But by means of the superior methods of investigation which this Andromedic astronomer had at his disposal, he succeeded, after a laborious study which it took him 250 years of continuous work to complete, in reconstructing the history of the terrestrial globe, which interested him specially, and in discovering that it had been formerly inhabited by animals of different species, and in particular by certain bipeds endowed with relative intelligence. * * * * * This obscure globe, a black bullet revolving round another black bullet, had a whole history of its own. It had contained in former times an intense and luxuriant life. The springs and summers had brought forth a profusion of flowers and fruit in the sunlit fields, the land had unfolded its golden carpet of corn, springs had murmured among the hills, birds had sung in the trees, the perfumed breezes of meadows and woods had been wafted through the valleys, rivers had rolled through the vast plains, villages and towns had grown up along their banks, human communities had gradually peopled the world, inventing fruitful industries, delightful arts, brilliant sciences; prodigious cities had, in different ages, raised palaces for kings and temples for gods; Memphis had succeeded Babylon, Athens had followed Memphis, Rome had cast Athens into oblivion, Paris had eclipsed Rome, and had vanished in its turn; hundreds of millions of brains had thought, hundreds of millions of hearts had beaten, eternal loves had been sworn, divine embraces had united loving souls, innocent children, charged by the light of day, had held out their arms for the kisses of their mothers, and life in all its forms had sparkled for millions of years in sheaves of light ever renewed like universal and inextinguishable fireworks. Struggles, miseries, lies, rivalries, ambitions, battles, despairs, tears, mournings, had too often disfigured with black tempests the sky whose clearness had, in the springtime of life, seemed unchangeable.