Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/375



The usual custom is to land on Vulcan by night. Loss of business time is an objection to this practice, but the greatly reduced night temperature is a material saving of money or energy on the other side. The comparative cold, especially close on to sunrise, is so great, that we Eartheans could almost stand the night climate here unprotected; while a thousand feet aloft, in the thin Vulcanian atmosphere, we feel at night, so far as temperature is concerned, almost quite comfortable. Thus any shipping from the earth or other outside planet, laid up for any short season in Vulcan, find it most convenient, and much the most saving, to get into counter-axial motion, and so remain continuously within the protecting shade of Vulcanian night.

We calculated to arrive at our Vulcan station just one hour before daybreak, so as to give us time to mount our complete protective panoplies, get our breakfast, and be ready for business. Some of our company were out betimes to see the grand sunrise. The slight forewarning dawn which the thin air affords, hardly at all heralds the sudden flash of the grand solar limb that rises upon the horizon. Almost in one instant we were immersed in a blaze of light and heat. The Vulcanians all around amused us just then by rubbing their hands to take off the chill of the morning, and welcome the coming heat of day. We, on our part, in order to secure coolness, stood well within our strongly fortified cross-electro protectors.

How completely different everything is and looks