Finding the Correct Shaft by Scartaris's Shadow

Finding the Correct Shaft by Scartaris's Shadow is the moment when a precise astronomical condition turns the crater’s three possible openings into a single route into the Interior of the Earth. After days of cloud and snow threaten to postpone the expedition for a year, sunlight casts the shadow of Scartaris onto the central pit, confirming the reading of Saknussemm’s cryptogram and giving Professor Hardwigg the opening he has been waiting for.

The clue and the stakes

The choice of shaft depends on a particular instruction attributed to the learned Icelander: the right opening is the one touched by Scartaris’s shadow in the last days of June. The three openings beneath the explorers’ feet cannot be distinguished by appearance alone; the cryptographic direction makes the mountain itself, and specifically the movement of sunlight across it, the means of identifying the passage Saknussemm followed.

The peak functions like the pointer of an immense sundial. Its shadow is not merely a general sign that the expedition is on the right mountain: on one particular day, it should point to the mouth of the chasm leading downward. The clue therefore joins time, landscape, and route into a practical test. Until the shadow appears, the explorers cannot know which of the three openings is correct.

The timing makes the test urgent. It is already 25 June, and several more days of dense cloud would leave the party unable to see the shadow before the favorable period passed. They might then have to wait another year. The narrator, already weary of the enterprise, understands the prospect as more than a delay: another year would mean continuing the journey with one fewer person in the party.

Weather delays the decision

On the morning after the first night in the crater, a heavy grey sky hangs over the summit. The narrator recognizes why the weather matters, while Professor Hardwigg’s frustration grows as the day passes without any visible shadow. The expedition has reached the place where its route should be decided, but the very evidence needed to make that decision remains hidden by cloud.

Rain and snow continue on 26 June. Hans quietly builds himself a shelter from lava and waits, while the narrator watches cascades run down the cone, sometimes carrying stones into the depths below. Professor Hardwigg, by contrast, is nearly frantic: he has come close to the goal of his desires, yet the expedition may be stranded at the threshold. The difference in their responses sharpens the scene’s central tension. Hans remains composed; Hardwigg’s determination is tested by an obstacle he cannot overcome through effort alone.

The weather is therefore both a literal obstruction and a countdown. The explorers have the clue and the location, but neither can help unless the sun makes the shadow visible. For the narrator, the prospect of postponement is a chance to escape the “mad and monstrous enterprise”; for Professor Hardwigg, the same prospect threatens to undo a hard-won approach to the entrance.

The shadow identifies the entrance

On Sunday, 28 June, the wind changes and the sun breaks through the overcast sky. Its rays reach the bottom of the crater, illuminating the uneven ground and throwing the rocks’ shadows onto it. Among them, the shadow of Scartaris appears clearly and moves as the day advances. Professor Hardwigg follows its progress in a state of intense excitement.

At exactly noon, when the sun reaches its highest point, the shadow falls on the edge of the central pit. The event resolves the uncertainty among the three openings: the central pit is identified as the shaft indicated by Saknussemm’s instruction. The information is not inferred from a resemblance or a guess, but read from the alignment of peak, sunlight, date, and opening.

Professor Hardwigg announces that they have found the way and urges his companions forward. Hans answers with a calm assent, in contrast to the Professor’s overwhelming joy. The watches show thirteen minutes past one when the party is ready to proceed. That concrete pause between the noon alignment and their departure marks the transition from deciphering the clue to acting on it.

Significance in the expedition

The shadow converts Saknussemm’s cryptic writing into a navigable instruction. Earlier, the explorers could know what condition to look for without being able to verify that it had occurred; once sunlight reaches the crater floor, the clue becomes observable and determines their choice. The landscape serves at once as a clock, a pointer, and a map.

The episode also makes the expedition’s progress contingent on forces outside the explorers’ control. Professor Hardwigg’s energy cannot clear the clouds or hurry the sun; the decisive change arrives with the weather. The scene’s movement from frustrated waiting to sudden certainty gives the discovery its force: the entrance was physically present throughout, but the party could not safely choose it until the shadow disclosed the route. With that sign in view, the explorers leave the crater floor poised to begin their descent into the Interior of the Earth.