“Departing from Jupiter, our voyagers traversed a space of a hundred millions of leagues, and coasted the planet Mars, which, as is well known, is about one-fifth of the dimensions of our little globe. They saw two moons which attend this planet, and which have escaped the observations of our astronomers. I know very well that Father Castel will write, good-humoredly, of course (et même assez plaisamment), against the existence of these two moons; but I am in accord with those who reason from analogy. Philosophers of this sort know how difficult it would be for Mars, which is so distant from the sun, to get on with less than two moons, at all events.”
Voltaire’s philosophical romance, published in 1752, was imitated from Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels.” It is therefore easy to trace the quotation to the Voyage to Laputa (Chapter III.) in which Swift, writing in 1727, says,—
“Although their largest telescopes do not exceed three feet, they show the stars with great clearness. This advantage has enabled them to extend their discoveries much farther than our astronomers in Europe; for they have made a catalogue of ten thousand fixed stars, whereas the largest of ours do not contain above one-third part of that number. They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half; so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distance from the centre of Mars; which evidently shows them to be governed by the same law of gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies.”
The Suez Canal
In the second part of Marlowe’s “Tamburlaine the Great,” written in 1587, there is a remarkable forecasting of one of the greatest enterprises of modern times, the Suez Canal. In the catastrophe of this powerful drama, Tamburlaine (the historical Timour, or Tamerlane, the “Scourge of God”) being about to die, is made to review his conquests. He calls upon his attendants for a map that he may see how much of the world is left for him to conquer, and may exhibit his plans to his sons for them to execute when he is dead. Placing his finger on the map, he exclaims:
“Here I began to march toward Persia,
Along Armenia and the Caspian Sea,
And thence into Bithynia, where I took
The Turk and his great empress prisoners.
Then marched I into Egypt and Arabia,