Episode 5

"Knowing the way you carry things in your mind,and the difficulty of rattling you,"said Cortlandt,"we have dropped in on our way to hear the speech that I would not miss for a fortune.Let us know if we bother you.""Impossible,dear boy,"replied the president genially."Since Isurvived your official investigations,I think I deserve some of your attention informally.""Here are my final examinations,"said Cortlandt,handing Bearwarden a roll of papers."I have been over all your figures,and testify to their accuracy in the appendix I have added."So they sat and chatted about the enterprise that interested Cortlandt and Ayrault almost as much as Bearwarden himself.As the clock struck eleven,the president of the company put on his hat,and,saying au revoir to his friends,crossed the street to the Opera House,in which he was to read a report that would be copied in all the great journals and heard over thousands of miles of wire in every part of the globe.When he arrived,the vast building was already filled with a distinguished company,representing the greatest intelligence,wealth,and powers of the world.Bearwarden went in by the stage entrance,exchanging greetings as he did so with officers of the company and directors who had come to hear him.Cortlandt and Ayrault entered by the regular door,the former going to the Government representatives'box,the latter to join his fiancee,Sylvia Preston,who was there with her mother.Bearwarden had a roll of manu at hand,but so well did he know his speech that he scarcely glanced at it.After being introduced by the chairman of the meeting,and seeing that his audience was all attention,he began,holding himself erect,his clear,powerful voice making every part of the building ring.

CHAPTER III.

PRESIDENT BEARWARDEN'S SPEECH.

"To the Bondholders and Stockholders of the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company and Representatives of Earthly Governments.

"GENTLEMEN:You know that the objects of this company are,to straighten the axis of the earth,to combine the extreme heat of summer with the intense cold of winter and produce a uniform temperature for each degree of latitude the year round.At present the earth's axis--that is,the line passing through its centre and the two poles--is inclined to the ecliptic about twenty-three and a half degrees.Our summer is produced by the northern hemisphere's leaning at that angle towards the sun,and our winter by its turning that much from it.In one case the sun's rays are caused to shine more perpendicularly,and in the other more obliquely.This wabbling,like that of a top,is the sole cause of the seasons;since,owing to the eccentricity of our orbit,the earth is actually fifteen hundred thousand miles nearer the sun during our winter,in the northern hemisphere,than in summer.That there is no limit to a planet's inclination,and that inclination is not essential,we have astronomical proof.Venus's axis is inclined to the plane of her orbit seventy-five degrees,so that the arctic circle comes within fifteen degrees of the equator,and the tropics also extend to latitude seventy-five degrees,or within fifteen degrees of the poles,producing great extremes of heat and cold.

"Venus is made still more difficult of habitation by the fact that she rotates on her axis in the same time that she revolves about the sun,in the same way that the moon does about the earth,so that one side must be perpetually frozen while the other is parched.

"In Uranus we see the axis tilted still further,so that the arctic circle descends to the equator.The most varied climate must therefore prevail during its year,whose length exceeds eighty-one of ours.

The axis of Mars is inclined about twenty-eight and two thirds degrees to the plane of its orbit;consequently its seasons must be very similar to ours,the extremes of heat and cold being somewhat greater.

"In Jupiter we have an illustration of a planet whose axis is almost at right angles to the plane of its orbit,being inclined but about a degree and a half.The hypothetical inhabitants of this majestic planet must therefore have perpetual summer at the equator,eternal winter at the poles,and in the temperate regions everlasting spring.On account of the straightness of the axis,however,even the polar inhabitants--if there are any--are not oppressed by a six months'night,for all except those at the VERY pole have a sunrise and a sunset every ten hours--the exact day being nine hours,fifty five minutes,and twenty-eight seconds.The warmth of the tropics is also tempered by the high winds that must result from the rapid whirl on its axis,every object at the equator being carried around by this at the rate of 27,600miles an hour,or over three thousand miles farther than the earth's equator moves in twenty-four hours.

"The inclination of the axis of our own planet has also frequently considerably exceeded that of Mars,and again has been but little greater than Jupiter's at least,this is by all odds the most reasonable explanation of the numerous Glacial periods through which our globe has passed,and of the recurring mild spells,probably lasting thousands of years,in which elephants,mastodons,and other semi-tropical vertebrates roamed in Siberia,some of which died so recently that their flesh,preserved by the cold,has been devoured by the dogs of modern explorers.