A Journey in Other Worlds [1]
BOOK I.
A JOURNEY IN OTHER WORLDS.
----
CHAPTER 1.
JUPITER.
Jupiter--the magnificent planet with a diameter of 86,500
miles, having 119 times the surface and 1,300 times the volume of
the earth--lay beneath them.
They had often seen it in the terrestrial sky, emitting its
strong, steady ray, and had thought of that far-away planet,
about which till recently so little had been known, and a burning
desire had possessed them to go to it and explore its mysteries.
Now, thanks to APERGY, the force whose existence the ancients
suspected, but of which they knew so little, all things were
possible.
Ayrault manipulated the silk-covered glass handles, and the
Callisto moved on slowly in comparison with its recent speed,
and all remained glued to their telescopes as they peered through
the rushing clouds, now forming and now dissolving before their
eyes. What transports of delight, what ecstatic bliss, was
theirs! Men had discovered and mastered the secret of apergy,
and now, "little lower than the angels," they could soar through
space, leaving even planets and comets behind.
"Is it not strange," said Dr. Cortlandt, "that though it has been
known for over a century that bodies charged with unlike
electricities attract one another, and those charged with like
repel, no one thought of utilizing the counterpart of
gravitation? In the nineteenth century, savants and Indian
jugglers performed experiments with their disciples and masses of
inert matter, by causing them to remain without visible support
at some distance from the ground; and while many of these, of
course, were quacks, some were on the right track, though they
did not push their research."
President Bearwarden and Ayrault assented. They were steering
for an apparently hard part of the planet's surface, about a
degree and a half north of its equator.
"Since Jupiter's axis is almost at right angles to the plane of
its orbit," said the doctor, "being inclined only about one
degree and a half, instead of twenty-three and a half, as was the
earth's till nearly so recently, it will be possible for us to
have any climate we wish, from constantly warm at the equator to
constantly cool or cold as we approach the poles, without being
troubled by extremes of winter and summer."
Until the Callisto entered the planet's atmosphere, its five
moons appeared like silver shields against the black sky, but now
things were looking more terrestrial, and they began to feel at
home. Bearwarden put down his note-book, and Ayrault returned a
photograph to his pocket, while all three gazed at their new
abode. Beneath them was a vast continent variegated by chains of
lakes and rivers stretching away in all directions except toward
the equator, where lay a placid ocean as far as their telescopes
could pierce. To the eastward were towering and massive
mountains, and along the southern border of the continent smoking
volcanoes, while toward the west they saw forests, gently rolling
plains, and table-lands that would have satisfied a poet or set
an agriculturist's heart at rest. "How I should like to mine
those hills for copper, or drain the swamps to the south!"
exclaimed Col. Bearwarden. "The Lake Superior mines and the
reclamation of the Florida Everglades would be nothing to this."
"Any inhabitants we may find here have so much land at their
disposal that they will not need to drain swamps on account of
pressure of population for some time," put in the doctor.
"I hope we may find some four-legged inhabitants," said Ayrault,
thinking of their explosive magazine rifles. "If Jupiter is
passing through its Jurassic or Mesozoic period, there must be
any amount of some kind of game." Just then a quiver shook the
Callisto, and glancing to the right they noticed one of the
volcanoes in violent eruption. Smoke filled the air in clouds,
hot stones and then floods of
A JOURNEY IN OTHER WORLDS.
----
CHAPTER 1.
JUPITER.
Jupiter--the magnificent planet with a diameter of 86,500
miles, having 119 times the surface and 1,300 times the volume of
the earth--lay beneath them.
They had often seen it in the terrestrial sky, emitting its
strong, steady ray, and had thought of that far-away planet,
about which till recently so little had been known, and a burning
desire had possessed them to go to it and explore its mysteries.
Now, thanks to APERGY, the force whose existence the ancients
suspected, but of which they knew so little, all things were
possible.
Ayrault manipulated the silk-covered glass handles, and the
Callisto moved on slowly in comparison with its recent speed,
and all remained glued to their telescopes as they peered through
the rushing clouds, now forming and now dissolving before their
eyes. What transports of delight, what ecstatic bliss, was
theirs! Men had discovered and mastered the secret of apergy,
and now, "little lower than the angels," they could soar through
space, leaving even planets and comets behind.
"Is it not strange," said Dr. Cortlandt, "that though it has been
known for over a century that bodies charged with unlike
electricities attract one another, and those charged with like
repel, no one thought of utilizing the counterpart of
gravitation? In the nineteenth century, savants and Indian
jugglers performed experiments with their disciples and masses of
inert matter, by causing them to remain without visible support
at some distance from the ground; and while many of these, of
course, were quacks, some were on the right track, though they
did not push their research."
President Bearwarden and Ayrault assented. They were steering
for an apparently hard part of the planet's surface, about a
degree and a half north of its equator.
"Since Jupiter's axis is almost at right angles to the plane of
its orbit," said the doctor, "being inclined only about one
degree and a half, instead of twenty-three and a half, as was the
earth's till nearly so recently, it will be possible for us to
have any climate we wish, from constantly warm at the equator to
constantly cool or cold as we approach the poles, without being
troubled by extremes of winter and summer."
Until the Callisto entered the planet's atmosphere, its five
moons appeared like silver shields against the black sky, but now
things were looking more terrestrial, and they began to feel at
home. Bearwarden put down his note-book, and Ayrault returned a
photograph to his pocket, while all three gazed at their new
abode. Beneath them was a vast continent variegated by chains of
lakes and rivers stretching away in all directions except toward
the equator, where lay a placid ocean as far as their telescopes
could pierce. To the eastward were towering and massive
mountains, and along the southern border of the continent smoking
volcanoes, while toward the west they saw forests, gently rolling
plains, and table-lands that would have satisfied a poet or set
an agriculturist's heart at rest. "How I should like to mine
those hills for copper, or drain the swamps to the south!"
exclaimed Col. Bearwarden. "The Lake Superior mines and the
reclamation of the Florida Everglades would be nothing to this."
"Any inhabitants we may find here have so much land at their
disposal that they will not need to drain swamps on account of
pressure of population for some time," put in the doctor.
"I hope we may find some four-legged inhabitants," said Ayrault,
thinking of their explosive magazine rifles. "If Jupiter is
passing through its Jurassic or Mesozoic period, there must be
any amount of some kind of game." Just then a quiver shook the
Callisto, and glancing to the right they noticed one of the
volcanoes in violent eruption. Smoke filled the air in clouds,
hot stones and then floods of