Far Into Space

: BOOK II

A month passed away. Gallia continued its course, bearing its little

population onwards, so far removed from the ordinary influence of human

passions that it might almost be said that its sole ostensible vice was

represented by the greed and avarice of the miserable Jew.



After all, they were but making a voyage--a strange, yet a transient,

excursion through solar regions hitherto untraversed; but if the

p
ofessor's calculations were correct--and why should they be

doubted?--their little vessel was destined, after a two years' absence,

once more to return "to port." The landing, indeed, might be a matter

of difficulty; but with the good prospect before them of once again

standing on terrestrial shores, they had nothing to do at present

except to make themselves as comfortable as they could in their present

quarters.



Thus confident in their anticipations, neither the captain, the count,

nor the lieutenant felt under any serious obligation to make any

extensive provisions for the future; they saw no necessity for expending

the strength of the people, during the short summer that would intervene

upon the long severity of winter, in the cultivation or the preservation

of their agricultural resources. Nevertheless, they often found

themselves talking over the measures they would have been driven to

adopt, if they had found themselves permanently attached to their

present home.



Even after the turning-point in their career, they knew that at least

nine months would have to elapse before the sea would be open to

navigation; but at the very first arrival of summer they would be bound

to arrange for the Dobryna and the Hansa to retransport themselves

and all their animals to the shores of Gourbi Island, where they would

have to commence their agricultural labors to secure the crops that must

form their winter store. During four months or thereabouts, they would

lead the lives of farmers and of sportsmen; but no sooner would their

haymaking and their corn harvest have been accomplished, than they

would be compelled again, like a swarm of bees, to retire to their

semi-troglodyte existence in the cells of Nina's Hive.



Now and then the captain and his friends found themselves speculating

whether, in the event of their having to spend another winter upon

Gallia, some means could not be devised by which the dreariness of a

second residence in the recesses of the volcano might be escaped. Would

not another exploring expedition possibly result in the discovery of

a vein of coal or other combustible matter, which could be turned to

account in warming some erection which they might hope to put up?

A prolonged existence in their underground quarters was felt to be

monotonous and depressing, and although it might be all very well for a

man like Professor Rosette, absorbed in astronomical studies, it was ill

suited to the temperaments of any of themselves for any longer period

than was absolutely indispensable.



One contingency there was, almost too terrible to be taken into account.

Was it not to be expected that the time might come when the internal

fires of Gallia would lose their activity, and the stream of lava would

consequently cease to flow? Why should Gallia be exempt from the destiny

that seemed to await every other heavenly body? Why should it not roll

onwards, like the moon, a dark cold mass in space?



In the event of such a cessation of the volcanic eruption, whilst the

comet was still at so great a distance from the sun, they would indeed

be at a loss to find a substitute for what alone had served to render

life endurable at a temperature of 60 degrees below zero. Happily,

however, there was at present no symptom of the subsidence of the lava's

stream; the volcano continued its regular and unchanging discharge, and

Servadac, ever sanguine, declared that it was useless to give themselves

any anxiety upon the matter.



On the 15th of December, Gallia was 276,000,000 leagues from the sun,

and, as it was approximately to the extremity of its axis major, would

travel only some 11,000,000 or 12,000,000 leagues during the month.

Another world was now becoming a conspicuous object in the heavens, and

Palmyrin Rosette, after rejoicing in an approach nearer to Jupiter than

any other mortal man had ever attained, was now to be privileged to

enjoy a similar opportunity of contemplating the planet Saturn. Not

that the circumstances were altogether so favorable. Scarcely 31,000,000

miles had separated Gallia from Jupiter; the minimum distance of Saturn

would not be less than 415,000,000 miles; but even this distance,

although too great to affect the comet's progress more than had been

duly reckoned on, was considerably shorter than what had ever separated

Saturn from the earth.



To get any information about the planet from Rosette appeared quite

impossible. Although equally by night and by day he never seemed to quit

his telescope, he did not evince the slightest inclination to impart the

result of his observations. It was only from the few astronomical works

that happened to be included in the Dobryna's library that any details

could be gathered, but these were sufficient to give a large amount of

interesting information.



Ben Zoof, when he was made aware that the earth would be invisible to

the naked eye from the surface of Saturn, declared that he then, for his

part, did not care to learn any more about such a planet; to him it

was indispensable that the earth should remain in sight, and it was his

great consolation that hitherto his native sphere had never vanished

from his gaze.



At this date Saturn was revolving at a distance of 420,000,000 miles

from Gallia, and consequently 874,440,000 miles from the sun, receiving

only a hundredth part of the light and heat which that luminary bestows

upon the earth. On consulting their books of reference, the colonists

found that Saturn completes his revolution round the sun in a period of

29 years and 167 days, traveling at the rate of more than 21,000 miles

an hour along an orbit measuring 5,490 millions of miles in length. His

circumference is about 220,000 miles; his superficies, 144,000 millions

of square miles; his volume, 143,846 millions of cubic miles. Saturn

is 735 times larger than the earth, consequently he is smaller than

Jupiter; in mass he is only 90 times greater than the earth, which gives

him a density less than that of water. He revolves on his axis in 10

hours 29 minutes, causing his own year to consist of 86,630 days; and

his seasons, on account of the great inclination of his axis to the

plane of his orbit, are each of the length of seven terrestrial years.



Although the light received from the sun is comparatively feeble, the

nights upon Saturn must be splendid. Eight satellites--Mimas, Enceladus,

Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, and Japetus--accompany the planet;

Mimas, the nearest to its primary, rotating on its axis in 221/2 hours,

and revolving at a distance of only 120,800 miles, whilst Japetus,

the most remote, occupies 79 days in its rotation, and revolves at a

distance of 2,314,000 miles.



Another most important contribution to the magnificence of the nights

upon Saturn is the triple ring with which, as a brilliant setting, the

planet is encompassed. To an observer at the equator, this ring, which

has been estimated by Sir William Herschel as scarcely 100 miles in

thickness, must have the appearance of a narrow band of light passing

through the zenith 12,000 miles above his head. As the observer,

however, increases his latitude either north or south, the band will

gradually widen out into three detached and concentric rings, of which

the innermost, dark though transparent, is 9,625 miles in breadth; the

intermediate one, which is brighter than the planet itself, being 17,605

miles broad; and the outer, of a dusky hue, being 8,660 miles broad.



Such, they read, is the general outline of this strange appendage, which

revolves in its own plane in 10 hours 32 minutes. Of what matter it

is composed, and how it resists disintegration, is still an unsettled

question; but it might almost seem that the Designer of the universe, in

permitting its existence, had been willing to impart to His intelligent

creatures the manner in which celestial bodies are evolved, and that

this remarkable ring-system is a remnant of the nebula from which Saturn

was himself developed, and which, from some unknown cause, has become

solidified. If at any time it should disperse, it would either fall

into fragments upon the surface of Saturn, or the fragments, mutually

coalescing, would form additional satellites to circle round the planet

in its path.



To any observer stationed on the planet, between the extremes of lat.

45 degrees on either side of the equator, these wonderful rings would

present various strange phenomena. Sometimes they would appear as an

illuminated arch, with the shadow of Saturn passing over it like the

hour-hand over a dial; at other times they would be like a semi-aureole

of light. Very often, too, for periods of several years, daily eclipses

of the sun must occur through the interposition of this triple ring.



Truly, with the constant rising and setting of the satellites, some with

bright discs at their full, others like silver crescents, in quadrature,

as well as by the encircling rings, the aspect of the heavens from the

surface of Saturn must be as impressive as it is gorgeous.



Unable, indeed, the Gallians were to realize all the marvels of this

strange world. After all, they were practically a thousand times further

off than the great astronomers have been able to approach by means of

their giant telescopes. But they did not complain; their little comet,

they knew, was far safer where it was; far better out of the reach of an

attraction which, by affecting their path, might have annihilated their

best hopes.



The distances of several of the brightest of the fixed stars have

been estimated. Amongst others, Vega in the constellation Lyra is 100

millions of millions of miles away; Sirius in Canis Major, 123 millions

of millions; the Pole-star, 282 millions of millions; and Capella, 340

millions of millions of miles, a figure represented by no less than

fifteen digits.



The hard numerical statement of these enormous figures, however,

fails altogether in any adequate way to convey a due impression of the

magnitude of these distances. Astronomers, in their ingenuity, have

endeavored to use some other basis, and have found "the velocity

of light" to be convenient for their purpose. They have made their

representations something in this way:



"Suppose," they say, "an observer endowed with an infinite length of

vision: suppose him stationed on the surface of Capella; looking thence

towards the earth, he would be a spectator of events that had happened

seventy years previously; transport him to a star ten times distant, and

he will be reviewing the terrestrial sphere of 720 years back; carry him

away further still, to a star so remote that it requires something less

than nineteen centuries for light to reach it, and he would be a witness

of the birth and death of Christ; convey him further again, and he

shall be looking upon the dread desolation of the Deluge; take him away

further yet (for space is infinite), and he shall be a spectator of the

Creation of the spheres. History is thus stereotyped in space; nothing

once accomplished can ever be effaced."



Who can altogether be astonished that Palmyrin Rosette, with his burning

thirst for astronomical research, should have been conscious of a

longing for yet wider travel through the sidereal universe? With his

comet now under the influence of one star, now of another, what various

systems might he not have explored! what undreamed-of marvels might not

have revealed themselves before his gaze! The stars, fixed and immovable

in name, are all of them in motion, and Gallia might have followed them

in their un-tracked way.



But Gallia had a narrow destiny. She was not to be allowed to wander

away into the range of attraction of another center; nor to mingle with

the star clusters, some of which have been entirely, others partially

resolved; nor was she to lose herself amongst the 5,000 nebulae which

have resisted hitherto the grasp of the most powerful reflectors. No;

Gallia was neither to pass beyond the limits of the solar system, nor

to travel out of sight of the terrestrial sphere. Her orbit was

circumscribed to little over 1,500 millions of miles; and, in comparison

with the infinite space beyond, this was a mere nothing.



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