Resumo de Journey To The Centre Of The Earth

Our narrator is Axel, an orphan who lives and works in Germany with his uncle Otto Leidenbrock, a professor of mineralogy. One day the professor comes home very excited about a 12th century Icelandic book he has found in a shop. A piece of parchment falls out of the book, written in runes and encoded, and the professor and his nephew spend hours trying to discover its meaning. They discover that this piece was written by Arne Saknussemm, an alchemist from the 16th century who claims that he had entered, through a crater in an Icelandic volcano, the centre of the earth. Axel sees this as a terrifying and impossible mission and tries to dissuade his uncle from attempting it, but Professor Leidenbrock is determined, and, taking Axel away from his fiancé Grauben (the professor?s ward) they set off to Iceland.

Upon arrival they are introduced to the Governor of Iceland, who accommodates them for a night (they do not tell anyone the true purpose of their trip). He provides them with a guide called Hans, a local hunter who is strong, silent, and completely loyal to his new masters throughout their adventures. They travel quite a distance through the bleak Icelandic countryside before reaching Snaeffel, the volcano which marks the start of their descent into the earth. Their journey is difficult, as they experience all the pitfalls of rock climbing and mountaineering without the aid of sunlight. Axel and the professor observe and record the geological and mineral marvels under the earth?s surface, and take constant measurements to calculate their location.

They travel through a dried-up lava path, and Hans pierces a wall to release an underground spring, which not only provides them with much-needed fresh drinking water but also as a marker of their route. The professor confirms novel contemporary theories about why the temperature and pressure are not increasing with their descent.
At one point Axel becomes separated from the group, and experiences a truly frightening ordeal wandering under the earth in pitch darkness with no way to reach his companions. He eventually lies down exhausted to accept his fate, but hears his companions? voices carried along the walls of the underground chambers, and they are able to find him.

The travellers reach an enormous subterranean lake, which is lit by underground electric phenomena. They build a raft and begin to cross it, and soon realise that it is a sea, surrounded by a forest of vast fungi and plant life which is all grey, having never seen the sun. They are able to catch fish to eat, and they come across a battle between two immense prehistoric-looking sea creatures. They go through an electrical storm which throws their vessel back onto the shore. The professor discovers a human skull, and to their astonishment they see, on the opposite bank, an Early Man and other mammals, developing independently (and later) from the species above ground.

Gaining encouragement from an engraving they discover by Saknussemm, they rebuild their raft, sail on, and come to another tunnel. The tunnel has been blocked by falling rocks since Saknussemm?s journey, so they use gunpowder to break through. However the explosion opens up an abyss, into which the underground sea, the raft, and its passengers, are all flung with incredible speed. Their fall is halted by a geyser spout, which eventually shoots them up right out of a volcano and back onto the earth?s surface. Bruised, shaken, and starving, the travellers find they have re-emerged in Italy, and from their they return ? overground ? home.

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