Jules Verne

“ Without reckoning, too, that if a vertical depth of sixteen leagues can be attained only by a diagonal descent of eighty-four, it follows that we must go eight thousand miles in a south-easterly direction; so that we shall emerge from some point in the earth's circumference instead of getting to the centre! ”

“ And, besides, we were beginning to get accustomed to this troglodyte [1] life. I no longer thought of sun, moon, and stars, trees, houses, and towns, nor of any of those terrestrial superfluities which are necessaries of men who live upon the earth's surface. ”

“ A deaf man would soon learn to hear perfectly."
"But won't this density augment?"
"Yes; according to a rather obscure law. It is well known that the weight of bodies diminishes as fast as we descend. You know that it is at the surface of the globe that weight is most sensibly felt, and that at the centre there is no weight at all."
"I am aware of that; but, tell me, will not air at last acquire the density of water?"
"Of course, under a pressure of seven hundred and ten atmospheres." ”