he granite roof; it is
evidently formed of pieces of enormous stone, placed here as if by the
hand of a giant, who had worked to make a strong and substantial arch.
One day, after an unusually strong shock, the vast rock which stands in
our way, and which was doubtless the key of a kind of arch, fell through
to a level with the soil and has barred our further progress. We are
right, then, in thinking that this is an unexpected obstacle, with which
Saknussemm did not meet; and if we do not upset it in some way, we are
unworthy of following in the footsteps of the great discoverer; and
incapable of finding our way to the centre of the earth!"

In this wild way I addressed my uncle. The zeal of the Professor, his
earnest longing for success, had become part and parcel of my being. I
wholly forgot the past; I utterly despised the future. Nothing existed
for me upon the surface of this spheroid in the bosom of which I was
engulfed, no towns, no country, no Hamburg, no Koenigstrasse, not even
my poor Gretchen, who by this time would believe me utterly lost in the
interior of the earth!

"Well," cried my uncle, roused to enthusiasm by my words, "Let us go to
work with pickaxes, with crowbars, with anything that comes to hand--but
down with these terrible walls."

"It is far too tough and too big to be destroyed by a pickax or
crowbar," I replied.

"What then?"

"As I said, it is useless to think of overcoming such a difficulty by
means of ordinary tools."

"What then?"

"What else but gunpowder, a subterranean mine? Let us blow up the
obstacle that stands in our way."

"Gunpowder!"

"Yes; all we have to do is to get rid of this paltry obstacle."

"To work, Hans, to work!" cried the Professor.

The Icelander went back to the raft, and soon returned with a huge
crowbar, with which he began to dig a hole in the rock, which was to
serve as a mine. It was by no means a slight task. It was necessary for
our purpose to make a cavity large enough to hold fifty pounds of
fulminating gun cotton, the expansive power of which is four times as
great as that of ordinary gunpowder.

I had now roused myself to an almost miraculous state of excitement.
While Hans was at work, I actively assisted my uncle to prepare a long
wick, made from damp gunpowder, the mass of which we finally enclosed in
a bag of linen.

"We are bound to go through," I cried, enthusiastically.

"We are bound to go through," responded the Professor, tap