Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1893 — A TRIP TO THE SUN. [ARTICLE]

A TRIP TO THE SUN.

The Million. Sir Fillemup Frog was an English baronet. He was a cold, calm, passionless man —almost as cold, calm and passionless as he was English. For years he had been a member of the London Beefsteak Club. Sir Fillemup "had three friends at the club. They met.every evening to bet. They would bet on anything. One day they bet on the length of their respective feet. Sir Fillemup won by two laps. “I would be willing to bet that I can climb up to the sun,” said he. His friends bet him <IOO,OOO, and the money was staked. • “I will start in three days,” he said calmly. “And how long-will you be gone?” they asked. “Ten days,” was the cool response. From that moment Sir Fillemup absented himself from the club. He was preparing for his flight. Hts preparations were simple. First he procured a suit of Japan silk, light and flexible. Then he pulled on a pair of boots of his own invention. The legs reached to the armpits. The soles were of gunbarrels arranged perpendicularly. From a belt at his waist depended two 4000-ton columbiads. The guns and columbiads were so arranged as to load and fire themselves 60 times a minute. The process was so simple as to make explanation unnecessary. With the recoil from the firing of these pieces Sir Fillemup proposed to secure a velocity of 1,000,000 miles an hour. This would enable him to reach the sun in four days and twenty-three hours He calculated to remain there two days. Then, reversing himself, he proposed to turn his guns loose again and return to the earth in the same time occupied by his ascent. He had fixed upon May 7, at 1 o'clock in the morning. A frame work bad been built to suspend him until he could get his ordnance in working order. Ata signal the guns opened, and Sir Fillemup dashed into the air. He had not miscalculated his velocity, though it seemed to him that he ought to have reached his destination in about ten minutes at the rate he was going. Still his pedometer showed only a rate of 1,000,009 miles an hour. There was nothing upon which the sun could reflect, and Sir Fillemup was in darkness after leaving the earth’s atmosphere, except when he looked straight at the sun. It was to him then a perfectly round ball, affording neither light nor heat. He did not feel that he was moving; he seemed suspended in space. Still he was nearing the sun. He could see it drawing closer. At the end of the second day he appeared to be surrounded by a yellow nebula. It was not dense, but a series of not unpleasant shocks showed that he was passing through a magnetic influence. The yellow belt appeared to be composed of sparks that compelled him to cover his face and hands. They were apparently iron filings in a state of fusion. His dress was protected from danger by fire by a preparation of alum. Toward the middle of the third day he emerged from this zone and entered another of intense cold and fearfully dark. Beyond he could see a peculiar mass of matter, brownish in color and oval in shape. Passing through the frigid belt the detonations of his cannons almost deafened him. It was clear that he had again entered an atmosphere. During the afternoon he passed through the warmer zone, and at 12 o’clock, just 95 hours after leaving the earth, he stood on the dun colored mass. He had reached the sun. What struck him as most peculiar was the warm, even temperature. There was no intense heat. Everything around gave the impression of iron, not in state of fusion, as he expected to find it, but moderate. No sooner had he landed than his cannons and guns were torn from him. They stuck fast to the surface of the sun.

He recognized the reason. He was on an immense magnet. How large he could not tell. He thought of the yellow zone and the cold belt* through which he had passed and saw the solar principle at a glance. The sun was but a fountain of electricity,generating heat and light, and feeling but little of either. There was no sign of vegetation or animal life. There was no shadows. Even the inequality of the surface cast no shade. He walked lonely and shadowless on the barren creator of all life. Around him, like an aurora, gleamed the yellow mist of the outer circle. There was no stars. There were no worlds. He occupied the life giving essence, oblivious to every living thing save himself. He put in two days on this line and then prepared to depart. But his cannons and guns were immovable.. He couldn't wrench the smallest rifle from its fastenings. The magnet held them like a vise. Then he remembered there was no gravitation except to metal. Slip{iing off a boot he found he was ighter, beoause the nails had kdpt feteWftS main in midair. .eansi He could not fall again to the sun. gravitation or atmosphere. Then he must die in space a few feet from substance. 4 ,

Suddenly be bethought magnetism can be beaten out of iron by a sharp blow. He had no stone to beat with, but dripping water is more powerful than rock, since it will wear rock away. He began to expectorate. In an hour he had split one cannon loose. In another hour the second columbiad was free. He had now not exactly time to the minute to return. But he had not time to release the smaller weapons, and without their recoil could he effect his return to the prescribed time. He would try it. Starting his columbiads he found himself in space. He had no idea how fast he traveled. His face was turned from the sun and there was no light. Composing himself he slept. When he came to consciousness he was in the hospital in London, with his three friends bending over him congratulating him on having won his wager. He had struck the earth, but not hard enpugh to injure him seriously. The reason was that he had been ten days without air, and when he struck the atmosphere he had inhaled so much that he swelled up like a balloon. The swelling burst his boots off, and his columbiads dropped into the sea, while he floated softly down and reached the ground with one minute to spare. An air pump had relieved him of extra pressure, and he-was almost as good as new-.