Subterranean Chasm — Off on a Comet, c.1877

Illustration from Jules Verne's 'Hector Servadac' (Off on a Comet), engraved after Paul Philippoteaux. The scene depicts explorers dwarfed within a towering rocky gorge on the wandering comet-world Gallia, its jagged strata and columnar walls rendered in dense cross-hatching. Tiny human figures traverse the canyon floor, underscoring the vastness and alien strangeness of the fragment of Earth now hurtling through space, a hallmark of Philippoteaux's dramatic geological staging for Verne's astronomical adventure.