gues a second, and that when it would have been so easy to be
motionless, if God had wished it!"

"Good!" said Altamont; "do you think so, Bell? In that case no more
night, nor spring, nor autumn, nor winter!"

"Without considering a still more terrible result," continued the
doctor.

"What is that?" asked Johnson.

"We should all fall into the sun!"

"Fall into the sun!" repeated Bell with surprise.

"Yes. If this motion were to stop, the earth would fall into the sun
in sixty-four days and a half."

"A fall of sixty-four days!" said Johnson.

"No more nor less," answered the doctor; "for it would have to fall a
distance of thirty-eight millions of leagues."

"What is the weight of the earth?" asked Altamont.

"It is five thousand eight hundred and ninety-one quadrillions of
tons."

"Good!" said Johnson; "those numbers have no meaning."

"For that reason, Johnson, I was going to give you two comparisons
which you could remember. Don't forget that it would take seventy-five
moons to make the sun, and three hundred and fifty thousand earths to
make up the weight of the sun."

"That is tremendous!" said Altamont.

"Tremendous is the word," answered the doctor; "but, to return to the
Pole, no lesson on cosmography on this part of the globe could be more
opportune, if it doesn't weary you."

"Go on, Doctor, go on!"

"I told you," resumed the doctor, who took as much pleasure in giving
as the others did in receiving instruction,--"I told you that the Pole
was motionless in comparison with the rest of the globe. Well, that is
not quite true!"

"What!" said Bell, "has that got to be taken back?"

"Yes, Bell, the Pole is not always exactly in the same place; formerly
the North Star was farther from the celestial pole than it is now. So
our Pole has a certain motion; it describes a circle in about
twenty-six years. That comes from the precession of the equinoxes, of
which I shall speak soon."

"But," asked Altamont, "might it not happen that some day the Pole
should get farther from its place?"

"Ah, my dear Altamont," answered the doctor, "you bring up there a
great question, which scientific men investigated for a long time in
consequence of a singular discovery."

"What was that?"

"This is it. In 1771 the body of a rhinoceros was found on the shore
of the Arctic Sea, and in 1799 that of an elephant on the coast of
Siberia. How did the animals of warm countries happen to be found in
these latitu