Off on a Comet

o postpone his observations. He had sought in vain for further trace of the huge disc that had so excited his wonder

e, the sun rose and set with undeviating regularity; and the days and nights were still divided into periods of precisely

thermometer close at hand where he could repeatedly consult it, and on

hat at first afforded a refuge from the torrents of rain, now formed an equally acceptable shelter from the burning sun. The heat was becoming insufferable, surpassing the heat of Senegal and other equatorial

quire a skin of brass and a brain of adamant; but yet, hour after hour, he would remain conscientiously scanning the surface of the Mediterranean, which, calm and deserted, lay outstretched before him. On one occasion, Servadac, in reference to his orderly’s indomitable perseverance, happened to remark that h

for a while a rank and luxuriant pasturage clothed the meadows. Summer and autumn seemed blended into one. If Captain Servadac had been more deeply versed in astronomy, he would perhaps have been able to bring to bear his knowledge that if the axis of the earth, as everything seemed to indicate, now formed a rig

would find it difficult to provide the necessary amount of labor. Not that the prospect gave them much concern: the provisions of the gourbi were still far from exhausted, and now that the roughness of the weather had so happily subsided, they had ever

admitted the necessity of extemporizing a kind of parasol for himself, otherwise

ons in his endeavors to unravel the difficulties of the new situation, and struggled into a kind of conviction that if there had been a change of manner in the earth’s rotation on

n fact, it was precisely such as it would appear to an observer on the surface of the planet Venus. The most obvious inference would therefore be that the earth’s distance from the sun had been diminished from 91,000,000 to 66,000,000 miles. If the just equili

apparent dimensions of the fixed stars, in their distance, in their relative position with regard to each other, he could observe no change. Although it is established that our sun is approaching the constellation of Hercules at the rate of more than 126,000,000 miles a year,

he could, upon these figures, Captain Servadac came to the conclusion that, as the earth was now receiving about double the amount of light and heat that it had been receiving before the catastrophe, it was receiving about the same as the planet Venus; h

ry, exhibiting all the phases of a lustrous moon in miniature. Various indentations in the outline of its crescent showed that the solar beams were refracted into regions of its surface where the sun had already set, and proved, beyond a doubt, that the planet had an atm

Ben Zoof, when his master told him t

te so safe, perhaps, as you may imagine. It is my impression that

water there, sir?”

can tell, plenty,”

ldn’t we go an

osite directions, any collision between them must be attended with the most disastrous consequences to one or both of them. But Be

he planets are traveling a thousand times faster than the fastest express, and that if they meet

th clenched teeth and contracted muscles; then, in a voice of real con

o about your own business,” was

ewildered, Ben Zoof r

and then only at what are termed the periods of its greatest eastern and western elongations — now appeared in all its splendor. It amply justified the epithet of “sparkling” which the ancients were accustomed to confer upon it, and could scarcely fail to awaken a new interest. The periodic recurrence of its phases; its reflection of the

rved to turn upon its own axis in twenty-three hours twenty-one minutes — an evidence, from the unaltered duration of its days, that the planet had not shared in the disturbance. On its disc the clouds formed from its atmospheric vapor were plainly perceptible, as also were the seven spots, which, according to Bianchini, are

nment; the governor general and the minister of war were doubtless far differently occupied, and their interests far otherwise engrossed. What sensational articles, he thought, must now be teeming to the newspa

he planes of their orbits did not coincide, and accordingly the dreaded catastrophe did not ensue. By the 25th, Venus was sufficiently

rt, Montaigne of Limoges, Montbarron, and some other astronomers have imagined to exist. “Had there been such a satellite,” said Servadac,

at Paris, captain, with a top

an the Obs

not people living in the Observ

ly; but wh

d wait patiently until we c

ow what it is to be a philo

ompt rejoinder, “and I have learnt to know

ing himself over matters which he felt he was utterly incompetent to explai

ely into his master’s apartment, and, in reply to a question as to what

ship! Ben Zoof, you donkey! you speak as unconcernedly

sophers, captain?

as out of hearing