It must be owned that the revised calendar was left to the professor's sole use, and the colony was fairly puzzled whenever he referred to such unheard-of dates as the 47th of April or the 118th of May.
According to the old calendar, June had now arrived;[illustration omitted] [page intentionally blank] and by the professor's tables Gallia during the month would have advanced 27,500,000 leagues farther along its orbit, and would have attained a distance of 155,000,000 leagues from the sun. The thermometer continued to fall; the atmosphere remained clear as heretofore.
The population performed their daily avocations with systematic routine;and almost the only thing that broke the monotony of existence was an occasional visit from the blustering, nervous, little professor, when some sudden fancy induced him to throw aside his astronomical studies for a time, and pay a visit to the common hall. His arrival there was generally hailed as the precursor of a little season of excitement.
Somehow or other the conversation would eventually work its way round to the topic of a future collision between the comet and the earth;and in the same degree as this was a matter of sanguine anticipation to Captain Servadac and his friends, it was a matter of aversion to the astronomical enthusiast, who had no desire to quit his present quarters in a sphere which, being of his own discovery, he could hardly have cared for more if it had been of his own creation.
The interview would often terminate in a scene of considerable animation.
On the 27th of June (old calendar) the professor burst like a cannon-ball into the central hall, where they were all assembled, and without a word of salutation or of preface, accosted the lieutenant in the way in which in earlier days he had been accustomed to speak to an idle school-boy, "Now, lieutenant! no evasions! no shufflings!
Tell me, have you or have you not circumnavigated Gallia?"The lieutenant drew himself up stiffly. "Evasions! shufflings!
I am not accustomed, sir--" he began in a tone evidencing no little resentment; but catching a hint from the count he subdued his voice, and simply said, "We have.""And may I ask," continued the professor, quite unaware of his previous discourtesy, "whether, when you made your voyage, you took any account of distances?""As approximately as I could," replied the lieutenant;"I did what I could by log and compass. I was unable to take the altitude of sun or star.""At what result did you arrive? What is the measurement of our equator?""I estimate the total circumference of the equator to be about 1,400 miles.""Ah!" said the professor, more than half speaking to himself, "a circumference of 1,400 miles would give a diameter of about 450 miles.
That would be approximately about one-sixteenth of the diameter of the earth."Raising his voice, he continued, "Gentlemen, in order to complete my account of my comet Gallia, I require to know its area, its mass, its volume, its density, its specific gravity.""Since we know the diameter," remarked the lieutenant, "there can be no difficulty in finding its surface and its volume.""And did I say there was any difficulty?" asked the professor, fiercely.
"I have been able to reckon that ever since I was born.""Cock-a-doodle-doo!" cried Ben Zoof, delighted at any opportunity of paying off his old grudge.
The professor looked at him, but did not vouchsafe a word.