Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/126

 “What are they?” I inquired.

“That naturally leads me to tell you how the Nautilus is worked.”

“I am very anxious to know, I assure you.”

“To steer her to larboard or starboard, to work her horizontally, in a word, I make use of an ordinary rudder, with a large blade fixed behind the stern post, and which a wheel and tackling puts in motion. But I can also move the Nautilus up or down vertically, by means of two inclined planes attached to her sides, at the centre of flotation. These are moveable, and fitted to take any position, and which are worked from inside by powerful levers. These are kept parallel to the vessel when she is moving horizontally; but if inclined upwards or downwards, the Nautilus follows the same direction, and by the power of her screw, plunges or rises at any angle I please. And even if I wish to return very rapidly to the surface, I ship the screw, and the pressure of the water sends the Nautilus vertically to the surface—as a balloon, filled with hydrogen, mounts into the air.”

“Bravo, captain!” I cried; “but how can the steersman find the proper direction beneath the water?”

“The helmsman is placed in a glazed compartment, which opens upon the upper part of the vessel, which is fitted with lenticular glasses.”

“Glasses capable of resisting so great a pressure.”

“Certainly. Crystal, though fragile to a blow, will resist considerable pressure. In fishing experiences by electric light in the North Sea, in 1864, plates of this material, of only one-third of an inch in thickness, resisted a pressure of sixteen atmospheres, to say nothing of the heated rays which divided the heat unequally. Now the