Free Journey to the Center of the Earth (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Jules Verne Page B

interior of the earth are in a state of incandescent gas, because the metals, gold, platinum, the hardest rocks, can’t resist such heat. So I have the right to ask whether it’s possible to enter into such an environment!”
    “So, Axel, it’s the heat that troubles you?”
    “Of course it is. If we reach a depth of only ten leagues we’ll have arrived at the limit of the terrestrial crust, for there the temperature will be more than 1,300°C.”
    “And are you afraid of melting?”
    “I’ll leave it up to you to decide that question,” I answered rather sullenly.
    “This is my decision,” replied Professor Lidenbrock, putting on one of his grandest airs. “Neither you nor anybody else knows with any certainty what’s going on in the interior of this globe, since not the twelve thousandth part of its radius is known; science is eminently perfectible, and every theory is constantly put in question by a newer one. Wasn’t it believed until Fourier n that the temperature of the interplanetary spaces was constantly decreasing? And don’t we know today that the greatest cold of the ethereal regions never goes beyond 40 or 50°C below zero? Why wouldn’t it be the same with the interior heat? Why wouldn’t it, at a certain depth, reach an upper limit instead of rising to the point where it melts the most resistant metals?”
    Since my uncle was now moving the question to the terrain of theories, I had no answer.
    “Well, I’ll tell you that true scholars, amongst them Poisson, o have demonstrated that if a heat of 200,000°C existed in the interior of the globe, the white-hot gases from the molten matter would expand so much that the crust of the earth could not resist, and it would explode like the sides of a boiler under steam.”
    “That’s Poisson’s opinion, Uncle, nothing more.”
    “Granted, but other distinguished geologists also hold the opinion that the interior of the globe is neither gas nor water, nor any of the heaviest minerals known, for in that case, the earth would weigh less than it does.”
    “Oh, with numbers you can prove anything!”
    “But is it the same with facts, my boy? Is it not known that the number of volcanoes has considerably diminished since the first days of creation? And if there is heat at the core, can we not therefore conclude that it’s decreasing?”
    “Uncle, if you enter into the domain of speculations, I have nothing further to discuss.”
    “But I have to tell you that my opinion is supported by those of very competent people. Do you remember a visit that the celebrated chemist Humphry Davy paid to me in 1825?”
    “Not at all, for I wasn’t born until nineteen years later.” 5
    “Well, Humphry Davy did call on me on his way through Hamburg. We discussed for a long time, among other problems, the theory of the liquidity of the earth’s inner core. We agreed that it couldn’t be liquid, for a reason which science has never been able to refute.”
    “What reason?” I said, a bit astonished.
    “Because this liquid mass would be subject, like the ocean, to the attraction of the moon, and therefore there would be interior tides twice a day that would push up the terrestrial crust and cause periodical earthquakes!”
    “Yet it’s evident that the surface of the globe has been subject to combustion,” I replied, “and it’s quite reasonable to suppose that the external crust cooled down first, while the heat gathered at the center.”
    “A mistake,” my uncle answered. “The earth has been heated by combustion on its surface, not the other way around. Its surface was composed of a great number of metals, such as potassium and sodium, which have the property of igniting at mere contact with air and water; these metals kindled when atmospheric steam fell on the soil as rain; and by and by, when the waters penetrated into the fissures of the earth’s crust, they caused more fires with explosions and eruptions. Hence the numerous volcanoes during the