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On Friday, after a night when I began to feel the gnawing agony of
thirst, and when in consequence appetite decreased, our little band rose
and once more followed the turnings and windings, the ascents and
descents, of this interminable gallery. All were silent and gloomy. I
could see that even my uncle had ventured too far.
After about ten hours of further progress--a progress dull and
monotonous to the last degree--I remarked that the reverberation, and
reflection of our lamps upon the sides of the tunnel, had singularly
diminished. The marble, the schist, the calcareous rocks, the red
sandstone, had disappeared, leaving in their places a dark and gloomy
wall, somber and without brightness. When we reached a remarkably narrow
part of the tunnel, I leaned my left hand against the rock.
When I took my hand away, and happened to glance at it, it was quite
black. We had reached the coal strata of the Central Earth.
"A coal mine!" I cried.
"A coal mine without miners," responded my uncle, a little severely.
"How can we tell?"
"I can tell," replied my uncle, in a sharp and doctorial tone. "I am
perfectly certain that this gallery through successive layers of coal
was not cut by the hand of man. But whether it is the work of nature or
not is of little concern to us. The hour for our evening meal has
come--let us sup."
Hans, the guide, occupied himself in preparing food. I had come to that
point when I could no longer eat. All I cared about were the few drops
of water which fell to my share. What I suffered it is useless to
record. The guide's gourd, not quite half full, was all that was left
for us three!
Having finished their repast, my two companions laid themselves down
upon their rugs, and found in sleep a remedy for their fatigue and
sufferings. As for me, I could not sleep, I lay counting the hours until
morning.
The next morning, Saturday, at six o'clock, we started again. Twenty
minutes later we suddenly came upon a vast excavation. From its mighty
extent I saw at once that the hand of man could have had nothing to do
with this coal mine; the vault above would have fallen in; as it was, it
was only held together by some miracle of nature.
This mighty natural cavern was about a hundred feet wide, by about a
hundred and fifty high. The earth had evidently been cast apart by some
violent subterranean commotion. The mass, giving way to some prodigious
upheaving of nature, had split in two, leaving the vast gap into which
we inhabitants of the earth had penetrated for the first time.
The whole singular history of the coal period was written on those dark
and gloomy walls. A geologist would have been able easily to follow the
different phases of its formation. The seams of coal were separated by
strata of sandstone, a compact clay, which appeared to be crushed down
by the weight from above.
At that period of the world which preceded the secondary epoch, the
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