Chapter 18 A New World Discovered My uncle was upset and very frustrated.
After so much work and so many days traveling on the sea, we were back where we'd started.
We did not cross the Leidenbrock Sea.
We did not travel 1,500 miles.
We were on the same shore, just farther down from where we'd set sail.
Hans will rebuild the raft, he said.
This was an order, and Hans did not argue.
It needs to be ready by tomorrow morning.
We will leave right after breakfast.
Once my uncle had this plan, he was in a better mood.
Wind, fire, water.
They have all tried to keep me from my goal, but I will not be stopped.
My courage is stronger than any of the elements.
Stronger than nature itself.
I tried my best to talk my uncle out of this plan.
I told him that the raft couldn't survive another storm.
I told him that we might get lost again, and that there were gigantic monsters living in the ocean.
They might attack us the next time we pass them.
Of course, my uncle did not listen to a single word.
He walked back to see how Hans was doing.
He had already finished the repairs and raised a new sail.
Perfect, Uncle Lidenbrock said.
We will be ready to leave first thing in the morning.
Once again, I gave in to my uncle's decision.
Now, my boy, he said, we need to go exploring.
We took flasks of water and set off.
We walked toward a wall of rock that was about the half a mile from the shore.
As we walked, I noticed enormous shelves, some were 15 feet long, along the waterfront.
I also saw many fossils of old sea creatures among the rocks and shells.
I figured out that the sea must have covered this area at one point in time.
When the sea dropped down to where it was now located, it left many creatures on the shore.
We had to follow the coast for about a mile when it suddenly changed.
We started seeing different rocks, shells, and other things.
Animal bones, large and small, covered the ground.
All these bones represented thousands of years of animal life.
There were so many, in fact, that we could not stop to look.
It would have taken years to study and separate them all.
But then Uncle Leidenbrock found one bone like none of the others.
Axel, he called to me from across the beach.
Look, it's a prehistoric human skull.
I took the skull from my uncle.
He walked off further down the shore as I was studying it.
He had already spotted something else.
It was another discovery and just as exciting.
Axel, there's more, he called.
A prehistoric human skeleton.
I was by his side in a matter of seconds.
It was, in fact, a full skeleton.
My uncle was telling the truth.
Neither of us knew what to say.
What could explain it?
Then we walked further along the shore and found more.
These are all skeletons of very primitive man, Uncle Leedon Brock said.
I would guess that they are thousands of years old.
Perhaps they were here before man even existed in Europe.
If only we could show these to other scientists.
They really need to be studied.
We did not collect any of the bones, though.
We could not carry them with us on our journey.
There was only room for the essentials.
We followed the curve of the shore along the wall of rock.
It led us into a cavern.
For another half an hour, we walked along the cavern wall.
The ocean disappeared behind us.
Within the cavern, there was a wooded area.
My uncle was leading the way.
We came upon tall green trees and ferns dotting the cavern floor.
Suddenly, I grabbed his arm and held him back.
When he tried to speak, I put my finger to my mouth.
This is how I told him to be quiet.
I had seen something move in the trees.
I had a feeling that we should be very careful, and I was right.
I pointed in the direction of the movement in the trees.
We stopped to look more closely.
We saw a mastodon, a giant prehistoric beast.
Then we saw more of them.
There was a whole herd.
My uncle started to move toward the mastodons.
Uncle, I shouted, we need to keep our distance.
These creatures have never seen a human being before.
We don't know how they might react to us.
Never seen a human before, he asked.
Well, what would you call that then?
He pointed to the edge of the clearing.
There was a man.
He was herding the mastodons through the clearing.
I could not believe what I saw.
It was another example of prehistoric man, just like the bones.
But this was a living example.
We did not want to disturb the scene, so we sat quietly and watched.
After a few minutes, we turned back.
We were too thrilled to walk back though.
We had to run.
We were filled with so much excitement that we could not contain ourselves.
We reached the shore again to retrace our steps back to the raft.
As we walked along, I studied the rocks and shells.
Suddenly, something caught my eye.
I reached down and picked up a rusted old knife.
Uncle, I called, what do you make of this?
He took the knife and looked at it closely.
Could we have dropped it earlier, I asked.
No, he said, it is too old.
He looked at it for a few moments, then his eyes grew wide.
This knife is from the 16th century.
Is it?
I said.
How could a knife from the 16th century get here?
It's Sagnuson.
This was his knife.
He stood right here.
Uncle Lidenbrock started to look around him for more signs of the old explorer.
Moving up and down the shore, he examined all the rocks.
He did not say a word until he found what he was looking for.
There it is, he called.
I ran toward him.
He pointed to a mark on one of the rocks.
A.S.
Those are his initials.
We must be on the right track again.
My uncle changed his plan that instant.
He decided that we would sail along the coast rather than cross the ocean again.
Perhaps we could find other signs of Sagnusum.
The next morning, we sailed along the shore.
We examined the rocks and cliff walls along the edge of the land.
Four hours after we set off, my uncle spotted a tunnel within the rocks.
Right there, he said.
He pointed toward the tunnel.
We need to stop here and investigate.
We did just as my uncle commanded.
Hans brought the raft to shore.
We all climbed onto the rocks and headed toward the corridor.
When we got closer, I realized why my uncle wanted to explore it.
This wasn't a tunnel created by nature.
It was man-made.
It was created by some kind of explosive.
We walked into the opening and Uncle Lidenbrock held up the lamp.
The tunnel did not go far.
It was blocked by a wall of fallen rock.
We could not go further.
We're stuck, I said.
We've finally reached the end.
The end, Uncle Leidenbrock said.
Do you think a rock wall stopped Sagnuson?
Of course it didn't.
It will not stop us either.
But how will we get through, I asked.
The same way that Sagnuson made this tunnel.
We will blast our way through the rock.
We could cause a landslide.
We could be crushed by falling rocks.
We could-
No more excuses, Axel, Uncle Lidenbrock cut in.
Tomorrow morning we will blast our way through this rock.
We'll find our way to the center of the earth.
