fr:Hector Servadac - II - Chapitre V
CHAPTER V.A REVISED CALENDAR.
All previous hypotheses, then, were now forgotten in the
presence of the one great fact that Gallia was a comet and
gravitating through remote solar regions. Captain Servadac
became aware that the huge disc that had been
looming through the clouds after the shock was the form
of the retreating earth, to the proximity of which the one
high tide they had experienced was also to be attributed.
As to the fulfilment of the professor's prediction of an
ultimate return to the terrestrial sphere, that was a point
on which it must be owned that the captain, after the first
flush of his excitement was over, was not without many
misgivings.
The next day or two were spent in providing for the
accommodation of the new comer. Fortunately his desires
were very moderate; he seemed to live among the stars, and as long as he was well provided with coffee, he cared little for luxuries, and paid little or no regard to the ingenuity with which all the internal arrangements of Nina's Hive had been devised. Anxious to show all proper respect to his former tutor, Servadac proposed to leave the most comfortable apartment of the place at his disposal; but the professor resolutely declined to occupy it, saying that what he required was a small chamber, no matter how small, provided that it was elevated and secluded, which he could use as an observatory and where he might
prosecute his studies without disturbance. A general search
was instituted, and before long they were lucky enough to
find, about a hundred feet above the central grotto, a small
recess or reduct hollowed as it were in the mountain-side, which would exactly answer their purpose. It contained room enough for a bed, a table, an arm-chair, a chest of drawers, and, what was of still more consequence, for the indispensable telescope. One small stream of lava, an offshoot of the great torrent, sufficed to warm the apartment enough.
In these retired quarters the astronomer took up his
abode. It was on all hands acknowledged to be advisable
to let him go on entirely in his own way. His meals were
taken to him at stated intervals; he slept but little; carried
on his calculations by day, his observations by night, and
very rarely made his appearance amongst the rest of the
little community.
The cold now became very intense, the thermometer
registering 30°C. below zero. The mercury, however, never
exhibited any of those fluctuations that are ever and
again to be observed in variable climates, but continued
slowly and steadily to fall, and in all probability would
continue to do so until it reached the normal temperature
of the regions of outlying space.
This steady sinking of the mercury was accompanied
by a complete stillness of the atmosphere; the very air
seemed to be congealed; no particle of it stirred; from
zenith to horizon there was never a cloud; neither were
there any of the damp mists or dry fogs which so often
extend over the polar regions of the earth; the sky was
always clear; the sun shone by day and the stars by night
without causing any perceptible difference in the temperature.
These peculiar conditions rendered the cold endurable
even in the open air. The cause of so many of the diseases
that prove fatal to Arctic explorers resides in the
cutting winds, unwholesome fogs, or terrible snow-drifts, which, by drying up, relaxing, or otherwise affecting the
lungs, make them incapable of fulfilling their propel
functions. But during periods of calm weather, when the
air has been absolutely still, many polar navigators, well-clothed
and properly fed, have been known to withstand a
temperature when the spirit in the thermometer has fallen
to 60° below zero. It was the experience of Parry upon
Melville Island, of Kane beyond lat. 81° N., and of
Hall and the crew of the Polaris, that, however intense the
cold, in the absence of the wind they could always brave
its rigour.