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the revolving nebulous mass threw off a ring that became the

planet Neptune, afterwards another that contained the material

for Uranus, and so on, the lightest substance in the sun being

thrown off first, by which they accounted for the lightness of

the four great planets, and finally Mars, the earth, and the

small dense planets near the sun. The advocates of this theory

pointed to Saturn's rings as an illustration of the birth of a

planet, or, rather, in that case a satellite. According to this,

the major planets have had a far longer separate existence than

the minor, which would account for their being so advanced

notwithstanding their size. This theory may again come into

general acceptance, but for the present it has been discredited

by the nebulous. According to this second theory, at the time

the sun filled all the space inside of Neptune's, orbit, or

extended even farther, several centres of condensation were

formed within the nebulous, gaseous mass. The greatest centre

became the sun, and the others, large and small, the planets,

which--as a result of the spiral motion of the whole, such as is

now going on before our eyes in the great nebulae of fifty- one

M. Canuin venaticorum, and many others--began to revolve about

the greatest central body of gas. As the separate masses cooled,

they shrank, and their surfaces or extreme edges, which at first

were contiguous, began to recede, which recession is still going

on with some rapidity on the part of the sun, for we may be sure

its diameter diminishes as its density increases. According to

either theory, as I see it, the major planets, on account of

their distance from the central mass, have had longer separate

existences than the minor, and are therefore more advanced than

they would be had all been formed at the same time.

"This theory explains the practical uniformity in the chemical

composition of all members of this system by assuming that they

were all once a part of the same body, and you may say brothers

and sisters of the sun, instead of its offspring. It also makes

size the only factor determining temperature and density, but of

course modified by age, since otherwise Jupiter would have a far

less developed crust than that with which we find it. I have

always considered the period from the molten condition to that

with a crust as comparatively short, which stands to reason, for

radiation has then no check; and the period from the formation of

the crust, which acts as a blanket, to the death of a planet, as

very long. I have not found this view clearly set forth in any

of the books I have read, but it seems to me the simplest and

most natural explanation. Now, granted that the solar system was

once a nebula, on which I think every one will agree--the same

forces that changed it into a system of sun and planets must be

at work on fifty-one M. Canum venaticorum, Andromeda, and ninety-

nine M. Virginis, and must inevitably change them to suns, each

with doubtless a system of planets.

"If, then, the condition of a nebula or star depends simply on

its size, it is reasonable to suppose that Andromeda, Sirius, and

all the vast bodies we see, were created at the same time as our

system, which involves the necessity of one general and

simultaneous creation day. But as Sirius, with its diameter of

twelve million miles, must be larger than some of the nebulae

will be when equally condensed, we must suppose rather that

nebulae are forming and coming into the condition of bright and

dead stars, much as apples or pears on a fruit tree are

constantly growing and developing, so that the Mosaic description

of the creation would probably apply in point of time only to our

system, or perhaps to our globe, though the rest will doubtless

pass through precisely the same stages. This, I think, I will

publish, on our return, as the Cortlandt astronomical doctrine,

as the most rational I have seen devised, and one that I think we

may safely believe, until, perhaps, through increased knowledge,

it can be disproved."

After they crossed a line of hills that ran at right angles to

their course they found the country more rolling. All streams

and water-courses flowed in their direction, while their aneroid

showed them that they were gradually descending. When they were

moving along near the surface of the ground, a delicious and

refined perfume exhaled by the blue and white flowers, that had

been growing smaller as they journeyed northward, frequently

reached their nostrils. To Cortlandt and Bearwarden it was

merely the scent of a flower, but to Ayrault it recalled mental

pictures of Sylvia wearing violets and lilies that he had given

her. He knew that the greatest telescopes on earth could not

reveal the Callisto moving about in Jupiter's sunshine, as even a

point of light, at that distance, and, notwithstanding

Cortlandt's learning and Bearwarden's joviality, he felt at times

extremely lonely.

They swept along steadily for fifty hours, having bright sunny

days and beautifully moonlit nights. They passed over finely

rounded hills and valleys and well- watered plains. As they

approached the ocean and its level the temperature rose, and

there was more moisture in the air. The plants and flowers also

increased in size, again resembling somewhat the large species

they had seen near the equator.

"This would be the place to live," said Bearwarden, looking at

iron mountains, silver, copper, and lead formations, primeval

forests, rich prairies, and regions evidently underlaid with coal

and petroleum, not to mention huge beds of aluminum clay, and

other natural resources, that made his materialistic mouth water.

"It would be joy and delight to develop industries here, with no

snow avalanches to clog your railroads, or icy blizzards to

paralyze work, nor weather that blights you with sun-strokes and

fevers. On our return to the earth we must organize a company to

run regular interplanetary lines. We could start on this globe

all that is best on our own. Think what boundless possibilities

may be before the human race on this planet, which on account of

its vast size will be in its prime when our insignificant earth

is cold and dead and no longer capable of supporting life! Think

also of the indescribable blessing to the congested communities

of Europe and America, to find an unlimited outlet here! Mars is

already past its prime, and Venus scarcely habitable, but in

Jupiter we have a new promised land, compared with which our

earth is a pygmy, or but little more than microscopic."

"I see," said Ayrault, "that the possibilities here have no

limit; but I do not see how you can compare it to the promised

land, since, till we undertook this journey, no one had even

thought of Jupiter as a habitable place."

"I trace the Divine promise," replied Bearwarden, "in what you

described to us on earth as man's innate longing and desire to

rise, and in the fact that the Almighty has given the race

unbounded expansiveness in very limited space. This would look

to me as the return of man to the garden of Eden through

intellectual development, for here every man can sit under his

own vine and fig-tree."

"It seems to me," said Cortlandt, "that no paradise or heaven

described in anything but the Bible compares with this.

According to Virgil's description, the joys on the banks of his

river Lethe must have been most sad and dreary, the general

idleness and monotony apparently being broken only by wrestling

matches between the children, while the rest strolled about with

laurel wreaths or rested in the shade. The pilot Palinurus, who

had been drowned by falling overboard while asleep, but who

before that had presumably done his duty, did not seem especially

happy; while the harsh, resentful disposition evidently remained

unsoftened, for Dido became like a cliff of Marpesian marble when

AEneas asked to be forgiven, though he had doubtless considered

himself in duty bound to leave her, having been twice commanded

to do so by Mercury, the messenger of Jove. She, like the rest,

seems to have had no occupation, while the consciences of few

appear to have been sufficiently clear to enable them to enjoy

unbroken rest."

"The idleness in the spirit-land of all profane writers," added

Bearwarden, "has often surprised me too. Though I have always

recommended a certain amount of recreation for my staff--in fact,

more than I have generally had myself--an excess of it becomes a

bore. I think that all real progress comes through thorough

work. Why should we assume that progress ceases at death? I

believe in the verse that says, 'We learn here on earth those

things the knowledge of which is perfected in heaven.'"

"According to that," said Cortlandt, "you will some day be

setting the axis of heaven right, for in order to do work there

must be work to be done--a necessary corollary to which is that

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 Asia. They found no trace of the great

monsters that had been so numerous on the mainland, though there

were plenty of smaller and gentle-looking creatures, among them

animals whose build was much like that of the prehistoric horse,

with undeveloped toes on each side of the hoof, which in the

modern terrestrial horse have disappeared, the hoof being in

reality but a rounded-off middle finger.

"It is wonderful," said Bearwarden, "how comparatively narrow

a body of water can keep different species entirely separate.

The island of Sumatra, for instance, is inhabited by marsupials

belonging to the distinct Australian type, in which the female,

as in the kangaroo, carries the slightly developed young in a

pouch; while the Malay peninsula, joined to the mainland, has all

the highly developed animals of Asia and the connected land of