The great light disk in the heavens had been slowly ascending toward the zenith, with our advance upon the equator, and as it now stood about ninety degrees from the vertical meridian, or halfway between the horizon and overhead, we imagined we must be somewhere nearly under the tropics of our own world. There had been no falling off in the light, it being disseminated throughout the interior with equal purity and force; and as Torrence explained, when the northern summer waned, with the passage of the sun across the line, the south polar opening would gradually supplant the deficiencies of the north. I wish we could have remained in our new world long enough to have witnessed this change, but we could not make up our minds to so long a stay. "It does seem astounding," I said to Torrence, as we sat sipping our coffee, "that the people of this world should never have discovered their close proximity to our own outer sphere, which is indeed equivalent to another planet!" "No more astounding," he answered, "than that we, who so continually boast of our superior powers, should through all these ages have failed to even suspect their existence. We search the heavens for indications of life upon our sister planets, and neglect this world beneath our feet. That to me is more astounding than the other!" The outlook ahead was melancholy; possibly due to the uncertainty of when we should again see land. We continued our meal in silence, and then with a final look at the machinery, re-embarked to cross this unexplored sea. The cliffs rapidly faded away in the distance, while the sky above, and the water beneath, alone remained to us. We felt like the tenants of some meteor traversing the regions of interplanetary space. We now flew onward with tremendous velocity, for there were no pitfalls, no mountains to avoid, and nothing of interest to see. Moreover, Torrence had come to the conclusion that a rapid rate of transit was less inclined to disorder the machinery than the reverse. Hour after hour we swept ahead through this realm of mystery, constantly scanning the horizon for speck, or sail, or life upon the sluggish waves, and wondering if human eyes had ever looked upon the picture flowing beneath us. "I feel quite sure," said Torrence, "that this sea will not extend to the Antarctic Ocean. For various scientific reasons I am convinced that land predominates upon the interior, and we are much too far from the southern opening to make it at all probable that no more land will be met. This body of water may be a thousand miles across, or even more, and there may be channels communicating with the South Pacific, although this is mere conjecture; but land we shall have!" As the geography of the interior was quite as familiar as that of the opposite side of the moon, it seemed absurd to form any opinion concerning it, but Torrence had decided views upon every subject.