CHAPTER X
FAR INTO SPACE
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 professor'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 l5th 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.
