"
"Why not?"
"Because the cold and the heat might still manage to be nearly equalized
on our globe. It has been calculated that, had the Earth been carried
off by the comet of '61, when arrived at her greatest distance, she
would have experienced a temperature hardly sixteen times greater than
the heat we receive from the Moon, which, as everybody knows, produces
no appreciable effect, even when concentrated to a focus by the most
powerful lenses."
"Well then," exclaimed Ardan, "at such a temperature--"
"Wait a moment," replied Barbican. "Have you never heard of the
principle of compensation? Listen to another calculation. Had the Earth
been dragged along with the comet, it has been calculated that at her
perihelion, or nearest point to the Sun, she would have to endure a heat
28,000 times greater than our mean summer temperature. But this heat,
fully capable of turning the rocks into glass and the oceans into vapor,
before proceeding to such extremity, must have first formed a thick
interposing ring of clouds, and thus considerably modified the excessive
temperature. Therefore, between the extreme cold of the aphelion and the
excessive heat of the perihelion, by the great law of compensation, it
is probable that the mean temperature would be tolerably endurable.
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