Soon, scarcely blurred by their distance from us, the forms of some objects took shape before my eyes. I recognized the lower slopes of some magnificent rocks carpeted by the finest zoophyte specimens, and right off, I was struck by an effect unique to this medium.

走了一会儿，看见前面有些东西，虽然形象仅仅在远方微微露出，但轮廓已清楚地在我眼前浮现。我看出这是海底岩石前沿好看的一列，石上满铺着最美丽的形形色色的植虫动物;我首先就被这种特有的景色怔住。

By then it was ten o'clock in the morning. The sun's rays hit the surface of the waves at a fairly oblique angle, decomposing by refraction as though passing through a prism; and when this light came in contact with flowers, rocks, buds, seashells, and polyps, the edges of these objects were shaded with all seven hues of the solar spectrum. This riot of rainbow tints was a wonder, a feast for the eyes: a genuine kaleidoscope of red, green, yellow, orange, violet, indigo, and blue; in short, the whole palette of a color-happy painter! If only I had been able to share with Conseil the intense sensations rising in my brain, competing with him in exclamations of wonderment! If only I had known, like Captain Nemo and his companion, how to exchange thoughts by means of prearranged signals! So, for lack of anything better, I talked to myself: I declaimed inside this copper box that topped my head, spending more air on empty words than was perhaps advisable.

这时是早晨十点。太陽光在相当倾斜的角度下，投射在水波面上，光线由于曲折作用，像通过三梭镜一样被分解，海底的花、石、植物、介壳、珊瑚类动物，一接触被分解的光线，在边缘上显现出太陽分光的七种不同颜色。这种所有浓淡颜色的错综交结，真正是一架红、橙、黄、绿、青、蓝、紫的彩色缤纷的万花筒，总之，它就是十分讲究的水彩画家的一整套颜色!看来实在是神奇，实在是眼福!我怎样才能把我心中所有的新奇感觉告诉康塞尔呢!怎样才能跟他一齐发出赞叹呢!我怎样才能跟尼摩船长和他的同伴一样，利用一种约定的记号来传达我的思想呢!因为没有更好的办法，所以我只好自己对自己说话，在套着自己脑袋的铜盒子里面大声叫喊;虽然我知道，说这些空话消耗的空气恐怕比预定的要多些。