The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: as Assistant Professor in the Museum of Natural History in Paris,
the French Government had attached me to that expedition.
After six months in Nebraska, I arrived in New York towards
the end of March, laden with a precious collection.
My departure for France was fixed for the first days in May.
Meanwhile I was occupying myself in classifying my mineralogical,
botanical, and zoological riches, when the accident happened
to the Scotia.
I was perfectly up in the subject which was the question of the day.
How could I be otherwise? I had read and reread all the American
and European papers without being any nearer a conclusion.
 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |