Invasion of the Sea
The collapse of the sea is a novel by the French writer Jules Verne. Scholars are of the view that a large part of the novel by Verne's son Michel Verne were written because Jules Verne suffered shortly before death from health problems. Parts of the novel should already have been present in 1902. The novel was first published in 1905 by the publisher Pierre -Jules Hetzel under the French title L' Invasion de la mer. The first German -language edition was published in 1905 under the title The collapse of the sea. The English title of the novel is invasion of the Sea.
Action
The story begins in the oasis of Gabes, a coastal town in present-day Tunisia, which was a French colony at the time. The Targi Hajar is a prisoner in the prison of Gabes. He is accused of having been involved in the attack on a geological expedition. He is freed by a rescue mission of friends out of jail.
The colonialists from France want to turn the desert of Tunisia, which has the form of a giant sink into an inland sea. The basis for this project is based on plans by the French Roudaire. Its aim was to revive agriculture and to give retailers a new basis. In order for these plans can become a reality, is planned to build an approximately one hundred and seventy kilometers long canal. Through him, the waters of the Mediterranean to be conducted near the city of Gabes in the inland sea. The salt water from the Mediterranean to evaporate in the Inland Sea, and thereby provide the environment for the rain. In this way, the surrounding land is to be made fruitful.
Improved access from the Mediterranean into the interior through the navigability of the channel to be used by French troops. One hundred years after hoisting the French flag on the Kasbah of Algiers, the French fleet should run to the inland sea in the Sahara and supply the military bases in the desert. In this way this part of Africa is to be pacified.
In addition to solving scientific and technical problems, the planners also fight against the resistance in the population. The new ocean would sell these from their ancestral settlement sites. Thousands of residents of the desert would lose their home. Havens would sink in the floods and the previous way of the caravans would then lie on the seabed. The Tuaregs and the Bedouin defend their habitat. For this reason, the expedition is the main engineer of Schaller and his assistant François, who wanted to check the status of the work of canal construction, under military escort.
From Schaller inspected the already built under Roudaire channel sections and the newly started construction phases also. One of them is completely devastated and abandoned by the construction workers. Parts of the newly built canal have been filled in again. A local explained to them the reasons. He makes Berber responsible for the destruction. The group falls into a feint and separates. The rest under the leadership of Captain Hardigan is invaded by the actual culprits, guided by the liberated Hajar Tuareg. The escort of the French military can not prevent them and the chief engineer of Schaller get into the hands of the nomads. But soon they escape again. Fight your way through the salt desert of the bulkhead and reach with his last strength a hilly oasis. But huge herds of animals to flee the country and by earthquakes breakthrough occurs from groundwater to the surface of crusted with salt area. In the following night, the water level increases scary. The group can be found on an island again. On the morning of the next day they can see how the entire Tuaregstamm of Hajar drowns while fleeing from a giant tidal wave. The cause is an earthquake that caused a massive ground subsidence. The Mediterranean pours over a large width across the vast desert valley. Nature is thus preempted the construction. The scattered military escort finally rescues a steamboat, the members of the group.