"Thus, my friends," said Barbicane, "all motion suddenly stopped produces heat. And this theory allows us to infer that the heat of the solar disc is fed by a hail of meteors falling incessantly on its surface. They have even calculated—"
"Oh, dear!" murmured Michel, "the figures are coming."
"They have even calculated," continued the imperturbable Barbicane, "that the shock of each meteor on the sun ought to produce a heat equal to that of 4000 masses of coal of an equal bulk."
"And what is the solar heat?" asked Michel.
"It is equal to that produced by the combustion of a stratum of coal surrounding the sun to a depth of forty-seven miles."
"And that heat—"
"Would be able to boil two billions nine hundred millions of cubic myriameters* of water."
* The myriameter is equal to rather more than 10,936 cubic yards English.—(Ed.)
"And it does not roast us!" exclaimed Michel.
"No," replied Barbicane, "because the terrestrial atmosphere absorbs four-tenths of the solar heat; besides, the quantity of heat intercepted by the earth is but a billionth part of the entire radiation."