Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 5.djvu/87

Rh "M. Aronnax, an iron vessel costs 45 per ton. Now the Nautilus weighed 1,500. It came therefore to 67,500 and 80,000 more for fitting it up, and about 200,000 with the works of art and the collections it contains."

"One last question, Captain Nemo." "Ask it, professor."

"You are rich?"

"Immensely rich, sir; and I could, without missing it, pay the national debt of France."

I stared at the singular person who spoke thus. Was he playing upon my credulity? The future would decide that.

CHAPTER XIII THE BLACK RIVER

portion of the terrestrial globe which is covered by water is estimated at upward of eighty millions of acres. This fluid mass comprises two billions, two hundred and fifty millions of cubic miles, forming a spherical body of a diameter of sixty leagues, the weight of which would be three quintillions of tons. To comprehend the meaning of these figures, it is necessary to observe that a quintillion is to a billion as a billion is to unity; in other words, there are as many billions in a quintillion as there are units in a billion. This mass of fluid is equal to about the quantity of water which would be discharged by all the rivers of the earth in forty thousand years.

During the geological epochs, the igneous period succeeded to the aqueous. The ocean originally prevailed everywhere. Then by degrees, in the silurian period, the tops of the mountains began to appear, the islands emerged, then disappeared in partial deluges, reappeared, became settled, formed continents, till at length the earth became geographically arranged, as we see in the present day. The solid had wrested from the liquid thirty-seven million, six hundred and fifty-seven square miles, equal to twelve billions, nine hundred and sixty millions of acres.

The shape of continents allows us to divide the waters into five great portions: the Arctic or Frozen Ocean, the Antarctic or Frozen Ocean, the Indian, the Atlantic, and the Pacific Oceans.