Some of these tiny creatures stick
together over an area of several leagues."
"Several leagues!" Conseil exclaimed.
"Yes, my boy, and don't even try to compute the number of
these infusoria. You won't pull it off, because if I'm not mistaken,
certain navigators have cruised through milk seas for more
than forty miles."
I'm not sure that Conseil heeded my recommendation, because he seemed
to be deep in thought, no doubt trying to calculate how many
one-fifths of a millimeter are found in forty square miles.
As for me, I continued to observe this phenomenon. For several
hours the Nautilus's spur sliced through these whitish waves,
and I watched it glide noiselessly over this soapy water, as if it
were cruising through those foaming eddies that a bay's currents
and countercurrents sometimes leave between each other.
Near midnight the sea suddenly resumed its usual hue, but behind us
all the way to the horizon, the skies kept mirroring the whiteness
of those waves and for a good while seemed imbued with the hazy
glow of an aurora borealis.
CHAPTER 2
A New Proposition from Captain Nemo
ON JANUARY 28, in latitude 9 degrees 4' north, when the Nautilus returned
at noon to the surface of the sea, it lay in sight of land some eight
miles to the west.
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