River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1892-02-04

useful for something for us, this some
thing" is life, under whatever form it
may be, from the simplest blade of
grass up to the highest, most intelli-
gent, most powerful mind This dec
laration. which is forced upon us by
our logic, is also the declarati on
of entire nature, whose unlimited
fecundity has sown life around on
every spot capable of receiving IL;
whose singular foresight gives things
ard beings even double and multiple
purpose for existence; who produces
several effects thro ugh the same cause,
and who goes so far as to accumulate
life at the expense of living beings
themselves.
If the gigantic world of Jupiter is
now undergoing those conditions of
temperature that marked the primitive
epochs of the earth we cannot consider
il as being a. present the seat of intel
lectual life. 1t is the land of the
icthyos9urus but not that of man; not
the calm and tranquil world which is
necessary for the manifestations of a
delicate, nervous system and of con-
templative thought. Ii is only later. in
the future ages, that Jupiter will be
inhabited by an intellectual race, and
who knows whether, perhaps, it may
not be ourselves? Its situation then
will be incomparably superior to that
of the earth. An immense empire, a
perpetual spring, long years and a
mild. unvarying temperature will form
an abode of peace and happiness truly
worthy of our ambition and our hopes.
This majestic world travels in space
accompanied by four enormous sat
elites. In what condition are these
four worlds? Are they not themselves,
and have they not been for long time
the seat of organic life and even an in
tellectual one? Does not Jupiter's
globe furnish them with a modicum of
heat and is it not to them scarcely ex-
tinct sun? The superior volume and mass
of this planet, as It moves on surround
ed by these satellites, is a reproduction
of the image of the sun itself in the
midst of its four nearer planets-Mer-
curry, Venus, Mars aud the earth-for
the distances and relative volumes of
Jupiter's four satellites form system
which is singularly analogous to that
of the four first planets of the great
solar system.
Each one of the four worlds of the
Jovian system has its special years, its
days, and doubtless also its seasons;
and the inhabitants of each of them
have also the same reasons for believ-
ing themselves at the center of the en-
tire univ rse as the inhabitants of our
little earth who, during SO many ages,
have dreamed the same dream. To
them Jupiter globe has the aspect of
a gigantic moon which is capable of
effectually compensating for the small
quantity of light they receive from the
sun. Regarded from the first of the
satellites his immense globe appears
fourteen hundred times greater in
surface than our full moon.
What a colossus! Even from the
outmost satellite the apparent surface
of Jupiter still exceeds by seventy five
times that which the moon exhibits 70
us What magnificent sights are to be
contemplated from these observations
Colossal Jupiter is the most marvellous
object of their heavens; to him he is
the sovereign of the universe-the true
Jupiter-and they admire him no less
than we admire the sun. For to them
the sun is only small, brilliant disk,
while viewed from the first satellite the
immense globe of Jupiter exceeds it by
thirty-five hundred times
Let us add the magic celebrations
which decorate this with glowing
tiDts, from orange and red TO violet
and purple; let us add also the rapid
changes produced in its appearance by
its rotatory motion, and we shall have
an approximate idea of the mag
nificence of the picture as seen from
these four worlds as they are carried
along by the giant star into the far-ofi
depths of immensely.
And now a last question, and one OF
personal interest: What effect does the
earth produce as seen from up yonder?
Assuredly very ordinary effect as re-
CARDS our vanity. 1t is very probable
that the inhabitants of Jupiter and
the planets beyond consider the region
of the solar system in which we live
as en- PITY. If Jupiter and the earth
were 10 exchange situations the inhab-
OF N0c NOu4u SEC ONii
globe as pale star of the sixth mag
nituie, and scarcely perceptible to the
naked eye, just as Uranus appears 10
us. But, in the position that we oc-
cupy with respect to Jupiter, the earth,
at the moment of conjunction, is, like
Venus, subjected to phases which rem
der the whole or greater part OF its
disk invisible. Almost always lost
amid the solar rays, it would appear
like black point when an observer on
Jupiter CHANGED to see it pass across
the disk of the sun, and not. as Fonte-
nellie supposed, with the aspect of a
star visible at night. This little black
point has not as much importance in
the eyes of the inhabitants of Jupiter
as that which Mr.. Bismarck attaches
to the momentary possession of one of
his minute provinces, and, were it
known on this far distant world that
certain philosophers of the little black
point had assumed that the whole uni
verse was created and put in the world
on purposenfor them. there is reason
to believe the whole population of the
four worlds of Jupiter would be seized
with fit of laughter worthy of being
sung by a Homer, and that the uproar
produced would be so great that it
might well be heard here.