Jules Verne (1828~1905), “Paris in the Twentieth Century”, 1863 was the topic of an earlier blog post.
Here I present: Jules Verne, “Measuring a Meridian: The Adventures of Three Russian and Three Englishmen in South Africa”, 1872 which was an African adventure SciFi novel.
Africa (shown ABOVE) as a continent has four coastal rivers; and, the central Congo River. The coastal rivers are Nile, Niger, Orange & Zambezi rivers. The story starts at the Orange River.
CHAPTER #1.
“On the Banks of the Orange River”.
“On the 27th of January, 1854, two men lay stretched at the foot of an immense weeping willow, chatting, and at the same time watching the waters of the Orange River.”
These two men are protagonist William Emery; and, the foil-character is bushman Mokoum.
English three and Russian three characters are: Colonel Everest, Sir John Murray, and William Emery, for England; and, Matthew Strux, Nicholas Palander, and Michael Zorn, for Russia.
The Earth is round; and, the “prime meridian” (shown ABOVE) is a longitude linear circle that goes through Africa. Right Ascension are celestial coordinates measured by the astronomers of the Southern Sky equivalent to longitude meridians.
Here I presented: Jules Verne, “Measuring a Meridian: The Adventures of Three Russian and Three Englishmen in South Africa”, 1872 which was an African adventure SciFi novel.
This is a story of competition between astronomer teams studying the Southern Sky. This is African adventure and Science Fiction of astronomy together. Astronomy & Stargazing are the stories-within-stories of African big-game hunting.
However, the Crimean War breaks out and members of the expedition find themselves citizens of enemy countries.
