Off on a Comet by Jules Verne (best non fiction books to read .TXT) 📕

“What are you laughing at?” demanded the professor, turning round

upon him angrily.

“Nothing, sir; only it amuses me to see how you want to revise

the terrestrial calendar.”

“I want to be logical, that’s all.”

“By all manner of means, my dear professor, let us be logical.”

“Well, then, listen to me,” resumed the professor, stiffly.

“I presume you are taking it for granted that the Gallian year—

by which I mean the time in which Gallia makes one revolution

round the sun—is equal in length to two terrestrial years.”

They signified their assent.

“And that year, like every other year, ought to be divided

into twelve months.”

“Yes, certainly, if you wish it,” said the captain, acquiescing.

“If I wish it!” exclaimed Rosette. “Nothing of the sort!

Of course a year must have twelve months!”

“Of course,” said the captain.

“And how many days will make a month?” asked the professor.

“I suppose sixty or sixty-two, as the case may be.

The days now are only half as long as they used to be,”

answered the captain.

“Servadac, don’t be thoughtless!” cried Rosette, with all the petulant

impatience of the old pedagogue. “If the days are only half as long

as they were, sixty of them cannot make up a twelfth part of Gallia’s year—

cannot be a month.”

“I suppose not,” replied the confused captain.

“Do you not see, then,” continued the astronomer, “that if

a Gallian month is twice as long as a terrestrial month,

and a Gallian day is only half as long as a terrestrial day,

there must be a hundred and twenty days in every month?”

“No doubt you are right, professor,” said Count Timascheff;

“but do you not think that the use of a new calendar such as this

would practically be very troublesome?”

“Not at all! not at all! I do not intend to use any other,”

was the professor’s bluff reply.

After pondering for a few moments, the captain spoke again.

“According, then, to this new calendar, it isn’t the middle

of May at all; it must now be some time in March.”

“Yes,” said the professor, “to-day is the 26th

of March. It is the 266th day of the Gallian year.

It corresponds with the 133d day of the terrestrial year.

You are quite correct, it is the 26th of March.”

“Strange!” muttered Servadac.

“And a month, a terrestrial month, thirty old days, sixty new days hence,

it will be the 86th of March.”

“Ha, ha!” roared the captain; “this is logic with a vengeance!”

The old professor had an undefined consciousness that his

former pupil was laughing at him; and as it was growing late,

he made an excuse that he had no more leisure. The visitors

accordingly quitted the observatory.

It must be owned that the revised calendar was left to the professor’s

sole use, and the colony was fairly puzzled whenever he referred to such

unheard-of dates as the 47th of April or the 118th of May.

According to the old calendar, June had now arrived;

[illustration omitted] [page intentionally blank] and by the

professor’s tables Gallia during the month would have advanced

27,500,000 leagues farther along its orbit, and would have attained

a distance of 155,000,000 leagues from the sun. The thermometer

continued to fall; the atmosphere remained clear as heretofore.

The population performed their daily avocations with systematic routine;

and almost the only thing that broke the monotony of existence was

an occasional visit from the blustering, nervous, little professor,

when some sudden fancy induced him to throw aside his astronomical studies

for a time, and pay a visit to the common hall. His arrival there was

generally hailed as the precursor of a little season of excitement.

Somehow or other the conversation would eventually work its way round

to the topic of a future collision between the comet and the earth;

and in the same degree as this was a matter of sanguine anticipation

to Captain Servadac and his friends, it was a matter of aversion

to the astronomical enthusiast, who had no desire to quit his present

quarters in a sphere which, being of his own discovery, he could

hardly have cared for more if it had been of his own creation.

The interview would often terminate in a scene of considerable animation.

On the 27th of June (old calendar) the professor burst like a

cannon-ball into the central hall, where they were all assembled,

and without a word of salutation or of preface, accosted the lieutenant

in the way in which in earlier days he had been accustomed to speak

to an idle school-boy, “Now, lieutenant! no evasions! no shufflings!

Tell me, have you or have you not circumnavigated Gallia?”

The lieutenant drew himself up stiffly. “Evasions! shufflings!

I am not accustomed, sir—” he began in a tone evidencing no

little resentment; but catching a hint from the count he subdued

his voice, and simply said, “We have.”

“And may I ask,” continued the professor, quite unaware of his

previous discourtesy, “whether, when you made your voyage,

you took any account of distances?”

“As approximately as I could,” replied the lieutenant;

“I did what I could by log and compass. I was unable to take

the altitude of sun or star.”

“At what result did you arrive? What is the measurement of our equator?”

“I estimate the total circumference of the equator to be about 1,400 miles.”

“Ah!” said the professor, more than half speaking to himself,

“a circumference of 1,400 miles would give a diameter of about 450 miles.

That would be approximately about one-sixteenth of the diameter

of the earth.”

Raising his voice, he continued, “Gentlemen, in order to complete

my account of my comet Gallia, I require to know its area, its mass,

its volume, its density, its specific gravity.”

“Since we know the diameter,” remarked the lieutenant, “there can

be no difficulty in finding its surface and its volume.”

“And did I say there was any difficulty?” asked the professor, fiercely.

“I have been able to reckon that ever since I was born.”

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” cried Ben Zoof, delighted at any opportunity

of paying off his old grudge.

The professor looked at him, but did not vouchsafe a word.

Addressing the captain, he said, “Now, Servadac, take your paper

and a pen, and find me the surface of Gallia.”

With more submission than when he was a school-boy, the captain

sat down and endeavored to recall the proper formula.

“The surface of a sphere? Multiply circumference by diameter.”

“Right!” cried Rosette; “but it ought to be done by this time.”

“Circumference, 1,400; diameter, 450; area of surface, 630,000,”

read the captain.

“True,” replied Rosette, “630,000 square miles; just 292 times less

than that of the earth.”

“Pretty little comet! nice little comet!” muttered Ben Zoof.

The astronomer bit his lip, snorted, and cast at him a withering look,

but did not take any further notice.

“Now, Captain Servadac,” said the professor, “take your pen again,

and find me the volume of Gallia.”

The captain hesitated.

“Quick, quick!” cried the professor, impatiently; “surely you

have not forgotten how to find the volume of a sphere!”

“A moment’s breathing time, please.”

“Breathing time, indeed! A mathematician should not want breathing time!

Come, multiply the surface by the third of the radius. Don’t you recollect?”

Captain Servadac applied himself to his task while the by-standers waited,

with some difficulty suppressing their inclination to laugh.

There was a short silence, at the end of which Servadac announced

that the volume of the comet was 47,880,000 cubic miles.

“Just about 5,000 times less than the earth,” observed the lieutenant.

“Nice little comet! pretty little comet!” said Ben Zoof.

The professor scowled at him, and was manifestly annoyed at having the

insignificant dimensions of his comet pointed out in so disparaging a manner.

Lieutenant Procope further remarked that from the earth he supposed it

to be about as conspicuous as a star of the seventh magnitude, and would

require a good telescope to see it.

“Ha, ha!” laughed the orderly, aloud; “charming little comet! so pretty;

and so modest!”

“You rascal!” roared the professor, and clenched his hand

in passion, as if about to strike him. Ben Zoof laughed the more,

and was on the point of repeating his satirical comments,

when a stern order from the captain made him hold his tongue.

The truth was that the professor was just as sensitive about his

comet as the orderly was about Montmartre, and if the contention

between the two had been allowed to go on unchecked, it is

impossible to say what serious quarrel might not have arisen.

When Professor Rosette’s equanimity had been restored,

he said, “Thus, then, gentlemen, the diameter, the surface,

the volume of my comet are settled; but there is more to be done.

I shall not be satisfied until, by actual measurement,

I have determined its mass, its density, and the force of gravity

at its surface.”

“A laborious problem,” remarked Count Timascheff.

“Laborious or not, it has to be accomplished. I am resolved

to find out what my comet weighs.”

“Would it not be of some assistance, if we knew of what substance

it is composed?” asked the lieutenant.

“That is of no moment at all,” replied the professor;

“the problem is independent of it.”

“Then we await your orders,” was the captain’s reply.

“You must understand, however,” said Rosette, “that there are various

preliminary calculations to be made; you will have to wait till

they are finished.”

“As long as you please,” said the count.

“No hurry at all,” observed the captain, who was not in the least

impatient to continue his mathematical exercises.

“Then, gentlemen,” said the astronomer, “with your leave we

will for this purpose make an appointment a few weeks hence.

What do you say to the 62d of April?”

Without noticing the general smile which the novel date provoked,

the astronomer left the hall, and retired to his observatory.