Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1872-10-11
True,n answered the Saturnian. an
zfllre iSlikn q nardan of Hnmars .,

4 =
! lures
81 Never mind comparisons" said Mi
cromega, sharply. Nature is Nature,
and no more can be said about it. Why
do you try ?"
itTo please you, answered the secre-
tary.
| II don't want to be pleased" said MI
cromega. / want to be instructed. Tell
me how many senses the people OF your
globe possesses.
eve have seventy,two, p" said the acade-
nician: s'but every day we find them too
few. Our imagination scars beyond our
capacities for realizing its dreams. Our
seventy-two senses, our ring, our five
moons, all are too circumscribed; and, in
spite of all, we weary and die of tedium
Vita rather than of old age."
y s"I quite believe it," answered Micro
mega. cit is the same with lis in our
globe, where we have thousand senses.
have travelled not little, and seen be-
ings both superior and inferior to our
selves; but have never yet found any
who had not more desires than wants,
and more wants than could be gratified.
Maybe [ shall one day reach a country
where people want for nothing; but up
to the present time I have not seen any
|
is situated. Let us revert from fancies to
facts. How long do men live in this
planet ?"
ooh, but very little WHILE" said the
little Saturnian; "only five hundred revo
lutions round the sun" (about fifteen
thousand years of our reckoning). You
see it gives us no time at all. Our life is
but point, our years are but moment,
our globe is but an atom. One has
scarce begun to live-eXperlence is I'M
possible-When death comes and cast us
down."
Micromega answered: "Were you not
a philosopher I should fear to affiict you
by telling you that our life is seven hun
dred times as long But when the mo-
ment arrives for us to give up our bodies
to the elements to be terminated into new
forms (the process we call death), it mat
ters little to have lived an eternity or to
have lived but day-itis the same thing
With us, we are always complaining OF
the shortness of life; and I,have been in
the distant planets, where folks live a
thousand times longer. 1t is the same
there. Only now and then does one meet
!. wise man who accepts his lot and gives
humble thanks to the Great Author of his
being. But tell me how many essential
properties of matter you distinguish?"~
eff you speak of essential properties,
without which our globe could not exist"
replied the Saturnian, 1--WE reckon three
hundred-such as expansion, impenetra-
bility, mobility, gravitation, divisibility,
and so on"
"Doubtless this small number suffices
! for the purposes the Creator had in view
! in making so small a planet" said Micro
mega 'I reverence His wisdom in it all.
A little globe-little inhabitants with few
sensations-matter with meagre proper
ties-it is all-wise and proportionate.
What color is your sun?"
GA yellowish white" said the Saturn
ian; land when we divide one of its rays
we find it composed of seven colors."
"Our sum-" said Micromega, ''is of a
metallic red tone, and we have thirty-nine
primitive colors. No sun I have ever
seen is like it,"
After some more conversation of a SIM
lar nature, the two philosophers determ-
ined to travel together and explore other
planets. So, packing up their mathemat!-
ical instruments, they left Saturn, and
soon alighted upon the ring. Thence
they journeyed from moon to moon, and
| availfng themselves of passing comet,
they amounted it, and were swiftly carried
through space. After long time, -see-
ing little shining ball beneath them,
they resolved to rest there, and so de-
scended the tail of the comet. An aurora
borealis brought them safely to cur earth,
where they landed on the southern shore
of the Baltic Sea, July 9Th, 1857. First
they walked from north to south; then
| they walked all around the world, accom-
plishing the latter journey in thlrty-slx
hours; but they could not see a single In
habitant, nor discern the least sign to lead
them to suspect that beings so distin-
| guished as ourselves had the honor OF ex-
listing.
The Saturnian academician, who some
times jumped rather rashly at conclu-
sions, decided, without hesitation, that
| the earth was uninhabited. The first
reason he gave was that he had not seen
any inhabitants.
'Allow me to remind you that your
reasoning is bad" said Micromega; 6 for
by the same argument you might contend
that many stars of the fiftieth magnitude,
which are distinctly visible to me, do not
exist simply because your little eyes can
not perceive them" rt
"But.' returned his dwarfish COM
panion, "I have examined carefully."{
But" said the other, "you have
badly weighed the results of your exami--
nation"
"But," urged the dwarf, "this little
| globe is so badly constructed, it is so ir-
regular and SO ridiculous in shape. 1t is
all a chaos. Look at those little crooked
streams, no bigger than thread, and
those shapeless ponds, neither round nor
square, nor any other shape, and these
little peaks that prick ones feet so in
walking" HE was speaking of rivers,
| nd
the form of the globe, how fiat 1t is at the
polls. Then see how absurdly it turns
round the sun ia such a way that it is
nearly always dark at the poles What
makes me think it is uninhabited, is be-
cause no person well supplied with
senses could possibly reconcile himself to
| dwell here"
Every good" said Micromega; but
even that would not exclude people in
differently supplied with senses from liv-
| ing here. 1t seems to me all this was not
made for nothing. 1t may appear irregu-
lar enough compared with Jupiter or
! Saturn; but the fact that we cannot per-
ceive its order should not make US sup
pose it is necessarily in confusion. Have
| 1 not told you that my travels have led
me to remark the variety OF Natures
ways?"
The Saturnian replied someNthat warm
ly, and the dispute would not have soon
finished, had not Micromega by accident
broken the thread of a diamond necklace
he Wore The diamonds fell upon the
ground. They were nice little gems the
largest might weight four hundred weight,
the smaller perhaps fifty pounds. The
dwarf began to pick them up, and as he
did SO discovered that the fashion of their
cutting rendered them splendid micro
scopes. He took one little microscope