Journey to the Centre of the Earth

by Jules Verne.

I'll begin by telling you a little about the author himself.

JULES VERNE

On the 8th of February 1828th Jules Verne was born in Nantes, France. He was the eldest of five children. His father was a lawyer and wanted him to study law, but already as a young child, Jules liked more to invent stories of journeys and to read travel magazines.

So he began to write a lot of books which were translated in all of the most important languages and have been sold world-wide many times. Maybe he was the most read author in his time. He wrote science- fiction, but his books weren't political and their topics weren't a social Utopia like "Brave new world" or "1984". His topic was science, technology and what the people were doing with those subjects. In his books he invented a lot of things that didn't exist in the 19th (sentschury)century, but now they exist, like for example the (sobmarin)submarine or the flight to the moon.

He was an optimist about the progress of science, all the scientists in his books were strong men who knew a lot and tried to progress as much as possible. But (tuwaards)towards the end of his life Jules realised that modern technology could be dangerous if people used it unwisely and so he wrote a story about New York in the future that should be a warning.

Jules Verne died on March the 24th, 1905. He was the founder of modern science fiction.

Now I'll tell you about the story

The   Plot

Professor Lidenbrock lived with his nephew Axel in Hamburg. He was a professor of (tschiolotschi)geology and (minerolotschi)mineralogy and his nephew was his assistant.

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One day, Lidenbrock read an old book from Iceland and found in that book a small piece of parchment which was written in runic letters. He tried to read the letters but it wasn't possible. Luckily Axel discovered the key. The letter has been written in the sixteenth century by Arne Saknussem who was a famous scientist. It described how you can go to the centre of the Earth.

Axel didn't like this discovery, because he knew: His uncle wanted to go to the centre now and Axel was afraid of that, because the idea of going inside the earth was incredible for him. But the very next day they started going to Iceland where the journey would begin.

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With the guide Hans and a lot of instruments and food they went up to a (volkéno)volcano in Iceland and entered into it throu(gh) a chimney and the (adventscher)adventure bagan.

One time they took a direction that was returning to the surface and they had to go back.

They didn't have a lot of water and Axel almost died. Luckily Hans found a river so they survived and then they could follow the river, because it was logical that the river would lead to the centre of the earth.

One time they lost Axel but they found him again.

Finally they found a sea.

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The (adwantitsch)advantage of the sea was that they could now sail, they didn't have to walk anymore. On the sea they saw a lot of strange things:

They saw (prihistoric)prehistoric animals, sea monsters who were fighting

They found a little island

But the most incredible thing was that the temperature was still normal. They were very deep into the earth and it was not at all how they thought it would be.

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After a long time sailing they saw land again - but than they noted with frustration that they had returned to the same coast where they had started: They had lost a lot of time without gaining anything.

Then they walked a little on the shore - and found a human head that must have been very old. It was very exciting to note that somebody had already been there.

The second pleasant thing that they found was a name carved into a rock- it was the name of Arne Saknussemm, the man who had written the letter with the instrructions of how to get to the centre of the earth.

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So Lidenbrock, Axel and Hans knew the way, it was there, where Saknussemm had written his name. They entered a (tannel)tunnel but already after some steps they noticed that the way was blocked by stones. They decided to open the way with (dinameite)dynamite- it was a big explosion which (cosed)caused an eruption. They observed that they were going up to the surface of earth  - and they arrived on the earth's surface spewed up by a (volkéno)volcano. Very surprised they saw that they had come up in Italy - they had made a journey from Iceland to Italy throu(gh) (ti)the earth.

Now I shall give you the

Science fiction aspect

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Here you can see a map of the centre of the Earth like scientists think it is. However they (ant)aren't very sure about all that, because it's very difficult to have exact informations about the (intirior)interior of the Earth.

So it's logical that Jules Verne had a lot of aspects in his book that weren't real, but fantasy:

There were descriptions of tunnels, seas and rivers into the earth - we can't be sure about that, but the most likely is that there (ant)aren't any of these things at all in the earth.

They see prehistoric animals alive - it is not very probable that it's posible that they could live inside the earth.

When they were spewed out by a (volkéno)volcano in Italy, in reality they would have died - because a volcano is extremely hot and we can't survive.

Inside the earth isn't any oxygen, it wouldn't be posible to (brith)breathe there.

In the book the temperature in the earth is normal, like on the earth's surface. In reality that is not so.

One difference between science fiction and fantasy is, that science fiction may one day be possible, but fantasy obvously isn't possible. Because of this defintion Jules Verne's book is science fiction, not fantasy, because all the things that I have decribed  now are not very probable but they COULD be possible.

One reason why this book is science fiction and not fantasy is also that people are now thinking about that, how we could have information from the centre of the earth. It's typical for science fiction to create an idea that some day maybe will be true - maybe in a different form.

Some weeks ago, I read an article in the "Sonntags-Zeitung" which wrote about the topic to understand what's happening on inside the earth.

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David Stevenson, an american physicist wants to know what's going on inside the earth, just like Professor Lidenbrock, the scientist in my book. But Stevenson doesn't know a way to enter the earth himself, so he wants to make a small crack into the earth's surface to put a probe into the earth, so we can learn a lot of facts about the earth and the probe can go deep into the centre of it.

The problem is, that at the moment it's only possible to make a small hole to the depth of ten kilometers into the earth. Stevenson wants - and now you have to listen carefully - to make an explosion with an atomic bomb! An atomic bomb would make a hole of 300 meters in which are ten thousand (cubicmiters)cubicmeters of liquid (ion)iron. He could put the probe there and simply by the force of gravity after one week the probe would be in the centre of the earth.

Probably that idea of Stevenson's is also only science fiction - I hope and I think that it will never be possible for the people to accept to put an atomic bomb inside the earth I think it's better if we don't know what's inside the earth rather than a atomic bomb destroy the earth.

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There are also others scientist who are (särtsching)searching for now information about the (intirior)interior of the earth. They are doing that with a complex method using physics. So they try to make a map of the inside of earth.

In that map you can see the structure of the stone on the exterior of the earth. Today it isn't possible to have enough information about the centre of the earth to draw a map, but the scientists are looking for more information with newer and better methods.

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A other posibility to find information from the interior of the earth is with (satilaits)satellites. This satellites can measure pressure and physical processes inside the earth.

The problem is that all that scientists who want to know what's inside the earth haven't enough money to do their discoveries. For a government it isn't interesting to help them because the study of the inside of the earth is something that needs a lot of time, it isn't possible to have quick results.

Out of all these ideas it isn't realistically possible for people to go to the centre of the earth. So finally I can say that it is fantasy to think that people will ever go inside the earth, but the wish to know more about the interior of (ti)the earth is science fiction, because when Verne (lifd)lived it wasn't possible to have any information and he thought that one day it would be possible.

But who knows - maybe it will be possible to go to the centre of the earth in a way which we cannot even (imatschin)imagine. Maybe not in this century, but Jules Verne was right when he invented the flight to the moon and the submarine - maybe one day it will also be possible to make a journey to the interior of the earth.