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An Antarctic Mystery (in English)
Hoey, Frances Cashel ; Verne, Jules
Synopsis "An Antarctic Mystery (in English)"
No doubt the following narrative will be received: with entire incredulity, but I think it well that the public should be put in possession of the facts narrated in "An Antarctic Mystery." The public is free to believe them or not, at its good pleasure. No more appropriate scene for the wonderful and terrible adventures which I am about to relate could be imagined than the Desolation Islands, so called, in 1779, by Captain Cook. I lived there for several weeks, and I can affirm, on the evidence of my own eyes and my own experience, that the famous English explorer and navigator was happily inspired when he gave the islands that significant name. Geographical nomenclature, however, insists on the name of Kerguelen, which is generally adopted for the group which lies in 49 45' south latitude, and 69 6' east longitude. This is just, because in 1772, Baron Kerguelen, a Frenchman, was the first to discover those islands in the southern part of the Indian Ocean. Indeed, the commander of the squadron on that voyage believed that he had found a new continent on the limit of the Antarctic seas, but in the course of a second expedition he recognized his error. There was only an archipelago. I may be believed when I assert that Desolation Islands is the only suitable name for this group of three hundred isles or islets in the midst of the vast expanse of ocean, which is constantly disturbed by austral storms. Nevertheless, the group is inhabited, and the number of Europeans and Americans who formed the nucleus of the Kerguelen population at the date of the 2nd of August, 1839, had been augmented for two months past by a unit in my person. Just then I was waiting for an opportunity of leaving the place, having completed the geological and mineralogical studies which had brought me to the group in general and to Christmas Harbour in particular. Christmas Harbour belongs to the most important islet of the archipelago, one that is about half as large as Corsica. It is safe, and easy, and free of access. Your ship may ride securely at single anchor in its waters, while the bay remains free from ice. The Kerguelens possess hundreds of other fjords. Their coasts are notched and ragged, especially in the parts between the north and the south-east, where little islets abound. The soil, of volcanic origin, is composed of quartz, mixed with a bluish stone. In summer it is covered with green mosses, grey lichens, various hardy plants, especially wild saxifrage.
Jules Gabriel Verne, conocido en los países hispanohablantes como Julio Verne (Nantes, 8 de febrero de 1828-Amiens, 24 de marzo de 1905), fue un escritor, dramaturgo y poeta francés, célebre por sus novelas de aventuras y por su profunda influencia en el género literario de la ciencia ficción. Nacido en una familia burguesa, estudió para continuar los pasos de su padre, Pierre Verne, como abogado pero muy joven decidió abandonar ese camino para dedicarse a la literatura. Su colaboración con el editor Pierre-Jules Hetzel dio como fruto la creación de Viajes extraordinarios, una popular serie de novelas de aventuras escrupulosamente documentadas y visionarias entre las que se incluían las famosas De la Tierra a la Luna (1865), Veinte mil leguas de viaje submarino (1870), La vuelta al mundo en ochenta días (1872) o La isla misteriosa (1874). Ya antes había publicado Cinco semanas en globo (1863) y Viaje al centro de la Tierra (1864). Es uno de los escritores más importantes de Francia y de toda Europa gracias a la evidente influencia de sus libros en la literatura vanguardista y el surrealismo, y desde 1979 es el segundo autor más traducido en el mundo, después de Agatha Christie. Se le considera, junto a H. G. Wells, uno de los «padres de la ciencia ficción». Fue condecorado con la Legión de Honor en 1892 por sus aportes a la educación y a la ciencia.
