10 (p. 19) hoisting the American colors ... whose thirty-nine stars: In 1867 there were thirty-seven, not thirty-nine, stars on the American flag. New stars were added when new states joined the confederation of states collectively known as the United States of America.
11 (p. 20) The frigate might have been called the Argus, for a hundred reasons: The reference is to Argus, a creature in Greek mythology with 100 eyes; since he closed only a few of his eyes at a time while he slept, the goddess Hera used him as a watchman over Ios, the lover of her husband, Zeus. When Argus was killed, Hera placed his eyes in the tail of the peacock, her favorite bird.
12 (p. 21) that old language of Rabelais, which is still in use in some Canadian provinces: The Canadian-French dialect preserved an older syntax and vocabulary than the mainland French Aronnax would have spoken. François Rabelais (c.1490-1553) is known for his satirical novels, including Pantagruel and Gargantua.
13 (p. 34) We heaved the log, and calculated that the Abraham Lincoln was going at the rate of 18½ miles an hour: The “log” was a piece of wood weighted with lead and attached to a ship by a line tied with knots at regular intervals. Seamen tossed the log from the ship and measured the speed at which the ship moved away from the log by counting the number of knots played out every 28 seconds. This method of measuring speed gave rise to the term “knot” (meaning 1 nautical mile per hour) in nautical terminology.
14 . (p. 36) I am a good swimmer (though without pretending to rival Byron or Edgar Poe, who were masters of the art): In 1810 English Romantic poet George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), known as Lord Byron, swam the Hellespont, or Dardanelles, the strait between Turkey and Europe. American gothic and mystery writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was a strong influence on Verne, although he was not reported to be a great swimmer.
15 . (p. 45) They evidently understood neither the language of Arago nor of Faraday: That is, the strangers don’t understand either French or English. François Arago (1786-1853) was a French physicist and astronomer who demonstrated the wave nature of light; Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was an English chemist and physicist who discovered electromagnetic induction.
16 6. (p. 53) I regarded him with fear mingled with interest, as, doubtless, Œdipus regarded the Sphinx: In Greek mythology, the Sphinx, a horrible monster with the body of a winged lion and the head of a woman, waylaid and devoured travelers who couldn’t answer her riddle: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening? Oedipus, son of King Laius of Thebes, answered correctly that a human crawls on hands and knees as a child, walks erect as a man, and uses a cane in old age, thereby causing the Sphinx to kill herself. A version of this story is given by Greek tragic playwright Sophocles (c.496-406 B.C.) in Oedipus Rex.
17 (p. 55) Nautilus: Captain Nemo’s ship is named after a species of shellfish found in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans that regulates its buoyancy with gas and liquid exchanges through tubes in its shell wall, enabling it to move up and down in the water column; and also after the Nautilus, the first submarine to be successfully operated (1801), invented by American engineer Robert Fulton. The first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus, was commissioned by the U.S. Navy during World War II; it was the first submarine to cross under the ice of the North Pole.
18 . (p. 56) “My flocks, like those of Neptune’s old shepherds”: In Roman mythology, Neptune (called Poseidon by the Greeks) ruled over the sea. His servant Proteus shepherded flocks of seals and dolphins.
19 . (p. 60) “These musicians ... are the contemporaries of Orpheus”: The most accomplished musician of Greek mythology, Orpheus had the power to calm both gods and men with his music, and even to move inanimate objects. When his wife, Eurydice, died, he played his lyre to convince Pluto, ruler of the underworld, to release her.
20 (p. 64) “There is a powerful agent, ... the soul of my mechanical apparatus. This agent is electricity”: First introduced to the public at the World’s Fair held in Paris in 1867, electricity was not available for domestic use until well into the 1880s. Verne was fascinated by the power of electricity; however, he did not thoroughly understand it, and much of his writing on the subject is conjecture. In fact, if a submarine like the Nautilus were to be powered by batteries, the batteries would have to be bigger than the ship itself.
21 . (p.67) “I use Bunsen’s contrivances, not Ruhmkorff‘s”: Heinrich Daniel Ruhmkorff (1803-1877) was a famed German mechanic who invented the Ruhmkorff coil, an induction coil (for producing high voltage from a low-voltage source) that could produce very large electrical sparks. German chemist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-1899) invented the Bunsen cell (a device that delivers an electric current), which was more powerful than other cells. Verne is implying that Nemo has discovered a new, more powerful cell or coil.
22 . (p. 68) “steel plates, whose density is from .07 to .08 that of water”: The standard English translation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, used for this edition, misprints many of Verne’s original—and correct—figures, as it does here. Steel has a density of 7.8, not .07 or .08, that of water. If the figures here were correct, steel would be light enough to float. (A steel ship floats because its overall density is less than that of water.)
23 . (p. 76) Ned named the fish, and Conseil classed them: At this point Verne’s original French text includes a long passage in which Conseil lectures Ned on the scientific classifications of fish. Ned responds that fish are classified into two categories: fish that can be eaten and fish that can’t! The exchange establishes important character traits of both Conseil and Ned—the one scientific and intellectual, the other practical and hedonistic.
24 . (p. 82) “the Rouquayrol apparatus, invented by two of your own country-men”: Frenchmen Benoit Rouquayrol, a mining engineer, and Auguste Denayrouse, a naval officer, developed the first modern diving cylinder, patented in 1865 as an “Aerophore.” It allowed a diver to breathe compressed air equal to the water pressure of his depth, thus making it possible to descend much deeper than before. The aerophore is the forerunner of modern scuba equipment.
25 . (p. 96) “the learned Maury”: American naval officer and oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873) wrote what has been called the first textbook of modern oceanography, The Physical Geography of the Sea. Verne often returns to Maury as a source.
26 6. (p. 97) the Sandwich Islands, where Cook died, February 14, 1779: Both Nemo and Aronnax speak highly of English navigator and explorer Captain James Cook (1728-1779), who completed the first major scientific survey of the South Pacific Ocean. Cook was killed by natives of Hawaii (formerly called the Sandwich Islands) as he returned from his third expedition.
27 (p. 98) if one can believe Athenæus, a Greek doctor, who lived before Galen: Greek physician Athenaeus of Attaleia (first century A.D.) founded a school of medicine based in Stoic thought. Galen (A.D. 129-c.199) was also a Greek physician.
28 8. (p. 98) D‘Orbigny: French naturalist Alcide Dessalines d’Orbigny (1802-1857) founded the science of stratigraphical paleontology, the study of fossils as they appear in the geographical strata.