On finding themselves above it, they rose still higher
to obtain a view of its outlines and compare its shape with that
of the islands in the photographs they had had time to develop.
The length ran from southeast to northwest. Though crossed by
latitude forty, and notwithstanding Jupiter's distance from the
sun, the southern side had a very luxuriant vegetation that was
almost semi-tropical. This they accounted for by its total
immunity from cold, the density of the air at sea-level, and the
warm moist breezes it received from the tepid ocean. The climate
was about the same as that of the Riviera or of Florida in
winter, and there was, of course, no parching summer.
"This shows me," said Bearwarden, "that a country's climate
depends less on the amount of heat it receives from the sun than
on the amount it retains; proof of which we have in the tops of
the Himalayas perpetually covered with snow, and snow-capped
mountains on the very equator, where they get the most direct
rays, and where those rays have but little air to penetrate. It
shows that the presence of a substantial atmosphere is as
necessary a part of the calculation in practice as the sun
itself.
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