Saknussemm

Saknussemm is the learned Icelander whose alleged journey into the Earth turns a cryptic document into the governing premise of Professor Hardwigg’s expedition. He is never encountered directly: the explorers know him through a parchment, a reported passage through the underground world, and their repeated effort to determine whether their own route follows his. His authority propels them forward, while uncertainty about his actual achievement shadows their discoveries.

Identity and Documentary Evidence

The Professor dates the cryptograph to a period later than the book in which it is found. His reasoning rests on its opening double M, a letter he says entered Icelandic in the twelfth century, making the parchment roughly two hundred years later than the volume. He treats this linguistic detail as strong evidence about the document’s age, though Henry remains unconvinced by the Professor’s broader conclusions. The distinction between the old book and the later writing supports the possibility that the parchment was added by an owner, rather than authored with the volume itself.

The Professor’s identification of Saknussemm as the learned Icelander behind the journey gives the cryptic writing practical force. Yet the narrative preserves a gap between documentary inference and established fact. Henry privately considers an objection: in the sixteenth century, neither the barometer nor the manometer had been invented, so how could Saknussemm have known that he had reached the Earth’s centre? Henry keeps the argument to himself, but it exposes a difficulty the expedition cannot resolve simply by invoking its predecessor.

The Expedition’s Route and Its Doubts

Saknussemm’s instructions shape the expedition’s interpretation of the landscape. On the summit of Sneffels, the Professor identifies its two peaks and asks Hans for the local name of the one beneath them; Hans answers, “Scartaris.” The geographical detail matters because the explorers are looking for the route indicated by Saknussemm, treating the mountain’s features as clues left within a journey they hope to repeat.

The physical descent also makes the earlier traveller’s supposed passage a model for action. At the shaft, the Professor devises a way down using a cord about four hundred feet long, looped over a block of lava and lowered in successive lengths. The explorers can descend by releasing and retrieving the cord, but Henry’s immediate worry is how they will climb back. Saknussemm’s example encourages the descent; it does not remove its material dangers or answer how the return will be made.

Far below, the route becomes less certain. When the party reaches the great underground sea, Henry argues that following the route indicated by Saknussemm means they cannot be far wrong. The Professor counters that this is precisely the question: did Saknussemm ever encounter the sea, and, if so, did he cross it? He fears that the stream they had followed as a guide may have led them astray. The sea therefore tests the authority of the old route: a spectacular discovery is not, by itself, proof that the expedition remains on Saknussemm’s path.

Legacy and Narrative Significance

The expedition’s progress repeatedly depends on converting Saknussemm’s reported experience into a usable map. Yet his story supplies neither direct testimony nor an independently verified account of the journey’s endpoint. The explorers must make decisions in the space between a written clue and the terrain before them, weighing inherited instructions against what they can observe.

That tension becomes especially pointed when the Professor rejects Henry’s appreciation of the inland sea as a magnificent sight and insists that the object of the journey is to reach its intended destination. For the Professor, wonder cannot substitute for progress; for Henry, the possibility that the route is wrong remains alive. Saknussemm thus functions less as a present character than as an absent predecessor whose uncertain achievement gives the expedition direction, stakes, and a persistent question: whether following his traces amounts to evidence that he truly reached the centre of the Earth.