The ITV presenter sat down with Arnold Schwarzenegger to discuss his new book 'Be Useful Seven Tools For Life'.

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A koala out for a stroll was escorted off the road after it brought traffic to a halt in Burleigh Heads, Queensland.Burleigh Heads resident Robertha Cavalcanti said she was travelling on Peggs Road when she came across the standstill.

'Average Aussie Day' as Woman Escorts Koala Across Gold Coast Road

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THE MORNING of October 19 started like any other for Blake Moon and his partner - they woke up, they took their dogs outside, and welcomed the day.

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Filmed last Friday morning, the short clip below shows a large male koala sitting in the car docking bay. “Come on, off the ferry. Do you have your pass on you?” he jokes. The koala doesn’t move. Lachie lets out a low sigh.

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The charity’s president Shelley Robinson told Yahoo the animals can be frightened by dogs, people or loud noises, causing them to flee towards the water. “They end up in ferries, yachts, and catamarans,” she said.

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MYALL Coast residents gathered at a hastily-arranged meeting to discuss proposed offshore wind farms on Thursday 26 October at Hawks Nest Community Hall. Speakers included the Hawks Nest Tea Gardens Progress Association (HNTGPA),

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SYDNEY, Nov. 1, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Visa , a world leader in digital payments, is proud to have entered into a long-term partnership with Taronga Conservation Society Australia, becoming the preferred payment partner at Taronga Zoo in Sydney and Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo.

Visa partners with Taronga Conservation Society Australia to support wildlife conservation

The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) has announced a multi-year sponsorship of the skilled junior wheelchair sportsman Benjamin Wenzel. Ranked number six in the world and number one in Australia in junior boy’s wheelchair tennis,

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From a biologist to a charity founder, the South Australian winners for the 2024 Australian of the Year have been announced. See who has just been crowned. Four trailblazers from our state have been crowned SA’s Australians of the Year for 2024.

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The Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the authority on the conservation status of the world's species, assures that the koala population is in the process of decline and, therefore, it is vulnerable to extinction. In 2016, experts estimated a population of around 330,000 koalas, which represented an average decrease of 24% in the population compared to the three previous generations. Before the fires in Australia in 2020, there was already talk that this species was "functionally extinct", a term coined by the Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) in a statement to affirm that there was no more than 80,000 Koalas in the country. During the fires in Australia, images started to appear of defenseless koalas before the flames were about to be rescued. According to local estimates, between 350 and 1,000 dead koalas were found during the fires. A problem that can be solved The koala is of great importance within the Australian ecosystem. For millions of years it has been key to the health of eucalyptus forests. This is because they eat the upper leaves of these trees and their excrement helps the recycling of nutrients in the soil. Therefore, if the koala population decreases and stops performing these functions, the ecosystem will suffer. Their vulnerability to fires is evident, since their only way out is to climb towards the top of the eucalyptus trees in which they live, which were severely  devastated by the 2020 forest fires, due to global warming. With COP 26 on the rise and new efforts to lower the earth's temperature by 1.5 degrees, attempts to reverse this situation will take time to materialize, if there really is political will to do so. In this sense, the time factor is vital here to guarantee the survival of endangered species such as koalas; the main reason that has prompted the artists of the KRebels project to generate a unique collection of NFTs to protect this defenseless animal. Enters: KRebels - Koala NFTs KRebels is the first project to use non-fungible tokens (NFTs) issued through blockchain technology to raise awareness of the dangers inherent in climate change and its devastating effects on vulnerable species such as Australian koalas. 9,999 works of art tokenized on the Ethereum blockchain inspired by koalas are part of the theme of this collection presented by the KRebels Project, in order to generate the necessary resources to support foundations in charge of safeguarding this species, at the same time as raising awareness in the digital art loving crypto community. KRebels is an innovative NFT project focusing on the intersection of cutting-edge technology, art, and saving the endangered Koala. With KRebels NFTs it will be possible to preserve koalas beyond the virtual world, extrapolating these species to a virtual environment such as metaverses; where holders of these rare and unique NFTs will be able to use it in digital koala reserves on the Metaverse Blockchain. NFTs to raise awareness for endangered species The market for non-fungible tokens (NFT) is on the rise, although it may seem difficult to understand for most newbies. However, interest continues to grow in and out of this ecosystem as more artists, musicians, collectors and investors of all sizes converge in this digital world. According to , there are currently more than 500 million dollars in sales in this market, at a daily average of $ 2,666 of daily sales among the different digital collectibles issued on the blockchain, including everything from the arts to metaverses. NonFungible.com KRebels wants to take advantage of this ‘euphoria’ around NFTs to raise awareness in a sustainable project that can serve as inspiration for the preservation of the species through the fun use of digital collectibles with utility within the blockchain ecosystem. The NFT collection of koalas is the first step of an ambitious project that aims to touch the most sensitive fibers of the crypto community and especially, of those who believe in the possibility that blockchain technology can help change the world into one in which species diversity is possible. The collectibles market is proving to be a vital aspect of the growth of NFTs. And KRebels is developing a solid foundation to become a major player in this market segment. With the KRebels NFTs, digital art collectors will be able to experience the power of blockchain technology while supporting a noble cause, which from the investor's point of view, can be an asset with great potential in the immediate future given the originality of the concept and innovation of combining technology with structural problems of daily life such as endangered species. How does it work? KRebels foresees in five simple steps the minting of NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain through a simple and powerful interface of digital works of art that can then be commercialized in decentralized marketplaces such as OpenSea. The goal of the platform is to allow holders of digital koalas to participate in educational awareness events about this species while at the same time using their tokenized collectibles to play and be able to win cryptocurrencies inside and outside the metaverses. To do this, its roadmap is based on six key points: 1.- : As the owner of a koala NFT, you will have participation rights and a voice in the management of the project and improvements to be implemented, in the best style of decentralized governance. Community 2.- : The KRebels project has committed to giving a percentage of its profits to projects focused on the preservation of koalas. Charity 3.- : As we have mentioned previously, the KRebels NFT koalas will be able to be used in the future in digital reserves within the blockchain metaverse. New World 4.- : Within the metaverses, holders of the Koala NFT can use them in games within this virtual world, which will allow them to earn cryptocurrencies with them. Video games 5.- : KRebels foresees the launch of a token and a new collection after the launch of the first generation of KRebels NFTs as a way to reward its community. Airdrop 6.- : As part of the sustainability of the project, KRebels foresees a percentage of the royalty fees being returned to the community, in order to generate a circular economy with the holders of their NFTs. Long life

These NFTs Might Help Save the Koalas, a Species in Danger

This paper is under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv Authors: (1) Joel Jang, CarperAI,University of Washington & Allen Institute for AI; (2) Seungone Kim, KAIST AI; (3) Yizhong Wang, University of Washington; (4) Jack Hessel, University of Washington; (5) Luke Zettlemoyer, Aleph Alpha; (6) Hannaneh Hajishirzi, University of Washington & Allen Institute for AI; (7) Yejin Choi, UC San Diego. 5 CONCLUSION Previous work has shown that adapting LLMs with RLHF helps them generate outputs that are preferred by humans over the supervised fine-tuned counterpart. However, recent work has also pointed out that simply training LLMs to abide by the preference of the general may result in ignoring individual preferences and values. In this work, we provide the first steps to tackle this issue by proposing Reinforcement Learning from Personalized Human Feedback as a multi-objective problem so that LLMs can be aligned to follow conflicting preferences. We propose a promising method called P-SOUPS that is able to composite models trained on single objectives on the fly during inference. We also highlight the scalability of P-SOUPS by showing that it scales linearly, instead of exponentially like the MORL baseline, with regards to the number of new preferences, which is required to provide true personalization to individual users. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to Minyoung Hwang, Sungdong Kim, Tim Dettmers, Yoonjoo Lee, and Margaret Li for helpful feedback and discussion. REFERENCES Xiang Ao, Xiting Wang, Ling Luo, Ying Qiao, Qing He, and Xing Xie. PENS: A dataset and generic framework for personalized news headline generation. In Proceedings of the 59th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the 11th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing (Volume 1: Long Papers), pp. 82–92, Online, August 2021. Association for Computational Linguistics. doi: 10.18653/v1/2021.acl-long.7. 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Judging llm-as-a-judge with mt-bench and chatbot arena. arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.05685, 2023. Yinhe Zheng, Guanyi Chen, Minlie Huang, Song Liu, and Xuan Zhu. Personalized dialogue generation with diversified traits. arXiv preprint arXiv:1901.09672, 2019. Daniel M Ziegler, Nisan Stiennon, Jeffrey Wu, Tom B Brown, Alec Radford, Dario Amodei, Paul Christiano, and Geoffrey Irving. Fine-tuning language models from human preferences. arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.08593, 2019. A DETAILS OF EVALUATION SETUP We use a modified version of the GPT4 annotation prompt used by Dubois et al. (2023). We modify the criteria to perform the pairwise evaluation from general to a single preference dimension. We also provide 3 demonstrations: one scenario where there is a tie because both responses do not contain any notion of the preference (e.g. both responses do not show any signs of friendliness), one scenario where there is a clear winner, and one scenario where they are both good, but one is better than the other. Simulated pairwise evaluation We recruited 24 crowd workers for our human evaluation. Figure 5 shows the interface used for human evaluation. We consider both the ‘Tie’ and ‘Both are bad’ options to be Ties. B CRITERIA-WISE EVALUATION The criteria-wise win rate (%) across all the methods are shown in Figure 6. The criteria-wise win rate was calculated by getting the average win-rate of the preference combinations that contained the specific preference dimension. For example, when calculating the criteria-wise win rate of ‘Elementary’, we got the average win-rate of the preference combinations that contained the ‘Elementary’ preference, which includes AAA, AAB, ABA, and ABB. C THE FULL LIST OF EVALUATION PROMPTS The full list of evaluation prompts used in our experiments are provided in Table 5 D DETAILED RESULTS FOR HUMAN EVALUATION AND GPT-4 EVALUATION We provide detailed results (win / loss / tie for each of the preference combinations for our main experimental results. Table 6 shows the GPT4 evaluation and Table 7 shows the human evaluation results. E EXAMPLES OF P-SOUPS TEXT GENERATIONS Table 8 shows empirical examples of the text generated from each preference combination of the 16 preference combination experiments for the same prompt.

Personalized Soups: LLM Alignment Via Parameter Merging - Conclusion & References

This paper is under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv Authors: (1) Joel Jang, CarperAI,University of Washington & Allen Institute for AI; (2) Seungone Kim, KAIST AI; (3) Yizhong Wang, University of Washington; (4) Jack Hessel, University of Washington; (5) Luke Zettlemoyer, Aleph Alpha; (6) Hannaneh Hajishirzi, University of Washington & Allen Institute for AI; (7) Yejin Choi, UC San Diego. 3 REINFORCEMENT LEARNING FROM Personalized HUMAN FEEDBACK Collecting Conflicting Pairwise Feedback We utilize Tulu-7B LM (Wang et al., 2023), a model that uses LLaMA-7B (Touvron et al., 2023) as a base model and is instruction tuned on a mixture of open-source instruction-tuning datasets, as the base model for our experiments. We utilize 10k prompt instances from GPT4-Alpaca (Peng et al., 2023), one of the datasets used to train Tulu-7B, as our instruction dataset Dtrain to generate rollouts and collect pairwise feedback data. We also use the same Dtrain during Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) training (Schulman et al., 2017) of Tulu-7B. Following previous work, we simulate human annotators with GPT-4 for collecting large-scale pairwise feedback data (Bai et al., 2022b; Dubois et al., 2023)—but note that our evaluations are validated with (smaller-scale) human preference data collected from crowdworkers. While Dubois et al. (2023) mostly simulates GPT-4 and other LLMs to choose which is generally a better response between two candidate responses, we provide GPT-4 with a single preference (full list shown in Table 1) to decide which is a better response. We also provide the same preference criteria via additional prompts during the rollout generation of the two candidate responses; we use Tulu-30B for the rollout generation while the actual policy model we train is Tulu-7B for our main experimental setup, making our experimental setting an off-policy training set-up. While we have feedback on which of the two model responses is more aligned with a single preference via GPT-4 annotation, utilizing only two positive pairs during reward model training was empirically shown to be less robust during the PPO training. Instead, we train our reward model on multiple comparisons (Song et al., 2023; Kim et al., 2023) by including a neutral response and a negative response as shown in Figure 2. Specifically, the reward model is provided with four different comparisons for a single prompt during training: positive 1 > positive 2 (decided by GPT-4), positive > neutral, positive > negative, and neutral > negative. The positive response when compared with the neutral and the negative response is chosen randomly. This allows the reward model to be exposed to different granularity of the specific preference and give scores accordingly during PPO training. We explore (1) training a single reward model in a multitask fashion that leverages the preference prompts during inference to give distinct rewards according to each preference and (2) training multiple reward models, each tailored to the distinct preference. Reward Model Training 3.2 MULTI-OBJECTIVE REINFORCEMENT LEARNING (MORL) The MORL problem can be denoted as: 3.3 MULTIFACETED EVALUATION For evaluation, we manually filter out 50 instances from the Koala evaluation (Geng et al., 2023) that require open-ended generations. We also modified some of the prompts so that the evaluation prompts do not contain any elements requiring individual preferences (e.g., removing the phrase asking for a elementary-level response from the original prompt since we want to test the LLM to generate a expert-level response). The full list of evaluation prompts used for our experiments is shown in Appendix C. In our evaluation setup, we simulate users to have a unique combination of preferences, each from the three preference dimensions (Expertise, Informativeness, Style) in Table 1, which equates to 8 unique preference combinations (examples shown in Figure 1). We get the average win rate across the simulated 8 preference combinations for our final evaluation. We use a variant of the AlpacaFarm evaluation framework for simulated (GPT4) evaluation and hire 24 crowdworkers for human evaluation. Details of human evaluation are provided in Appendix A. Evaluation [3] P1, P2, P3 each represents preference prompts from each preference dimension in Table 1. For one example, one unique combination might be P1A + P2B + P3A (ABA) where the combined objective for the response needs to be elementary level, informative, and friendly. [4] Empirically, utilizing a single reward model instead of multiple reward models led to better performance. We hypothesize this is due to the problem of normalizing signals from different reward models (Hayes et al., 2022), which is known to be a nontrivial problem in MORL.

Personalized Soups: LLM Alignment Via Parameter Merging - Personalized Human Feedback

Let's learn about via these 57 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Token /Learn Repo 1. How to unlock your 888,888 KickTokens from FrozenDrop? In December 2019, we conducted the first-ever FrozenDrop of KickTokens. The Kick Ecosystem team was the first to create and implement the frozen mechanics of frozen tokens on the blockchain. 2. Introducing $NOIR, the World’s first Phygital Wine Token NOIR New Moon, a Sparkling Rosé produced using the Méthode Traditionnelle technique, will be offered exclusively as 777 dynamically priced $NOIR tokens.. 3. An Introduction to Virtual Properties in the Metaverse The use of virtual lands in the different metaverses based on blockchain is on the rise, generating greater pressure on the supply available for the new economy 4. Integrating BSC Tokens Into Your Crypto Project Learn everything you need to know when it comes to integrating a BSC token into a cryptocurrency project that you are working on and aim to do so. 5. Here's-My-Private-Key Scam in Crypto: How It Traps Unsuspecting Users A new form of scams that trick everyone with poor basis of knowledge of blockchain world. 6. Why Locking Liquidity is Important for Cryptocurrency Let us start with understanding what is liquidity for cryptocurrency and why you may want to lock it. 7. What's The Fashion Industry Doing With Blockchain? Blockchain made the headlines in 2017 when Bitcoin gained traction. Ever since then, multiple industry-wide applications of blockchain tech broke the news. The distributed/decentralized ledger technology brought scalability, transaction speed, and better security that’d transform the world in coming years. 8. The Super Token Thesis Building Towards the Web3 Financialized Consumer Era 9. Everything You Need to Know About Moon - Reddit’s Ethereum-Based Cryptocurrency Reddit’s vision for MOON tokens and the Community Points program is to encourage high-quality posts, discussions, and engagement 10. Is Tokenization The Engine To The Economy of The Future? 11. Will Meme Coins Keep Going to the Moon? While meme coin may generate spectacular short-term gains as people are willing to speculate on the possibility of making money in a short amount of time. 12. On Tokenized Real-World Assets (RWAs) and DeFi The importance of real assets in DeFi 13. Why are there no Security Token yet? US regulators have done little to provide certainty for buyers and sellers of blockchain-based tokens. A page on the Securities and Exchange Commission's website on the topic of 'initial coin offerings' offers only sparse information in form of "5 things you need to know about ICOs," starting with the somewhat ominous declaration that "ICOs can be securities offerings" -- a message which seems to have found a receptive audience, judging by the growing number of projects offering their assistance with “security token offerings.”  The following examines the viability and efficacy of security tokens in the context of blockchain-based systems for the purpose of securities creation and handling: 14. NEO, MATIC and now FLETA Tokens: What do they have in common? NEO, MATIC and FLETA Blockchain have used 'rebranding' as a pillar of their strategy to drive the adoption of their token and technology within the crypto ecosy 15. Creating a Python Discord Bot - How to Get Data for Analysis From this article you’ll learn how tо
create Discord bot and add it to the Server;
get the full list of channels from the server;
get a snapshot of Discord memb 16. “These Are Not Laundromat Tokens” — The End of The Crypto Wild West Gary Gensler, Chair of the SEC, compared the state of cryptocurrency to Laudromat tokens.  In the long run - which is a positive for the crypto world. 17. The Cryptocurrency Confusion In his fundamental book, Money and the Mechanism of Exchange, English economist William Stanley Jevons explains that currencies address a central economic problem: the coincidence of wants. The phrase describes the conundrum inherent to barter where the parties of the transaction have to agree to sell and buy each other's goods. 18. Token Swappers Are Replacing Traditional Crypto-Exchanges: A 2020 Analysis While cryptocurrencies are powered by decentralized protocols, the trading of cryptocurrencies mostly happens on centralized exchanges. 19. They Want to Tokenize Horses Now. Does it Make Any Sense? Racehorses are an expensive vocational pursuit. But it is also a pretty good
business for all those involved, such as the owners, the trainers, the
jockeys/riders, the breeders and the various sportive federations. 20. Token Valuation Done Right: A DCF Model To Value Perlin's Native Network Token The following post is a walkthrough on the methodology we followed to value Perlin's native network token, the PERL. The report and post were authored by @eliasimos, Senior Research Analyst at Decentral Park. 21. Elon Musk is Proof of Social Currency and Community Governance There’s no denying Elon Musk has a massive (and loyal) fan base. With over 65 million followers, his tweets regularly make headlines and often move markets. Thus it shouldn’t be all that surprising that a group of his biggest fans has created a meme cryptocurrency in his name. 22. Let's Better Understand the Different Types of Cryptocurrency and Tokens All hail to this brave new crypto world! You may or may not have heard of Ethereum, but surely you know something about Bitcoin 23. These NFTs Might Help Save the Koalas, a Species in Danger KRebels is the first project to use non-fungible tokens (NFTs) issued through blockchain technology to raise awareness of the dangers inherent in climate change 24. Tokenizing the Wine Industry with Somm Marc Flores According to Research and Markets, the global wine industry is growing at a CAGR of 3.7 percent. It will reach $201 billion by 2025 and $434 billion by 2027. In the U.S. alone, the wine industry was valued at over 88 billion by the end of 2020. 25. NFT Gaming is The Key to Wider Token Adoption in 2022 By Jeremy Foo, Founder and CEO at TripCandy 26. Token Standards: ERC-20 vs. ERC-721 vs. ERC-1155 ERC stands for Ethereum Request for Comment, and by addressing this topic is going to help us better understand the reach of many blockchain use cases. 27. RE: [LA blockchain conference 2021] LA blockchain conference impressions - living in a bubble, healthy and unhealthy areas in crypto, reasons of being skeptical of DeFi... 28. Discover the Reason 'Agent-Based Modelling' and 'Tokenomics' Compliment Each Other Agent-based models have been around for a few decades now. They are one of the main methodologies behind the study of complex systems. 29. What is Unit Protocol and Why Does it Matter? Unit Protocol is a decentralized protocol that allows you to mint stablecoin $USDP using a variety of tokens as collateral. 30. Is Elon Musk WRONG About Dogecoin? The CEO of Koinos Group explains Dogecoin and what Elon Musk might be getting wrong. 31. My vision of the EOS foundation Inside the upcoming EOS Foundation 32. How To Get Your Token Listed On A Crypto Exchange (Podcast Transcript) Amy Tom talks to Yevheniia Shmelkova, the Token Specialist at Mysterium Network about crypto exchanges. 33. Understanding the current state of P2P Token Swaps The rise of open finance solutions powered by public code exemplifies how the benefits of simplicity, steeled by decentralization, can be revolutionary. 34. How to Script the CF API With and Python CF OAUTH-TOKEN A bit of Python, a dancing gopher, and proper course etiquette are all you need to know how to log in and loop through the results. 35. Deciding What Kind of Exchange Is Best for Your Token Where is it better to list tokens on a centralized or decentralized exchange? In the new Hackernoon story, I answer what is better for the project — CEX or DEX 36. Tokens Represent the Next Generation of Capital Many central banks are considering digital currencies. The tedious process and costs associated with paper currency prohibit financial inclusion. 37. A Guide to Using the Permit Function of the DAI Stablecoin As soon as the price of the Native Token starts climbing your Twitter feeds will be filled with the high gas fee hue and cry. 38. TURN Time Into Value Web3 projects can now leverage TURN tokens – a new open marketplace for buyers and sellers of Diligence smart contract security auditing. 39. DeFiChain introduces dTokens which allows traders to trade Disney, Intel and MicroStrategy ETF DeFiChain, the world's top blockchain on the Bitcoin network has launched four new decentralised assets called dTokens. 40. Top 5 Methods of Running an Effective Cryptocurrency Exchange Anti Danilevski, KickEX CEO and founder, talks about Top 5 Methods of Running an Effective Cryptocurrency Exchange based on his own experiences in the field. 41. Secure Tokens are More Successful - Here's Why How important is security in the modern world? It is crucial, especially when it comes to finances, no matter the form. As the novelty of crypto assets starts w 42. The Rise of Rebase Tokens in DeFi Ever since rebase tokens came into the front with OlympusDAO, there have been many forks and projects that are using this clever DeFi mechanism. 43. It's Time to Give Meme Tokens a Purpose Each meme token is moving to offer a unique value proposition in a space more known for inside jokes than serious efforts toward innovation. 44. Understanding Ethereum Token Standards Tokens are an incredibly important part of Ethereum and in Web3. Understanding the standards for each type of token can help you understand how it works. 45. Three Visions on How to Value New Tokens & the Cryptocurrency Market in General The whole world is waking up to the fact that despite its trials and tribulations, this new asset class is here to stay. Now, how do we determine its worth? 46. Should a Native Token be the Only Holding or is There a Case for Diversification? As a DAO, the concept of holding your native token in the treasury makes sense. 47. How Tokens Are Turning Out To Be The Digital Currency Solution for the 21st Century As we all know, the world we live in has evolved significantly. Individuals and companies are looking for new ways to bring their ideas to life, make payments for goods and services, and get enough cash flow to ensure that they stay operational in whatever it is that they choose to do or pursue. 48. Does Token Supply Affect the Price? Everything You Need to Know Natasha Che ponders whether token supply affects the price. 49. Analyzing a Crypto Token: A Beginner's Guide Crypto Investing 101 50. Away with Amazon: Let's Decentralize the Ecommerce Platform Economy A digital platform that rewards and is owned by its users will benefit from infinite network effects and scale like no others. 51. The Craze for NFTS and the Downsides Despite its relative straightforwardness as a token, NFT industry participants can have wildly differing opinions on what NFTs really are. Here are 4 viewpoints 52. Fair Launch Isn’t Really Fair Can crypto companies survive and thrive with fair launches depending on community support and do people understand the value of money? What about marketing ? 53. The Healthcare Revolution: How The Metaverse Can Transform Traditional Industries And Improve Them How new technology from the Metaverse and Web3 can help improve the healthcare industry by improving training, making better tools and making processes better. 54. Fundamental Analysis of ATOM, NEAR, WLKN, A8, MATIC Fundamental analysis of Polygon (MATIC), Ancient8 (A8), Walken (WLKN), NEAR Protocol (NEAR), and COSMOS (ATOM) will help you make the right decision in 2022. 55. Making a Difference in the Web3 and NFT Space The combination of unique and meaningful art, charitable focus, community involvement, and creative endeavors makes the Tutti Frutti Women NFT project stand ou 56. Italy's Covid19 Stimulus: Tokenization of Tax Credits And The New Digital Lira The day that the Italian borders were reopened after the lockdown — on June 3rd — I drove across the Brenner Pass with an overwhelming joy. I could finally rejoin my family and my old friends. 57. Interoperability in NFT Games with Adrian Krion In this slogging AMA, we hosted Adrian Krion, the CEO of Spielworks. Adrian explained the purpose of Spielworks, and we discussed tokens, gaming and NFTs. Thank you for checking out the 57 most read stories about Token on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

57 Stories To Learn About Token

The next day, the 8th day of January

116 Stories To Learn About Art

Abandoned by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . CHAPTER X here CHAPTER X Boat-building—Second Crop of Corn—Hunting Koalas—A new Plant, more Pleasant than Useful—Whale in Sight—A Harpoon from the Vineyard—Cutting up the Whale—Use for the Bones—End of the Month of May—Pencroft has nothing left to wish for. When Pencroft had once got a plan into his head, he had no peace till it was executed. Now he wished to visit Tabor Island, and as a boat of a certain size was necessary for this voyage, he determined to build one. What wood should be employed? Elm or fir, both of which abounded in the island? They decided for the fir, as being easy to work, but which stands water as well as the elm. These details settled, it was agreed that since the fine season would not return before six months, Cyrus Harding and Pencroft should work alone at the boat. Gideon Spilett and Herbert were to continue to hunt, and neither Neb nor Master Jup his assistant were to leave the domestic duties which had devolved upon them. Directly the trees were chosen, they were felled, stripped of their branches, and sawn into planks as well as sawyers would have been able to do it. A week after, in the recess between the Chimneys and the cliff, a dockyard was prepared, and a keel five-and-thirty feet long, furnished with a stern-post at the stern and a stem at the bows, lay along the sand. Cyrus Harding was not working in the dark at this new trade. He knew as much about ship-building as about nearly everything else, and he had at first drawn the model of his ship on paper. Besides, he was ably seconded by Pencroft, who, having worked for several years in a dockyard at Brooklyn, knew the practical part of the trade. It was not until after careful calculation and deep thought that the timbers were laid on the keel. Pencroft, as may be believed, was all eagerness to carry out his new enterprise, and would not leave his work for an instant. A single thing had the honour of drawing him, but for one day only, from his dockyard. This was the second wheat-harvest, which was gathered in on the 15th of April. It was as much a success as the first, and yielded the number of grains which had been predicted. "Five bushels, captain," said Pencroft, after having scrupulously measured his treasure. "Five bushels," replied the engineer; "and a hundred and thirty thousand grains a bushel will make six hundred and fifty thousand grains." "Well, we will sow them all this time," said the sailor, "except a little in reserve." "Yes, Pencroft, and if the next crop gives a proportionate yield, we shall have four thousand bushels." "And shall we eat bread?" "We shall eat bread." "But we must have a mill." "We will make one." The third cornfield was very much larger than the two first, and the soil, prepared with extreme care, received the precious seed. That done, Pencroft returned to his work. During this time Spilett and Herbert hunted in the neighbourhood, and they ventured deep into the still unknown parts of the Far West, their guns loaded with ball, ready for any dangerous emergency. It was a vast thicket of magnificent trees, crowded together as if pressed for room. The exploration of these dense masses of wood was difficult in the extreme, and the reporter never ventured there without the pocket-compass, for the sun scarcely pierced through the thick foliage, and it would have been very difficult for them to retrace their way. It naturally happened that game was more rare in those situations where there was hardly sufficient room to move; two or three large herbivorous animals were however killed during the last fortnight of April. These were koalas, specimens of which the settlers had already seen to the north of the lake, and which stupidly allowed themselves to be killed among the thick branches of the trees in which they took refuge. Their skins were brought back to Granite House, and there, by the help of sulphuric acid, they were subjected to a sort of tanning process which rendered them capable of being used. On the 30th of April, the two sportsmen were in the depth of the Far West, when the reporter, preceding Herbert a few paces, arrived in a sort of clearing, into which the trees more sparsely scattered had permitted a few rays to penetrate. Gideon Spilett was at first surprised at the odour which exhaled from certain plants with straight stalks, round and branchy, bearing grape-like clusters of flowers and very small berries. The reporter broke off one or two of these stalks and returned to the lad, to whom he said,— "What can this be, Herbert?" "Well, Mr. Spilett," said Herbert, "this is a treasure which will secure you Pencroft's gratitude for ever." "Is it tobacco?" "Yes, and though it may not be of the first quality, it is none the less tobacco!" "Oh, good old Pencroft! Won't he be pleased? But we must not let him smoke it all, he must give us our share." "Ah! an idea occurs to me, Mr. Spilett," replied Herbert. "Don't let us say anything to Pencroft yet; we will prepare these leaves, and one fine day we will present him with a pipe already filled!" "All right, Herbert, and on that day our worthy companion will have nothing left to wish for in this world." The reporter and the lad secured a good store of the precious plant, and then returned to Granite House, where they smuggled it in with as much precaution as if Pencroft had been the most vigilant and severe of custom-house officers. Cyrus Harding and Neb were taken into confidence, and the sailor suspected nothing during the whole time, necessarily somewhat long, which was required in order to dry the small leaves, chop them up, and subject them to a certain torrefaction on hot stones. This took two months; but all these manipulations were successfully carried on unknown to Pencroft, for, occupied with the construction of his boat, he only returned to Granite House at the hour of rest. For some days they had observed an enormous animal two or three miles out in the open sea swimming around Lincoln Island. This was a whale of the largest size, which apparently belonged to the southern species, called the "Cape Whale." "What a lucky chance it would be if we could capture it!" cried the sailor. "Ah, if we only had a proper boat and a good harpoon, I would say, 'After the beast,' for he would be well worth the trouble of catching!" "Well, Pencroft," observed Harding, "I should much like to watch you handling a harpoon. It would be very interesting." "I am astonished," said the reporter, "to see a whale in this comparatively high latitude." "Why so, Mr. Spilett?" replied Herbert. "We are exactly in that part of the Pacific which English and American whalemen call the whale field, and it is here, between New Zealand and South America, that the whales of the southern hemisphere are met with in the greatest numbers." And Pencroft returned to his work, not without uttering a sigh of regret, for every sailor is a born fisherman, and if the pleasure of fishing is in exact proportion to the size of the animal, one can judge how a whaler feels in sight of a whale. And if this had only been for pleasure! But they could not help feeling how valuable such a prize would have been to the colony, for the oil, the fat, and the bones would have been put to many uses. Now it happened that this whale appeared to have no wish to leave the waters of the island. Therefore, whether from the windows of Granite House, or from Prospect Heights, Herbert and Gideon Spilett, when they were not hunting, or Neb unless presiding over his fires, never left the telescope, but watched all the animal's movements. The cetacean, having entered far into Union Bay, made rapid furrows across it from Mandible Cape to Claw Cape, propelled by its enormously powerful flukes, on which it supported itself, and making its way through the water at the rate little short of twelve knots an hour. Sometimes also it approached so near to the island that it could be clearly distinguished. It was the southern whale, which is completely black, the head being more depressed than that of the northern whale. They could also see it throwing up from its air-holes to a great height, a cloud of vapour, or of water, for, strange as it may appear, naturalists and whalers are not agreed on this subject. Is it air or is it water which is thus driven out? It is generally admitted to be vapour, which, condensing suddenly by contact with the cold air, falls again as rain. However, the presence of this mammifer preoccupied the colonists. It irritated Pencroft especially as he could think of nothing else while at work. He ended by longing for it, like a child for a thing which it has been denied. At night he talked about it in his sleep, and certainly if he had had the means of attacking it, if the sloop had been in a fit state to put to sea, he would not have hesitated to set out in pursuit. But what the colonists could not do for themselves, chance did for them, and on the 3rd of May, shouts from Neb, who had stationed himself at the kitchen window, announced that the whale was stranded on the beach of the island. Herbert and Gideon Spilett, who were just about to set out hunting, left their guns, Pencroft threw down his axe, and Harding and Neb joining their companions, all rushed towards the scene of action. The stranding had taken place on the beach of Flotsam Point, three miles from Granite House, and at high tide. It was therefore probable that the cetacean would not be able to extricate itself easily, at any rate it was best to hasten, so as to cut off its retreat if necessary. They ran with pick-axes and iron-tipped poles in their hands, passed over the Mercy bridge, descended the right bank of the river, along the beach, and in less than twenty minutes the settlers were close to the enormous animal, above which flocks of birds already hovered. "What a monster!" cried Neb. And the exclamation was natural, for it was a southern whale, eighty feet long, a giant of the species, probably not weighing less than a hundred and fifty thousand pounds! In the meanwhile, the monster thus stranded did not move, nor attempt by struggling to regain the water whilst the tide was still high. It was dead, and a harpoon was sticking out of its left side. "There are whalers in these quarters, then?" said Gideon Spilett directly. "Oh, Mr Spilett, that doesn't prove anything!" replied Pencroft. "Whales have been known to go thousands of miles with a harpoon in the side, and this one might even have been struck in the north of the Atlantic and come to die in the south of the Pacific, and it would be nothing astonishing." Pencroft, having torn the harpoon from the animal's side, read this inscription on it:— "'MARIA STELLA,' "VINEYARD." "A vessel from the Vineyard! A ship from my country!" he cried. "The ! A fine whaler, 'pon my word; I know her well! Oh, my friends, a vessel from the Vineyard!—a whaler from the Vineyard!" Maria Stella A port in the State of New York. And the sailor brandishing the harpoon, repeated, not without emotion, the name which he loved so well—the name of his birthplace. But as it could not be expected that the would come to reclaim the animal harpooned by her, they resolved to begin cutting it up before decomposition should commence. The birds, who had watched this rich prey for several days, had determined to take possession of it without further delay, and it was necessary to drive them off by firing at them repeatedly. Maria Stella The whale was a female, and a large quantity of milk was taken from it, which, according to the opinion of the naturalist Duffenbach, might pass for cow's milk, and, indeed, it differs from it neither in taste, colour, nor density. Pencroft had formerly served on board a whaling-ship, and he could methodically direct the operation of cutting up—a sufficiently disagreeable operation lasting three days, but from which the settlers did not flinch, not even Gideon Spilett, who, as the sailor said, would end by making a "real good castaway." The blubber, cut in parallel slices of two feet and a half in thickness, then divided into pieces which might weigh about a thousand pounds each, was melted down in large earthen pots brought to the spot, for they did not wish to taint the environs of Granite House, and in this fusion it lost nearly a third of its weight. But there was an immense quantity of it; the tongue alone yielded six thousand pounds of oil, and the lower lip four thousand. Then, besides the fat, which would insure for a long time a store of stearine and glycerine, there were still the bones, for which a use could doubtless be found, although there were neither umbrellas nor stays used at Granite House. The upper part of the mouth of the cetacean was, indeed, provided on both sides with eight hundred horny blades, very elastic, of a fibrous texture, and fringed at the edge like great combs, of which the teeth, six feet long, served to retain the thousands of animalculæ, little fish, and molluscs, on which the whale fed. The operation finished, to the great satisfaction of the operators, the remains of the animal were left to the birds, who would soon make every vestige of it disappear, and their usual daily occupations were resumed by the inmates of Granite House. However, before returning to the dockyard, Cyrus Harding conceived the idea of fabricating certain machines, which greatly excited the curiosity of his companions. He took a dozen of the whale's bones, cut them into six equal parts, and sharpened their ends. "This machine is not my own invention, and it is frequently employed by the Aleutian hunters in Russian America. You see these bones, my friends; well, when it freezes, I will bend them, and then wet them with water till they are entirely covered with ice, which will keep them bent, and I will strew them on the snow, having previously covered them with fat. Now, what will happen if a hungry animal swallows one of these baits? Why, the heat of his stomach will melt the ice, and the bone, springing straight, will pierce him with its sharp points." "Well! I do call that ingenious!" said Pencroft. "And it will spare the powder and shot," rejoined Cyrus Harding. "That will be better than traps!" added Neb. In the meanwhile the boat-building progressed, and towards the end of the month half the planking was completed. It could already be seen that her shape was excellent, and that she would sail well. Pencroft worked with unparalleled ardour, and only a sturdy frame could have borne such fatigue; but his companions were preparing in secret a reward for his labours, and on the 31st of May he was to meet with one of the greatest joy's of his life. On that day, after dinner, just as he was about to leave the table, Pencroft felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the hand of Gideon Spilett, who said,— "One moment, Master Pencroft, you mustn't sneak off like that! You've forgotten your dessert." "Thank you, Mr. Spilett," replied the sailor, "I am going back to my work." "Well a cup of coffee, my friend?" "Nothing more." "A pipe, then?" Pencroft jumped up, and his great good-natured face grew pale when he saw the reporter presenting him with a ready-filled pipe, and Herbert with a glowing coal. The sailor endeavoured to speak, but could not get out a word, so, seizing the pipe, he carried it to his lips, then applying the coal, he drew five or six great whiffs. A fragrant blue cloud soon arose, and from its depths a voice was heard repeating excitedly,— "Tobacco! real tobacco!" "Yes, Pencroft," returned Cyrus Harding, "and very good tobacco too!" "O divine Providence! sacred Author of all things!" cried the sailor. "Nothing more is now wanting to our island." And Pencroft smoked, and smoked, and smoked. "And who made this discovery?" he asked at length. "You, Herbert, no doubt?" "No, Pencroft, it was Mr. Spilett." "Mr Spilett!" exclaimed the sailor seizing the reporter, and clasping him to his breast with such a squeeze that he had never felt anything like it before. "Oh, Pencroft," said Spilett, recovering his breath at last, "a truce for one moment. You must share your gratitude with Herbert, who recognised the plant, with Cyrus, who prepared it, and with Neb who took a great deal of trouble to keep our secret." "Well, my friends, I will repay you some day," replied the sailor. "Now we are friends for life." About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (2010). Abandoned. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/33516/pg33516-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

When Pencroft had once got a plan into his head, he had no peace till it was executed

The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Chapter X here Chapter X When Pencroft had once got a plan in his head, he had no peace till it was executed. Now he wished to visit Tabor Island, and as a boat of a certain size was necessary for this voyage, he determined to build one. What wood should he employ? Elm or fir, both of which abounded in the island? They decided for the fir, as being easy to work, but which stands water as well as the elm. These details settled, it was agreed that since the fine season would not return before six months, Cyrus Harding and Pencroft should work alone at the boat. Gideon Spilett and Herbert were to continue to hunt, and neither Neb nor Master Jup, his assistant, were to leave the domestic duties which had devolved upon them. Directly the trees were chosen, they were felled, stripped of their branches, and sawn into planks as well as sawyers would have been able to do it. A week after, in the recess between the Chimneys and the cliff, a dockyard was prepared, and a keel five-and-thirty feet long, furnished with a stern-post at the stern and a stem at the bows, lay along the sand. Cyrus Harding was not working in the dark at this new trade. He knew as much about ship-building as about nearly everything else, and he had at first drawn the model of his ship on paper. Besides, he was ably seconded by Pencroft, who, having worked for several years in a dockyard in Brooklyn, knew the practical part of the trade. It was not until after careful calculation and deep thought that the timbers were laid on the keel. Pencroft, as may be believed, was all eagerness to carry out his new enterprise, and would not leave his work for an instant. A single thing had the honor of drawing him, but for one day only, from his dockyard. This was the second wheat-harvest, which was gathered in on the 15th of April. It was as much a success as the first, and yielded the number of grains which had been predicted. “Five bushels, captain,” said Pencroft, after having scrupulously measured his treasure. “Five bushels,” replied the engineer; “and a hundred and thirty thousand grains a bushel will make six hundred and fifty thousand grains.” “Well, we will sow them all this time,” said the sailor, “except a little in reserve.” “Yes, Pencroft, and if the next crop gives a proportionate yield, we shall have four thousand bushels.” “And shall we eat bread?” “We shall eat bread.” “But we must have a mill. “We will make one.” The third corn-field was very much larger than the two first, and the soil, prepared with extreme care, received the precious seed. That done, Pencroft returned to his work. During this time Spilett and Herbert hunted in the neighborhood, and they ventured deep into the still unknown parts of the Far West, their guns loaded with ball, ready for any dangerous emergency. It was a vast thicket of magnificent trees, crowded together as if pressed for room. The exploration of these dense masses of wood was difficult in the extreme, and the reporter never ventured there without the pocket-compass, for the sun scarcely pierced through the thick foliage and it would have been very difficult for them to retrace their way. It naturally happened that game was more rare in those situations where there was hardly sufficient room to move; two or three large herbivorous animals were however killed during the last fortnight of April. These were koalas, specimens of which the settlers had already seen to the north of the lake, and which stupidly allowed themselves to be killed among the thick branches of the trees in which they took refuge. Their skins were brought back to Granite House, and there, by the help of sulphuric acid, they were subjected to a sort of tanning process which rendered them capable of being used. On the 30th of April, the two sportsmen were in the depth of the Far West, when the reporter, preceding Herbert a few paces, arrived in a sort of clearing, into which the trees more sparsely scattered had permitted a few rays to penetrate. Gideon Spilett was at first surprised at the odor which exhaled from certain plants with straight stalks, round and branchy, bearing grape-like clusters of flowers and very small berries. The reporter broke off one or two of these stalks and returned to the lad, to whom he said,— “What can this be, Herbert?” “Well, Mr. Spilett,” said Herbert, “this is a treasure which will secure you Pencroft’s gratitude forever.” “Is it tobacco?” “Yes, and though it may not be of the first quality, it is none the less tobacco!” “Oh, good old Pencroft! Won’t he be pleased! But we must not let him smoke it all, he must give us our share.” “Ah! an idea occurs to me, Mr. Spilett,” replied Herbert. “Don’t let us say anything to Pencroft yet; we will prepare these leaves, and one fine day we will present him with a pipe already filled!” “All right, Herbert, and on that day our worthy companion will have nothing left to wish for in this world.” The reporter and the lad secured a good store of the precious plant, and then returned to Granite House, where they smuggled it in with as much precaution as if Pencroft had been the most vigilant and severe of custom-house officers. Cyrus Harding and Neb were taken into confidence, and the sailor suspected nothing during the whole time, necessarily somewhat long, which was required in order to dry the small leaves, chop them up, and subject them to a certain torrefaction on hot stones. This took two months; but all these manipulations were successfully carried on unknown to Pencroft, for, occupied with the construction of his boat, he only returned to Granite House at the hour of rest. For some days they had observed an enormous animal two or three miles out in the open sea swimming around Lincoln Island. This was a whale of the largest size, which apparently belonged to the southern species, called the “Cape Whale.” “What a lucky chance it would be if we could capture it!” cried the sailor. “Ah! if we only had a proper boat and a good harpoon, I would say ‘After the beast,’ for he would be well worth the trouble of catching!” “Well, Pencroft,” observed Harding, “I should much like to watch you handling a harpoon. It would be very interesting.” “I am astonished,” said the reporter, “to see a whale in this comparatively high latitude.” “Why so, Mr. Spilett?” replied Herbert. “We are exactly in that part of the Pacific which English and American whalemen call the whale field, and it is here, between New Zealand and South America, that the whales of the Southern Hemisphere are met with in the greatest numbers.” And Pencroft returned to his work, not without uttering a sigh of regret, for every sailor is a born fisherman, and if the pleasure of fishing is in exact proportion to the size of the animal, one can judge how a whaler feels in sight of a whale. And if this had only been for pleasure! But they could not help feeling how valuable such a prize would have been to the colony, for the oil, fat, and bones would have been put to many uses. Now it happened that this whale appeared to have no wish to leave the waters of the island. Therefore, whether from the windows of Granite House, or from Prospect Heights, Herbert and Gideon Spilett, when they were not hunting, or Neb, unless presiding over his fires, never left the telescope, but watched all the animal’s movements. The cetacean, having entered far into Union Bay, made rapid furrows across it from Mandible Cape to Claw Cape, propelled by its enormously powerful flukes, on which it supported itself, and making its way through the water at the rate little short of twelve knots. Sometimes also it approached so near to the island that it could be clearly distinguished. It was the southern whale, which is completely black, the head being more depressed than that of the northern whale. They could also see it throwing up from its air-holes to a great height a cloud of vapor, or of water, for, strange as it may appear, naturalists and whalers are not agreed on this subject. Is it air or is it water which is thus driven out? It is generally admitted to be vapor, which, condensing suddenly by contact with the cold air, falls again as rain. However, the presence of this mammifer preoccupied the colonists. It irritated Pencroft especially, as he could think of nothing else while at work. He ended by longing for it, like a child for a thing which it has been denied. At night he talked about it in his sleep, and certainly if he had had the means of attacking it, if the sloop had been in a fit state to put to sea, he would not have hesitated to set out in pursuit. But what the colonists could not do for themselves chance did for them, and on the 3rd of May shouts from Neb, who had stationed himself at the kitchen window, announced that the whale was stranded on the beach of the island. Herbert and Gideon Spilett, who were just about to set out hunting, left their guns, Pencroft threw down his ax, and Harding and Neb joining their companions, all rushed towards the scene of action. The stranding had taken place on the beach of Flotsam Point, three miles from Granite House, and at high tide. It was therefore probable that the cetacean would not be able to extricate itself easily; at any rate it was best to hasten, so as to cut off its retreat if necessary. They ran with pick-axes and iron-tipped poles in their hands, passed over the Mercy bridge, descended the right bank of the river, along the beach, and in less than twenty minutes the settlers were close to the enormous animal, above which flocks of birds already hovered. “What a monster!” cried Neb. And the exclamation was natural, for it was a southern whale, eighty feet long, a giant of the species, probably not weighing less than a hundred and fifty thousand pounds! In the meanwhile, the monster thus stranded did not move, nor attempt by struggling to regain the water while the tide was still high. It was dead, and a harpoon was sticking out of its left side. “There are whalers in these quarters, then?” said Gideon Spilett directly. “Oh, Mr. Spilett, that doesn’t prove anything!” replied Pencroft. “Whales have been known to go thousands of miles with a harpoon in the side, and this one might even have been struck in the north of the Atlantic and come to die in the south of the Pacific, and it would be nothing astonishing.” Pencroft, having torn the harpoon from the animal’s side, read this inscription on it: MARIA STELLA, VINEYARD “A vessel from the Vineyard! A ship from my country!” he cried. “The ‘Maria Stella!’ A fine whaler, ‘pon my word; I know her well! Oh, my friends, a vessel from the Vineyard!—a whaler from the Vineyard!” And the sailor brandishing the harpoon, repeated, not without emotion, the name which he loved so well—the name of his birthplace. But as it could not be expected that the “Maria Stella” would come to reclaim the animal harpooned by her, they resolved to begin cutting it up before decomposition should commence. The birds, who had watched this rich prey for several days, had determined to take possession of it without further delay, and it was necessary to drive them off by firing at them repeatedly. The whale was a female, and a large quantity of milk was taken from it, which, according to the opinion of the naturalist Duffenbach, might pass for cow’s milk, and, indeed, it differs from it neither in taste, color, nor density. Pencroft had formerly served on board a whaling-ship, and he could methodically direct the operation of cutting up, a sufficiently disagreeable operation lasting three days, but from which the settlers did not flinch, not even Gideon Spilett, who, as the sailor said, would end by making a “real good castaway.” The blubber, cut in parallel slices of two feet and a half in thickness, then divided into pieces which might weigh about a thousand pounds each, was melted down in large earthen pots brought to the spot, for they did not wish to taint the environs of Granite House, and in this fusion it lost nearly a third of its weight. But there was an immense quantity of it; the tongue alone yielded six thousand pounds of oil, and the lower lip four thousand. Then, besides the fat, which would insure for a long time a store of stearine and glycerine, there were still the bones, for which a use could doubtless be found, although there were neither umbrellas nor stays used at Granite House. The upper part of the mouth of the cetacean was, indeed, provided on both sides with eight hundred horny blades, very elastic, of a fibrous texture, and fringed at the edge like great combs, at which the teeth, six feet long, served to retain the thousands of animalculae, little fish, and molluscs, on which the whale fed. The operation finished, to the great satisfaction of the operators, the remains of the animal were left to the birds, who would soon make every vestige of it disappear, and their usual daily occupations were resumed by the inmates of Granite House. However, before returning to the dockyard, Cyrus Harding conceived the idea of fabricating certain machines, which greatly excited the curiosity of his companions. He took a dozen of the whale’s bones, cut them into six equal parts, and sharpened their ends. “This machine is not my own invention, and it is frequently employed by the Aleutian hunters in Russian America. You see these bones, my friends; well, when it freezes, I will bend them, and then wet them with water till they are entirely covered with ice, which will keep them bent, and I will strew them on the snow, having previously covered them with fat. Now, what will happen if a hungry animal swallows one of these baits? Why, the heat of his stomach will melt the ice, and the bone, springing straight, will pierce him with its sharp points.” “Well! I do call that ingenious!” said Pencroft. “And it will spare the powder and shot,” rejoined Cyrus Harding. “That will be better than traps!” added Neb. In the meanwhile the boat-building progressed, and towards the end of the month half the planking was completed. It could already be seen that her shape was excellent, and that she would sail well. Pencroft worked with unparalleled ardor, and only a sturdy frame could have borne such fatigue; but his companions were preparing in secret a reward for his labors, and on the 31st of May he was to meet with one of the greatest joys of his life. On that day, after dinner, just as he was about to leave the table, Pencroft felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the hand of Gideon Spilett, who said,— “One moment, Master Pencroft, you mustn’t sneak off like that! You’ve forgotten your dessert.” “Thank you, Mr. Spilett,” replied the sailor, “I am going back to my work.” “Well, a cup of coffee, my friend?” “Nothing more.” “A pipe, then?” Pencroft jumped up, and his great good-natured face grew pale when he saw the reporter presenting him with a ready-filled pipe, and Herbert with a glowing coal. The sailor endeavored to speak, but could not get out a word; so, seizing the pipe, he carried it to his lips, then applying the coal, he drew five or six great whiffs. A fragrant blue cloud soon arose, and from its depths a voice was heard repeating excitedly,— “Tobacco! real tobacco!” “Yes, Pencroft,” returned Cyrus Harding, “and very good tobacco too!” “O, divine Providence; sacred Author of all things!” cried the sailor. “Nothing more is now wanting to our island.” And Pencroft smoked, and smoked, and smoked. “And who made this discovery?” he asked at length. “You, Herbert, no doubt?” “No, Pencroft, it was Mr. Spilett.” “Mr. Spilett!” exclaimed the sailor, seizing the reporter, and clasping him to his breast with such a squeeze that he had never felt anything like it before. “Oh Pencroft,” said Spilett, recovering his breath at last, “a truce for one moment. You must share your gratitude with Herbert, who recognized the plant, with Cyrus, who prepared it, and with Neb, who took a great deal of trouble to keep our secret.” “Well, my friends, I will repay you some day,” replied the sailor. “Now we are friends for life.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (1998). The Mysterious Island. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1268/1268-h/1268-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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