Curiosities of Science, Past and Present / A Book for Old and Young

by John Timbs

SPECULATIONS ON VESTA AND PALLAS.

The most remarkable peculiarities of these ultra-zodiacal planets, according to Sir John Herschel, must lie in this condition of their state: a man placed on one of them would spring with ease sixty feet high, and sustain no greater shock in his descent than he does on the earth from leaping a yard. On such planets, giants might exist; and those enormous animals which on the earth require the buoyant power of water to counteract their weight, might there be denizens of the land. But of such speculations there is no end.