A VOYAGE TO THE SUN. 37 



uproar of the fiercest battle to the stillness of the 

 desert could not surpass in its effects the change which 

 we experienced as we passed through the impalpable 

 boundary of the earth's atmospheric envelope. What 

 had seemed to us like an oppressive silence appeared 

 now, by contrast, as the roar of a storm-beaten sea. We 

 experienced for the first time the effects of absolute 

 stillness. It is certain that Pythagoras was right when 

 he spoke of the tumult which, in reality, surrounds us, 

 though, 



Whilst this muddy vesture of decay 

 Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it. 



Yet as to the harmony of the spheres, he was mistaken ; 

 for even when the unnoticed but ever present mundane 

 noises suddenly ceased, as we passed the limit of the 

 earth's airy vesture, no sound betrayed the swift rush of 

 the planets on their course round the sun. We were 

 still close to the earth, the desert of Sahara lying now 

 vertically beneath us at a distance of rather more than 

 400 miles, yet her onward rush at the rate of more 

 than eighteen miles per second produced no sound 

 which could be perceived, even amid the intense silence 

 the black silence, as X. called it of interplanetary 

 space. 



And now, how shall I fitly describe the scene which 

 was revealed to us as we directed our attention towards 

 the sun? He was scarcely nearer to us at least, not 

 perceptibly nearer than as commonly seen, and yet 

 his aspect was altogether new. His orb was more 

 brilliantly white than it appears when seen through the 



