A Journey in Other Worlds [74]
heaven is still imperfect."
"No," said Bearwarden, bristling up at the way Cortlandt
sometimes received his speeches, "it means simply that its
development, though perfect so far as it goes, may not be
finished, and that we may be the means, as on earth, of helping
it along."
"The conditions constituting heaven," said Ayrault, "may be as
fixed as the laws of Nature, though the products of those
conditions might, it seems to me, still be forming and subject to
modification thereby. The reductio ad absurdu would of course
apply if we supposed the work of creation absolutely finished."
CHAPTER XIII.
NORTH-POLAR DISCOVERIES.
Two days later, on the western horizon, they beheld the ocean.
Many of the streams whose sources they had seen when they crossed
the divide from the lake basin, and whose courses they had
followed, were now rivers a mile wide, with the tide ebbing and
rising within them many hundreds of miles from their mouths.
When they reached the shore line they found the waves breaking,
as on earth, upon the sands, but with this difference: they had
before noted the smallness of the undulations compared with the
strength of the wind, the result of the water's weight. These
waves now reminded them of the behaviour of mercury, or of melted
lead when stirred on earth, by the rapidity with which the crests
dropped. Though the wind was blowing an on-shore gale, there was
but little combing, and when there was any it lasted but a
second. The one effort of the crests and waves seemed to be to
remain at rest, or, if stirred in spite of themselves, to
subside.
When over the surface of the ocean, the voyagers rose to a height
of thirty thousand metres, and after twenty- four hours'
travelling saw, at a distance of about two hundred miles, what
looked like another continent, but which they knew must be an
island. On finding themselves above it, they rose still higher
to obtain a view of its outlines and compare its shape with that
of the islands in the photographs they had had time to develop.
The length ran from southeast to northwest. Though crossed by
latitude forty, and notwithstanding Jupiter's distance from the
sun, the southern side had a very luxuriant vegetation that was
almost semi-tropical. This they accounted for by its total
immunity from cold, the density of the air at sea-level, and the
warm moist breezes it received from the tepid ocean. The climate
was about the same as that of the Riviera or of Florida in
winter, and there was, of course, no parching summer.
"This shows me," said Bearwarden, "that a country's climate
depends less on the amount of heat it receives from the sun than
on the amount it retains; proof of which we have in the tops of
the Himalayas perpetually covered with snow, and snow-capped
mountains on the very equator, where they get the most direct
rays, and where those rays have but little air to penetrate. It
shows that the presence of a substantial atmosphere is as
necessary a part of the calculation in practice as the sun
itself. I am inclined to think that, with the constant effect of
the internal heat on its oceans and atmosphere, Jupiter could get
along with a good deal less solar heat than it receives, in proof
of which I expect to find the poles themselves quite comfortable.
The reason the internal heat is so little taken into account on
earth is because, from the thickness of the crust, it cannot make
itself felt; for if the earth were as chilled through as ice, the
people on the surface would not feel the difference."
A Jovian week's explorations disclosed the fact that though the
island's general outlines were fairly regular, it had deep-water
harbours, great rivers, and land-locked gulfs and bays, some of
which penetrated many hundred miles into the interior. It also
showed that the island's length was about six thousand miles, and
its breadth about three thousand, and that it had therefore about
the superficial area of