The Nautilus descended still lower, in spite of the great pressure. I felt the steel plates tremble at the fastenings of the bolts; its bars bent, its partitions groaned; the windows of the saloon seemed to curve under the pressure of the waters. And this firm structure would doubtless have yielded, if, as its Captain had said, it had not been capable of resistance like a solid block. We had attained a depth of 16,000 yards (four leagues), and the sides of the Nautilus then bore a pressure of 1,600 atmospheres, that is to say, 3,200 lbs. to each square two-fifths of an inch of its surface. “What a situation to be in!” I exclaimed. “To overrun these deep regions where man has never trod! Look, Captain, look at these magnificent rocks, these uninhabited grottoes, these lowest receptacles of the globe, where life is no longer possible! What unknown sights are here! Why should we be unable to preserve a remembrance of them?” “Would you like to carry away more than the remembrance?” said Captain Nemo. “What do you mean by those words?” “I mean to say that nothing is easier than to make a photographic view of this submarine region.” I had not time to express my surprise at this new proposition, when, at Captain Nemo’s call, an objective was brought into the saloon.