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THE "Voyages Extraordinaires" of M. Jules Verne deserve to be made widely known in English-speaking countries by means of carefully prepared translations. Witty and ingenious adaptations of the researches and discoveries of modern science to the popular taste, which demands that these should be presented to ordinary readers in the lighter form of cleverly mingled truth and fiction, these books will assuredly be read with profit and delight, especially by English youth. Certainly no writer before M. Jules Verne has been so happy in weaving together in judicious combination severe scientific truth with a charming exercise of playful imagination.
Iceland, the starting point of the marvellous underground journey imagined in this volume, is invested at the present time with. a painful interest in consequence of the disastrous eruptions last Easter Day, which covered with lava and ashes the poor and scanty vegetation upon which four thousand persons were partly dependent for the means of subsistence. For a long time to come the natives of that interesting island, who cleave to their desert home with all that AMOR PATRIAE which is so much more easily understood than explained, will look, and look not in vain, for the help of those on whom fall the smiles of a kindlier sun in regions not torn by earthquakes nor blasted and ravaged by volcanic fires. Will the readers of this little book, who, are gifted with the means of indulging in the luxury of extended beneficence, remember the distress of their brethren in the far north, whom distance has not barred from the claim of being counted our "neighbours"? And whatever their humane feelings may prompt them to bestow will be gladly added to the Mansion-House Iceland Relief Fund.
In his desire to ascertain how far the picture of Iceland, drawn in the work of Jules Verne is a correct one, the translator hopes in the course of a mail or two to receive a communication from a leading man of science in the island, which may furnish matter for additional information in a future edition.
The scientific portion of the French original is not without a few errors, which the translator, with the kind assistance of Mr. Cameron of H. M. Geological Survey, has ventured to point out and correct. It is scarcely to be expected in a work in which the element of amusement is intended to enter more largely than that of scientific instruction, that any great degree of accuracy should be arrived at. Yet the translator hopes that what trifling deviations from the text or corrections in foot notes he is responsible for, will have done a little towards the increased usefulness of the work.
F. A. M.
The Vicarage,
Broughton-in-Furness
THE PROFESSOR AND HIS FAMILY A MYSTERY TO BE SOLVED AT ANY PRICE THE RUNIC WRITING EXERCISES THE PROFESSOR THE ENEMY TO BE STARVED INTO SUBMISSION FAMINE, THEN VICTORY, FOLLOWED BY DISMAY EXCITING DISCUSSIONS ABOUT AN UNPARALLELED ENTERPRISE A WOMAN`S COURAGE SERIOUS PREPARATIONS FOR VERTICAL DESCENT ICELAND! BUT WHAT NEXT? INTERESTING CONVERSATIONS WITH ICELANDIC SAVANTS A GUIDE FOUND TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH A BARREN LAND HOSPITALITY UNDER THE ARCTIC CIRCLE BUT ARCTICS CAN BE INHOSPITABLE, TOO SNAEFELL AT LAST BOLDLY DOWN THE CRATER VERTICAL DESCENT THE WONDERS OF TERRESTRIAL DEPTHS GEOLOGICAL STUDIES IN SITU THE FIRST SIGNS OF DISTRESS COMPASSION FUSES THE PROFESSOR`S HEART TOTAL FAILURE OF WATER WATER DISCOVERED WELL SAID, OLD MOLE! CANST THOU WORK I` THE GROUND SO FAST? DE PROFUNDIS THE WORST PERIL OF ALL LOST IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH THE RESCUE IN THE WHISPERING GALLERY THALATTA! THALATTA! A NEW MARE INTERNUM PREPARATIONS FOR A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY WONDERS OF THE DEEP A BATTLE OF MONSTERS THE GREAT GEYSER AN ELECTRIC STORM CALM PHILOSOPHIC DISCUSSIONS THE LIEDENBROCK MUSEUM OF GEOLOGY THE PROFESSOR IN HIS CHAIR AGAIN FOREST SCENERY ILLUMINATED BY ELETRICITY PREPARATIONS FOR BLASTING A PASSAGE TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH THE GREAT EXPLOSION AND THE RUSH DOWN BELOW HEADLONG SPEED UPWARD THROUGH THE HORRORS OF DARKNESS SHOT OUT OF A VOLCANO AT LAST! SUNNY LANDS IN THE BLUE MEDITERRANEAN ALL`S WELL THAT ENDS WELL |
