‘Bones?’ I exclaimed. ‘Why, yes, these are the bones of antediluvian animals!’
I fell on these primeval remains, composed of indestructible calcium phosphate, and unhesitatingly identified these gigantic bones, which looked like dried-up tree-trunks.
‘Here is the lower jaw of the mastodon,” I said; ‘and there is a femur which can only have belonged to the biggest of all those monsters, the megatherium. Yet, it certainly is a menagerie, for these bones can’t have been brought here by a cataclysm. The animals they belonged to have lived on the shores of this subterranean sea, in the shade of these arborescent plants. Why, I can even see some whole skeletons. And yet…’
‘Yet what?’ asked my uncle.
‘I can’t understand the presence of such huge quadrupeds in this granite cavern.’
‘Why?’
‘Because animal life existed on earth only in the Secondary Period, when a sediment of soil had been deposited by the flood-waters and had taken the place of the incandescent rocks of the Primitive Period.’
‘Well, Axel, there is a very simple answer to your objection, and that is that this soil is alluvial.’
‘What! At this depth below the surface of the earth?’
‘Why, yes, and there is a geological explanation of the fact. At a certain period the earth consisted only of and elastic crust, which moved alternatively upwards or downwards according to the laws of attraction and gravitation. Probably subsidences of the crust occurred and some of the alluvial soil was carried to the bottom of the abysses which suddenly opened up.’
‘That must be it. But if antediluvian animals have lived in these subterranean regions, how do we know that some of those monsters are not still roaming about in these gloomy forests or behind these steep rocks?’
As the idea occurred to me, I examined, not without certain alarm, the various points of the horizon, but no living creature could be seen on those deserted shores.
from Journey to Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne, first published in 1864
All of the songs on 640.021 were either purchased legitimately or were offered for free. For more information about the music featured on this collection, please click on the band names in the list below.
Russian Circles – Geneva (00:00)
Pelican – The Woods (05:49)
Bardo Pond – Living Testament (18:47)
The End Of Science – You Are Dead (26:24)
Exilym – The Space Stranger And The Orbital Wish (35:21)
Tesa – IV (40:25)
La Vérité – You Eyes Are The Sun (47:05)
The End Of Science – 1113 (55:11)
Maybeshewill – Not For Want Of Trying (59:09)
Maybeshewill – Takotsubo (64:44)