Aleriel/Part 4/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
We went with terrific rapidity to that huge globe, which constantly grew huger, with his four moons—rather planets than moons—rolling round him.
The orb of Jupiter was evidently wrapt in clouds—long lines and belts, and broken spaces here and there, through the masses of mist, in which we hoped to see the planet himself.
At length we felt we were getting into his cloud-land. The force of gravitation had then to be compensated. "If we," said Arauniel, "strike land like this, we shall pierce into the depths like a bullet for many yards. Back with the pressure! Undo the gravitating power!" We did so. Still the momentum was terrific. Swift into the clouds we dashed. Long miles of floating vapour were passed through in a few moments. It seemed as a dream, a mere gauze veil. Then a momentary glance at a vast expanse of heaving, tempestuous ocean, overcast with overhanging piles of clouds, then a tremendous splash, and we were rushing into the waters of the ocean of the great planet.
To any man it would have been instant death, but we have, as you know, far mightier vitality than man's, and under the waters we can live for a long time. Still, the crash was inconvenient to us, and when the resistance of the waters had quieted our onward motion, Ezariel again put the force of impetus to the ether boat upward, and we rushed up again out of the ocean depths to the planet's surface, the boat glowing with heat caused by friction, and the waters hissing in a cloud around us. We rose, therefore, in a vast whirlpool, with great clouds of steam rising from the heated depths, until again we came to the surface.
It was a vast ocean in which we found ourselves. The waves rose to the height of real mountains, and sank again. We floated on this tempestuous sea, such as the earth in its worst hurricane has never seen, hoping sometimes, as we were swept upwards on a mountain-like crest, to catch a sight of land, but none could we see.
Having thus floated for some time, Arauniel proposed that we should rise into the air, and by flying over the surface seek for land. We flew up to a moderate height, under the clouds. The wind was not so violent as the waves would imply, and even they were going down now. So we managed to fly in the air, floating beneath the clouds over the tempestuous waves. Our ether-car floated rapidly, like a balloon, over the great heaving mountains of the mighty waters,—like a mountainous region, but all in motion,—peaks and cliffs of foam ever rising and falling.
Long we floated, over many thousands of miles, but nothing save liquid mountains, hundreds of feet high, and dark ocean valleys were in sight. No land, nor trace of land, did we see. At length Arauniel called out from the top that he saw an island. It appeared really to be one, but very small—just like a large rock on the sea, a few hundred yards across.
We descended and landed on the island. It was not firm. In a moment we felt its heaving as it was shaken by the waves. It was evidently of some light substance, floating upon the waves. Still, putting our ether ship into a cleft, we rested awhile, watching the strange scene of the tempestuous waves and the vast overhanging clouds, and every moment were reminded of the primæval chaos, such as our world and the earth were in in the remote ages, before the time when lands and continents were defined, and when all was yet unformed.
"Surely," said Arauniel, "this huge planet has not yet attained its solid state, like Earth and Mars and our world."
After some hours of wondering at this scene, we were inclined to explore our floating islet. One of the first things we noticed was an enormous cavern of a hundred feet high in the rock. We entered it, and passed into a huge hall, the extent of which partly explained the floating power of the island, for it was practically as hollow as an ironclad, and if the walls were heavier than water, the hall made it lighter and gave it buoyancy. The hall was colossal in proportions—much larger than any cathedral I have seen on earth. On one side of it was a large terrace, and the surface was damp, though the waters in mass were well kept out of it. The roof was vaulted. Huge arches were raised of the massive rock, and the dripping waters had formed vast stalactites. These was a certain grandeur and beauty, however, in this rocky cavern, as we examined it by the electric light, which Ezariel took with him. At the end were two great openings, which might possibly lead to more huge caverns in the rock. As we were admiring the cavern, suddenly a strange gigantic being entered the open door. He was of colossal height, rational and erect in aspect, yet strangely fish-like also. A vast monster of the deep, yet apparently something more than a mere brute. His body was covered with scales. His head was not altogether stupid, and he had a forehead and walked erect like a man. I can best describe him as like what one of the huge beings of the secondary formation of earth—of the oolite or lias—would have been if endowed with intelligence and reason; yet he was more symmetrical in aspect, and therefore more beautiful, than they ever were. He evidently was of the type of life which in the earth is still seen in the huge monsters of the deep, and yet he looked in aspect semi-human—like to the fabled Titans of the old Greek poets—a monarch of the deep, colossal and majestic, yet for all that oceanic.
He entered the cavern dripping with water, and at once seated himself on the terrace. He rested back as if weary, and leaning on the rock sank off to sleep.
This gave us a chance of examining him. We mounted the terrace and contemplated his huge limbs at our pleasure. He was evidently formed to live in the water—rather to swim than to walk, and certainly not to fly. The pressure of gravitation of the huge planet made us feel that swimming was the most suitable mode of existence there. To walk was an effort, for one wanted a resisting medium, and this huge body was formed for the purpose of floating in the waters, or for plunging into its depths.
As we thus surveyed him with our electric lamp, which on his entry we had extinguished, another gigantic being entered the cave, and resting on another terrace also sank to sleep. The cavern darkened. We went to the opening. Night—the short night of Jupiter—was setting in. The sky was covered with stars, and three of the four moons were shining on the heaving waters. It was a wondrous scene—that ocean and its heaving waves, and the starry sky with those three moons shining in it.
On we went over the heaving ocean-surface, on for hundreds of miles. Now and then, however, floating islands did appear, heaving on the oceanic waves. Some of them appeared not to be natural, but artificial—the work of created intelligences; on some of these (as we were floating in the air) we could see the colossal Jovians resting on them. These islands were not like the ships of earth, merely for floating on the surface, but sometimes they sank suddenly into the deep and as suddenly appeared on the surface.
I noticed the difference to Ezariel. "Men float on the surface because they want air to breathe. If they could live under the surface, they would doubtless sink into the deep, and construct ships to do so, like these huge ships, which seem to us floating islands of the Jovians."[1]
We resolved also to explore the depths of the vast ocean.
- ↑ There are three classes of views about Jupiter.
(1) That which is held by Mr. Proctor, that it is an unformed world, and therefore as yet unfitted for life.
(2) That of Swedenborg, that the inhabitants of the greatest of the planets are of superior nature. This cannot be refuted, as thereby they would be superior to the destructive agencies at work on the planet.
(3) M. Flammarion's view, that life is here "manifested under strange forms, in beings both vegetable and animal of astonishing vitality, in the midst of the convulsions and storms of a developing world" is the one I would favour. It is hard to believe this huge world a lifeless desert, though terrestrial life (such as we have on earth) could not exist there.