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Chapter 38
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Journey to the Center of the Earth, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Science and Discovery
Maturity and Independence
Intuition vs. Evidence
Nature vs. Civilization
Adventure
Summary
Analysis
Axel’s narration explains that a few months before he and Lidenbrock left for Iceland, paleontologists discovered human bones in French soil from the fourth epoch of the tertiary period. The British scientists who authenticated the fossils were supported by German scientists, including Lidenbrock. Axel and Lidenbrock’s discovery of a mummified human corpse near the “Sea of Lidenbrock” further confirms that humans lived in the fourth epoch.
The tertiary period was an era in the former official geologic time system, referring to the interval of years between approximately 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. Though the geologic time system has since been reorganized, modern science agrees that the primates that would develop into humans first appeared at the end of what Axel refers to as the end of the fourth epoch.
Themes
Axel and Lidenbrock stare at the body. Lidenbrock breaks the silence, bursting into a lecture about paleontology. He examines the body, concluding that the man, who used axes and flints, was a Stone Age scientist. Axel indulges his uncle with a round of applause, and they move on to discover more human remains. Axel wonders if they might meet “some man of the abyss” in the underground caverns.
Lidenbrock approaches the mummified man as a scientific specimen. He examines the body and assesses its background based on the evidence available to him. Axel takes their findings one step further, concluding that the presence of this man might imply that ancient humans still live underground.
Themes
