Free The Angry Planet by John Keir Cross

from us, his face a perfect study of dismay
and bewilderment!
    P — rushed to his aid, and he,
too, seemed to stumble, and go rolling and bouncing over the sand. Before
either of them could rise, Dr. McG— burst into hearty laughter.
    “Of course,” he cried, “I
forgot! The force of gravity—it is not so powerful on Mars as it is on earth. I
should have warned you!”
    And he went on to explain
something of the mechanics of our situation. I regret I cannot reproduce his
statement with any real technical exactitude. But as far as I understood
things, this was the position. (I am able to quote some actual figures since I
made notes of them in my diary):
    The planet Mars is considerably
smaller than our own earth—its diameter, indeed, is very little more than half
that of our mother planet. Nor is it so dense—if the density of earth be
represented by the unit 1, then the density of Mars is about .72. For these
reasons, the gravitational pull on the surface of Mars is not so strong as the
gravitational pull on the surface of the earth—the actual ratio is something
like .38. This means that a man weighing say 150 lb. on earth would, on Mars,
weigh only 57 lb.
    Reflect now that our muscular
development is such as to provide us with the means of moving ourselves on
earth in what is to us a normal way. On Mars, where we weighed little more than
one third of what we did on earth, our muscles seemed abnormally developed.
    While Dr. McG — was engaged in this
explanation, the two boys had succeeded in raising themselves to their feet.
M—, full of excitement, now exclaimed that he proposed doing a “high jump.” We
knew him, on earth, for a reasonably good jumper. Judge now of our surprise
when we saw him soar into the air, high above our heads! P — immediately also indulged in a short “flight,” and soon we
were all at it— yes, even the two more sedate members of the party! The
sensation was quite indescribable. I myself, at the school sports last year,
cleared the four foot bar; with the same effort here on Mars, I found myself
soaring into the empyrean a good ten feet! It was like pole vaulting without
the pole—and the landing was soft and pleasant. There was no heavy jolt—a
gentle bump on the yielding red sand and that was all.
    It was exhilarating in the
extreme. After the long period of confinement in the cabin of our space-ship,
the exercise in the rare thin atmosphere did us all the good in the world. Even
running was an excitement—an ordinary earth-pace covered eight or nine feet. It
was like walking in seven-league boots, as Tom Thumb did in the fairy tale. We
hopped about in our little hollow like kangaroos, shouting merrily in the
sunshine and generally behaving like lunatics.
    Presently, however, the first
novelty wore off. We set about trying to control our muscular movements so that
we might be able to walk as we were accustomed. And we found that, just as we
had been able to adjust ourselves in space, when we had no weight at all, so we
could, after a little practice, adjust ourselves to moving about comfortably on
Mars. We could still, of course, if we wanted to, make prodigious leaps, but
for the most part we contented ourselves with the more ordinary mode of
progression to which we were used.
    The time had now come for us to
widen our field of exploration. The sun was high and the air was clear. So Dr.
McG — assembled
us at the foot of the ridge and we set about mounting to the top of it (an easy
task this, because of our reduced weight, although the slope was quite
steep—indeed, almost vertical).
    We reached the summit. And now,
indeed, we felt like “stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes,” etc. (Keats). Only
our peak was on Mars, and not in Darien. However, what we saw was just as
awe-inspiring and strange to us as the glimpse of the far Pacific was to the
intrepid Spaniard.

    What we saw
was awe-inspiring and strange
    Before us, bright and silent in
the sun, was a huge plain. It