Underworlds

Though in reality a confrontation between an ichthyosaur and a plesiosaur would have been unlikely, the image persisted, as did the aggressive nature of the interaction, aided by popular works that characterized them as monstrous, like Thomas Hawkins' The Book of the Great Sea-Dragons, Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri. Over thirty years after De la Beche's prehistoric scene, Jules Verne would describe a similar battle scene in his novel, Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Portrait of Georges Cuvier Engraved by James Thomson after an original drawing, ca. 1833 Gift of the Burndy Library

Discoveries and observations such as Anning’s built a body of evidence that inspired scientists to think in new ways about Earth’s history. French zoologist Georges Cuvier made careful observations of fossils, and drew important parallels between past and present life. He determined the fossil record provided proof of extinction, a startling new idea. He came to the conclusion that the earth was shaped in the past by violent, wide-scale events, a theory known as catastrophism. An engraving of a plesiosaur found by Mary Anning in 1823 illustrates this later revision of Cuvier’s important 1812 work, the 'Preliminary discourse' to his Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles des quadrupèdes [Research on the Fossil Bones of Quadrupeds].

Georges Cuvier Discours sur les Révolutions de la Surface du Globe: et sur les Changements qu'elles ont Produits dans le Règne Animal [Discourse on the Revolutions of the Surface of the Globe, and on the Changes They Produced in the Animal Kingdom] Paris; Amsterdam, 1826

The publication of 'The Principles of Geology,' in 1830, constituted an epoch in geological science. But it also constituted an epoch in the modern history of the doctrines of evolution, by raising in the mind of every intelligent reader this question: If natural causation is competent to account for the not-living part of our globe, why should it not account for the living part?

—Thomas Henry Huxley, The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century, 1889

The colossal mastodon... twists and untwists his trunk, and brays and pounds with his huge tusks the fragments of rock that cover the shore; whilst the megatherium..., buttressed upon his enormous hinder paws, grubs in the soil, awaking the sonorous echoes of the granite rocks with his tremendous roarings. ... In the uppermost regions of the air immense birds, more powerful than the cassowary, and larger than the ostrich, spread their vast breadth of wings and strike with their heads the granite vault that bounds the sky.

–Prof. Lidenbrock's nephew Axel, in Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth (London, 1877)

Athanasius Kircher Mundus Subterraneus ... [The Subterranean World] Amsterdam, 1664–1665

Verne explored current geological theories, including the possibility that volcanoes were openings to a network of interconnected passages, an idea espoused by French geologist Charles Joseph Sainte-Claire Deville, with whom he was acquainted. The theory wasn’t true, and it wasn’t new: scholar Athanasius Kircher, who'd had himself lowered into Vesuvius, had similar ideas in the 1660's. In Verne's story, Prof. Lidenbrock's decsent into the Earth through volcanic tunnels was inspired by his discovery of a 16th century savant's runic message hinting at the possibility.

Books about geological phenomena for a general audience, like this survey on volcanoes and earthquakes, were very popular. First published in Paris in 1866 as part of as series called Bibliothèque des Merveilles (Library of Wonders), Zurcher and Margollé’s little volume of geological marvels covered volcanoes from Etna and Vesuvius in Italy to those in the Americas and the Pacific and Indian Oceans – and even those on the moon. Geology and the earth's past had become a source of great fascination.

Frédéric Zurcher and Élie Margollé Volcanoes and Earthquakes ... with Sixty-two Woodcuts by E. Riou London, 1868

A travel account of Iceland written in 1857 by Charles Edmond (pen name for Polish writer Edmund Chojecki) was a likely influence on Verne's choice of setting, but Iceland's volcanic unrest was well-known. The Icelandic volcano Hekla erupted for seven months in 1845–1846, with ash falling as far as Scotland, and several smaller eruptions in neighboring volcanos had occurred since, including one that began in 1862. In Journey to the Center of the Earth, Verne chose an extinct Icelandic volcano as his heroes’ entrance into the earth, Snæfellsjökull. The explorers in Verne’s tale end their fictional trip propelled on a jet of lava out of Mt. Stromboli, an island volcano more than 2,000 miles away in southern Italy, known for its moderate, steady activity and stunning lava plumes.