Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/175

 turns up and down, and again approaching me, said:—

“As regards the infusoria, the milliards of animalcules which exist by millions in every drop of water, and of which 800 weigh about the thousandth part of a grain, their part is not less important. They absorb the marine salts, they assimilate the more solid elements of the water, and the true constructors of calcareous lands, they make the corals and the madrepores. And then the drop of water deprived of its mineral nourishment gets lighter and ascends to the surface. It there absorbs the salts set free by evaporation, which makes it heavier and it descends, and carries new elements of absorption to the animalcules below. So there is a double current, ascending and descending, ever moving, ever living. A life more exuberant, more infinite, and more intense than that of earth, spreading out in every part of the ocean, the element of death to mankind, an element of life to myriads of other animals, and to me.”

While Captain Nemo thus spoke his whole countenance was lighted up, and he produced an extraordinary impression upon me.

“Besides,” he added, this is life indeed. “And I can imagine the establishment of nautical towns and groups of submarine houses, which, like the Nautilus, might come up every morning to the surface to breathe. Free towns, so to speak, independent cities! And yet, who knows but some despot”

Captain Nemo accompanied this speech with a violent gesture. Then addressing himself directly to me, like one who would get rid of an uncomfortable thought—