A young sea apprentice finds himself in charge of a ship, which is led astray to a land where the slave trade abounds.

An ex-slave trader with an encrypted note schemes about its meaning, while a man with a secret past travels with his family down the Amazon in a giant raft to attend his daughter’s wedding.

The wife of a lost fisherman finds his last message to her: a lottery ticket in a bottle.

The North Pole is auctioned off, and the winning team undertakes a scientific experiment to ameliorate the local climate.

A Parisian news reporter is assigned to travel across Asia by train and report on the sights, experiences, and interesting characters along the way.

An engineer poses as an aide to a scientist whose invention of a world-conquering weapon drives him insane.

An American naturalist travels south beyond the remote Kerguelen Islands.