The Ketchikan miner., 1908-10-10
THE PLANET JUPITER
A Monster World, 1900 Times
 the Size of Ours.
WHlRlS WITH AWFUL SPEED.
It Spins Around at Such a Fearful Gait That a Furious Gale Perpetual ly Encircles Its Equator-lts Possi- ble Inhabitants and Its Moons.

It is curious how little the average person knows about Jupiter. He has heard lot. too much perhaps, about Mars, but that world. 1900 times the size of ours. whirling in the terrible outer distance of space with it's five moons, its IA months yearly, known as Jupiter is almost If not quite mys- tery.
 In the first place, Jupiter, according to some astronomers, Is inhabited. So are some of its moons, in the midst of which the great planet spins around like top at such tremendous speed that it causes around the equator furious wind that blows perpetually at rate of about 250 miles an hour
 In the midst of this never ending, bowling gale live the Joyhns. Some astronomers say that because Jupiter is so much bigger and heavier than the earth no creature of any weight 200 pounds on this earth would, if car ried to Jupiter. weigh 800 pounds, and. reasoning thus, they believe that noth- ing bigger than cat could stand on this vast world.
 But this is no doubt Il mistake. If Jupiter stood still or reyolved no faster than our earth all that astronomy says would be true, and q terrestrial man could not stand upon its surface. But as fact the tremendous rate of reyo- lution is so much faster than the earth's that in spite of it's monstrous size it turns about in less than ten hours as against our twenty-four hours.
 AS 1t is, a man of normal earthly size, if transported to the equator of Jupiter. would actually feel much lighter than he does here on earth. be- cause the swift rotation of the planet would almost lift him from his feet and throw him into the heavens. He would feel so light that the 25O mile an hour tornado that blows incessant- ly would pick him up and carry him l around and around the planet like a speck of dust.
 In order to keep on his feet the Jovian man or woman would have to be about fifty feet tall. Some of them would doubtless reach the height of fifty-fve feet. Like all big bodies. the Joyian would have a tendency to slow ness of motion. Having once seated himself, he would spend good twelve | Iii ,l-f .,,,I ,nrl,o nc, eighteen at his dinner and would prob ably throw up his job If his employer l allowed him less than six hours for his lunch.
 The oceans of Jupiter torn into fury by the hurricanes, would pay no atten- tion to one moon such as moves the tides on our earth, and 1t takes no fewer than five of these satellites to perform this work for Jupiter. They travel at various rates of speed, some flying very close to Jupiter's surface and others far off. They have atmos- pheres somewhat like ours on earth, and moonlight on Jupiter Is indeed a variety of colors. Two are blue, one Is yellow and one red.
 Jupiter needs all it's moons at night for illumination, for without them it's five hours of darkness would be black indeed. So distant is the sun that broad daylight is hardly brighter than twilight on earth, and one lone moon would not reflect enough of the suns rays to guide the Jovian footsteps.
 In the polar and semipolar areas the 25O mile an hour tornado of the equa- tor is not present. Doubtless there are eddies and occasional windstorms such as there are on earth. And in these localities it is possible for smaller creatures to exist, and here, too, vege- tation would flourish. The food SUD- ply of Jupiter must come from these areas. where it Is cultivated and ship ped to the equatorial regions by the diminutive races. The polar oceans are not frozen because of the great internal heat of Jupiter And on these still oceans probably ships not greatly different from ours ply. but about the equator the intending storm would make surface sailing impossible.
 If there are ships at all at the equa- tor they are submarines. which dive into the calm depths beneath the sur face Locomotion by flying machines is extremely easy on the equator be- cause. by taking advantage of the wind the Joyians can navigate their planet at tremendous speed.
 It is possible that because of the noise in the wind swept equator the Jovian is deaf.
 Quite likely. on the other hand. he has good ears, but with a device, either artificial or contributed by nature, for stopping his ears. except when he wishes to listen.
 This tremendous, good natured Jo- vian has a leather-like skin to protect himself from the scratches of flying things and a device for sitting the air that he breathes. for Jovian atmos- phere is full of dust and in spite of the difficulties of his existence he is long lived gentleman. On the average he exists for about 800 of our years. Probably many Jovian exists full thousand of our little years.-Detroit News-Tribune.
 None of us may know when the echo of careless word will cease vibrating