A Journey in Other Worlds | Page 4

the secret of apergy, and now, "little lower than the angels," they could soar
through space, leaving even planets and comets behind.
"Is it not strange," said Dr. Cortlandt, "that though it has been known for over a century
that bodies charged with unlike electricities attract one another, and those charged with
like repel, no one thought of utilizing the counterpart of gravitation? In the nineteenth
century, savants and Indian jugglers performed experiments with their disciples and
masses of inert matter, by causing them to remain without visible support at some
distance from the ground; and while many of these, of course, were quacks, some were
on the right track, though they did not push their research."
President Bearwarden and Ayrault assented. They were steering for an apparently hard
part of the planet's surface, about a degree and a half north of its equator.
"Since Jupiter's axis is almost at right angles to the plane of its orbit," said the doctor,
"being inclined only about one degree and a half, instead of twenty-three and a half, as
was the earth's till nearly so recently, it will be possible for us to have any climate we
wish, from constantly warm at the equator to constantly cool or cold as we approach the
poles, without being troubled by extremes of winter and summer."
Until the Callisto entered the planet's atmosphere, its five moons appeared like silver
shields against the black sky, but now things were looking more terrestrial, and they
began to feel at home. Bearwarden put down his note-book, and Ayrault returned a
photograph to his pocket, while all three gazed at their new abode. Beneath them was a
vast continent variegated by chains of lakes and rivers stretching away in all directions
except toward the equator, where lay a placid ocean as far as their telescopes could pierce.
To the eastward were towering and massive mountains, and along the southern border of
the continent smoking volcanoes, while toward the west they saw forests, gently rolling
plains, and table-lands that would have satisfied a poet or set an agriculturist's heart at
rest. "How I should like to mine those hills for copper, or drain the swamps to the south!"
exclaimed Col. Bearwarden. "The Lake Superior mines and the reclamation of the
Florida Everglades would be nothing to this."

"Any inhabitants we may find here have so much land at their disposal that they will not
need to drain swamps on account of pressure of population for some time," put in the
doctor.
"I hope we may find some four-legged inhabitants," said Ayrault, thinking of their
explosive magazine rifles. "If Jupiter is passing through its Jurassic or Mesozoic period,
there must be any amount of some kind of game." Just then a quiver shook the Callisto,
and glancing to the right they noticed one of the volcanoes in violent eruption. Smoke
filled the air in clouds, hot stones and then floods of lava poured from the crater, while
even the walls of the hermetically sealed Callisto could not arrest the thunderous crashes
that made the interior of the car resound.
"Had we not better move on?" said Bearwarden, and accordingly they went toward the
woods they had first seen. Finding a firm strip of land between the forest and an arm of
the sea, they gently grounded the Callisto, and not being altogether sure how the
atmosphere of their new abode would suit terrestrial lungs, or what its pressure to the
square inch might be, they cautiously opened a port-hole a crack, retaining their hold
upon it with its screw. Instantly there was a rush and a whistling sound as of escaping
steam, while in a few moments their barometer stood at thirty-six inches, whereupon they
closed the opening.
"I fancy," said Dr. Cortlandt, "we had better wait now till we become accustomed to this
pressure. I do not believe it will go much higher, for the window made but little
resistance when we shut it."
Finding they were not inconvenienced by a pressure but little greater than that of a deep
coal-mine, they again opened the port, whereupon their barometer showed a further rise
to forty-two, and then remained stationary. Finding also that the chemical composition of
the air suited them, and that they had no difficulty in breathing, the pressure being the
same as that sustained by a diver in fourteen feet of water, they opened a door and
emerged. They knew fairly well what to expect, and were not disturbed by their new
conditions. Though they had apparently gained a good deal in weight as a result of their
ethereal journey, this did not incommode them; for though Jupiter's volume is thirteen
hundred times that of the earth, on account of its lesser specific gravity, it has but three
hundred