Journey to the Center of the Earth
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| S | N | A | R | H | O | R | A | M | P | U | E | S | N | E | ||||
| E | H | R | A | C | E | E | N | A | M | P | A | A | T | L | N | I | ||
| R | T | C | C | A | E | H | H | N | A | R | P | K | S | P | I | U | L | B |
| N | E | S | E | A | P | F | U | I | O | C | N | V | M | S | N | R | O | D |
| O | I | B | I | I | B | S | E | F | S | U | L | A | A | R | D | A | B | N |
| D | E | T | C | M | C | S | E | L | S | T | D | O | A | A | E | X | M | A |
| O | A | E | A | R | E | S | N | S | L | E | O | W | V | F | N | E | O | L |
| T | D | O | I | L | S | H | E | A | R | S | Q | R | I | T | B | L | R | E |
| S | A | P | H | O | Y | M | C | I | H | L | J | X | I | T | R | A | T | C |
| A | T | O | R | N | M | D | F | L | I | M | R | O | I | C | O | R | S | I |
| M | I | T | H | R | E | T | I | N | A | R | G | Y | K | H | C | N | S | C |
| I | S | U | B | T | E | R | R | A | N | E | A | N | U | K | E | A | ||
| T | N | G | N | I | N | T | H | G | I | L | O | H | L | R | ||||
| M | A | R | T | H | A | N | E | B | U | A | R | G | N | L | ||||
| S | B | M | U | S | H | R | O | O | M | S | ||||||||
| D | E | I | F | I | R | T | E | P | ||||||||||
- ALCHEMIST
- ARNE
- AXEL
- BEACH
- COMPASS
- CRATER
- DECIPHER
- FIREDAMP
- GEYSER
- GRANITE
- GRAUBEN
- HANS BACH
- ICELAND
- ITALY
- LIGHTNING
- LINDEN BROCK
- MAGMA
- MANUSCRIPT
- MARTHA
- MASTODON
- MUSHROOMS
- PETRIFIED
- PREHISTORIC
- PROFESSOR
- RAFT
- RUNE
- SAKNUSSEMM
- SHADOW
- SNAEFELLSJOKULL
- STROMBOLI
- SUBTERRANEAN
- VOLCANO
Print this puzzle
Jules Verne's classic science fiction sends a professor and his nephew underground. They descend through an Icelandic volcano toward the center of the earth, guided by a compass and threatened by firedamp and lightning. Find characters like Axel, Hans Bach, and Linden Brock, plus plot details from this tale of wonder.
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Tips for Solving Word Search Puzzles
Words in this puzzle run in all eight directions: across, down and diagonally, and some of them read backwards. Knowing the rules narrows the search before you start.
How hints work
Press and hold a word in the list beside the puzzle above, or hold Space or Enter on it from the keyboard, and a ring fills while you wait. After five seconds every cell where that word's first letter appears is outlined in the grid. Keep holding another six seconds and the outlines narrow to only the places where its second letter follows on. Let go and the outlines clear. A word found with help keeps its outline, in the grid and in the list, so you can see afterwards which ones needed a hint. Hints are available while the clock is running, not while the puzzle is paused.
Ways to find a stubborn word
- Check the edges for long words. A long word needs a long straight run of cells, and the outer rows and columns are where those runs tend to begin or end. Trace the border first.
- Hunt the rare letter, not the first one. A word that contains a J, Q, X, Z, K, W or V is easier to find by that letter than by its opening one: there are far fewer of them on the grid, and each one you find is a candidate to read outward from in every allowed direction.
- Search the open ground. Once several words are marked, the remaining ones are hiding in the areas nothing crosses yet. Give the untouched patches your attention before re-reading rows you have already combed.
- Look for doubled letters and fixed pairs. LL, OO, EE, TH and QU stand out at a glance. Find the pair, then check whether the rest of the word runs from it.
- Scan one direction at a time. Run your eye along every row looking only for the word's first two letters, then down every column, then along the diagonals if the puzzle allows them. One direction per pass is faster than switching on every cell.
- Read the endings. If words here can run backwards, an ending like ING, TION or ER is as good a handle as the start: spot it, then read back the other way.
- Take the longest words first. They have the fewest possible positions, and marking them carves the grid into smaller regions for everything shorter.
- Pause when you are stuck. Pause stops the clock. A fresh look after a minute away finds what a tired one keeps missing, and Shuffle gives you a new arrangement of the same words if you would rather start over.
What the words in this puzzle mean
- ALCHEMIST
- What Arne Saknussemm was — a sixteenth-century scholar of the science before chemistry.
- ARNE
- Arne Saknussemm, the Icelandic alchemist whose coded note starts the journey.
- AXEL
- The professor's nephew, who narrates the book and doubts the expedition throughout.
- BEACH
- The shore of the underground sea, where the travellers find fossil bones and giant mushrooms.
- COMPASS
- The instrument that behaves strangely below ground and misleads them about their direction.
- CRATER
- The volcanic mouth of Snæfellsjökull, the entrance named in Saknussemm's message.
- DECIPHER
- What Axel does to the runic note, cracking it almost by accident.
- FIREDAMP
- Flammable underground gas, one of the hazards of the descent.
- GEYSER
- A hot spring that erupts in a jet, met by the travellers on their way down.
- GRANITE
- The hard rock the deepest passages cut through.
- GRAUBEN
- Axel's fiancée in Hamburg, who encourages him to go.
- HANS BACH
- The stream Axel names after their guide, which they follow through the tunnels.
- ICELAND
- Where the expedition begins, and where the volcano of the entrance stands.
- ITALY
- Where the journey ends, when the travellers are thrown out of Stromboli.
- LIGHTNING
- The electrical storm that breaks over the underground sea during the raft crossing.
- LINDEN BROCK
- Professor Lidenbrock, the geologist who insists the descent is possible.
- MAGMA
- The molten rock that finally carries the raft up and out of the earth.
- MANUSCRIPT
- The old Icelandic book in which the coded note is found.
- MARTHA
- The professor's housekeeper in Hamburg.
- MASTODON
- An extinct elephant relative; a herd of them is glimpsed in the underground forest.
- MUSHROOMS
- The forest of giant fungi on the shore of the inner sea.
- PETRIFIED
- Turned to stone — the state of the trees and bones the travellers find.
- PREHISTORIC
- The world they descend into, alive with creatures long extinct on the surface.
- PROFESSOR
- Lidenbrock's title, and the authority Axel cannot argue his way out of.
- RAFT
- The vessel they build to cross the underground sea.
- RUNE
- The old Norse letters the message is written in.
- SAKNUSSEMM
- The alchemist who made the descent first and left the route behind him.
- SHADOW
- The peak's shadow that marks the correct crater at the end of June.
- SNAEFELLSJOKULL
- The Icelandic volcano whose crater is the way in.
- STROMBOLI
- The Sicilian volcano that erupts the travellers back onto the surface.
- SUBTERRANEAN
- Below the ground — the whole world the novel takes place in.
- VOLCANO
- Both the entrance and the exit of the journey.
Journey to the Center of the Earth Word Search Answer Key
Checking a finished sheet, or stuck on the last word? The Journey to the Center of the Earth Word Search Answer Key marks all 32 hidden words in the grid and lists the row, column and direction each one starts from. It prints on its own sheet, so you can hand out the puzzle and keep the answers.
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