Forlong - Rivers of Life

420
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
density is little over that of cork. His distance from the sun is 909 millions of
miles, and we can never see him nearer than 800 millions of miles. His diameter is
76,000 miles, and he has an inner and outer ring of atmosphere—the one 30,000
miles distant from him, and the other 19,000. It is believed that his seasons and
climate are very similar to our own, for there too must be tropical and polar zones
with their varied produce.
Mars revolves outside of us, being 50 millions of miles further from the sun. He
has a denser atmosphere around him than this earth, which probably may account for
his reddish colour. On him we can distinguish masses of greenish blue, and occasionally
brilliant white, which are doubtless seas and snow-clad mountains. His seasons
are very similar to ours, but his speed is less (55,000 miles per hour), so that his year
is nearly double ours, being 687 of his days.
Venus is nearly the same size as the earth, and travels nearer to the sun by 27
millions of miles. Her velocity is 80,000 miles per hour, but the length of her day is
within a few minutes of ours. She has air and clouds, and is therefore, doubtless, a
world somewhat like this, as these imply land and water. She shows us dark and light
phases like the moon, and is sometimes only 26 millions of miles distant from us.
Owing to the inclination of her axis to the ecliptic (75°), ours being only 23½°, Venus
has two winters and two summern in her year of 225 of her days; whilst Jupiter, with
his axis perpendicular to his orbit, has no change in seasons. There is perpetual
summer at his equator, and everlasting winter at his poles. 1
But enough, I wish my readers to bear these facts in mind in weighing
our own little works and ways, our little faiths and persistent dogmatism, and to
consider the greatness of that Creator, Spirit, Ruler, Former, Force, Nature, or
by whatever name we like to call Him—whether dual in matter and spirit, or
both in one,—who has in some inscrutable way set all this stupendous machinery
in motion; yes, and as perfect in its colossal and illimitahle whole, as in its
minutest details,—in the path of the sun through the wastes of space, as in the flash
of the lightning along our wires, or in the structure of the insect’s wing. But I am
wrong in speaking of the “wastes” of space. We know nothing yet as to what fills
the vast expanses, which, to our imperfect vision, seem but an utter blank. These are
probably occupied by multitudes of bodies; for ever and again strange comets and
meteors are observed, as we sweep along in our rotatory and onward path. Let my
readers try fully to realise what all these motion really mean, and what the result of
the sudden disarrangement, not to say stoppage, of any one of them in our own system
would be. If, for instance, the motion of the earth were suspended for the veriest
fraction of a second, the catastrophe would be of so stupendous a nature, that we could
hardly conjecture its effect. What would be the result of the sudden stoppage of an
express train rushing along at even 68 miles per hour to that of the planet we
1
[In his statements over the last few pages, Forlong can of course be excused of being unaware of
astronomical discoveries made since the 1870s. — T.S.]