The Mysterious Island

The Mysterious Island

The Project Gutenberg EBook The Mysterious Island, by Jules Verne
#6 in our series by Jules Verne
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print,"
and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the
bottom of this file. Included is important information about your
specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can
also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and
how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
Title: The Mysterious Island
Author: Jules Verne
Release Date: April, 1998 [EBook #1268] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was last updated on November 09,
2002]
Edition: 11

Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, BY VERNE***
This etext was first prepared by Anthony Matonak This updated edition
was produced by David Widger Extensive
proofing was done by Trevor Carlson

The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne 1874

PART 1--DROPPED FROM THE CLOUDS


Chapter 1
"Are we rising again?" "No. On the contrary." "Are we descending?"
"Worse than that, captain! we are falling!" "For Heaven's sake heave
out the ballast!" "There! the last sack is empty!" "Does the balloon
rise?" "No!" "I hear a noise like the dashing of waves. The sea is below
the car! It cannot be more than 500 feet from us!" "Overboard with
every weight! . . . everything!"
Such were the loud and startling words which resounded through the
air, above the vast watery desert of the Pacific, about four o'clock in the
evening of the 23rd of March, 1865.
Few can possibly have forgotten the terrible storm from the northeast,
in the middle of the equinox of that year. The tempest raged without
intermission from the 18th to the 26th of March. Its ravages were
terrible in America, Europe, and Asia, covering a distance of eighteen
hundred miles, and extending obliquely to the equator from the
thirty-fifth north parallel to the fortieth south parallel. Towns were
overthrown, forests uprooted, coasts devastated by the mountains of

water which were precipitated on them, vessels cast on the shore, which
the published accounts numbered by hundreds, whole districts leveled
by waterspouts which destroyed everything they passed over, several
thousand people crushed on land or drowned at sea; such were the
traces of its fury, left by this devastating tempest. It surpassed in
disasters those which so frightfully ravaged Havana and Guadalupe,
one on the 25th of October, 1810, the other on the 26th of July, 1825.
But while so many catastrophes were taking place on land and at sea, a
drama not less exciting was being enacted in the agitated air.
In fact, a balloon, as a ball might be carried on the summit of a
waterspout, had been taken into the circling movement of a column of
air and had traversed space at the rate of ninety miles an hour, turning
round and round as if seized by some aerial maelstrom.
Beneath the lower point of the balloon swung a car, containing five
passengers, scarcely visible in the midst of the thick vapor mingled
with spray which hung over the surface of the ocean.
Whence, it may be asked, had come that plaything of the tempest?
From what part of the world did it rise? It surely could not have started
during the storm. But the storm had raged five days already, and the
first symptoms were manifested on the 18th. It cannot be doubted that
the balloon came from a great distance, for it could not have traveled
less than two thousand miles in twenty-four hours.
At any rate the passengers, destitute of all marks for their guidance,
could not have possessed the means of reckoning the route traversed
since their departure. It was a remarkable fact that, although in the very
midst of the furious tempest, they did not suffer from it. They were
thrown about and whirled round and round without feeling the rotation
in the slightest degree, or being sensible that they were removed from a
horizontal position.
Their eyes could not pierce through the thick mist which had gathered
beneath the car. Dark vapor was all around them. Such was the density
of the atmosphere that they could not