Part 12

This is, in fact, what constitutes the prodigious wealth of the United Kingdom's industries, where coal serves to manufacture the metal extracted from the same soil and at the same time as itself.

"So, Mr. Cyrus," said Pencroff to him, "we are going to work the iron ore?"

"Yes, my friend," replied the engineer, "and for that—which will not displease you—we shall begin by hunting seals on the islet."

"Seal hunting!" cried the sailor, turning toward Gideon Spilett. "Then seal is needed to make iron?"

"Since Cyrus says so!" answered the reporter.

But the engineer had already left the Chimneys, and Pencroff prepared for the seal hunt, without having obtained any further explanation.

Soon Cyrus Smith, Harbert, Gideon Spilett, Nab, and the sailor were gathered on the shore, at a point where the channel left a sort of fordable passage at low tide. The tide was at the lowest of the ebb, and the hunters were able to cross the channel without getting wet above the knee.

Cyrus Smith was therefore setting foot on the islet for the first time, and his companions for the second, since it was there that the balloon had initially cast them.

Upon landing, a few hundred penguins regarded them with a candid eye. The colonists, armed with sticks, could easily have killed them, but they did not think to indulge in this twice-useless massacre, for it was important not to frighten the amphibians, which were lying on the sand, some cable-lengths away. They also respected certain very innocent penguins, whose wings, reduced to the state of stumps, flattened into the shape of fins, covered with feathers of scaly appearance.

The colonists therefore advanced prudently toward the northern point, walking on ground riddled with small sinkholes, which formed as many nests of aquatic birds. Toward the extremity of the islet appeared large black spots swimming on the surface of the water.

One would have said moving heads of reefs.

These were the amphibians it was a matter of capturing.

They had to be allowed to come ashore, for, with their narrow pelvis, their short and tight fur, their fusiform conformation, these seals, excellent swimmers, are difficult to seize in the sea, whereas, on the ground, their short and webbed feet allow them only a slow creeping movement.

Pencroff knew the habits of these amphibians, and he advised waiting until they were stretched on the sand, in the rays of a sun that would soon plunge them into a deep sleep.

They would then maneuver so as to cut off their retreat and strike them on the nostrils.

The hunters therefore hid behind the rocks of the coast, and they waited in silence. An hour passed, before the seals came to frolic on the sand. There were half a dozen of them. Pencroff and Harbert then detached themselves, in order to round the point of the islet, so as to take them from behind and cut off their retreat. During this time, Cyrus Smith, Gideon Spilett, and Nab, crawling along the rocks, slipped toward the future theater of combat.

Suddenly, the sailor's tall figure rose.

Pencroff uttered a cry. The engineer and his two companions threw themselves in all haste between the sea and the seals. Two of these animals, vigorously struck, remained dead on the sand, but the others were able to regain the sea and take to the open water.

"The seals you asked for, Mr. Cyrus!" said the sailor, advancing toward the engineer.

"Good," replied Cyrus Smith. "We shall make bellows of them for the forge!"

"Forge bellows!" cried Pencroff. "Well! there are seals that are in luck!"

It was, in fact, a blowing machine, necessary for the treatment of the ore, that the engineer intended to make with the skin of these amphibians. They were of medium size, for their length did not exceed six feet, and, in the head, they resembled dogs.

As it was useless to burden themselves with a weight as considerable as that of these two animals, Nab and Pencroff resolved to skin them on the spot, while Cyrus Smith and the reporter finished exploring the islet.

The sailor and the negro extricated themselves adroitly from their operation, and, three hours later, Cyrus Smith had at his disposal two seal skins, which he intended to use in that state, without subjecting them to any tanning.

The colonists had to wait until the sea had ebbed again, and, crossing the channel, they returned to the Chimneys.

It was no small task to stretch these skins on wooden frames intended to maintain their separation, and to sew them by means of fibers, so as to be able to store air in them without too much leakage. It had to be attempted several times. Cyrus Smith had at his disposal only the two steel blades from Top's collar, and, nevertheless, he was so skillful, his companions aided him with such intelligence, that, three days later, the equipment of the little colony had been augmented by a blowing machine, destined to inject air into the midst of the ore when it should be treated by heat—an indispensable condition for the success of the operation.

It was on April 20, early in the morning, that began "the metallurgical period," as the reporter called it in his notes. The engineer was decided, as we know, to operate on the very deposit of coal and ore. Now, according to his observations, these deposits were situated at the base of the northeast spurs of Mount Franklin, that is to say at a distance of six miles. It was therefore not to be thought of returning each day to the Chimneys, and it was agreed that the little colony would camp under a hut of branches, so that the important operation might be followed night and day.

This plan settled, they set out early in the morning. Nab and Pencroff dragged on a hurdle the blowing machine, and a certain quantity of vegetable and animal provisions, which, moreover, they would renew on the way.

The road followed was that of the Jacamar woods, which they crossed obliquely from southeast to northwest, and through their thickest part. A way had to be forced, which was to form, later, the most direct artery between the Grand-View plateau and Mount Franklin. The trees, belonging to already recognized species, were magnificent. Harbert pointed out new ones, among others, dragon trees, which Pencroff treated as "pretentious leeks"—for, despite their size, they were of that same family of liliaceae as the onion, the squill, the shallot, or the asparagus. These dragon trees could furnish woody roots, which, cooked, are excellent, and which, subjected to a certain fermentation, give a very agreeable liquor. A supply of them was made.

This journey through the wood was long. It lasted the entire day, but it permitted observation of the fauna and flora. Top, more specifically charged with the fauna, ran through the grasses and the brushwood, flushing indiscriminately every species of game. Harbert and Gideon Spilett killed two kangaroos with arrow shots, and moreover an animal that strongly resembled both a hedgehog and an anteater: the first, because it rolled itself into a ball and bristled with spikes; the second, because it had digging claws, a long slender snout ending in a bird's beak, and an extensible tongue, garnished with small spines that served it to retain insects.

"And when it is in the stew," Pencroff naturally observed, "what will it resemble?"

"An excellent piece of beef," replied Harbert.

"We shall ask no more of it," replied the sailor.

During this excursion, some wild boars were glimpsed, which did not seek to attack the little troop, and it did not seem that one should meet formidable beasts of prey, when, in a thick thicket, the reporter believed he saw, a few steps from him, among the first branches of a tree, an animal that he took for a bear, and that he began to draw tranquilly. Very fortunately for Gideon Spilett, the animal in question belonged not to that formidable family of plantigrades. It was only a "koula," better known under the name of "sloth," which had the size of a large dog, bristly and dirty-colored fur, the paws armed with strong claws, which allowed it to climb trees and nourish itself on leaves. Verification having been made of the identity of said animal, which was not disturbed from its occupations, Gideon Spilett erased "bear" from the legend of his sketch, put "koula" in its place, and the road was resumed.

At five o'clock in the evening, Cyrus Smith gave the signal to halt. He found himself outside the forest, at the birth of those powerful spurs that buttressed Mount Franklin toward the east. A few hundred paces away flowed the Red Creek, and, consequently, drinking water was not far.

The camp was immediately organized. In less than an hour, on the edge of the forest, among the trees, a hut of branches interlaced with lianas and daubed with clay offered a sufficient retreat. The geological researches were postponed until the next day. Supper was prepared, a good fire blazed before the hut, the spit turned, and at eight o'clock, while one of the colonists kept watch to maintain the hearth, in case some dangerous beast might roam the surroundings, the others slept a sound sleep.

The next day, April 21, Cyrus Smith, accompanied by Harbert, went to seek those terrains of ancient formation on which he had already found a sample of ore. He met the deposit on the surface of the ground, almost at the very sources of the creek, at the foot of the lateral base of one of those northeast spurs. This ore, very rich in iron, enclosed in its fusible gangue, suited perfectly the mode of reduction that the engineer intended to employ, that is to say the Catalan method, but simplified, as it is used in Corsica. Indeed, the Catalan method properly so called requires the construction of furnaces and crucibles, in which the ore and the coal, placed in alternate layers, transform and reduce themselves. But Cyrus Smith purposed to economize these constructions, and wished simply to form, with the ore and the coal, a cubic mass at the center of which he would direct the wind of his bellows. It was the process employed, no doubt, by Tubal-Cain and the first metallurgists of the inhabited world. Now, that which had succeeded with the grandchildren of Adam, that which still gave good results in countries rich in ore and fuel, could but succeed in the circumstances in which the colonists of Lincoln Island found themselves.

As well as the ore, the coal was gathered, without trouble and not far, on the surface of the soil. The ore was previously broken into small pieces, and its surface was cleared by hand of the impurities that soiled it. Then, coal and ore were arranged in heaps and by successive layers—as the charcoal-burner does with the wood he wishes to carbonize. In this way, under the influence of the air projected by the blowing machine, the coal was to transform into carbonic acid, then into carbonic oxide, charged with reducing the iron oxide, that is to say with disengaging the oxygen from it.

Thus did the engineer proceed. The seal-skin bellows, furnished at its extremity with a tube of refractory earth, which had been previously fabricated at the pottery furnace, was established near the heap of ore. Moved by a mechanism whose organs consisted of frames, fiber cords, and counterweights, it launched into the mass a provision of air which, while raising the temperature, also contributed to the chemical transformation that was to give pure iron.

The operation was difficult. All the patience, all the ingenuity of the colonists was needed to bring it to a successful end; but at last it succeeded, and the definitive result was a loop of iron, reduced to the state of sponge, that had to be shingled and wrought, that is to say forged, to drive out the liquefied gangue. It was evident that the first hammer was lacking to these improvised smiths; but, in fine, they found themselves in the same conditions as the first metallurgist, and they did what he must have done.

The first loop, hafted with a stick, served as a hammer to forge the second on an anvil of granite, and they came to obtain a coarse metal, but usable. Finally, after many efforts, many fatigues, on April 25, several bars of iron were forged, and were transformed into tools, pincers, tongs, picks, mattocks, etc...., which Pencroff and Nab declared to be true jewels.

But this metal, it was not in the state of pure iron that it could render great services, it was above all in the state of steel. Now, steel is a combination of iron and coal that one draws, either from cast iron, by removing from it the excess of coal, or from iron, by adding to it the coal it lacks. The first, obtained by the decarburization of cast iron, gives natural or puddled steel; the second, produced by the carburation of iron, gives cementation steel.

It was therefore this latter that Cyrus Smith should seek to fabricate preferably, since he possessed the iron in the pure state. He succeeded in it by heating the metal with powdered coal in a crucible made of refractory earth.

Then, this steel, which is malleable hot and cold, he worked it with the hammer. Nab and Pencroff, skillfully directed, made axe heads, which, heated to red, and plunged abruptly into cold water, acquired an excellent temper.

Other instruments, shaped coarsely, it goes without saying, were thus fabricated, plane blades, axes, hatchets, bands of steel that were to be transformed into saws, carpenter's chisels, then, mattock heads, shovel, pick, hammers, nails, etc. Finally, on May 5, the first metallurgical period was achieved, the smiths returned to the Chimneys, and new labors were soon to authorize them to take a new qualification.

CHAPTER XVI

It was May 6, a day which corresponds to November 6 of the regions of the northern hemisphere. The sky had been clouding over for some days, and it was important to take certain dispositions in view of wintering. However, the temperature had not yet sensibly lowered, and a centigrade thermometer, transported to Lincoln Island, would still have marked an average of ten to twelve degrees above zero. This average cannot surprise, since Lincoln Island, very probably situated between the thirty-fifth and fortieth parallel, must have found itself subjected, in the southern hemisphere, to the same climatic conditions as Sicily or Greece in the northern hemisphere. But, just as Greece or Sicily experience violent colds, which produce snow and ice, so Lincoln Island would doubtless, in the most accentuated period of winter, undergo certain lowerings of temperature against which it was fitting to guard. In any case, if cold did not yet threaten, the rainy season was near, and on this isolated island, exposed to all the inclemencies of the open sea, in the full Pacific Ocean, bad weather must be frequent, and probably terrible.

The question of a more comfortable dwelling than the Chimneys therefore had to be seriously meditated and promptly resolved.

Pencroff, naturally, had some predilection for this retreat that he had discovered; but he understood well that another must be sought.

Already the Chimneys had been visited by the sea, in circumstances of which we remember, and one could not expose oneself anew to such an accident.

"Besides," added Cyrus Smith, who, that day, was talking of these things with his companions, "we have some precautions to take."

"Why? The island is not inhabited," said the reporter.

"That is probable," replied the engineer, "although we have not yet explored it in its entirety; but if no human being is found there, I fear that dangerous animals may abound in it. It is fitting therefore to put oneself out of reach of a possible aggression, and not to oblige one of us to keep watch each night to maintain a lighted hearth. And then, my friends, all must be foreseen. We are here in a part of the Pacific often frequented by Malay pirates..."

"What, " said Harbert, "at such a distance from any land?"

"Yes, my child," replied the engineer. "These pirates are as bold sailors as they are formidable malefactors, and we must take our measures accordingly."

"Well," replied Pencroff, "we shall fortify ourselves against savages on two legs and on four. But, Mr. Cyrus, would it not be proper to explore the island in all its parts before undertaking anything?"

"That would be better," added Gideon Spilett. "Who knows if we shall not find on the opposite coast one of those caverns that we have uselessly sought on this one?"

"That is true," replied the engineer, "but you forget, my friends, that it is fitting to establish ourselves in the neighborhood of a watercourse, and that, from the summit of Mount Franklin, we perceived toward the west neither brook nor river. Here, on the contrary, we are placed between the Mercy and Lake Grant, a considerable advantage that must not be neglected. And, moreover, this coast, oriented to the east, is not exposed like the other to the trade winds, which blow from the northwest in this hemisphere."

"Then, Mr. Cyrus," replied the sailor, "let us build a house on the banks of the lake. Neither bricks nor tools are lacking to us now. After having been brickmakers, potters, founders, smiths, we shall well know how to be masons, the devil!"

"Yes, my friend, but before taking a decision, it is necessary to search. A dwelling whose nature would have borne all the cost would spare us much labor, and it would offer us doubtless a retreat yet more sure, for it would be as well defended against enemies from within as against those from without."

"Indeed, Cyrus," replied the reporter, "but we have already examined all that granite massif of the coast, and not a hole, not even a fissure!"

"No, not one!" added Pencroff. "Ah! if we could have dug a dwelling in that wall, at a certain height, so as to put it out of reach, that would have been suitable! I see it from here, on the facade that looks to the sea, five or six chambers..."

"With windows to light them!" said Harbert, laughing.

"And a staircase to go up!" added Nab.

"You laugh," cried the sailor, "and why? What is impossible in what I propose? Have we not picks and mattocks? Will Mr. Cyrus not know how to fabricate powder to blow the mine? Is it not true, Mr. Cyrus, that you will make powder the day we need it?"

Cyrus Smith had listened to the enthusiastic Pencroff, developing his somewhat fanciful projects.

To attack that mass of granite, even with the pick, was a herculean labor, and it was truly regrettable that nature had not done the hardest of the work. But the engineer replied to the sailor only by proposing to examine more attentively the wall, from the mouth of the river to the angle that terminated it on the north.

They went out therefore, and the exploration was made, over an extent of about two miles, with extreme care. But, in no place, did the wall, smooth and straight, show any cavity whatever. The nests of the rock pigeons that fluttered at its crest were, in reality, only holes bored at the very crest and on the irregularly cut edge of the granite.

It was a vexatious circumstance, and, as for attacking that massif, either with the pick or with powder, to practice in it a sufficient excavation, there was no question of it. Chance had willed that, on all this part of the littoral, Pencroff had discovered the only provisionally habitable shelter, that is to say these Chimneys that it was nevertheless a matter of abandoning.

The exploration achieved, the colonists found themselves then at the north angle of the wall, where it terminated in those elongated slopes that came to die on the shore. From this place to its extreme limit on the west, it formed no longer but a sort of talus, thick agglomeration of stones, earths, and sands, bound by plants, shrubs, and grasses, inclined under an angle of only forty-five degrees. Here and there, the granite still pierced, and came out in sharp points from this sort of cliff. Clumps of trees were staged on its slopes, and a rather thick grass carpeted it. But the vegetative effort went no further, and a long plain of sands, which began at the foot of the talus, extended to the littoral.

Cyrus Smith thought, not without reason, that it must be on this side that the overflow of the lake spread itself in the form of a cascade. Indeed, it was necessary that the excess of water furnished by the Red Creek should be lost at some point. Now, this point, the engineer had not yet found on any portion of the already explored banks, that is to say from the mouth of the brook, on the west, to the Grand-View plateau.

The engineer proposed therefore to his companions to climb the talus they were then observing, and to return to the Chimneys by the heights, exploring the northern and eastern banks of the lake.

The proposition was accepted, and, in a few minutes, Harbert and Nab had arrived at the upper plateau. Cyrus Smith, Gideon Spilett, and Pencroff followed them with a more settled step.

At two hundred feet, through the foliage, the beautiful sheet of water resplended under the solar rays.

The landscape was charming in this place. The trees, with yellowed tones, grouped themselves marvelously for the delight of the eyes. Some old enormous trunks, overthrown by age, cut, by their blackish bark, against the green carpet that covered the soil. There chattered a whole world of noisy cockatoos, veritable mobile prisms, that jumped from one branch to another. One would have said that the light arrived no longer but decomposed through this singular foliage.

The colonists, instead of gaining directly the north shore of the lake, rounded the edge of the plateau, so as to rejoin the mouth of the creek on its left bank. It was a detour of a mile and a half at most. The walk was easy, for the trees, largely spaced, left between them a free passage. One felt well that, on this limit, the fertile zone stopped, and vegetation showed itself less vigorous there than in all the part comprised between the courses of the creek and the Mercy.

Cyrus Smith and his companions did not march without a certain circumspection on this soil new to them. Bows, arrows, sticks hafted with a sharp iron, those were there their only weapons.

However, no beast of prey showed itself, and it was probable that these animals frequented rather the thick forests of the south; but the colonists had the disagreeable surprise of perceiving Top stop before a serpent of large size, that measured fourteen to fifteen feet in length. Nab felled it with a blow of his stick. Cyrus Smith examined this reptile, and declared that it was not venomous, for it belonged to the species of diamond snakes of which the natives nourish themselves in New South Wales. But it was possible that there existed others of which the bite is mortal, such as those deaf vipers, with forked tail, that rear up under the foot, or those winged serpents, furnished with two little ears that permit them to leap with extreme rapidity.

Top, the first moment of surprise past, gave chase to the reptiles with a fury that caused fear for him. Also his master continually recalled him.

The mouth of the Red Creek, at the place where it threw itself into the lake, was soon reached. The explorers recognized on the opposite bank the point they had already visited in descending from Mount Franklin. Cyrus Smith ascertained that the water flow of the creek was rather considerable; it was therefore necessary that, at some place, nature had offered an outlet to the overflow of the lake. It was this outlet that it was a matter of discovering, for, without doubt, it formed a fall of which it would be possible to utilize the mechanical power.

The colonists, marching at will, but without too much separating themselves one from the others, began therefore to round the bank of the lake, which was very steep.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”