On a lark to the planets A sequel to "The wonderful electric elephant"

Nearer and nearer toward strange and unexplored regions, higher and higher sailed the Wonderful Elephant, borne along by the great silken balloon. Harold and Ione, the Prince and the little Princess slept peacefully.

It was midnight by the hands of the clock, but the boundless aerial space through which they sped was lighted by myriads upon myriads of twinkling stars. On and still on through diamond-specked space the Elephant floated safely. Above, below, to right, to left, and round about in all directions, flashing, glittering globes of light were to be seen and of such dazzling hues and colors as had never been dreamed of by earth-bound mortals. The planet Neptune was wrapped in a bluish-green vapor; Uranus seemed a blinding white; Saturn emitted a yellow light; Jupiter shone like a glorious, crimson jewel; Mars blazed forth fiery red beams, while Mercury seemed bathed in a metallic green color.

Our young travelers had watched these silent orbs until from sheer exhaustion they had fallen asleep. Suddenly, with a quick jerk, the balloon came to a dead halt.

“Mercy, what can be the matter!” said Ione, springing up. “Do you suppose that the balloon can’t carry us any higher?”

“I am sure I don’t know,” answered Harold, only half awake, “still it can’t be that, for the old man said he had visited Mars and several other planets. Something must be out of order, however. Wait until I look in his book of directions and find what ought to be done.”

While Harold consulted the book, they all waited in great suspense, for what would become of them all should the balloon fail to carry them on? Their anxiety was soon set at rest, however, for this is what Harold found in the book:

“The atmosphere extends some forty miles above the earth, then an imaginary line is reached beyond which the forces of the earth cease to act; while the Sun, by its great power of attraction, draws everything toward it with irresistible force. If you wish to cross this line and pass upward, use extra pressure and inflate the balloon to its utmost capacity. It will then carry you across and you will find that you are attracted toward the Sun, as before you were attracted toward the earth. Steer for any planet which you wish to visit and you can safely land upon it.”

When Harold stopped reading there was dead silence for a few minutes, then he said, “Prince, will you kindly press that electric button at your right? We can then watch the balloon inflate and carry us over the line.”

Slowly but surely, with much creaking and crackling of the silken cover, the balloon became fully inflated, while the little Princess with strained, frightened eyes watched through one of the peep-holes, in mortal terror lest at each creak it might burst and they be hurled to the earth.

No such thing happened, but instead, the balloon gave a sudden bound and commenced rising at an alarming rate of speed; in fact, so fast were they approaching the Moon that they feared they would dash against one of its mountain tops. Harold found on consulting their time-indicator that they were traveling at a rate of speed equal to that of a ray of light, which is one hundred and sixty thousand miles per second. And it takes light moving at that rate of speed eight minutes and seven seconds to reach the earth.

“Look, every one look!” cried Ione. “What is that glistening, sparkling light that seems to ripple and flow like a stream of water?”

“It is the Milky Way,” said Harold. “From the earth it looks like millions upon billions of stars sweeping a pathway through the heavens, but now that we are nearer, it seems like one continuous stream of silver fire.”

“Isn’t it perfectly beautiful?” exclaimed the girls in chorus.

Looming up before them was what appeared to be a large red island that floated in the heavens as a pond lily floats upon the surface of water. It seemed to get its color, not from anything red upon the island itself, but from red rays of light that fell directly upon it from the planet Mars.

Far in the distance floated other cloud-islands, each bathed in a color corresponding to the hue of the planet from which the rays came. They afterward found that these islands accompanied the different planets in their orbits much as our Moon does the earth. From the earth they have the appearance of stars, not islands.

Look in what direction one would, countless flashing rainbow islands could be seen whirling and twirling in fantastic manner like giant spinning wheels, forming geometric figures of every conceivable design as they sped on their way, while through them all, in imposing, majestic lines swept the planets.

“What do you say to our first visiting the island of Mercury, that being the one nearest the sun, and then taking the others in order?” said Harold.

They all agreed to this plan.

“Now, I am going to state a few astronomical facts, dull as you may find them, for they are things you all should know, and I think the girls have little conception of the millions of miles distant these planets are, or of their size and the time it takes for light from them to reach us.

“Now, just out of curiosity I am going to ask you how large you think these planets are which you look at every night, and how far away they seem. I advise you to begin your guessing about Venus, as it is best seen from here.”

“Well, let me see,” said Ione; “Venus looks to be about the size of a cheese, but, of course, I know that in reality it is almost as large as the earth.”

“Now, princess, what do you say?”

“It looks to me to be about the size of a barrel-head and that it is twice as large as the earth.”

“You are both wrong, and to show you how much you are in error, here are a few figures. Mercury is thirty-six million miles distant from the sun and it takes eighty-eight days to make one revolution in its orbit round the sun, consequently its year is only eighty-eight days, instead of three hundred, sixty-five and one quarter days as ours is. Wouldn’t you like to live where the years were that long? Then you could have four Christmas Days where now you have but one,” said Harold.

“Mercury,” he continued, “has the shortest year of all of the planets and Neptune the longest, its year being sixty thousand, one hundred and twenty-six days in length. Just think, if you lived upon Neptune you would have a Christmas once in about nineteen years reckoned by our time. The length of year varies with the other planets—but enough of statistics. I know they are uninteresting to girls. How would it please you to hurry on to Mercury’s Satellite Island to see what it looks like and if it is inhabited?”

“I am sure it is inhabited,” said the Prince, who was looking through the telescope, “for I can see tall figures moving along its shore.”

Faster and faster sailed the balloon, dragging the Elephant after it until they were within a minute’s distance from the island. Bathed in beautiful clear, greenish-white atmosphere, hundreds of people were standing on the beach of the island, which is swept by mighty currents of air even as our sea shores are swept by the tides, and were watching the approach of the queer-shaped, clumsy object from an unknown world. A little jolt and the Elephant’s feet touched the shore.