Four Months in a Sneak-Box: A Boat Voyage of 2600 Miles Down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and Along the Gulf of MexicoBishop, Nathaniel H. (Nathaniel Holmes)
General
Four Months in a Sneak-Box: A Boat Voyage of 2600 Miles Down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and Along the Gulf of Mexico
Bishop, Nathaniel H. (Nathaniel Holmes)
Boats and boating; Mississippi River -- Description and travel; Ohio River -- Description and travel
The astronomer moved away from his instrument and the wonderful
machinery that had guided it in its search for the asteroid, slowly
muttering. "The sun robbed me of a second sight of my discovery, yet
only at this hour can I hope to get a glimpse of it. The difficulties
attending this observation are the tremendous velocity with which it
travels, its very small mass, and the rapidity with which, at the hour
of sunset, it passes into the shadow of the earth. I will, however,
calculate its orbit, and search for it again; for I have this evening
seen what no human eye has ever beheld, I HAVE SEEN THE EARTH'S LITTLE
MOON." While I watched, entranced, the astronomer, aided by his
assistants, labored over multitudes of figures hour after hour, day
after day; and from these computations an orbit was constructed for
the Little Moon.
Their work was finished; and as they left the observatory, a shadow,
which had thrown its dark outlines here and there about the professor
during his investigations, assumed the proportions of a man; and I saw
for an instant the brilliant French writer, Jules Verne, while a voice
in the musical language of France fell upon my ear: "Ah, Monsieur, it
IS true, then, and we have a second moon, which must revolve round our
planet once in three hours and twenty minutes, at a distance of only
four thousand six hundred and fifty miles from our terrestrial
abiding-place!"
Then the professor and his figures faded out of my vision; and I
seemed to be observing a little moon revolving with lightning rapidity
round the earth, while I felt that I had, in some way, been sucked
into its orbit, and was whirling around with it. Suddenly, with a keen
sense of danger pervading my whole nervous system, I awoke. Yes, it
was a dream! I was in my boat, gazing up into the serene heavens,
where the larger moon was tranquilly following her orbit, while I was
being whirled round in a strong eddy under a high bank of the river,
with the giant trees frowning down upon me as though rebuking a
careless boatman for being caught napping. And where was the flat? I
gazed across the wide river into the quiet atmosphere now full of the
bright light of the moon,--but no boat could be seen; and from the
wild forest alone came back an echo to my shouts of "Flatboat, ahoy!"
For hours I rowed in search of my compagnon de voyage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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