Student Question
Describe the ship Abraham Lincoln in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Quick answer:
The Abraham Lincoln, a US Navy frigate in Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, combines sail and steam power, reaching speeds up to 18 knots. Despite its speed and advanced weaponry, including a powerful breech-loading gun, it is outmatched by Captain Nemo's Nautilus, which can achieve speeds of 50 knots. Equipped for encountering a supposed "marine monster," the ship's mission is to capture or destroy the Nautilus, a task for which it is ultimately unprepared.
In Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, Captain Nemo's submarine, the Nautilus, is pursued by an expeditionary force aboard the Abraham Lincoln, a US Navy frigate powered by a combination of sail (frigates were usually three-masted) and steam power.
Professor Pierre Aronnax, a French marine biologist, assistant professor at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, and narrator of the story, describes the Abraham Lincoln as
a frigate of great speed, fitted with high-pressure engines which admitted a pressure of seven atmospheres. Under this the Abraham Lincoln attained the mean speed of nearly eighteen knots and a third an hour.
Even at a top speed approaching twenty miles per hour in its chase of the Nautilus in the Pacific Ocean near Japan, the Abraham Lincoln is no match for the Nautilus , which has a top speed of fifty knots (about fifty-seven miles per hour),...
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much faster than any ship at sea at that time.
The Abraham Lincoln is outfitted for any situation it might encounter with the Nautilus.
We possessed every known engine, from the harpoon thrown by the hand to the barbed arrows of the blunderbuss, and the explosive balls of the duck-gun. On the forecastle lay the perfection of a breech-loading gun, very thick at the breech, and very narrow in the bore, the model of which had been in the Exhibition of 1867. This precious weapon of American origin could throw with ease a conical projectile of nine pounds to a mean distance of ten miles.
Thus the Abraham Lincoln wanted for no means of destruction . . . armed for a long campaign, and provided with formidable fishing apparatus.
The "fishing apparatus" is necessary because some believe that the "marine monster" roaming the seas and attacking ships might be a large, rare, and elusive narwhal, a type of whale related to bottlenose dolphins, belugas, harbor porpoises, and orcas. The narwhal is nicknamed "the unicorn of the sea" for the large horn-like tusk that grows from the upper jaw of male narwhals.
The Nautilus has an elongated prow which is used to ram ships, which gives it the appearance of a narwhal. Also, when the Nautilus surfaces, the pumps that push the water out of the interior tanks produce jets of water, much like the spouting of a whale.
In all, the US Navy and the expeditionary force believe that the Abraham Lincoln is fully up to the task of finding, capturing, and, if necessary, destroying the Nautilus.
Little did they know. . . .