The Mysterious Island written by Jules Verne was a fascinating book. It starts by giving the setting which takes place in the late 1800’s in an uninhabited island off the Pacific. Four men, an engineer, a reporter, a sailor, and a sixteen year old, are stripped off every possession and are expected by nature to survive by their own hands. Thanks to the leadership and knowledge of the engineer Harding, the castaways were able to put themselves to great use. When days turned to months and months into years, progress was easily seen as they developed the land, domesticated animals, as well as fending off invaders.
The island was later named Lincoln Island and it had a mysterious secret. Events took place that neither of the castaways was able to explain. For one, during one of their meals, Pencroft (the sailor) almost broke his teeth off by biting into a hard piece of metal which later turned out to be a bullet. This raised plenty of uncertainty within the four castaways as they simply could not explain how it came to pass that a bullet was found on an island where they found no one. Another event was when a box of medicine suddenly appeared in the most critical of time. Circumstances in the island proved beneficial to the new colonists as one thing after another resulted in the prosperity of the four men.
At first, the work was hard and consisted of creating the tools necessary. The engineer stressed priority on finding food and shelter so weapons as well as finding a suitable place were done first. By implanting a bomb-type device in the heart of a mass of granite, the explosion was able to create a hole in the interior thus giving the men a place to stay. The new inhabitants of Lincoln Island rejoiced when they found one grain of wheat stuck in the jacket packet of one of the men. Within a few months, they were able to cultivate the wheat and have an abundance of crops.
It is no doubt that living in the earliest era was truly difficult. The castaways in this book had previous knowledge of a civilization, whereas in the past, cavemen were exploring possibilities of everything. After discovering fire, they had to learn how to tame it. The men knew that by creating enough friction to generate the heat, a fire will eventually spout out. How grateful one should be to live in a period where necessities are just around the corner.
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