第64章 On the Waters -A Raft Voyage(2)

Friday,August 14th.A steady breeze from the northwest.Raft progressing with extreme rapidity,and going perfectly straight.Coast still dimly visible about thirty leagues to leeward.Nothing to be seen beyond the horizon in front.The extraordinary intensity of the light neither increases nor diminishes.It is singularly stationary.

The weather remarkably fine;that is to say,the clouds have ascended very high,and are light and fleecy,and surrounded by an atmosphere resembling silver in fusion.

Thermometer,+32degrees centigrade.

About twelve o'clock in the day our guide Hans having prepared and baited a hook,cast his line into the subterranean waters.The bait he used was a small piece of meat,by means of which he concealed his hook.Anxious as I was,I was for a long time doomed to disappointment.Were these waters supplied with fish or not?That was the important question.No-was my decided answer.Then there came a sudden and rather hard tug.Hans coolly drew it in,and with it a fish,which struggled violently to escape.

"A fish!"cried my uncle.

"It is a sturgeon!"I cried,"certainly a small sturgeon."The Professor examined the fish carefully,noting every characteristic;and he did not coincide in my opinion.The fish had a flat head,round body,and the lower extremities covered with bony scales;its mouth was wholly without teeth,the pectoral fins,which were highly developed,sprouted direct from the body,which properly speaking had no tail.The animal certainly belonged to the order in which naturalists class the sturgeon,but it differed from that fish in many essential particulars.

My uncle,after all,was not mistaken.After a long and patient examination,he said:

"This fish,my dear boy,belongs to a family which has been extinct for ages,and of which no trace has ever been found on earth,except fossil remains in the Devonian strata.""You do not mean to say,"I cried,"that we have captured a live specimen of a fish belonging to the primitive stock that existed before the deluge?""We have,"said the Professor,who all this time was continuing his observations,"and you may see by careful examination that these fossil fish have no identity with existing species.To hold in one's hand,therefore,a living specimen of the order,is enough to make a naturalist happy for life.""But,"cried I,"to what family does it belong?""To the order of Ganoides-an order of fish having angular scales,covered with bright enamel-forming one of the family of the Cephalaspides,of the genus-""Well,sir,"I remarked,as I noticed my uncle hesitated to conclude.

"To the genus Pterychtis-yes,I am certain of it.Still,though Iam confident of the correctness of my surmise,this fish offers to our notice a remarkable peculiarity,never known to exist in any other fish but those which are the natives of subterranean waters,wells,lakes,in caverns,and suchlike hidden pools.""And what may that be?"

"It is blind."

"Blind!"I cried,much surprised.

"Not only blind,"continued the Professor,"but absolutely without organs of sight."I now examined our discovery for myself.It was singular,to be sure,but it was really a fact.This,however,might be a solitary instance,I suggested.The hook was baited again and once more thrown into the water.This subterranean ocean must have been tolerably well supplied with fish,for in two hours we took a large number of Pterychtis,as well as other fish belonging to another supposed extinct family-the Dipterides (a genus of fish,furnished with two fins only,whence the name),though my uncle could not class it exactly.All,without exception,however,were blind.This unexpected capture enabled us to renew our stock of provisions in a very satisfactory way.

We were now convinced that this subterranean sea contained only fish known to us as fossil specimens-and fish and reptiles alike were all the more perfect the farther back they dated their origin.

We began to hope that we should find some of those saurians which science has succeeded in reconstructing from bits of bone or cartilage.

I took up the telescope and carefully examined the horizon-looked over the whole sea;it was utterly and entirely deserted.Doubtless we were still too near the coast.

After an examination of the ocean,I looked upward,towards the strange and mysterious sky.Why should not one of the birds reconstructed by the immortal Cuvier flap his stupendous wings aloft in the dull strata of subterranean air?It would,of course,find quite sufficient food from the fish in the sea.I gazed for some time upon the void above.It was as silent and as deserted as the shores we had but lately left.