During the period in which these developments were occurring, I had returned from a scientific undertaking organized to explore the Nebraska badlands in the United States. In my capacity as Assistant Professor at the Paris Museum of Natural History, I had been attached to this expedition by the French government. After spending six months in Nebraska, I arrived in New York laden with valuable collections near the end of March. My departure for France was set for early May. In the meantime, then, I was busy classifying my mineralogical, botanical, and zoological treasures when that incident took place with the Scotia.
I was perfectly abreast of this question, which was the big news of the day, and how could I not have been? I had read and reread every American and European newspaper without being any farther along. This mystery puzzled me. Finding it impossible to form any views, I drifted from one extreme to the other. Something was out there, that much was certain, and any doubting Thomas was invited to place his finger on the Scotia's wound.
When I arrived in New York, the question was at the boiling point. The hypothesis of a drifting islet or an elusive reef, put forward by people not quite in their right minds, was completely eliminated. And indeed, unless this reef had an engine in its belly, how could it move about with such prodigious speed?
Also discredited was the idea of a floating hull or some other enormous wreckage, and again because of this speed of movement.
So only two possible solutions to the question were left, creating two very distinct groups of supporters: on one side, those favoring a monster of colossal strength; on the other, those favoring an "underwater boat" of tremendous motor power.
Now then, although the latter hypothesis was completely admissible, it couldn't stand up to inquiries conducted in both the New World and the Old. That a private individual had such a mechanism at his disposal was less than probable. Where and when had he built it, and how could he have built it in secret?
Only some government could own such an engine of destruction, and in these disaster-filled times, when men tax their ingenuity to build increasingly powerful aggressive weapons, it was possible that, unknown to the rest of the world, some nation could have been testing such a fearsome machine. The Chassepot rifle led to the torpedo, and the torpedo has led to this underwater battering ram, which in turn will lead to the world putting its foot down. At least I hope it will.
But this hypothesis of a war machine collapsed in the face of formal denials from the various governments. Since the public interest was at stake and transoceanic travel was suffering, the sincerity of these governments could not be doubted. Besides, how could the assembly of this underwater boat have escaped public notice? Keeping a secret under such circumstances would be difficult enough for an individual, and certainly impossible for a nation whose every move is under constant surveillance by rival powers.
So, after inquiries conducted in England, France, Russia, Prussia, Spain, Italy, America, and even Turkey, the hypothesis of an underwater Monitor was ultimately rejected.
After I arrived in New York, several people did me the honor of consulting me on the phenomenon in question. In France I had published a two-volume work, in quarto, entitled The Mysteries of the Great Ocean Depths. Well received in scholarly circles, this book had established me as a specialist in this pretty obscure field of natural history. My views were in demand. As long as I could deny the reality of the business, I confined myself to a flat "no comment." But soon, pinned to the wall, I had to explain myself straight out. And in this vein, "the honorable Pierre Aronnax, Professor at the Paris Museum," was summoned by The New York Herald to formulate his views no matter what.
I complied. Since I could no longer hold my tongue, I let it wag. I discussed the question in its every aspect, both political and scientific, and this is an excerpt from the well-padded article I published in the issue of April 30.
"Therefore," I wrote, "after examining these different hypotheses one by one, we are forced, every other supposition having been refuted, to accept the existence of an extremely powerful marine animal.
"The deepest parts of the ocean are totally unknown to us. No soundings have been able to reach them. What goes on in those distant depths? What creatures inhabit, or could inhabit, those regions twelve or fifteen miles beneath the surface of the water? What is the constitution of these animals? It's almost beyond conjecture.
"However, the solution to this problem submitted to me can take the form of a choice between two alternatives.
"Either we know every variety of creature populating our planet, or we do not.
"If we do not know every one of them, if nature still keeps ichthyological secrets from us, nothing is more admissible than to accept the existence of fish or cetaceans of new species or even new genera, animals with a basically 'cast-iron' constitution that inhabit strata beyond the reach of our soundings, and which some development or other, an urge or a whim if you prefer, can bring to the upper level of the ocean for long intervals.
"If, on the other hand, we do know every living species, we must look for the animal in question among those marine creatures already cataloged, and in this event I would be inclined to accept the existence of a giant narwhale.
"The common narwhale, or sea unicorn, often reaches a length of sixty feet. Increase its dimensions fivefold or even tenfold, then give this cetacean a strength in proportion to its size while enlarging its offensive weapons, and you have the animal we're looking for. It would have the proportions determined by the officers of the Shannon, the instrument needed to perforate the Scotia, and the power to pierce a steamer's hull.
"In essence, the narwhale is armed with a sort of ivory sword, or lance, as certain naturalists have expressed it. It's a king-sized tooth as hard as steel. Some of these teeth have been found buried in the bodies of baleen whales, which the narwhale attacks with invariable success. Others have been wrenched, not without difficulty, from the undersides of vessels that narwhales have pierced clean through, as a gimlet pierces a wine barrel. The museum at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris owns one of these tusks with a length of 2.25 meters and a width at its base of forty-eight centimeters!
"All right then! Imagine this weapon to be ten times stronger and the animal ten times more powerful, launch it at a speed of twenty miles per hour, multiply its mass times its velocity, and you get just the collision we need to cause the specified catastrophe.
"So, until information becomes more abundant, I plump for a sea unicorn of colossal dimensions, no longer armed with a mere lance but with an actual spur, like ironclad frigates or those warships called 'rams,' whose mass and motor power it would possess simultaneously.
"This inexplicable phenomenon is thus explained away--unless it's something else entirely, which, despite everything that has been sighted, studied, explored and experienced, is still possible!"
没有合适的资源?快使用搜索试试~ 我知道了~
php使用fpdf v1.51 生成PDF文件 ,并可以对多列的数据做自动折行处理
共133个文件
htm:58个
php:26个
zip:24个
3星 · 超过75%的资源 需积分: 14 37 下载量 25 浏览量
2010-05-17
10:30:15
上传
评论 1
收藏 405KB RAR 举报
温馨提示
php使用fpdf v1.51 生成PDF文件 ,并可以对多列的数据做自动折行处理. 附件为 fpdf_v1.51 版本源码 和我的测试程序 mytest.php mc_table.php . 处理 错误: 文件不以"%PDF-"结果的错误 $pdf->_out('%PDF-1.3');
资源推荐
资源详情
资源评论
收起资源包目录
php使用fpdf v1.51 生成PDF文件 ,并可以对多列的数据做自动折行处理 (133个子文件)
calligra.afm 12KB
fpdf.css 462B
tuto6.htm 17KB
FAQ.htm 16KB
tuto7.htm 15KB
tuto5.htm 14KB
tuto4.htm 12KB
tuto3.htm 10KB
tuto2.htm 6KB
tuto1.htm 6KB
histo.htm 5KB
cell.htm 3KB
setfont.htm 3KB
index.htm 3KB
image.htm 2KB
acceptpagebreak.htm 2KB
multicell.htm 2KB
addfont.htm 2KB
setdisplaymode.htm 2KB
fpdf.htm 2KB
write.htm 2KB
addpage.htm 1KB
aliasnbpages.htm 1KB
setdrawcolor.htm 1KB
header.htm 1KB
link.htm 1KB
setfillcolor.htm 1KB
footer.htm 1KB
rect.htm 1KB
settextcolor.htm 1KB
output.htm 1KB
text.htm 1KB
setautopagebreak.htm 1KB
setmargins.htm 1KB
setlink.htm 998B
line.htm 939B
setcompression.htm 924B
setleftmargin.htm 919B
addlink.htm 870B
setxy.htm 854B
setlinewidth.htm 851B
setcreator.htm 841B
setrightmargin.htm 838B
settopmargin.htm 834B
setkeywords.htm 819B
sety.htm 812B
setx.htm 783B
index.htm 782B
error.htm 774B
ln.htm 767B
setauthor.htm 765B
setsubject.htm 758B
settitle.htm 748B
close.htm 708B
open.htm 664B
getstringwidth.htm 632B
setfontsize.htm 630B
getx.htm 565B
gety.htm 565B
pageno.htm 508B
cp1251.map 5KB
koi8-r.map 5KB
iso-8859-5.map 5KB
iso-8859-16.map 5KB
iso-8859-9.map 5KB
iso-8859-1.map 4KB
iso-8859-4.map 4KB
iso-8859-15.map 4KB
iso-8859-2.map 4KB
cp1250.map 4KB
cp1252.map 4KB
cp1254.map 4KB
cp1257.map 4KB
iso-8859-7.map 4KB
cp1253.map 4KB
fpdf.php 39KB
chinese.php 11KB
makefont.php 10KB
mc_table.php 4KB
calligra.php 3KB
helveticai.php 3KB
helveticabi.php 3KB
helvetica.php 3KB
helveticab.php 3KB
timesb.php 3KB
timesbi.php 3KB
times.php 3KB
timesi.php 3KB
symbol.php 3KB
zapfdingbats.php 3KB
tuto6.php 3KB
tuto5.php 2KB
tuto4.php 2KB
mytest.php 2KB
tuto3.php 2KB
test.php 892B
tuto2.php 825B
courier.php 257B
tuto7.php 242B
tuto1.php 210B
共 133 条
- 1
- 2
资源评论
- wsydb2012-12-03下下来没用,不知道效果,我又重新下的1.7版的
- syweiyan2014-04-16不好用,一直报错
- hspcyeling2011-11-15英文很好,中文乱码.
- hjqtlq2015-03-24英文没问题,中文不是很好用
陈某龙
- 粉丝: 13
- 资源: 30
上传资源 快速赚钱
- 我的内容管理 展开
- 我的资源 快来上传第一个资源
- 我的收益 登录查看自己的收益
- 我的积分 登录查看自己的积分
- 我的C币 登录后查看C币余额
- 我的收藏
- 我的下载
- 下载帮助
安全验证
文档复制为VIP权益,开通VIP直接复制
信息提交成功