Abraham Lincoln and the Nautilus

The Abraham Lincoln, a high-speed frigate of the United States Navy commanded by Commander Farragut, was dispatched in 1867 to hunt down a mysterious marine creature that had been terrorizing shipping lanes. The vessel was perfectly chosen and fitted out for its assignment, furnished with superheating equipment that allowed steam pressure to build to seven atmospheres, enabling an average speed of 18.3 miles per hour. Its armament included the latest model breech-loading cannon, capable of firing a four-kilogram conical projectile an average distance of sixteen kilometers. The frigate also carried Ned Land, the King of Harpooners, a Canadian of unparalleled skill whose presence alone was worth the whole crew. Commander Farragut himself was a man of absolute conviction, believing in the monster's existence with the faith of a latter-day Knight of Rhodes, and he had vowed to rid the seas of it or die trying. The crew shared his zeal, with a $2,000.00 prize offered to the first man to sight the animal, keeping every eye on board fixed on the ocean day and night.

The Chase and the Encounter

After months of fruitless searching that brought the frigate across the Pacific from the coasts of Patagonia to the seas of Japan, the crew's initial enthusiasm had curdled into discouragement and fury. Commander Farragut, like Christopher Columbus before him, granted a final three-day grace period. On the evening of November 5, 1867, with the deadline expiring, Ned Land's voice suddenly rang out: "Ahoy! There's the thing in question, abreast of us to leeward!" The object was a submerged mass giving off an intense, inexplicable electric glow, and it moved with a speed double that of the frigate. The Nautilus, for that is what it was, circled the Abraham Lincoln, wrapped it in sheets of luminous dust, and then dashed toward it with frightening speed, stopping sharply twenty feet from its side plates. Commander Farragut, for the first time showing astonishment, admitted he did not know what kind of fearsome creature he was up against and resolved to wait for daylight. The whole crew stayed on their feet all night, and at dawn the long blackish body of the "narwhale" was sighted a mile and a half away. The frigate gave chase at full steam, but the Nautilus effortlessly matched its speed, reaching 19.3 miles per hour without the least trouble. A cannon shot from the frigate's bow bounced off the creature's rounded surface as if it were covered with six-inch armor plate. Commander Farragut swore he would chase the animal till his frigate exploded.

The Collision and Its Aftermath

That night, the Nautilus appeared motionless, and Commander Farragut seized the opportunity for a stealthy approach. Ned Land, positioned on the bobstays under the bowsprit, launched his harpoon when barely twenty feet from the animal. The weapon collided with a resonant sound, as if hitting hard substance. The electric light went out, and two enormous waterspouts crashed onto the frigate's deck, toppling crewmen and breaking spars. In the hideous collision that followed, Professor Aronnax was hurled into the sea. The Nautilus's tusk had smashed the Abraham Lincoln's propeller and rudder, leaving the frigate unable to steer. The ship was last seen by Aronnax as a black mass disappearing eastward, its running lights fading in the distance. The frigate survived the encounter and was able to make repairs at the nearest port, as Captain Nemo later confirmed, stating that he had been content simply to put the frigate in a condition where it could do him no harm. The chase thus ended not with the destruction of the monster, but with the revelation that the "monster" was a man-made underwater boat, and with the capture of the three men who would become Captain Nemo's unwilling guests.

Thematic Significance

The conflict between the Abraham Lincoln and the Nautilus embodies the central epistemological crisis of the novel: the inability of conventional science and military power to comprehend a phenomenon that transcends known categories. The frigate, representing the full might of 19th-century naval technology and the institutional authority of governments, is rendered helpless by a vessel that operates on entirely different principles—electricity, submersion, and a complete independence from the surface world. The chase also establishes the fundamental misunderstanding that drives the plot: the world believes it is hunting a dangerous animal, when in fact it is pursuing a man-made engine of vengeance. This irony is deepened by Captain Nemo's later confession that he had severed all ties with society and that the Abraham Lincoln's attack forced him to defend himself. The relationship thus prefigures the novel's larger themes of misidentification, the limits of human knowledge, and the tragic gulf between the pursuer and the pursued.