** spoiler alert ** One of Verne’s best books! Far better than the Journey on the Amazon, and approaching the excellence of Vingt mille lieues sous les mers, which I strongly suggest should be read first. Basically it covers exactly what would happen if Jules Verne was marooned on a desert island. I had a tough time choosing just three quotes here (even Verne’s predictions for what we’ll do when the coal runs out are gone ), but here you have it:


(A little foreshadowing to the best line in the book - “here is nitro-glycerine!” after Verne creates the most deadly substance out of coal in pottery…)
"Alas! we have no fire," said Pencroft, "or rather, captain, we have it no longer!" And the sailor recounted all that had passed the day before. He amused the engineer by the history of the single match, then his abortive attempt to procure fire in the savages' way. "We shall consider," replied the engineer, "and if we do not find some substance similar to tinder—" "Well?" asked the sailor. "Well, we will make matches…”

(A challenge! Can YOU follow this? Can anyone who isn’t Jules Verne?)
"Herbert," he asked of the lad, "is not this the 15th of April?" "Yes, captain," replied Herbert. "Well, if I am not mistaken, to-morrow will be one of the four days in the year in which the real time is identical with average time; that is to say, my boy, that to-morrow, to within some seconds, the sun will pass the meridian just at midday by the clocks. If the weather is fine I think that I shall obtain the longitude of the island with an approximation of some degrees."
…
"Also, since the night is clear, I will try, this very evening, to obtain our latitude by calculating the height of the Southern Cross, that is, from the southern pole above the horizon. You understand, my friends, that before undertaking the work of installation in earnest it is not enough to have found out that this land is an island; we must, as nearly as possible, know at what distance it is situated, either from the American continent or Australia, or from the principal archipelagoes of the Pacific."
…
"Well, my boy, I have just constructed two similar right-angled triangles; the first, the smallest, has for its sides the perpendicular pole, the distance which separates the little stick from the foot of the pole and my visual ray for hypothenuse; the second has for its sides the perpendicular cliff, the height of which we wish to measure, the distance which separates the little stick from the bottom of the cliff, and my visual ray also forms its hypothenuse, which proves to be prolongation of that of the first triangle." "Ah, captain, I understand!" cried Herbert. "As the distance from the stick to the pole is to the distance from the stick to the base of the cliff, so is the height of the pole to the height of the cliff."

(and Verne as always, up on his history)
… just before they lay down to rest, the heap of wood piled at the entrance was set fire to. Immediately, a regular explosion, or rather a series of reports, broke the silence! The noise was caused by the bamboos, which, as the flames reached them, exploded like fireworks. The noise was enough to terrify even the boldest of wild beasts. It was not the engineer who had invented this way of causing loud explosions, for, according to Marco Polo, the Tartars have employed it for many centuries to drive away from their encampments the formidable wild beasts of Central Asia.