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and fangs of a serpent. It emitted a hissing sound, and the

small eyes gleamed maliciously.

"Do you believe it is a poisonous species?" asked Ayrault.

"I suspect it is," replied the doctor; "for, though it is

doubtless able to leap with great accuracy upon its prey, we saw

it took some time to recharge the upper air-chamber, so that,

were it not armed with poison glands, it would fall an easy

victim to its more powerful and swifter contemporaries, and would

soon become extinct."

"As it will be unable to spring for some time," said Bearwarden,

"we might as well save it the disappointment of trying," and,

snapping the used shell from his rifle, he fired an explosive

ball into the reptile, whereupon about half the body disappeared,

while a sickening odour arose. Although the sun was still far

above the horizon, the rapidity with which it was descending

showed that the short night of less than five hours would soon be

upon them; and though short it might be very dark, for they were

in the tropics, and the sun, going down perpendicularly, must

also pass completely around the globe, instead of, as in northern

latitudes on earth in summer, approaching the horizon obliquely,

and not going far below it. A slight and diffused sound here

seemed to rise from the ground all about them, for which they

could not account. Presently it became louder, and as the sun

touched the horizon, it poured forth in prolonged strains. The

large trumpet-shaped lilies, reeds, and heliotropes seemed fairly

to throb as they raised their anthem to the sky and the setting

sun, while the air grew dark with clouds of birds that gradually

alighted on the ground, until, as the chorus grew fainter and

gradually ceased, they flew back to their nests. The three

companions had stood astonished while this act was played. The

doctor then spoke:

"This is the most marvellous development of Nature I have seen,

for its wonderful divergence from, and yet analogy to, what takes

place on earth. You know our flowers offer honey, as it were, as

bait to insects, that in eating or collecting it they may catch

the pollen on their legs and so carry it to other flowers,

perhaps of the opposite sex. Here flowers evidently appeal to

the sense of hearing instead of taste, and make use of birds, of

which there are enormous numbers, instead of winged insects, of

which I have seen none, one being perhaps the natural result of

the other. The flowers have become singers by long practice, or

else, those that were most musical having had the best chance to

reproduce, we have a neat illustration of the 'survival of the

fittest.' The sound is doubtless produced by a shrinking of the

fibres as the sun withdraws its heat, in which case we may expect

another song at sunrise, when the same result will be effected by

their expanding."

Searching for a camping-place in which to pass the coming hours,

they saw lights flitting about like will-o'-the-wisps, but

brighter and intermittent.

"They seem to be as bright as sixteen-candle-power lamps, but the

light is yellower, and appears to emanate from a comparatively

large surface, certainly nine or ten inches square," said the

doctor.

They soon gave up the chase, however, for the lights were

continually moving and frequently went out. While groping in the

growing darkness, they came upon a brown object about the size of

a small dog and close to the ground. It flew off with a humming

insect sound, and as it did so it showed the brilliant

phosphorescent glow they had observed.

"That is a good-sized fire-fly," said Bearwarden. "Evidently the

insects here are on the same scale as everything else. They are

like the fire-flies in Cuba, which the Cubans are said to put

into a glass box and get light enough from to read by. Here they

would need only one, if it could be induced to give its light

continuously."

Having found an open space on high ground, they sat down, and

Bearwarden struck his repeater, which, for convenience, had been

arranged for Jupiter time, dividing the day into ten hours,

beginning at noon, midnight being therefore five o'clock.

"Twenty minutes past four," said he, "which would correspond to

about a quarter to eleven on earth. As the sun rises at

half-past seven, it will be dark about three hours, for the time

between dawn and daylight will, of course, be as short as that we

have just experienced between sunset and night."

"If we stay here long," said the doctor, "I suppose we shall

become accustomed, like sailors, to taking our four, or in this

case five, hours on duty, and five hours off."

"Or," added Ayrault, "we can sleep ten consecutive hours and take

the next ten for exploring and hunting, having the sun for one

half the time and the moons for the other."

Bearwarden and Cortlandt now rolled themselves in their blankets

and were soon asleep, while Ayrault, whose turn it was to watch

till the moons rose--for they had not yet enough confidence in

their new domain to sleep in darkness simultaneously--leaned his

back against a rock and lighted his pipe. In the distance he saw

the torrents of fiery lava from the volcanoes reflected in the

sky, and faintly heard their thunderous crashes, while the

fire-flies twinkled unconcernedly in the hollow, and the night

winds swayed the fernlike branches. Then he gazed at the earth,

which, but little above the horizon, shone with a faint but

steady ray, and his mind's eye ran beyond his natural vision

while he pictured to himself the girl of his heart, wishing that

by some communion of spirits he might convey his thoughts to her,

and receive hers. It was now the first week of January on earth.

He could almost see her house and the snow-clad trees in the

park, and knew that at that hour she was dressing for dinner, and

hoped and believed that he was in her heart. While he thus

mused, one moon after another rose, each at a different phase,

till three were at once in the sky. Adjusting the electric

protection- wires that were to paralyze any creature that

attempted to come within the circle, and would arouse them by

ringing a bell, he knocked the ashes from his pipe, rolled

himself in a blanket, and was soon asleep beside his friends.

CHAPTER II.

ANTECEDENTAL.

"Come in!" sounded a voice, as Dr. Cortlandt and Dick Ayrault

tapped at the door of the President of the Terrestrial Axis

Straightening Company's private office on the morning of the 21st

of June, A. D. 2000. Col. Bearwarden sat at his capacious desk,

the shadows passing over his face as April clouds flit across the

sun. He was a handsome man, and young for the important post he

filled--being scarcely forty--a graduate of West Point, with

great executive ability, and a wonderful engineer. "Sit down,

chappies," said he; "we have still a half hour before I begin to

read the report I am to make to the stockholders and

representatives of all the governments, which is now ready. I

know YOU smoke," passing a box of Havanas to the professor.

Prof. Cortlandt, LL. D., United States Government expert,

appointed to examine the company's calculations, was about fifty,

with a high forehead, greyish hair, and quick, grey eyes, a

geologist and astronomer, and altogether as able a man, in his

own way, as Col. Bearwarden in his. Richard Ayrault, a large

stockholder and one of the honorary vice-presidents in the

company, was about thirty, a university man, by nature a

scientist, and engaged to one of the prettiest society girls, who

was then a student at Vassar, in the beautiful town of

Poughkeepsie.

"Knowing the way you carry things in your mind, and the

difficulty of rattling you," said Cortlandt, "we have dropped in

on our way to hear the speech that I would not miss for a

fortune. Let us know if we bother you."

"Impossible, dear boy," replied the president genially. "Since I

survived your official investigations, I think I deserve some of

your attention informally."

"Here are my final examinations," said Cortlandt, handing

Bearwarden a roll of papers. "I have been over all your figures,

and testify to their accuracy in the appendix I have added."

So they sat and chatted about the enterprise that interested

Cortlandt and Ayrault almost as much as Bearwarden himself. As

the clock struck eleven, the president of the company put on his

hat, and, saying au revoir to his friends, crossed the street to

the Opera House, in which he was to read a report that would be

copied in all the great journals and heard over thousands of

miles of wire in every part of the globe. When he arrived, the

vast building was already filled with a distinguished company,

representing the greatest intelligence, wealth, and powers of the

world. Bearwarden went in by the stage entrance, exchanging

greetings as he did so with officers of the company and directors

who had come to hear him. Cortlandt and Ayrault entered by the

regular door, the former going to the Government representatives'

box, the latter to join his fiancee, Sylvia Preston, who was

there with her mother. Bearwarden had a roll of manuscript at

hand, but so well did he know his speech that he scarcely glanced

at it. After being introduced by the chairman of the meeting,

and seeing that his audience was all attention, he began, holding

himself erect, his clear, powerful voice making every part of the

building ring.

CHAPTER III.

PRESIDENT BEARWARDEN'S SPEECH.

"To the Bondholders and Stockholders of the Terrestrial Axis

Straightening Company and Representatives of Earthly Governments.

"GENTLEMEN: You know that the objects of this company are, to

straighten the axis of the earth, to combine the extreme heat of

summer with the intense cold of winter and produce a uniform

temperature for each degree of latitude the year round. At

present the earth's axis--that is, the line passing through its

centre and the two poles--is inclined to the ecliptic about

twenty-three and a half degrees. Our summer is produced by the

northern hemisphere's leaning at that angle towards the sun, and

our winter by its turning that much from it. In one case the

sun's rays are caused to shine more perpendicularly, and in the

other more obliquely. This wabbling, like that of a top, is the

sole cause of the seasons; since, owing to the eccentricity of

our orbit, the earth is actually fifteen hundred thousand miles

nearer the sun during our winter, in the northern hemisphere,

than in summer. That there is no limit to a planet's

inclination, and that inclination is not essential, we have

astronomical proof. Venus's axis is inclined to the plane of her

orbit seventy-five degrees, so that the arctic circle comes

within fifteen degrees of the equator, and the tropics also

extend to latitude seventy-five degrees, or within fifteen

degrees of the poles, producing great extremes of heat and cold.

"Venus is made still more difficult of habitation by the fact

that she rotates on her axis in the same time that she revolves

about the sun, in the same way that the moon does about the

earth, so that one side must be perpetually frozen while the

other is parched.

"In Uranus we see the axis tilted still further, so that the

arctic circle descends to the equator. The most varied climate

must therefore prevail during its year, whose length exceeds

eighty-one of ours.

The axis of Mars is inclined about twenty-eight and two thirds

degrees to the plane of its orbit; consequently its seasons must

be very similar to ours, the extremes of heat and cold being

somewhat greater.

"In Jupiter we have an illustration of a planet whose axis is

almost at right angles to the plane of its orbit, being inclined

but about a degree and a half. The hypothetical inhabitants of

this majestic planet must therefore have perpetual summer at the

equator, eternal winter at the poles, and in the temperate

regions everlasting spring. On account of the straightness of

the axis, however, even the polar inhabitants--if there are

any--are not oppressed by a six months' night, for all except

those at the VERY pole have a sunrise and a sunset every ten

hours--the exact day being nine hours, fifty five minutes, and

twenty-eight seconds. The warmth of the tropics is also tempered

by the high winds that must result from the rapid whirl on its

axis, every object at the equator being carried around by this at

the rate of 27,600 miles an hour, or over three thousand miles

farther than the earth's equator moves in twenty-four hours.

"The inclination of the axis of our own planet has also

frequently considerably exceeded that of Mars, and again has been

but little greater than Jupiter's at least, this is by all odds

the most reasonable explanation of the numerous Glacial periods

through which our globe has passed, and of the recurring mild

spells, probably lasting thousands of years, in which elephants,

mastodons, and other semi-tropical vertebrates roamed in Siberia,

some of which died so recently that their flesh, preserved by the

cold, has been devoured by the dogs of modern explorers.

"It is not to be supposed that the inclining of the axes of

Jupiter, Venus, the Earth, and the other planets, is now fixed;

in some cases it is known to be changing. As long ago as 1890,

Major-Gen. A. W. Drayson, of the British Army, showed, in a work

entitled Untrodden Ground in Astronomy and Geology, that, as a

result of the second rotation of the earth, the inclination of

its axis was changing, it having been 23@ 28' 23" on January 1,

1750, 23@ 27' 55.3" on January 1, 1800, and 23@ 27' 30.9" on

January 1, 1850; and by calculation one hundred and ten years ago