Narwhal The tusks were staples of the cabinet of curiosities. European knowledge of the tusk's origin developed gradually during the Age of Exploration, as explorers and naturalists began to visit Arctic regions themselves. The narwhal was one of two possible explanations of the giant sea phenomenon written by Jules Verne in his 1870 novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". Verne thought that it would be unlikely that there was such a gigantic narwhal in existence. The size of the narwhal, or "unicorn of the sea", as found by Verne, would have been . For the narwhal to have caused the
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea such an expert as Aronnax, maintaining the secrecy of his existence requires never letting them leave. Aronnax and Conseil are enthralled by the undersea adventures, but Ned Land can only think of escape. They visit many places under the ocean, some real-world and others fictional. The travelers witness the real corals of the Red Sea, the wrecks of the battle of Vigo Bay, the Antarctic ice shelves, the Transatlantic telegraph cable and the legendary submerged land of Atlantis. The travelers also use diving suits to hunt sharks and other marine life with air-guns and have an underwater funeral for a