Nautilus, the Last Harbour Poster

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne, published in 1870 under the title Vingt mille lieues sous les mers. The novel is about the fictional Captain Nemo and his submarine, Nautilus, as seen by one of his passengers. The story was written before modern sea-going submarines were a reality. It is narrated by Professor Pierre Aronnax, a noted marine biologist, who is accompanied by his faithful assistant Conseil and by a Canadian harpooner named Ned Land. As the story begins, a mysterious "sea monster", theorised by some to be a giant narwhal, is sighted by ships of several nations; an ocean liner is also damaged by the creature. The United States government finally assembles an expedition to track down and destroy the menace. Some of Verne's ideas about the not-yet-existing submarines which were laid out in this book turned out to be prophetic (such as the high speed and secret conduct of today's nuclear attack submarines), and (with diesel submarines) the need to surface frequently for fresh air.Verne borrowed the name "Nautilus" from one of the earliest successful submarines. Nautilus was the first practical submarine, commissioned by First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and designed by the American inventor Robert Fulton, then living in the French First Republic. Launched in 1800, it was made of copper sheets over iron ribs, 6.5 m long with a conning tower for observation. It used rudders for vertical and horizontal control — the origins of the diving planes used on all modern submarines — and tanks of compressed air to give the crew of four a submerged endurance of six hours. Underwater, Nautilus was propelled by a four-blade propeller turned by hand. On the surface a folding mast was erected and the vessel was powered by sail. Nautilus was tested in France in 1800–1801, when Fulton and three mechanics descended to a depth of 8 m using ballast tanks. Nautilus sank a schooner using a towed gunpowder charge that Fulton called a "torpedo" after the electric ray. However, the French were not impressed and stopped Fulton's funding in 1804.Fulton took Nautilus to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and sank a 300-tonne brig in 1805. The Royal Navy, however, was not interested.