All hope of escape on the shores of New York or St. Lawrence had faded away;
and poor Ned, in despair, had isolated himself like Captain Nemo.
Conseil and I, however, never left each other. I said that the Nautilus
had gone aside to the east. I should have said (to be more exact)
the north-east. For some days, it wandered first on the surface,
and then beneath it, amid those fogs so dreaded by sailors.
What accidents are due to these thick fogs! What shocks upon
these reefs when the wind drowns the breaking of the waves!
What collisions between vessels, in spite of their warning lights,
whistles, and alarm bells! And the bottoms of these seas look like
a field of battle, where still lie all the conquered of the ocean;
some old and already encrusted, others fresh and reflecting from their
iron bands and copper plates the brilliancy of our lantern.
On the 15th of May we were at the extreme south of the Bank of Newfoundland.
This bank consists of alluvia, or large heaps of organic matter,
brought either from the Equator by the Gulf Stream, or from the North Pole
by the counter-current of cold water which skirts the American coast.
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