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You're built to win it. Welcome to Snewscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us at snoozecast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by A Peaceable Grotto. Tonight, we'll read the next part to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne. Before we get into the recap though, have you ever wished that a continuing snooze cast story was easily available as a playlist so you could either start from the beginning or play multiple episodes from just that story in a row so that you don't need to go searching through the catalog? In case you didn't know, we also produce standalone versions of these stories as their own separate snooze cast podcasts for easy listening. Just search for snooze cast presents to find all the options available. And if you subscribe to snoozecast plus, you get complete access to all these series at free. learn more more, go to snoozecast.com slash plus. In the last episode, the captives aboard the Nautilus Awakened One Day to learn that they are now underground inside an extinct volcano. The cave is used by Nemo as a place of refuge, where he sources the elements needed to produce the electricity that makes the Nautilus run. While Nemo spends the day loading up the reserve stock of sodium, they keep down there.

Aron X, Konsei, and Ned explore the volcanic island. They forage for food, including a beehive full of honey, before returning to the ship.

Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. Chapter 11, the Sargasso Sea Sea That day, the Nautilus crossed a singular part of the Atlantic Ocean. No one can be ignorant of the existence of a current of warm water, known by the name of the Gulf Stream. After leaving the Gulf of Florida, we went in the direction of Spitzbergen. But before entering the Gulf of Mexico, about 45 degrees north latitude, this current divides into two arms. The principal one going towards the coast of Ireland and Norway. Walls the second bends to the south about the height of the Azores, then touching the African shore and describing a lengthened oval returns to the Antilles. This second arm, it is rather a collar that an arm, surrounds with its circles of warm water that portion of the cold, quiet, a movable ocean called the Sargaso Sea.

A perfect lake in the open Atlantic.

It takes no less than three years for the great current to pass around it.

Such was the region the Nautilus was now visiting, a perfect meadow, a close carpet of seaweed. So thick and so compact that the stem of a vessel could hardly tear its way through it and kept a Nemo not wishing to entangle his screw in the mass, kept some yards beneath the surface of the waves. The name Sargaso comes from the Spanish word Sargaso, which signifies kelp. This kelp or berry plant is the principle formation of this immense bank. And this is the reason why these plants unite in the peaceful basin of the Atlantic. The only explanation which can be given, he says, seems to me to result from the experience known to all the world. Place in a vase some fragments of cork or other floating body and give to the water in this face a circular movement. The scattered fragments will unite in a group in the center of the liquid surface. That is to say, in the part least agitated. In the phenomenon we are considering, the Atlantic is the vase, the Gulf Stream, the circular current, and the Sargaso Sea, the central point at which the floating bodies unite. I share Mori's opinion, and I was able to study the phenomenon in the very midst where vessels rarely penetrate. Above us, floated products of all kinds, heaped up among these brownish plants, trunks of trees torn from the Andes, or the Rocky Mountains, and floated by the Amazon or the Mississippi. Numerous wrecks remains of keels or ships bottoms, side planks stov in, and so weighted with shells and barnacles that they could not again rise to the surface.

And time will one day justify Mori's other opinion, that these substances, thus accumulated for ages, will become petrified by the action of the water and will then form inexhaustible coal mines.

A precious reserve prepared by far-seeing nature, for the moment when men shall have exhausted the minds of continents. In the midst of this mass of plants and seaweed, I noticed some charming pink halcyons, but they're long tentacles trailing after them. All the day of the 22nd of February, we passed in the Sargasso Sea, where such fish as our partial to marine plants find abundant nourishment. The next, the ocean had returned to its accustomed aspect. From this time for 19 days, from the 23rdrd February to the 12th of March,

the Nautilus kept in the middle of the Atlantic, carrying us at a constant speed of 100 leaks in 24 hours. Captain Nemo evidently intended accomplishing his submarine program, and I imagined that he intended, after doubling Cape Horn, to return to the Australian seas of the Pacific. That land had cause for concern. In these large seas, void of islands, we could not attempt to leave the boat. Nor had we any means of opposing Captain Nemo's will. Our only course was to submit. But what we could neither gain by force nor cunning, I liked to think might be obtained by persuasion. This voyage ended, would he not consent to restore our liberty under an oath never to reveal his existence, an oath of honor which we should have religiously kept. But we must consider that delicate question with the captain. But was I free to claim this liberty? Had he not himself said from the beginning, in the firmest manner, that the secret of his life, exacted from him, are lasting imprisonment on board the Nautil, and would not my four-month silence appear to him a tacit acceptance of our situation, and would not have returned to the subject result in raising suspicions which might be hurtful to our projects, if at some future time a favorable opportunity offered to return to them. During the 19 days mentioned above, no incident of any kind happened to signalize our voyage. I saw a little of the captain. He was at work. In the library, I often found his books left open, especially those on natural history. My work on submarine depths, Han over by him was covered with marginal notes, often contradicting my theories and systems. But the captain contented himself with thus purging my work. It was very rare for him to discuss it with me. Sometimes I heard the melancholy tones of his organ, but only at night, in the midst of the deepest obscurity, when the nautilists slept upon the deserted ocean. During this part of our voyages, we sailed a whole day on the surface of the waves. The sea seemed abandoned. A few sailing vessels on the road to India were making for the Cape of good hope. One day, we were followed by the boats of a whaler, who, no doubt, took us for some enormous whale of great price, but Captain Nemo did not wish the worthy fellows to lose their time and trouble. So ended the chase by plunging under the water. Our navigation continued until the 13th of March. And day, the Nautilus was employed in taking soundings, which greatly interested me. We had then made about 13,000 leagues since our departure from the high seas of the Pacific. The bearings gave us 45 degrees, 37 minutes south latitude, and 37 degrees, 53 minutes west longitude. It was the same water in which Captain Denim of the Herald sounded 7,000 fathoms without finding the bottom. to Lieutenant, Lieutenant Parker of the American frigate Congress could not touch the bottom with 15,140. Captain Nemo intended seeking the bottom of the ocean by a diagonal sufficiently lengthened by means of lateral planes placed at an angle of 45 degrees with the waterline of the Nautilus. Then the screws set to work at its maximum speed, its four blades beating the waves with indescribable force. Under this powerful pressure, the hull of the Nautilus quivered like a sonorous cord, and sank regularly under the water. At 7,000 vathems, I saw some blackish tops rising from the midst of the waters. these summits might belong to high mountains like the Himalayas, or Mont Bloch, even higher, and the depth of the abyss remained incalculable. The notallist descended still lower in spite of the great pressure. I felt the steel plates tremble at the fastenings of the bolts. Its bars bent, its partitions groaned. The windows seemed to curve under the pressure of the waters, and this firm structure would doubtless have yielded, if, as its captain had said, it had not been capable of resistance like a solid block. We had attained a depth of sixteen thousand yards for leagues, and the sides of the notalless then bore pressure of sixteen hundred atmospheres. That is to say, 3200 pounds to each square two-fifths of an inch of its surface. What a situation to be in!" I exclaimed. To overrun these deep regions where man has never drawn. Look Captain. Look at these magnificent rocks.

These... deep regions where man has never trod. Look, Captain. Look at these magnificent rocks, these uninhabited grottoes, these lowest receptacles of the globe, where life is no longer possible. What unknown sights are here? Why should we be unable to preserve a remembrance of them? Would you like to carry away more than the remembrance?" said Captain Nemo. What do you mean by those words? I mean to say that nothing is easier than to make a photographic graphic view of this submarine region.

I had not time to express my surprise at this new proposition, when, at Captain Nemo's call, an objective was brought. Through the widely opened panel, the liquid mass was bright with electricity, which was distributed with such uniformity that not a shadow, not a gradation, was to be seen in our manufactured light. The notalus remained motionless. force of its screw subdued by the inclination of its planes. The instrument was propped on the bottom of the oceanic site, and in a few seconds we had obtained a perfect negative. the operation being over. Captain Nemo said, let us go up. We must not abuse our position nor expose the notallist too long to such great pressure. Go up again.

I exclaimed.

Hold while on.

I had not time to understand why the captain cautioned me thus when I was thrown forward onto the carpet. At a signal from the captain, its screw was shipped, and its blades raised vertically. The noddle is shot into the air like a balloon, rising with stunning rapidity and cutting the mass of waters with a sonorous agitation. Nothing was visible, and in four minutes it had shot through the four leagues which separated it from the ocean. And after emerging like a flying fish fell, making the waves rebound to an enormous height. Chapter 12

Cache-alots and whales During the nights of the 13th and 14th of March, the Nautilus returned to its southerly course. I fancied that, when on a level with Cape Horn, he would return the helm westward in order to beat the Pacific Seas, and so complete the tour of the world. He did nothing of the kind, but continued on his way to the southern regions. Where was he going to? To the pole? It was madness. I began to think that the captain's temerity justified Edlands concerns. For some time passed, the Canadian had not spoken to me of his projects of flight.

He was less communicative, almost silent. I could see that this lengthened imprisonment was weighing upon him. And he met the captain, his eyes lit up.

That day, the 14th of March, Konsei and he came into my room. I inquired the cause of their visit. A simple question to ask you, sir, replied the Canadian. How many men are there on board the nautilus, do you think? I cannot tell, my friend. I should say that it's working does not require a large crew. Certainly, under existing conditions, ten men at the most ought to be enough? Well, why should there be any more? Why? I replied, looking fixately at netland, whose meaning was easy to guess. I I added, if my surmises are correct, and if I have well understood the captain's existence, the not-alus is not only a vessel, it is also place of refuge for those who, like its commander, have broken every tie upon earth. "'Perhaps so,' said Consay, but in any case, the Nautilus can only contain a certain number of men. Could not you, sir, estimate their maximum? How, Conce. By calculation, given the size of the vessel which you know, sir, and consequently the quantity of air it contains, knowing also how much each man expends at a breath and comparing these results with the fact that the

novelist is obliged to go to the surface every 24 hours. Konsei had not finished the sentence before I saw what he was driving at. I understand, said I, but that calculation, though simple enough, can give but a very uncertain result. Never mind," said Netland urgently. Here it is, then, said I, in one hour each man consumes the oxygen contained in twenty gallons of air. And in twenty-four, that contained in four hundred eighty gallons. We must, therefore, find how many times four hundred eighty gallons of air the not-alous contains. Just so said Kahnzei. Or, I continued, the size of the Nautilus being 1500 tons, and one ton holding 200 gallons, it contains 300,000 gallons of air, which divided by 480 gives a quotient of 625, which means to say, strictly speaking, that the air contained in the Nautilus would suffice for 625 men for 24 hours. 625 repeated Ned. But remember that all of us, passengers, sailors and officers included, would not form a tenth part of that number. Still too many for three men, murmured Concet, the Canadian shook his head, passed his hand across his forehead, and left the room without. "'Will you allow me to make one observation, sir?' said Gonzay. Poor Ned is longing for everything that he cannot have. His past life is always present to him. Everything that we are forbidden he regrets. His head is full of old recollections, and we must understand him. What has he to do here? Nothing. He is not learned like you, sir, and has not the same taste for the beauties of the sea that we have. He would risk everything to be able to go once more into a tavern in his own country. Certainly, the monotony on board must seem intolerable to the Canadian, accustomed as he was to a life of liberty and activity. Events were rare, which could rouse him to any show of spirit. But that day an event did happen, which recalled the bright days of the Harpooner. About eleven in the morning, being on the surface of the ocean, the nodalists fell in with a troop of whales, an encounter which did not astonish me, knowing that these creatures had taken refuge in high latitudes. We were seated on the platform with a quiet see the month of October and those latitudes gave us some lovely, atominal days. It was the Canadian. He could not be mistaken, who signaled a whale on the eastern horizon Looking attentively, one might see its black back rise and fall with the waves, five miles from the Nautilus. Ah, exclaimed Nedland. If I was on board a whaler, now such a meeting would give me pleasure. It is one of large size, see with what strength its blowholes throw columns of air and steam. Confounded, why am I bound to these steel plates?

What, Ned, said I, you have not forgotten your old ideas of fishing.

Can a whale fisher ever forget his old trade, sir?

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