that could give him
any concern. Total annihilation might not accord with his views, but he
would be quite content for Gallia to miss its mark with regard to
the earth, indifferent whether it revolved as a new satellite around
Jupiter, or whether it wended its course through the untraversed regions
of the milky way. The rest of the community, however, by no means
sympathized with the professor's sentiments, and the following month was
a period of considerable doubt and anxiety.

On the 1st of September the distance between Gallia and Jupiter was
precisely the same as the mean distance between the earth and the sun;
on the 16th, the distance was further reduced to 26,000,000 leagues. The
planet began to assume enormous dimensions, and it almost seemed as if
the comet had already been deflected from its elliptical orbit, and was
rushing on in a straight line towards the overwhelming luminary.

The more they contemplated the character of this gigantic planet, the
more they became impressed with the likelihood of a serious perturbation
in their own course. The diameter of Jupiter is 85,390 miles, nearly
eleven times as great as that of the earth; his volume is 1,387 times,
and his mass 300 times greater; and although the mean density is only
about a quarter of that of the earth, and only a third of that of water
(whence it has been supposed that the superficies of Jupiter is liquid),
yet his other proportions were large enough to warrant the apprehension
that important disturbances might result from his proximity.

"I forget my astronomy, lieutenant," said Servadac. "Tell me all you can
about this formidable neighbor."

The lieutenant having refreshed his memory by reference to Flammarion's
_Recits de l'Infini_, of which he had a Russian translation, and some
other books, proceeded to recapitulate that Jupiter accomplishes his
revolution round the sun in 4,332 days 14 hours and 2 minutes; that he
travels at the rate of 467 miles a minute along an orbit measuring 2,976
millions of miles; and that his rotation on his axis occupies only 9
hours and 55 minutes.

"His days, then, are shorter than ours?" interrupted the captain.

"Considerably," answered the lieutenant, who went on to describe how the
displacement of a point at the equator of Jupiter was twenty-seven times
as rapid as on the earth, causing the polar compression to be about
2,378 miles; how the axis, being nearly perpendicular, caused the
days and nights to