was steered entirely by the compass and the log.
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I saw no more of the interior of this Mediterranean.
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Than a traveler by express train perceives of the landscape which flies before his eyes, that is to say, the distant horizon, and not the nearer objects which pass like a flash of lightning.
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We were then passing between Sicily and the coast of Tunis.
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In the narrow space between Cape Bon and the Straits of Messina, the bottom of the sea rose almost suddenly.
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There was a perfect bank on which there was not more than nine fathoms of water, whilst on either side of the depth was 90 fathoms.
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The Nautilus had to maneuver very carefully so as not to strike against the submarine barrier.
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I showed conceal on the map of the Mediterranean the spot occupied by this reef.
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But if you please, sir, observed conceal.
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It is like a real isthemus joining Europe to Africa.
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Yes, my boy, it forms a perfect bar to the Straits of Libya.
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And the soundings of Smith have proved that in former times the continents between Cape Boko and Cape Farina were joined.
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I can well believe it, said Conceal.
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I will add, I continued, not a similar barrier exists between Gibraltar and Suda, which in geological times formed the entire Mediterranean.
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What if some volcanic burst should one day raise these two barriers above the waters?
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It is not probable.
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Conceal well.
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But allow me to finish, please, sir.
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If this phenomenon should take place, it will be troublesome for Monsieur Leceps, who has taken so much pains to pierce the isthmus.
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I agree with you, but I repeat, conceal.
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This phenomenon will never happen.
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The violence of subterranean force is ever diminishing.
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Volcanoes so plentiful in the first days of the world are being extinguished by degrees.
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The internal heat is weakened.
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The temperature of the lower strata of the globe is lowered by a perceptible quantity every century, to the detriment of our globe, for its heat is its life.
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But the sun, the sun is not sufficient.
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Conceal.
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Can it give heat to a dead body?
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Not that I know of well, my friend, this earth will one day be that cold corpse.
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It will become uninhabitable and uninhabited, like the moon, which has long since lost all its vital heat.
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In how many centuries?
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In some hundreds of thousands of years.
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My boy then said, conceal, we shall.
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Have time to finish our journey, that is, if ned land does not interfere with it.
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And conceal, reassured, returned to the study of the bank which the nautilus was skirting at a moderate speed.
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During the night of the 16th and 17th February, we had entered the second mediterranean basin, the greatest depth of which was 1450 fathoms.
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The Nautilus, by the action of its crew, slid down the inclined plains and buried itself in the lowest depths of the sea.
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On the 18 February, about 03:00 in the morning, we were at the entrance of the Straits of Gibraltar.
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There once existed two currents, an upper one long since recognized, which conveys the waters of the ocean into the basin of the Mediterranean, and a lower countercurrent which reasoning has now shown to exist.
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Indeed, the volume of water in the Mediterranean, incessantly added to by the waves of the Atlantic and by rivers falling into it, would each year raise the level of the sea, for its evaporation is not sufficient to restore the equilibrium as it is not.
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So we must necessarily admit the existence of an undercurrent which empties into the basin of the Atlantic through the Straits of Gibraltar, the surplus waters of the Mediterranean, a fact indeed.
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And it was this countercurrent by which the Nautilus profited.
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It advanced rapidly by the narrow pass.
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For one instant I caught a glimpse of the beautiful ruins of the temple of Hercules, buried in the ground, according to Pliny, and with low island which supports it.
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And a few minutes later we were floating on the Atlantic.
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Thank you for joining bite at a time books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.
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Again.
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My name is Brie Carlyle, and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of 20,000 leagues under the sea.
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Don't forget to sign up for our newsletter@bytetimebooks.com and check out the shop.
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You can check out the show notes or our website, byteathimebooks.com.
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For the rest of the links for our show, we'd love to hear from you on social media as well.
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Take a look in a book and let's see what we can find.
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Taking chapter by chapter, one at a time.
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So many adventures and mountain as we can climb.
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Take it word for word, line by line, one bite at a time, close.
