JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH JULES VERNE CHAPTER 14 BUT ARCTICS CAN BE INHOSPITABLE, TOO Đây là một tác phẩm anh ngữ nổi tiếng với những từ vựng nang cao. Nhằm giúp các em và các bạn yêu thich tiếng anh luyện tập và củng cố thêm kỹ năng đọc tiếng anh . | JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH JULES VERNE CHAPTER 14 BUT ARCTICS CAN BE INHOSPITABLE TOO Stapi is a village consisting of about thirty huts built of lava atthe south side of the base of the volcano. It extends along the inneredge of a small fiord inclosed between basaltic walls of thestrangest construction. Basalt is a brownish rock of igneous origin. It assumes regularforms the arrangement of which is often very surprising. Here naturehad done her work geometrically with square and compass and else her art consists alone in throwing down huge massestogether in disorder. You see cones imperfectly formed irregularpyramids with a fantastic disarrangement of lines but here as ifto exhibit an example of regularity though in advance of the veryearliest architects she has created a severely simple order ofarchitecture never surpassed either by the splendours of Babylon orthe wonders of Greece. I had heard of the Giant s Causeway in Ireland and Fingal s Cave inStaffa one of the Hebrides but I had never yet seen a basalticformation. At Stapi I beheld this phenomenon in all its beauty. The wall that confined the fiord like all the coast of thepeninsula was composed of a series of vertical columns thirty feethigh. These straight shafts of fair proportions supported anarchitrave of horizontal slabs the overhanging portion of whichformed a semi-arch over the sea. At. intervals under this naturalshelter there spread out vaulted entrances in beautiful curves intowhich the waves came dashing with foam and spray. A few shafts ofbasalt torn from their hold by the fury of tempests lay along thesoil like remains of an ancient temple in ruins for ever fresh andover which centuries passed without leaving a trace of age upon them. This was our last stage upon the earth. Hans had exhibited greatintelligence and it gave me some little comfort to think then thathe was not going to leave us. On arriving at the door of the rector s house which was notdifferent from .
