JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS, 81 
anxious to go and see him and learn his mysteries. How shall 
we go? The distance is great, and the time is short and precious, 
hence the most rapid vehicle for the journey must be chosen. We 
cannot go by train, for a train running a mile a minute would require 
5310 years to take us within good seeing distance. Some one sug- 
gests that we embark in a great cannon ball, and be fired from one 
of the fort guns, but I fear this would not be satisfactory, as it would 
take us 255 years to get there. Suppose we make arrangements 
with a telegraph company, and be flashed through space as our mes- 
sages are from continent to continent ; this I fear would also be too 
slow, as it would require over six hours to make the journey. Can 
we not then board the car of light, and sweep through space at the 
awful rate of 186,000 miles per second? Would we not then arrive 
at our journey’s end in a moment? Oh!no, It would take us 
over four hours to get there. How, then, shall we go? Must we 
abandon our prospect? No; let us try once more. Wrap your 
garments closely around you. 4 moment in thought—we are there. 
Now that we are close to Neptune, what do we see? Weseea globe 
35,000 miles in diameter, greenish or greenish yellow in color; no 
markings are seen on it, probably because of the envelope of atmos- 
phere much like our own terrestrial atmosphere. 
Notwithstanding the weakness of Neptune’s light, spectrum 
analysis has succeeded in ascertaining the existence of certain gases 
which do not exist on our earth. ‘The real diameter of Neptune is 
nearly four times greater than our earth, and its volume fifty-five 
times greater than ours. Its density, however, is hardly a third, but 
its gravity is almost identical with terrestrial gravity. As yet astron- 
omers cannot determine the rotation of this distant planet on its 
axis, as no markings are visible on its disc. It may be very rapid, 
like Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, and most likely it is, but great im- 
provements in optics will be necessary before we can see markings 
on this pale disc. At about 260,000 miles from Neptune we see a 
star of about the r4th magnitude, which we recognize as its moon. 
This little satellite completes its orbit around the planet in a little 
less than six days, whilst the planet itself requires over 164 of our 
years to complete its orbit of over 2,791,600,000 miles from the 
central star—the sun. Neptune in one circuit of the skies travels 
17,000,000,000 of miles, which gives a velocity of 299,000 miles a 
