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In lighthearted countries, people made jokes about it, but in serious practical-minded countries, such as England, America and Germany, it was a matter of grave concern.
What is a light-hearted country? 🤔
THREE SECONDS before the arrival of J. B. Hobson’s letter, I had no more thought about chasing the unicorn-fish than I had about trying to find the Northwest Passage. Three seconds after reading a letter from the honorable Secretary of the Navy, I realized that my true vocation, my sole aspiration, was to chase this disturbing monster and rid the world of it.
okay that’s funny
“Complaining doesn’t have to do any good—it’s enough all by itself.
It was a library. A large collection of uniformly bound books was set in high bookcases of black Brazilian rosewood inlaid with brass. They followed the shape of the room, and at their base were huge couches covered in brown leather and curved so as to give greater comfort. In front of them stood small movable desks on which one could rest the book one was reading, and which could be drawn up or pushed away at will. In the middle of the room there was a huge table covered with pamphlets and a few old newspapers. This whole ensemble was bathed in electric light coming from four frosted-glass
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sounds like heaven
THAT PART of the earth’s surface occupied by water is evaluated at more than 147,959,620 square miles, or over 94 billion acres. This liquid mass has a volume of 2,250,000,000 cubic miles and would form a sphere with a diameter of over 2,000 miles which would weigh 3 quintillion tons. And in order to understand this number, one must realize that a quintillion is to a billion what a billion is to one, or in other words that there are as many billions in a quintillion as there are units in a billion. And this mass of liquid is more or less equal to the quantity of water that all the rivers of
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“Ned, you’re a killer of fish, a first-class fisherman. You’ve caught a great number of these interesting creatures. But I’ll bet you don’t know how to classify them.” “Yes I do,” answered the harpooner in all seriousness. “They’re classified into those you can eat and those you can’t.”
It was then that I witnessed one of the finest shots that has ever thrilled a hunter. We could clearly make out a large bird with a broad wingspread soaring in our direction. Captain Nemo’s companion raised his gun and fired when it was only several feet above the surface. The animal fell dead, and the force of its fall brought it within the hunter’s grasp. It was a magnificent albatross—a splendid specimen of these oceangoing birds.
Did *no one* read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?
And the only reason Ned Land did not regret his gluttony, is that the oyster is the only article of food that never causes indigestion.
🧐
Besides, the last marvel is always the most astonishing one, and if things keep getting better this way, I can’t imagine how they’ll end.
Conseil spent his time more especially observing mollusks and articulata, and even though a list of what he saw might make somewhat dry reading, I feel it would be wrong to leave out his personal observations.
As compared to your observations of a million fish which are just riveting 😂
and finally swordfish twenty-five feet long swimming in schools, waving their sickle-shaped fins and brandishing their six-foot swords—these fearless animals eat plants rather than other fish and obey the least signal from their females, like all well-trained husbands.
“Walls were invented to frustrate scientists. There shouldn’t be walls anywhere.”
I did not want to start a useless argument with the Canadian and I therefore did not reply.
What’s more, when I saw Monsieur fainting it took away my desire to inhale. It so to speak took my breath a—” Conseil felt embarrassed at the cliché he was about to utter and did not finish his sentence.
The next day, April 1, when the Nautilus surfaced several minutes before noon, we sighted land off to the west. It was Tierra del Fuego, which was given this name by early navigators because of the many columns of smoke they saw rising from native huts.
💡
One had to be Belgian like Conseil to accept living in a part of the world inhabited only by whales and other creatures of the deep.
However strange his destiny may be, it is also sublime! I myself have understood that much. Did I not also live this unnatural life for ten months? Thus, to that question asked six thousand years ago by Ecclesiastes, “That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out?” only two men now have the right to answer: Captain Nemo and myself.
