I inspected the cratometer, which indicated a force
as great as that with which I had started,--a force which should by
this time have given me a speed of at least 22,000 miles an hour. At
last the solution of the problem flashed upon me, suggested by the
very extravagance of the contradictions. Not only did the barycrite
contradict the discometer and the reckoning but it contradicted
itself; since it was impossible that under one continuous impulsation
I should have traversed 28-1/2 radii of the Earth in the first
eighteen hours and no more than 4-1/2 in the next four and a half
hours. In truth, the barycrite was effected by two separate
attractions,--that of the Earth and that of the Sun, as yet operating
almost exactly in the same direction. At first the attraction of the
former was so great that that of the Sun was no more perceived than
upon the Earth's surface. But as I rose, and the Earth's attraction
diminished in proportion to the square of the distance from her
centre--which was doubled at 8000 miles, quadrupled at 16,000, and so
on--the Sun's attraction, which was not perceptibly affected by
differences so small in proportion to his vast distance of 95,000,000
miles, became a more and more important element in the total gravity.
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