Aleriel/Notes
NOTES.
"Hark! there is the boom of the cannon." The cannon at the siege of Paris could be heard distinctly by day and night at Pontoise. I remember hearing the artillery from Mont Valerien myself during the second siege.
"I have often looked on England from afar." An island of the size of Great Britain would be distinctly visible in powerful telescopes on Mars or Venus. Indeed, many islands visible on Mars are probably no larger than our "tight little island."
The Moon.
"I selected one large meteor." This may sound fantastic, but accepting the conditions given, i.e., of a being of immense vitality and power over natural forces, is not irreconcilable to astronomical observations. The number of meteors is calculated.
"Boiling water was nothing to it." The calculation of the heat of the moon is higher than I have given.
"The absence of snow." There appears to be no snow, nor rain, nor even water, nor atmosphere on the moon. What looks so ice-like in the telescope is merely (it would seem) the bare rocks glittering in the sunlight.
"Tycho." The metropolitan crater of the moon. His diameter is estimated.
"So I went forward .... to the great circle of Copernicus." The following eloquent description from "The Moon," by Nasmyth and Carpenter, maybe worth quoting, as showing how some of our descriptions are not exaggerated. "Let us choose, for instance, the hillside of Copernicus . . . As hour succeeds hour, the sunbeams reach peak after peak of the circular rampart in slow succession, till at length the circle is complete, and the vast crater-rim, fifty miles in diameter, glistens like a silver-margined abyss of darkness. By-and-by appears a group of bright peaks and bosses. These are the now illuminated summits of the central cones, and the development of the mountain-cluster they form henceforth becomes an imposing feature of the scene. From our high standpoint, and looking backwards to the sunny side of our cosmorama, we glance over a vast region of the wildest desolation. Craters, from five miles diameter downwards, crowd together in countless numbers to the surface,—as far as the eye can reach looks veritably frothed over with them." "The Moon," pp. 164, 165.
Venus.
"Whence the mighty Alps." This description is not imaginary. I saw it in February, 1872, more than once in the neighbourhood of Lake Biehne. I have often thought since that it admirably represented the way Mars appears to us in a good telescope, and, possibly, Venus, i.e., a world wrapt in mist, with a projection here and there, and openings in the clouds. A somewhat similar arrangement of clouds I have noticed from the Dartmoor Tors. It is probably common in all mountainous districts.
I find that Fontenelle says of the "inhabitants of Venus," that they would be "loving music, inventing fête-days, dances, and tournaments." It is natural to suppose this lovely planet bright with love and joy; but I have supposed the love of the higher spiritual kind.[1]
The reasons which led me to assume the bird type to be dominant on Venus are the following:—
1. The dense atmosphere of the planet; probably one of the densest and most extensive in the solar system.
2. Its mountainous state, unfit for walking animals. Such mountain regions would be more fitted to bird than mammalian life.
3. Lastly, the apparent suitableness of the lovely bird-type of life to the Queen of Beauty in the heavens, revelling in that glorious blaze of sun-light. In spite of Swedenborg, unless proof were attainable to the contrary, I should like to think the creatures living on the fair evening star to be beautiful and joyous and good.
Venusian.
I must also apologise for the word "Venusian." I know well that compounds ought to be derived from the genitive Veneris; but these are already connected with ideas opposed to those I wish to convey.
Mars.
The ideal of vitality on Mars appears to be that as Mars is so like the earth in (1) geographic configuration, (2) climate, thus possibly its vitality is like that on earth. I have supposed it nearly the same at least in higher intelligence, only more near to the higher mammalia, i.e., the carnivora, than on earth, on account of:—
1. The tradition of the ancients of Mars symbolising War.
2. Its Arctic climate. The carnivora, e.g., the bear and dog dominate in earth's Arctic realms. If there were a world in which the Arctic element dominated, it would be one in which the carnivora might be supposed to be supreme. The idea of a lion or bear being endowed with reason is not so ridiculous. The former was called the king of beasts, and there is a school of German naturalists who regard the bear as nearer man than other animals.
In Mars we see an older world than that of this Earth, and thus I have ventured to suggest there a more advanced state of society, heir of all the ages, and thus something—like what human society may tend—if progress is healthy. The differentia of nature, however, the fiercer Martian character, I have tried to preserve. It has been suggested to me by a friend that this part of my "fairytale" is like Lord Lytton's "Coming Race." If so, the resemblance is accidental, or rather Bulwer and I have, from observation and induction, come to the same conclusion.
The nomenclature of Martian lands I have used is the French system of M. Flammarion.
Jupiter.
The question among astronomers now is whether life can exist on the largest of the planets. Most regard Mars and Venus as probably peopled (it may be with higher intelligences than earth); but the recent discoveries, which tend to show the great heat of Jupiter, are urged against the largest of the worlds around us being peopled. It is almost manifest that this huge world and Saturn cannot be peopled by beings like men, or our higher land mammalia; but this, I contend, does not hinder the existence in those huge oceans of Jupiter of beings like the monsters of the deep, somewhat similar to the cetiosauri or ichthyosauri of our ancient seas, or the whales and dolphins of our own times. On earth the two main conditions of abundant life are heat and moisture; on Jupiter and Saturn both of these appear to be in excess. If life can exist on these heated oceans, it must be somewhat as M. Flammarion and I have supposed. If such a life as I suggest is not there, then there either is none, or beings of a totally distinct nature to what we can conceive.
As to Saturn, the conception of an invertebrate being of intelligence is one that seems monstrous at first; but, as Brewster says, "Is it necessary that an immortal soul should be united to a skeleton of bone, or imprisoned in a cage of cartilage and of skin? Must it see with two eyes and hear with two ears, and touch with ten fingers and rest on a duality of limbs? How many possible forms are there, which eye hath not seen, nor the heart of man conceived." These strange forms are to us grotesque, but not necessarily impossible.
P. 203. "They had hands unlike the avine tribe." As the most serious objection I met with in my "Voice from another World" was to the supposition of vertebrate beings existing with three pairs of limbs, I venture to quote Professor Owen on this point: "We have been accustomed to regard the vertebrate animals as being characterised by the limitation of their limbs to two pairs, and it is true that no more diverging appendages are developed for stature, locomotion, and manipulation. But the rudiments of many more pairs are present in many species; and though they may never be developed as such in this planet, it is quite conceivable that certain of them may be so developed, if the vertebrate type should be that on which any of the inhabitants of other planets of our system are organised." [2]In some fish, if I mistake not, there are more than two pair of limbs. As to the question of muscles, the amount of vital force, if increased, might generate strong muscular action without large muscles.
- ↑ Fontenelle, "Pluralité des Mondes." 1783.
- ↑ Owen "On the Nature of Limbs," p. 83.
THE END.
WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON.