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A Voyage to Other Worlds.
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.
