Jules Verne

“ You ought to think yourself lucky in getting any price at all. Be contented with European prices; you will get no more. However, I am not going to waste my breath on you. I will come again to-morrow;” and, without allowing Hakkabut time to renew his lamentations, Servadac went away.
All the rest of the day the Jew was muttering bitter curses against the thieves of Gentiles in general, and the Governour of Gallia in particular, who were robbing him of his just profits, by binding him down to a maximum price for his goods, just as if it were a time of revolution in the state. ”

“ If, as you suppose, the earth is being drawn on so as to be precipitated against the sun, the great centre of attraction of our system, it could only be because the centrifugal and centripetal forces that cause the planets to rotate in their several orbits had been entirely suspended: in that case, indeed, the earth would rush onwards towards the sun, and in sixty-four days and a half the catastrophe you dread would inevitably happen. ”

“ True to his word, the captain next morning arrived at the tartan. He was accompanied by Ben Zoof and two Russian sailors.
“Good morning, old Eleazar; we have come to do our little bit of friendly business with you, you know,” was Ben Zoof s greeting.
“What do you want to-day?” asked the Jew.
“To-day we want coffee, and we want sugar, and we want tobacco. We must have ten kilogrammes of each. Take care they are all good; all first-rate. I am commissariat officer, and I am responsible.”
“I thought you were the governour's aide-de-camp,” said Hakkabut. ”

“ The temperature has been gradually diminishing; the heat upon Gourbi Island is not greater now than we might ordinarily expect to find in Algeria in lat. 36°. At the same time, we have the problem still unsolved that the Mediterranean has evidently been transported to the equatorial zone.”
Both the count and the captain expressed themselves reassured by his representations, and observed that they must now do all in their power to discover what had become of the vast continent of Africa, of which they were hitherto failing so completely to find a vestige. ”

“ Though light and heat were now reduced to a twenty-fifth part of their terrestrial intensity, so that a perpetual twilight seemed to have settled over Gallia, yet the population felt cheered even by the little that was left, and buoyed up by the hope that they should ultimately regain their proper position with regard to the great luminary, of which the temperature has been estimated as not less than 5,000,000 degrees. ”

“ After an apprenticeship on a merchant ship he had entered the imperial navy, and had already reached the rank of lieutenant when the count appointed him to the charge of his own private yacht, in which he was accustomed to spend by far the greater part of his time, throughout the winter generally cruising in the Mediterranean, whilst in the summer he visited more northern waters. ”

“ The earth has undoubtedly entered upon a new orbit, but she is not incurring any probable risk of being precipitated on to the sun.”
“Can you satisfy us of that?” asked the count.
“I can, sir. I can give you a proof which I think you will own is conclusive. ”

“ Perhaps the depths might disclose what the surface failed to reveal, and Count Timascheff, anxious that Servadac should have every facility afforded him for solving his doubts, called for the sounding-line. Forthwith, the lead was greased and lowered. To the surprise of all, and especially of Lieutenant Procope, the line indicated a bottom at a nearly uniform depth of from four to five fathoms ”

“ Lieutenant Procope, however, was absolutely certain that he had not mistaken his direction; the compass showed that the wind had never shifted from the west, and this, with the rate of speed as estimated by the log, com bined to assure him that at this date, the 2nd of February, the schooner was in lat. 36°49' N. and long. 3°25' E., the very spot which ought to have been occupied by the Algerian capital. But Algiers, like all the other coast-towns, had apparently been absorbed into the bowels of the earth. ”