ot chosen for the
excavation was a little to the right of the gourbi, on a slight
elevation of the soil. For the first day everything went on prosperously
enough; but at a depth of eight feet below the surface, the navvies came
in contact with a hard surface, upon which all their tools failed to
make the slightest impression. Servadac and the count were at once
apprised of the fact, and had little difficulty in recognizing the
substance that had revealed itself as the very same which composed the
shores as well as the subsoil of the Gallian sea. It evidently formed
the universal substructure of the new asteroid. Means for hollowing it
failed them utterly. Harder and more resisting than granite, it could
not be blasted by ordinary powder; dynamite alone could suffice to rend
it.

The disappointment was very great. Unless some means of protection were
speedily devised, death seemed to be staring them in the face. Were the
figures in the mysterious documents correct? If so, Gallia must now be
a hundred millions of leagues from the sun, nearly three times the
distance of the earth at the remotest section of her orbit. The
intensity of the solar light and heat, too, was very seriously
diminishing, although Gourbi Island (being on the equator of an orb
which had its axes always perpendicular to the plane in which it
revolved) enjoyed a position that gave it a permanent summer. But no
advantage of this kind could compensate for the remoteness of the sun.
The temperature fell steadily; already, to the discomfiture of the
little Italian girl, nurtured in sunshine, ice was beginning to form in
the crevices of the rocks, and manifestly the time was impending when
the sea itself would freeze.

Some shelter must be found before the temperature should fall to 60
degrees below zero. Otherwise death was inevitable. Hitherto, for the
last few days, the thermometer had been registering an average of about
6 degrees below zero, and it had become matter of experience that the
stove, although replenished with all the wood that was available, was
altogether inadequate to effect any sensible mitigation of the severity
of the cold. Nor could any amount of fuel be enough. It was certain
that ere long the very mercury and spirit in the thermometers would be
congealed. Some other resort must assuredly be soon found, or they must
perish. That was clear.

The idea of betaking themselves to the _Dobryna_ and _Hansa_ could not
for a moment be ser