"No; it is quite natural." "You may say so, uncle; but to me it is most extraordinary, and I can hardly believe my eyes. Who would ever have imagined, under this terrestrial crust, an ocean with ebbing and flowing tides, with winds and storms?" "Well," replied my uncle, "is there any scientific reason against it?" "No; I see none, as soon as the theory of central heat is given up." "So then, thus far," he answered, "the theory of Sir Humphry Davy is confirmed." "Evidently it is; and now there is no reason why there should not be seas and continents in the interior of the earth." "No doubt," said my uncle; "and inhabited too." "To be sure," said I; "and why should not these waters yield to us fishes of unknown species?" "At any rate," he replied, "we have not seen any yet." "Well, let us make some lines, and see if the bait will draw here as it does in sublunary regions." "We will try, Axel, for we must penetrate all secrets of these newly discovered regions." "But where are we, uncle? for I have not yet asked you that question, and your instruments must be able to furnish the answer." "Horizontally, three hundred and fifty leagues from Iceland." "So much as that?" "I am sure of not being a mile out of my reckoning." "And does the compass still show south-east?" "Yes; with a westerly deviation of nineteen degrees forty-five minutes, just as above ground. As for its dip, a curious fact is coming to light, which I have observed carefully: that the needle, instead of dipping towards the pole as in the northern hemisphere, on the contrary, rises from it." "Would you then conclude," I said, "that the magnetic pole is somewhere between the surface of the globe and the point where we are?" "Exactly so; and it is likely enough that if we were to reach the spot beneath the polar regions, about that seventy-first degree where Sir James Ross has discovered the magnetic pole to be situated, we should see the needle point straight up. Therefore that mysterious centre of attraction is at no great depth." I remarked: "It is so; and here is a fact which science has scarcely suspected." "Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors which it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth." "What depth have we now reached?" "We are thirty-five leagues below the surface." "So," I said, examining the map, "the Highlands of Scotland are over our heads, and the Grampians are raising their rugged summits above us." "Yes," answered the Professor laughing. "It is rather a heavy weight to bear, but a solid arch spans over our heads. The great Architect has built it of the best materials; and never could man have given it so wide a stretch. What are the finest arches of bridges and the arcades of cathedrals, compared with this far reaching vault, with a radius of three leagues, beneath which a wide and tempest-tossed ocean may flow at its ease?"