The journey to the centre of the earth is a voyage like no other we can imagine. Over 3,000 km below the earth's surface an extraordinary inner world the size of Mars awaits us. Dive through the molten iron of the outer core and eventually you will reach a solid sphere - an iron-clad world held within a metal sea and unattached to anything above. At the earth's core is the history of our planet written in temperature and pressure, crystals and minerals . . . Our planet appears tranquil from outer space. And yet the arcs of volcanoes, the earthquake zones and the auroral glow rippling above our heads are testimony to something remarkable happening inside . . . For thousands of years these phenomena were explained in legend and myth. Only in recent times has the brave new science of seismology emerged. One hundred and fifty years after the extraordinary, imaginative feat of Jules Verne's JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH, David Whitehouse embarks on a voyage of scientific discovery into the heart of our world.

The story begins in Hamburg, 1863. The brilliant Professor Lidenbrock, inspired by an ancient, encoded manuscript, decides to take his reluctant nephew Axel on a seemingly insane mission: to travel down volcanic tunnels to the very center of the earth. With Hans, their intrepid Icelandic guide, they descend deeper and deeper, encountering terrifying prehistoric animals and passing through unimaginably beautiful landscapes. Will Axel ever again see his beloved fiancee Grauben?

'The Smoky God, or A Voyage Journey to the Inner Earth' is a book presented as a true account written by Willis George Emerson in 1908, which describes the adventures of Olaf Jansen, a Norwegian sailor who sailed with his father through an entrance to the Earth's interior at the North Pole. For two years Jansen lived with the inhabitants of an underground network of colonies who, Emerson writes, were 12 feet tall and whose world was lit by a "smoky" central sun. Their capital city was said to be the original Garden of Eden.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (French: Voyage au centre de la Terre, also translated under the titles A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and A Journey to the Interior of the Earth) is an 1864 science fiction novel by Jules Verne. The story involves German professor Otto Lidenbrock who believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the centre of the Earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans descend into the Icelandic volcano Snæfellsjökull, encountering many adventures, including prehistoric animals and natural hazards, before eventually coming to the surface again in southern Italy, at the Stromboli volcano.