Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/173

 to the store-rooms; some for use while fresh, the other to be pickled.

Now that the fishing was over and the supply of air renewed, I thought that the Nautilus would resume her submarine voyage, and I was preparing to go below when Captain Nemo addressed me suddenly as follows:

“Is not that ocean endowed with real life? Has it not its angry and its tender moments? Yesterday it slept like ourselves, and now it is awake after a peaceful night.”

No salutation had passed between us. Would not one have thought that this strange captain was only continuing a conversation.

“Do you see,” he continued, “it has awakened under the sun’s caresses. It will live anew its daily life. It is an interesting study to follow the play of its organism. It has a pulse, arteries, it has its spasms too, and I agree with Maury, who has discovered in it a circulation, as real as the circulation of the blood in animals.”

It is certain that Captain Nemo expected no reply from me, and it appeared useless to throw in the “evidentlys,” “certainlys,” and “quite rights.” He seemed to be talking rather to himself than to me, and paused between each sentence. He was thinking aloud!

“Yes,” he continued, “the ocean possesses a real circulation, and to excite it, it is only necessary that the Creator should increase its temperature, the salt, and the animalcules. Heat causes different densities, which bring about currents and counter-currents. Evaporation, which is nil in extremely cold latitudes, is very