第 21 页

into rain, with which parts of the western slope are deluged,

while clouds from the Atlantic have come so far they have already

dispersed their moisture, in consequence of which the region just

east of the Andes gets little if any rain. It is bad for a

continent to have its high mountains near the ocean from which it

should get its rain, and good for it to have them set well back."

"I should not be surprised," said Cortlandt, "if we saw another

waterfall to-morrow, though not in the shape of rain. In the

hour before we stopped we began to see rapids and protruding

rocks. That means that we are coming to a part of the channel

that is comparatively new, since the older parts have had time to

wear smooth. I take it, then, that we are near the foot of a

retreating cascade, which we may hope soon to see. That is

exactly the order in which we found smooth water and rapids in

river No. 1, which we have named the Harlem."

After this, not being tired, they used the remaining dark hours

for recording their recent adventures.

CHAPTER XII.

HILLS AND VALLEYS.

With the first light they resumed their journey, and an hour

after setting out they sighted, as Cortlandt had predicted,

another cloud of vapour. The fall--for such it proved to be--was

more beautiful than the other, for, though the volume of water

was not so great, it fell at one leap, without a break, and at

the same tremendous speed, a distance of more than a thousand

feet. The canon rang with the echoes, while the spray flew in

sheets against the smooth, glistening, sandstone walls. Instead

of coming from a river, as the first fall had, this poured at

once from the rocky lip, about two miles across, of a lake that

was eleven hundred feet above the surging mass in the vale below.

"It is a thousand pities," said Bearwarden, "that this cataract

has got so near its source; for, at the rate these streams must

cut, this one in a few hundred years, unless something is done to

prevent it, will have worn back to the lake, and then good-bye to

the falls, which will become a series of rapids. Perhaps the

first effect will be merely to reduce by a few feet the height of

the falls, in which case they will remain in practically the same

place."

About the shores of this lake they saw rhinoceroses with long

thick wool, and herds of creatures that much resembled buffaloes.

"I do not see," said Bearwarden, "why the identical species

should not exist here that till recently, in a geological sense,

inhabited the earth. The climate and all other conditions are

practically the same on both planets, except a trifling

difference in weight, to which terrestrials would soon adapt

themselves. We know by spectroscopic analysis that hydrogen,

iron, magnesium, and all our best-known substances exist in the

sun, and even the stars, while the earth contains everything we

have found in meteorites. Then why make an exception of life,

instead of supposing that at corresponding periods of development

the same living forms inhabit all? It would be assuming the

eternal sterilization of the functions of Nature to suppose that

our earth is the only body that can produce them."

"The world of organic life is so much more complex," replied

Cortlandt, "than that of the crystal, that it requires great

continuity. So far we certainly have seen no men, or anything

like them, not even so much as a monkey, though I suppose,

according to your reasoning, Jupiter has not advanced far enough

to produce even that."

"Exactly," replied Bearwarden, "for it will require vast periods;

and, according to my belief, at least half the earth's time of

habitability had passed before man appeared. But we see Jupiter

is admirably suited for those who have been developed somewhere

else, and it would be an awful shame if we allowed it to lie

unimproved till it produces appreciative inhabitants of its own,

for we find more to admire in one half-hour than its entire

present population during its lifetime. Yet, how magnificent

this world is, and how superior in its natural state to ours!

The mountainous horns of these crescent-shaped continents protect

them and the ocean they enclose from the cold polar marine

currents, and in a measure from the icy winds; while the elevated

country on the horns near the equator might be a Garden of Eden,

or ideal resort. To be sure, the continents might support a

larger population, if more broken up, notwithstanding the

advantage resulting from the comparatively low mountains along

the coasts, and the useful winds. A greater subdivision of land

and water, more great islands connected by isthmuses, and more

mediterraneans joined by straits, would be a further advantage to

commerce; but with the sources of power at hand, the resistless

winds and water-power, much increased in effectiveness by their

weight, the great tides when several moons are on the same side,

or opposite the sun, internal heat near the surface, and abundant

coal-supply doubtless already formed and also near the surface,

such small alterations could be made very easily, and would serve

merely to prevent our becoming rusty.

"As Jupiter's distance from the sun varies from 506,563,000 miles

at aphelion to only 460,013,000 at perihelion, this difference,

in connection with even the slight inclination of the axis, must

make a slight change in seasons, but as the inclination is

practically nothing, almost the entire change results from the

difference in distance. This means that the rise or fall in

temperature is general on every degree of latitude, all being

warmed simultaneously, more or less, as the planet approaches or

departs from the sun. It means also that about the same

conditions that Secretary Deepwaters suggested as desirable for

the earth, prevail here, and that Jupiter represents, therefore,

about the acme of climate naturally provided. On account of its

rapid rotation and vast size, the winds have a tornado's

strength, but they are nothing at this distance from the sun to

what they would be if a planet with its present rate of rotation

and size were where Venus or even the earth is. In either of

these positions no land life with which we are acquainted could

live on the surface; for the slope of the atmospheric isobars--i.

e., the lines of equal barometric pressure that produce wind by

becoming tilted through unequal expansion, after which the air,

as it were, flows down-hill--would be too great. The ascending

currents about the equator would also, of course, be vastly

strengthened; so that we see a wise dispensation of Providence in

placing the large planets, which also rotate so rapidly, at a

great distance from the sun, which is the father of all winds,

rotation alone, however rapid, being unable to produce them."

They found this lake was about six times the size of Lake

Superior, and that several large and small streams ran into its

upper end. These had their sources in smaller lakes that were at

slightly higher elevations. Though the air was cool, the sun

shone brightly, while the ground was covered with flowers

resembling those of the northern climes on earth, of all shapes

and lines. Twice a day these sent up their song, and trees were

covered with buds, and the birds twittered gaily. The streams

murmured and bubbled, and all things reminded the travellers of

early morning in spring.

"If anything could reconcile me," said Bearwarden, "to exchange

my active utilitarian life for a rustic poetical existence, it

would be this place, for it is far more beautiful than anything I

have seen on earth. It needs but a Maud Muller and a few cows to

complete the picture, since Nature gives us a vision of eternal

peace and repose."

Somehow the mention of Maud Muller, and the delicate and refined

flowers, whose perfume he inhaled, brought up thoughts that were

never far below the surface in Ayrault's mind. "The place is

heavenly enough," said he, "to make one wish to live and remain

here forever, but to me it would be Hamlet with Hamlet left out."

"Ah! poor chap," said Cortlandt, "you are in love, but you are

not to be pitied, for though the thrusts at the heart are sharp,

they may be the sweetest that mortals know."

The following morning they reluctantly left the picturesque

shores of Lake Serenity, with their beautiful tints and foliage,

and resumed the journey, to explore a number of islands in the

ocean in the west, which were recorded on their negatives.

Ascending to rarefied air, they saw great chains of mountains,

which they imagined ran parallel to the coast, rising to

considerable altitudes in the east. The tops of all glistened

with a mantle of snow in the sunlight, while between the ridges

they saw darker and evidently fertile valleys. They passed,

moving northwest, over large and small lakes, all evidently part

of the same great system, and continued to sweep along for

several days with a beautiful panorama, as varying as a

kaleidoscope, spread beneath their eyes. They observed that the

character of the country gradually changed. The symmetrically

rounded mountains and hills began to show angles, while great

slabs of rock were split from the faces. The sides also became

less vertical, and there was an accumulation of detrital

fragments about their bases. These heaps of fractured stone had

in some cases begun to disintegrate and form soil, on which there

was a scant growth of vegetation; but the sides and summits,

whose jaggedness increased with their height, were absolutely

bare.

"Here," said Cortlandt, "we have unmistakable evidence of frost

and ice action. The next interesting question is, How recently

has denudation occurred? The absence of plant life at the

exposed places," he continued, as if lecturing to a class, "can

be accounted for here, as nearer the equator, by the violence of

the wind; but I greatly doubt whether water will now freeze in

this latitude at any season of the year, for, even should the

Northern hemisphere's very insignificant winter coincide with the

planet's aphelion, the necessary drop from the present

temperature would be too great to be at all probable. If, then,

it is granted that ice does not form here now, notwithstanding

the fact that it has done so, the most plausible conclusion is

that the inclination of Jupiter's axis is automatically changing,

as we know the earth's has often done. There being nothing

incompatible in this view with the evidence at hand, we can

safely assume it correct for the time being at least. When

farther south, you remember, we found no trace of ice action,

notwithstanding the comparative slowness with which we decided

that the ridges in the crust had been upheaved on account of the

resisting power of gravity, and, as I see now, also on account of

Jupiter's great mass, which must prevent its losing its heat

anything like as fast as the earth has, in which I think also we

have the explanation of the comparatively low elevation of the

mountains that we found we could not account for by the power of

gravitation alone.[2] From the fact that the exposed surface

farther south must be old, on account of the slow upheaval and

the slight wear to which it is exposed, about the only wearing

agent being the wind, which would be powerless to erase

ice-scratches, especially since, on account of gravity's power,

it cannot, like our desert winds, carry much sand--which, as we

know, has cut away the base of the Sphinx--I think it is logical

to conclude that, though Jupiter's axis is changing naturally as

the earth's has been, it has never varied as much as twenty-three

and a half degrees, and certainly to nothing like the extent to

which we see Venus and Uranus tilted to-day."

[2] It is well known that mountain chains are but ridges or

foldings in the crust upheaved as the interior cools and shrinks.

This is proved by reason and by experiments with viscous clay or

other material placed upon a sheet of stretched rubber, which is

afterwards allowed to contract, whereupon the analogues of

mountain ridges are thrown up.

"I follow you," said Bearwarden, "and do not see how we could

arrive at anything else. From Jupiter's low specific gravity,

weighing but little more than an equal bulk of water, I should

say the interior must be very hot, or else is composed of light

material, for the crust's surface, or the part we see, is

evidently about as dense as what we have on earth. These things

have puzzled me a good deal, and I have been wondering if Jupiter

may not have been formed before the earth and the smaller

planets."

"The discrepancies between even the best authorities," replied

Cortlandt, "show that as yet but little has been discovered from

the earth concerning Jupiter's real condition. The two theories

that try to account for its genesis are the ring theory and the

nebulous. We know that the sun is constantly emitting vast

volumes of heat and light, and that, with the exception of the

heat resulting from the impact of falling meteors, it receives

none from outside, the principal source being the tremendous

friction and pressure between the cooling and shrinking strata

within the great mass of the sun itself. A seeming paradox

therefore comes in here, which must be considered: If the sun

were composed entirely of gas, it would for a time continue to

grow hotter; but the sun is incessantly radiating light and heat,

and consequently becoming smaller. Therefore the farther back we

go the hotter we find the sun, and also the larger, till, instead

of having a diameter of eight hundred and eighty thousand miles,

it filled the space now occupied by the entire solar system.

Here is where the two theories start. According to the first,