The Mysterious Island, Jules Verne [freenovel24 txt] 📗

by heat, furnished a thick quicklime, which increased in bulk by slaking, and was fully as pure as if it had been produced by the calcimation of chalk or marble. Mixed with sand in order to diminish its shrinkage while drying, this lime made an excellent mortar.

By the 9th of April the engineer had at his disposal a quantity of lime, all prepared, and some thousands of bricks. They, therefore, began at once the construction of an oven, in which to bake their pottery. This was accomplished without much difficulty; and, five days later, the oven was supplied with coal from the open vein, which the engineer had discovered near the mouth of Red Creek, and the first smoke escaped from a chimney twenty feet high. The glade was transformed into a manufactory, and Pencroff was ready to believe that all the products of modern industry would be produced from this oven.

Meantime the colonists made a mixture of the clay with lime and quartz, forming pipe-clay, from which they moulded pots and mugs, plates and jars, tubs to hold water, and cooking vessels. Their form was rude and defective, but after they had been baked at a high temperature, the kitchen of the Chimneys found itself provided with utensils as precious as if they were composed of the finest kaolin.

We must add that Pencroff, desirous of knowing whether this material deserved its name of pipe-clay, made some large pipes, which he would have found perfect, but for the want of tobacco. And, indeed, this was a great privation to the sailor.

“But the tobacco will come like everything else,” he would say in his hopeful moments.

The work lasted until the 15th of April, and the time was well spent. The colonists, having become potters, made nothing but pottery. When it would suit the engineer to make them smiths they would be smiths. But as the morrow would be Sunday, and moreover Easter Sunday, all agreed to observe the day by rest. These Americans were religious men, scrupulous observers of the precepts of the Bible, and their situation could only develop their trust in the Author of all things.

On the evening of the 15th they returned permanently to the Chimneys, bringing the rest of the pottery back with them, and putting out the oven fire until there should be use for it again. This return was marked by the fortunate discovery by the engineer of a substance that would answer for tinder, which, we know, is the spongy, velvety pulp of a mushroom of the polypore family. Properly prepared it is extremely inflammable, especially when previously saturated with gunpowder, or nitrate or chlorate of potash. But until then they had found no polypores, nor any fungi that would answer instead. Now, the engineer, having found a certain plant belonging to the mugwort family, to which belong wormwood, mint, etc., broke off some tufts, and, handing them to the sailor, said:⁠—

“Here, Pencroff, is something for you.”

Pencroff examined the plant, with its long silky threads and leaves covered with a cotton-like down.

“What is it, Mr. Smith?” he asked. “Ah, I know! It’s tobacco!”

“No,” answered Smith; “it is Artemesia wormwood, known to science as Chinese mugwort, but to us it will be tinder.”

This mugwort, properly dried, furnished a very inflammable substance, especially after the engineer had impregnated it with nitrate of potash, which is the same as saltpetre, a mineral very plenty on the island.

This evening the colonists, seated in the central chamber, supped with comfort. Neb had prepared some agouti soup, a spiced ham, and the boiled corms of the caladium macrorhizum, an herbaceous plant of the Arad family, which under the tropics takes a tree form. These corms, which are very nutritious, had an excellent flavor, something like that of Portland sago, and measurably supplied the place of bread, which the colonists were still without.

Supper finished, before going to sleep the party took a stroll upon the beach. It was eight o’clock, and the night was magnificent. The moon, which had been full five days before, was about rising, and in the zenith, shining resplendent above the circumpolar constellations, rode the Southern Cross. For some moments the engineer gazed at it attentively. At its summit and base were two stars of the first magnitude, and on the left arm and the right, stars, respectively, of the second magnitude and the third. Then, after some reflection, he said:⁠—

“Herbert, is not today the 15th of April?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the lad.

“Then, if I am not mistaken, tomorrow will be one of the four days in the year when the mean and real time are the same; that is to say, my boy, that tomorrow, within some seconds of noon by the clocks, the sun will pass the meridian. If, therefore, the weather is clear, I think I will be able to obtain the longitude of the island within a few degrees.”

“Without a sextant or instruments?” asked Spilett.

“Yes,” replied the engineer. “And since it is so clear, I will try tonight to find our latitude by calculating the height of the Cross, that is, of the Southern Pole, above the horizon. You see, my friends, before settling down, it will not do to be content with determining this land to be an island; we must find out its locality.”

“Indeed, instead of building a house, it will be better to build a ship, if we are within a hundred miles of an inhabited land.”

“That is why I am now going to try to get the latitude of the place, and tomorrow noon to calculate the longitude.”

If the engineer had possessed a sextant, the work would have been easy, as this evening, by taking the height of the pole, and tomorrow by the sun’s passage of the meridian, he would have the coordinates of the island. But, having no instruments he must devise something. So returning to the Chimneys, he made, by the light of the fire, two little flat sticks which he fastened together with a thorn, in