The sea is the vast reservoir of Nature. The globe began with sea, so to speak; and who knows if it will not end with it?

The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides.

What a big book, captain, might be made with all that is known!" "And what a much bigger book still with all that is not known!

There is no more sagacious animal than the Icelandic horse. He is stopped by neither snow, nor storm, nor impassable roads, nor rocks, glaciers, or anything. He is courageous, sober, and surefooted. He never makes a false step, never shies. If there is a river or fjord to cross (and we shall meet with many) you will see him plunge in at once, just as if he were amphibious, and gain the opposite bank.

The chance which now seems lost may present itself at the last moment.

But to find, all at once, right before your eyes, that the impossible had been mysteriously achieved by man himself: this staggers the mind!

Dinner was ready. Professor Lidenbrock did full justice to it, for his compulsory fast on board had turned his stomach into an unfathomable gulf.