inches in his boots!"

"They must be veritable Lilliputians then!" cried Ardan; "and we are all
to be Gullivers! The old myth of the Giants realized! Perhaps the Titans
that played such famous parts in the prehistoric period of our Earth,
were adventurers like ourselves, casually arrived from some great
planet!"

"Not from such planets as _Mercury_, _Venus_ or _Mars_ anyhow, friend
Michael," observed Barbican. "But the inhabitants of _Jupiter_,
_Saturn_, _Uranus,_ or _Neptune_, if they bear the same proportion to
their planet that we do ours, must certainly be regular Brobdignagians."

"Let us keep severely away from all planets of the latter class then,"
said Ardan. "I never liked to play the part of Lilliputian myself. But
how about the Sun, Barbican? I always had a hankering after the Sun!"

"The Sun's volume is about 1-1/3 million times greater than that of the
Earth, but his density being only about 1/4, the attraction on his
surface is hardly 30 times greater than that of our globe. Still, every
proportion observed, the inhabitants of the Sun can't be much less than
150 or 160 feet in height."

"_Mille tonnerres!_" cried Ardan, "I should be there like Ulysses among
the Cyclops! I'll tell you what it is, Barbican; if we ever decide on
going to the Sun, we must provide ourselves before hand with a few of
your Rodman's Columbiads to frighten off the Solarians!"

"Your Columbiads would not do great execution there," observed
M'Nicholl; "your bullet would be hardly out of the barrel when it would
drop to the surface like a heavy stone pushed off the wall of a house."

"Oh! I like that!" laughed the incredulous Ardan.

"A little calculation, however, shows the Captain's remark to be
perfectly just," said Barbican. "Rodman's ordinary 15 inch Columbiad
requires a charge of 100 pounds of mammoth powder to throw a ball of
500 pounds weight. What could such a charge do with a ball weighing 30
times as much or 15,000 pounds? Reflect on the enormous weight
everything must have on the surface of the Sun! Your hat, for instance,
would weigh 20 or 30 pounds. Your cigar nearly a pound. In short, your
own weight on the Sun's surface would be so great, more than two tons,
that if you ever fell you should never be able to pick yourself up
again!"

"Yes," added the Captain, "and whenever you wanted to eat or drink you
should rig up a set of powerful machinery to hoist the eatables and
drinkables into your mouth."

"Enough