Journey To The Center Of The Earth

Axel volunteers to light the match and run back to the raft as he calculates that there should be 10 minutes before the explosion. The rock face begins crumbling, and an abyss opens up. The sea rises in one huge wave, sweeping the raft along into the chasm. The three men hold hands so as not to fall overboard.

At some point, Hans succeeds in lighting their lantern, and Axel realizes they are falling down a wide gallery. Their descent into the abyss continues for hours. At one point, Axel realizes that their supplies have fallen overboard and the only food left is some meat and biscuits. Eventually, the lantern dies out, leaving them in complete darkness. After what feels like a long time, their fall is stopped by what appears to be a waterspout. 

The group realizes that they have begun ascending rapidly up a narrow well. Otto concludes that despite the danger they are in, there is hope of salvation. After several hours pass, the explorers are tired and hungry, but the real danger is the rising temperature.

Otto claims that they are at the forefront of a volcanic eruption. His supposition is confirmed when the liquid beneath the raft becomes a boiling white mass.

Their ascent stalls for a short time but soon continues. This repeats several times. Axel concludes that they are not in the main volcano shaft, but in a side passage. After a while, Axel begins losing consciousness and has only fragmented memories. The last thing he remembers is Hans’s face lit up by the flames of an explosion and the feeling of being shot out of a cannon. 

After Axel regains consciousness, he realizes he is lying on the edge of a precipice on a mountainside and that Hans has saved him from rolling over the edge. The group is bewildered as to where they could be, since their compass has been pointing steadily north throughout the last stage of their journey. According to their calculations, they should be somewhere in the Far North, but the vegetation and temperature around them point to a place in the South. As they walk down the mountain, they encounter a boy who tells them in Italian that they are on the island of Stromboli.

The group makes their way in several stages back to Hamburg. News of Otto’s journey has circulated widely, resulting in a lot of publicity. Axel’s account is published and widely discussed and debated. Even though many people are skeptical, the Professor becomes a celebrity.

Hans stays in Hamburg for some time but quickly becomes homesick and leaves for Iceland. The mystery of the compass keeps bothering Axel, and one day, while rearranging the minerals in Otto’s study, he realizes that the spherical lightning that destroyed their mast during the storm must have switched the magnetic poles on the compass. Otto is highly amused and calls this phenomenon “a prank of electricity” (155). Axel and Gräuben are married and live happily with Otto and Martha.