Adding a relevant definition of the Sun, and other sky objects, is but following out the line, struck by the first keynote.
In comparison with the present indefinite theory, this illustration far exceeds it in practical demonstration—ever satisfactory to truthful students.
Shelly in the time of Byron voiced this promise of the Arctics.
Poets have sung of its unknown city.
Capital and life have ever embarked for its discovery.
The smoke has cleared, leaving a steady moonlight, brightness intensified. I think to look below and see there a moon, round and glistening, many miles in width, its grandeur startling. Transfixed, I see it grow, as it is plainly coming up higher. To relieve my eyes I look to one side to see its appurtenances, only to find none. The sides of the cavern are far away and undiscernible. I am puzzled. Resolving to understand this unexpected bearing, I look first at my watch. A new puzzle is on its face. Its calendar declares the passage of days since I have been here. I turn square to the beautiful moon beneath me and bravely steady my understanding, for a queer unrest sensation is trying to creep on me.
Though I throw it off, in its terrifying aspect, yet it wraps me round and permeates my consciousness. That this moon, now so quiet and glittering, is not only the fire producing the Aurora smoke, but something more. The painful solicitude of Arc people at letting me do this daring act, that to me looked like mockery, is demonstrative of their better understanding. If Savant knew what was to happen, I cannot say, for I cannot speak to him, nor he to me, nor see each other’s faces. I am alone with the problem I have put myself in. My old statue sense upholds me. I lean on it as I place straight the lines of new knowledge—that the moon I see is not a moon, but the central fire of the whole earth—the molten mass of astronomical science.
That it does not fill the whole center is second new knowledge, for a haze of distance is each side and above, denoting far removal of the earth-crust, egg shell, undiscoverable even by the powerful lens of the crystal globe around me. Central of the earth, it may be thousands of miles below, though slowly growing. My strained eyes take its impress on their inner orbs. Wherever I look it is there. I settle bravely to scan it, enchanted. A new phase comes over it. A flame column is rearing; breaks and sparks fly upward as coals snap outward. Should the latter hit the crust, so far away, it would stir it somewhat, giving the outward inhabitants a shock of earthquake. I have it—this is the cause of earthquakes. Third new knowledge.
Nearer to the flame that now rolls back and forth as if to engulf us, it bends downward on each side as if the space around it were also below it. Thus have I seen our hall lamp do at home when disturbed by air currents.
Lamp! Lamp! Is the earth a lamp?