Chapter 12: 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.”