mpletely disappeared.
As Cassandra would be within the law if there had been an intermediary
planet, we have good prima facie reason for believing that it existed.
Cassandra takes, in round numbers, a thousand years to complete its
orbit, and from it the sun, though brighter, appears no larger than the
earth's evening or morning star. Cassandra has also three large moons;
but these, when full, shine with a pale-grey light, like the old moon
in the new moon's arms, in that terrestrial phenomenon when the earth,
by reflecting the crescent's light, and that of the sun, makes the dark
part visible. The temperature at Cassandra's surface is but little
above the cold of space, and no water exists in the liquid state, it
being as much a solid as aluminum or glass. There are rivers and
lakes, but these consist of liquefied hydrogen and other gases, the
heavier liquid collected in deep Places, and the lighter, with less
than half the specific gravity of ether, floating upon it without
mixing, as oil on water. When the heavier penetrates to a sufficient
depth, the interior being still warm, it is converted into gas and
driven back to the surface, only to be recondensed on reaching the
upper air. Thus it may happen that two rains composed of separate
liquids may fall together. There being but little of any other
atmosphere, much of it consists of what you might call the vapour of
hydrogen, and many of the well-known gases and liquids on earth exist
only as liquids and solids; so that, were there mortal inhabitants on
Cassandra, they might build their houses of blocks of oxygen or
chlorine, as you do of limestone or marble, and use ice that never
melts, in place of glass, for transparence. They would also use
mercury for bullets in their rifles, just as inhabitants of the
intra-Vulcan planets at the other extreme might, if their bodies
consisted of asbestos, or were in any other way non-combustibly
constituted, bathe in tin, lead, or even zinc, which ordinarily exist
in the liquid state, as water and mercury do on the earth.

"Though Cassandra's atmosphere, such as it is, is mostly clear, for the
evaporation from the rivers and icy mediterraneans is slight, the
brightness of even the highest noon is less than an earthly twilight,
and the stars never cease to shine. The dark base of the rocky cliffs
is washed by the frigid tide, but there is scarcely a sound, for the
pebbles cannot be moved by the weightless waves, and an oc