sail. Over all this immense space the ocean alone was visible--the
island occupied the center of a circumference which appeared to be
infinite.

The engineer and his companions, mute and motionless, surveyed for
some minutes every point of the ocean, examining it to its most extreme
limits. Even Pencroft, who possessed a marvelous power of sight, saw
nothing; and certainly if there had been land at the horizon, if it
appeared only as an indistinct vapor, the sailor would undoubtedly
have found it out, for nature had placed regular telescopes under his
eyebrows.

From the ocean their gaze returned to the island which they commanded
entirely, and the first question was put by Gideon Spilett in these
terms:

"About what size is this island?"

Truly, it did not appear large in the midst of the immense ocean.

Cyrus Harding reflected a few minutes; he attentively observed the
perimeter of the island, taking into consideration the height at which
he was placed; then,--

"My friends," said he, "I do not think I am mistaken in giving to the
shore of the island a circumference of more than a hundred miles."

"And consequently an area?"

"That is difficult to estimate," replied the engineer, "for it is so
uneven."

If Cyrus Harding was not mistaken in his calculation, the island had
almost the extent of Malta or Zante, in the Mediterranean, but it was at
the same time much more irregular and less rich in capes, promontories,
points, bays, or creeks. Its strange form caught the eye, and when
Gideon Spilett, on the engineer's advice, had drawn the outline, they
found that it resembled some fantastic animal, a monstrous leviathan,
which lay sleeping on the surface of the Pacific.

This was in fact the exact shape of the island, which it is of
consequence to know, and a tolerably correct map of it was immediately
drawn by the reporter.

The east part of the shore, where the castaways had landed, formed a
wide bay, terminated by a sharp cape, which had been concealed by a high
point from Pencroft on his first exploration. At the northeast two other
capes closed the bay, and between them ran a narrow gulf, which looked
like the half-open jaws of a formidable dog-fish.

From the northeast to the southwest the coast was rounded, like
the flattened cranium of an animal, rising again, forming a sort of
protuberance which did not give any particular shape to this part of the
island, of which the center was occupied by the