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[Le Blog Personnel de Professeur Aronnax] February 20th 1868

From: Harry Hayfield <harryhayfield~at~googlemail.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 2010 15:47:18 -0700 (PDT)
To: jvf~at~gilead.org.il

As a man of science, very little shocks me, but I have just returned
from an expedition with the Captain off the coast of Portugal (where we
are currently located) and my brain is having a very hard (if not
impossible) time trying to comprehend what I have just seen.

It all started quite innocently enough at eleven o'clock last night
when checking the latest position of the Nautlius, the Captain entered
my room and announced "I propose a curious excursion!". Naturally, I
enquired what was going to be curious about it and he replied that he
wanted to show me something during night time. Well, as you know I am
never one to turn down a chance to do some exploring and so a little
later on we were both walking on the sea bed (something I have become
quite expert at) and making good progress.

By one o'clock this morning, we encountered an underwater forest. I
say, forest but it was a very dead forest. It was like a coal-pit still
standing, holding by the roots to the broken soil, and whose branches,
like fine black paper cuttings, showed distinctly on the watery
ceiling. It took us both until three o'clock to travel through this
landscape (sorry, seascape), and I began to notice that the enviroment
we were travelling through reminded me of the devastion seen around
Vesuvius in Italy and that's when the Captain suddenly stopped and
asked me to look at what was in front of him, which brings me to the
shock I mentioned at the start.

There indeed under my eyes, ruined, destroyed, lay a town— its roofs
open to the sky, its temples fallen, its arches dislocated, its columns
lying on the ground, from which one would still recognise the massive
character of Tuscan architecture. Further on, some remains of a
gigantic aqueduct; here the high base of an Acropolis, with the
floating outline of a Parthenon; there traces of a quay, as if an
ancient port had formerly abutted on the borders of the ocean, and
disappeared with its merchant vessels and its war-galleys. Farther on
again, long lines of sunken walls and broad, deserted streets— a
perfect Pompeii escaped beneath the waters. Such was the sight that
Captain Nemo brought before my eyes! I asked the Captain where I was
and he smiled and picking up a piece of chalk-stone, advanced to a rock
of black basalt, and traced the one word, the location of the town I
was looking at.

ATLANTIS

--
Posted By Harry Hayfield to Le Blog Personnel de Professeur Aronnax on
6/01/2010 11:47:00 PM

Received on Wed 02 Jun 2010 - 01:47:30 IDT

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