"My friend," answered the doctor, "the upshot of it all is that we are well off where we are, and need not want to go elsewhere."
"You said just now," resumed Altamont, "that perhaps it would be worth while to make a journey to the centre of the world; has such an undertaking ever been thought of?"
"Yes, and this is all I'm going to say about the Pole. There is no point in the world which has given rise to more chimeras and hypotheses. The ancients, in their ignorance, placed the garden of the Hesperides there. In the Middle Ages it was supposed that the earth was upheld on axles placed at the poles, on which it revolved; but when comets were seen moving freely, that idea had to be given up. Later, there was a French astronomer, Bailly, who said that the lost people mentioned by Plato, the Atlantides, lived here. Finally, it has been asserted in our own time that there was an immense opening at the poles, from which came the Northern Lights, and through which one could reach the inside of the earth; since in the hollow sphere two planets, Pluto and Proserpine, were said to move, and the air was luminous in consequence of the strong pressure it felt."
"That has been maintained?" asked Altamont.
"Yes, it has been written about seriously. Captain Symmes, a countryman of ours, proposed to Sir Humphry Davy, Humboldt, and Arago, to undertake the voyage! But they declined."
"And they did well."
"I think so. Whatever it may be, you see, my friends, that the imagination has busied itself about the Pole, and that sooner or later we must come to the reality."
"At any rate, we shall see for ourselves," said Johnson, who clung to his idea.
"Then, to-morrow we'll start," said the doctor, smiling at seeing the old sailor but half convinced; "and if there is any opening to the centre of the earth, we shall go there together."