JULES VERNE: 25 Greatest Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Жюль Верн

a third of its weight.

      But there was an immense quantity of it; the tongue alone yielded six thousand pounds of oil, and the lower lip four thousand. Then, besides the fat, which would insure for a long time a store of stearine and glycerine, there were still the bones, for which a use could doubtless be found, although there were neither umbrellas nor stays used at Granite House. The upper part of the mouth of the cetacean was, indeed, provided on both sides with eight hundred horny blades, very elastic, of a fibrous texture, and fringed at the edge like great combs, of which the teeth, six feet long, served to retain the thousands of animalculæ, little fish, and molluscs, on which the whale fed.

      The operation finished, to the great satisfaction of the operators, the remains of the animal were left to the birds, who would soon make every vestige of it disappear, and their usual daily occupations were resumed by the inmates of Granite House.

      However, before returning to the dockyard, Cyrus Harding conceived the idea of fabricating certain machines, which greatly excited the curiosity of his companions. He took a dozen of the whale's bones, cut them into six equal parts, and sharpened their ends.

      "This machine is not my own invention, and it is frequently employed by the Aleutian hunters in Russian America. You see these bones, my friends; well, when it freezes, I will bend them, and then wet them with water till they are entirely covered with ice, which will keep them bent, and I will strew them on the snow, having previously covered them with fat. Now, what will happen if a hungry animal swallows one of these baits? Why, the heat of his stomach will melt the ice, and the bone, springing straight, will pierce him with its sharp points."

      "Well! I do call that ingenious!" said Pencroft.

      "And it will spare the powder and shot," rejoined Cyrus Harding.

      "That will be better than traps!" added Neb.

      In the meanwhile the boat-building progressed, and towards the end of the month half the planking was completed. It could already be seen that her shape was excellent, and that she would sail well.

      Pencroft worked with unparalleled ardour, and only a sturdy frame could have borne such fatigue; but his companions were preparing in secret a reward for his labours, and on the 31st of May he was to meet with one of the greatest joy's of his life.

      On that day, after dinner, just as he was about to leave the table, Pencroft felt a hand on his shoulder.

      It was the hand of Gideon Spilett, who said,—

      "One moment, Master Pencroft, you mustn't sneak off like that! You've forgotten your dessert."

      "Thank you, Mr. Spilett," replied the sailor, "I am going back to my work."

      "Well a cup of coffee, my friend?"

      "Nothing more."

      "A pipe, then?"

      Pencroft jumped up, and his great good-natured face grew pale when he saw the reporter presenting him with a ready-filled pipe, and Herbert with a glowing coal.

      The sailor endeavoured to speak, but could not get out a word, so, seizing the pipe, he carried it to his lips, then applying the coal, he drew five or six great whiffs. A fragrant blue cloud soon arose, and from its depths a voice was heard repeating excitedly,—

      "Tobacco! real tobacco!"

      "Yes, Pencroft," returned Cyrus Harding, "and very good tobacco too!"

      "O divine Providence! sacred Author of all things!" cried the sailor. "Nothing more is now wanting to our island."

      And Pencroft smoked, and smoked, and smoked.

      "And who made this discovery?" he asked at length. "You, Herbert, no doubt?"

      "No, Pencroft, it was Mr. Spilett."

      "Mr Spilett!" exclaimed the sailor seizing the reporter, and clasping him to his breast with such a squeeze that he had never felt anything like it before.

      "Oh, Pencroft," said Spilett, recovering his breath at last, "a truce for one moment. You must share your gratitude with Herbert, who recognised the plant, with Cyrus, who prepared it, and with Neb who took a great deal of trouble to keep our secret."

      "Well, my friends, I will repay you some day," replied the sailor. "Now we are friends for life."

1 A port in the State of New York.

      CHAPTER XI

       Table of Contents

      Winter—Felling Wood—The Mill—Pencroft's fixed Idea—The Bones—To what Use an Albatross may be put—Fuel for the Future—Top and Jup—Storms—Damage to the Poultry-yard—Excursion to the Marsh—Cyrus Harding alone—Exploring the Well

      Winter arrived with the month of June, which is the December of the northern zones, and the great business was the making of warm and solid clothing.

      The musmons in the corral had been stripped of their wool, and this precious textile material was now to be transformed into stuff.

      Of course Cyrus Harding, having at his disposal neither carders, combers, polishers, stretchers, twisters, mule-jenny, nor self-acting machine to spin the wool, nor loom to weave it, was obliged to proceed in a simpler way, so as to do without spinning and weaving. And indeed he proposed to make use of the property which the filaments of wool possess when subjected to a powerful pressure of mixing together, and of manufacturing by this simple process the material called felt. This felt could then be obtained by a simple operation which, if it diminished the flexibility of the stuff, increased its power of retaining heat in proportion. Now the wool furnished by the musmons was composed of very short hairs, and was in a good condition to be felted.

      The engineer, aided by his companions, including Pencroft, who was once more obliged to leave his boat, commenced the preliminary operations, the object of which was to rid the wool of that fat and oily substance with which it is impregnated, and which is called grease. This cleaning was done in vats filled with water, which was maintained at the temperature of seventy degrees, and in which the wool was soaked for four-and-twenty hours; it was then thoroughly washed in baths of soda, and, when sufficiently dried by pressure, it was in a state to be compressed, that is to say, to produce a solid material, rough, no doubt, and such as would have no value in a manufacturing centre of Europe or America, but which would be highly esteemed in the Lincoln Island markets.

      This sort of material must have been known from the most ancient times, and, in fact, the first woollen stuffs were manufactured by the process which Harding was now about to employ. Where Harding's engineering qualifications now came into play was in the construction of the machine for pressing the wool, for he knew how to turn ingeniously to profit the mechanical force, hitherto unused, which the waterfall on the beach possessed to move a fulling-mill.

      Nothing could be more rudimentary. The wool was placed in troughs, and upon it fell in turns heavy wooden mallets, such was the machine in question, and such it had been for centuries until the time when the mallets were replaced by cylinders of compression, and the material was no longer subjected to beating, but to regular rolling.

      The operation, ably directed by Cyrus Harding, was a complete success. The wool, previously impregnated with a solution of soap, intended on the one hand to facilitate the interlacing, the compression, and the softening of the wool, and on the other to prevent its diminution by the beating, issued from the mill in the shape of thick felt cloth. The roughnesses with which the staple of wool is naturally filled were so thoroughly entangled and interlaced together that a material was formed equally suitable either for garments or bedclothes. It was certainly neither