and rotates from east to west.

* * * * *

And here we have reached the goal of our interplanetary journey. After
visiting the vast provinces of the solar republic, we feel yet greater
admiration and gratitude toward the luminary that governs, warms, and
illuminates the worlds of his system.

In conclusion, let us again insist that the Earth,--a splendid orb as
viewed from Mercury, Venus, and Mars,--begins to disappear from Jupiter,
where she becomes no more than a tiny spark oscillating from side to
side of the Sun, and occasionally passing in front of him as a small
black dot. From Saturn the visibility of our planet is even more
reduced. As to Uranus and Neptune, we are invisible there, at least to
eyes constructed like our own. We do not possess in the Universe the
importance with which we would endow ourselves.

Neptune up to the present guards the portals of our celestial system; we
will leave him to watch over the distant frontier; but before returning
to the Earth, we must glance at certain eccentric orbs, at the mad,
capricious comets, which imprint their airy flight upon the realms of
space.

CHAPTER VII

THE COMETS

SHOOTING STARS, BOLIDES, URANOLITHS OR METEORIC STONES

What marvels have been reviewed by our dazzled eyes since the outset of
these discussions! We first surveyed the magnificent host of stars that
people the vast firmament of Heaven; next we admired and wondered at
suns very differently constituted from our own; then returning from the
depths of space, crossing at a bound the abyss that separates us from
these mysterious luminaries, the distant torches of our somber night,
terrible suns of infinity, we landed on our own beloved orb, the superb
and brilliant day-star. Thence we visited his celestial family, his
system, in which our Earth is a floating island. But the journey would
be incomplete if we omitted certain more or less vagabond orbs, that
occasionally approach the Sun and Earth, some of which may even collide
with us upon their celestial path. These are in the first place the
comets, then the shooting stars, the fire-balls, and meteorites.

Glittering, swift-footed heralds of Immensity, these comets with golden
wings glide lightly through Space, shedding a momentary illumination by
their presence. Whence come they? Whither are they bound?

What problems they propound to us, when, as in some beautiful display of
pyrotechnics, the arch