Jules Verne

“ The steelyard uses counterweights, and so its measurements are independent of gravity. A spring balance depends entirely on gravity to record the weight of an object. It is therefore a spring balance (Verne: “peson”) that the professor needs to determine the reduced gravity on Gallia. ”

“ Six hours later, only waiting for sunrise, Captain Servadac set himself in movement again to renew his investigations. At the spot last chosen for encampment, the shore, that hitherto had been running in a southeasterly direction, turned abruptly to the north, being no longer formed by the natural bank of the Shelif, but consisting of an absolutely new coast-line. No land was in sight. Nothing could be seen of Orleansville, which ought to have been about six miles to the south-west ”

“ The professor resumed:
“Upon a steelyard, or spring-balance, [3] dependent upon mere tension or flexibility, the attraction will have no influence. If I suspend a weight equivalent to the weight of a kilogramme, the index will register the proper weight on the surface of Gallia. Thus I shall arrive at the difference I want: the difference between the earth's attraction and the comet's. ”

“ First, the measure of gravity at its surface; this attractive force we know, by the increase of our own muscular force, must of course be considerably less than that at the surface of the earth. Secondly, its mass, that is, the quantity of its matter. ”

“ During the four hours of daylight that still remained. the travellers rode about twenty-one miles from the river mouth. To their vast surprise, they did not meet a single human being. At nightfall they again encamped in a slight bend of the shore, at a point which on the previous evening had faced the mouth of the Mina, one of the left-hand affluents of the Shelif, but now absorbed into the newly revealed ocean. Ben Zoof made the sleeping accommodation as comfortable as the circumstances would allow ”

“ I want to know what has become of the rest of Algeria: if we cannot get round by the south to Mostaganem, we must go eastwards to Tenes.”
And forthwith they started. Beginning to feel hungry, they had no hesitation in gathering figs, dates, and oranges from the plantations that formed a continuous rich and luxuriant orchard along their path. ”