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Our travellers kept steadily on the watch looking out of the side lights, till eight o'clock in the evening, by which time the Moon had grown so large in their eyes that she covered up fully half the sky. At this time the Projectile itself must have looked like a streak of light, reflecting, as it did, the Sun's brilliancy on the one side and the Moon's splendor on the other.
From their change of position on the sun's disc, Galileo at first inferred, either that the sun revolved about an axis, or that other planets, like Venus and Mercury, revolved so near the sun as to appear like black spots when they were opposite to his disc. Upon continuing his observations, however, he saw reason to abandon this hasty opinion.
"Yes, a thick one," said Anne, "but the sun's coming through. Listen to the birds. Did you ever hear anything like them?" "I was out collecting the eggs at five o'clock this morning," returned Mary, "and I think I never heard them so busy. The earth was all a-hum with them. They seemed as though they must be listened to, whatever happened." Both women stood listening.
This time the meal, which included some very respectable ship's coffee, was taken on the cabin-table, the day being cloudless, and the sun's rays possessing a power that made it unpleasant to sit long anywhere out of a shade. While the meal was taken, another conversation was held touching their situation.
One half the houses were under ground, partly to screen them from the continued action of the sun's rays, and partly on account of the earthquakes caused by volcanoes. The windows of their houses were different from any I had ever seen before.
A fate was closing on Joe Lorey. The march of civilization was, indeed, advancing toward his mountain fastnesses at last. And nothing stays the march of civilization. The afternoon was waning as Joe climbed a sudden rise and saw before him Layson's camp. Through a cleft in the guardian range the sun's rays penetrated red and fiery.
Riveters by the hundred swarmed about the lattice side-work and the iron roof of the railway-line, hung from invisible staging under the bellies of the girders, clustered round the throats of the piers, and rode on the overhang of the footpath-stanchions; their fire-pots and the spurts of flame that answered each hammer-stroke showing no more than pale yellow in the sun's glare.
The woods look as smooth and glossy as the braided locks of maidens prepared for conquests; and the roads and paths that wind here and there amongst the trees, are as gay as little streamlets in the sun's reflected light. Suddenly a rainbow leaps, as it were, out of the river, and spans, with its mighty arch, the country scene before us. 'A rainbow at night Is the shepherd's delight;
The sun's influence is still more manifest; and, though it may have required the genius of a Herschel or of a Stephenson to perceive that almost every form of terrestrial energy is derived from the sun, yet it must have been manifest from the very earliest times that the greater light which rules the day rules the seasons also, and, in ruling them, provides the annual supplies of vegetable food, on which the very existence of men and animals depends.
These depressions were far deeper than the others, evidently many thousands of feet below the average surface, but the sun's rays were blazing full into this one, and, dotted round its slopes at varying elevations, they made out little patches which seemed to differ from the general surface. "I wonder if those are the remains of cities," said Zaidie.
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