第54章 BOOK II.(30)

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?Ibelieve 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.