The inclination of our planet’s axis, or in other terms, the angle which its axis of rotation makes with the plane of its ecliptic is 66° 32′. A few degrees would thus bring the axis perpendicular to the plane of the orbit it describes round the Sun. But—it is important to remark—the effort that the North Polar Practical Association was about to make would not, strictly speaking, right the Earth’s axis. Mechanically, no force, however considerable, could accomplish that. The Earth is not like a chicken on a spit, that we can take it in our hand and shift it as we will. But the making of a new axis was possible—it may be said easy—if the engineers only had the fulcrum dreamt of by Archimedes and the lever imagined by J. T. Maston. But as it had been decided to keep the invention a secret until further orders, all that could be done was to study the consequences. And to begin with, the journals and reviews of all sorts appealing to the learned and the ignorant devoted themselves to considering how Jupiter was affected by the approximate perpendicularity of his axis to the plane of his orbit. Jupiter, like Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, forms part of the solar system, and sweeps round at nearly five hundred million miles from the central fire; and his volume is about fourteen times that of the Earth. If there be such a thing as Jovian life, that is to say, if there are any inhabitants on Jupiter, the following are the advantages they obtain by living on the great planet—advantages so poetically brought into relief at the memorable meeting above alluded to. In the first place, during the diurnal rotation of Jupiter, which occupies nine hours, fifty-five minutes, the days are always equal to the nights in all latitudes; that is to say, the Jovian day is four hours, fifty-seven minutes long, and the Jovian night lasts also four hours and fifty-seven minutes. “There,” said the admirers of Jovian existence, “you have something suited to people of regular habits. They will be delighted to submit to such regularity.” That is what would happen to the Earth if Barbicane did what he promised, only as the new axis would make no difference in the time of rotation, twenty-four hours would still separate the successive noons, and our spheroid would be blessed with nights and days each twelve hours long, and we should live in a perpetual equinox. “But the climatal phenomena would be much more curious; and no less interesting,” said the enthusiasts, “would be the absence of the seasons.” Owing to the inclination of the axis to the plane of the orbit, we have the annual changes known as spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The Jovians could know nothing of these things, and the Terrestrians would know them no more. The moment the new axis became perpendicular to the ecliptic there would be neither frigid zones nor torrid zones, but the whole Earth would rejoice in a temperate climate. Why was this?