Nautilus (Verne) from seawater) is the craft's primary power source for propulsion and other services. "Nautilus" is double-hulled, and is further separated into water-tight compartments. Its top speed is . Its displacement is submerged. In Captain Nemo's own words: "Nautilus" uses floodable tanks in order to adjust buoyancy and so control its depth. The pumps that evacuate these tanks of water are so powerful that they produce large jets of water when the vessel emerges rapidly from the surface of the water. This leads many early observers of "Nautilus" to believe that the vessel is some species of whale, or perhaps a
Jules Verne appear in many of his novels, including "The Mysterious Island" (1874), "Second Fatherland" (1900), and "The School for Robinsons" (1882). In 1836, Verne went on to École Saint‑Stanislas, a Catholic school suiting the pious religious tastes of his father. Verne quickly distinguished himself in "mémoire" (recitation from memory), geography, Greek, Latin, and singing. In the same year, 1836, Pierre Verne bought a vacation house at 29 Rue des Réformés in the village of Chantenay (now part of Nantes) on the Loire River. In his brief memoir "Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse" ("Memories of Childhood and Youth", 1890), Verne recalled a