on of the sun's rays, shedding
upon it a light and a heat seven times greater than that received by the
earth; its glacial and its torrid zones, which, on account of the great
inclination of the axis, are scarcely separable; its equatorial bands;
its mountains eleven miles high;--were all subjects of observation
worthy of the most studious regard.

But no danger was to be apprehended from Mercury; with Venus only did
collision appear imminent. By the 18th of January the distance between
that planet and the earth had become reduced to between two and three
millions of miles, and the intensity of its light cast heavy shadows
from all terrestrial objects. It might be observed to turn upon its own
axis in twenty-three hours twenty-one minutes--an evidence, from the
unaltered duration of its days, that the planet had not shared in the
disturbance. On its disc the clouds formed from its atmospheric vapor
were plainly perceptible, as also were the seven spots, which, according
to Bianchini, are a chain of seas. It was now visible in broad daylight.
Buonaparte, when under the Directory, once had his attention called to
Venus at noon, and immediately hailed it joyfully, recognizing it as
his own peculiar star in the ascendant. Captain Servadac, it may well be
imagined, did not experience the same gratifying emotion.

On the 20th, the distance between the two bodies had again sensibly
diminished. The captain had ceased to be surprised that no vessel
had been sent to rescue himself and his companion from their strange
imprisonment; the governor general and the minister of war were
doubtless far differently occupied, and their interests far otherwise
engrossed. What sensational articles, he thought, must now be teeming to
the newspapers! What crowds must be flocking to the churches! The end
of the world approaching! the great climax close at hand! Two days more,
and the earth, shivered into a myriad atoms, would be lost in boundless
space!

These dire forebodings, however, were not destined to be realized.
Gradually the distance between the two planets began to increase; the
planes of their orbits did not coincide, and accordingly the dreaded
catastrophe did not ensue. By the 25th, Venus was sufficiently remote to
preclude any further fear of collision. Ben Zoof gave a sigh of relief
when the captain communicated the glad intelligence.

Their proximity to Venus had been close enough to demonstrate that
beyond a doubt that plane