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278 Stories To Learn About Machine Learning

Effortlessly Launch LangChain APIs with LangServe and MinIO Integration

অনায়াসে LangServe এবং MinIO ইন্টিগ্রেশন সহ LangChain API চালু করুন

Müheloses Starten von LangChain-APIs mit LangServe- und MinIO-Integration

Lance las API de LangChain sin esfuerzo con la integración de LangServe y MinIO

Lancez sans effort les API LangChain avec l'intégration LangServe et MinIO

LangServe और MinIO एकीकरण के साथ LangChain API को आसानी से लॉन्च करें

LangServe と MinIO の統合により LangChain API を簡単に起動

LangServe 및 MinIO 통합을 통해 LangChain API를 손쉽게 실행

Inicie APIs LangChain sem esforço com integração LangServe e MinIO

Легко запускайте API-интерфейсы LangChain с интеграцией LangServe и MinIO.

LangServe ve MinIO Entegrasyonu ile LangChain API'lerini Zahmetsizce Başlatın

Dễ dàng khởi chạy API LangChain với tích hợp LangServe và MinIO

通过 LangServe 和 MinIO 集成轻松启动 LangChain API

Quality is critical when it comes to releasing any software, whether it’s in order to ensure an excellent experience of your product with minimal bugs, or even for security reasons, and it’s been well established that good code comes coupled with good tests. The hierarchy of tests as they relate to quality assurance are from unit tests through E2E testing, so just so we’re on the same page––I’ll briefly dive into each, and why the ultimate goal is to reach E2E testing of your product. Unit tests are at the bottom of the pyramid, as they’re just what they sound like, the smallest self-contained unit of testing. This means that you take the component or piece of code that you wrote, and test it as a standalone unit. This code is completely disconnected from anything else in the software stack and system it is going to live in, and the tests check if it performs as expected, as a standalone entity. Once we complete this basic testing of our code, we need to dive a little deeper, and test the code with more context of where it is actually going to exist in the stack, and this is where integration testing comes in. Integration testing is when we start integrating our code with other modules and services to see how it performs and functions in a more realistic ecosystem. While these can provide some context, they still need to be fast, and so they really don’t cover all scenarios, and don’t cover how users interact with your product at all. While some would argue that unit tests are the simplest unit of testing, sometimes you need to actually write mock modules to ensure the code actually works, whereas with integration tests you plug into actual existing modules. At this point you verify that your assumptions when mocking and injecting dependencies for unit testing do hold. So it’s a toss up - but both of these test types usually present fairly different challenges than end-to-end (E2E) testing. E2E testing is likely the most important testing you will need to perform on your product. It’s mission-critical to the company to ensure that the core business and value you are trying to provide the end-user is fulfilled. It involves simulating the end user as closely as possible, and ensuring the product works as expected––with many considerations in mind: usability, performance, user experience, and much more. E2E testing usually involves the impersonation of an end-user journey, such as logging in, integrating it with the user's existing environment, interacting with it and much more. Since there is so much involved with getting this right, and extracting realistic results, many companies choose to do this manually. Companies usually employ QA teams whose sole purpose is to spin up the product in testing environments, and use the product like a regular user. However, what the company will quickly discover is that they need to do this at a greater velocity and scale that doesn’t keep up, with repeated ticket back-and-forths between the QA and Engineering teams and this is a tedious and tiresome process that largely just frustrates engineers. So they decide to automate the tests, by creating a test automation team. At Diversion, as an early stage startup, we needed all our engineers focused on writing great code to reach our product release targets quickly. However, we knew we couldn’t compromise quality, so we went to work designing a solution for automating our E2E tests from day one. We’ll walk you through how we built and automated our E2E testing framework with Docker Compose, RPyC, and Puppeteer. Automate All the Tests It’s core to our philosophy that developers should be happy, and enjoy their day to day work. Yet, as engineering managers, one of the most common sources of pain for developers is testing which we can’t compromise on. Automation is a great way to remove human error from all processes, as well as streamline repeatable processes, and remove the pain of manual testing. We understood that if we invest in the technical design of our test automation, we would be able to offload this from our engineers. In addition, by automating our E2E we created greater satisfaction and ownership of our product by our engineers, who focus on building an excellent product, with built-in quality guardrails while minimizing friction. However, automating the end-to-end user experience of your product is quite challenging. We needed to ensure the testing covers all of the critical parts in the chain of the E2E user flow and the typical operations they would perform, such as: signing in and entering credentials in a web page, checking file system operations such as creating a file, writing to it and then moving it somewhere, make this happen on several machines in parallel, and enabling these machines to communicate with each other. On top of this, we needed to be able to trust the accuracy of the results. The Stack After some research and understanding of what we need to design and build, we chose , , and for our test automation suite. Docker Compose RPyC Puppeteer The tech stack for our E2E testing is completely independent of the stack we chose for our product of course (we’ll dive into this in a separate post), and it can run with any product that is able to run Docker and Docker Compose in their environment. We chose Docker Compose because the service requires several hosts to be spun up and communicate with each other. Docker Compose provides a convenient solution for this, as it sets up a for your application by default. single flat network This means that each container for a service joins a default network and is reachable by other containers on that network at a hostname identical to the container name. Docker Compose is also a very popular tool in the ecosystem, so it was easy to integrate and run it with other popular CI tools like Github Actions. Making the automation really easy to set up. RPyC enabled us to run the test scenario from a single script, as one host can control other hosts that participate in the test script. Much of our backend code is Python, so this was a sensible choice for us, as the entire team is comfortable with it. RPyC also enables us to do any random operations we need from within the testing scenario, such as executing any binary. Puppeteer is an automation tool for Chrome that enables you to take control of web pages, and is able to click buttons, fill in forms, and perform other web-based actions. When you start using the , the sign-in process takes you from the terminal to a webpage for authentication. It then uses a Proof Key for Code Exchange flow ( ) to fetch the credentials from the server. Puppeteer enabled us to emulate a user performing the web sign-in process. Diversion CLI RFC7636 Show Me the Code We launch three services, one for Puppeteer, and the other two are the mock users/participants in the test scenario (we create two machines for the same user). Next we dive into the different parts of this test scenario setup. # docker-compose.yml
version: '3'

services:
 cli-1:
   image: cli_user_image
   build:
     context: .
     dockerfile: Dockerfile.cli
   volumes:
     - ../:/repos/diversion
   environment:
     - AWS_REGION  # forward AWS credentials, for accessing AWS Secrets Manager
     - AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
     - AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
   command: >
     sh -c "REPOS_PATH=/repos/dv_repos &&
           /repos/diversion/system-tests/prepare_test_env.sh &&
           cd /repos/diversion/system-tests/tests/ &&
           su -c 'dv login' cliuser &&
           su -c 'rpyc_classic.py --host 0.0.0.0' cliuser"
 cli-2:
   image: cli_user_image
   volumes:
     - ../:/repos/diversion
   environment:
     ...  # same vars
   command: >
     sh -c "REPOS_PATH=/repos/dv_repos &&
           /repos/diversion/system-tests/prepare_test_env.sh &&
           cd /repos/diversion/system-tests/tests/ &&
           su -c 'dv login' cliuser &&
           REPOS_PATH=$$REPOS_PATH PLAYER2_RPYC=cli-2 su -c 'python3 -m unittest discover .' cliuser"
 puppeteer:
   build:
     context: .
     dockerfile: Dockerfile.puppeteer
   stdin_open: true
   cap_add:
     - SYS_ADMIN
   depends_on:
     - 'cli-1'
     - 'cli-2'
   volumes:
     - ../:/repos/diversion
   environment:
     ...  # same vars
   command: >
     sh -c 'cd /usr/app &&
           /repos/diversion/system-tests/wait_for_it.sh --strict --timeout=240 cli-2:5002 &&
           LOGIN_PW=$$(aws secretsmanager get-secret-value --secret-id test/e2e/login | jq -r .SecretString | jq -r .password) &&
           node --unhandled-rejections=strict ./loginscript.js $$(nc -w 1 cli-1 5001) "$$LOGIN_PW" &&
           /repos/diversion/system-tests/wait_for_it.sh --strict --timeout=120 cli-1:5002 &&
           node --unhandled-rejections=strict ./loginscript.js $$(nc -w 1 cli-2 5001) "$$LOGIN_PW"' The first CLI instance signs in, then opens an RPyC socket, and is then controlled by the test scenario on the other CLI instance. For signing in, our CLI calls on Linux machines with a preconfigured URL. xdg-open To automate it, we placed the following script at : /usr/bin/xdg-open #!/usr/bin/env bash
# xdg-open override
nohup sh -c "echo '""$1""' | nc -l 5001" >/dev/null 2>&1 &
nohup sh -c "echo ready | nc -l 5002" >/dev/null 2>&1 & When the CLI calls , this script publishes the sign-in URL on port 5001 using , then announces that the address is available via port 5002: xdg-open <url> netcat This is then used in the puppeteer service, as we see in the docker-compose file: it first waits for the URL to be available by calling (project on Github) on port 5002 of host cli-1, then reads the address that should be opened from port 5001 ( ) and passes it to . wait_for_it.sh $$(nc -w 1 cli-2 5001) loginscript.js The puppeteer login script is pretty straightforward, feeding the sign-in form with the credentials. This is the gist of it: // loginscript.js
const signInUrl = myArgs[0];
await page.goto(signInUrl);
try {
 await page.waitForSelector('input[name=username]', {timeout: 1000});
 await page.type('input[name=username]', 'testuser');
 await page.waitForSelector('input[name=password]');
 const pw = myArgs[1];
 await page.type('input[name=password]', pw);
 await page.click('input[name=signInSubmitButton]');
} catch (error) { // User is already signed in and all we're getting is a "Sign in as <user>" button
 await page.waitForSelector('input[type=Submit]');
 await page.click('input[type=Submit]');
} After both clients have signed in, it’s time to run the actual scenarios. Below is a snippet of the system tests. It starts by connecting to the other machine in , then runs a test involving two clients for a single user. setUpClass Note how uses the RPyC socket to execute CLI commands on the other machine: dv_runner_remote dv # test_system.py

class SystemTest(unittest.TestCase):
   TEST_REPO_NAME = 'test-repo'
   TEST_REPO_DIR = f'./{TEST_REPO_NAME}'

   @classmethod
   def setUpClass(cls) -> None:
       cls.player2 = rpyc.classic.connect(os.environ['PLAYER2_RPYC'])

   def test_create_move(self):
       dv_runner_local = DvRunner(subprocess.run)
       dv_runner_remote = DvRunner(self.player2.modules.subprocess.run)

       # clone the repo
       resp = dv_runner_local.run('clone', SystemTest.TEST_REPO_NAME)
       self.assertTrue(os.path.exists(f'{SystemTest.TEST_REPO_DIR}'),
                       f'stdout: {resp.stdout}, stderr: {resp.stderr}')

       # create a file, then move it to a new dir
       os.mkdir(f'{SystemTest.TEST_REPO_DIR}/test-dir/')
       with open(f'{SystemTest.TEST_REPO_DIR}/test-dir/test-file', 'w') as f:
           f.write('test-content')
       os.mkdir(f'{SystemTest.TEST_REPO_DIR}/test-dir2')
       shutil.move(f'{SystemTest.TEST_REPO_DIR}/test-dir/test-file',
                   f'{SystemTest.TEST_REPO_DIR}/test-dir2/test-file')

       # clone the repo on the other machine
       resp = dv_runner_remote.run('clone', SystemTest.TEST_REPO_NAME)
       self.assertTrue(self.player2.modules.os.path.exists(f'{SystemTest.TEST_REPO_DIR}'), resp.stdout)
       self.player2.modules.os.chdir(SystemTest.TEST_REPO_DIR)

       # ensure the file is in the right location
       self.assertTrue(self.player2.modules.os.path.exists(f'{SystemTest.TEST_REPO_DIR}/test-dir2/test-file'))

       # delete the repo
       player2_status = dv_runner_remote.run('status')
       repo_id = re.findall(r'(dv.repo.\S)', player2_status.stdout)[0]
       resp = dv_runner_remote.run('repo', '-d', repo_id) With this stack we were able to simulate E2E testing of our CLI with a web-based login, and this is applicable for any similar application. This general framework can be leveraged to solve many other use cases as well, for example if you need to perform an action from a CLI and verify it propagated in a webpage, synchronize actions across multiple machines from one central script, etc. This framework manages to reduce the daunting task of E2E tests to a nearly self-contained unit, very similar to unit testing. With all of the relevant services and components connected and communicating with each other, you can write these tests quickly and simply just like unit tests. This is a sweet spot for developers, and the testing realm they feel most comfortable with, as it is much more native to their workflows, and with the automation it is much more scalable than manual QA. The E2E testing also provides as close a replication of the product journey as possible. This ensures that our developer experience and product quality are always at the core of our engineering. Special thanks to Alon Regev and Avi Mastov for their feedback on this article. Previously published here.

How We Automated our End-to-End Testing from the First Line of Code 

I am sure you would have thought to yourself, "How has COVID-19 impacted our lives?" Particularly, just like me, you would be curious to know the impact on our work-life. This bugged me a few weeks back and the result of that thought is this dashboard: . Pretty stoked about what we have here. Do take a look! COVID-19 State of Work But let’s back up a bit. How did I go about doing this and also what are the insights from the analysis? Why was I thinking about this? To reduce the length of this newsletter, I decided that if you want to know what prompted me to go through this exercise, you can find it . Don’t want you to be unnecessarily overwhelmed by the amount of information coming your way 🙂 here Firstly, let’s establish who took the survey Around the 24th of April, we released the survey and distributed it across various channels. Since almost every individual was a good candidate for the survey, in a little over two weeks 892 people filled the form. The demographics of the participants are as follows: : Majority were from Asia (44%) and North America (34%). Europe constituted about 19% and Africa the least at 3%. : Respondents were almost equally distributed between startups (<200 employees) at 48% and large companies (500+ employees) at 44%. : As expected (and to be honest, slightly feared :P), individuals in the Engineering function formed a large part of the survey at 33%. The other functions were more equally distributed: Product (12%), Sales (13%), Marketing (12%) and Strategy (14%). Geography Company size Function Let’s get to the insights! I would suggest that you open the dashboard and follow the below insights along with it. If you don’t have too much time, I would suggest you go through only the bolded points :-). Anyway, without further ado, here is what we observed. A) Individual’s perspective Firstly, what did individuals have to say about themselves: 1) About half were absolute remote amateurs We had almost an equal-split in the “remote experience” of individuals. While 54% already had some experience of working remotely, 46% were suddenly finding themselves in unchartered territories. This itself highlights the magnitude of the challenge faced by the workforce today. 2) An overwhelming number would like a mix of office & remote work in the future Sure, going to office isn’t the happiest thought. However, staying put at home isn’t that great either. Two-thirds stated they would like a mix of the two! About 13% said this way of working has not worked for them at all, with only 20% saying that they would like to continue working fully-remote. 3) Productivity has not been severely impacted for most The biggest question that I had was how people were coping up with work. Surprisingly, only a paltry 14% said that their productivity was lesser than before. A third said that it has more or less been the same and another third shared that it sort of depends on the day (doesn’t it always 😉). 4) Many are working more hours than before The picture of remote work being about a person drinking a Pina Colada on a beach is finally being debunked. 32% said that they are consistently working more hours every day! In comparison only 20% said that they are working for lesser hours than before. 5) Work and personal time just can’t be separated OR can they? A third of the respondents said that the biggest challenge they have faced is being able to separate “work-time” from “personal-time”. This is totally a genuine problem and needs a concerted effort to solve. Given that both work and personal time now occur in the same place, a conscious demarcation is needed, otherwise, they merge into a continuum. B) Company’s perspective I found the above results quite interesting. But an individual is just one part of the problem or solution. How did companies react to the sudden change? 1) Two-third companies already had some experience in working remotely As can be expected, companies already had at least a partial work-from-home set up available for employees. Therefore, they already had exposure to handling some aspects of remote work. However, a third of the companies are going into this blind, with no prior experience of working remotely in any form. 2) Teams have managed to quickly adapt themselves to the new setting More than half of the respondents agreed that their team and company didn’t have any prior experience in working remotely. Yet, they were able to quickly set up practices to work successfully. Just about 17% companies were having problems with the remote work set up. This, while quite surprising, is a very encouraging sign! 3) 50% of companies have changed their remote work policies permanently In probably the biggest impact for me, ~50% of companies have either started to adopt some aspect of remote working or are further increasing their remote working exposure. This further highlights the fact that remote work might be quite mainstream in a not very distant future. 4) Companies have learnt to be better prepared for such situations 54% of companies have taken a concerted effort to be prepared for any such future situations. Employees have been communicated about the associated measures. Worryingly, 24% of companies have not taken any such measures. This is surely the time to analyze and make systemic changes in the company 😕 Closing words Our lives have been significantly impacted. I do imagine our personal lives to revert to “normalcy” in a few years. As individuals, we have short memories and are also more flexible to change. However, the way we work has been influenced in some permanent ways. These changes are here to stay. Want interesting articles like this in your inbox every Wednesday? Subscribe here .

COVID-19 State of Work: How is everyone coping with sudden remoteness? 🤔

Authors:
(1) Yingxu He, Department of Computer Science National University of Singapore {e0139128@u.nus.edu};
(2) Qiqi Sun, College of Life Sciences Nankai University {sunqiqi1018@gmail.com}. Table of Links Abstract and Intro
Methodology
References Abstract Automatic image captioning is a promising technique for conveying visual information using natural language. It can benefit various tasks in satellite remote sensing, such as environmental monitoring, resource management, disaster management, etc. However, one of the main challenges in this domain is the lack of large-scale image-caption datasets, as they require a lot of human expertise and effort to create. Recent research on large language models (LLMs) has demonstrated their impressive performance in natural language understanding and generation tasks. Nonetheless, most of them cannot handle images (GPT-3.5, Falcon, Claude, etc.), while conventional captioning models pre-trained on general ground-view images often fail to produce detailed and accurate captions for aerial images (BLIP, GIT, CM3, CM3Leon, etc.). To address this problem, we propose a novel approach: Automatic Remote Sensing Image Captioning (ARSIC) to automatically collect captions for remote sensing images by guiding LLMs to describe their object annotations. We also present a benchmark model that adapts the pre-trained generative image2text model (GIT) to generate high-quality captions for remote-sensing images. Our evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach for collecting captions for remote sensing images. Many previous studies have shown that LLMs such as GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 are good at understanding semantics but struggle with numerical data and complex reasoning. To overcome this limitation, ARSIC leverages external APIs to perform simple geographical analysis on images, such as object relations and clustering. We perform clustering on the objects and present the significant geometric relations for LLM to make summarizations. The final output of the LLM is several captions that describe the image, which will be further ranked and shortlisted based on language fluency and consistency with the original image. We fine-tune a pre-trained generative image2text (GIT) model on 7 thousand and 2 thousand image-caption pairs from the Xview and DOTA datasets, which contain satellite images with bounding box annotations for various objects, such as vehicles, constructions, ships, etc. We evaluate our approach on the RSICD dataset, a benchmark dataset for satellite image captioning with 10,892 images and 31,783 captions annotated by human experts. We remove captions with unseen object types from the training data and obtain 1746 images with more than 5 thousand captions, where we achieve a CIDEr-D score of 85.93, demonstrating the effectiveness and potential of our approach for automatic image captioning in satellite remote sensing. Overall, this work presents a feasible way to guide them to interpret geospatial datasets and generate accurate image captions for training end-to-end image captioning models. Our approach reduces the need for human annotation and can be easily applied to datasets or domains. 1. Introduction Satellite remote sensing is essential in numerous fields, such as disaster management, environmental monitoring, and resource management. It involves analyzing images captured from space, focusing on detecting and classifying objects on Earth’s surface to produce useful spatial information. As these images can contain a rich amount of data, automatic image captioning has emerged as an efficient method to interpret and convey the visual information in these images using natural language. Despite its significant potential, a major challenge in automatic image captioning in satellite remotesensing images is the scarcity of large-scale image-caption datasets. Creating such datasets is labor-intensive and demands significant human expertise. Often, pre-existing models, such as GPT3.5[7], Falcon, and Claude, fall short in their applicability as they are not equipped to interpret numerical data or carry out complex reasoning. Similarly, models like BLIP[5], GIT[9], CM3[1], and CM3Leon[12] that are pre-trained on general ground-view images struggle to generate precise captions for aerial images. These limitations make it challenging to achieve high-quality automatic captioning for remote-sensing images. To confront this issue, in this study, we propose a novel approach: Automatic Remote Sensing Image Captioning (ARSIC), which leverages both large language models and satellite data to generate high-quality captions for remote sensing images efficiently. Our contributions are threefold. First, we develop several geographical analysis APIs to detect clusters, identify shapes formed by objects, and calculate distances to offer an enhanced understanding of the image. Second, we automate the process of caption collection by guiding large language models to summarize the results from the geographical APIs into captions. This reduces the need for human annotation considerably. Lastly, we provide a benchmark by finetuning a generative image2text (GIT) model on image-caption pairs collected following our ARSIC approach from the Xview[4] and DOTA[2] datasets and tailored to generate high-quality and accurate captions for aerial images. The effectiveness of our approach is validated through rigorous testing on the RSICD[6] test dataset, setting a new benchmark CIDEr-D[8] score in the field. In summary, our work presents an innovative approach towards interpreting and captioning remote sensing images - a method that is not only promising for optimizing end-to-end image captioning models but also flexible enough to be applied across datasets or domains. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. Authors: (1) Yingxu He, Department of Computer Science National University of Singapore {e0139128@u.nus.edu}; (2) Qiqi Sun, College of Life Sciences Nankai University {sunqiqi1018@gmail.com}. Authors: Authors: (1) Yingxu He, Department of Computer Science National University of Singapore {e0139128@u.nus.edu}; (2) Qiqi Sun, College of Life Sciences Nankai University {sunqiqi1018@gmail.com}. Table of Links Abstract and Intro Methodology References Abstract and Intro Abstract and Intro Methodology Methodology References References Abstract Automatic image captioning is a promising technique for conveying visual information using natural language. It can benefit various tasks in satellite remote sensing, such as environmental monitoring, resource management, disaster management, etc. However, one of the main challenges in this domain is the lack of large-scale image-caption datasets, as they require a lot of human expertise and effort to create. Recent research on large language models (LLMs) has demonstrated their impressive performance in natural language understanding and generation tasks. Nonetheless, most of them cannot handle images (GPT-3.5, Falcon, Claude, etc.), while conventional captioning models pre-trained on general ground-view images often fail to produce detailed and accurate captions for aerial images (BLIP, GIT, CM3, CM3Leon, etc.). To address this problem, we propose a novel approach: Automatic Remote Sensing Image Captioning (ARSIC) to automatically collect captions for remote sensing images by guiding LLMs to describe their object annotations. We also present a benchmark model that adapts the pre-trained generative image2text model (GIT) to generate high-quality captions for remote-sensing images. Our evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach for collecting captions for remote sensing images. Many previous studies have shown that LLMs such as GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 are good at understanding semantics but struggle with numerical data and complex reasoning. To overcome this limitation, ARSIC leverages external APIs to perform simple geographical analysis on images, such as object relations and clustering. We perform clustering on the objects and present the significant geometric relations for LLM to make summarizations. The final output of the LLM is several captions that describe the image, which will be further ranked and shortlisted based on language fluency and consistency with the original image. We fine-tune a pre-trained generative image2text (GIT) model on 7 thousand and 2 thousand image-caption pairs from the Xview and DOTA datasets, which contain satellite images with bounding box annotations for various objects, such as vehicles, constructions, ships, etc. We evaluate our approach on the RSICD dataset, a benchmark dataset for satellite image captioning with 10,892 images and 31,783 captions annotated by human experts. We remove captions with unseen object types from the training data and obtain 1746 images with more than 5 thousand captions, where we achieve a CIDEr-D score of 85.93, demonstrating the effectiveness and potential of our approach for automatic image captioning in satellite remote sensing. Overall, this work presents a feasible way to guide them to interpret geospatial datasets and generate accurate image captions for training end-to-end image captioning models. Our approach reduces the need for human annotation and can be easily applied to datasets or domains. 1. Introduction Satellite remote sensing is essential in numerous fields, such as disaster management, environmental monitoring, and resource management. It involves analyzing images captured from space, focusing on detecting and classifying objects on Earth’s surface to produce useful spatial information. As these images can contain a rich amount of data, automatic image captioning has emerged as an efficient method to interpret and convey the visual information in these images using natural language. Despite its significant potential, a major challenge in automatic image captioning in satellite remotesensing images is the scarcity of large-scale image-caption datasets. Creating such datasets is labor-intensive and demands significant human expertise. Often, pre-existing models, such as GPT3.5[7], Falcon, and Claude, fall short in their applicability as they are not equipped to interpret numerical data or carry out complex reasoning. Similarly, models like BLIP[5], GIT[9], CM3[1], and CM3Leon[12] that are pre-trained on general ground-view images struggle to generate precise captions for aerial images. These limitations make it challenging to achieve high-quality automatic captioning for remote-sensing images. To confront this issue, in this study, we propose a novel approach: Automatic Remote Sensing Image Captioning (ARSIC), which leverages both large language models and satellite data to generate high-quality captions for remote sensing images efficiently. Our contributions are threefold. First, we develop several geographical analysis APIs to detect clusters, identify shapes formed by objects, and calculate distances to offer an enhanced understanding of the image. Second, we automate the process of caption collection by guiding large language models to summarize the results from the geographical APIs into captions. This reduces the need for human annotation considerably. Lastly, we provide a benchmark by finetuning a generative image2text (GIT) model on image-caption pairs collected following our ARSIC approach from the Xview[4] and DOTA[2] datasets and tailored to generate high-quality and accurate captions for aerial images. The effectiveness of our approach is validated through rigorous testing on the RSICD[6] test dataset, setting a new benchmark CIDEr-D[8] score in the field. In summary, our work presents an innovative approach towards interpreting and captioning remote sensing images - a method that is not only promising for optimizing end-to-end image captioning models but also flexible enough to be applied across datasets or domains. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

Towards Automatic Satellite Images Captions Generation Using LLMs: Abstract & Introduction

স্বয়ংক্রিয় স্যাটেলাইট ইমেজ ক্যাপশন জেনারেশন ব্যবহার করে এলএলএমের দিকে: বিমূর্ত ও ভূমিকা

Auf dem Weg zur automatischen Generierung von Bildunterschriften für Satellitenbilder mithilfe von LLMs: Zusammenfassung und Einführung

Hacia la generación automática de subtítulos de imágenes satelitales mediante LLM: resumen e introducción

Vers la génération automatique de légendes d'images satellites à l'aide de LLM : résumé et introduction

एलएलएम का उपयोग करके स्वचालित उपग्रह चित्र कैप्शन निर्माण की ओर: सार और परिचय

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Scientific American, Vol. XXXIX. No. 6. [New Series.], August 10, 1878, by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . A VELOCIPEDE FEAT EXTRAORDINARY. here A VELOCIPEDE FEAT EXTRAORDINARY. Two intrepid velocipedists, M. le Baron Emanuel de Graffenried de Burgenstein, aged twenty years and six months, and a member of the Society of Velocipede Sport, of Paris, has accomplished, with M. A. Laumaillé d'Angers, the greatest distance that has been made with a velocipede in France. Leaving Paris on March 16, they returned on the 24th of April, after having traveled a distance of more than three thousand miles. Their route extended through a part of the west, the middle, and the south of France, Italy, and southern Switzerland. They traveled through Orléans, Tours, Poitiers, Angoulême, Bordeaux, Montauban, Toulouse, Montpellier, Marseilles, Toulon, Nice, Menton, San-Remo, Genoa, Turin, Milan, the Simplon—where they barely escaped destruction by an avalanche—Vevay, Berne, Lausanne, Geneva, Dijon, Troy, and Provins. The longest distance that they accomplished in a single day, was between Turin and Milan, a distance of 90 miles, which they made in 9-1/2 hours. Superior Excellence of American Goods. The , of Birmingham, England, remarks with regard to American competition, that "perhaps the most humiliating feature of the business for British manufacturers is the fact that their competitors are prevailing, not through the cheapness, but through the excellence of their goods. Time was when English workmanship ranked second to none, and the names of our great manufacturing firms were a guarantee for the sterling quality of the goods they turned out; but competitions, trades unions, piece work, short hours, and other incidents of the 'march of progress' have altered all that. Complaints, received by hardware merchants from their customers abroad, are not confined to the goods of second class firms. Manufacturers who have obtained a world-wide reputation for their products are frequently convicted of sending out scamped and unfinished work, and they do not venture to deny the impeachment, pleading only that the most vigilant must be sometimes at fault, and that their men, unfortunately, are not to be depended upon. In other cases it is the merchants or their customers who are to blame for the inferior quality of the articles by cutting prices so low as to preclude the possibility of honest work, thinking, probably, that anything is good enough for a foreign or colonial market. But whatever the cause, the fact is now undeniable, that a great deal of the manufactured produce shipped from this country of late years has been of a very low standard, and that the American manufacturers have consequently had an easy task in beating it." Post Petroleum Oils as Lubricators. Oils from petroleum are now produced suitable for nearly every mechanical process for which animal oils have heretofore been used, not excepting those intended for cylinder purposes. A serious objection attaching to the animal oils is present in petroleum. If, through the exhaust steam, some of the oil be carried into the boiler, foaming or priming is the consequence, but the same thing happening in the case of petroleum is rather a benefit than otherwise, for it not only does not cause foaming, but it prevents incrustation or adhesion of the scale or deposit, and this aids in the preservation of the boiler, and is perhaps the best preventive of the many everywhere suggested. Often, in removing the cylinder head and the plate covering the valves of an engine, we see evidences of corrosion or action on the surfaces, differing entirely from ordinary wear, and the engineer is generally at a loss how to account for it. According to the general impression grease or animal oil is the preservative of the metal, and is the last thing suspected of being the cause of its general disintegration. The reason of this is that vegetable and animal oils consist of fatty acids, such as stearic, magaric, oleic, etc. They are combined with glycerin as a base, and, under ordinary conditions, are neutrals to metals generally, and on being applied they keep them from rusting by shielding them from the action of air and moisture. But in the course of time the influence of the air causes decomposition and oxidation, the oils become rancid, as it is called, which is acid, and they act on the metals. What happens at the ordinary temperature slowly goes on rapidly in the steam cylinder, where a new condition is reached. The oils are subjected to the heat of high pressure steam, which dissociates or frees these acids from their base, and in this condition they attack the metal and hence destroy it. This applies as well to vegetable as to oils of animal origin, fish or sperm oil included. Petroleum and oils derived therefrom (generally called mineral oils) are entirely free from this objection. Petroleum contains no oxygen, and hence it cannot form an acid, and therefore cannot attack metal. It is entirely neutral, and so bland that it may be and is used medicinally as a dressing to wounds and badly abraded surfaces where cerates of ordinary dressing would give pain.— Coal Trade Journal. Influence of Light on Plants and Animals. Professor Paul Bert, who has recently devoted a great deal of attention to the study of the influence of light on animals and plants, denies that the leaves of the sensitive plant close on the approach of evening, the same as if they had been touched by the hand. On the contrary, he finds that from 9 in the evening, after drooping, they expand again and attain the maximum of rigidity at 2 in the morning. What is commonly called the "sensitiveness" of plants is but the external manifestations of the influences of light. Professor Bert placed plants in lanterns of different colored glass; those under the influence of green glass drooped in the course of a few days as completely as if placed in utter darkness, proving that green rays are useless, and equal to none at all. In a few weeks all plants without exception thus treated died. It has been proved by the experiments of Zimiriareff that the reducing power of the green matter of plants is proportionate to the quantity of red rays absorbed, and Bert shows that green glass precisely intercepts these colored rays, and that plants exist more or less healthily in blue and violet rays. In the animal world phenomena of a directly opposite nature are found, and of a more complex character. Here the light acts on the skin and the movements of the body, either directly or through the visual organs. M. Pouchet has shown the changes in color that certain animals undergo, according to the medium in which they live. For instance, young turbots resting on white sand assume an ashy tint, but when resting on a black bottom become brown; when deprived of its eyes the fish exhibits no change of color in its skin; the phenomenon, therefore, seems to be nervous or optical. Professor Bert placed a piece of paper with a cut design on the back of a sleeping chameleon; on bringing a lamp near the animal the skin gradually became brown, and on removing the paper a well defined image of the pattern appeared. In this case the light acted directly, and without nervous intervention. If, however, the eye of the chameleon be extracted, the corresponding side of the animal becomes insensible to the influence of the light. Professor Bert's conclusion, therefore, is that the circulation in the transparent layers of the skin must be affected by light. According to Dr. Bouchard a sunstroke is the effect of the direct action of light upon the skin, produced by the blue and violet rays. The heat producing rays have no part in such accidents, as proved by the fact that workmen exposed to intense heats do not feel their fatal effect. Professor Bert, in a series of experiments on a variety of animals, found that none avoided light, but all rather sought it; and the lowest forms, like the highest, absorbed the same rays. As regards intensity of color, however, there was a difference, some being more partial to one ray than another. Thus the microscopic daphne of the pond preferred yellow; violet was less in request; spiders seemed to enjoy blue rather than red rays—so resembling people suffering from color blindness. No two persons are sensible to the same shades or tones, while absorbing the same light; and this would seem to indicate that the retina possesses a selective power. New Mechanical Inventions. An improved Weighing Scale has been patented by Hosea Willard, of Vergennes, Vt. The object of this invention is to economize time in ascertaining the weight of an article by avoiding the necessity for shifting the poise on the scale beam. It consists in providing a scale beam with a number of dishes suspended from different points on said beam, and representing or corresponding with different weights, so that the weight of an article may be ascertained by placing it in one or more of said dishes and observing which dish is depressed. William John, of Rigdon, Ind., has patented an improved Tire Setting and Cooling Apparatus, by which the tire may be set by one person, easily and quickly, without burning the fellies, and without straining the wheel by the unequal cooling of the tire. Joseph A. Mumford, of Avondale, Nova Scotia, Canada, has patented an improved machine for Sawing and Jointing Shingles. This machine cannot be properly described without engravings. It has an ingenious feeding device, and its flywheel carries the jointing knives. Ill-balanced Production. The Philadelphia sensibly remarks that the popular complaint of over-production is a mistake. Though of a few things we make or mine too much, our main trouble arises from not producing enough, in variety if not in quantity. Record "The wants of mankind never can be satisfied. Every new means of supplying a want creates new wants. They grow by what they feed on. As long as humanity is so constituted, over-production, in a general and enlarged sense, is impossible. It is this impossible thing with which the reformers would deal who propose to work fewer hours each day, or fewer hours in the week. The trouble they deplore does not exist; the remedy they propose defeats itself. A man cannot get rid of his load by shifting it from his right hand to his left hand. Production will not be stopped by making men their own employers certain hours in the day or certain days in the week, instead of allowing them to pursue their usual avocations. "The real trouble, which the labor reformers seem incompetent to fathom, is that there is not enough diversity in employments. What is desired is more work in productive enterprises, a more diffused industry, and a closer commercial connection with those countries wherein we can make desirable exchanges both of our raw material and our manufactured products. Every miner that drops his pick and takes up a hoe, every idle man that turns himself into an earner of wages, every person that picks up some loose thread of employment, every capitalist that takes advantage of stagnating industry and cheap material to build a house or beautify or improve a country seat, or set on foot some new process of manufacture, does something toward working out the problem which is puzzling the economists. In good time the surplus iron and coal will be sold; new populations will want new railroads; recuperated capital will gather confidence and take hold of new enterprises, and the whole nation will move forward again to more assured prosperity and to vaster undertakings." Labor in Germany. The consul at Barmen reports that for agricultural labor the pay varies greatly, according to the proximity to or remoteness from manufacturing centers; and ranges from fifty-six cents a day in the neighborhood of Barmen to thirty-one cents a day in the lower Rhine valley, and as low as eighteen cents in parts of Silesia. At Barmen, Crefeld and Düsseldorf, carpenters, coppersmiths, plumbers, machinists and wagonsmiths earn fifty-one to seventy-five cents daily; saddlers and shoemakers forty-seven to fifty-two cents daily; bakers and brewers, with board and lodging, from $1.42 to $2.14 weekly, and without board from sixty cents a day to $4.28 a week; farm hands are paid from $107 to $215 yearly, with maintenance; railroad laborers from fifty-six to eighty-[Pg 90]three cents per day, and as high as ninety-five cents daily for piece work on tunnels; silk weavers can earn $2.15 to $2.85 a week per loom; factory women $2.15, and children $1 a week. Business and wages are very low. In good times wages are eighty per cent higher. The cost of the necessaries of life has increased some fifty per cent in thirteen years, although it is now but little higher than five years ago. A man and wife with two or three children can live in two or three rooms in a poor and comfortless manner for $275 a year, and to support such an establishment all the members have to work ten or twelve hours daily. For a family of six persons the cost is about $7 per week—an amount but few families can earn, as the depression of trade and the reduction of time allow few to do a full week's work, although wages are nominally a trifle higher than five years ago. Petroleum June Review. DRILLING WELL ACCOUNT. The low price of oil and large accumulation of stock in the producing regions have had the effect to lessen operations in this department during the month of June. The total number of drilling wells in all the districts, at the close of the month, was 266, which was 110 less than in the preceding month. Rigs erected and being erected 243, against 309 last month. The number of drilling wells completed during the month was 269, being 151 less than in May. Aggregate production of the new wells was 3,788 barrels, against 6,851 barrels in May. The total number of dry holes developed in the month was 22, against 42 in May. The operators in the great northern field (Bradford district) have curtailed operations to an extent which will compare favorably with the operators in the other portions of the producing regions, as will be seen by the following statement, namely: Number of wells drilling at the close of the month, 187, against 284 at the close of the previous month. Number of drilling wells completed in June, 193, against 346 in May. Number of rigs erected and being erected, 196, against 234 in May. PRODUCTION. The daily average production for the month was 40,575 barrels, being a decrease of 227 barrels. The new wells completed in June failed to make good the falling off of the old ones, by decreasing the daily average 227 barrels. Bradford district shows a daily average production of 16,000 barrels, being an increase of 1,280 barrels over last month. The aggregate production in June of all the other districts combined, with the aid of 76 new wells, decreased the daily average 1,507 barrels. SHIPMENTS. The shipments in June, out of the producing regions, were 174,225 barrels larger than in the preceding month. The total shipments of crude, and refined reduced to crude equivalent, by railroad, river and pipes to the following points, were 1,135,119 barrels: New York took 555,794 bbls. Pittsburg " 153,182 " Cleveland " 239,389 " Philadelphia " 73,426 " Boston " 29,266 " Baltimore " 26,623 " Richmond " 7,000 " Ohio River refiners took 5,200 " Other local points took 45,239 " Total shipments 1,135,119 " Included in the above shipments there were 140,299 barrels of refined from Titusville and Oil City, which is equal to 187,065 barrels of crude.— Stowell's Petroleum Reporter. Remarkable Poisoning of a Lake. A contributor to describes the remarkable poisoning of Lake Alexandrina—one of the bodies of water which form the estuary of the Murray river, Australia. This year the water of the river has been unusually warm and low, and the inflow to the lakes very slight. The consequence has been an excessive growth of a conferva which is indigenous to these lakes and confined to them. This alga, , is very light and floats on the water, except during breezes, when it becomes diffused, and being driven to the lee shores, forms a thick scum like green oil paint. Nature Nodularia spumigera This scum, which is from two to six inches thick, and of a pasty consistency, being swallowed by cattle when drinking, acts poisonously and rapidly causes death. The symptoms of the poisoning are stupor and unconsciousness, falling and remaining quiet (as if asleep), unless touched, when convulsions are induced, the head and neck being drawn back by a rigid spasm, subsiding before death. The poison causes the death of sheep in from one to six or eight hours; of horses, in from eight to twenty-four hours; of dogs, in from four to five hours; and of pigs in three or four hours. A shows the plant is rapidly absorbed into the circulation, where it must act as a ferment, and causes disorganization. As the cattle will not touch the puddle where the plant scum has collected and become putrid, all they take is quite fresh, and the poisoning is therefore not due to drinking a putrescent fluid full of bacteria, as was suggested. post mortem When the scum collects and dries on the banks it forms a green crust. When, however, it is left in wet pools it rapidly decomposes, emitting a most horrible stench, like putrid urine; but previous to reaching this stage it gives out a smell like that of very rancid butter. A blue pigment exudes from this decomposing matter, having some remarkable properties. It is remarkably fluorescent, being red by reflected and blue by transmitted light; it appears to be a product of the decomposition, and allied to the coloring matter found in some lichens. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various (2013). Scientific American, Vol. XXXIX. No. 6. [New Series.], August 10, 1878. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19406/pg19406-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

A VELOCIPEDE FEAT EXTRAORDINARY

Page 1 The New York Times.

In Which Much of the History of the Pallisers Is Told

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1 by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Joan Convinces the King here Joan Convinces the King WELL, anything to make delay. The King’s council advised him against arriving at a decision in our matter too precipitately. He arrive at a decision too precipitately! So they sent a committee of priests—always priests—into Lorraine to inquire into Joan’s character and history—a matter which would consume several weeks, of course. You see how fastidious they were. It was as if people should come to put out the fire when a man’s house was burning down, and they waited till they could send into another country to find out if he had always kept the Sabbath or not, before letting him try. So the days poked along; dreary for us young people in some ways, but not in all, for we had one great anticipation in front of us; we had never seen a king, and now some day we should have that prodigious spectacle to see and to treasure in our memories all our lives; so we were on the lookout, and always eager and watching for the chance. The others were doomed to wait longer than I, as it turned out. One day great news came—the Orleans commissioners, with Yolande and our knights, had at last turned the council’s position and persuaded the King to see Joan. Joan received the immense news gratefully but without losing her head, but with us others it was otherwise; we could not eat or sleep or do any rational thing for the excitement and the glory of it. During two days our pair of noble knights were in distress and trepidation on Joan’s account, for the audience was to be at night, and they were afraid that Joan would be so paralyzed by the glare of light from the long files of torches, the solemn pomps and ceremonies, the great concourse of renowned personages, the brilliant costumes, and the other splendors of the Court, that she, a simple country-maid, and all unused to such things, would be overcome by these terrors and make a piteous failure. No doubt I could have comforted them, but I was not free to speak. Would Joan be disturbed by this cheap spectacle, this tinsel show, with its small King and his butterfly dukelets?—she who had spoken face to face with the princes of heaven, the familiars of God, and seen their retinue of angels stretching back into the remoteness of the sky, myriads upon myriads, like a measureless fan of light, a glory like the glory of the sun streaming from each of those innumerable heads, the massed radiance filling the deeps of space with a blinding splendor? I thought not. Queen Yolande wanted Joan to make the best possible impression upon the King and the Court, so she was strenuous to have her clothed in the richest stuffs, wrought upon the princeliest pattern, and set off with jewels; but in that she had to be disappointed, of course, Joan not being persuadable to it, but begging to be simply and sincerely dressed, as became a servant of God, and one sent upon a mission of a serious sort and grave political import. So then the gracious Queen imagined and contrived that simple and witching costume which I have described to you so many times, and which I cannot think of even now in my dull age without being moved just as rhythmical and exquisite music moves one; for that was music, that dress—that is what it was—music that one saw with the eyes and felt in the heart. Yes, she was a poem, she was a dream, she was a spirit when she was clothed in that. She kept that raiment always, and wore it several times upon occasions of state, and it is preserved to this day in the Treasury of Orleans, with two of her swords, and her banner, and other things now sacred because they had belonged to her. At the appointed time the Count of Vendome, a great lord of the court, came richly clothed, with his train of servants and assistants, to conduct Joan to the King, and the two knights and I went with her, being entitled to this privilege by reason of our official positions near her person. When we entered the great audience-hall, there it all was just as I have already painted it. Here were ranks of guards in shining armor and with polished halberds; two sides of the hall were like flower-gardens for variety of color and the magnificence of the costumes; light streamed upon these masses of color from two hundred and fifty flambeaux. There was a wide free space down the middle of the hall, and at the end of it was a throne royally canopied, and upon it sat a crowned and sceptered figure nobly clothed and blazing with jewels. It is true that Joan had been hindered and put off a good while, but now that she was admitted to an audience at last, she was received with honors granted to only the greatest personages. At the entrance door stood four heralds in a row, in splendid tabards, with long slender silver trumpets at their mouths, with square silken banners depending from them embroidered with the arms of France. As Joan and the Count passed by, these trumpets gave forth in unison one long rich note, and as we moved down the hall under the pictured and gilded vaulting, this was repeated at every fifty feet of our progress—six times in all. It made our good knights proud and happy, and they held themselves erect, and stiffened their stride, and looked fine and soldierly. They were not expecting this beautiful and honorable tribute to our little country-maid. Joan walked two yards behind the Count, we three walked two yards behind Joan. Our solemn march ended when we were as yet some eight or ten steps from the throne. The Count made a deep obeisance, pronounced Joan’s name, then bowed again and moved to his place among a group of officials near the throne. I was devouring the crowned personage with all my eyes, and my heart almost stood still with awe. The eyes of all others were fixed upon Joan in a gaze of wonder which was half worship, and which seemed to say, “How sweet—how lovely—how divine!” All lips were parted and motionless, which was a sure sign that those people, who seldom forget themselves, had forgotten themselves now, and were not conscious of anything but the one object they were gazing upon. They had the look of people who are under the enchantment of a vision. Then they presently began to come to life again, rousing themselves out of the spell and shaking it off as one drives away little by little a clinging drowsiness or intoxication. Now they fixed their attention upon Joan with a strong new interest of another sort; they were full of curiosity to see what she would do—they having a secret and particular reason for this curiosity. So they watched. This is what they saw: She made no obeisance, nor even any slight inclination of her head, but stood looking toward the throne in silence. That was all there was to see at present. I glanced up at De Metz, and was shocked at the paleness of his face. I whispered and said: “What is it, man, what is it?” His answering whisper was so weak I could hardly catch it: “They have taken advantage of the hint in her letter to play a trick upon her! She will err, and they will laugh at her. That is not the King that sits there.” Then I glanced at Joan. She was still gazing steadfastly toward the throne, and I had the curious fancy that even her shoulders and the back of her head expressed bewilderment. Now she turned her head slowly, and her eye wandered along the lines of standing courtiers till it fell upon a young man who was very quietly dressed; then her face lighted joyously, and she ran and threw herself at his feet, and clasped his knees, exclaiming in that soft melodious voice which was her birthright and was now charged with deep and tender feeling: “God of his grace give you long life, O dear and gentle Dauphin!” In his astonishment and exultation De Metz cried out: “By the shadow of God, it is an amazing thing!” Then he mashed all the bones of my hand in his grateful grip, and added, with a proud shake of his mane, “Now, what have these painted infidels to say!” Meantime the young person in the plain clothes was saying to Joan: “Ah, you mistake, my child, I am not the King. There he is,” and he pointed to the throne. The knight’s face clouded, and he muttered in grief and indignation: “Ah, it is a shame to use her so. But for this lie she had gone through safe. I will go and proclaim to all the house what—” “Stay where you are!” whispered I and the Sieur Bertrand in a breath, and made him stop in his place. Joan did not stir from her knees, but still lifted her happy face toward the King, and said: “No, gracious liege, you are he, and none other.” De Metz’s troubles vanished away, and he said: “Verily, she was not guessing, she knew. Now, how could she know? It is a miracle. I am content, and will meddle no more, for I perceive that she is equal to her occasions, having that in her head that cannot profitably be helped by the vacancy that is in mine.” This interruption of his lost me a remark or two of the other talk; however, I caught the King’s next question: “But tell me who you are, and what would you?” “I am called Joan the Maid, and am sent to say that the King of Heaven wills that you be crowned and consecrated in your good city of Rheims, and be thereafter Lieutenant of the Lord of Heaven, who is King of France. And He willeth also that you set me at my appointed work and give me men-at-arms.” After a slight pause she added, her eye lighting at the sound of her words, “For then will I raise the siege of Orleans and break the English power!” The young monarch’s amused face sobered a little when this martial speech fell upon that sick air like a breath blown from embattled camps and fields of war, and this trifling smile presently faded wholly away and disappeared. He was grave now, and thoughtful. After a little he waved his hand lightly, and all the people fell away and left those two by themselves in a vacant space. The knights and I moved to the opposite side of the hall and stood there. We saw Joan rise at a sign, then she and the King talked privately together. All that host had been consumed with curiosity to see what Joan would do. Well, they had seen, and now they were full of astonishment to see that she had really performed that strange miracle according to the promise in her letter; and they were fully as much astonished to find that she was not overcome by the pomps and splendors about her, but was even more tranquil and at her ease in holding speech with a monarch than ever they themselves had been, with all their practice and experience. As for our two knights, they were inflated beyond measure with pride in Joan, but nearly dumb, as to speech, they not being able to think out any way to account for her managing to carry herself through this imposing ordeal without ever a mistake or an awkwardness of any kind to mar the grace and credit of her great performance. The talk between Joan and the King was long and earnest, and held in low voices. We could not hear, but we had our eyes and could note effects; and presently we and all the house noted one effect which was memorable and striking, and has been set down in memoirs and histories and in testimony at the Process of Rehabilitation by some who witnessed it; for all knew it was big with meaning, though none knew what that meaning was at that time, of course. For suddenly we saw the King shake off his indolent attitude and straighten up like a man, and at the same time look immeasurably astonished. It was as if Joan had told him something almost too wonderful for belief, and yet of a most uplifting and welcome nature. It was long before we found out the secret of this conversation, but we know it now, and all the world knows it. That part of the talk was like this—as one may read in all histories. The perplexed King asked Joan for a sign. He wanted to believe in her and her mission, and that her Voices were supernatural and endowed with knowledge hidden from mortals, but how could he do this unless these Voices could prove their claim in some absolutely unassailable way? It was then that Joan said: “I will give you a sign, and you shall no more doubt. There is a secret trouble in your heart which you speak of to none—a doubt which wastes away your courage, and makes you dream of throwing all away and fleeing from your realm. Within this little while you have been praying, in your own breast, that God of his grace would resolve that doubt, even if the doing of it must show you that no kingly right is lodged in you.” It was that that amazed the King, for it was as she had said: his prayer was the secret of his own breast, and none but God could know about it. So he said: “The sign is sufficient. I know now that these Voices are of God. They have said true in this matter; if they have said more, tell it me—I will believe.” “They have resolved that doubt, and I bring their very words, which are these: Thou art lawful heir to the King thy father, and true heir of France. God has spoken it. Now lift up thy head, and doubt no more, but give me men-at-arms and let me get about my work.” Telling him he was of lawful birth was what straightened him up and made a man of him for a moment, removing his doubts upon that head and convincing him of his royal right; and if any could have hanged his hindering and pestiferous council and set him free, he would have answered Joan’s prayer and set her in the field. But no, those creatures were only checked, not checkmated; they could invent some more delays. We had been made proud by the honors which had so distinguished Joan’s entrance into that place—honors restricted to personages of very high rank and worth—but that pride was as nothing compared with the pride we had in the honor done her upon leaving it. For whereas those first honors were shown only to the great, these last, up to this time, had been shown only to the royal. The King himself led Joan by the hand down the great hall to the door, the glittering multitude standing and making reverence as they passed, and the silver trumpets sounding those rich notes of theirs. Then he dismissed her with gracious words, bending low over her hand and kissing it. Always—from all companies, high or low—she went forth richer in honor and esteem than when she came. And the King did another handsome thing by Joan, for he sent us back to Courdray Castle torch-lighted and in state, under escort of his own troop—his guard of honor—the only soldiers he had; and finely equipped and bedizened they were, too, though they hadn’t seen the color of their wages since they were children, as a body might say. The wonders which Joan had been performing before the King had been carried all around by this time, so the road was so packed with people who wanted to get a sight of her that we could hardly dig through; and as for talking together, we couldn’t, all attempts at talk being drowned in the storm of shoutings and huzzas that broke out all along as we passed, and kept abreast of us like a wave the whole way. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Mark Twain (2004). Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2874/pg2874-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

Joan Convinces the King

The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this . Chapter II book Chapter II Three of us boys were always together, and had been so from the cradle, being fond of one another from the beginning, and this affection deepened as the years went on—Nikolaus Bauman, son of the principal judge of the local court; Seppi Wohlmeyer, son of the keeper of the principal inn, the “Golden Stag,” which had a nice garden, with shade trees reaching down to the riverside, and pleasure boats for hire; and I was the third—Theodor Fischer, son of the church organist, who was also leader of the village musicians, teacher of the violin, composer, tax-collector of the commune, sexton, and in other ways a useful citizen, and respected by all. We knew the hills and the woods as well as the birds knew them; for we were always roaming them when we had leisure—at least, when we were not swimming or boating or fishing, or playing on the ice or sliding down hill. And we had the run of the castle park, and very few had that. It was because we were pets of the oldest servingman in the castle—Felix Brandt; and often we went there, nights, to hear him talk about old times and strange things, and to smoke with him (he taught us that) and to drink coffee; for he had served in the wars, and was at the siege of Vienna; and there, when the Turks were defeated and driven away, among the captured things were bags of coffee, and the Turkish prisoners explained the character of it and how to make a pleasant drink out of it, and now he always kept coffee by him, to drink himself and also to astonish the ignorant with. When it stormed he kept us all night; and while it thundered and lightened outside he told us about ghosts and horrors of every kind, and of battles and murders and mutilations, and such things, and made it pleasant and cozy inside; and he told these things from his own experience largely. He had seen many ghosts in his time, and witches and enchanters, and once he was lost in a fierce storm at midnight in the mountains, and by the glare of the lightning had seen the Wild Huntsman rage on the blast with his specter dogs chasing after him through the driving cloud-rack. Also he had seen an incubus once, and several times he had seen the great bat that sucks the blood from the necks of people while they are asleep, fanning them softly with its wings and so keeping them drowsy till they die. He encouraged us not to fear supernatural things, such as ghosts, and said they did no harm, but only wandered about because they were lonely and distressed and wanted kindly notice and compassion; and in time we learned not to be afraid, and even went down with him in the night to the haunted chamber in the dungeons of the castle. The ghost appeared only once, and it went by very dim to the sight and floated noiseless through the air, and then disappeared; and we scarcely trembled, he had taught us so well. He said it came up sometimes in the night and woke him by passing its clammy hand over his face, but it did him no hurt; it only wanted sympathy and notice. But the strangest thing was that he had seen angels—actual angels out of heaven—and had talked with them. They had no wings, and wore clothes, and talked and looked and acted just like any natural person, and you would never know them for angels except for the wonderful things they did which a mortal could not do, and the way they suddenly disappeared while you were talking with them, which was also a thing which no mortal could do. And he said they were pleasant and cheerful, not gloomy and melancholy, like ghosts. It was after that kind of a talk one May night that we got up next morning and had a good breakfast with him and then went down and crossed the bridge and went away up into the hills on the left to a woody hill-top which was a favorite place of ours, and there we stretched out on the grass in the shade to rest and smoke and talk over these strange things, for they were in our minds yet, and impressing us. But we couldn't smoke, because we had been heedless and left our flint and steel behind. Soon there came a youth strolling toward us through the trees, and he sat down and began to talk in a friendly way, just as if he knew us. But we did not answer him, for he was a stranger and we were not used to strangers and were shy of them. He had new and good clothes on, and was handsome and had a winning face and a pleasant voice, and was easy and graceful and unembarrassed, not slouchy and awkward and diffident, like other boys. We wanted to be friendly with him, but didn't know how to begin. Then I thought of the pipe, and wondered if it would be taken as kindly meant if I offered it to him. But I remembered that we had no fire, so I was sorry and disappointed. But he looked up bright and pleased, and said: “Fire? Oh, that is easy; I will furnish it.” I was so astonished I couldn't speak; for I had not said anything. He took the pipe and blew his breath on it, and the tobacco glowed red, and spirals of blue smoke rose up. We jumped up and were going to run, for that was natural; and we did run a few steps, although he was yearningly pleading for us to stay, and giving us his word that he would not do us any harm, but only wanted to be friends with us and have company. So we stopped and stood, and wanted to go back, being full of curiosity and wonder, but afraid to venture. He went on coaxing, in his soft, persuasive way; and when we saw that the pipe did not blow up and nothing happened, our confidence returned by little and little, and presently our curiosity got to be stronger than our fear, and we ventured back—but slowly, and ready to fly at any alarm. He was bent on putting us at ease, and he had the right art; one could not remain doubtful and timorous where a person was so earnest and simple and gentle, and talked so alluringly as he did; no, he won us over, and it was not long before we were content and comfortable and chatty, and glad we had found this new friend. When the feeling of constraint was all gone we asked him how he had learned to do that strange thing, and he said he hadn't learned it at all; it came natural to him—like other things—other curious things. “What ones?” “Oh, a number; I don't know how many.” “Will you let us see you do them?” “Do—please!” the others said. “You won't run away again?” “No—indeed we won't. Please do. Won't you?” “Yes, with pleasure; but you mustn't forget your promise, you know.” We said we wouldn't, and he went to a puddle and came back with water in a cup which he had made out of a leaf, and blew upon it and threw it out, and it was a lump of ice the shape of the cup. We were astonished and charmed, but not afraid any more; we were very glad to be there, and asked him to go on and do some more things. And he did. He said he would give us any kind of fruit we liked, whether it was in season or not. We all spoke at once; “Orange!” “Apple!” “Grapes!” “They are in your pockets,” he said, and it was true. And they were of the best, too, and we ate them and wished we had more, though none of us said so. “You will find them where those came from,” he said, “and everything else your appetites call for; and you need not name the thing you wish; as long as I am with you, you have only to wish and find.” And he said true. There was never anything so wonderful and so interesting. Bread, cakes, sweets, nuts—whatever one wanted, it was there. He ate nothing himself, but sat and chatted, and did one curious thing after another to amuse us. He made a tiny toy squirrel out of clay, and it ran up a tree and sat on a limb overhead and barked down at us. Then he made a dog that was not much larger than a mouse, and it treed the squirrel and danced about the tree, excited and barking, and was as alive as any dog could be. It frightened the squirrel from tree to tree and followed it up until both were out of sight in the forest. He made birds out of clay and set them free, and they flew away, singing. At last I made bold to ask him to tell us who he was. “An angel,” he said, quite simply, and set another bird free and clapped his hands and made it fly away. A kind of awe fell upon us when we heard him say that, and we were afraid again; but he said we need not be troubled, there was no occasion for us to be afraid of an angel, and he liked us, anyway. He went on chatting as simply and unaffectedly as ever; and while he talked he made a crowd of little men and women the size of your finger, and they went diligently to work and cleared and leveled off a space a couple of yards square in the grass and began to build a cunning little castle in it, the women mixing the mortar and carrying it up the scaffoldings in pails on their heads, just as our work-women have always done, and the men laying the courses of masonry—five hundred of these toy people swarming briskly about and working diligently and wiping the sweat off their faces as natural as life. In the absorbing interest of watching those five hundred little people make the castle grow step by step and course by course, and take shape and symmetry, that feeling and awe soon passed away and we were quite comfortable and at home again. We asked if we might make some people, and he said yes, and told Seppi to make some cannon for the walls, and told Nikolaus to make some halberdiers, with breastplates and greaves and helmets, and I was to make some cavalry, with horses, and in allotting these tasks he called us by our names, but did not say how he knew them. Then Seppi asked him what his own name was, and he said, tranquilly, “Satan,” and held out a chip and caught a little woman on it who was falling from the scaffolding and put her back where she belonged, and said, “She is an idiot to step backward like that and not notice what she is about.” It caught us suddenly, that name did, and our work dropped out of our hands and broke to pieces—a cannon, a halberdier, and a horse. Satan laughed, and asked what was the matter. I said, “Nothing, only it seemed a strange name for an angel.” He asked why. “Because it's—it's—well, it's his name, you know.” “Yes—he is my uncle.” He said it placidly, but it took our breath for a moment and made our hearts beat. He did not seem to notice that, but mended our halberdiers and things with a touch, handing them to us finished, and said, “Don't you remember?—he was an angel himself, once.” “Yes—it's true,” said Seppi; “I didn't think of that.” “Before the Fall he was blameless.” “Yes,” said Nikolaus, “he was without sin.” “It is a good family—ours,” said Satan; “there is not a better. He is the only member of it that has ever sinned.” I should not be able to make any one understand how exciting it all was. You know that kind of quiver that trembles around through you when you are seeing something so strange and enchanting and wonderful that it is just a fearful joy to be alive and look at it; and you know how you gaze, and your lips turn dry and your breath comes short, but you wouldn't be anywhere but there, not for the world. I was bursting to ask one question—I had it on my tongue's end and could hardly hold it back—but I was ashamed to ask it; it might be a rudeness. Satan set an ox down that he had been making, and smiled up at me and said: “It wouldn't be a rudeness, and I should forgive it if it was. Have I seen him? Millions of times. From the time that I was a little child a thousand years old I was his second favorite among the nursery angels of our blood and lineage—to use a human phrase—yes, from that time until the Fall, eight thousand years, measured as you count time.” “Eight—thousand!” “Yes.” He turned to Seppi, and went on as if answering something that was in Seppi's mind: “Why, naturally I look like a boy, for that is what I am. With us what you call time is a spacious thing; it takes a long stretch of it to grow an angel to full age.” There was a question in my mind, and he turned to me and answered it, “I am sixteen thousand years old—counting as you count.” Then he turned to Nikolaus and said: “No, the Fall did not affect me nor the rest of the relationship. It was only he that I was named for who ate of the fruit of the tree and then beguiled the man and the woman with it. We others are still ignorant of sin; we are not able to commit it; we are without blemish, and shall abide in that estate always. We—” Two of the little workmen were quarreling, and in buzzing little bumblebee voices they were cursing and swearing at each other; now came blows and blood; then they locked themselves together in a life-and-death struggle. Satan reached out his hand and crushed the life out of them with his fingers, threw them away, wiped the red from his fingers on his handkerchief, and went on talking where he had left off: “We cannot do wrong; neither have we any disposition to do it, for we do not know what it is.” It seemed a strange speech, in the circumstances, but we barely noticed that, we were so shocked and grieved at the wanton murder he had committed—for murder it was, that was its true name, and it was without palliation or excuse, for the men had not wronged him in any way. It made us miserable, for we loved him, and had thought him so noble and so beautiful and gracious, and had honestly believed he was an angel; and to have him do this cruel thing—ah, it lowered him so, and we had had such pride in him. He went right on talking, just as if nothing had happened, telling about his travels, and the interesting things he had seen in the big worlds of our solar system and of other solar systems far away in the remotenesses of space, and about the customs of the immortals that inhabit them, somehow fascinating us, enchanting us, charming us in spite of the pitiful scene that was now under our eyes, for the wives of the little dead men had found the crushed and shapeless bodies and were crying over them, and sobbing and lamenting, and a priest was kneeling there with his hands crossed upon his breast, praying; and crowds and crowds of pitying friends were massed about them, reverently uncovered, with their bare heads bowed, and many with the tears running down—a scene which Satan paid no attention to until the small noise of the weeping and praying began to annoy him, then he reached out and took the heavy board seat out of our swing and brought it down and mashed all those people into the earth just as if they had been flies, and went on talking just the same. An angel, and kill a priest! An angel who did not know how to do wrong, and yet destroys in cold blood hundreds of helpless poor men and women who had never done him any harm! It made us sick to see that awful deed, and to think that none of those poor creatures was prepared except the priest, for none of them had ever heard a mass or seen a church. And we were witnesses; we had seen these murders done and it was our duty to tell, and let the law take its course. But he went on talking right along, and worked his enchantments upon us again with that fatal music of his voice. He made us forget everything; we could only listen to him, and love him, and be his slaves, to do with us as he would. He made us drunk with the joy of being with him, and of looking into the heaven of his eyes, and of feeling the ecstasy that thrilled along our veins from the touch of his hand. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Mark Twain (2008). The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3186/pg3186-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

Three of us boys were always together, and had been so from the cradle

Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . JUPITER SOMEWHAT CLOSE here CHAPTER VIII. JUPITER SOMEWHAT CLOSE Except as to the time the comet would take to revolve round the sun, it must be confessed that all the professor’s calculations had comparatively little interest for anyone but himself, and he was consequently left very much to pursue his studies in solitude. The following day was the 1st of August, or, according to Rosette, the 63rd of April. In the course of this month Gallia would travel 16,500,000 leagues, attaining at the end a distance of 197,000,000 leagues from the sun. This would leave 81,000,000 leagues more to be traversed before reaching the aphelion of the 15th of January, after which it would begin once more to approach the sun. But meanwhile, a marvelous world, never before so close within the range of human vision, was revealing itself. No wonder that Palmyrin Rosette cared so little to quit his observatory; for throughout those calm, clear Gallian nights, when the book of the firmament lay open before him, he could revel in a spectacle which no previous astronomer had ever been permitted to enjoy. The glorious orb that was becoming so conspicuous an object was none other than the planet Jupiter, the largest of all the bodies existing within the influence of solar attraction. During the seven months that had elapsed since its collision with the earth, the comet had been continuously approaching the planet, until the distance between them was scarcely more than 61,000,000 leagues, and this would go on diminishing until the 15th of October. Under these circumstances, was it perfectly certain that no danger could accrue? Was not Gallia, when its pathway led it into such close proximity to this enormous planet, running a risk of being attracted within its influence? Might not that influence be altogether disastrous? The professor, it is true, in his estimate of the duration of his comet’s revolution, had represented that he had made all proper allowances for any perturbations that would be caused either by Jupiter, by Saturn, or by Mars; but what if there were any errors in his calculations? what if there should be any elements of disturbance on which he had not reckoned? Speculations of this kind became more and more frequent, and Lieutenant Procope pointed out that the danger incurred might be of a fourfold character: first, that the comet, being irresistibly attracted, might be drawn on to the very surface of the planet, and there annihilated; secondly, that as the result of being brought under that attraction, it might be transformed into a satellite, or even a sub-satellite, of that mighty world; thirdly, that it might be diverted into a new orbit, which would never be coincident with the ecliptic; or, lastly, its course might be so retarded that it would only reach the ecliptic too late to permit any junction with the earth. The occurrence of any one of these contingencies would be fatal to their hopes of reunion with the globe, from which they had been so strangely severed. To Rosette, who, without family ties which he had never found leisure or inclination to contract, had no shadow of desire to return to the earth, it would be only the first of these probabilities that could give him any concern. Total annihilation might not accord with his views, but he would be quite content for Gallia to miss its mark with regard to the earth, indifferent whether it revolved as a new satellite around Jupiter, or whether it wended its course through the untraversed regions of the milky way. The rest of the community, however, by no means sympathized with the professor’s sentiments, and the following month was a period of considerable doubt and anxiety. On the 1st of September the distance between Gallia and Jupiter was precisely the same as the mean distance between the earth and the sun; on the 16th, the distance was further reduced to 26,000,000 leagues. The planet began to assume enormous dimensions, and it almost seemed as if the comet had already been deflected from its elliptical orbit, and was rushing on in a straight line towards the overwhelming luminary. The more they contemplated the character of this gigantic planet, the more they became impressed with the likelihood of a serious perturbation in their own course. The diameter of Jupiter is 85,390 miles, nearly eleven times as great as that of the earth; his volume is 1,387 times, and his mass 300 times greater; and although the mean density is only about a quarter of that of the earth, and only a third of that of water (whence it has been supposed that the superficies of Jupiter is liquid), yet his other proportions were large enough to warrant the apprehension that important disturbances might result from his proximity. “I forget my astronomy, lieutenant,” said Servadac. “Tell me all you can about this formidable neighbor.” The lieutenant having refreshed his memory by reference to Flammarion’s , of which he had a Russian translation, and some other books, proceeded to recapitulate that Jupiter accomplishes his revolution round the sun in 4,332 days 14 hours and 2 minutes; that he travels at the rate of 467 miles a minute along an orbit measuring 2,976 millions of miles; and that his rotation on his axis occupies only 9 hours and 55 minutes. Recits de l’Infini “His days, then, are shorter than ours?” interrupted the captain. “Considerably,” answered the lieutenant, who went on to describe how the displacement of a point at the equator of Jupiter was twenty-seven times as rapid as on the earth, causing the polar compression to be about 2,378 miles; how the axis, being nearly perpendicular, caused the days and nights to be nearly of the same length, and the seasons to be invariable; and how the amount of light and heat received by the planet is only a twenty-fifth part of that received by the earth, the average distance from the sun being 475,693,000 miles. “And how about these satellites? Sometimes, I suppose, Jupiter has the benefit of four moons all shining at once?” asked Servadac. Of the satellites, Lieutenant Procope went on to say that one is rather smaller than our own moon; that another moves round its primary at an interval about equal to the moon’s distance from ourselves; but that they all revolve in considerably less time: the first takes only l day 18 hours 27 minutes; the second takes 3 days 13 hours 14 minutes; the third, 7 days 3 hours 42 minutes; whilst the largest of all takes but 16 days 16 hours 32 minutes. The most remote revolves round the planet at a distance of 1,192,820 miles. “They have been enlisted into the service of science,” said Procope. “It is by their movements that the velocity of light has been calculated; and they have been made available for the determination of terrestrial longitudes.” “It must be a wonderful sight,” said the captain. “Yes,” answered Procope. “I often think Jupiter is like a prodigious clock with four hands.” “I only hope that we are not destined to make a fifth hand,” answered Servadac. Such was the style of the conversation that was day by day reiterated during the whole month of suspense. Whatever topic might be started, it seemed soon to settle down upon the huge orb that was looming upon them with such threatening aspect. “The more remote that these planets are from the sun,” said Procope, “the more venerable and advanced in formation are they found to be. Neptune, situated 2,746,271,000 miles from the sun, issued from the solar nebulosity, thousands of millions of centuries back. Uranus, revolving 1,753,851,000 miles from the center of the planetary system, is of an age amounting to many hundred millions of centuries. Jupiter, the colossal planet, gravitating at a distance of 475,693,000 miles, may be reckoned as 70,000,000 centuries old. Mars has existed for 1,000,000,000 years at a distance of 139,212,000 miles. The earth, 91,430,000 miles from the sun, quitted his burning bosom 100,000,000 years ago. Venus, revolving now 66,131,000 miles away, may be assigned the age of 50,000,000 years at least; and Mercury, nearest of all, and youngest of all, has been revolving at a distance of 35,393,000 miles for the space of 10,000,000 years—the same time as the moon has been evolved from the earth.” Servadac listened attentively. He was at a loss what to say; and the only reply he made to the recital of this novel theory was to the effect that, if it were true, he would prefer being captured by Mercury than by Jupiter, for Mercury, being so much the younger, would probably prove the less imperative and self-willed master. It was on the 1st of September that the comet had crossed the orbit of Jupiter, and on the 1st of October the two bodies were calculated to be at their minimum separation. No direct shock, however, could be apprehended; the demonstration was sufficiently complete that the orbit of Gallia did not coincide with that of the planet, the orbit of Jupiter being inclined at an angle of 1 degrees 19 mins to the orbit of the earth, with which that of Gallia was, no doubt, coincident. As the month of September verged towards its close, Jupiter began to wear an aspect that must have excited the admiration of the most ignorant or the most indifferent observer. Its salient points were illumined with novel and radiant tints, and the solar rays, reflected from its disc, glowed with a mingled softness and intensity upon Gallia, so that Nerina had to pale her beauty. Who could wonder that Rosette, enthusiast as he was, should be irremovable from his observatory? Who could expect otherwise than that, with the prospect before him of viewing the giant among planets, ten times nearer than any mortal eye had ever done, he should have begrudged every moment that distracted his attention? Meanwhile, as Jupiter grew large, the sun grew small. From its increased remoteness the diameter of the sun’s disc was diminished to 5 degrees 46 mins. And what an increased interest began to be associated with the satellites! They were visible to the naked eye! Was it not a new record in the annals of science? Although it is acknowledged that they are not ordinarily visible on earth without the aid of a somewhat powerful telescope, it has been asserted that a favored few, endued with extraordinary powers of vision, have been able to identify them with an unassisted eye; but here, at least, in Nina’s Hive were many rivals, for everyone could so far distinguish them one from the other as to describe them by their colors. The first was of a dull white shade; the second was blue; the third was white and brilliant; the fourth was orange, at times approaching to a red. It was further observed that Jupiter itself was almost void of scintillation. Rosette, in his absorbing interest for the glowing glories of the planet, seemed to be beguiled into comparative forgetfulness of the charms of his comet; but no astronomical enthusiasm of the professor could quite allay the general apprehension that some serious collision might be impending. Time passed on. There was nothing to justify apprehension. The question was continually being asked, “What does the professor really think?” “Our friend the professor,” said Servadac, “is not likely to tell us very much; but we may feel pretty certain of one thing: he wouldn’t keep us long in the dark, if he thought we were not going back to the earth again. The greatest satisfaction he could have would be to inform us that we had parted from the earth for ever.” “I trust from my very soul,” said the count, “that his prognostications are correct.” “The more I see of him, and the more I listen to him,” replied Servadac, “the more I become convinced that his calculations are based on a solid foundation, and will prove correct to the minutest particular.” Ben Zoof here interrupted the conversation. “I have something on my mind,” he said. “Something on your mind? Out with it!” said the captain. “That telescope!” said the orderly; “it strikes me that that telescope which the old professor keeps pointed up at yonder big sun is bringing it down straight upon us.” The captain laughed heartily. “Laugh, captain, if you like; but I feel disposed to break the old telescope into atoms.” “Ben Zoof,” said Servadac, his laughter exchanged for a look of stern displeasure, “touch that telescope, and you shall swing for it!” The orderly looked astonished. “I am governor here,” said Servadac. Ben Zoof knew what his master meant, and to him his master’s wish was law. The interval between the comet and Jupiter was, by the 1st of October, reduced to 43,000,000 miles. The belts all parallel to Jupiter’s equator were very distinct in their markings. Those immediately north and south of the equator were of a dusky hue; those toward the poles were alternately dark and light; the intervening spaces of the planet’s superficies, between edge and edge, being intensely bright. The belts themselves were occasionally broken by spots, which the records of astronomy describe as varying both in form and in extent. The physiology of belts and spots alike was beyond the astronomer’s power to ascertain; and even if he should be destined once again to take his place in an astronomical congress on the earth, he would be just as incapable as ever of determining whether or no they owed their existence to the external accumulation of vapor, or to some internal agency. It would not be Professor Rosette’s lot to enlighten his brother to any great degree as to the mysteries that are associated with this, which must ever rank as one of the most magnificent amongst the heavenly orbs. savants As the comet approached the critical point of its career it cannot be denied that there was an unacknowledged consciousness of alarm. Mutually reserved, though ever courteous, the count and the captain were secretly drawn together by the prospect of a common danger; and as their return to the earth appeared to them to become more and more dubious, they abandoned their views of narrow isolation, and tried to embrace the wider philosophy that acknowledges the credibility of a habitable universe. But no philosophy could be proof against the common instincts of their humanity; their hearts, their hopes, were set upon their natural home; no speculation, no science, no experience, could induce them to give up their fond and sanguine anticipation that once again they were to come in contact with the earth. “Only let us escape Jupiter,” said Lieutenant Procope, repeatedly, “and we are free from anxiety.” “But would not Saturn lie ahead?” asked Servadac and the count in one breath. “No!” said Procope; “the orbit of Saturn is remote, and does not come athwart our path. Jupiter is our sole hindrance. Of Jupiter we must say, as William Tell said, ‘Once through the ominous pass and all is well.’” The 15th of October came, the date of the nearest approximation of the comet to the planet. They were only 31,000,000 miles apart. What would now transpire? Would Gallia be diverted from its proper way? or would it hold the course that the astronomer had predicted? Early next morning the captain ventured to take the count and the lieutenant up to the observatory. The professor was in the worst of tempers. That was enough. It was enough, without a word, to indicate the course which events had taken. The comet was pursuing an unaltered way. The astronomer, correct in his prognostications, ought to have been the most proud and contented of philosophers; his pride and contentment were both overshadowed by the certainty that the career of his comet was destined to be so transient, and that it must inevitably once again come into collision with the earth. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (1998). Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1353/pg1353-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

JUPITER SOMEWHAT CLOSE

Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . WANTED: A STEELYARD here CHAPTER V. WANTED: A STEELYARD Under the still diminishing influence of the sun’s attraction, but without let or hindrance, Gallia continued its interplanetary course, accompanied by Nerina, its captured satellite, which performed its fortnightly revolutions with unvarying regularity. Meanwhile, the question beyond all others important was ever recurring to the minds of Servadac and his two companions: were the astronomer’s calculations correct, and was there a sound foundation for his prediction that the comet would again touch the earth? But whatever might be their doubts or anxieties, they were fain to keep all their misgivings to themselves; the professor was of a temper far too cross-grained for them to venture to ask him to revise or re-examine the results of his observations. The rest of the community by no means shared in their uneasiness. Negrete and his fellow-countrymen yielded to their destiny with philosophical indifference. Happier and better provided for than they had ever been in their lives, it did not give them a passing thought, far less cause any serious concern, whether they were still circling round the sun, or whether they were being carried right away within the limits of another system. Utterly careless of the future, the majos, light-hearted as ever, carolled out their favorite songs, just as if they had never quitted the shores of their native land. Happiest of all were Pablo and Nina. Racing through the galleries of the Hive, clambering over the rocks upon the shore, one day skating far away across the frozen ocean, the next fishing in the lake that was kept liquid by the heat of the lava-torrent, the two children led a life of perpetual enjoyment. Nor was their recreation allowed to interfere with their studies. Captain Servadac, who in common with the count really liked them both, conceived that the responsibilities of a parent in some degree had devolved upon him, and took great care in superintending their daily lessons, which he succeeded in making hardly less pleasant than their sports. Indulged and loved by all, it was little wonder that young Pablo had no longing for the scorching plains of Andalusia, or that little Nina had lost all wish to return with her pet goat to the barren rocks of Sardinia. They had now a home in which they had nothing to desire. “Have you no father nor mother?” asked Pablo, one day. “No,” she answered. “No more have I,” said the boy, “I used to run along by the side of the diligences when I was in Spain.” “I used to look after goats at Madalena,” said Nina; “but it is much nicer here—I am so happy here. I have you for a brother, and everybody is so kind. I am afraid they will spoil us, Pablo,” she added, smiling. “Oh, no, Nina; you are too good to be spoiled, and when I am with you, you make me good too,” said Pablo, gravely. July had now arrived. During the month Gallia’s advance along its orbit would be reduced to 22,000,000 leagues, the distance from the sun at the end being 172,000,000 leagues, about four and a half times as great as the average distance of the earth from the sun. It was traveling now at about the same speed as the earth, which traverses the ecliptic at a rate of 21,000,000 leagues a month, or 28,800 leagues an hour. In due time the 62d April, according to the revised Gallian calendar, dawned; and in punctual fulfillment of the professor’s appointment, a note was delivered to Servadac to say that he was ready, and hoped that day to commence operations for calculating the mass and density of his comet, as well as the force of gravity at its surface. A point of far greater interest to Captain Servadac and his friends would have been to ascertain the nature of the substance of which the comet was composed, but they felt pledged to render the professor any aid they could in the researches upon which he had set his heart. Without delay, therefore, they assembled in the central hall, where they were soon joined by Rosette, who seemed to be in fairly good temper. “Gentlemen,” he began, “I propose to-day to endeavor to complete our observations of the elements of my comet. Three matters of investigation are before us. First, the measure of gravity at its surface; this attractive force we know, by the increase of our own muscular force, must of course be considerably less than that at the surface of the earth. Secondly, its mass, that is, the quality of its matter. And thirdly, its density or quantity of matter in a unit of its volume. We will proceed, gentlemen, if you please, to weigh Gallia.” Ben Zoof, who had just entered the hall, caught the professor’s last sentence, and without saying a word, went out again and was absent for some minutes. When he returned, he said, “If you want to weigh this comet of yours, I suppose you want a pair of scales; but I have been to look, and I cannot find a pair anywhere. And what’s more,” he added mischievously, “you won’t get them anywhere.” A frown came over the professor’s countenance. Servadac saw it, and gave his orderly a sign that he should desist entirely from his bantering. “I require, gentlemen,” resumed Rosette, “first of all to know by how much the weight of a kilogramme here differs from its weight upon the earth; the attraction, as we have said, being less, the weight will proportionately be less also.” “Then an ordinary pair of scales, being under the influence of attraction, I suppose, would not answer your purpose,” submitted the lieutenant. “And the very kilogramme weight you used would have become lighter,” put in the count, deferentially. “Pray, gentlemen, do not interrupt me,” said the professor, authoritatively, as if . “I need no instruction on these points.” ex cathedra Procope and Timascheff demurely bowed their heads. The professor resumed. “Upon a steelyard, or spring-balance, dependent upon mere tension or flexibility, the attraction will have no influence. If I suspend a weight equivalent to the weight of a kilogramme, the index will register the proper weight on the surface of Gallia. Thus I shall arrive at the difference I want: the difference between the earth’s attraction and the comet’s. Will you, therefore, have the goodness to provide me at once with a steelyard and a tested kilogramme?” The audience looked at one another, and then at Ben Zoof, who was thoroughly acquainted with all their resources. “We have neither one nor the other,” said the orderly. The professor stamped with vexation. “I believe old Hakkabut has a steelyard on board his tartan,” said Ben Zoof, presently. “Then why didn’t you say so before, you idiot?” roared the excitable little man. Anxious to pacify him, Servadac assured him that every exertion should be made to procure the instrument, and directed Ben Zoof to go to the Jew and borrow it. “No, stop a moment,” he said, as Ben Zoof was moving away on his, errand; “perhaps I had better go with you myself; the old Jew may make a difficulty about lending us any of his property.” “Why should we not all go?” asked the count; “we should see what kind of a life the misanthrope leads on board the .” Hansa The proposal met with general approbation. Before they started, Professor Rosette requested that one of the men might be ordered to cut him a cubic decimeter out of the solid substance of Gallia. “My engineer is the man for that,” said the count; “he will do it well for you if you will give him the precise measurement.” “What! you don’t mean,” exclaimed the professor, again going off into a passion, “that you haven’t a proper measure of length?” Ben Zoof was sent off to ransack the stores for the article in question, but no measure was forthcoming. “Most likely we shall find one on the tartan,” said the orderly. “Then let us lose no time in trying,” answered the professor, as he hustled with hasty strides into the gallery. The rest of the party followed, and were soon in the open air upon the rocks that overhung the shore. They descended to the level of the frozen water and made their way towards the little creek where the and the lay firmly imprisoned in their icy bonds. Dobryna Hansa The temperature was low beyond previous experience; but well muffled up in fur, they all endured it without much actual suffering. Their breath issued in vapor, which was at once congealed into little crystals upon their whiskers, beards, eyebrows, and eyelashes, until their faces, covered with countless snow-white prickles, were truly ludicrous. The little professor, most comical of all, resembled nothing so much as the cub of an Arctic bear. It was eight o’clock in the morning. The sun was rapidly approaching the zenith; but its disc, from the extreme remoteness, was proportionately dwarfed; its beams being all but destitute of their proper warmth and radiance. The volcano to its very summit and the surrounding rocks were still covered with the unsullied mantle of snow that had fallen while the atmosphere was still to some extent charged with vapor; but on the north side the snow had given place to the cascade of fiery lava, which, making its way down the sloping rocks as far as the vaulted opening of the central cavern, fell thence perpendicularly into the sea. Above the cavern, 130 feet up the mountain, was a dark hole, above which the stream of lava made a bifurcation in its course. From this hole projected the case of an astronomer’s telescope; it was the opening of Palmyrin Rosette’s observatory. Sea and land seemed blended into one dreary whiteness, to which the pale blue sky offered scarcely any contrast. The shore was indented with the marks of many footsteps left by the colonists either on their way to collect ice for drinking purposes, or as the result of their skating expeditions; the edges of the skates had cut out a labyrinth of curves complicated as the figures traced by aquatic insects upon the surface of a pool. Across the quarter of a mile of level ground that lay between the mountain and the creek, a series of footprints, frozen hard into the snow, marked the course taken by Isaac Hakkabut on his last return from Nina’s Hive. On approaching the creek, Lieutenant Procope drew his companions’ attention to the elevation of the and waterline, both vessels being now some fifteen feet above the level of the sea. Dobryna’s Hansa’s “What a strange phenomenon!” exclaimed the captain. “It makes me very uneasy,” rejoined the lieutenant; “in shallow places like this, as the crust of ice thickens, it forces everything upwards with irresistible force.” “But surely this process of congelation must have a limit!” said the count. “But who can say what that limit will be? Remember that we have not yet reached our maximum of cold,” replied Procope. “Indeed, I hope not!” exclaimed the professor; “where would be the use of our traveling 200,000,000 leagues from the sun, if we are only to experience the same temperature as we should find at the poles of the earth?” “Fortunately for us, however, professor,” said the lieutenant, with a smile, “the temperature of the remotest space never descends beyond 70 degrees below zero.” “And as long as there is no wind,” added Servadac, “we may pass comfortably through the winter, without a single attack of catarrh.” Lieutenant Procope proceeded to impart to the count his anxiety about the situation of his yacht. He pointed out that by the constant superposition of new deposits of ice, the vessel would be elevated to a great height, and consequently in the event of a thaw, it must be exposed to a calamity similar to those which in polar seas cause destruction to so many whalers. There was no time now for concerting measures offhand to prevent the disaster, for the other members of the party had already reached the spot where the lay bound in her icy trammels. A flight of steps, recently hewn by Hakkabut himself, gave access for the present to the gangway, but it was evident that some different contrivance would have to be resorted to when the tartan should be elevated perhaps to a hundred feet. Hansa A thin curl of blue smoke issued from the copper funnel that projected above the mass of snow which had accumulated upon the deck of the . The owner was sparing of his fuel, and it was only the non-conducting layer of ice enveloping the tartan that rendered the internal temperature endurable. Hansa “Hi! old Nebuchadnezzar, where are you?” shouted Ben Zoof, at the full strength of his lungs. At the sound of his voice, the cabin door opened, and the Jew’s head and shoulders protruded onto the deck. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (1998). Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1353/pg1353-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

WANTED: A STEELYARD

Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . A SLEDGE-RIDE here CHAPTER XXIV. A SLEDGE-RIDE Formentera was at once recognized by Servadac and the count as the name of one of the smallest of the Balearic Islands. It was more than probable that the unknown writer had thence sent out the mysterious documents, and from the message just come to hand by the carrier-pigeon, it appeared all but certain that at the beginning of April, a fortnight back, he had still been there. In one important particular the present communication differed from those that had preceded it: it was written entirely in French, and exhibited none of the ecstatic exclamations in other languages that had been remarkable in the two former papers. The concluding line, with its intimation of failing provisions, amounted almost to an appeal for help. Captain Servadac briefly drew attention to these points, and concluded by saying, “My friends, we must, without delay, hasten to the assistance of this unfortunate man.” “For my part,” said the count, “I am quite ready to accompany you; it is not unlikely that he is not alone in his distress.” Lieutenant Procope expressed much surprise. “We must have passed close to Formentera,” he said, “when we explored the site of the Balearic Isles; this fragment must be very small; it must be smaller than the remaining splinter of Gibraltar or Ceuta; otherwise, surely it would never have escaped our observation.” “However small it may be,” replied Servadac, “we must find it. How far off do you suppose it is?” “It must be a hundred and twenty leagues away,” said the lieutenant, thoughtfully; “and I do not quite understand how you would propose to get there.” “Why, on skates of course; no difficulty in that, I should imagine,” answered Servadac, and he appealed to the count for confirmation of his opinion. The count assented, but Procope looked doubtful. “Your enterprise is generous,” he said, “and I should be most unwilling to throw any unnecessary obstacle in the way of its execution; but, pardon me, if I submit to you a few considerations which to my mind are very important. First of all, the thermometer is already down to 22 degrees below zero, and the keen wind from the south is making the temperature absolutely unendurable; in the second place, supposing you travel at the rate of twenty leagues a day, you would be exposed for at least six consecutive days; and thirdly, your expedition will be of small avail unless you convey provisions not only for yourselves, but for those whom you hope to relieve.” “We can carry our own provisions on our backs in knapsacks,” interposed Servadac, quickly, unwilling to recognize any difficulty in the way. “Granted that you can,” answered the lieutenant, quietly; “but where, on this level ice-field, will you find shelter in your periods of rest? You must perish with cold; you will not have the chance of digging out ice-huts like the Esquimaux.” “As to rest,” said Servadac, “we shall take none; we shall keep on our way continuously; by traveling day and night without intermission, we shall not be more than three days in reaching Formentera.” “Believe me,” persisted the lieutenant, calmly, “your enthusiasm is carrying you too far; the feat you propose is impossible; but even conceding the possibility of your success in reaching your destination, what service do you imagine that you, half-starved and half-frozen yourself, could render to those who are already perishing by want and exposure? you would only bring them away to die.” The obvious and dispassionate reasoning of the lieutenant could not fail to impress the minds of those who listened to him; the impracticability of the journey became more and more apparent; unprotected on that drear expanse, any traveler must assuredly succumb to the snow-drifts that were continually being whirled across it. But Hector Servadac, animated by the generous desire of rescuing a suffering fellow-creature, could scarcely be brought within the bounds of common sense. Against his better judgment he was still bent upon the expedition, and Ben Zoof declared himself ready to accompany his master in the event of Count Timascheff hesitating to encounter the peril which the undertaking involved. But the count entirely repudiated all idea of shrinking from what, quite as much as the captain, he regarded as a sacred duty, and turning to Lieutenant Procope, told him that unless some better plan could be devised, he was prepared to start off at once and make the attempt to skate across to Formentera. The lieutenant, who was lost in thought, made no immediate reply. “I wish we had a sledge,” said Ben Zoof. “I dare say that a sledge of some sort could be contrived,” said the count; “but then we should have no dogs or reindeers to draw it.” “Why not rough-shoe the two horses?” “They would never be able to endure the cold,” objected the count. “Never mind,” said Servadac, “let us get our sledge and put them to the test. Something must be done!” “I think,” said Lieutenant Procope, breaking his thoughtful silence, “that I can tell you of a sledge already provided for your hand, and I can suggest a motive power surer and swifter than horses.” “What do you mean?” was the eager inquiry. “I mean the ’s yawl,” answered the lieutenant; “and I have no doubt that the wind would carry her rapidly along the ice.” Dobryna The idea seemed admirable. Lieutenant Procope was well aware to what marvelous perfection the Americans had brought their sail-sledges, and had heard how in the vast prairies of the United States they had been known to outvie the speed of an express train, occasionally attaining a rate of more than a hundred miles an hour. The wind was still blowing hard from the south, and assuming that the yawl could be propelled with a velocity of about fifteen or at least twelve leagues an hour, he reckoned that it was quite possible to reach Formentera within twelve hours, that is to say, in a single day between the intervals of sunrise and sunrise. The yawl was about twelve feet long, and capable of holding five or six people. The addition of a couple of iron runners would be all that was requisite to convert it into an excellent sledge, which, if a sail were hoisted, might be deemed certain to make a rapid progress over the smooth surface of the ice. For the protection of the passengers it was proposed to erect a kind of wooden roof lined with strong cloth; beneath this could be packed a supply of provisions, some warm furs, some cordials, and a portable stove to be heated by spirits of wine. For the outward journey the wind was as favorable as could be desired; but it was to be apprehended that, unless the direction of the wind should change, the return would be a matter of some difficulty; a system of tacking might be carried out to a certain degree, but it was not likely that the yawl would answer her helm in any way corresponding to what would occur in the open sea. Captain Servadac, however, would not listen to any representation of probable difficulties; the future, he said, must provide for itself. The engineer and several of the sailors set vigorously to work, and before the close of the day the yawl was furnished with a pair of stout iron runners, curved upwards in front, and fitted with a metal scull designed to assist in maintaining the directness of her course; the roof was put on, and beneath it were stored the provisions, the wraps, and the cooking utensils. A strong desire was expressed by Lieutenant Procope that he should be allowed to accompany Captain Servadac instead of Count Timascheff. It was unadvisable for all three of them to go, as, in case of there being several persons to be rescued, the space at their command would be quite inadequate. The lieutenant urged that he was the most experienced seaman, and as such was best qualified to take command of the sledge and the management of the sails; and as it was not to be expected that Servadac would resign his intention of going in person to relieve his fellow-countryman, Procope submitted his own wishes to the count. The count was himself very anxious to have his share in the philanthropic enterprise, and demurred considerably to the proposal; he yielded, however, after a time, to Servadac’s representations that in the event of the expedition proving disastrous, the little colony would need his services alike as governor and protector, and overcoming his reluctance to be left out of the perilous adventure, was prevailed upon to remain behind for the general good of the community at Nina’s Hive. At sunrise on the following morning, the 16th of April, Captain Servadac and the lieutenant took their places in the yawl. The thermometer was more than 20 degrees below zero, and it was with deep emotion that their companions beheld them thus embarking upon the vast white plain. Ben Zoof’s heart was too full for words; Count Timascheff could not forbear pressing his two brave friends to his bosom; the Spaniards and the Russian sailors crowded round for a farewell shake of the hand, and little Nina, her great eyes flooded with tears, held up her face for a parting kiss. The sad scene was not permitted to be long. The sail was quickly hoisted, and the sledge, just as if it had expanded a huge white wing, was in a little while carried far away beyond the horizon. Light and unimpeded, the yawl scudded on with incredible speed. Two sails, a brigantine and a jib, were arranged to catch the wind to the greatest advantage, and the travelers estimated that their progress would be little under the rate of twelve leagues an hour. The motion of their novel vehicle was singularly gentle, the oscillation being less than that of an ordinary railway-carriage, while the diminished force of gravity contributed to the swiftness. Except that the clouds of ice-dust raised by the metal runners were an evidence that they had not actually left the level surface of the ice, the captain and lieutenant might again and again have imagined that they were being conveyed through the air in a balloon. Lieutenant Procope, with his head all muffled up for fear of frost-bite, took an occasional peep through an aperture that had been intentionally left in the roof, and by the help of a compass, maintained a proper and straight course for Formentera. Nothing could be more dejected than the aspect of that frozen sea; not a single living creature relieved the solitude; both the travelers, Procope from a scientific point of view, Servadac from an aesthetic, were alike impressed by the solemnity of the scene, and where the lengthened shadow of the sail cast upon the ice by the oblique rays of the setting sun had disappeared, and day had given place to night, the two men, drawn together as by an involuntary impulse, mutually held each other’s hands in silence. There had been a new moon on the previous evening; but, in the absence of moonlight, the constellations shone with remarkable brilliancy. The new pole-star close upon the horizon was resplendent, and even had Lieutenant Procope been destitute of a compass, he would have had no difficulty in holding his course by the guidance of that alone. However great was the distance that separated Gallia from the sun, it was after all manifestly insignificant in comparison with the remoteness of the nearest of the fixed stars. Observing that Servadac was completely absorbed in his own thoughts, Lieutenant Procope had leisure to contemplate some of the present perplexing problems, and to ponder over the true astronomical position. The last of the three mysterious documents had represented that Gallia, in conformity with Kepler’s second law, had traveled along her orbit during the month of March twenty millions of leagues less than she had done in the previous month; yet, in the same time, her distance from the sun had nevertheless been increased by thirty-two millions of leagues. She was now, therefore, in the center of the zone of telescopic planets that revolve between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and had captured for herself a satellite which, according to the document, was Nerina, one of the asteroids most recently identified. If thus, then, it was within the power of the unknown writer to estimate with such apparent certainty Gallia’s exact position, was it not likely that his mathematical calculations would enable him to arrive at some definite conclusion as to the date at which she would begin again to approach the sun? Nay, was it not to be expected that he had already estimated, with sufficient approximation to truth, what was to be the true length of the Gallian year? So intently had they each separately been following their own train of thought, that daylight reappeared almost before the travelers were aware of it. On consulting their instruments, they found that they must have traveled close upon a hundred leagues since they started, and they resolved to slacken their speed. The sails were accordingly taken in a little, and in spite of the intensity of the cold, the explorers ventured out of their shelter, in order that they might reconnoiter the plain, which was apparently as boundless as ever. It was completely desert; not so much as a single point of rock relieved the bare uniformity of its surface. “Are we not considerably to the west of Formentera?” asked Servadac, after examining the chart. “Most likely,” replied Procope. “I have taken the same course as I should have done at sea, and I have kept some distance to windward of the island; we can bear straight down upon it whenever we like.” “Bear down then, now; and as quickly as you can.” The yawl was at once put with her head to the northeast and Captain Servadac, in defiance of the icy blast, remained standing at the bow, his gaze fixed on the horizon. All at once his eye brightened. “Look! look!” he exclaimed, pointing to a faint outline that broke the monotony of the circle that divided the plain from the sky. In an instant the lieutenant had seized his telescope. “I see what you mean,” said he; “it is a pylone that has been used for some geodesic survey.” The next moment the sail was filled, and the yawl was bearing down upon the object with inconceivable swiftness, both Captain Servadac and the lieutenant too excited to utter a word. Mile after mile the distance rapidly grew less, and as they drew nearer the pylone they could see that it was erected on a low mass of rocks that was the sole interruption to the dull level of the field of ice. No wreath of smoke rose above the little island; it was manifestly impossible, they conceived, that any human being could there have survived the cold; the sad presentiment forced itself upon their minds that it was a mere cairn to which they had been hurrying. Ten minutes later, and they were so near the rock that the lieutenant took in his sail, convinced that the impetus already attained would be sufficient to carry him to the land. Servadac’s heart bounded as he caught sight of a fragment of blue canvas fluttering in the wind from the top of the pylone: it was all that now remained of the French national standard. At the foot of the pylone stood a miserable shed, its shutters tightly closed. No other habitation was to be seen; the entire island was less than a quarter of a mile in circumference; and the conclusion was irresistible that it was the sole surviving remnant of Formentera, once a member of the Balearic Archipelago. To leap on shore, to clamber over the slippery stones, and to reach the cabin was but the work of a few moments. The worm-eaten door was bolted on the inside. Servadac began to knock with all his might. No answer. Neither shouting nor knocking could draw forth a reply. “Let us force it open, Procope!” he said. The two men put their shoulders to the door, which soon yielded to their vigorous efforts, and they found themselves inside the shed, and in almost total darkness. By opening a shutter they admitted what daylight they could. At first sight the wretched place seemed to be deserted; the little grate contained the ashes of a fire long since extinguished; all looked black and desolate. Another instant’s investigation, however, revealed a bed in the extreme corner, and extended on the bed a human form. “Dead!” sighed Servadac; “dead of cold and hunger!” Lieutenant Procope bent down and anxiously contemplated the body. “No; he is alive!” he said, and drawing a small flask from his pocket he poured a few drops of brandy between the lips of the senseless man. There was a faint sigh, followed by a feeble voice, which uttered the one word, “Gallia?” “Yes, yes! Gallia!” echoed Servadac, eagerly. “My comet, my comet!” said the voice, so low as to be almost inaudible, and the unfortunate man relapsed again into unconsciousness. “Where have I seen this man?” thought Servadac to himself; “his face is strangely familiar to me.” But it was no time for deliberation. Not a moment was to be lost in getting the unconscious astronomer away from his desolate quarters. He was soon conveyed to the yawl; his books, his scanty wardrobe, his papers, his instruments, and the blackboard which had served for his calculations, were quickly collected; the wind, by a fortuitous Providence, had shifted into a favorable quarter; they set their sail with all speed, and ere long were on their journey back from Formentera. Thirty-six hours later, the brave travelers were greeted by the acclamations of their fellow-colonists, who had been most anxiously awaiting their reappearance, and the still senseless , who had neither opened his eyes nor spoken a word throughout the journey, was safely deposited in the warmth and security of the great hall of Nina’s Hive. savant END OF FIRST BOOK About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (1998). Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1353/pg1353-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

A SLEDGE-RIDE

Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . A LIGHT ON THE HORIZON here CHAPTER XX. A LIGHT ON THE HORIZON On the following day, without giving himself any further concern about the Jew’s incredulity, the captain gave orders for the to be shifted round to the harbor of the Shelif. Hakkabut raised no objection, not only because he was aware that the move insured the immediate safety of his tartan, but because he was secretly entertaining the hope that he might entice away two or three of the crew and make his escape to Algiers or some other port. Hansa Dobryna’s Operations now commenced for preparing proper winter quarters. Spaniards and Russians alike joined heartily in the work, the diminution of atmospheric pressure and of the force of attraction contributing such an increase to their muscular force as materially facilitated all their labors. The first business was to accommodate the building adjacent to the gourbi to the wants of the little colony. Here for the present the Spaniards were lodged, the Russians retaining their berths upon the yacht, while the Jew was permitted to pass his nights upon the . This arrangement, however, could be only temporary. The time could not be far distant when ships’ sides and ordinary walls would fail to give an adequate protection from the severity of the cold that must be expected; the stock of fuel was too limited to keep up a permanent supply of heat in their present quarters, and consequently they must be driven to seek some other refuge, the internal temperature of which would at least be bearable. Hansa The plan that seemed to commend itself most to their consideration was, that they should dig out for themselves some subterraneous pits similar to “silos,” such as are used as receptacles for grain. They presumed that when the surface of Gallia should be covered by a thick layer of ice, which is a bad conductor of heat, a sufficient amount of warmth for animal vitality might still be retained in excavations of this kind. After a long consultation they failed to devise any better expedient, and were forced to resign themselves to this species of troglodyte existence. In one respect they congratulated themselves that they should be better off than many of the whalers in the polar seas, for as it is impossible to get below the surface of a frozen ocean, these adventurers have to seek refuge in huts of wood and snow erected on their ships, which at best can give but slight protection from extreme cold; but here, with a solid subsoil, the Gallians might hope to dig down a hundred feet or so and secure for themselves a shelter that would enable them to brave the hardest severity of climate. The order, then, was at once given. The work was commenced. A stock of shovels, mattocks, and pick-axes was brought from the gourbi, and with Ben Zoof as overseer, both Spanish majos and Russian sailors set to work with a will. It was not long, however, before a discovery, more unexpected than agreeable, suddenly arrested their labors. The spot chosen for the excavation was a little to the right of the gourbi, on a slight elevation of the soil. For the first day everything went on prosperously enough; but at a depth of eight feet below the surface, the navvies came in contact with a hard surface, upon which all their tools failed to make the slightest impression. Servadac and the count were at once apprised of the fact, and had little difficulty in recognizing the substance that had revealed itself as the very same which composed the shores as well as the subsoil of the Gallian sea. It evidently formed the universal substructure of the new asteroid. Means for hollowing it failed them utterly. Harder and more resisting than granite, it could not be blasted by ordinary powder; dynamite alone could suffice to rend it. The disappointment was very great. Unless some means of protection were speedily devised, death seemed to be staring them in the face. Were the figures in the mysterious documents correct? If so, Gallia must now be a hundred millions of leagues from the sun, nearly three times the distance of the earth at the remotest section of her orbit. The intensity of the solar light and heat, too, was very seriously diminishing, although Gourbi Island (being on the equator of an orb which had its axes always perpendicular to the plane in which it revolved) enjoyed a position that gave it a permanent summer. But no advantage of this kind could compensate for the remoteness of the sun. The temperature fell steadily; already, to the discomfiture of the little Italian girl, nurtured in sunshine, ice was beginning to form in the crevices of the rocks, and manifestly the time was impending when the sea itself would freeze. Some shelter must be found before the temperature should fall to 60 degrees below zero. Otherwise death was inevitable. Hitherto, for the last few days, the thermometer had been registering an average of about 6 degrees below zero, and it had become matter of experience that the stove, although replenished with all the wood that was available, was altogether inadequate to effect any sensible mitigation of the severity of the cold. Nor could any amount of fuel be enough. It was certain that ere long the very mercury and spirit in the thermometers would be congealed. Some other resort must assuredly be soon found, or they must perish. That was clear. The idea of betaking themselves to the and could not for a moment be seriously entertained; not only did the structure of the vessels make them utterly insufficient to give substantial shelter, but they were totally unfitted to be trusted as to their stability when exposed to the enormous pressure of the accumulated ice. Dobryna Hansa Neither Servadac, nor the count, nor Lieutenant Procope were men to be easily disheartened, but it could not be concealed that they felt themselves in circumstances by which they were equally harassed and perplexed. The sole expedient that their united counsel could suggest was to obtain a refuge below ground, and was denied them by the strange and impenetrable substratum of the soil; yet hour by hour the sun’s disc was lessening in its dimensions, and although at midday some faint radiance and glow were to be distinguished, during the night the painfulness of the cold was becoming almost intolerable. that Mounted upon Zephyr and Galette, the captain and the count scoured the island in search of some available retreat. Scarcely a yard of ground was left unexplored, the horses clearing every obstacle as if they were, like Pegasus, furnished with wings. But all in vain. Soundings were made again and again, but invariably with the same result; the rock, hard as adamant, never failed to reveal itself within a few feet of the surface of the ground. The excavation of any silo being thus manifestly hopeless, there seemed nothing to be done except to try and render the buildings alongside the gourbi impervious to frost. To contribute to the supply of fuel, orders were given to collect every scrap of wood, dry or green, that the island produced; and this involved the necessity of felling the numerous trees that were scattered over the plain. But toil as they might at the accumulation of firewood, Captain Servadac and his companions could not resist the conviction that the consumption of a very short period would exhaust the total stock. And what would happen then? Studious if possible to conceal his real misgivings, and anxious that the rest of the party should be affected as little as might be by his own uneasiness, Servadac would wander alone about the island, racking his brain for an idea that would point the way out of the serious difficulty. But still all in vain. One day he suddenly came upon Ben Zoof, and asked him whether he had no plan to propose. The orderly shook his head, but after a few moments’ pondering, said: “Ah! master, if only we were at Montmartre, we would get shelter in the charming stone-quarries.” “Idiot!” replied the captain, angrily, “if we were at Montmartre, you don’t suppose that we should need to live in stone-quarries?” But the means of preservation which human ingenuity had failed to secure were at hand from the felicitous provision of Nature herself. It was on the 10th of March that the captain and Lieutenant Procope started off once more to investigate the northwest corner of the island; on their way their conversation naturally was engrossed by the subject of the dire necessities which only too manifestly were awaiting them. A discussion more than usually animated arose between them, for the two men were not altogether of the same mind as to the measures that ought to be adopted in order to open the fairest chance of avoiding a fatal climax to their exposure; the captain persisted that an entirely new abode must be sought, while the lieutenant was equally bent upon devising a method of some sort by which their present quarters might be rendered sufficiently warm. All at once, in the very heat of his argument, Procope paused; he passed his hand across his eyes, as if to dispel a mist, and stood, with a fixed gaze centered on a point towards the south. “What is that?” he said, with a kind of hesitation. “No, I am not mistaken,” he added; “it is a light on the horizon.” “A light!” exclaimed Servadac; “show me where.” “Look there!” answered the lieutenant, and he kept pointing steadily in its direction, until Servadac also distinctly saw the bright speck in the distance. It increased in clearness in the gathering shades of evening. “Can it be a ship?” asked the captain. “If so, it must be in flames; otherwise we should not be able to see it so far off,” replied Procope. “It does not move,” said Servadac; “and unless I am greatly deceived, I can hear a kind of reverberation in the air.” For some seconds the two men stood straining eyes and ears in rapt attention. Suddenly an idea struck Servadac’s mind. “The volcano!” he cried; “may it not be the volcano that we saw, whilst we were on board the ” Dobryna? The lieutenant agreed that it was very probable. “Heaven be praised!” ejaculated the captain, and he went on in the tones of a keen excitement: “Nature has provided us with our winter quarters; the stream of burning lava that is flowing there is the gift of a bounteous Providence; it will provide us all the warmth we need. No time to lose! To-morrow, my dear Procope, to-morrow we will explore it all; no doubt the life, the heat we want is reserved for us in the heart and bowels of our own Gallia!” Whilst the captain was indulging in his expressions of enthusiasm, Procope was endeavoring to collect his thoughts. Distinctly he remembered the long promontory which had barred the progress while coasting the southern confines of the sea, and which had obliged her to ascend northwards as far as the former latitude of Oran; he remembered also that at the extremity of the promontory there was a rocky headland crowned with smoke; and now he was convinced that he was right in identifying the position, and in believing that the smoke had given place to an eruption of flame. Dobryna’s When Servadac gave him a chance of speaking, he said, “The more I consider it, captain, the more I am satisfied that your conjecture is correct. Beyond a doubt, what we see is the volcano, and to-morrow we will not fail to visit it.” On returning to the gourbi, they communicated their discovery to Count Timascheff only, deeming any further publication of it to be premature. The count at once placed his yacht at their disposal, and expressed his intention of accompanying them. “The yacht, I think,” said Procope, “had better remain where she is; the weather is beautifully calm, and the steam-launch will answer our purpose better; at any rate, it will convey us much closer to shore than the schooner.” The count replied that the lieutenant was by all means to use his own discretion, and they all retired for the night. Like many other modern pleasure-yachts, the , in addition to her four-oar, was fitted with a fast-going little steam-launch, its screw being propelled, on the Oriolle system, by means of a boiler, small but very effective. Early next morning, this handy little craft was sufficiently freighted with coal (of which there was still about ten tons on board the ), and manned by nobody except the captain, the count, and the lieutenant, left the harbor of the Shelif, much to the bewilderment of Ben Zoof, who had not yet been admitted into the secret. The orderly, however, consoled himself with the reflection that he had been temporarily invested with the full powers of governor general, an office of which he was not a little proud. Dobryna Dobryna The eighteen miles between the island and the headland were made in something less than three hours. The volcanic eruption was manifestly very considerable, the entire summit of the promontory being enveloped in flames. To produce so large a combustion either the oxygen of Gallia’s atmosphere had been brought into contact with the explosive gases contained beneath her soil, or perhaps, still more probable, the volcano, like those in the moon, was fed by an internal supply of oxygen of her own. It took more than half an hour to settle on a suitable landing-place. At length, a small semi-circular creek was discovered among the rocks, which appeared advantageous, because, if circumstances should so require, it would form a safe anchorage for both the and the . Dobryna Hansa The launch securely moored, the passengers landed on the side of the promontory opposite to that on which a torrent of burning lava was descending to the sea. With much satisfaction they experienced, as they approached the mountain, a sensible difference in the temperature, and their spirits could not do otherwise than rise at the prospect of having their hopes confirmed, that a deliverance from the threatened calamity had so opportunely been found. On they went, up the steep acclivity, scrambling over its rugged projections, scaling the irregularities of its gigantic strata, bounding from point to point with the agility of chamois, but never alighting on anything except on the accumulation of the same hexagonal prisms with which they had now become so familiar. Their exertions were happily rewarded. Behind a huge pyramidal rock they found a hole in the mountain-side, like the mouth of a great tunnel. Climbing up to this orifice, which was more than sixty feet above the level of the sea, they ascertained that it opened into a long dark gallery. They entered and groped their way cautiously along the sides. A continuous rumbling, that increased as they advanced, made them aware that they must be approaching the central funnel of the volcano; their only fear was lest some insuperable wall of rock should suddenly bar their further progress. Servadac was some distance ahead. “Come on!” he cried cheerily, his voice ringing through the darkness, “come on! Our fire is lighted! no stint of fuel! Nature provides that! Let us make haste and warm ourselves!” Inspired by his confidence, the count and the lieutenant advanced bravely along the unseen and winding path. The temperature was now at least fifteen degrees above zero, and the walls of the gallery were beginning to feel quite warm to the touch, an indication, not to be overlooked, that the substance of which the rock was composed was metallic in its nature, and capable of conducting heat. “Follow me!” shouted Servadac again; “we shall soon find a regular stove!” Onwards they made their way, until at last a sharp turn brought them into a sudden flood of light. The tunnel had opened into a vast cavern, and the gloom was exchanged for an illumination that was perfectly dazzling. Although the temperature was high, it was not in any way intolerable. One glance was sufficient to satisfy the explorers that the grateful light and heat of this huge excavation were to be attributed to a torrent of lava that was rolling downwards to the sea, completely subtending the aperture of the cave. Not inaptly might the scene be compared to the celebrated Grotto of the Winds at the rear of the central fall of Niagara, only with the exception that here, instead of a curtain of rushing water, it was a curtain of roaring flame that hung before the cavern’s mouth. “Heaven be praised!” cried Servadac, with glad emotion; “here is all that we hoped for, and more besides!” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (1998). Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1353/pg1353-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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