1866

The year 1866 was marked by a bizarre development, an unexplained and downright inexplicable phenomenon that surely no one has forgotten. Professional seamen were especially alarmed; traders, shipowners, captains of vessels, skippers, and master mariners from Europe and America, naval officers from every country, and the various national governments on these two continents, were all extremely disturbed by the business. Over a period of time several ships had encountered "an enormous thing" at sea, a long spindle-shaped object, sometimes giving off a phosphorescent glow, infinitely bigger and faster than any whale. The relevant data on this apparition, as recorded in various logbooks, agreed pretty closely as to the structure of the object or creature in question, its unprecedented speed of movement, its startling locomotive power, and the unique vitality with which it seemed to be gifted.

The First Sightings and the Public Reaction

On July 20, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, from the Calcutta & Burnach Steam Navigation Co., encountered this moving mass five miles off the eastern shores of Australia. Captain Baker at first thought he was in the presence of an unknown reef; he was even about to fix its exact position when two waterspouts shot out of this inexplicable object and sprang hissing into the air some 150 feet. Similar events were likewise observed in Pacific seas, on July 23 of the same year, by the Christopher Columbus from the West India & Pacific Steam Navigation Co. Consequently, this extraordinary cetacean could transfer itself from one locality to another with startling swiftness, since within an interval of just three days, the two ships had observed it at two positions on the charts separated by a distance of more than 700 nautical leagues. Fifteen days later and 2,000 leagues farther, the Helvetia and the Shannon signaled each other that the monster had been sighted in the Atlantic, estimating its minimum length at more than 350 English feet. In every big city the monster was the latest rage; they sang about it in the coffee houses, they ridiculed it in the newspapers, they dramatized it in the theaters. An interminable debate broke out between believers and skeptics in the scholarly societies and scientific journals, with the "monster question" inflaming all minds.

The Escalation to a Serious Danger

During the first months of the year 1867, the question seemed to be buried, but new facts brought it to the public's attention. The question took an entirely new turn: the monster again became an islet, rock, or reef, but a runaway reef, unfixed and elusive. On March 5, 1867, the Moravian from the Montreal Ocean Co. ran its starboard quarter afoul of a rock marked on no charts, and without the high quality of its hull, it would surely have split open and gone down together with those 237 passengers it was bringing back from Canada. Three weeks later, on April 13, 1867, the Scotia, one of the finest steamers of the famous Cunard line, was fouled by a cutting or perforating instrument. The engineers discovered a symmetrical gash in the shape of an isosceles triangle, two and a half meters below its waterline, so perfectly formed that no punch could have done a cleaner job of it. This was the last straw, and it resulted in arousing public passions all over again. From this moment on, any maritime casualty without an established cause was charged to the monster's account.

The Scientific and Political Context

It was during this period that Professor Pierre Aronnax, having returned from a scientific expedition to the Nebraska badlands, arrived in New York. The question was at the boiling point, and he was summoned by The New York Herald to formulate his views. In his article published on April 30, he argued for the existence of a giant narwhale, a sea unicorn of colossal dimensions armed with a sort of ivory sword. Public opinion being pronounced, the States of the Union were the first in the field. In New York preparations were under way for an expedition designed to chase this narwhale, and a high-speed frigate, the Abraham Lincoln, was fitted out under Commander Farragut. The year 1866 thus established the initial mystery and the global panic that would lead directly to the departure of the Abraham Lincoln and the subsequent capture of Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned Land by Captain Nemo's Nautilus.