ness of the lieutenant's
objections, and yielded to the proposal that the eastward course should
be adopted. The wind gave signs only too threatening of the breeze
rising to a gale; but, fortunately, the waves did not culminate in
breakers, but rather in a long swell which ran in the same direction as
the vessel.

During the last fortnight the high temperature had been gradually
diminishing, until it now reached an average of 20 degrees Cent. (or 68
degrees Fahr.), and sometimes descended as low as 15 degrees. That this
diminution was to be attributed to the change in the earth's orbit was a
question that admitted of little doubt. After approaching so near to the
sun as to cross the orbit of Venus, the earth must now have receded
so far from the sun that its normal distance of ninety-one millions of
miles was greatly increased, and the probability was great that it was
approximating to the orbit of Mars, that planet which in its physical
constitution most nearly resembles our own. Nor was this supposition
suggested merely by the lowering of the temperature; it was strongly
corroborated by the reduction of the apparent diameter of the sun's disc
to the precise dimensions which it would assume to an observer actually
stationed on the surface of Mars. The necessary inference that seemed to
follow from these phenomena was that the earth had been projected into a
new orbit, which had the form of a very elongated ellipse.

Very slight, however, in comparison was the regard which these
astronomical wonders attracted on board the _Dobryna_. All interest
there was too much absorbed in terrestrial matters, and in ascertaining
what changes had taken place in the configuration of the earth itself,
to permit much attention to be paid to its erratic movements through
space.

The schooner kept bravely on her way, but well out to sea, at a distance
of two miles from land. There was good need of this precaution, for so
precipitous was the shore that a vessel driven upon it must inevitably
have gone to pieces; it did not offer a single harbor of refuge, but,
smooth and perpendicular as the walls of a fortress, it rose to a height
of two hundred, and occasionally of three hundred feet. The waves dashed
violently against its base. Upon the general substratum rested a massive
conglomerate, the crystallizations of which rose like a forest of
gigantic pyramids and obelisks.

But what struck the explorers more than anything was the appeara