Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/357



Io being not very much larger than our moon, the human form, as developed in both worlds, had been nearly similar, being somewhat slighter than that of the Marsians, while the latter was still short of that firmer bone and figure due to the greater gravity of the earth. Io, as regarded that hemisphere of her body, which is always turned to Jupiter, averaged a temperature but little above our own. Her tropical apex, however, with huge and glowing Jupiter always right overhead, proved, to our feelings, rather a warm berth. We felt more comfortable about three-fourths down latitude, towards the edge of that other and off-hemisphere, which never gets Jupiter's warmth, and which is consequently a cold desolation, occupied by inferior organisms, and by mere scattered trading colonies of the people of the other and more favoured hemisphere. Away down the lunar latitudes just alluded to, and with the shelter of a hill between us and heat-radiating Jupiter, this said latitude had for us quite a pleasant temperature. The sun, at the great distance of the Jovian system, did not seem, to us at least, of much comparative account. He was, indeed, a brilliant little orb, throwing off a good deal of light, but as regarded heat altogether second to the mighty overshadowing planet just at the door.

Those leading First Jovian features, namely, the small size, the moderate light-supply, and the ample and genial heat, were all duly reflected in the particular human attainment. The people were not ambitious, and still less scientific, but quiet and plodding, utilitarian, and business-like throughout.