Jules Verne

“ The great Architect has built it of the best materials; and never could man have given it so wide a stretch. What are the finest arches of bridges and the arcades of cathedrals, compared with this far reaching vault, with a radius of three leagues, beneath which a wide and tempest-tossed ocean may flow at its ease?"
"Oh, I am not afraid that it will fall down upon my head. But now what are your plans? Are you not thinking of returning to the surface now?" ”

“ Therefore that mysterious centre of attraction is at no great depth."
I remarked: "It is so; and here is a fact which science has scarcely suspected."
"Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors which it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth."
"What depth have we now reached?"
"We are thirty-five leagues below the surface."
"So," I said, examining the map, "the Highlands of Scotland are over our heads, and the Grampians are raising their rugged summits above us." ”

“ But I should like to see my boat first."
"It will not be a boat at all, but a good, well-made raft."
"Why," I said, "a raft would be just as hard to make as a boat, and I don't see —"
"I know you don't see; but you might hear if you would listen. Don't you hear the hammer at work? Hans is already busy at it." ”