be inclined to believe that the message had been set afloat
by some _savant_ left alone, perchance, upon some isolated coast.

"But, however interesting it might be," observed the count,
"to know the author of the lines, to us it is of far greater

moment to ascertain their meaning."
And taking up the paper again, he said, "Perhaps we might analyze it

word by word, and from its detached parts gather some clue to its sense
as a whole."

"What can be the meaning of all that cluster of interrogations
after Gallia?" asked Servadac.

Lieutenant Procope, who had hitherto not spoken, now broke his silence
by saying, "I beg, gentlemen, to submit my opinion that this document

goes very far to confirm my hypothesis that a fragment of the earth
has been precipitated into space."

Captain Servadac hesitated, and then replied, "Even if it does,
I do not see how it accounts in the least for the geological

character of the new asteroid."
"But will you allow me for one minute to take my supposition

for granted?" said Procope. "If a new little planet has been formed,
as I imagine, by disintegration from the old, I should conjecture

that Gallia is the name assigned to it by the writer of this paper.
The very notes of interrogation are significant that he was in doubt

what he should write."
"You would presume that he was a Frenchman?" asked the count.

"I should think so," replied the lieutenant.
"Not much doubt about that," said Servadac; "it is all in French,

except a few scattered words of English, Latin, and Italian,
inserted to attract attention. He could not tell into whose

hands the message would fall first."
"Well, then," said Count Timascheff, "we seem to have found a name

for the new world we occupy."
"But what I was going especially to observe," continued the lieutenant,

"is that the distance, 59,000,000 leagues, represents precisely
the distance we ourselves were from the sun on the 15th.

It was on that day we crossed the orbit of Mars."
"Yes, true," assented the others.

"And the next line," said the lieutenant, after reading it aloud,
"apparently registers the distance traversed by Gallia, the new little planet,

in her own orbit. Her speed, of course, we know by Kepler's laws,
would vary according to her distance from the sun, and if she were--

as I conjecture from the temperature at that date--on the 15th of January
at her perihelion, she would be traveling twice as fast as the earth,

which moves at the rate of between 50,000 and 60,000 miles an hour."
"You think, then," said Servadac, with a smile, "you have determined

the perihelion of our orbit; but how about the aphelion?
Can you form a judgment as to what distance we are likely

to be carried?"
"You are asking too much," remonstrated the count.

"I confess," said the lieutenant, "that just at present I
am not able to clear away the uncertainty" target="_blank" title="n.不可靠；不确定的事">uncertainty of the future;

but I feel confident that by careful observation at various
points we shall arrive at conclusions which not only will

determine our path, but perhaps may clear up the mystery about
our geological structure."

"Allow me to ask," said Count Timascheff, "whether such a new asteroid would
not be subject to ordinary mechanical laws, and whether, once started,

it would not have an orbit that must be immutable?"
"Decidedly it would, so long as it was undisturbed by the attraction

of some considerable body; but we must recollect that, compared to
the great planets, Gallia must be almost infinitesimally small,

and so might be attracted by a force that is irresistible."
"Altogether, then," said Servadac, "we seem to have settled it to our

entire satisfaction that we must be the population of a young little
world called Gallia. Perhaps some day we may have the honor of being

registered among the minor planets."
"No chance of that," quickly rejoined Lieutenant Procope. "Those minor

planets all are known to rotate in a narrow zone between the orbits
of Mars and Jupiter; in their perihelia they cannot approximate the sun

as we have done; we shall not be classed with them."
"Our lack of instruments," said the count, "is much to be deplored;

it baffles our investigations in every way."
"Ah, never mind! Keep up your courage, count!" said Servadac, cheerily.

And Lieutenant Procope renewed his assurances that he entertained
good hopes that every perplexity would soon be solved.

"I suppose," remarked the count, " that we cannot attribute much importance
to the last line: _'Va bene! All right!!_ Parfait!!!'"

The captain answered, "At least, it shows that whoever wrote it
had no murmuring or complaint to make, but was quite content

with the new order of things."
CHAPTER XVI

THE RESIDUUM OF A CONTINENT
Almost unconsciously, the voyagers in the _Dobryna_ fell into the habit

of using Gallia as the name of the new world in which they became aware they
must be making an extraordinaryexcursion through the realms of space.

Nothing, however, was allowed to divert them from their ostensible object
of making a survey of the coast of the Mediterranean, and accordingly they

persevered in following that singularboundary which had revealed itself
to their extreme astonishment.

Having rounded the great promontory that had barred her farther
progress to the north, the schooner skirted its upper edge.

A few more leagues and they ought to be abreast of the shores
of France. Yes, of France.

But who shall describe the feelings of Hector Servadac when,
instead of the charmingoutline of his native land,

he beheld nothing but a solid boundary of savage rock?
Who shall paint the look of consternation with which he gazed upon

the stony rampart--rising perpendicularly for a thousand feet--
that had replaced the shores of the smiling south?

Who shall reveal the burning anxiety with which he throbbed
to see beyond that cruel wall?

But there seemed no hope. Onwards and onwards the yacht made
her way, and still no sign of France. It might have been supposed

that Servadac's previous experiences would have prepared him
for the discovery that the catastrophe which had overwhelmed

other sites had brought destruction to his own country as well.
But he had failed to realize how it might extend to France;

and when now he was obliged with his own eyes to witness
the waves of ocean rolling over what once had been the lovely

shores of Provence, he was well-nigh frantic with desperation.
"Am I to believe that Gourbi Island, that little shred of Algeria,

constitutes all that is left of our glorious France? No, no;
it cannot be. Not yet have we reached the pole of our new world.

There is--there must be--something more behind that frowning rock.
Oh, that for a moment we could scale its toweringheight and look beyond!

By Heaven, I adjure you, let us disembark, and mount the summit and explore!
France lies beyond."

Disembarkation, however, was an utter impossibility. There was no
semblance of a creek in which the _Dobryna_ could find an anchorage.

There was no outlying ridge on which a footing could be gained.
The precipice was perpendicular as a wall, its topmost height crowned

with the same conglomerate of crystallized lamellae that had all along
been so pronounced a feature.

With her steam at high pressure, the yacht made rapid progress towards
the east. The weather remained perfectly fine, the temperature

became gradually cooler, so that there was little prospect of vapors
accumulating in the atmosphere; and nothing more than a few cirri,

almost transparent, veiled here and there the clear azure of the sky.
Throughout the day the pale rays of the sun, apparently lessened

in its magnitude, cast only faint and somewhat uncertain shadows;
but at night the stars shone with surpassing brilliancy. Of the planets,

some, it was observed, seemed to be fading away in remote distance.
This was the case with Mars, Venus, and that unknown orb which was moving

in the orbit of the minor planets; but Jupiter, on the other hand,
had assumed splendid proportions; Saturn was superb in its luster,

and Uranus, which hitherto had been imperceptible without a telescope
was pointed out by Lieutenant Procope, plainlyvisible to the naked eye.

The inference was irresistible that Gallia was receding from the sun,
and traveling far away across the planetary regions.

On the 24th of February, after following the sinuous course of what before
the date of the convulsion had been the coast line of the department of Var,