A Journey to the Center of the Earth (French: Voyage au centre de la Terre), also translated as A Journey to the Interior of the Earth, is a classic 1864 science fiction novel by Jules Verne. The story involves a German professor (Otto Lidenbrock in the original French, Professor Von Hardwigg in the most common English translation who believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the center of the Earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans encounter many adventures, including prehistoric animals and natural hazards, eventually coming to the surface again in southern Italy. The living organisms they meet reflect geological time; just as the rock layers become older and older the deeper they travel, the animals become more and more ancient the closer the characters to the center. From a scientific point of view, this story has not aged quite as well as other Verne stories, since most of his ideas about what the interior of the Earth contains have since been proven wrong. However, a redeeming point to the story is Verne’s own belief, told within the novel from the viewpoint of a character, that the inside of the Earth does indeed differ from that which the characters encounter. One of Verne’s main ideas with his stories was also to educate the readers, and by placing the different extinct creatures the characters meet in their correct geological era, he is able to show how the world looked a long time ago, stretching from the ice age to the dinosaurs. The book was inspired by Charles Lyell’s Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man of 1863. By that time geologists had abandoned a literal biblical account of Earth’s development and it was generally thought that the end of the last glacial period marked the first appearance of humanity, but Lyell drew on new findings to put the origin of human beings much further back in the deep geological past. Lyell’s book also influenced Louis Figuier’s 1867 second edition of La Terre avant le déluge which included dramatic illustrations of savage men and women wearing animal skins and wielding stone axes, in place of the Garden of Eden shown in the 1863 edition. I think that this book is excellent. The story is fast paced, exciting, original and charming. When I read this book it was very easy for me at 16 years of age, to understand and to imagine and with the pictures it helped to see what was being described.   It was written in 1864 and at that time, it was impossible to imagine a journey to the center of the earth, therefore, we can understand how far ahead of his time Jules Verne was in comprehending science.    Before reading this book, I had not thought that inside our planet may be a hidden world with oceans and prehistoric animals, consequently, this book changed my imagination and understanding of the world in general.   I developed a very good impression of this book because I  learnt a lot of new information about the world around us.   I read about national traditions of people who live in a mountain town in Iceland.   And it was also very interesting to read a story that was written more than hundred and fourty five years ago. This book is about the quest to the center of the earth. The expedition is led by Professor Otto Lidenbrock and includes Axel and their Icelandic guide Hans. Lidrnbrock stumbles upon this discovery when he was going through a runic script. In the runic script he discovers a coded message written by an Icelandic alchemist Arne Saknussemm, saying that he has been to the center of the earth. He goes on to describe how exactly he did it. So Professor Otto Lidenbrock, Axel, and Hans go to Sneffels where they are let down by cloudy skies. But on the last day the sun comes out and they enter the correct crater. Once in they face many mishaps like being in a chamber filled with combustible gas and face several prehistoric creatures. After the journey they return to Hamburg to great acclaim–Professor Lidenbrock is hailed as one of the greatest scientists of history, Axel marries his sweetheart Graüben, and Hans eventually returns to his peaceful life in Iceland. The desire to perform a work which will endure, which will survive him, is the origin of man’s superiority over all other living creatures here below. It is this which has established his dominion, and this it is which justifies it, over all the world. –The Mysterious Island, Ch. 57

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