have become an insuperable trouble
had I not taken so much pains, by directing the thermic currents upon
the walls, to keep the internal temperature, in so far as comfort
would permit—it had now fallen to 4° C.—as near as possible to that
of the inner surface of the walls and windows. A careful use of the
thermometer indicated that the metallic surface of the former was now
nearly zero C., or 32° F. The inner surface of the windows was somewhat
colder, showing that the crystal was more pervious to heat than the
walls, with their greater thickness, their outer and inner lining of
metal, and massive interior of concrete. I directed a current from the
thermogene upon either division of the garden, hoping thus to protect
the plants from whatever injury they might receive from the cold.
Somewhat later, perceiving that the drooping still continued, I
resolved upon another experiment, and arranging an apparatus of copper
wire beneath the soil, so as to bring the extremities in immediate
contact with their roots, I directed through these wires a prolonged
feeble current of electricity; by which, as I had hoped rather than
expected, the plants were after a time materially benefited, and to
which I believe I owed it that they had not all perished long before
the termination of my voyage.
It would be mere waste of space and time were I to attempt anything
like a journal of the weeks I spent in the solitude of this artificial
planet. As matter of course, the monotony of a voyage through space is
in general greater than that of a voyage across an ocean like the
Atlantic, where no islands and few ships are to be encountered. It was
necessary to be very frequently, if not constantly, on the look-out
for possible incidents of interest in a journey so utterly novel
through regions which the telescope can but imperfectly explore. It
was difficult, therefore, to sit down to a book, or even to pursue any
necessary occupation unconnected with the actual conduct of the
vessel, with uninterrupted attention. My eyes, the only sense organs I
could employ, were constantly on the alert; but, of course, by far the
greater portion of my time passed without a single new object or
occasion of remark. That a journey so utterly without precedent or
parallel, in which so little could be anticipated or provided for,
through regions absolutely untraversed and very nearly unknown, should
be monotonous, may seem strange. But in truth the novelties of the
situation, such as they were, though intensely striking and
interesting, were each in turn speedily examined, realised, and, so to
speak, exhausted; and this once done, there was no greater occupation
to the mind in the continuance of strange than in that of familiar
scenery. The infinitude of surrounding blackness, filled as it were
with points of light more or less brilliant, when once its effects had
been scrutinised, and when nothing more remained to be noted, afforded
certainly a more agreeable, but scarcely a more interesting or
absorbing, outlook than the dead grey circle of sea, the dead grey
hemisphere of cloud, which form the prospect from the deck of a packet
in mid-Atlantic; while of change without or incident in the vessel
herself there was, of course, infinitely less than is afforded in an
ocean voyage by the variations of weather, not to mention the solace
of human society. Everything around me, except in the one direction in
which the Earth's disc still obscured the Sun, remained unchanged for
hours and days; and the management of my machinery required no more
than an occasional observation of my instruments and a change in the
position of the helm, which occupied but a few minutes some half-dozen
times in the twenty-four hours. There was not even the change of night
and day, of sun and stars, of cloud or clear sky. Were I to describe
the manner in which each day's leisure was spent, I should bore my
readers even more than—they will perhaps be surprised by the
confession—I was bored
had I not taken so much pains, by directing the thermic currents upon
the walls, to keep the internal temperature, in so far as comfort
would permit—it had now fallen to 4° C.—as near as possible to that
of the inner surface of the walls and windows. A careful use of the
thermometer indicated that the metallic surface of the former was now
nearly zero C., or 32° F. The inner surface of the windows was somewhat
colder, showing that the crystal was more pervious to heat than the
walls, with their greater thickness, their outer and inner lining of
metal, and massive interior of concrete. I directed a current from the
thermogene upon either division of the garden, hoping thus to protect
the plants from whatever injury they might receive from the cold.
Somewhat later, perceiving that the drooping still continued, I
resolved upon another experiment, and arranging an apparatus of copper
wire beneath the soil, so as to bring the extremities in immediate
contact with their roots, I directed through these wires a prolonged
feeble current of electricity; by which, as I had hoped rather than
expected, the plants were after a time materially benefited, and to
which I believe I owed it that they had not all perished long before
the termination of my voyage.
It would be mere waste of space and time were I to attempt anything
like a journal of the weeks I spent in the solitude of this artificial
planet. As matter of course, the monotony of a voyage through space is
in general greater than that of a voyage across an ocean like the
Atlantic, where no islands and few ships are to be encountered. It was
necessary to be very frequently, if not constantly, on the look-out
for possible incidents of interest in a journey so utterly novel
through regions which the telescope can but imperfectly explore. It
was difficult, therefore, to sit down to a book, or even to pursue any
necessary occupation unconnected with the actual conduct of the
vessel, with uninterrupted attention. My eyes, the only sense organs I
could employ, were constantly on the alert; but, of course, by far the
greater portion of my time passed without a single new object or
occasion of remark. That a journey so utterly without precedent or
parallel, in which so little could be anticipated or provided for,
through regions absolutely untraversed and very nearly unknown, should
be monotonous, may seem strange. But in truth the novelties of the
situation, such as they were, though intensely striking and
interesting, were each in turn speedily examined, realised, and, so to
speak, exhausted; and this once done, there was no greater occupation
to the mind in the continuance of strange than in that of familiar
scenery. The infinitude of surrounding blackness, filled as it were
with points of light more or less brilliant, when once its effects had
been scrutinised, and when nothing more remained to be noted, afforded
certainly a more agreeable, but scarcely a more interesting or
absorbing, outlook than the dead grey circle of sea, the dead grey
hemisphere of cloud, which form the prospect from the deck of a packet
in mid-Atlantic; while of change without or incident in the vessel
herself there was, of course, infinitely less than is afforded in an
ocean voyage by the variations of weather, not to mention the solace
of human society. Everything around me, except in the one direction in
which the Earth's disc still obscured the Sun, remained unchanged for
hours and days; and the management of my machinery required no more
than an occasional observation of my instruments and a change in the
position of the helm, which occupied but a few minutes some half-dozen
times in the twenty-four hours. There was not even the change of night
and day, of sun and stars, of cloud or clear sky. Were I to describe
the manner in which each day's leisure was spent, I should bore my
readers even more than—they will perhaps be surprised by the
confession—I was bored
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