the wonders of their remarkable
adventure that they had almost forgotten the terror which had inspired
it.

There was nothing surprising in what had occurred to them the moment one
considered the laws of gravitation on the asteroid, but their stories
aroused an intense interest among all who listened to them.

Lord Kelvin was particularly interested, and while Mr. Edison was
hastening preparations to quit the asteroid and resume our voyage to
Mars, Lord Kelvin and a number of other scientific men instituted a
series of remarkable experiments.

It was one of the most laughable things imaginable to see Lord Kelvin,
dressed in his air-tight suit, making tremendous jumps in empty space.
It reminded me forcibly of what Lord Kelvin, then plain William
Thompson, and Professor Blackburn had done when spending a summer
vacation at the seaside, while they were undergraduates of Cambridge
University. They had spent all their time, to the surprise of onlookers,
in spinning rounded stones on the beach, their object being to obtain a
practical solution of the mathematical problem of "precession."

Immediately Lord Kelvin was imitated by a dozen others. With what seemed
very slight effort they projected themselves straight upwards, rising to
a height of four hundred feet or more, and then slowly settling back
again to the surface of the asteroid. The time of rise and fall combined
was between three and four minutes.

On this little planet the acceleration of gravity or the velocity
acquired by a falling body in one second was only four-fifths of an
inch. A body required an entire minute to fall a distance of only 120
feet. Consequently, it was more like gradually settling than falling.
The figures of these men of science, rising and sinking in this manner,
appeared like so many gigantic marionettes bobbing up and down in a
pneumatic bottle.

"Let us try that," said Mr. Edison, very much interested in the
experiments.

Both of us jumped together. At first, with great swiftness, but
gradually losing speed, we rose to an immense height straight from the
ground. When we had reached the utmost limit of our flight we seemed to
come to rest for a moment, and then began slowly, but with accelerated
velocity, to sink back again to the planet. It was not only a peculiar
but a delicious sensation, and but for strict orders which were issued
that the electrical ships should be immediately prepared for departure,
our entire company might