Chapter 2 — CHAPTER II<br>PRO AND CON

At the period when these events took place, I had just returned from a
scientific research in the disagreeable territory of Nebraska, in the United
States. In virtue of my office as Assistant Professor in the Museum of Natural
History in Paris, the French Government had attached me to that expedition.
After six months in Nebraska, I arrived in New York towards the end of March,
laden with a precious collection. My departure for France was fixed for the
first days in May. Meanwhile, I was occupying myself in classifying my
mineralogical, botanical, and zoological riches, when the accident happened to
the Scotia.

Scotia

I was perfectly up in the subject which was the question of the day. How could
I be otherwise? I had read and re-read all the American and European papers
without being any nearer a conclusion. This mystery puzzled me. Under the
impossibility of forming an opinion, I jumped from one extreme to the other.
That there really was something could not be doubted, and the incredulous were
invited to put their finger on the wound of the Scotia.

Scotia

On my arrival at New York the question was at its height. The hypothesis of the
floating island, and the unapproachable sandbank, supported by minds little
competent to form a judgment, was abandoned. And, indeed, unless this shoal had
a machine in its stomach, how could it change its position with such
astonishing rapidity?

From the same cause, the idea of a floating hull of an enormous wreck was given
up.

There remained then only two possible solutions of the question, which created
two distinct parties: on one side, those who were for a monster of colossal
strength; on the other, those who were for a submarine vessel of enormous
motive power.

But this last hypothesis, plausible as it was, could not stand against
inquiries made in both worlds. That a private gentleman should have such a
machine at his command was not likely. Where, when, and how was it built? and
how could its construction have been kept secret? Certainly a Government might
possess such a destructive machine. And in these disastrous times, when the
ingenuity of man has multiplied the power of weapons of war, it was possible
that, without the knowledge of others, a state might try to work such a
formidable engine. After the chassepots came the torpedoes, after the torpedoes
the submarine rams, then—the reaction. At least, I hope so.

But the hypothesis of a war machine fell before the declaration of Governments.
As public interest was in question, and transatlantic communications suffered,
their veracity could not be doubted. But, how admit that the construction of
this submarine boat had escaped the public eye? For a private gentleman to keep
the secret under such circumstances would be very difficult, and for a state
whose every act is persistently watched by powerful rivals, certainly
impossible.

After inquiries made in England, France, Russia, Prussia, Spain, Italy, and
America, even in Turkey, the hypothesis of a submarine monitor was definitely
rejected.

Upon my arrival in New York several persons did me the honour of consulting me
on the phenomenon in question. I had published in France a work in quarto, in
two volumes, entitled “Mysteries of the Great Submarine Grounds.” This book,
highly approved of in the learned world, gained for me a special reputation in
this rather obscure branch of Natural History. My advice was asked. As long as
I could deny the reality of the fact, I confined myself to a decided negative.
But soon, finding myself driven into a corner, I was obliged to explain myself
categorically. And even “the Honourable Pierre Aronnax, Professor in the Museum
of Paris,” was called upon by the New York Herald to express a definite
opinion of some sort. I did something. I spoke, for want of power to hold my
tongue. I discussed the question in all its forms, politically and
scientifically; and I give here an extract from a carefully-studied article
which I published in the number of the 30th of April. It ran as follows:—

New York Herald

“After examining one by one the different hypotheses, rejecting all other
suggestions, it becomes necessary to admit the existence of a marine animal of
enormous power.

“The great depths of the ocean are entirely unknown to us. Soundings cannot
reach them. What passes in those remote depths—what beings live, or can live,
twelve or fifteen miles beneath the surface of the waters—what is the
organisation of these animals, we can scarcely conjecture. However, the
solution of the problem submitted to me may modify the form of the dilemma.
Either we do know all the varieties of beings which people our planet, or we do
not. If we do not know them all—if Nature has still secrets in
ichthyology for us, nothing is more conformable to reason than to admit the
existence of fishes, or cetaceans of other kinds, or even of new species, of an
organisation formed to inhabit the strata inaccessible to soundings, and which
an accident of some sort, either fatastical or capricious, has brought at long
intervals to the upper level of the ocean.

not

“If, on the contrary, we do know all living kinds, we must necessarily
seek for the animal in question amongst those marine beings already classed;
and, in that case, I should be disposed to admit the existence of a gigantic
narwhal.

do

“The common narwhal, or unicorn of the sea, often attains a length of sixty
feet. Increase its size fivefold or tenfold, give it strength proportionate to
its size, lengthen its destructive weapons, and you obtain the animal required.
It will have the proportions determined by the officers of the Shannon,
the instrument required by the perforation of the Scotia, and the power
necessary to pierce the hull of the steamer.

Shannon

Scotia

“Indeed, the narwhal is armed with a sort of ivory sword, a halberd, according
to the expression of certain naturalists. The principal tusk has the hardness
of steel. Some of these tusks have been found buried in the bodies of whales,
which the unicorn always attacks with success. Others have been drawn out, not
without trouble, from the bottoms of ships, which they had pierced through and
through, as a gimlet pierces a barrel. The Museum of the Faculty of Medicine of
Paris possesses one of these defensive weapons, two yards and a quarter in
length, and fifteen inches in diameter at the base.

“Very well! suppose this weapon to be six times stronger and the animal ten
times more powerful; launch it at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and you
obtain a shock capable of producing the catastrophe required. Until further
information, therefore, I shall maintain it to be a sea-unicorn of colossal
dimensions, armed not with a halberd, but with a real spur, as the armoured
frigates, or the ‘rams’ of war, whose massiveness and motive power it would
possess at the same time. Thus may this puzzling phenomenon be explained,
unless there be something over and above all that one has ever conjectured,
seen, perceived, or experienced; which is just within the bounds of
possibility.”

These last words were cowardly on my part; but, up to a certain point, I wished
to shelter my dignity as Professor, and not give too much cause for laughter to
the Americans, who laugh well when they do laugh.

I reserved for myself a way of escape. In effect, however, I admitted the
existence of the “monster.” My article was warmly discussed, which procured it
a high reputation. It rallied round it a certain number of partisans. The
solution it proposed gave, at least, full liberty to the imagination. The human
mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings. And the sea is
precisely their best vehicle, the only medium through which these giants
(against which terrestrial animals, such as elephants or rhinoceroses, are as
nothing) can be produced or developed.

The industrial and commercial papers treated the question chiefly from this
point of view. The Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, the Lloyd’s
List, the Packet-Boat, and the Maritime and Colonial Review,
all papers devoted to insurance companies which threatened to raise their rates
of premium, were unanimous on this point. Public opinion had been pronounced.
The United States were the first in the field; and in New York they made
preparations for an expedition destined to pursue this narwhal. A frigate of
great speed, the Abraham Lincoln, was put in commission as soon as
possible. The arsenals were opened to Commander Farragut, who hastened the
arming of his frigate; but, as it always happens, the moment it was decided to
pursue the monster, the monster did not appear. For two months no one heard it
spoken of. No ship met with it. It seemed as if this unicorn knew of the plots
weaving around it. It had been so much talked of, even through the Atlantic
cable, that jesters pretended that this slender fly had stopped a telegram on
its passage and was making the most of it.

Shipping and Mercantile Gazette

Lloyd’s
List

Packet-Boat

Maritime and Colonial Review

Abraham Lincoln

So when the frigate had been armed for a long campaign, and provided with
formidable fishing apparatus, no one could tell what course to pursue.
Impatience grew apace, when, on the 2nd of July, they learned that a steamer of
the line of San Francisco, from California to Shanghai, had seen the animal
three weeks before in the North Pacific Ocean. The excitement caused by this
news was extreme. The ship was revictualled and well stocked with coal.

Three hours before the Abraham Lincoln left Brooklyn pier, I received a
letter worded as follows:—

Abraham Lincoln

“To M. ARONNAX, Professor in the Museum of Paris, Fifth Avenue
Hotel, New York.

“SIR,—If you will consent to join the Abraham Lincoln in
this expedition, the Government of the United States will with pleasure see
France represented in the enterprise. Commander Farragut has a cabin at your
disposal.

Abraham Lincoln

“Very cordially yours,                    
“J.B. HOBSON,          
“Secretary of Marine.”