Libguide - Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth

Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth (JtCE)
Science Fiction, Scientific Expeditions as Entertainment or Thought Experiments for the Masses?

A recently assigned reading for a high school Sci-Fi literature class prompted the creation of this guide.

"Science, my boy, is built upon errors; but they are errors that are good to make, for they lead little by little to the truth." 
Jules Verne in Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth was published as serial literature as a bi-weekly chapter in the French magazne, Magasin, put out by Pierre-Jules Hetzel (1814-1886) in an ongoing feature called Voyages extraordinaires (Extraordinary Journeys).  The column was meant to educate the whole family and featured material of interest to scientists, authors and illustrators.  Once the bi-weekly features were published, they would be gathered together into book form and released for purchase as Christmas presents in three editions.  The novel was eventually translated into English, rewritten and certain character names changed to become the book we now know as Journey to the Center of the Earth.  The initial book was printed in France in 1864, with a revised and expanded edtion released in 1867.  It became available in English in 1871 via Griffith & Farran.  A second English translation was released by Ward, Lock & Co in 1877.  The book has taken on a life of its own, being rereleased in book, film, radio and computer game form and being referenced elsewhere in popular literature frequently with each iteration tweaked along the way.  It is a modern example of song cycle literature.  Hachette releases modern editions, after purchasing the Hetzel collection following Hetzel's bankruptcy.  The work is currently in the public domain. 

The novel is a fictionalized mashup inspired by the many Royal Society scientific expeditions of the time. It mirrors Sir James Ross' expeditions to the Artic with his father and Ross' own expedition to conduct a geomagnetic survey of the Antartic from 1839-1843, and references other well.  It features known inventors and scientific figures of the day as well as utilizing scientific terminology, narrating observational facts and referring to measurements with surveying and astronomical equipment as an act of versimilitude to heighten the realism of the story.  

Exploratory missions were popular at that time in Europe.  Eventually, Sir James Ross' Antarctic Expedition inspired the names for the two volcanos, the ice shelf, McMurdo Station and many of the sea features present in Antarctica.(1)  The United States also sponsored similar exploring expeditions from 1844-1874.  Charles Wilkes was a United States scientific contemporary of Ross as were many others.  Expeditions were greeted with both successes and failures well into the 1920s.

The other scientist mentioned in the Ch 28-31 excerpt assigned to the class was Sir Humphrey Davy. He was an early chemist doing self-experimentation with laughing gas and operator of the Pneumatic Institution which studied the medical effects of manmade gases and which conducted medical trials on people with incurable illnesses, treating them with unrespirable gases or providing oxygen therapy.  Davy was also known for early studies in galvanic corrosion and copper sheathing on marine vessels.

Much of the scientific terminology utilized referenced various surveying instruments of the time, including the dip needle (3) (4) which would have been considered an essential instrument for a voyage that included both the northern and southern hemispheres of the earth.  The geology references were that of primitive, secondary, tertiary and quarternary rock which refer to earlier geological theories than today's understanding of geology.  There were also references to the Plutonian and Neptunist hypotheses, as well as Antedelivian thought, which geologists utilize the wrestle with questions of how the earth was formed.  Scientists today still wrestle with questions of how the earth was formed, even though these earlier theories have been debunked. 

Both Davy and Ross were chemists and looked to material science to define their experiments.  JtCE makes it clear that Verne, France and the Great Britain had not yet subscribed to Steno's 1669 views on geology.(5)  Additionally, their experiments took place prior to the discovery of radioactivity. Similar studies in materiality continue today.(6)  Jules Verne's works are taught as Science Fiction.  Many claim that concepts he imagined were brought into reality through further scientific study, much the way many claim that concepts introduced in Star Trek have become modern technological innovations.  Today, the Jules Verne World Hydrogen Challenge is one such experimental endevour pushing the bounds of science in the practical application of the use of hydrogen fuels to oceangoing travel.

1865-1877 - State of the Science

Modern popular novels that document the state of contemporary science immediately preceding that found in Jules Verne's Extraordinary Journeys series.

- Dava Sobel's Longitude (2005) documents the Royal Society's push to reliably measure Longitude at sea and addresses William Harrison's lifelong effort to develop the Marine Chronometer to obtain the prize money offered by the Royal Society. His competitor, Nevil Maskelyne, the fifth British Royal Astronomer was the creator of the British Nautical Atlas.  This book documents the resources and effort that was common to scientific expeditions of the period.

- The Map the Changed the World, William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology Simon Winchester, 2001 documents the 20 year effort of William Smith to prepare and publish a hand-tinted map entitled "A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales" in 1815.  This map documents the layers of earth, the soil characteristics of each layer and the fossils commonly found within certain layers of soil and rock.  Ultimately Smith was forced to sell his fossil collection and was remanded to debtor's prison.  His study was undertaken by interviewing common men tasked with digging canals and railroad cutouts during the Industrial Revolution.  His work was useful to the engineers and planners of the day.  Those interviews led to the birth of modern geological science.

- The Rocks Displayed The Foundation of Modern Geology by Alexander H. Taylor discusses Plutonism, Neptunism, Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism using source material from tthe late 1700's and the early 1800's.

- James Clark Ross Wikipedia - discussion of the British Magnetic Survey Expedition of 1835-1839

- Fate of the Crocker Land Expedition Natural History Magazine, Stanley A. Freed, June 2012 - provides an example of a Fata Morgana mirage resulting in the invention of an island that didn't exist, an error made by more than one artic scientific expedition.

Bibliography and Jumping off Points for Further Study:

(1) Ross Island Map within the McMurdo Volcanic Province, Antarctica Used via CC by 4.0
As found in "Storage and Evolution of Mafic and Intermediate Alkaline Magmas beneath Ross Island, Antarctica" Journal of Petrology 2016/02/18; Authors: Iocoino, Kayla, Oppenheimer, Clive, Scaillet, Brono, Kyle, Philip

(2) "James Clark Ross - who he?" A drop in the Southern Ocean 2014/03/16 Mike Meredith

(3) W. Blaschnek - A dip circle by P. Gruber, Vienna, from before 1900 CC by 4.0

(4) How to Use a Magnetic Dip Angle Indicator (Dip Needle) - Viken Kiledjian's Youtube channel

(5) See Finding Time by David R. Montgomery in The evolution of creationism by The Geological Society of America, November 2012

(6) Cooling of Plutons and Young Earth Creationism Vitz, Ed, Chemical Education Digital Library CC by 4.0

(7) UFO? Flying Ship? No-It's Nature's Coolest Optical Phenomenon Popular Mechanics, Caroline Delbert, May 6, 2020, (Alternate Title:  What is a Fata Morgana?)

The Antartic Guide:  The Heroic Age

Journey to the Center of the Earth (Radio) - a 1963 BBC production

Jules Verne World Hydrogen Challenge - Construction and Operation of the Elizabeth Swann

Last Updated: 09/08/2024