"This hemisphere
must be, as a whole, broken up into highlands and depressions. The
geological formation of the other side, as far as I could make it out
from the appearance of the rocks in the caverns, indicates that Venus has
undergone the same experience of upheavals and fracturings of the crust
that the earth has been through. If that is true of one side it must be
true of the other also, for during a large part of these geological
changes she undoubtedly rotated rapidly on her axis like the earth."
"But we traveled five thousand miles on the other side without
encountering anything but a frozen prairie," I objected.
"True enough, and yet I would lay a wager that all of that side of the
planet is not equally level. Remember the vast plains of Russia and
Siberia."
"Well," put in Jack, whose spirits were beginning to revive, "if there's
a shore somewheres, let's find it. I want to see the other kind of
inhabitants. These that we've met don't accord with my ideas of Venus."
"We shall find them," responded Edmund, "and I think I can promise you
that they will not disappoint your expectations."
Yet there seemed to be nothing in our present situation to warrant the
confidence expressed by our leader's words and manner.
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