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Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries by Garrett P. (Garrett Putman) Serviss
page 94 of 191 (49%)
retain any of the gases or vapors that are recognized as constituting an
atmosphere. But they afford a captivating field for speculation, which
need not be altogether avoided, for it offers some graphic illustrations
of the law of gravitation. A few years ago I wrote, for the
entertainment of an audience which preferred to meet science attired in
a garb woven largely from the strands of fancy, an account of some of
the peculiarities of such minute globes as the asteroids, which I
reproduce here because it gives, perhaps, a livelier picture of those
little bodies, from the point of view of ordinary human interest, than
could be presented in any other way.


A WAIF OF SPACE

One night as I was waiting, watch in hand, for an occultation, and
striving hard to keep awake, for it had been a hot and exhausting
summer's day, while my wife--we were then in our honeymoon--sat
sympathetically by my side, I suddenly found myself withdrawn from the
telescope, and standing in a place that appeared entirely strange. It
was a very smooth bit of ground, and, to my surprise, there was no
horizon in sight; that is to say, the surface of the ground disappeared
on all sides at a short distance off, and beyond nothing but sky was
visible. I thought I must be on the top of a stupendous mountain, and
yet I was puzzled to understand how the face of the earth could be so
far withdrawn. Presently I became aware that there was some one by me
whom I could not see.

"You are not on a mountain," my companion said, and as he spoke a cold
shiver ran along my back-bone; "you are on an asteroid, one of those
miniature planets, as you astronomers call them, and of which you have
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