s easily avoided the breakers of Money
to port and the Victoria reefs to starboard, placed at 130 deg. long.
and on the 10th parallel, which we strictly followed.

On the 13th of January, Captain Nemo arrived in the Sea of Timor, and
recognised the island of that name in 122 deg. long.

From this point the direction of the Nautilus inclined towards the
south-west. Her head was set for the Indian Ocean. Where would the
fancy of Captain Nemo carry us next? Would he return to the coast of
Asia or would he approach again the shores of Europe? Improbable
conjectures both, to a man who fled from inhabited continents. Then
would he descend to the south? Was he going to double the Cape of Good
Hope, then Cape Horn, and finally go as far as the Antarctic pole?
Would he come back at last to the Pacific, where his Nautilus could
sail free and independently? Time would show.

After having skirted the sands of Cartier, of Hibernia, Seringapatam,
and Scott, last efforts of the solid against the liquid element, on the
14th of January we lost sight of land altogether. The speed of the
Nautilus was considerably abated, and with irregular course she
sometimes swam in the bosom of the waters, sometimes floated on their
surface.

During this period of the voyage, Captain Nemo made some interesting
experiments on the varied temperature of the sea, in different beds.
Under ordinary conditions these observations are made by means of
rather complicated instruments, and with somewhat doubtful results, by
means of thermometrical sounding-leads, the glasses often breaking
under the pressure of the water, or an apparatus grounded on the
variations of the resistance of metals to the electric currents.
Results so obtained could not be correctly calculated. On the
contrary, Captain Nemo went himself to test the temperature in the
depths of the sea, and his thermometer, placed in communication with
the different sheets of water, gave him the required degree immediately
and accurately.

It was thus that, either by overloading her reservoirs or by descending
obliquely by means of her inclined planes, the Nautilus successively
attained the depth of three, four, five, seven, nine, and ten thousand
yards, and the definite result of this experience was that the sea
preserved an average temperature of four degrees and a half at a depth
of five thousand fathoms under all latitudes.

On the 16th of January, the Nautilus seemed becalmed only a fe