"By my orders. An electric thread connects us. I telegraph to it,
and that is enough."

"Really," I said, astonished at these marvels, "nothing can
be more simple."

After having passed by the cage of the staircase that led to the platform,
I saw a cabin six feet long, in which Conseil and Ned Land,
enchanted with their repast, were devouring it with avidity.
Then a door opened into a kitchen nine feet long, situated between
the large store-rooms. There electricity, better than gas itself,
did all the cooking. The streams under the furnaces gave out to the
sponges of platina a heat which was regularly kept up and distributed.
They also heated a distilling apparatus, which, by evaporation,
furnished excellent drinkable water. Near this kitchen was a bathroom
comfortably furnished, with hot and cold water taps.

Next to the kitchen was the berth-room of the vessel, sixteen feet long.
But the door was shut, and I could not see the management of it,
which might have given me an idea of the number of men employed on
board the Nautilus.

At the bottom was a fourth partition that separated this
office from the engine-room. A door opened, and I found myself
in the compartment where Captain Nemo--certainly an engineer
of a very high order--had arranged his locomotive machinery.
This engine-room, clearly lighted, did not measure less than
sixty-five feet in length. It was divided into two parts;
the first contained the materials for producing electricity,
and the second the machinery that connected it with the screw.
I examined it with great interest, in order to understand the
machinery of the Nautilus.

"You see," said the Captain, "I use Bunsen's contrivances,
not Ruhmkorff's. Those would not have been powerful enough.
Bunsen's are fewer in number, but strong and large, which experience
proves to be the best. The electricity produced passes forward,
where it works, by electro-magnets of great size, on a system of levers
and cog-wheels that transmit the movement to the axle of the screw.
This one, the diameter of which is nineteen feet, and the thread
twenty-three feet, performs about 120 revolutions in a second."

"And you get then?"

"A speed of fifty miles an hour."

"I have seen the Nautilus manoeuvre before the Abraham Lincoln,
and I have my own ideas as to its speed. But this is not enough.
We must see where we go. We must be able to direct it to the right,
to the left, above, below. How do you get to the great depths,
where you find an increasing resistance, which is rated by hundreds
of atmospheres? How do you return to the surface of the ocean?
And how do you maintain yourselves in the requisite medium?
Am I asking too much?"

"Not at all, Professor," replied the Captain, with some hesitation;
"since you may never leave this submarine boat. Come into the saloon,
it is our usual study, and there you will learn all you want to know
about the Nautilus."



CHAPTER XII

SOME FIGURES

A moment after we were seated on a divan in the saloon smoking.
The Captain showed me a sketch that gave the plan, section, and elevation
of the Nautilus. Then he began his description in these words:

"Here, M. Aronnax, are the several dimensions of the boat
you are in. It is an elongated cylinder with conical ends.
It is very like a cigar in shape, a shape already adopted
in London in several constructions of the same sort.
The length of this cylinder, from stem to stern, is exactly
232 feet, and its maximum breadth is twenty-six feet.
It is not built quite like your long-voyage steamers,
but its lines are sufficiently long, and its curves
prolonged enough, to allow the water to slide off easily,
and oppose no obstacle to its passage. These two dimensions
enable you to obtain by a simple calculation the surface and
cubic contents of the Nautilus. Its area measures 6,032 feet;
and its contents about 1,500 cubic yards; that is to say,
when completely immersed it displaces 50,000 feet of water,
or weighs 1,500 tons.

"When I made the plans for this submarine vessel, I meant that nine-tenths
should be submerged: consequently it ought only to displace nine-tenths
of its bulk, that is to say, only to weigh that number of tons.
I ought not, therefore, to have exceeded that weight, constructing it on
the aforesaid dimensions.

"The Nautilus is composed of two hulls, one inside, the other outside,
joined by T-shaped irons, which render it very strong. Indeed, owing to
this cellular arrangement it resists like a block, as if it were solid.
Its sides cannot yield; it coheres spontaneously, and not by the closeness
of its rivets; and its perfect union of the materials enables it to defy
the roughest seas.

"These two hulls are composed of steel plates, whose density is


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