Editing Nautilus (fictional submarine) (section)

== Description ==
''Nautilus'' is described by Verne as "a masterpiece containing masterpieces".<ref>{{cite wikisource |last=Verne |first=Jules |translator=Frederick Paul Walter |title=The Mysterious Island |wslink=The Mysterious Island/Part 3/Chapter 17 |noicon=yes}}</ref> It is designed and commanded by [[Captain Nemo]]. [[Electricity]] provided by [[sodium]]/[[Mercury (element)|mercury]] [[electric battery|electric batteries]] (with the sodium provided by extraction from [[seawater]]) is the craft's primary power source for propulsion and other services. The energy needed to extract the sodium is provided by [[coal]] mined from the sea floor.<ref name="Leagues 12">{{cite wikisource |last=Verne |first=Jules |translator=Frederick Paul Walter |title=20,000 Leagues Under the Seas |wslink=20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (Walter)/Chapter XI |noicon=yes}}</ref>

''Nautilus'' is [[Double hull|double-hulled]],<ref name="Leagues 13">{{cite wikisource |last=Verne |first=Jules |translator=Frederick Paul Walter |title=20,000 Leagues Under the Seas |wslink=20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (Walter)/Chapter 13 |isbn=978-1-4384-3238-0 |noicon=yes}}</ref> and is further separated into water-tight compartments. Its top speed is {{convert|50|mph|kn|order=flip}}.<ref name="Leagues 12" /> In Captain Nemo's own words:

{{cquote|Here, Professor Aronnax, are the different dimensions of this boat now transporting you. It's a very long cylinder with conical ends. It noticeably takes the shape of a cigar, a shape already adopted in London for several projects of the same kind. The length of this cylinder from end to end is exactly seventy meters, and its maximum breadth of beam is eight meters. So it isn't quite built on the ten–to–one ratio of your high–speed steamers; but its lines are sufficiently long, and their tapering gradual enough, so that the displaced water easily slips past and poses no obstacle to the ship's movements. These two dimensions allow you to obtain, via a simple calculation, the surface area and volume of the Nautilus. Its surface area totals 1,011.45 square meters, its volume 1,507.2 cubic meters—which is tantamount to saying that when it's completely submerged, it displaces 1,500 cubic meters of water, or weighs 1,500 metric tons.<ref name="Leagues 13" />}}

''Nautilus'' uses floodable tanks in order to adjust buoyancy and so control its depth. The pumps that evacuate these tanks of water are so powerful that they produce large jets of water when the vessel emerges rapidly from the surface of the water. This leads many early observers of ''Nautilus'' to believe that the vessel is some species of [[marine mammal]], or perhaps a [[sea monster]] not yet known to science. To submerge deeply in a short time, ''Nautilus'' uses a technique called "[[Diving plane|hydroplaning]]", in which the vessel dives down at a steep angle.<ref name="Leagues 13" />

''Nautilus'' supports a crew that gathers food from the sea.<ref name="Leagues 10">{{cite wikisource |last=Verne |first=Jules |translator=Frederick Paul Walter |title=20,000 Leagues Under the Seas |wslink=20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (Walter)/Chapter 10 |isbn=978-1-4384-3238-0 |noicon=yes}}</ref> ''Nautilus'' includes a [[galley (kitchen)|galley]] for preparing these foods, which includes a machine that makes drinking water from seawater through [[distillation]].<ref name="Leagues 12" /> ''Nautilus'' is not able to refresh its air supply, so Captain Nemo designed it to do this by surfacing and exchanging stale air for fresh, much like a whale.<ref name="Leagues 12" /> ''Nautilus'' is capable of extended voyages without refueling or otherwise restocking supplies. Its maximum dive time is around five days.

Much of the ship is decorated to standards of luxury that are unequalled in a seagoing vessel of the time. These include a library containing about twelve thousand books, with boxed collections of valuable oceanic specimens. The library is also filled with expensive paintings and other works of art.<ref name="Leagues 11">{{cite wikisource |last=Verne |first=Jules |translator=Frederick Paul Walter |title=20,000 Leagues Under the Seas |wslink=20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (Walter)/Chapter 11 |isbn=978-1-4384-3238-0 |noicon=yes}}</ref> ''Nautilus'' also features a lavish dining room<ref name="Leagues 10" /> and even an [[organ (music)|organ]] that Captain Nemo uses to entertain himself in the evening. By comparison, Nemo's personal quarters are very sparsely furnished but do feature duplicates of the bridge instruments so that the captain can keep track of the vessel without being present on the bridge.<ref name="Leagues 11" /> These amenities however, are only available to Nemo, Professor Aronnax, and his companions.

From her attacks on ships, using a ramming prow to puncture target vessels below the waterline, the world thinks it a sea monster, but later identifies it as an underwater vessel capable of great destructive power, after ''Abraham Lincoln'' is attacked and Ned Land strikes the metallic surface of ''Nautilus'' with his harpoon.

Its parts were built to order by companies including [[Schneider-Creusot|Creusot]] and [[Société J. F. Cail & Cie|Cail & Co.]] in France, [[John Penn and Sons|Pen & Co.]] and [[ Cammell Laird|Laird]]'s in England, [[Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company|Scott's]] in Scotland, [[Krupp]] in Prussia, the [[Motala Verkstad|Motala]] workshops in Sweden, and Hart Bros. in the United States. Each part was ordered by Nemo anonymously under a different address. Then they were assembled by Nemo's men on a desert island.<ref name="Leagues 13" /> ''Nautilus'' returned to this island, where Nemo later helped castaways in the novel ''[[The Mysterious Island]]''. After Nemo dies on board, the volcanic island erupts, entombing the Captain and ''Nautilus'' for eternity.