Aleriel/Part 5/Chapter 1
PART V.—SATURN".
CHAPTER I.
TITAN.
Look then abroad through nature to the range of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres, wheeling unshaken through the void immense.
We ascended from the wondrous scene of the fire-land and vast, hissing mists, and the huge waving sea of the giant planet. We pierced the regions of clouds around him, and at length we came to the vast, black expanse of ether, studded by a million stars. Again we launched into the infinite.
Thus once more we plunged into space—infinite space,—dark, airless ether, with the myriads of glittering stars far off on every side. Again we got upon a meteor ring, and swept on through space toward the mighty system of the Ringed World. The journey was long— days and weeks and months, by your earth-measurement of time, passed on this weary voyage. Still Saturn seemed little more than a great star in space, with its mighty rings and its eight moons slowly growing more and more distinct. On, still on, we swept, away from the great orb of day, the Sun, which slowly grew less and less glorious. As we travelled onwards, we compared our experiences of the worlds we had seen, and examined the relics of them we had collected. The conclusion we came to was that which I had anticipated: the solar system is one, yet it is unity in diversity. The elements of matter are the same—the metals, the rocks, the main forms are one, as springing from the same great nebula of primæval chaos. But the combinations differ. Even in the Giant World we had left there was nothing really and essentially new to us, except in form and combination. The origin was the same, the main points of being identical, but an infinite variety in combination.
So also with life. We had seen no really new forms of life. Even on your Earth they are to be traced, though often imperfect and low in development. As the worlds were the same, or very nearly the same, in metallic elements, in spherical shape, in motion, in atmospheres, in gravitation, in electricity—so also in the vitality on their surfaces.
TITAN AND MIMAS.
At length we came within the influence of the great Ringed World, and felt ourselves dashing towards it by the mighty power of gravitation. Like three huge rainbows in the starry sky appeared the mighty rings—vast tracks of nebulous matter cast off by the planet in its rapid whirl. "Such rings as these," Arauniel said, "were probably once around all the exterior planets. Around Jupiter, where the four moons sometimes still remind us of them; around little Mars, even when Deimos and Phobos were in formation; around the Earth, when the Moon was being cast off into space in palæozoic times. All once were ringed worlds, but they have passed that stage of being. Yet here we have a very ancient world still by its own inherent power retaining the ring formation,—a last relic of a primæval stage of world-existence."
As we rushed forward, we felt the force of attraction drawing us from our onward course. We were deflecting towards one of the minor worlds that rolled around that great ringed system. It was the chief of them—the satellite you call Titan, the greatest of the satellites of our solar system, greater than the world Mercury himself. On, on we flew, on to this lesser world, worthy of being a follower of the great Sun, but now a satellite of Saturn.
"Let us rest on one of the mountains," said Arauniel, "and watch this wonderful system—a miniature of our own great solar system, with yon huge world as a minor sun, around which these eight worlds roll, and the three rings around his surface marking that which once circled on a smaller scale the Earth and Mars."
We flew on towards this moon, not so very much less than the earth itself. Continents and oceans were stretching far and wide beneath its clouds.
It was a strange world—primitive in formation, imperfect in development. I cannot well describe the wonders we there saw. The marvels of its heavens were great, and the wonders of its surface greater still. It was, as it were, a world of double suns—the one, the glorious Sun, now shining, with rays feebler far than those which you know in the arctic regions of the earth; the other the great ringed sun of Saturn, far larger and more majestic, with his triple walls of light girding him like a huge citadel enclosed in triple lines of fortifications. And there also were to be seen the seven sister-satellites, that followed like seven great planets, while beyond there were the planets we were wont to see in the heavens and our own world and earth now fading in the distance. Yet all were indistinct compared with the great system of Saturn around us.
We quitted this giant satellite before Titan had made a quarter revolution around his primary—the great belted and ringed world,—and plunged into the system itself, passing by four of the moons,—Rhea, Dione, Tethys, and Enceladus,—until we came to the little world of Mimas, where we rested again.
I cannot describe the strange things of that world of Mimas. Earthly words depict only earthly things, or at best only things of nature akin to those of earth. But here there were other forms of development, other conditions of life, and other resultants than such as you find on earth. And yet, just as the minerals of that world were much the same as we have and as you have, though in quite strange combinations, so the elements of life were somewhat the same, though in the dull, imperfect light, less developed in their higher forms. One thing was singular, however, which I had not noticed yet,—the higher living creatures of that world neither walked as the animals of the dominant type of life on Earth or Mars, nor flew as we do in the dense atmosphere of our glorious mountain world, nor were chained to the depths as the huge beings of the giant planet, but sprang. I asked Arauniel why should this be. "It is the effect of gravitation. Do not you feel how light you are? You see on this world there are two forces at work—the moderate gravitation of Mimas and the less but still felt power of Saturn. One gravitation partly neutralises the other. So by slight exertion these beings leap,—they neither need to walk nor fly; a slight effort overcomes their gravitation. Here, practically, all things belong to two worlds, the little satellite on which they dwell and the mighty planet, like a giant globe (many times the size of the sun in our skies), above them."
The evenings in that little world were wonderfully glorious. There, ever through the sky, were rolling the huge orb and his three rings, and the seven sister-moons ever varying in their phases.
There was nothing here, it seemed, to detain us, save wonder; there was nothing beautiful nor sublime in this world, only things quaint and strange. However, the heavens above and the changes there were wonderful. So we rested on a mountain far removed from the lower manifestations of life which filled the plains,—those wierd beings that seemed with little effort to rise from the surface and go where they would. **** I can hardly describe our final journey into the realm of Saturn—the voyage from Mimas to the huge central orb itself. Nothing had we beheld more magnificent or awe-inspiring than those gigantic rings. There was a solemn sense at the approach to the outer ring. We drew near to it purposely, but as we approached nearer its solid appearance dissolved. Rents here and there appeared in its surface, and what looked solid at a distance was manifestly composed of millions of fragments of matter, meteors in millions were sweeping onwards in many streams. If there be anything on earth to which I might liken it, it would be the Lake of a Thousand Islands, only the islands were not rocks rising out of the waters, but shining meteors in space, and the medium in which they floated was ether, not water. As swarms of bees, the millions of meteors rolled on in space around the huge belted orb of Saturn.