Hardwigg's Decision to Undertake the Journey to the Earth's Centre

Professor Hardwigg’s decision to undertake the journey to the Earth’s Centre transforms Saknussemm’s cryptic parchment from a problem of interpretation into a physical undertaking. Its decisive force lies in the professor’s readiness to act where Henry sees scientific impossibility: the expedition begins not because doubt has been settled, but because Hardwigg refuses to let received theory overrule the document and the possibility of discovery.

From decipherment to commitment

Hardwigg’s resolve grows out of his comparison of the parchment with the manuscript in which it is found. He argues that the two are written in different hands and that the cryptograph is later than the book. His dating depends on its first letter, a double M that, he says, entered the Icelandic language only in the twelfth century; on that basis, he places the parchment two hundred years after the volume. The reasoning is presented as an “irrefragable proof” of his surmise, although Henry judges it plausible rather than conclusive. Their difference is present before the route itself is known: Hardwigg treats a chain of clues as grounds for action, while Henry remains alert to the distance between a persuasive inference and an established fact.

Once Saknussemm’s message has been deciphered, the professor’s response makes the decision unmistakable. He leaps from the ground, rushes around the room, knocks over tables and chairs, and scatters books before collapsing into his armchair, exhausted by delight. His excitement is not merely intellectual satisfaction. Almost immediately, he asks the time, requests food, orders his portmanteau prepared, and declares that he and Henry will start at once. The discovery has become a schedule and a command: the next step is not further contemplation but departure.

Henry is horrified, though he resolves not to show fear. He intends to argue against the journey after dinner, judging that scientific reasons are the only ones likely to influence his uncle. His resistance establishes the expedition’s central conflict at its outset: Henry experiences the proposed descent as a mortal risk, while Hardwigg sees an opportunity that cannot be allowed to pass. The meal delays the confrontation, but it does not soften the professor’s determination.

Recruitment, secrecy, and the Iceland map

After dinner, Hardwigg approaches Henry in a gentler manner. He says that Henry’s ingenuity has made the discovery possible and insists that he share its glory. The offer recognizes Henry’s part in deciphering the message, but it also draws him into the undertaking before his objections have been answered. Hardwigg then makes secrecy a condition of the plan. Scientific discoverers, he argues, are envious, and if the document became public, other investigators would follow Saknussemm’s traces. The pair must be first.

Henry does not accept the professor’s confidence without challenge. He asks whether the paper may be a hoax. Hardwigg answers that the book in which it appears is sufficient proof of its authenticity. Henry, by contrast, accepts that Saknussemm wrote the lines but suspects that they may have been intended as a mystification rather than a literal account. The disagreement is precise: the authorship of the message is not the same as proof that its claim is true. Hardwigg’s decision rests on treating the historical document as actionable evidence; Henry continues to distinguish what the parchment says from what it can establish.

The professor next turns to a map of Iceland, received from his friend Augustus Peterman of Leipzig, and asks Henry to retrieve a specified atlas and plate. He presents the map as the answer to Henry’s doubts and objections. Its appearance gives the proposed journey a geographical direction: the debate is no longer confined to whether a message might be genuine, but moves toward locating the place from which its instructions can be followed. Hardwigg’s method is to meet skepticism with another piece of material evidence and press onward; the map does not erase Henry’s reluctance, but it advances the plan from interpretation toward preparation.

Theory against the journey

Henry’s strongest objection is scientific. He tells Hardwigg that both theoretical and practical teaching show the descent to be impossible, invoking the expected rise in temperature with depth and the predicted heat of the Earth’s interior. Hardwigg replies that he cares nothing for theories. That response defines the decision’s governing tension: he does not claim that every scientific difficulty has been resolved; he rejects the authority of general theory when it conflicts with the possibility suggested by Saknussemm’s route.

The disagreement persists after they have begun the journey. At Sneffels, Hardwigg uses the volcano’s steam vents to reassure Henry: their ordinary activity, he explains, indicates that an eruption is not imminent, because the vents grow more active before an eruption and disappear during it. When Henry begins to object, the professor ends the discussion by declaring that science has spoken and must be obeyed. The exchange sharpens the irony of their original argument. Hardwigg had dismissed theory when it barred the expedition, yet invokes scientific interpretation to manage danger once they are on the mountain. His confidence is not a simple rejection of science; it is a willingness to use particular observations and explanations in support of action while resisting conclusions that would stop him.

Below ground, the same pattern returns in disputes over what their observations mean. Henry points out the implications of their depth for accepted limits on the Earth’s crust and for the expected increase in heat. He considers whether refractory lava might insulate the volcanic chimney, taking the hot-water jet as support for that explanation, and says that he will accept Hardwigg’s calculations while drawing a definite conclusion from them. These exchanges do not reverse the decision to descend. Instead, they show its continuing cost: every new observation can become either a reason to retreat or another problem the explorers must interpret while proceeding.

Preparation and the threshold crossed

The decision entails practical preparation as well as argument. With forty-eight hours remaining before their final start, Hardwigg and Henry devote their time to packing instruments, arms, tools, and provisions in four separate groups. Among the equipment is a centigrade thermometer marked to 150 degrees and a compressed-air manometer intended to measure atmospheric pressure. Henry questions whether the thermometer’s range will be adequate if the heat rises as feared, or excessive if they need precise readings from springs or molten metal. Such details make the expedition’s confidence tangible but conditional: they carry instruments meant to test the environment, even as the journey’s premise challenges what their scientific expectations say they should find.

The descent itself requires another expedient. The shaft’s near-perpendicular sides offer projections that may assist the climbers, but a single rope would create a serious problem: once at the bottom, they might have no way to detach it from above. Hardwigg solves this by using a cord about as thick as Henry’s thumb and at least four hundred feet long. He lets roughly half fall into the pit, catches it over a block of lava at the edge, and throws down the other half. At intervals of about two hundred feet, a traveler can release one end and pull the other, bringing the cord down to continue the descent. Henry accepts the method as sound, but his thoughts remain fixed on the unresolved return. The expedition’s physical entry into the shaft is thus also a threshold in their reasoning: it converts Hardwigg’s decision into a sequence of irreversible-seeming acts, while leaving Henry conscious of the way back.

Once underground, the pair’s contrasting approaches keep shaping the journey. Henry identifies the outlines of fossil plants on the walls and challenges Hardwigg with a shell he has picked up; the professor classifies it as a trilobite but declines to draw the conclusion Henry wants. Later, when the expedition’s measurements appear to conflict with established limits on crustal thickness and expected heat, Henry turns to concrete observations and calculations rather than simply accepting authority. Yet the decision to continue holds. The parchment’s instructions have set the course, but progress depends on what they encounter, the equipment they can use, and how the two men negotiate the difference between observation and explanation.

Consequences and significance

The consequences of Hardwigg’s decision extend beyond the first descent. At the underground sea, the explorers’ guide Hans is already at work on a half-finished raft of unusual wood when Henry and the professor find him. Later, when Henry appears dazed and is in danger of falling into the water, Hardwigg warns him and Hans seizes him from the other side; Hans’s presence of mind prevents him from drowning. The initial choice to pursue the route has therefore led them into a chain of circumstances where survival depends not on the professor’s resolve alone, but on preparation, observation, and the actions of their companions.

As a narrative turning point, the decision joins discovery to danger without pretending that certainty has been achieved. Hardwigg treats the parchment, the book, the map, and later observations as reasons to proceed; Henry repeatedly tests those reasons against scientific expectations and physical evidence. The contrast gives the expedition its intellectual as well as geographical movement. The professor’s boldness opens the route, but the journey continually exposes the gap between a claim that promises access to the Earth’s Centre and the practical, sometimes life-threatening conditions encountered along the way.