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Re: Nautilus interior layout

From: James Keeline <keeline~at~yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 08:52:34 -0800 (PST)
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

--- 6nsmc4z02~at~sneakemail.com wrote:

> I wanted to ask about the Nautilus interior layout, and I really hoped
> you great people wouldn't mind me asking a few dumb questions.
>
> There is a wheelhouse in a room about six feet square. So the sub is
> steered from there. Is there a room directly behind this, and if so,
> what is the purpose of that room? Is it at the same level, or reached
> by a ladder?
>
> For long-range voyage plotting, would Captain Nemo have done this in
> the Navigation Room or the Chart Room, or does either of these not
> exist? Where would either of these be in relation to the pilot's cage?
>
> Thank you. My cat also says 'thanks for including me too'!
>
> Roland


That all depends on which Nautilus layout you mean. The one in the book only
goes so far in terms of details of the layout. The early English-language
translation omits an entire chapter which describes portions of the interior of
the Nautilus. For this reason, you would need to look at the translation by
Walter James Miller (a member of this group) which restores this chapter and
does a much better job at presenting Verne's text to the English-reading
public. The version I have is the ANNOTATED TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES (Crowell,
1976) which is very good. This translation text alone has been published a few
other times including the Naval Institute Press edition.

Even with a good text, there are details of the arrangement which are left to
the reader to interpret or guess. As a result, there are several visions of
the design and interior layout of the Nautilus. A very good site which
explores this is:

  http://home.att.net/~karen.crisafulli/nautilus.html

Be sure to look at the page which compares some of the many interpretations of
the Nautilus:

  http://home.att.net/~JVNautilus/Catalog/some-designs.html

Even the interpretation of the Nautilus from the 1954 Disney film has problems
because the sets used were much larger than the shell of the ship. Even with
some suspended disbelief it is hard to put these rooms in the shell and get
them to fit. There have been a number of attempts to do so.

For most questions, like the one you pose, there could be many guesses but no
definitive answers.

James D. Keeline
http://www.Keeline.com http://www.Keeline.com/articles
http://Stratemeyer.org http://www.Keeline.com/TSCollection
Received on Sun 16 Jan 2005 - 18:52:41 IST

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