"Good bye! And may you never come back!" cried Ardan, hardly able to
breathe. "It's perfectly outrageous! Not room enough in infinite space
to let an unpretending bullet like ours move about a little without
incurring the risk of being run over by such a monster as that! What is
it anyhow? Do you know, Barbican?"
"I do," was the reply.
"Of course, you do! What is it that he don't know? Eh, Captain?"
"It is a simple bolide, but one of such enormous dimensions that the
Earth's attraction has made it a satellite."
"What!" cried Ardan, "another satellite besides the Moon? I hope there
are no more of them!"
"They are pretty numerous," replied Barbican; "but they are so small and
they move with such enormous velocity that they are very seldom seen.
Petit, the Director of the Observatory of Toulouse, who these last years
has devoted much time and care to the observation of bolides, has
calculated that the very one we have just encountered moves with such
astonishing swiftness that it accomplishes its revolution around the
Earth in about 3 hours and 20 minutes!"
"Whew!" whistled Ardan, "where should we be now if it had struck us!"
"You don't mean to say, Barbican," observed M'Nicholl, "that Petit has
seen this very one?"
"So it appears," replied Barbican.
Pages:
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53