Uranus, at the other extremity of the system, receives four
hundred times less heat and light than we do, consequently neither
water nor any thing else can exist there in a liquid state; what is
fluid on our earth must be frozen up into a solid mass. Good, I
declare my brother has fallen asleep!"

"It is very--interesting--however," said Willis, making ineffectual
efforts to smother a yawn.

"The same difficulty with comets; there must have been some very
urgent necessity for human beings in order to have peopled them. When
they pass the perihelion--"

"The what?" inquired Willis.

"The point where they approach nearest the sun--when they pass the
perihelion, I was going to say, the heat they endure must be terrific;
when on the other hand, at their extreme distance from that body, the
cold must be intense. The comet of 1680 did not approach within five
thousand _myriametres_ of the sun."

"Friends coming within that distance of each other should at least
shake hands," said Willis.

"Still, even at that distance, the heat, according to Newton, must be
like red-hot iron, and if constituted like our earth, when heated to
that degree, must take fifty thousand years to cool."

"Fifty thousand years!" said Willis, yawning from ear to ear.

"The central position between these extremes, which would either
congeal our earth into a mass of ice or burn it up into a heap of
cinders, is therefore the most congenial to such beings as ourselves.
Whence I conclude--"

Here the crimson flashes of Willis's pipe, which had been gradually
diminishing in brilliance suddenly ceased; _contralto_ notes issued
from the profundities of his breast, and it became evident to the
orator that all his audience were sound asleep.

"Whence I conclude," said Fritz, addressing himself, "that my orations
must be somewhat soporiferous."

Being thus left alone to keep a look-out on shore, his thoughts
gradually receded within his own breast, where all was rose-colored
and smiling, for at his age rust has not had time to corrupt, nor
moths to eat away. And it was not long before he himself, like his two
companions, was fast locked in the arms of sleep.

How long this state of things lasted the chronicle saith not; but the
three sleepers were eventually awakened by a simultaneous howl of the
dogs. They were instantly on their feet, with their rifles levelled.

It was too late; day had broken, and there was light enough to
convince them that n