The height of the Sun above the horizon is the cause of the excessive heat of the Torrid zone, the moderate heat of the Temperate zone, and the excessive cold within the Polar circles.
When the axis became perpendicular these things would be different. The Sun would remain on the plane of the Equator. All the year round he would pursue his imperturbable twelve-hour course, and rise to a distance from the zenith according to the latitude of the place. In countries of twenty degrees of latitude he would rise seventy degrees above the horizon; in countries of forty-nine degrees of latitude he would rise forty-one; in places of eighty-four degrees he would rise six, and of ninety degrees (the Pole), he would just peep half his diameter above the horizon. The days would be perfectly regular, and the Sun would rise at the same time, and also at the same point on the horizon, throughout the year.
“Look at the advantages!” said the friends of Barbicane. “Every man, according to his temperament, can choose his own climate, which will be invariable!”
Those modern Titans, the North Polar Practical Association, were going to effect a complete change in the state of things which had existed ever since the spheroid had been launched on its orbit to become the Earth as we know it.
The astronomer might lose a few of the familiar constellations; the poet might lose the long winter nights and the long summer days that figure so frequently in modern verse; but what of that when we think of the advantages that would be enjoyed by the majority of the human race?
As the newspapers in the Barbicane interest pointed out, the products of the Earth being reduced to regularity, the farmer could always plant and sow in the most favourable temperature.
“Be it so!” said the opposition. “But are we to have no rains, or hail, or storms, or waterspouts, or other odds and ends that make matters pleasant for the depressed agriculturist?”
“You may have them, of course,” said the Barbicanians, “but they will probably be rarer, owing to the regularity of the climate having its effect on the troubles of the atmosphere! Yes, humanity will profit greatly by the new state of things. It will be quite a transformation of the terrestrial globe. Barbicane & Co. will have conferred much good on the present and future generations by destroying the inequality of the days and nights and the irritating diversity of the seasons!”
And the New York Sun of the 27th of December concluded one of its most eloquent articles:—
“Honour to Impey Barbicane and his colleagues! Not only will they have made the Earth more hygienically habitable, but they will have made it more productive; for then we can sow as soon as we have harvested, for no time will be wasted over the winter. Not only will our coal supplies be increased by the new fields, which will insure a supply for many long years, but the climatal conditions will be altered to our great advantage! Honour, then, to Barbicane & Co., who will take the first rank among the benefactors of mankind!”