CHAPTER II
PRO AND CON
At the period when these events took place, I had just returned from a scientific expedition in the Badlands of Nebraska, in the United States. In my capacity as Assistant Professor in the Museum of Natural History in Paris, the French government had attached me to that expedition. After six months in Nebraska I arrived in New York towards the end of March, laden with a precious collection. My departure for France was fixed for the first days in May. Meanwhile, I was occupying myself in classifying my mineralogical, botanical, and zoological riches, when the accident happened to the Scotia.
I was perfectly up in the subject which was the question of the day. How could I be otherwise? I had read and re-read all the American and European papers without being any nearer a conclusion. This mystery puzzled me. Under the impossibility of forming an opinion, I jumped from one extreme to the other. That there really was something could not be doubted, and the incredulous were invited to put their finger on the wound of the Scotia.
On my arrival at New York, the question was at its height. The hypothesis of the floating island, and the unapproachable reef, supported by minds little competent to form a judgment, was abandoned. And, indeed, unless this shoal had a machine in its stomach, how could it change its position with such astonishing rapidity?
From the same cause, the idea of a floating hull of an enormous wreck was quickly given up.
There remained then only two possible solutions of the question, which created two distinct parties: on one side, those who were for a monster of colossal strength; on the other, those who were for a “submarine” vessel of enormous motive power.
But this last hypothesis, plausible as it was, could not stand against inquiries made in both the Old and New Worlds. That a private gentleman should have such a machine at his command was not likely. Where, when, and how was it built? And how could its construction have been kept secret? Only a Government might possess such a destructive machine. And in these disastrous times, when the ingenuity of man is daily multiplying the power of weapons of war, it was possible that, without the knowledge of others, a state might try to work such a formidable engine. After the Chassepot rifles came the torpedoes, after the torpedoes the submarine rams, then—the reaction. At least, I hope so.
But the hypothesis of a war machine fell before the denials of all the Governments. As public interest was in question, and transatlantic communications suffered, their veracity could not be doubted. And, how could the construction of this submarine boat escape the public eye? For a private gentleman to keep the secret under such circumstances would be very difficult, and for a State whose every act is persistently watched by powerful rivals, certainly impossible.
After inquiries made in England, France, Russia, Prussia, Spain, Italy, and America, even in Turkey, the hypothesis of a submarine Monitor was definitely rejected. The “monster” therefore resurfaced, in spite of the incessant jokes made by the popular press. Their imaginations soon allowed the most absurd ichthyological fantasies to be printed.
Upon my arrival in New York several persons did me the honor of consulting me on the phenomenon in question. I had published in France a work in quarto, in two volumes, entitled, Mysteries of the Great Submarine Depths. This book, highly approved of in the learned world, gained for me a special reputation in this rather obscure branch of Natural History. My advice was asked. As long as I could ignore the facts, I confined myself to a decided skepticism. But soon finding myself driven into a corner, I was obliged to explain myself categorically. And even “the Honorable Pierre Aronnax, Professor at the Museum of Paris,” was called upon by the New York Herald to express a definite opinion of some sort.
I did something. I spoke, for want of power to hold my tongue. I discussed the question in all its forms, politically and scientifically; and I give here an extract from a carefully-studied article which I published in the number of the 30th of April. It ran as follows:—
“After examining one by one the different hypotheses, rejecting all other suggestions, it becomes necessary to admit the existence of a marine animal of enormous power.
“The great depths of the ocean are entirely unknown to us. Soundings cannot reach them. What passes in those remote depths—what beings live, or can live, twelve or fifteen miles beneath the surface of the waters—what is the organization of these animals, we can scarcely conjecture. However, the solution of the problem submitted to me is affected by the form of the dilemma. Either we do know all the varieties of creatures which inhabit our planet, or we do not. If we do not know them all—if Nature has still secrets in ichthyology for us, nothing is more conformable to reason than to admit the existence of fishes or cetaceans, or even of new species of an organization formed to inhabit the most inaccessible depths, and which an accident of some sort, either fantastical or capricious, has brought at long intervals to the upper level of the ocean.
“If, on the contrary, we do know all living kinds, we must necessarily seek for the animal in question amongst those marine beings already classed; and, in that case, I should be disposed to admit the existence of a gigantic narwhal.
The common narwhal, or sea-unicorn, often attains a length of sixty feet. Increase its size five-fold or ten-fold, give it strength proportionate to its size, enlarge its destructive weapons, and you obtain the animal required. It will have the proportions determined by the officers of the Shannon, the instrument required for the perforation of the Scotia, and the power necessary to pierce the hull of a steamer.
“Indeed the narwhal is armed with a sort of ivory sword, or halberd, according to the expression of certain naturalists. The principal tusk has the hardness of steel. Some of these tusks have been found buried in the bodies of other whales, which the sea-unicorn always attacks with success. Others have been drawn out, not without trouble, from the bottoms of ships, which they had pierced completely through, as a gimlet pierces a barrel. The Museum of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris possesses one of these defensive weapons, 2.25 meters long and 48 cm. in diameter at the base.
“Very well! Suppose this weapon to be ten times stronger, and the animal ten times more powerful; launch it at the rate of twenty miles an hour, its mass multiplied by the square of its speed, and you obtain a shock capable of producing the catastrophe required.
“Until further information, therefore, I shall maintain it to be a sea-unicorn of colossal dimensions, armed, not with a halberd, but with a real spur, as the armoured frigates, or the “rams” of war, whose massiveness and motive power it would possess at the same time.
“Thus may this inexplicable phenomenon be explained, unless there be something over and above all that one has ever conjectured, seen, perceived, or experienced; which is just within the bounds of possibility.”
These last words were cowardly on my part; but, up to a certain point, I wished to shelter my dignity as Professor, and not give too much cause for laughter to the Americans, who laugh well when they do laugh. I reserved for myself a way of escape. In effect, however, I admitted the existence of the “monster.”
My article was hotly discussed, which procured it a high reputation. It rallied round it a certain number of partisans. The solution it proposed gave, at least, full liberty to the imagination. The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings. And the sea is precisely their best vehicle, the only medium through which these giants (against which terrestrial animals, such as elephants or rhinoceroses, are as nothing), can be produced or developed. The liquid masses transport the largest known species of mammals and they perhaps contain mollusks of enormous size, crustaceans frightful to contemplate, such as lobsters more than a hundred meters long, or crabs weighing two hundred tons! Why should it not be so? Formerly, terrestrial animals, contemporaries of the geological epochs, quadrupeds, quadrumanes, reptiles, and birds, were constructed in a gigantic scale. The Creator had thrown them into a colossal mold which time has gradually lessened. Why should not the sea in its unknown depths have kept there vast specimens of the life of another age—the sea which never changes, while the earth changes incessantly? Why should it not hide in its bosom the last varieties of these Titanic species, whose years are centuries, and whose centuries are millenniums?
But I am letting myself be carried away by reveries which are no longer such to me. Enough of chimeras which time has changed for me into terrible realities. I repeat, opinion was then made up as to the nature of the phenomenon, and the public admitted without contestation the existence of the prodigious animal which had nothing in common with the fabulous sea serpents.
But if some people saw in this nothing but a purely scientific problem to solve, others more positive, especially in America and England, were of an opinion to purge the ocean of this formidable monster, in order to reassure transoceanic communications.
The industrial and commercial papers treated the question chiefly from this point of view. The Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, the Lloyds’ List, the Paquebot, and the Revue Maritime et Coloniale, all papers devoted to insurance companies which threatened to raise their rates of premium, were unanimous on this point.
Public opinion had spoken. The United States were the first in the field; and in New York they made preparations for an expedition destined to pursue this narwhal. A frigate of great speed, the Abraham Lincoln, was put in commission as soon as possible. The arsenals were opened to Commander Farragut, who hastened the arming of his frigate.
But, as it always happens, the moment it was decided to pursue the monster, the monster did not appear. For two months no one heard it spoken of. No ship met with it. It seemed as if this sea-unicorn knew of the plots weaving around it. It had been so much talked of, even through the Atlantic cable, that jesters pretended that this intelligent creature had intercepted a telegram on its passage, and was making the most of it.
So when the frigate had been armed for a long campaign, and provided with formidable fishing apparatus, no one could tell what course to pursue. Impatience grew apace, when, on the 3rd of July, they learned that a steamer of the San Francisco to Shanghai line, had seen the animal three weeks before in the North Pacific Ocean.
The excitement caused by this news was extreme. Captain Farragut was granted but twenty-four hours before he was to sail. The ship was revictualled and well stocked with coal. The crew were there to a man, and there was nothing to do but to light the fires, stoke up and weigh anchor! There would be no excuse for even half a day’s delay. All Captain Farragut demanded was the order to depart.
Three hours before the Abraham Lincoln left Brooklyn pier, I received a letter worded as follows:
To M. Aronnax, Professor at the Museum of Paris, Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York.
Sir,—If you will consent to join the Abraham Lincoln in this expedition, the Government of the United States will with pleasure see France represented in the enterprise. Commander Farragut has a cabin at your disposal.
Very cordially yours,
J. B. Hobson,
Secretary of the Navy