has Verne's Golden Volcano been found

[quentin skrabec]

OBSCURA ET TRIVIA 9                        Random research notes by Quentin R. Skrabec

 

Has Verne’s Golden Volcano ( 1886) been found not in Artic but Antarctica?? Mount Erebus, a volcano nestled in the icy expanse of Antarctica, has been continuously erupting since at least 1972. It also has a lava lake sitting at its top. The volcano has rare chemistry, pumping out an uncommon mix of minerals — including 80 grams of crystallized gold daily. That’s around $6,000 per day in gold at today’s prices. Starting in 1972, the volcano Mount Erebus has erupted around $110,000,000 of gold. However, you won’t find that gold in nice nuggets. Instead, it’s scattered in microparticles all around.

In his 1841 Antarctica expedition, explorer James Clark Ross and his crew sailed past the island where Erebus lies and found it erupting in Antarctica. James Ross named it (and its neighbor, Mount Terror). Verne notes the naming of these volcanoes in ( Hatterias, Amazon Kindle p. 644). 1848, Ross was sent on one of three expeditions to find John Franklin. Interstingly, Verne was aware of Ross's arctic expeditions to find the remains of the Franklin expedition (1846-1848) and his less-known Antarctica expeditions (1839-1843)

Ross is mentioned continually by Jules Verne in his novel The Adventures of Captain Hatteras(1866); for example, chapter XXV is entitled 'One of James Ross's Foxes. Ross is mentioned 47 times in The Adventures of Captain Hatteras.