THE year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to mention rumours which agitated the maritime population and excited the public mind, even in the interior of continents, seafaring men were particularly excited. Merchants, common sailors, captains of vessels, skippers, both of Europe and America, naval officers of all countries, and the Governments of several States on the two continents, were deeply interested in the matter.
For some time past vessels had been met by "an enormous thing," a long object, spindle-shaped, occasionally phosphorescent, and infinitely larger and more rapid in its movements than a whale.
The facts relating to this apparition (entered in various log-books) agreed in most respects as to the shape of the object or creature in question, the untiring rapidity of its movements, its surprising power of locomotion, and the peculiar life with which it seemed endowed. If it was a whale, it surpassed in size all those hitherto classified in science. Taking into consideration the mean of observations made at divers times -- rejecting the timid estimate of those who assigned to this object a length of two hundred feet, equally with the exaggerated opinions which set it down as a mile in width and three in length -- we might fairly conclude that this mysterious being surpassed greatly all dimensions admitted by the learned ones of the day, if it existed at all.
Can you guess which book this appears in? Click 'Read on' below for the giveaway clue.
It's from that frenchman who infused scifi into my blood. It's the beginning paragraph of the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The author, Jules Verne.
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Is this what got PZ Myers started? ;)
Verne was also my first introduction to SciFi, and Journey to the Centre of the Earth was one of the first books of his that I read. But before that, when just a wee lad, I saw an animated cartoon movie called "From the earth to the moon", and I just loved it. Only later did I learn that it was based on a Verne classic, and I read it.