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Title: From the Earth to the Moon

Author: Jules Verne

Release Date: September, 1993 [eBook #83]
[Most recently updated: October 8, 2020]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: Rich Schroeppel

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON ***

[Illustration]




From the Earth to the Moon

by Jules Verne


Contents: From the Earth to the Moon

 CHAPTER I. The Gun Club
 CHAPTER II. President Barbicane’s Communication
 CHAPTER III. Effect of the President’s Communication
 CHAPTER IV. Reply From the Observatory of Cambridge
 CHAPTER V. The Romance of the Moon
 CHAPTER VI. The Permissive Limits of Ignorance and Belief in the United States
 CHAPTER VII. The Hymn of the Cannon-Ball
 CHAPTER VIII. History of the Cannon
 CHAPTER IX. The Question of the Powders
 CHAPTER X. One Enemy _v._ Twenty-Five Millions of Friends
 CHAPTER XI. Florida and Texas
 CHAPTER XII. Urbi et Orbi
 CHAPTER XIII. Stones Hill
 CHAPTER XIV. Pickaxe and Trowel
 CHAPTER XV. The Fete of the Casting
 CHAPTER XVI. The Columbiad
 CHAPTER XVII. A Telegraphic Dispatch
 CHAPTER XVIII. The Passenger of the Atlanta
 CHAPTER XIX. A Monster Meeting
 CHAPTER XX. Attack and Riposte
 CHAPTER XXI. How A Frenchman Manages An Affair
 CHAPTER XXII. The New Citizen of the United States
 CHAPTER XXIII. The Projectile-Vehicle
 CHAPTER XXIV. The Telescope of the Rocky Mountains
 CHAPTER XXV. Final Details
 CHAPTER XXVI. Fire!
 CHAPTER XXVII. Foul Weather
 CHAPTER XXVIII. A New Star

Contents: Round the Moon

 PRELIMINARY CHAPTER—Recapitulating the First Part of

This Work, and Serving as a Preface to the Second
 CHAPTER I. From Twenty Minutes Past Ten to Forty-Seven Minutes Past Ten P. M.
 CHAPTER II. The First Half Hour
 CHAPTER III. Their Place of Shelter
 CHAPTER IV. A Little Algebra
 CHAPTER V. The Cold of Space
 CHAPTER VI. Question and Answer
 CHAPTER VII. A Moment of Intoxication
 CHAPTER VIII.At Seventy-Eight Thousand Five Hundred and Fourteen Leagues
 CHAPTER IX. The Consequences of A Deviation
 CHAPTER X. The Observers of the Moon
 CHAPTER XI. Fancy and Reality
 CHAPTER XII. Orographic Details
 CHAPTER XIII. Lunar Landscapes
 CHAPTER XIV. The Night of Three Hundred and Fifty-Four Hours and A Half
 CHAPTER XV. Hyperbola or Parabola
 CHAPTER XVI. The Southern Hemisphere
 CHAPTER XVII. Tycho
 CHAPTER XVIII. Grave Questions
 CHAPTER XIX. A Struggle Against the Impossible
 CHAPTER XX. The Soundings of the Susquehanna
 CHAPTER XXI. J. T. Maston Recalled
 CHAPTER XXII. Recovered From the Sea
 CHAPTER XXIII. The End




FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON




CHAPTER I.
THE GUN CLUB


During the War of the Rebellion, a new and influential club was
established in the city of Baltimore in the State of Maryland. It is
well known with what energy the taste for military matters became
developed among that nation of ship-owners, shopkeepers, and mechanics.
Simple tradesmen jumped their counters to become extemporized captains,
colonels, and generals, without having ever passed the School of
Instruction at West Point; nevertheless; they quickly rivaled their
compeers of the old continent, and, like them, carried off victories by
dint of lavish expenditure in ammunition, money, and men.

But the point in which the Americans singularly distanced the Europeans
was in the science of _gunnery_. Not, indeed, that their weapons
retained a higher degree of perfection than theirs, but that they
exhibited unheard-of dimensions, and consequently attained hitherto
unheard-of ranges. In point of grazing, plunging, oblique, or
enfilading, or point-blank firing, the English, French, and Prussians
have nothing to learn; but their cannon, howitzers, and mortars are
mere pocket-pistols compared with the formidable engines of the
American artillery.

This fact need surprise no one. The Yankees, the first mechanicians in
the world, are engineers—just as the Italians are musicians and the
Germans metaphysicians—by right of birth. Nothing is more natural,
therefore, than to perceive them applying their audacious ingenuity to
the science of gunnery. Witness the marvels of Parrott, Dahlgren, and
Rodman. The Armstrong, Palliser, and Beaulieu guns were compelled to
bow before their transatlantic rivals.

Now when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a second American
to share it. If there be three, they elect a president and two
secretaries. Given _four_, they name a keeper of records, and the
office is ready for work; _five_, they convene a general meeting, and
the club is fully constituted. So things were managed in Baltimore. The
inventor of a new cannon associated himself with the caster and the
borer. Thus was formed the nucleus of the “Gun Club.” In a single month
after its formation it numbered 1,833 effective members and 30,565
corresponding members.

One condition was imposed as a _sine quâ non_ upon every candidate for
admission into the association, and that was the condition of having
designed, or (more or less) perfected a cannon; or, in default of a
cannon, at least a firearm of some description. It may, however, be
mentioned that mere inventors of revolvers, fire-shooting carbines, and
similar small arms, met with little consideration. Artillerists always
commanded the chief place of favor.

The estimation in which these gentlemen were held, according to one of
the most scientific exponents of the Gun Club, was “proportional to the
masses of their guns, and in the direct ratio of the square of the
distances attained by their projectiles.”

The Gun Club once founded, it is easy to conceive the result of the
inventive genius of the Americans. Their military weapons attained
colossal proportions, and their projectiles, exceeding the prescribed
limits, unfortunately occasionally cut in two some unoffending
pedestrians. These inventions, in fact, left far in the rear the timid
instruments of European artillery.

It is but fair to add that these Yankees, brave as they have ever
proved themselves to be, did not confine themselves to theories and
formulae, but that they paid heavily, _in propriâ personâ_, for their
inventions. Among them were to be counted officers of all ranks, from
lieutenants to generals; military men of every age, from those who were
just making their _début_ in the profession of arms up to those who had
grown old in the gun-carriage. Many had found their rest on the field
of battle whose names figured in the “Book of Honor” of the Gun Club;
and of those who made good their return the greater proportion bore the
marks of their indisputable valor. Crutches, wooden legs, artificial
arms, steel hooks, caoutchouc jaws, silver craniums, platinum noses,
were all to be found in the collection; and it was calculated by the
great statistician Pitcairn that throughout the Gun Club there was not
quite one arm between four persons and two legs between six.

Nevertheless, these valiant artillerists took no particular account of
these little facts, and felt justly proud when the despatches of a
battle returned the number of victims at ten-fold the quantity of
projectiles expended.

One day, however—sad and melancholy day!—peace was signed between the
survivors of the war; the thunder of the guns gradually ceased, the
mortars were silent, the howitzers were muzzled for an indefinite
period, the cannon, with muzzles depressed, were returned into the
arsenal, the shot were repiled, all bloody reminiscences were effaced;
the cotton-plants grew luxuriantly in the well-manured fields, all
mourning garments were laid aside, together with grief; and the Gun
Club was relegated to profound inactivity.

Some few of the more advanced and inveterate theorists set themselves
again to work upon calculations regarding the laws of projectiles. They
reverted invariably to gigantic shells and howitzers of unparalleled
caliber. Still in default of practical experience what was the value of
mere theories? Consequently, the clubrooms became deserted, the
servants dozed in the antechambers, the newspapers grew mouldy on the
tables, sounds of snoring came from dark corners, and the members of
the Gun Club, erstwhile so noisy in their seances, were reduced to
silence by this disastrous peace and gave themselves up wholly to
dreams of a Platonic kind of artillery.

“This is horrible!” said Tom Hunter one evening, while rapidly
carbonizing his wooden legs in the fireplace of the smoking-room;
“nothing to do! nothing to look forward to! what a loathsome existence!
When again shall the guns arouse us in the morning with their
delightful reports?”

“Those days are gone by,” said jolly Bilsby, trying to extend his
missing arms. “It was delightful once upon a time! One invented a gun,
and hardly was it cast, when one hastened to try it in the face of the
enemy! Then one returned to camp with a word of encouragement from
Sherman or a friendly shake of the hand from McClellan. But now the
generals are gone back to their counters; and in place of projectiles,
they despatch bales of cotton. By Jove, the future of gunnery in
America is lost!”

“Ay! and no war in prospect!” continued the famous James T. Maston,
scratching with his steel hook his gutta-percha cranium. “Not a cloud
on the horizon! and that too at such a critical period in the progress
of the science of artillery! Yes, gentlemen! I who address you have
myself this very morning perfected a model (plan, section, elevation,
etc.) of a mortar destined to change all the conditions of warfare!”

“No! is it possible?” replied Tom Hunter, his thoughts reverting
involuntarily to a former invention of the Hon. J. T. Maston, by which,
at its first trial, he had succeeded in killing three hundred and
thirty-seven people.

“Fact!” replied he. “Still, what is the use of so many studies worked
out, so many difficulties vanquished? It’s mere waste of time! The New
World seems to have made up its mind to live in peace; and our
bellicose _Tribune_ predicts some approaching catastrophes arising out
of this scandalous increase of population.”

“Nevertheless,” replied Colonel Blomsberry, “they are always struggling
in Europe to maintain the principle of nationalities.”

“Well?”

“Well, there might be some field for enterprise down there; and if they
would accept our services—”

“What are you dreaming of?” screamed Bilsby; “work at gunnery for the
benefit of foreigners?”

“That would be better than doing nothing here,” returned the colonel.

“Quite so,” said J. T. Matson; “but still we need not dream of that
expedient.”

“And why not?” demanded the colonel.

“Because their ideas of progress in the Old World are contrary to our
American habits of thought. Those fellows believe that one can’t become
a general without having served first as an ensign; which is as much as
to say that one can’t point a gun without having first cast it
oneself!”

“Ridiculous!” replied Tom Hunter, whittling with his bowie-knife the
arms of his easy chair; “but if that be the case there, all that is
left for us is to plant tobacco and distill whale-oil.”

“What!” roared J. T. Maston, “shall we not employ these remaining years
of our life in perfecting firearms? Shall there never be a fresh
opportunity of trying the ranges of projectiles? Shall the air never
again be lighted with the glare of our guns? No international
difficulty ever arise to enable us to declare war against some
transatlantic power? Shall not the French sink one of our steamers, or
the English, in defiance of the rights of nations, hang a few of our
countrymen?”

“No such luck,” replied Colonel Blomsberry; “nothing of the kind is
likely to happen; and even if it did, we should not profit by it.
American susceptibility is fast declining, and we are all going to the
dogs.”

“It is too true,” replied J. T. Maston, with fresh violence; “there are
a thousand grounds for fighting, and yet we don’t fight. We save up our
arms and legs for the benefit of nations who don’t know what to do with
them! But stop—without going out of one’s way to find a cause for
war—did not North America once belong to the English?”

“Undoubtedly,” replied Tom Hunter, stamping his crutch with fury.

“Well, then,” replied J. T. Maston, “why should not England in her turn
belong to the Americans?”

“It would be but just and fair,” returned Colonel Blomsberry.

“Go and propose it to the President of the United States,” cried J. T.
Maston, “and see how he will receive you.”

“Bah!” growled Bilsby between the four teeth which the war had left
him; “that will never do!”

“By Jove!” cried J. T. Maston, “he mustn’t count on my vote at the next
election!”

“Nor on ours,” replied unanimously all the bellicose invalids.

“Meanwhile,” replied J. T. Maston, “allow me to say that, if I cannot
get an opportunity to try my new mortars on a real field of battle, I
shall say good-by to the members of the Gun Club, and go and bury
myself in the prairies of Arkansas!”

“In that case we will accompany you,” cried the others.

Matters were in this unfortunate condition, and the club was threatened
with approaching dissolution, when an unexpected circumstance occurred
to prevent so deplorable a catastrophe.

On the morrow after this conversation every member of the association
received a sealed circular couched in the following terms:

BALTIMORE, October 3. The president of the Gun Club has the honor to
inform his colleagues that, at the meeting of the 5th instant, he will
bring before them a communication of an extremely interesting nature.
He requests, therefore, that they will make it convenient to attend in
accordance with the present invitation. Very cordially, IMPEY
BARBICANE, P.G.C.




CHAPTER II.
PRESIDENT BARBICANE’S COMMUNICATION


On the 5th of October, at eight p.m., a dense crowd pressed toward the
saloons of the Gun Club at No. 21 Union Square. All the members of the
association resident in Baltimore attended the invitation of their
president. As regards the corresponding members, notices were delivered
by hundreds throughout the streets of the city, and, large as was the
great hall, it was quite inadequate to accommodate the crowd of
_savants_. They overflowed into the adjoining rooms, down the narrow
passages, into the outer courtyards. There they ran against the vulgar
herd who pressed up to the doors, each struggling to reach the front
ranks, all eager to learn the nature of the important communication of
President Barbicane; all pushing, squeezing, crushing with that perfect
freedom of action which is so peculiar to the masses when educated in
ideas of “self-government.”

On that evening a stranger who might have chanced to be in Baltimore
could not have gained admission for love or money into the great hall.
That was reserved exclusively for resident or corresponding members; no
one else could possibly have obtained a place; and the city magnates,
municipal councilors, and “select men” were compelled to mingle with
the mere townspeople in order to catch stray bits of news from the
interior.

Nevertheless the vast hall presented a curious spectacle. Its immense
area was singularly adapted to the purpose. Lofty pillars formed of
cannon, superposed upon huge mortars as a base, supported the fine
ironwork of the arches, a perfect piece of cast-iron lacework. Trophies
of blunderbuses, matchlocks, arquebuses, carbines, all kinds of
firearms, ancient and modern, were picturesquely interlaced against the
walls. The gas lit up in full glare myriads of revolvers grouped in the
form of lustres, while groups of pistols, and candelabra formed of
muskets bound together, completed this magnificent display of
brilliance. Models of cannon, bronze castings, sights covered with
dents, plates battered by the shots of the Gun Club, assortments of
rammers and sponges, chaplets of shells, wreaths of projectiles,
garlands of howitzers—in short, all the apparatus of the artillerist,
enchanted the eye by this wonderful arrangement and induced a kind of
belief that their real purpose was ornamental rather than deadly.

At the further end of the saloon the president, assisted by four
secretaries, occupied a large platform. His chair, supported by a
carved gun-carriage, was modeled upon the ponderous proportions of a
32-inch mortar. It was pointed at an angle of ninety degrees, and
suspended upon truncheons, so that the president could balance himself
upon it as upon a rocking-chair, a very agreeable fact in the very hot
weather. Upon the table (a huge iron plate supported upon six
carronades) stood an inkstand of exquisite elegance, made of a
beautifully chased Spanish piece, and a sonnette, which, when required,
could give forth a report equal to that of a revolver. During violent
debates this novel kind of bell scarcely sufficed to drown the clamor
of these excitable artillerists.

In front of the table benches arranged in zigzag form, like the
circumvallations of a retrenchment, formed a succession of bastions and
curtains set apart for the use of the members of the club; and on this
especial evening one might say, “All the world was on the ramparts.”
The president was sufficiently well known, however, for all to be
assured that he would not put his colleagues to discomfort without some
very strong motive.

Impey Barbicane was a man of forty years of age, calm, cold, austere;
of a singularly serious and self-contained demeanor, punctual as a
chronometer, of imperturbable temper and immovable character; by no
means chivalrous, yet adventurous withal, and always bringing practical
ideas to bear upon the very rashest enterprises; an essentially New
Englander, a Northern colonist, a descendant of the old anti-Stuart
Roundheads, and the implacable enemy of the gentlemen of the South,
those ancient cavaliers of the mother country. In a word, he was a
Yankee to the backbone.

Barbicane had made a large fortune as a timber merchant. Being
nominated director of artillery during the war, he proved himself
fertile in invention. Bold in his conceptions, he contributed
powerfully to the progress of that arm and gave an immense impetus to
experimental researches.

He was personage of the middle height, having, by a rare exception in
the Gun Club, all his limbs complete. His strongly marked features
seemed drawn by square and rule; and if it be true that, in order to
judge a man’s character one must look at his profile, Barbicane, so
examined, exhibited the most certain indications of energy, audacity,
and _sang-froid_.

At this moment he was sitting in his armchair, silent, absorbed, lost
in reflection, sheltered under his high-crowned hat—a kind of black
cylinder which always seems firmly screwed upon the head of an
American.

Just when the deep-toned clock in the great hall struck eight,
Barbicane, as if he had been set in motion by a spring, raised himself
up. A profound silence ensued, and the speaker, in a somewhat emphatic
tone of voice, commenced as follows:

“My brave, colleagues, too long already a paralyzing peace has plunged
the members of the Gun Club in deplorable inactivity. After a period of
years full of incidents we have been compelled to abandon our labors,
and to stop short on the road of progress. I do not hesitate to state,
baldly, that any war which would recall us to arms would be welcome!”
(_Tremendous applause!_) “But war, gentlemen, is impossible under
existing circumstances; and, however we may desire it, many years may
elapse before our cannon shall again thunder in the field of battle. We
must make up our minds, then, to seek in another train of ideas some
field for the activity which we all pine for.”

The meeting felt that the president was now approaching the critical
point, and redoubled their attention accordingly.

“For some months past, my brave colleagues,” continued Barbicane, “I
have been asking myself whether, while confining ourselves to our own
particular objects, we could not enter upon some grand experiment
worthy of the nineteenth century; and whether the progress of artillery
science would not enable us to carry it out to a successful issue. I
have been considering, working, calculating; and the result of my
studies is the conviction that we are safe to succeed in an enterprise
which to any other country would appear wholly impracticable. This
project, the result of long elaboration, is the object of my present
communication. It is worthy of yourselves, worthy of the antecedents of
the Gun Club; and it cannot fail to make some noise in the world.”

A thrill of excitement ran through the meeting.

Barbicane, having by a rapid movement firmly fixed his hat upon his
head, calmly continued his harangue:

“There is no one among you, my brave colleagues, who has not seen the
Moon, or, at least, heard speak of it. Don’t be surprised if I am about
to discourse to you regarding the Queen of the Night. It is perhaps
reserved for us to become the Columbuses of this unknown world. Only
enter into my plans, and second me with all your power, and I will lead
you to its conquest, and its name shall be added to those of the
thirty-six states which compose this Great Union.”

“Three cheers for the Moon!” roared the Gun Club, with one voice.

“The moon, gentlemen, has been carefully studied,” continued Barbicane;
“her mass, density, and weight; her constitution, motions, distance, as
well as her place in the solar system, have all been exactly
determined. Selenographic charts have been constructed with a
perfection which equals, if it does not even surpass, that of our
terrestrial maps. Photography has given us proofs of the incomparable
beauty of our satellite; all is known regarding the moon which
mathematical science, astronomy, geology, and optics can learn about
her. But up to the present moment no direct communication has been
established with her.”

A violent movement of interest and surprise here greeted this remark of
the speaker.

“Permit me,” he continued, “to recount to you briefly how certain
ardent spirits, starting on imaginary journeys, have penetrated the
secrets of our satellite. In the seventeenth century a certain David
Fabricius boasted of having seen with his own eyes the inhabitants of
the moon. In 1649 a Frenchman, one Jean Baudoin, published a ‘Journey
performed from the Earth to the Moon by Domingo Gonzalez,’ a Spanish
adventurer. At the same period Cyrano de Bergerac published that
celebrated ‘Journeys in the Moon’ which met with such success in
France. Somewhat later another Frenchman, named Fontenelle, wrote ‘The
Plurality of Worlds,’ a _chef-d’œuvre_ of its time. About 1835 a small
treatise, translated from the _New York American_, related how Sir John
Herschel, having been despatched to the Cape of Good Hope for the
purpose of making there some astronomical calculations, had, by means
of a telescope brought to perfection by means of internal lighting,
reduced the apparent distance of the moon to eighty yards! He then
distinctly perceived caverns frequented by hippopotami, green mountains
bordered by golden lace-work, sheep with horns of ivory, a white
species of deer and inhabitants with membranous wings, like bats. This
_brochure_, the work of an American named Locke, had a great sale. But,
to bring this rapid sketch to a close, I will only add that a certain
Hans Pfaal, of Rotterdam, launching himself in a balloon filled with a
gas extracted from nitrogen, thirty-seven times lighter than hydrogen,
reached the moon after a passage of nineteen hours. This journey, like
all previous ones, was purely imaginary; still, it was the work of a
popular American author—I mean Edgar Poe!”

“Cheers for Edgar Poe!” roared the assemblage, electrified by their
president’s words.

“I have now enumerated,” said Barbicane, “the experiments which I call
purely paper ones, and wholly insufficient to establish serious
relations with the Queen of the Night. Nevertheless, I am bound to add
that some practical geniuses have attempted to establish actual
communication with her. Thus, a few days ago, a German geometrician
proposed to send a scientific expedition to the steppes of Siberia.
There, on those vast plains, they were to describe enormous geometric
figures, drawn in characters of reflecting luminosity, among which was
the proposition regarding the ‘square of the hypothenuse,’ commonly
called the ‘_Ass’s Bridge_’ by the French. ‘Every intelligent being,’
said the geometrician, ‘must understand the scientific meaning of that
figure. The Selenites, do they exist, will respond by a similar figure;
and, a communication being thus once established, it will be easy to
form an alphabet which shall enable us to converse with the inhabitants
of the moon.’ So spoke the German geometrician; but his project was
never put into practice, and up to the present day there is no bond in
existence between the Earth and her satellite. It is reserved for the
practical genius of Americans to establish a communication with the
sidereal world. The means of arriving thither are simple, easy,
certain, infallible—and that is the purpose of my present proposal.”

A storm of acclamations greeted these words. There was not a single
person in the whole audience who was not overcome, carried away, lifted
out of himself by the speaker’s words!

Long-continued applause resounded from all sides.

As soon as the excitement had partially subsided, Barbicane resumed his
speech in a somewhat graver voice.

“You know,” said he, “what progress artillery science has made during
the last few years, and what a degree of perfection firearms of every
kind have reached. Moreover, you are well aware that, in general terms,
the resisting power of cannon and the expansive force of gunpowder are
practically unlimited. Well! starting from this principle, I ask myself
whether, supposing sufficient apparatus could be obtained constructed
upon the conditions of ascertained resistance, it might not be possible
to project a shot up to the moon?”

At these words a murmur of amazement escaped from a thousand panting
chests; then succeeded a moment of perfect silence, resembling that
profound stillness which precedes the bursting of a thunderstorm. In
point of fact, a thunderstorm did peal forth, but it was the thunder of
applause, or cries, and of uproar which made the very hall tremble. The
president attempted to speak, but could not. It was fully ten minutes
before he could make himself heard.

“Suffer me to finish,” he calmly continued. “I have looked at the
question in all its bearings, I have resolutely attacked it, and by
incontrovertible calculations I find that a projectile endowed with an
initial velocity of 12,000 yards per second, and aimed at the moon,
must necessarily reach it. I have the honor, my brave colleagues, to
propose a trial of this little experiment.”




CHAPTER III.
EFFECT OF THE PRESIDENT’S COMMUNICATION


It is impossible to describe the effect produced by the last words of
the honorable president—the cries, the shouts, the succession of roars,
hurrahs, and all the varied vociferations which the American language
is capable of supplying. It was a scene of indescribable confusion and
uproar. They shouted, they clapped, they stamped on the floor of the
hall. All the weapons in the museum discharged at once could not have
more violently set in motion the waves of sound. One need not be
surprised at this. There are some cannoneers nearly as noisy as their
own guns.

Barbicane remained calm in the midst of this enthusiastic clamor;
perhaps he was desirous of addressing a few more words to his
colleagues, for by his gestures he demanded silence, and his powerful
alarum was worn out by its violent reports. No attention, however, was
paid to his request. He was presently torn from his seat and passed
from the hands of his faithful colleagues into the arms of a no less
excited crowd.

Nothing can astound an American. It has often been asserted that the
word “impossible” is not a French one. People have evidently been
deceived by the dictionary. In America, all is easy, all is simple; and
as for mechanical difficulties, they are overcome before they arise.
Between Barbicane’s proposition and its realization no true Yankee
would have allowed even the semblance of a difficulty to be possible. A
thing with them is no sooner said than done.

The triumphal progress of the president continued throughout the
evening. It was a regular torchlight procession. Irish, Germans,
French, Scotch, all the heterogeneous units which make up the
population of Maryland shouted in their respective vernaculars; and the
“vivas,” “hurrahs,” and “bravos” were intermingled in inexpressible
enthusiasm.

Just at this crisis, as though she comprehended all this agitation
regarding herself, the moon shone forth with serene splendor, eclipsing
by her intense illumination all the surrounding lights. The Yankees all
turned their gaze toward her resplendent orb, kissed their hands,
called her by all kinds of endearing names. Between eight o’clock and
midnight one optician in Jones’-Fall Street made his fortune by the
sale of opera-glasses.

Midnight arrived, and the enthusiasm showed no signs of diminution. It
spread equally among all classes of citizens—men of science,
shopkeepers, merchants, porters, chair-men, as well as “greenhorns,”
were stirred in their innermost fibres. A national enterprise was at
stake. The whole city, high and low, the quays bordering the Patapsco,
the ships lying in the basins, disgorged a crowd drunk with joy, gin,
and whisky. Every one chattered, argued, discussed, disputed,
applauded, from the gentleman lounging upon the barroom settee with his
tumbler of sherry-cobbler before him down to the waterman who got drunk
upon his “knock-me-down” in the dingy taverns of Fell Point.

About two A.M., however, the excitement began to subside. President
Barbicane reached his house, bruised, crushed, and squeezed almost to a
mummy. Hercules could not have resisted a similar outbreak of
enthusiasm. The crowd gradually deserted the squares and streets. The
four railways from Philadelphia and Washington, Harrisburg and
Wheeling, which converge at Baltimore, whirled away the heterogeneous
population to the four corners of the United States, and the city
subsided into comparative tranquility.

On the following day, thanks to the telegraphic wires, five hundred
newspapers and journals, daily, weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly, all
took up the question. They examined it under all its different aspects,
physical, meteorological, economical, or moral, up to its bearings on
politics or civilization. They debated whether the moon was a finished
world, or whether it was destined to undergo any further
transformation. Did it resemble the earth at the period when the latter
was destitute as yet of an atmosphere? What kind of spectacle would its
hidden hemisphere present to our terrestrial spheroid? Granting that
the question at present was simply that of sending a projectile up to
the moon, every one must see that that involved the commencement of a
series of experiments. All must hope that some day America would
penetrate the deepest secrets of that mysterious orb; and some even
seemed to fear lest its conquest should not sensibly derange the
equilibrium of Europe.

The project once under discussion, not a single paragraph suggested a
doubt of its realization. All the papers, pamphlets, reports—all the
journals published by the scientific, literary, and religious societies
enlarged upon its advantages; and the Society of Natural History of
Boston, the Society of Science and Art of Albany, the Geographical and
Statistical Society of New York, the Philosophical Society of
Philadelphia, and the Smithsonian of Washington sent innumerable
letters of congratulation to the Gun Club, together with offers of
immediate assistance and money.

From that day forward Impey Barbicane became one of the greatest
citizens of the United States, a kind of Washington of science. A
single trait of feeling, taken from many others, will serve to show the
point which this homage of a whole people to a single individual
attained.

Some few days after this memorable meeting of the Gun Club, the manager
of an English company announced, at the Baltimore theatre, the
production of “Much ado about Nothing.” But the populace, seeing in
that title an allusion damaging to Barbicane’s project, broke into the
auditorium, smashed the benches, and compelled the unlucky director to
alter his playbill. Being a sensible man, he bowed to the public will
and replaced the offending comedy by “As you like it”; and for many
weeks he realized fabulous profits.




CHAPTER IV.
REPLY FROM THE OBSERVATORY OF CAMBRIDGE


Barbicane, however, lost not one moment amid all the enthusiasm of
which he had become the object. His first care was to reassemble his
colleagues in the board-room of the Gun Club. There, after some
discussion, it was agreed to consult the astronomers regarding the
astronomical part of the enterprise. Their reply once ascertained, they
could then discuss the mechanical means, and nothing should be wanting
to ensure the success of this great experiment.

A note couched in precise terms, containing special interrogatories,
was then drawn up and addressed to the Observatory of Cambridge in
Massachusetts. This city, where the first university of the United
States was founded, is justly celebrated for its astronomical staff.
There are to be found assembled all the most eminent men of science.
Here is to be seen at work that powerful telescope which enabled Bond
to resolve the nebula of Andromeda, and Clarke to discover the
satellite of Sirius. This celebrated institution fully justified on all
points the confidence reposed in it by the Gun Club. So, after two
days, the reply so impatiently awaited was placed in the hands of
President Barbicane.

It was couched in the following terms:

_The Director of the Cambridge Observatory to the President of the Gun
Club at Baltimore._

CAMBRIDGE, October 7. On the receipt of your favor of the 6th instant,
addressed to the Observatory of Cambridge in the name of the members of
the Baltimore Gun Club, our staff was immediately called together, and
it was judged expedient to reply as follows:

The questions which have been proposed to it are these—

“1. Is it possible to transmit a projectile up to the moon?

“2. What is the exact distance which separates the earth from its
satellite?

“3. What will be the period of transit of the projectile when endowed
with sufficient initial velocity? and, consequently, at what moment
ought it to be discharged in order that it may touch the moon at a
particular point?

“4. At what precise moment will the moon present herself in the most
favorable position to be reached by the projectile?

“5. What point in the heavens ought the cannon to be aimed at which is
intended to discharge the projectile?

“6. What place will the moon occupy in the heavens at the moment of the
projectile’s departure?”

Regarding the _first_ question, “Is it possible to transmit a
projectile up to the moon?”

_Answer._—Yes; provided it possess an initial velocity of 1,200 yards
per second; calculations prove that to be sufficient. In proportion as
we recede from the earth the action of gravitation diminishes in the
inverse ratio of the square of the distance; that is to say, _at three
times a given distance the action is nine times less._ Consequently,
the weight of a shot will decrease, and will become reduced to _zero_
at the instant that the attraction of the moon exactly counterpoises
that of the earth; that is to say at 47/52 of its passage. At that
instant the projectile will have no weight whatever; and, if it passes
that point, it will fall into the moon by the sole effect of the lunar
attraction. The _theoretical possibility_ of the experiment is
therefore absolutely demonstrated; its _success_ must depend upon the
power of the engine employed.

As to the _second_ question, “What is the exact distance which
separates the earth from its satellite?”

_Answer._—The moon does not describe a _circle_ round the earth, but
rather an _ellipse_, of which our earth occupies one of the _foci_; the
consequence, therefore, is, that at certain times it approaches nearer
to, and at others it recedes farther from, the earth; in astronomical
language, it is at one time in _apogee_, at another in _perigee_. Now
the difference between its greatest and its least distance is too
considerable to be left out of consideration. In point of fact, in its
apogee the moon is 247,552 miles, and in its perigee, 218,657 miles
only distant; a fact which makes a difference of 28,895 miles, or more
than one-ninth of the entire distance. The perigee distance, therefore,
is that which ought to serve as the basis of all calculations.

To the _third_ question:—

_Answer._—If the shot should preserve continuously its initial velocity
of 12,000 yards per second, it would require little more than nine
hours to reach its destination; but, inasmuch as that initial velocity
will be continually decreasing, it will occupy 300,000 seconds, that is
83hrs. 20m. in reaching the point where the attraction of the earth and
moon will be _in equilibrio_. From this point it will fall into the
moon in 50,000 seconds, or 13hrs. 53m. 20sec. It will be desirable,
therefore, to discharge it 97hrs. 13m. 20sec. before the arrival of the
moon at the point aimed at.

Regarding question _four_, “At what precise moment will the moon
present herself in the most favorable position, etc.?”

_Answer._—After what has been said above, it will be necessary, first
of all, to choose the period when the moon will be in perigee, and
_also_ the moment when she will be crossing the zenith, which latter
event will further diminish the entire distance by a length equal to
the radius of the earth, _i. e._ 3,919 miles; the result of which will
be that the final passage remaining to be accomplished will be 214,976
miles. But although the moon passes her perigee every month, she does
not reach the zenith always _at exactly the same moment_. She does not
appear under these two conditions simultaneously, except at long
intervals of time. It will be necessary, therefore, to wait for the
moment when her passage in perigee shall coincide with that in the
zenith. Now, by a fortunate circumstance, on the 4th of December in the
ensuing year the moon _will_ present these two conditions. At midnight
she will be in perigee, that is, at her shortest distance from the
earth, and at the same moment she will be crossing the zenith.

On the _fifth_ question, “At what point in the heavens ought the cannon
to be aimed?”

_Answer._—The preceding remarks being admitted, the cannon ought to be
pointed to the zenith of the place. Its fire, therefore, will be
perpendicular to the plane of the horizon; and the projectile will
soonest pass beyond the range of the terrestrial attraction. But, in
order that the moon should reach the zenith of a given place, it is
necessary that the place should not exceed in latitude the declination
of the luminary; in other words, it must be comprised within the
degrees 0° and 28° of lat. N. or S. In every other spot the fire must
necessarily be oblique, which would seriously militate against the
success of the experiment.

As to the _sixth_ question, “What place will the moon occupy in the
heavens at the moment of the projectile’s departure?”

_Answer._—At the moment when the projectile shall be discharged into
space, the moon, which travels daily forward 13° 10′ 35″, will be
distant from the zenith point by four times that quantity, _i. e._ by
52° 41′ 20″, a space which corresponds to the path which she will
describe during the entire journey of the projectile. But, inasmuch as
it is equally necessary to take into account the deviation which the
rotary motion of the earth will impart to the shot, and as the shot
cannot reach the moon until after a deviation equal to 16 radii of the
earth, which, calculated upon the moon’s orbit, are equal to about
eleven degrees, it becomes necessary to add these eleven degrees to
those which express the retardation of the moon just mentioned: that is
to say, in round numbers, about sixty-four degrees. Consequently, at
the moment of firing the visual radius applied to the moon will
describe, with the vertical line of the place, an angle of sixty-four
degrees.

These are our answers to the questions proposed to the Observatory of
Cambridge by the members of the Gun Club:—

To sum up—

1st. The cannon ought to be planted in a country situated between 0°
and 28° of N. or S. lat.

2nd. It ought to be pointed directly toward the zenith of the place.

3rd. The projectile ought to be propelled with an initial velocity of
12,000 yards per second.

4th. It ought to be discharged at 10hrs. 46m. 40sec. of the 1st of
December of the ensuing year.

5th. It will meet the moon four days after its discharge, precisely at
midnight on the 4th of December, at the moment of its transit across
the zenith.

The members of the Gun Club ought, therefore, without delay, to
commence the works necessary for such an experiment, and to be prepared
to set to work at the moment determined upon; for, if they should
suffer this 4th of December to go by, they will not find the moon again
under the same conditions of perigee and of zenith until eighteen years
and eleven days afterward.

The staff of the Cambridge Observatory place themselves entirely at
their disposal in respect of all questions of theoretical astronomy;
and herewith add their congratulations to those of all the rest of
America. For the Astronomical Staff, J. M. BELFAST, _Director of the
Observatory of Cambridge._




CHAPTER V.
THE ROMANCE OF THE MOON


An observer endued with an infinite range of vision, and placed in that
unknown center around which the entire world revolves, might have
beheld myriads of atoms filling all space during the chaotic epoch of
the universe. Little by little, as ages went on, a change took place; a
general law of attraction manifested itself, to which the hitherto
errant atoms became obedient: these atoms combined together chemically
according to their affinities, formed themselves into molecules, and
composed those nebulous masses with which the depths of the heavens are
strewed. These masses became immediately endued with a rotary motion
around their own central point. This center, formed of indefinite
molecules, began to revolve around its own axis during its gradual
condensation; then, following the immutable laws of mechanics, in
proportion as its bulk diminished by condensation, its rotary motion
became accelerated, and these two effects continuing, the result was
the formation of one principal star, the center of the nebulous mass.

By attentively watching, the observer would then have perceived the
other molecules of the mass, following the example of this central
star, become likewise condensed by gradually accelerated rotation, and
gravitating round it in the shape of innumerable stars. Thus was formed
the _Nebulæ_, of which astronomers have reckoned up nearly 5,000.

Among these 5,000 nebulæ there is one which has received the name of
the Milky Way, and which contains eighteen millions of stars, each of
which has become the center of a solar world.

If the observer had then specially directed his attention to one of the
more humble and less brilliant of these stellar bodies, a star of the
fourth class, that which is arrogantly called the Sun, all the
phenomena to which the formation of the Universe is to be ascribed
would have been successively fulfilled before his eyes. In fact, he
would have perceived this sun, as yet in the gaseous state, and
composed of moving molecules, revolving round its axis in order to
accomplish its work of concentration. This motion, faithful to the laws
of mechanics, would have been accelerated with the diminution of its
volume; and a moment would have arrived when the centrifugal force
would have overpowered the centripetal, which causes the molecules all
to tend toward the center.

Another phenomenon would now have passed before the observer’s eye, and
the molecules situated on the plane of the equator, escaping like a
stone from a sling of which the cord had suddenly snapped, would have
formed around the sun sundry concentric rings resembling that of
Saturn. In their turn, again, these rings of cosmical matter, excited
by a rotary motion about the central mass, would have been broken up
and decomposed into secondary nebulosities, that is to say, into
planets. Similarly he would have observed these planets throw off one
or more rings each, which became the origin of the secondary bodies
which we call satellites.

Thus, then, advancing from atom to molecule, from molecule to nebulous
mass, from that to principal star, from star to sun, from sun to
planet, and hence to satellite, we have the whole series of
transformations undergone by the heavenly bodies during the first days
of the world.

Now, of those attendant bodies which the sun maintains in their
elliptical orbits by the great law of gravitation, some few in turn
possess satellites. Uranus has eight, Saturn eight, Jupiter four,
Neptune possibly three, and the Earth one. This last, one of the least
important of the entire solar system, we call the Moon; and it is she
whom the daring genius of the Americans professed their intention of
conquering.

The moon, by her comparative proximity, and the constantly varying
appearances produced by her several phases, has always occupied a
considerable share of the attention of the inhabitants of the earth.

From the time of Thales of Miletus, in the fifth century B.C., down to
that of Copernicus in the fifteenth and Tycho Brahé in the sixteenth
century A.D., observations have been from time to time carried on with
more or less correctness, until in the present day the altitudes of the
lunar mountains have been determined with exactitude. Galileo explained
the phenomena of the lunar light produced during certain of her phases
by the existence of mountains, to which he assigned a mean altitude of
27,000 feet. After him Hévelius, an astronomer of Dantzic, reduced the
highest elevations to 15,000 feet; but the calculations of Riccioli
brought them up again to 21,000 feet.

At the close of the eighteenth century Herschel, armed with a powerful
telescope, considerably reduced the preceding measurements. He assigned
a height of 11,400 feet to the maximum elevations, and reduced the mean
of the different altitudes to little more than 2,400 feet. But
Herschel’s calculations were in their turn corrected by the
observations of Halley, Nasmyth, Bianchini, Gruithuysen, and others;
but it was reserved for the labors of Boeer and Maedler finally to
solve the question. They succeeded in measuring 1,905 different
elevations, of which six exceed 15,000 feet, and twenty-two exceed
14,400 feet. The highest summit of all towers to a height of 22,606
feet above the surface of the lunar disc. At the same period the
examination of the moon was completed. She appeared completely riddled
with craters, and her essentially volcanic character was apparent at
each observation. By the absence of refraction in the rays of the
planets occulted by her we conclude that she is absolutely devoid of an
atmosphere. The absence of air entails the absence of water. It became,
therefore, manifest that the Selenites, to support life under such
conditions, must possess a special organization of their own, must
differ remarkably from the inhabitants of the earth.

At length, thanks to modern art, instruments of still higher perfection
searched the moon without intermission, not leaving a single point of
her surface unexplored; and notwithstanding that her diameter measures
2,150 miles, her surface equals the one-fifteenth part of that of our
globe, and her bulk the one-forty-ninth part of that of the terrestrial
spheroid—not one of her secrets was able to escape the eyes of the
astronomers; and these skillful men of science carried to an even
greater degree their prodigious observations.

Thus they remarked that, during full moon, the disc appeared scored in
certain parts with white lines; and, during the phases, with black. On
prosecuting the study of these with still greater precision, they
succeeded in obtaining an exact account of the nature of these lines.
They were long and narrow furrows sunk between parallel ridges,
bordering generally upon the edges of the craters. Their length varied
between ten and 100 miles, and their width was about 1,600 yards.
Astronomers called them chasms, but they could not get any further.
Whether these chasms were the dried-up beds of ancient rivers or not
they were unable thoroughly to ascertain.

The Americans, among others, hoped one day or other to determine this
geological question. They also undertook to examine the true nature of
that system of parallel ramparts discovered on the moon’s surface by
Gruithuysen, a learned professor of Munich, who considered them to be
“a system of fortifications thrown up by the Selenitic engineers.”
These two points, yet obscure, as well as others, no doubt, could not
be definitely settled except by direct communication with the moon.

Regarding the degree of intensity of its light, there was nothing more
to learn on this point. It was known that it is 300,000 times weaker
than that of the sun, and that its heat has no appreciable effect upon
the thermometer. As to the phenomenon known as the “ashy light,” it is
explained naturally by the effect of the transmission of the solar rays
from the earth to the moon, which give the appearance of completeness
to the lunar disc, while it presents itself under the crescent form
during its first and last phases.

Such was the state of knowledge acquired regarding the earth’s
satellite, which the Gun Club undertook to perfect in all its aspects,
cosmographic, geological, political, and moral.




CHAPTER VI.
PERMISSIVE LIMITS OF IGNORANCE AND BELIEF IN THE UNITED STATES


The immediate result of Barbicane’s proposition was to place upon the
orders of the day all the astronomical facts relative to the Queen of
the Night. Everybody set to work to study assiduously. One would have
thought that the moon had just appeared for the first time, and that no
one had ever before caught a glimpse of her in the heavens. The papers
revived all the old anecdotes in which the “sun of the wolves” played a
part; they recalled the influences which the ignorance of past ages
ascribed to her; in short, all America was seized with selenomania, or
had become moon-mad.

The scientific journals, for their part, dealt more especially with the
questions which touched upon the enterprise of the Gun Club. The letter
of the Observatory of Cambridge was published by them, and commented
upon with unreserved approval.

Until that time most people had been ignorant of the mode in which the
distance which separates the moon from the earth is calculated. They
took advantage of this fact to explain to them that this distance was
obtained by measuring the parallax of the moon. The term parallax
proving “caviare to the general,” they further explained that it meant
the angle formed by the inclination of two straight lines drawn from
either extremity of the earth’s radius to the moon. On doubts being
expressed as to the correctness of this method, they immediately proved
that not only was the mean distance 234,347 miles, but that astronomers
could not possibly be in error in their estimate by more than seventy
miles either way.

To those who were not familiar with the motions of the moon, they
demonstrated that she possesses two distinct motions, the first being
that of rotation upon her axis, the second being that of revolution
round the earth, accomplishing both together in an equal period of
time, that is to say, in twenty-seven and one-third days.

The motion of rotation is that which produces day and night on the
surface of the moon; save that there is only one day and one night in
the lunar month, each lasting three hundred and fifty-four and
one-third hours. But, happily for her, the face turned toward the
terrestrial globe is illuminated by it with an intensity equal to that
of fourteen moons. As to the other face, always invisible to us, it has
of necessity three hundred and fifty-four hours of absolute night,
tempered only by that “pale glimmer which falls upon it from the
stars.”

Some well-intentioned, but rather obstinate persons, could not at first
comprehend how, if the moon displays invariably the same face to the
earth during her revolution, she can describe one turn round herself.
To such they answered, “Go into your dining-room, and walk round the
table in such a way as to always keep your face turned toward the
center; by the time you will have achieved one complete round you will
have completed one turn around yourself, since your eye will have
traversed successively every point of the room. Well, then, the room is
the heavens, the table is the earth, and the moon is yourself.” And
they would go away delighted.

So, then the moon displays invariably the same face to the earth;
nevertheless, to be quite exact, it is necessary to add that, in
consequence of certain fluctuations of north and south, and of west and
east, termed her libration, she permits rather more than half, that is
to say, five-sevenths, to be seen.

As soon as the ignoramuses came to understand as much as the director
of the observatory himself knew, they began to worry themselves
regarding her revolution round the earth, whereupon twenty scientific
reviews immediately came to the rescue. They pointed out to them that
the firmament, with its infinitude of stars, may be considered as one
vast dial-plate, upon which the moon travels, indicating the true time
to all the inhabitants of the earth; that it is during this movement
that the Queen of Night exhibits her different phases; that the moon is
_full_ when she is in _opposition_ with the sun, that is when the three
bodies are on the same straight line, the earth occupying the center;
that she is _new_ when she is in _conjunction_ with the sun, that is,
when she is between it and the earth; and, lastly that she is in her
_first_ or _last_ quarter, when she makes with the sun and the earth an
angle of which she herself occupies the apex.

Regarding the altitude which the moon attains above the horizon, the
letter of the Cambridge Observatory had said all that was to be said in
this respect. Every one knew that this altitude varies according to the
latitude of the observer. But the only zones of the globe in which the
moon passes the zenith, that is, the point directly over the head of
the spectator, are of necessity comprised between the twenty-eighth
parallels and the equator. Hence the importance of the advice to try
the experiment upon some point of that part of the globe, in order that
the projectile might be discharged perpendicularly, and so the soonest
escape the action of gravitation. This was an essential condition to
the success of the enterprise, and continued actively to engage the
public attention.

Regarding the path described by the moon in her revolution round the
earth, the Cambridge Observatory had demonstrated that this path is a
re-entering curve, not a perfect circle, but an ellipse, of which the
earth occupies one of the _foci_. It was also well understood that it
is farthest removed from the earth during its _apogee_, and approaches
most nearly to it at its _perigee_.

Such was then the extent of knowledge possessed by every American on
the subject, and of which no one could decently profess ignorance.
Still, while these principles were being rapidly disseminated many
errors and illusory fears proved less easy to eradicate.

For instance, some worthy persons maintained that the moon was an
ancient comet which, in describing its elongated orbit round the sun,
happened to pass near the earth, and became confined within her circle
of attraction. These drawing-room astronomers professed to explain the
charred aspect of the moon—a disaster which they attributed to the
intensity of the solar heat; only, on being reminded that comets have
an atmosphere, and that the moon has little or none, they were fairly
at a loss for a reply.

Others again, belonging to the doubting class, expressed certain fears
as to the position of the moon. They had heard it said that, according
to observations made in the time of the Caliphs, her revolution had
become accelerated in a certain degree. Hence they concluded, logically
enough, that an acceleration of motion ought to be accompanied by a
corresponding diminution in the distance separating the two bodies; and
that, supposing the double effect to be continued to infinity, the moon
would end by one day falling into the earth. However, they became
reassured as to the fate of future generations on being apprised that,
according to the calculations of Laplace, this acceleration of motion
is confined within very restricted limits, and that a proportional
diminution of speed will be certain to succeed it. So, then, the
stability of the solar system would not be deranged in ages to come.

There remains but the third class, the superstitious. These worthies
were not content merely to rest in ignorance; they must know all about
things which had no existence whatever, and as to the moon, they had
long known all about her. One set regarded her disc as a polished
mirror, by means of which people could see each other from different
points of the earth and interchange their thoughts. Another set
pretended that out of one thousand new moons that had been observed,
nine hundred and fifty had been attended with remarkable disturbances,
such as cataclysms, revolutions, earthquakes, the deluge, etc. Then
they believed in some mysterious influence exercised by her over human
destinies—that every Selenite was attached to some inhabitant of the
earth by a tie of sympathy; they maintained that the entire vital
system is subject to her control, etc. But in time the majority
renounced these vulgar errors, and espoused the true side of the
question. As for the Yankees, they had no other ambition than to take
possession of this new continent of the sky, and to plant upon the
summit of its highest elevation the star- spangled banner of the United
States of America.




CHAPTER VII.
THE HYMN OF THE CANNON-BALL


The Observatory of Cambridge in its memorable letter had treated the
question from a purely astronomical point of view. The mechanical part
still remained.

President Barbicane had, without loss of time, nominated a working
committee of the Gun Club. The duty of this committee was to resolve
the three grand questions of the cannon, the projectile, and the
powder. It was composed of four members of great technical knowledge,
Barbicane (with a casting vote in case of equality), General Morgan,
Major Elphinstone, and J. T. Maston, to whom were confided the
functions of secretary. On the 8th of October the committee met at the
house of President Barbicane, 3 Republican Street. The meeting was
opened by the president himself.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “we have to resolve one of the most important
problems in the whole of the noble science of gunnery. It might appear,
perhaps, the most logical course to devote our first meeting to the
discussion of the engine to be employed. Nevertheless, after mature
consideration, it has appeared to me that the question of the
projectile must take precedence of that of the cannon, and that the
dimensions of the latter must necessarily depend on those of the
former.”

“Suffer me to say a word,” here broke in J. T. Maston. Permission
having been granted, “Gentlemen,” said he with an inspired accent, “our
president is right in placing the question of the projectile above all
others. The ball we are about to discharge at the moon is our
ambassador to her, and I wish to consider it from a moral point of
view. The cannon-ball, gentlemen, to my mind, is the most magnificent
manifestation of human power. If Providence has created the stars and
the planets, man has called the cannon-ball into existence. Let
Providence claim the swiftness of electricity and of light, of the
stars, the comets, and the planets, of wind and sound—we claim to have
invented the swiftness of the cannon-ball, a hundred times superior to
that of the swiftest horses or railway train. How glorious will be the
moment when, infinitely exceeding all hitherto attained velocities, we
shall launch our new projectile with the rapidity of seven miles a
second! Shall it not, gentlemen—shall it not be received up there with
the honors due to a terrestrial ambassador?”

Overcome with emotion the orator sat down and applied himself to a huge
plate of sandwiches before him.

“And now,” said Barbicane, “let us quit the domain of poetry and come
direct to the question.”

“By all means,” replied the members, each with his mouth full of
sandwich.

“The problem before us,” continued the president, “is how to
communicate to a projectile a velocity of 12,000 yards per second. Let
us at present examine the velocities hitherto attained. General Morgan
will be able to enlighten us on this point.”

“And the more easily,” replied the general, “that during the war I was
a member of the committee of experiments. I may say, then, that the
100-pounder Dahlgrens, which carried a distance of 5,000 yards,
impressed upon their projectile an initial velocity of 500 yards a
second. The Rodman Columbiad threw a shot weighing half a ton a
distance of six miles, with a velocity of 800 yards per second—a result
which Armstrong and Palisser have never obtained in England.”

“This,” replied Barbicane, “is, I believe, the maximum velocity ever
attained?”

“It is so,” replied the general.

“Ah!” groaned J. T. Maston, “if my mortar had not burst—”

“Yes,” quietly replied Barbicane, “but it did burst. We must take,
then, for our starting point, this velocity of 800 yards. We must
increase it twenty-fold. Now, reserving for another discussion the
means of producing this velocity, I will call your attention to the
dimensions which it will be proper to assign to the shot. You
understand that we have nothing to do here with projectiles weighing at
most but half a ton.”

“Why not?” demanded the major.

“Because the shot,” quickly replied J. T. Maston, “must be big enough
to attract the attention of the inhabitants of the moon, if there are
any?”

“Yes,” replied Barbicane, “and for another reason more important
still.”

“What mean you?” asked the major.

“I mean that it is not enough to discharge a projectile, and then take
no further notice of it; we must follow it throughout its course, up to
the moment when it shall reach its goal.”

“What?” shouted the general and the major in great surprise.

“Undoubtedly,” replied Barbicane composedly, “or our experiment would
produce no result.”

“But then,” replied the major, “you will have to give this projectile
enormous dimensions.”

“No! Be so good as to listen. You know that optical instruments have
acquired great perfection; with certain instruments we have succeeded
in obtaining enlargements of 6,000 times and reducing the moon to
within forty miles’ distance. Now, at this distance, any objects sixty
feet square would be perfectly visible.

“If, then, the penetrative power of telescopes has not been further
increased, it is because that power detracts from their light; and the
moon, which is but a reflecting mirror, does not give back sufficient
light to enable us to perceive objects of lesser magnitude.”

“Well, then, what do you propose to do?” asked the general. “Would you
give your projectile a diameter of sixty feet?”

“Not so.”

“Do you intend, then, to increase the luminous power of the moon?”

“Exactly so. If I can succeed in diminishing the density of the
atmosphere through which the moon’s light has to travel I shall have
rendered her light more intense. To effect that object it will be
enough to establish a telescope on some elevated mountain. That is what
we will do.”

“I give it up,” answered the major. “You have such a way of simplifying
things. And what enlargement do you expect to obtain in this way?”

“One of 48,000 times, which should bring the moon within an apparent
distance of five miles; and, in order to be visible, objects need not
have a diameter of more than nine feet.”

“So, then,” cried J. T. Maston, “our projectile need not be more than
nine feet in diameter.”

“Let me observe, however,” interrupted Major Elphinstone, “this will
involve a weight such as—”

“My dear major,” replied Barbicane, “before discussing its weight
permit me to enumerate some of the marvels which our ancestors have
achieved in this respect. I don’t mean to pretend that the science of
gunnery has not advanced, but it is as well to bear in mind that during
the middle ages they obtained results more surprising, I will venture
to say, than ours. For instance, during the siege of Constantinople by
Mahomet II., in 1453, stone shot of 1,900 pounds weight were employed.
At Malta, in the time of the knights, there was a gun of the fortress
of St. Elmo which threw a projectile weighing 2,500 pounds. And, now,
what is the extent of what we have seen ourselves? Armstrong guns
discharging shot of 500 pounds, and the Rodman guns projectiles of half
a ton! It seems, then, that if projectiles have gained in range, they
have lost far more in weight. Now, if we turn our efforts in that
direction, we ought to arrive, with the progress on science, at ten
times the weight of the shot of Mahomet II. and the Knights of Malta.”

“Clearly,” replied the major; “but what metal do you calculate upon
employing?”

“Simply cast iron,” said General Morgan.

“But,” interrupted the major, “since the weight of a shot is
proportionate to its volume, an iron ball of nine feet in diameter
would be of tremendous weight.”

“Yes, if it were solid, not if it were hollow.”

“Hollow? then it would be a shell?”

“Yes, a shell,” replied Barbicane; “decidely it must be. A solid shot
of 108 inches would weigh more than 200,000 pounds, a weight evidently
far too great. Still, as we must reserve a certain stability for our
projectile, I propose to give it a weight of 20,000 pounds.”

“What, then, will be the thickness of the sides?” asked the major.

“If we follow the usual proportion,” replied Morgan, “a diameter of 108
inches would require sides of two feet thickness, or less.”

“That would be too much,” replied Barbicane; “for you will observe that
the question is not that of a shot intended to pierce an iron plate; it
will suffice to give it sides strong enough to resist the pressure of
the gas. The problem, therefore, is this—What thickness ought a
cast-iron shell to have in order not to weight more than 20,000 pounds?
Our clever secretary will soon enlighten us upon this point.”

“Nothing easier.” replied the worthy secretary of the committee; and,
rapidly tracing a few algebraical formulae upon paper, among which _n_2
and _x_2 frequently appeared, he presently said:

“The sides will require a thickness of less than two inches.”

“Will that be enough?” asked the major doubtfully.

“Clearly not!” replied the president.

“What is to be done, then?” said Elphinstone, with a puzzled air.

“Employ another metal instead of iron.”

“Copper?” said Morgan.

“No! that would be too heavy. I have better than that to offer.”

“What then?” asked the major.

“Aluminum!” replied Barbicane.

“Aluminum?” cried his three colleagues in chorus.

“Unquestionably, my friends. This valuable metal possesses the
whiteness of silver, the indestructibility of gold, the tenacity of
iron, the fusibility of copper, the lightness of glass. It is easily
wrought, is very widely distributed, forming the base of most of the
rocks, is three times lighter than iron, and seems to have been created
for the express purpose of furnishing us with the material for our
projectile.”

“But, my dear president,” said the major, “is not the cost price of
aluminum extremely high?”

“It was so at its first discovery, but it has fallen now to nine
dollars a pound.”

“But still, nine dollars a pound!” replied the major, who was not
willing readily to give in; “even that is an enormous price.”

“Undoubtedly, my dear major; but not beyond our reach.”

“What will the projectile weigh then?” asked Morgan.

“Here is the result of my calculations,” replied Barbicane. “A shot of
108 inches in diameter, and twelve inches in thickness, would weigh, in
cast-iron, 67,440 pounds; cast in aluminum, its weight will be reduced
to 19,250 pounds.”

“Capital!” cried the major; “but do you know that, at nine dollars a
pound, this projectile will cost—”

“One hundred and seventy-three thousand and fifty dollars ($173,050). I
know it quite well. But fear not, my friends; the money will not be
wanting for our enterprise. I will answer for it. Now what say you to
aluminum, gentlemen?”

“Adopted!” replied the three members of the committee. So ended the
first meeting. The question of the projectile was definitely settled.




CHAPTER VIII.
HISTORY OF THE CANNON


The resolutions passed at the last meeting produced a great effect out
of doors. Timid people took fright at the idea of a shot weighing
20,000 pounds being launched into space; they asked what cannon could
ever transmit a sufficient velocity to such a mighty mass. The minutes
of the second meeting were destined triumphantly to answer such
questions. The following evening the discussion was renewed.

“My dear colleagues,” said Barbicane, without further preamble, “the
subject now before us is the construction of the engine, its length,
its composition, and its weight. It is probable that we shall end by
giving it gigantic dimensions; but however great may be the
difficulties in the way, our mechanical genius will readily surmount
them. Be good enough, then, to give me your attention, and do not
hesitate to make objections at the close. I have no fear of them. The
problem before us is how to communicate an initial force of 12,000
yards per second to a shell of 108 inches in diameter, weighing 20,000
pounds. Now when a projectile is launched into space, what happens to
it? It is acted upon by three independent forces: the resistance of the
air, the attraction of the earth, and the force of impulsion with which
it is endowed. Let us examine these three forces. The resistance of the
air is of little importance. The atmosphere of the earth does not
exceed forty miles. Now, with the given rapidity, the projectile will
have traversed this in five seconds, and the period is too brief for
the resistance of the medium to be regarded otherwise than as
insignificant. Proceding, then, to the attraction of the earth, that
is, the weight of the shell, we know that this weight will diminish in
the inverse ratio of the square of the distance. When a body left to
itself falls to the surface of the earth, it falls five feet in the
first second; and if the same body were removed 257,542 miles further
off, in other words, to the distance of the moon, its fall would be
reduced to about half a line in the first second. That is almost
equivalent to a state of perfect rest. Our business, then, is to
overcome progressively this action of gravitation. The mode of
accomplishing that is by the force of impulsion.”

“There’s the difficulty,” broke in the major.

“True,” replied the president; “but we will overcome that, for the
force of impulsion will depend on the length of the engine and the
powder employed, the latter being limited only by the resisting power
of the former. Our business, then, to-day is with the dimensions of the
cannon.”

“Now, up to the present time,” said Barbicane, “our longest guns have
not exceeded twenty-five feet in length. We shall therefore astonish
the world by the dimensions we shall be obliged to adopt. It must
evidently be, then, a gun of great range, since the length of the piece
will increase the detention of the gas accumulated behind the
projectile; but there is no advantage in passing certain limits.”

“Quite so,” said the major. “What is the rule in such a case?”

“Ordinarily the length of a gun is twenty to twenty-five times the
diameter of the shot, and its weight two hundred and thirty-five to two
hundred and forty times that of the shot.”

“That is not enough,” cried J. T. Maston impetuously.

“I agree with you, my good friend; and, in fact, following this
proportion for a projectile nine feet in diameter, weighing 30,000
pounds, the gun would only have a length of two hundred and twenty-
five feet, and a weight of 7,200,000 pounds.”

“Ridiculous!” rejoined Maston. “As well take a pistol.”

“I think so too,” replied Barbicane; “that is why I propose to
quadruple that length, and to construct a gun of nine hundred feet.”

The general and the major offered some objections; nevertheless, the
proposition, actively supported by the secretary, was definitely
adopted.

“But,” said Elphinstone, “what thickness must we give it?”

“A thickness of six feet,” replied Barbicane.

“You surely don’t think of mounting a mass like that upon a carriage?”
asked the major.

“It would be a superb idea, though,” said Maston.

“But impracticable,” replied Barbicane. “No, I think of sinking this
engine in the earth alone, binding it with hoops of wrought iron, and
finally surrounding it with a thick mass of masonry of stone and
cement. The piece once cast, it must be bored with great precision, so
as to preclude any possible windage. So there will be no loss whatever
of gas, and all the expansive force of the powder will be employed in
the propulsion.”

“One simple question,” said Elphinstone: “is our gun to be rifled?”

“No, certainly not,” replied Barbicane; “we require an enormous initial
velocity; and you are well aware that a shot quits a rifled gun less
rapidly than it does a smooth-bore.”

“True,” rejoined the major.

The committee here adjourned for a few minutes to tea and sandwiches.

On the discussion being renewed, “Gentlemen,” said Barbicane, “we must
now take into consideration the metal to be employed. Our cannon must
be possessed of great tenacity, great hardness, be infusible by heat,
indissoluble, and inoxidable by the corrosive action of acids.”

“There is no doubt about that,” replied the major; “and as we shall
have to employ an immense quantity of metal, we shall not be at a loss
for choice.”

“Well, then,” said Morgan, “I propose the best alloy hitherto known,
which consists of one hundred parts of copper, twelve of tin, and six
of brass.”

“I admit,” replied the president, “that this composition has yielded
excellent results, but in the present case it would be too expensive,
and very difficult to work. I think, then, that we ought to adopt a
material excellent in its way and of low price, such as cast iron. What
is your advice, major?”

“I quite agree with you,” replied Elphinstone.

“In fact,” continued Barbicane, “cast iron costs ten times less than
bronze; it is easy to cast, it runs readily from the moulds of sand, it
is easy of manipulation, it is at once economical of money and of time.
In addition, it is excellent as a material, and I well remember that
during the war, at the siege of Atlanta, some iron guns fired one
thousand rounds at intervals of twenty minutes without injury.”

“Cast iron is very brittle, though,” replied Morgan.

“Yes, but it possesses great resistance. I will now ask our worthy
secretary to calculate the weight of a cast-iron gun with a bore of
nine feet and a thickness of six feet of metal.”

“In a moment,” replied Maston. Then, dashing off some algebraical
formulae with marvelous facility, in a minute or two he declared the
following result:

“The cannon will weigh 68,040 tons. And, at two cents a pound, it will
cost—”

“Two million five hundred and ten thousand seven hundred and one
dollars.”

Maston, the major, and the general regarded Barbicane with uneasy
looks.

“Well, gentlemen,” replied the president, “I repeat what I said
yesterday. Make yourselves easy; the millions will not be wanting.”

With this assurance of their president the committee separated, after
having fixed their third meeting for the following evening.




CHAPTER IX.
THE QUESTION OF THE POWDERS


There remained for consideration merely the question of powders. The
public awaited with interest its final decision. The size of the
projectile, the length of the cannon being settled, what would be the
quantity of powder necessary to produce impulsion?

It is generally asserted that gunpowder was invented in the fourteenth
century by the monk Schwartz, who paid for his grand discovery with his
life. It is, however, pretty well proved that this story ought to be
ranked among the legends of the middle ages. Gunpowder was not invented
by any one; it was the lineal successor of the Greek fire, which, like
itself, was composed of sulfur and saltpeter. Few persons are
acquainted with the mechanical power of gunpowder. Now this is
precisely what is necessary to be understood in order to comprehend the
importance of the question submitted to the committee.

A litre of gunpowder weighs about two pounds; during combustion it
produces 400 litres of gas. This gas, on being liberated and acted upon
by temperature raised to 2,400 degrees, occupies a space of 4,000
litres: consequently the volume of powder is to the volume of gas
produced by its combustion as 1 to 4,000. One may judge, therefore, of
the tremendous pressure on this gas when compressed within a space
4,000 times too confined. All this was, of course, well known to the
members of the committee when they met on the following evening.

The first speaker on this occasion was Major Elphinstone, who had been
the director of the gunpowder factories during the war.

“Gentlemen,” said this distinguished chemist, “I begin with some
figures which will serve as the basis of our calculation. The old
24-pounder shot required for its discharge sixteen pounds of powder.”

“You are certain of this amount?” broke in Barbicane.

“Quite certain,” replied the major. “The Armstrong cannon employs only
seventy-five pounds of powder for a projectile of eight hundred pounds,
and the Rodman Columbiad uses only one hundred and sixty pounds of
powder to send its half ton shot a distance of six miles. These facts
cannot be called in question, for I myself raised the point during the
depositions taken before the committee of artillery.”

“Quite true,” said the general.

“Well,” replied the major, “these figures go to prove that the quantity
of powder is not increased with the weight of the shot; that is to say,
if a 24-pounder shot requires sixteen pounds of powder;—in other words,
if in ordinary guns we employ a quantity of powder equal to two-thirds
of the weight of the projectile, this proportion is not constant.
Calculate, and you will see that in place of three hundred and
thirty-three pounds of powder, the quantity is reduced to no more than
one hundred and sixty pounds.”

“What are you aiming at?” asked the president.

“If you push your theory to extremes, my dear major,” said J. T.
Maston, “you will get to this, that as soon as your shot becomes
sufficiently heavy you will not require any powder at all.”

“Our friend Maston is always at his jokes, even in serious matters,”
cried the major; “but let him make his mind easy, I am going presently
to propose gunpowder enough to satisfy his artillerist’s propensities.
I only keep to statistical facts when I say that, during the war, and
for the very largest guns, the weight of the powder was reduced, as the
result of experience, to a tenth part of the weight of the shot.”

“Perfectly correct,” said Morgan; “but before deciding the quantity of
powder necessary to give the impulse, I think it would be as well—”

“We shall have to employ a large-grained powder,” continued the major;
“its combustion is more rapid than that of the small.”

“No doubt about that,” replied Morgan; “but it is very destructive, and
ends by enlarging the bore of the pieces.”

“Granted; but that which is injurious to a gun destined to perform long
service is not so to our Columbiad. We shall run no danger of an
explosion; and it is necessary that our powder should take fire
instantaneously in order that its mechanical effect may be complete.”

“We must have,” said Maston, “several touch-holes, so as to fire it at
different points at the same time.”

“Certainly,” replied Elphinstone; “but that will render the working of
the piece more difficult. I return then to my large-grained powder,
which removes those difficulties. In his Columbiad charges Rodman
employed a powder as large as chestnuts, made of willow charcoal,
simply dried in cast- iron pans. This powder was hard and glittering,
left no trace upon the hand, contained hydrogen and oxygen in large
proportion, took fire instantaneously, and, though very destructive,
did not sensibly injure the mouth-piece.”

Up to this point Barbicane had kept aloof from the discussion; he left
the others to speak while he himself listened; he had evidently got an
idea. He now simply said, “Well, my friends, what quantity of powder do
you propose?”

The three members looked at one another.

“Two hundred thousand pounds.” at last said Morgan.

“Five hundred thousand,” added the major.

“Eight hundred thousand,” screamed Maston.

A moment of silence followed this triple proposal; it was at last
broken by the president.

“Gentlemen,” he quietly said, “I start from this principle, that the
resistance of a gun, constructed under the given conditions, is
unlimited. I shall surprise our friend Maston, then, by stigmatizing
his calculations as timid; and I propose to double his 800,000 pounds
of powder.”

“Sixteen hundred thousand pounds?” shouted Maston, leaping from his
seat.

“Just so.”

“We shall have to come then to my ideal of a cannon half a mile long;
for you see 1,600,000 pounds will occupy a space of about 20,000 cubic
feet; and since the contents of your cannon do not exceed 54,000 cubic
feet, it would be half full; and the bore will not be more than long
enough for the gas to communicate to the projectile sufficient
impulse.”

“Nevertheless,” said the president, “I hold to that quantity of powder.
Now, 1,600,000 pounds of powder will create 6,000,000,000 litres of
gas. Six thousand millions! You quite understand?”

“What is to be done then?” said the general.

“The thing is very simple; we must reduce this enormous quantity of
powder, while preserving to it its mechanical power.”

“Good; but by what means?”

“I am going to tell you,” replied Barbicane quietly.

“Nothing is more easy than to reduce this mass to one quarter of its
bulk. You know that curious cellular matter which constitutes the
elementary tissues of vegetable? This substance is found quite pure in
many bodies, especially in cotton, which is nothing more than the down
of the seeds of the cotton plant. Now cotton, combined with cold nitric
acid, become transformed into a substance eminently insoluble,
combustible, and explosive. It was first discovered in 1832, by
Braconnot, a French chemist, who called it xyloidine. In 1838 another
Frenchman, Pelouze, investigated its different properties, and finally,
in 1846, Schonbein, professor of chemistry at Bale, proposed its
employment for purposes of war. This powder, now called pyroxyle, or
fulminating cotton, is prepared with great facility by simply plunging
cotton for fifteen minutes in nitric acid, then washing it in water,
then drying it, and it is ready for use.”

“Nothing could be more simple,” said Morgan.

“Moreover, pyroxyle is unaltered by moisture—a valuable property to us,
inasmuch as it would take several days to charge the cannon. It ignites
at 170 degrees in place of 240, and its combustion is so rapid that one
may set light to it on the top of the ordinary powder, without the
latter having time to ignite.”

“Perfect!” exclaimed the major.

“Only it is more expensive.”

“What matter?” cried J. T. Maston.

“Finally, it imparts to projectiles a velocity four times superior to
that of gunpowder. I will even add, that if we mix it with one-eighth
of its own weight of nitrate of potassium, its expansive force is again
considerably augmented.”

“Will that be necessary?” asked the major.

“I think not,” replied Barbicane. “So, then, in place of 1,600,000
pounds of powder, we shall have but 400,000 pounds of fulminating
cotton; and since we can, without danger, compress 500 pounds of cotton
into twenty-seven cubic feet, the whole quantity will not occupy a
height of more than 180 feet within the bore of the Columbiad. In this
way the shot will have more than 700 feet of bore to traverse under a
force of 6,000,000,000 litres of gas before taking its flight toward
the moon.”

At this juncture J. T. Maston could not repress his emotion; he flung
himself into the arms of his friend with the violence of a projectile,
and Barbicane would have been stove in if he had not been boom-proof.

This incident terminated the third meeting of the committee.

Barbicane and his bold colleagues, to whom nothing seemed impossible,
had succeeding in solving the complex problems of projectile, cannon,
and powder. Their plan was drawn up, and it only remained to put it
into execution.

“A mere matter of detail, a bagatelle,” said J. T. Maston.




CHAPTER X.
ONE ENEMY _v._ TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF FRIENDS


The American public took a lively interest in the smallest details of
the enterprise of the Gun Club. It followed day by day the discussion
of the committee. The most simple preparations for the great
experiment, the questions of figures which it involved, the mechanical
difficulties to be resolved—in one word, the entire plan of work—roused
the popular excitement to the highest pitch.

The purely scientific attraction was suddenly intensified by the
following incident:

We have seen what legions of admirers and friends Barbicane’s project
had rallied round its author. There was, however, one single individual
alone in all the States of the Union who protested against the attempt
of the Gun Club. He attacked it furiously on every opportunity, and
human nature is such that Barbicane felt more keenly the opposition of
that one man than he did the applause of all the others. He was well
aware of the motive of this antipathy, the origin of this solitary
enmity, the cause of its personality and old standing, and in what
rivalry of self-love it had its rise.

This persevering enemy the president of the Gun Club had never seen.
Fortunate that it was so, for a meeting between the two men would
certainly have been attended with serious consequences. This rival was
a man of science, like Barbicane himself, of a fiery, daring, and
violent disposition; a pure Yankee. His name was Captain Nicholl; he
lived at Philadelphia.

Most people are aware of the curious struggle which arose during the
Federal war between the guns and armor of iron-plated ships. The result
was the entire reconstruction of the navy of both the continents; as
the one grew heavier, the other became thicker in proportion. The
Merrimac, the Monitor, the Tennessee, the Weehawken discharged enormous
projectiles themselves, after having been armor-clad against the
projectiles of others. In fact they did to others that which they would
not they should do to them—that grand principle of immortality upon
which rests the whole art of war.

Now if Barbicane was a great founder of shot, Nicholl was a great
forger of plates; the one cast night and day at Baltimore, the other
forged day and night at Philadelphia. As soon as ever Barbicane
invented a new shot, Nicholl invented a new plate; each followed a
current of ideas essentially opposed to the other. Happily for these
citizens, so useful to their country, a distance of from fifty to sixty
miles separated them from one another, and they had never yet met.
Which of these two inventors had the advantage over the other it was
difficult to decide from the results obtained. By last accounts,
however, it would seem that the armor-plate would in the end have to
give way to the shot; nevertheless, there were competent judges who had
their doubts on the point.

At the last experiment the cylindro-conical projectiles of Barbicane
stuck like so many pins in the Nicholl plates. On that day the
Philadelphia iron-forger then believed himself victorious, and could
not evince contempt enough for his rival; but when the other afterward
substituted for conical shot simple 600-pound shells, at very moderate
velocity, the captain was obliged to give in. In fact, these
projectiles knocked his best metal plate to shivers.

Matters were at this stage, and victory seemed to rest with the shot,
when the war came to an end on the very day when Nicholl had completed
a new armor-plate of wrought steel. It was a masterpiece of its kind,
and bid defiance to all the projectiles of the world. The captain had
it conveyed to the Polygon at Washington, challenging the president of
the Gun Club to break it. Barbicane, peace having been declared,
declined to try the experiment.

Nicholl, now furious, offered to expose his plate to the shock of any
shot, solid, hollow, round, or conical. Refused by the president, who
did not choose to compromise his last success.

Nicholl, disgusted by this obstinacy, tried to tempt Barbicane by
offering him every chance. He proposed to fix the plate within two
hundred yards of the gun. Barbicane still obstinate in refusal. A
hundred yards? Not even seventy-five!

“At fifty then!” roared the captain through the newspapers. “At
twenty-five yards! and I’ll stand behind!”

Barbicane returned for answer that, even if Captain Nicholl would be so
good as to stand in front, he would not fire any more.

Nicholl could not contain himself at this reply; threw out hints of
cowardice; that a man who refused to fire a cannon-shot was pretty near
being afraid of it; that artillerists who fight at six miles distance
are substituting mathematical formulae for individual courage.

To these insinuations Barbicane returned no answer; perhaps he never
heard of them, so absorbed was he in the calculations for his great
enterprise.

When his famous communication was made to the Gun Club, the captain’s
wrath passed all bounds; with his intense jealousy was mingled a
feeling of absolute impotence. How was he to invent anything to beat
this 900-feet Columbiad? What armor-plate could ever resist a
projectile of 30,000 pounds weight? Overwhelmed at first under this
violent shock, he by and by recovered himself, and resolved to crush
the proposal by weight of his arguments.

He then violently attacked the labors of the Gun Club, published a
number of letters in the newspapers, endeavored to prove Barbicane
ignorant of the first principles of gunnery. He maintained that it was
absolutely impossible to impress upon any body whatever a velocity of
12,000 yards per second; that even with such a velocity a projectile of
such a weight could not transcend the limits of the earth’s atmosphere.
Further still, even regarding the velocity to be acquired, and granting
it to be sufficient, the shell could not resist the pressure of the gas
developed by the ignition of 1,600,000 pounds of powder; and supposing
it to resist that pressure, it would be less able to support that
temperature; it would melt on quitting the Columbiad, and fall back in
a red-hot shower upon the heads of the imprudent spectators.

Barbicane continued his work without regarding these attacks.

Nicholl then took up the question in its other aspects. Without
touching upon its uselessness in all points of view, he regarded the
experiment as fraught with extreme danger, both to the citizens, who
might sanction by their presence so reprehensible a spectacle, and also
to the towns in the neighborhood of this deplorable cannon. He also
observed that if the projectile did not succeed in reaching its
destination (a result absolutely impossible), it must inevitably fall
back upon the earth, and that the shock of such a mass, multiplied by
the square of its velocity, would seriously endanger every point of the
globe. Under the circumstances, therefore, and without interfering with
the rights of free citizens, it was a case for the intervention of
Government, which ought not to endanger the safety of all for the
pleasure of one individual.

In spite of all his arguments, however, Captain Nicholl remained alone
in his opinion. Nobody listened to him, and he did not succeed in
alienating a single admirer from the president of the Gun Club. The
latter did not even take the pains to refute the arguments of his
rival.

Nicholl, driven into his last entrenchments, and not able to fight
personally in the cause, resolved to fight with money. He published,
therefore, in the Richmond _Inquirer_ a series of wagers, conceived in
these terms, and on an increasing scale:

No. 1 ($1,000).—That the necessary funds for the experiment of the Gun
Club will not be forthcoming.

No. 2 ($2,000).—That the operation of casting a cannon of 900 feet is
impracticable, and cannot possibly succeed.

No. 3 ($3,000).—That is it impossible to load the Columbiad, and that
the pyroxyle will take fire spontaneously under the pressure of the
projectile.

No. 4 ($4,000).—That the Columbiad will burst at the first fire.

No. 5 ($5,000).—That the shot will not travel farther than six miles,
and that it will fall back again a few seconds after its discharge.

It was an important sum, therefore, which the captain risked in his
invincible obstinacy. He had no less than $15,000 at stake.

Notwithstanding the importance of the challenge, on the 19th of May he
received a sealed packet containing the following superbly laconic
reply:

“BALTIMORE, October 19.
”Done.
”BARBICANE.”




CHAPTER XI.
FLORIDA AND TEXAS


One question remained yet to be decided; it was necessary to choose a
favorable spot for the experiment. According to the advice of the
Observatory of Cambridge, the gun must be fired perpendicularly to the
plane of the horizon, that is to say, toward the zenith. Now the moon
does not traverse the zenith, except in places situated between 0° and
28° of latitude. It became, then, necessary to determine exactly that
spot on the globe where the immense Columbiad should be cast.

On the 20th of October, at a general meeting of the Gun Club, Barbicane
produced a magnificent map of the United States. “Gentlemen,” said he,
in opening the discussion, “I presume that we are all agreed that this
experiment cannot and ought not to be tried anywhere but within the
limits of the soil of the Union. Now, by good fortune, certain
frontiers of the United States extend downward as far as the 28th
parallel of the north latitude. If you will cast your eye over this
map, you will see that we have at our disposal the whole of the
southern portion of Texas and Florida.”

It was finally agreed, then, that the Columbiad must be cast on the
soil of either Texas or Florida. The result, however, of this decision
was to create a rivalry entirely without precedent between the
different towns of these two States.

The 28th parallel, on reaching the American coast, traverses the
peninsula of Florida, dividing it into two nearly equal portions. Then,
plunging into the Gulf of Mexico, it subtends the arc formed by the
coast of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana; then skirting Texas, off
which it cuts an angle, it continues its course over Mexico, crosses
the Sonora, Old California, and loses itself in the Pacific Ocean. It
was, therefore, only those portions of Texas and Florida which were
situated below this parallel which came within the prescribed
conditions of latitude.

Florida, in its southern part, reckons no cities of importance; it is
simply studded with forts raised against the roving Indians. One
solitary town, Tampa Town, was able to put in a claim in favor of its
situation.

In Texas, on the contrary, the towns are much more numerous and
important. Corpus Christi, in the county of Nueces, and all the cities
situated on the Rio Bravo, Laredo, Comalites, San Ignacio on the Web,
Rio Grande City on the Starr, Edinburgh in the Hidalgo, Santa Rita,
Elpanda, Brownsville in the Cameron, formed an imposing league against
the pretensions of Florida. So, scarcely was the decision known, when
the Texan and Floridan deputies arrived at Baltimore in an incredibly
short space of time. From that very moment President Barbicane and the
influential members of the Gun Club were besieged day and night by
formidable claims. If seven cities of Greece contended for the honor of
having given birth to a Homer, here were two entire States threatening
to come to blows about the question of a cannon.

The rival parties promenaded the streets with arms in their hands; and
at every occasion of their meeting a collision was to be apprehended
which might have been attended with disastrous results. Happily the
prudence and address of President Barbicane averted the danger. These
personal demonstrations found a division in the newspapers of the
different States. The New York _Herald_ and the _Tribune_ supported
Texas, while the _Times_ and the _American Review_ espoused the cause
of the Floridan deputies. The members of the Gun Club could not decide
to which to give the preference.

Texas produced its array of twenty-six counties; Florida replied that
twelve counties were better than twenty-six in a country only one-sixth
part of the size.

Texas plumed itself upon its 330,000 natives; Florida, with a far
smaller territory, boasted of being much more densely populated with
56,000.

The Texans, through the columns of the _Herald_ claimed that some
regard should be had to a State which grew the best cotton in all
America, produced the best green oak for the service of the navy, and
contained the finest oil, besides iron mines, in which the yield was
fifty per cent. of pure metal.

To this the _American Review_ replied that the soil of Florida,
although not equally rich, afforded the best conditions for the
moulding and casting of the Columbiad, consisting as it did of sand and
argillaceous earth.

“That may be all very well,” replied the Texans; “but you must first
get to this country. Now the communications with Florida are difficult,
while the coast of Texas offers the bay of Galveston, which possesses a
circumference of fourteen leagues, and is capable of containing the
navies of the entire world!”

“A pretty notion truly,” replied the papers in the interest of Florida,
“that of Galveston bay _below the 29th parallel!_ Have we not got the
bay of Espiritu Santo, opening precisely upon _the 28th degree_, and by
which ships can reach Tampa Town by direct route?”

“A fine bay; half choked with sand!”

“Choked yourselves!” returned the others.

Thus the war went on for several days, when Florida endeavored to draw
her adversary away on to fresh ground; and one morning the _Times_
hinted that, the enterprise being essentially American, it ought not to
be attempted upon other than purely American territory.

To these words Texas retorted, “American! are we not as much so as you?
Were not Texas and Florida both incorporated into the Union in 1845?”

“Undoubtedly,” replied the _Times_; “but we have belonged to the
Americans ever since 1820.”

“Yes!” returned the _Tribune_; “after having been Spaniards or English
for two hundred years, you were sold to the United States for five
million dollars!”

“Well! and why need we blush for that? Was not Louisiana bought from
Napoleon in 1803 at the price of sixteen million dollars?”

“Scandalous!” roared the Texas deputies. “A wretched little strip of
country like Florida to dare to compare itself to Texas, who, in place
of selling herself, asserted her own independence, drove out the
Mexicans in March 2, 1846, and declared herself a federal republic
after the victory gained by Samuel Houston, on the banks of the San
Jacinto, over the troops of Santa Anna!—a country, in fine, which
voluntarily annexed itself to the United States of America!”

“Yes; because it was afraid of the Mexicans!” replied Florida.

“Afraid!” From this moment the state of things became intolerable. A
sanguinary encounter seemed daily imminent between the two parties in
the streets of Baltimore. It became necessary to keep an eye upon the
deputies.

President Barbicane knew not which way to look. Notes, documents,
letters full of menaces showered down upon his house. Which side ought
he to take? As regarded the appropriation of the soil, the facility of
communication, the rapidity of transport, the claims of both States
were evenly balanced. As for political prepossessions, they had nothing
to do with the question.

This dead block had existed for some little time, when Barbicane
resolved to get rid of it all at once. He called a meeting of his
colleagues, and laid before them a proposition which, it will be seen,
was profoundly sagacious.

“On carefully considering,” he said, “what is going on now between
Florida and Texas, it is clear that the same difficulties will recur
with all the towns of the favored State. The rivalry will descend from
State to city, and so on downward. Now Texas possesses eleven towns
within the prescribed conditions, which will further dispute the honor
and create us new enemies, while Florida has only one. I go in,
therefore, for Florida and Tampa Town.”

This decision, on being made known, utterly crushed the Texan deputies.
Seized with an indescribable fury, they addressed threatening letters
to the different members of the Gun Club by name. The magistrates had
but one course to take, and they took it. They chartered a special
train, forced the Texans into it whether they would or no; and they
quitted the city with a speed of thirty miles an hour.

Quickly, however, as they were despatched, they found time to hurl one
last and bitter sarcasm at their adversaries.

Alluding to the extent of Florida, a mere peninsula confined between
two seas, they pretended that it could never sustain the shock of the
discharge, and that it would “bust up” at the very first shot.

“Very well, let it bust up!” replied the Floridans, with a brevity of
the days of ancient Sparta.




CHAPTER XII.
URBI ET ORBI


The astronomical, mechanical, and topographical difficulties resolved,
finally came the question of finance. The sum required was far too
great for any individual, or even any single State, to provide the
requisite millions.

President Barbicane undertook, despite of the matter being a purely
American affair, to render it one of universal interest, and to request
the financial co-operation of all peoples. It was, he maintained, the
right and duty of the whole earth to interfere in the affairs of its
satellite. The subscription opened at Baltimore extended properly to
the whole world—_Urbi et orbi_.

This subscription was successful beyond all expectation;
notwithstanding that it was a question not of lending but of giving the
money. It was a purely disinterested operation in the strictest sense
of the term, and offered not the slightest chance of profit.

The effect, however, of Barbicane’s communication was not confined to
the frontiers of the United States; it crossed the Atlantic and
Pacific, invading simultaneously Asia and Europe, Africa and Oceanica.
The observatories of the Union placed themselves in immediate
communication with those of foreign countries. Some, such as those of
Paris, Petersburg, Berlin, Stockholm, Hamburg, Malta, Lisbon, Benares,
Madras, and others, transmitted their good wishes; the rest maintained
a prudent silence, quietly awaiting the result. As for the observatory
at Greenwich, seconded as it was by the twenty- two astronomical
establishments of Great Britain, it spoke plainly enough. It boldly
denied the possibility of success, and pronounced in favor of the
theories of Captain Nicholl. But this was nothing more than mere
English jealousy.

On the 8th of October President Barbicane published a manifesto full of
enthusiasm, in which he made an appeal to “all persons of good will
upon the face of the earth.” This document, translated into all
languages, met with immense success.

Subscription lists were opened in all the principal cities of the
Union, with a central office at the Baltimore Bank, 9 Baltimore Street.

In addition, subscriptions were received at the following banks in the
different states of the two continents:

At Vienna, with S. M. de Rothschild.
At Petersburg, Stieglitz and Co.
At Paris, The Credit Mobilier.
At Stockholm, Tottie and Arfuredson.
At London, N. M. Rothschild and Son.
At Turin, Ardouin and Co.
At Berlin, Mendelssohn.
At Geneva, Lombard, Odier and Co.
At Constantinople, The Ottoman Bank.
At Brussels, J. Lambert.
At Madrid, Daniel Weisweller.
At Amsterdam, Netherlands Credit Co.
At Rome, Torlonia and Co.
At Lisbon, Lecesne.
At Copenhagen, Private Bank.
At Rio de Janeiro, Private Bank.
At Montevideo, Private Bank.
At Valparaiso and Lima, Thomas la Chambre and Co.
At Mexico, Martin Daran and Co.


Three days after the manifesto of President Barbicane $4,000,000 were
paid into the different towns of the Union. With such a balance the Gun
Club might begin operations at once. But some days later advices were
received to the effect that foreign subscriptions were being eagerly
taken up. Certain countries distinguished themselves by their
liberality; others untied their purse-strings with less facility—a
matter of temperament. Figures are, however, more eloquent than words,
and here is the official statement of the sums which were paid in to
the credit of the Gun Club at the close of the subscription.

Russia paid in as her contingent the enormous sum of 368,733 roubles.
No one need be surprised at this, who bears in mind the scientific
taste of the Russians, and the impetus which they have given to
astronomical studies—thanks to their numerous observatories.

France began by deriding the pretensions of the Americans. The moon
served as a pretext for a thousand stale puns and a score of ballads,
in which bad taste contested the palm with ignorance. But as formerly
the French paid before singing, so now they paid after having had their
laugh, and they subscribed for a sum of 1,253,930 francs. At that price
they had a right to enjoy themselves a little.

Austria showed herself generous in the midst of her financial crisis.
Her public contributions amounted to the sum of 216,000 florins—a
perfect godsend.

Fifty-two thousand rix-dollars were the remittance of Sweden and
Norway; the amount is large for the country, but it would undoubtedly
have been considerably increased had the subscription been opened in
Christiana simultaneously with that at Stockholm. For some reason or
other the Norwegians do not like to send their money to Sweden.

Prussia, by a remittance of 250,000 thalers, testified her high
approval of the enterprise.

Turkey behaved generously; but she had a personal interest in the
matter. The moon, in fact, regulates the cycle of her years and her
fast of Ramadan. She could not do less than give 1,372,640 piastres;
and she gave them with an eagerness which denoted, however, some
pressure on the part of the government.

Belgium distinguished herself among the second-rate states by a grant
of 513,000 francs—about two centimes per head of her population.

Holland and her colonies interested themselves to the extent of 110,000
florins, only demanding an allowance of five per cent. discount for
paying ready money.

Denmark, a little contracted in territory, gave nevertheless 9,000
ducats, proving her love for scientific experiments.

The Germanic Confederation pledged itself to 34,285 florins. It was
impossible to ask for more; besides, they would not have given it.

Though very much crippled, Italy found 200,000 lire in the pockets of
her people. If she had had Venetia she would have done better; but she
had not.

The States of the Church thought that they could not send less than
7,040 Roman crowns; and Portugal carried her devotion to science as far
as 30,000 cruzados. It was the widow’s mite—eighty-six piastres; but
self-constituted empires are always rather short of money.

Two hundred and fifty-seven francs, this was the modest contribution of
Switzerland to the American work. One must freely admit that she did
not see the practical side of the matter. It did not seem to her that
the mere despatch of a shot to the moon could possibly establish any
relation of affairs with her; and it did not seem prudent to her to
embark her capital in so hazardous an enterprise. After all, perhaps
she was right.

As to Spain, she could not scrape together more than 110 reals. She
gave as an excuse that she had her railways to finish. The truth is,
that science is not favorably regarded in that country, it is still in
a backward state; and moreover, certain Spaniards, not by any means the
least educated, did not form a correct estimate of the bulk of the
projectile compared with that of the moon. They feared that it would
disturb the established order of things. In that case it were better to
keep aloof; which they did to the tune of some reals.

There remained but England; and we know the contemptuous antipathy with
which she received Barbicane’s proposition. The English have but one
soul for the whole twenty-six millions of inhabitants which Great
Britain contains. They hinted that the enterprise of the Gun Club was
contrary to the “principle of non-intervention.” And they did not
subscribe a single farthing.

At this intimation the Gun Club merely shrugged its shoulders and
returned to its great work. When South America, that is to say, Peru,
Chili, Brazil, the provinces of La Plata and Columbia, had poured forth
their quota into their hands, the sum of $300,000, it found itself in
possession of a considerable capital, of which the following is a
statement:

     United States subscriptions, . . $4,000,000
     Foreign subscriptions . . . . . . . $1,446,675
                                                  ——————
            Total, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5,446,675


Such was the sum which the public poured into the treasury of the Gun
Club.

Let no one be surprised at the vastness of the amount. The work of
casting, boring, masonry, the transport of workmen, their establishment
in an almost uninhabited country, the construction of furnaces and
workshops, the plant, the powder, the projectile, and incipient
expenses, would, according to the estimates, absorb nearly the whole.
Certain cannon-shots in the Federal war cost one thousand dollars
apiece. This one of President Barbicane, unique in the annals of
gunnery, might well cost five thousand times more.

On the 20th of October a contract was entered into with the manufactory
at Coldspring, near New York, which during the war had furnished the
largest Parrott, cast-iron guns. It was stipulated between the
contracting parties that the manufactory of Coldspring should engage to
transport to Tampa Town, in southern Florida, the necessary materials
for casting the Columbiad. The work was bound to be completed at latest
by the 15th of October following, and the cannon delivered in good
condition under penalty of a forfeit of one hundred dollars a day to
the moment when the moon should again present herself under the same
conditions—that is to say, in eighteen years and eleven days.

The engagement of the workmen, their pay, and all the necessary details
of the work, devolved upon the Coldspring Company.

This contract, executed in duplicate, was signed by Barbicane,
president of the Gun Club, of the one part, and T. Murchison director
of the Coldspring manufactory, of the other, who thus executed the deed
on behalf of their respective principals.




CHAPTER XIII.
STONES HILL


When the decision was arrived at by the Gun Club, to the disparagement
of Texas, every one in America, where reading is a universal
acquirement, set to work to study the geography of Florida. Never
before had there been such a sale for works like “Bertram’s Travels in
Florida,” “Roman’s Natural History of East and West Florida,”
“William’s Territory of Florida,” and “Cleland on the Cultivation of
the Sugar-Cane in Florida.” It became necessary to issue fresh editions
of these works.

Barbicane had something better to do than to read. He desired to see
things with his own eyes, and to mark the exact position of the
proposed gun. So, without a moment’s loss of time, he placed at the
disposal of the Cambridge Observatory the funds necessary for the
construction of a telescope, and entered into negotiations with the
house of Breadwill and Co., of Albany, for the construction of an
aluminum projectile of the required size. He then quitted Baltimore,
accompanied by J. T. Maston, Major Elphinstone, and the manager of the
Coldspring factory.

On the following day, the four fellow-travelers arrived at New Orleans.
There they immediately embarked on board the _Tampico_, a despatch-boat
belonging to the Federal navy, which the government had placed at their
disposal; and, getting up steam, the banks of Louisiana speedily
disappeared from sight.

The passage was not long. Two days after starting, the _Tampico_,
having made four hundred and eighty miles, came in sight of the coast
of Florida. On a nearer approach Barbicane found himself in view of a
low, flat country of somewhat barren aspect. After coasting along a
series of creeks abounding in lobsters and oysters, the _Tampico_
entered the bay of Espiritu Santo, where she finally anchored in a
small natural harbor, formed by the _embouchure_ of the River
Hillisborough, at seven P.M., on the 22d of October.

Our four passengers disembarked at once. “Gentlemen,” said Barbicane,
“we have no time to lose; tomorrow we must obtain horses, and proceed
to reconnoiter the country.”

Barbicane had scarcely set his foot on shore when three thousand of the
inhabitants of Tampa Town came forth to meet him, an honor due to the
president who had signalized their country by his choice.

Declining, however, every kind of ovation, Barbicane ensconced himself
in a room of the Franklin Hotel.

On the morrow some of the small horses of the Spanish breed, full of
vigor and of fire, stood snorting under his windows; but instead of
four steeds, here were fifty, together with their riders. Barbicane
descended with his three fellow- travelers; and much astonished were
they all to find themselves in the midst of such a cavalcade. He
remarked that every horseman carried a carbine slung across his
shoulders and pistols in his holsters.

On expressing his surprise at these preparations, he was speedily
enlightened by a young Floridan, who quietly said:

“Sir, there are Seminoles there.”

“What do you mean by Seminoles?”

“Savages who scour the prairies. We thought it best, therefore, to
escort you on your road.”

“Pooh!” cried J. T. Maston, mounting his steed.

“All right,” said the Floridan; “but it is true enough, nevertheless.”

“Gentlemen,” answered Barbicane, “I thank you for your kind attention;
but it is time to be off.”

It was five A.M. when Barbicane and his party, quitting Tampa Town,
made their way along the coast in the direction of Alifia Creek. This
little river falls into Hillisborough Bay twelve miles above Tampa
Town. Barbicane and his escort coasted along its right bank to the
eastward. Soon the waves of the bay disappeared behind a bend of rising
ground, and the Floridan “champagne” alone offered itself to view.

Florida, discovered on Palm Sunday, in 1512, by Juan Ponce de Leon, was
originally named _Pascha Florida_. It little deserved that designation,
with its dry and parched coasts. But after some few miles of tract the
nature of the soil gradually changes and the country shows itself
worthy of the name. Cultivated plains soon appear, where are united all
the productions of the northern and tropical floras, terminating in
prairies abounding with pineapples and yams, tobacco, rice,
cotton-plants, and sugar-canes, which extend beyond reach of sight,
flinging their riches broadcast with careless prodigality.

Barbicane appeared highly pleased on observing the progressive
elevation of the land; and in answer to a question of J. T. Maston,
replied:

“My worthy friend, we cannot do better than sink our Columbiad in these
high grounds.”

“To get nearer the moon, perhaps?” said the secretary of the Gun Club.

“Not exactly,” replied Barbicane, smiling; “do you not see that among
these elevated plateaus we shall have a much easier work of it? No
struggles with the water-springs, which will save us long expensive
tubings; and we shall be working in daylight instead of down a deep and
narrow well. Our business, then, is to open our trenches upon ground
some hundreds of yards above the level of the sea.”

“You are right, sir,” struck in Murchison, the engineer; “and, if I
mistake not, we shall ere long find a suitable spot for our purpose.”

“I wish we were at the first stroke of the pickaxe,” said the
president.

“And I wish we were at the _last_,” cried J. T. Maston.

About ten A.M. the little band had crossed a dozen miles. To fertile
plains succeeded a region of forests. There perfumes of the most varied
kinds mingled together in tropical profusion. These almost impenetrable
forests were composed of pomegranates, orange-trees, citrons, figs,
olives, apricots, bananas, huge vines, whose blossoms and fruits
rivaled each other in color and perfume. Beneath the odorous shade of
these magnificent trees fluttered and warbled a little world of
brilliantly plumaged birds.

J. T. Maston and the major could not repress their admiration on
finding themselves in the presence of the glorious beauties of this
wealth of nature. President Barbicane, however, less sensitive to these
wonders, was in haste to press forward; the very luxuriance of the
country was displeasing to him. They hastened onward, therefore, and
were compelled to ford several rivers, not without danger, for they
were infested with huge alligators from fifteen to eighteen feet long.
Maston courageously menaced them with his steel hook, but he only
succeeded in frightening some pelicans and teal, while tall flamingos
stared stupidly at the party.

At length these denizens of the swamps disappeared in their turn;
smaller trees became thinly scattered among less dense thickets—a few
isolated groups detached in the midst of endless plains over which
ranged herds of startled deer.

“At last,” cried Barbicane, rising in his stirrups, “here we are at the
region of pines!”

“Yes! and of savages too,” replied the major.

In fact, some Seminoles had just came in sight upon the horizon; they
rode violently backward and forward on their fleet horses, brandishing
their spears or discharging their guns with a dull report. These
hostile demonstrations, however, had no effect upon Barbicane and his
companions.

They were then occupying the center of a rocky plain, which the sun
scorched with its parching rays. This was formed by a considerable
elevation of the soil, which seemed to offer to the members of the Gun
Club all the conditions requisite for the construction of their
Columbiad.

“Halt!” said Barbicane, reining up. “Has this place any local
appellation?”

“It is called Stones Hill,” replied one of the Floridans.

Barbicane, without saying a word, dismounted, seized his instruments,
and began to note his position with extreme exactness. The little band,
drawn up in the rear, watched his proceedings in profound silence.

At this moment the sun passed the meridian. Barbicane, after a few
moments, rapidly wrote down the result of his observations, and said:

“This spot is situated eighteen hundred feet above the level of the
sea, in 27° 7′ N. lat. and 5° 7′ W. long. of the meridian of
Washington. It appears to me by its rocky and barren character to offer
all the conditions requisite for our experiment. On that plain will be
raised our magazines, workshops, furnaces, and workmen’s huts; and
here, from this very spot,” said he, stamping his foot on the summit of
Stones Hill, “hence shall our projectile take its flight into the
regions of the Solar World.”




CHAPTER XIV.
PICKAXE AND TROWEL


The same evening Barbicane and his companions returned to Tampa Town;
and Murchison, the engineer, re-embarked on board the Tampico for New
Orleans. His object was to enlist an army of workmen, and to collect
together the greater part of the materials. The members of the Gun Club
remained at Tampa Town, for the purpose of setting on foot the
preliminary works by the aid of the people of the country.

Eight days after its departure, the Tampico returned into the bay of
Espiritu Santo, with a whole flotilla of steamboats. Murchison had
succeeded in assembling together fifteen hundred artisans. Attracted by
the high pay and considerable bounties offered by the Gun Club, he had
enlisted a choice legion of stokers, iron-founders, lime-burners,
miners, brickmakers, and artisans of every trade, without distinction
of color. As many of these people brought their families with them,
their departure resembled a perfect emigration.

On the 31st of October, at ten o’clock in the morning, the troop
disembarked on the quays of Tampa Town; and one may imagine the
activity which pervaded that little town, whose population was thus
doubled in a single day.

During the first few days they were busy discharging the cargo brought
by the flotilla, the machines, and the rations, as well as a large
number of huts constructed of iron plates, separately pieced and
numbered. At the same period Barbicane laid the first sleepers of a
railway fifteen miles in length, intended to unite Stones Hill with
Tampa Town. On the first of November Barbicane quitted Tampa Town with
a detachment of workmen; and on the following day the whole town of
huts was erected round Stones Hill. This they enclosed with palisades;
and in respect of energy and activity, it might have been mistaken for
one of the great cities of the Union. Everything was placed under a
complete system of discipline, and the works were commenced in most
perfect order.

The nature of the soil having been carefully examined, by means of
repeated borings, the work of excavation was fixed for the 4th of
November.

On that day Barbicane called together his foremen and addressed them as
follows: “You are well aware, my friends, of the object with which I
have assembled you together in this wild part of Florida. Our business
is to construct a cannon measuring nine feet in its interior diameter,
six feet thick, and with a stone revetment of nineteen and a half feet
in thickness. We have, therefore, a well of sixty feet in diameter to
dig down to a depth of nine hundred feet. This great work must be
completed within eight months, so that you have 2,543,400 cubic feet of
earth to excavate in 255 days; that is to say, in round numbers, 2,000
cubic feet per day. That which would present no difficulty to a
thousand navvies working in open country will be of course more
troublesome in a comparatively confined space. However, the thing must
be done, and I reckon for its accomplishment upon your courage as much
as upon your skill.”

At eight o’clock the next morning the first stroke of the pickaxe was
struck upon the soil of Florida; and from that moment that prince of
tools was never inactive for one moment in the hands of the excavators.
The gangs relieved each other every three hours.

On the 4th of November fifty workmen commenced digging, in the very
center of the enclosed space on the summit of Stones Hill, a circular
hole sixty feet in diameter. The pickaxe first struck upon a kind of
black earth, six inches in thickness, which was speedily disposed of.
To this earth succeeded two feet of fine sand, which was carefully laid
aside as being valuable for serving the casting of the inner mould.
After the sand appeared some compact white clay, resembling the chalk
of Great Britain, which extended down to a depth of four feet. Then the
iron of the picks struck upon the hard bed of the soil; a kind of rock
formed of petrified shells, very dry, very solid, and which the picks
could with difficulty penetrate. At this point the excavation exhibited
a depth of six and a half feet and the work of the masonry was begun.

At the bottom of the excavation they constructed a wheel of oak, a kind
of circle strongly bolted together, and of immense strength. The center
of this wooden disc was hollowed out to a diameter equal to the
exterior diameter of the Columbiad. Upon this wheel rested the first
layers of the masonry, the stones of which were bound together by
hydraulic cement, with irresistible tenacity. The workmen, after laying
the stones from the circumference to the center, were thus enclosed
within a kind of well twenty-one feet in diameter. When this work was
accomplished, the miners resumed their picks and cut away the rock from
underneath the wheel itself, taking care to support it as they advanced
upon blocks of great thickness. At every two feet which the hole gained
in depth they successively withdrew the blocks. The wheel then sank
little by little, and with it the massive ring of masonry, on the upper
bed of which the masons labored incessantly, always reserving some vent
holes to permit the escape of gas during the operation of the casting.

This kind of work required on the part of the workmen extreme nicety
and minute attention. More than one, in digging underneath the wheel,
was dangerously injured by the splinters of stone. But their ardor
never relaxed, night or day. By day they worked under the rays of the
scorching sun; by night, under the gleam of the electric light. The
sounds of the picks against the rock, the bursting of mines, the
grinding of the machines, the wreaths of smoke scattered through the
air, traced around Stones Hill a circle of terror which the herds of
buffaloes and the war parties of the Seminoles never ventured to pass.
Nevertheless, the works advanced regularly, as the steam-cranes
actively removed the rubbish. Of unexpected obstacles there was little
account; and with regard to foreseen difficulties, they were speedily
disposed of.

At the expiration of the first month the well had attained the depth
assigned for that lapse of time, namely, 112 feet. This depth was
doubled in December, and trebled in January.

During the month of February the workmen had to contend with a sheet of
water which made its way right across the outer soil. It became
necessary to employ very powerful pumps and compressed-air engines to
drain it off, so as to close up the orifice from whence it issued; just
as one stops a leak on board ship. They at last succeeded in getting
the upper hand of these untoward streams; only, in consequence of the
loosening of the soil, the wheel partly gave way, and a slight partial
settlement ensued. This accident cost the life of several workmen.

No fresh occurrence thenceforward arrested the progress of the
operation; and on the tenth of June, twenty days before the expiration
of the period fixed by Barbicane, the well, lined throughout with its
facing of stone, had attained the depth of 900 feet. At the bottom the
masonry rested upon a massive block measuring thirty feet in thickness,
while on the upper portion it was level with the surrounding soil.

President Barbicane and the members of the Gun Club warmly
congratulated their engineer Murchison; the cyclopean work had been
accomplished with extraordinary rapidity.

During these eight months Barbicane never quitted Stones Hill for a
single instant. Keeping ever close by the work of excavation, he busied
himself incessantly with the welfare and health of his workpeople, and
was singularly fortunate in warding off the epidemics common to large
communities of men, and so disastrous in those regions of the globe
which are exposed to the influences of tropical climates.

Many workmen, it is true, paid with their lives for the rashness
inherent in these dangerous labors; but these mishaps are impossible to
be avoided, and they are classed among the details with which the
Americans trouble themselves but little. They have in fact more regard
for human nature in general than for the individual in particular.

Nevertheless, Barbicane professed opposite principles to these, and put
them in force at every opportunity. So, thanks to his care, his
intelligence, his useful intervention in all difficulties, his
prodigious and humane sagacity, the average of accidents did not exceed
that of transatlantic countries, noted for their excessive
precautions—France, for instance, among others, where they reckon about
one accident for every two hundred thousand francs of work.




CHAPTER XV.
THE FETE OF THE CASTING


During the eight months which were employed in the work of excavation
the preparatory works of the casting had been carried on simultaneously
with extreme rapidity. A stranger arriving at Stones Hill would have
been surprised at the spectacle offered to his view.

At 600 yards from the well, and circularly arranged around it as a
central point, rose 1,200 reverberating ovens, each six feet in
diameter, and separated from each other by an interval of three feet.
The circumference occupied by these 1,200 ovens presented a length of
two miles. Being all constructed on the same plan, each with its high
quadrangular chimney, they produced a most singular effect.

It will be remembered that on their third meeting the committee had
decided to use cast iron for the Columbiad, and in particular the white
description. This metal, in fact, is the most tenacious, the most
ductile, and the most malleable, and consequently suitable for all
moulding operations; and when smelted with pit coal, is of superior
quality for all engineering works requiring great resisting power, such
as cannon, steam boilers, hydraulic presses, and the like.

Cast iron, however, if subjected to only one single fusion, is rarely
sufficiently homogeneous; and it requires a second fusion completely to
refine it by dispossessing it of its last earthly deposits. So long
before being forwarded to Tampa Town, the iron ore, molten in the great
furnaces of Coldspring, and brought into contact with coal and silicium
heated to a high temperature, was carburized and transformed into cast
iron. After this first operation, the metal was sent on to Stones Hill.
They had, however, to deal with 136,000,000 pounds of iron, a quantity
far too costly to send by railway. The cost of transport would have
been double that of material. It appeared preferable to freight vessels
at New York, and to load them with the iron in bars. This, however,
required not less than sixty- eight vessels of 1,000 tons, a veritable
fleet, which, quitting New York on the 3rd of May, on the 10th of the
same month ascended the Bay of Espiritu Santo, and discharged their
cargoes, without dues, in the port at Tampa Town. Thence the iron was
transported by rail to Stones Hill, and about the middle of January
this enormous mass of metal was delivered at its destination.

It will easily be understood that 1,200 furnaces were not too many to
melt simultaneously these 60,000 tons of iron. Each of these furnaces
contained nearly 140,000 pounds weight of metal. They were all built
after the model of those which served for the casting of the Rodman
gun; they were trapezoidal in shape, with a high elliptical arch. These
furnaces, constructed of fireproof brick, were especially adapted for
burning pit coal, with a flat bottom upon which the iron bars were
laid. This bottom, inclined at an angle of 25 degrees, allowed the
metal to flow into the receiving troughs; and the 1,200 converging
trenches carried the molten metal down to the central well.

The day following that on which the works of the masonry and boring had
been completed, Barbicane set to work upon the central mould. His
object now was to raise within the center of the well, and with a
coincident axis, a cylinder 900 feet high, and nine feet in diameter,
which should exactly fill up the space reserved for the bore of the
Columbiad. This cylinder was composed of a mixture of clay and sand,
with the addition of a little hay and straw. The space left between the
mould and the masonry was intended to be filled up by the molten metal,
which would thus form the walls six feet in thickness. This cylinder,
in order to maintain its equilibrium, had to be bound by iron bands,
and firmly fixed at certain intervals by cross-clamps fastened into the
stone lining; after the castings these would be buried in the block of
metal, leaving no external projection.

This operation was completed on the 8th of July, and the run of the
metal was fixed for the following day.

“This _fete_ of the casting will be a grand ceremony,” said J. T.
Maston to his friend Barbicane.

“Undoubtedly,” said Barbicane; “but it will not be a public _fete_“

“What! will you not open the gates of the enclosure to all comers?”

“I must be very careful, Maston. The casting of the Columbiad is an
extremely delicate, not to say a dangerous operation, and I should
prefer its being done privately. At the discharge of the projectile, a
_fete_ if you like—till then, no!”

The president was right. The operation involved unforeseen dangers,
which a great influx of spectators would have hindered him from
averting. It was necessary to preserve complete freedom of movement. No
one was admitted within the enclosure except a delegation of members of
the Gun Club, who had made the voyage to Tampa Town. Among these was
the brisk Bilsby, Tom Hunter, Colonel Blomsberry, Major Elphinstone,
General Morgan, and the rest of the lot to whom the casting of the
Columbiad was a matter of personal interest. J. T. Maston became their
cicerone. He omitted no point of detail; he conducted them throughout
the magazines, workshops, through the midst of the engines, and
compelled them to visit the whole 1,200 furnaces one after the other.
At the end of the twelve-hundredth visit they were pretty well knocked
up.

The casting was to take place at twelve o’clock precisely. The previous
evening each furnace had been charged with 114,000 pounds weight of
metal in bars disposed cross-ways to each other, so as to allow the hot
air to circulate freely between them. At daybreak the 1,200 chimneys
vomited their torrents of flame into the air, and the ground was
agitated with dull tremblings. As many pounds of metal as there were to
cast, so many pounds of coal were there to burn. Thus there were 68,000
tons of coal which projected in the face of the sun a thick curtain of
smoke. The heat soon became insupportable within the circle of
furnaces, the rumbling of which resembled the rolling of thunder. The
powerful ventilators added their continuous blasts and saturated with
oxygen the glowing plates. The operation, to be successful, required to
be conducted with great rapidity. On a signal given by a cannon-shot
each furnace was to give vent to the molten iron and completely to
empty itself. These arrangements made, foremen and workmen waited the
preconcerted moment with an impatience mingled with a certain amount of
emotion. Not a soul remained within the enclosure. Each superintendent
took his post by the aperture of the run.

Barbicane and his colleagues, perched on a neighboring eminence,
assisted at the operation. In front of them was a piece of artillery
ready to give fire on the signal from the engineer. Some minutes before
midday the first driblets of metal began to flow; the reservoirs filled
little by little; and, by the time that the whole melting was
completely accomplished, it was kept in abeyance for a few minutes in
order to facilitate the separation of foreign substances.

Twelve o’clock struck! A gunshot suddenly pealed forth and shot its
flame into the air. Twelve hundred melting-troughs were simultaneously
opened and twelve hundred fiery serpents crept toward the central well,
unrolling their incandescent curves. There, down they plunged with a
terrific noise into a depth of 900 feet. It was an exciting and a
magnificent spectacle. The ground trembled, while these molten waves,
launching into the sky their wreaths of smoke, evaporated the moisture
of the mould and hurled it upward through the vent-holes of the stone
lining in the form of dense vapor-clouds. These artificial clouds
unrolled their thick spirals to a height of 1,000 yards into the air. A
savage, wandering somewhere beyond the limits of the horizon, might
have believed that some new crater was forming in the bosom of Florida,
although there was neither any eruption, nor typhoon, nor storm, nor
struggle of the elements, nor any of those terrible phenomena which
nature is capable of producing. No, it was man alone who had produced
these reddish vapors, these gigantic flames worthy of a volcano itself,
these tremendous vibrations resembling the shock of an earthquake,
these reverberations rivaling those of hurricanes and storms; and it
was his hand which precipitated into an abyss, dug by himself, a whole
Niagara of molten metal!




CHAPTER XVI.
THE COLUMBIAD


Had the casting succeeded? They were reduced to mere conjecture. There
was indeed every reason to expect success, since the mould has absorbed
the entire mass of the molten metal; still some considerable time must
elapse before they could arrive at any certainty upon the matter.

The patience of the members of the Gun Club was sorely tried during
this period of time. But they could do nothing. J. T. Maston escaped
roasting by a miracle. Fifteen days after the casting an immense column
of smoke was still rising in the open sky and the ground burned the
soles of the feet within a radius of two hundred feet round the summit
of Stones Hill. It was impossible to approach nearer. All they could do
was to wait with what patience they might.

“Here we are at the 10th of August,” exclaimed J. T. Maston one
morning, “only four months to the 1st of December! We shall never be
ready in time!” Barbicane said nothing, but his silence covered serious
irritation.

However, daily observations revealed a certain change going on in the
state of the ground. About the 15th of August the vapors ejected had
sensibly diminished in intensity and thickness. Some days afterward the
earth exhaled only a slight puff of smoke, the last breath of the
monster enclosed within its circle of stone. Little by little the belt
of heat contracted, until on the 22nd of August, Barbicane, his
colleagues, and the engineer were enabled to set foot on the iron sheet
which lay level upon the summit of Stones Hill.

“At last!” exclaimed the president of the Gun Club, with an immense
sigh of relief.

The work was resumed the same day. They proceeded at once to extract
the interior mould, for the purpose of clearing out the boring of the
piece. Pickaxes and boring irons were set to work without intermission.
The clayey and sandy soils had acquired extreme hardness under the
action of the heat; but, by the aid of the machines, the rubbish on
being dug out was rapidly carted away on railway wagons; and such was
the ardor of the work, so persuasive the arguments of Barbicane’s
dollars, that by the 3rd of September all traces of the mould had
entirely disappeared.

Immediately the operation of boring was commenced; and by the aid of
powerful machines, a few weeks later, the inner surface of the immense
tube had been rendered perfectly cylindrical, and the bore of the piece
had acquired a thorough polish.

At length, on the 22d of September, less than a twelvemonth after
Barbicane’s original proposition, the enormous weapon, accurately
bored, and exactly vertically pointed, was ready for work. There was
only the moon now to wait for; and they were pretty sure that she would
not fail in the rendezvous.

The ecstasy of J. T. Maston knew no bounds, and he narrowly escaped a
frightful fall while staring down the tube. But for the strong hand of
Colonel Blomsberry, the worthy secretary, like a modern Erostratus,
would have found his death in the depths of the Columbiad.

The cannon was then finished; there was no possible doubt as to its
perfect completion. So, on the 6th of October, Captain Nicholl opened
an account between himself and President Barbicane, in which he debited
himself to the latter in the sum of two thousand dollars. One may
believe that the captain’s wrath was increased to its highest point,
and must have made him seriously ill. However, he had still three bets
of three, four, and five thousand dollars, respectively; and if he
gained two out of these, his position would not be very bad. But the
money question did not enter into his calculations; it was the success
of his rival in casting a cannon against which iron plates sixty feet
thick would have been ineffectual, that dealt him a terrible blow.

After the 23rd of September the enclosure of Stones hill was thrown
open to the public; and it will be easily imagined what was the
concourse of visitors to this spot! There was an incessant flow of
people to and from Tampa Town and the place, which resembled a
procession, or rather, in fact, a pilgrimage.

It was already clear to be seen that, on the day of the experiment
itself, the aggregate of spectators would be counted by millions; for
they were already arriving from all parts of the earth upon this narrow
strip of promontory. Europe was emigrating to America.

Up to that time, however, it must be confessed, the curiosity of the
numerous comers was but scantily gratified. Most had counted upon
witnessing the spectacle of the casting, and they were treated to
nothing but smoke. This was sorry food for hungry eyes; but Barbicane
would admit no one to that operation. Then ensued grumbling,
discontent, murmurs; they blamed the president, taxed him with
dictatorial conduct. His proceedings were declared “un-American.” There
was very nearly a riot round Stones Hill; but Barbicane remained
inflexible. When, however, the Columbiad was entirely finished, this
state of closed doors could no longer be maintained; besides it would
have been bad taste, and even imprudence, to affront the public
feeling. Barbicane, therefore, opened the enclosure to all comers; but,
true to his practical disposition, he determined to coin money out of
the public curiosity.

It was something, indeed, to be enabled to contemplate this immense
Columbiad; but to descend into its depths, this seemed to the Americans
the _ne plus ultra_ of earthly felicity. Consequently, there was not
one curious spectator who was not willing to give himself the treat of
visiting the interior of this great metallic abyss. Baskets suspended
from steam-cranes permitted them to satisfy their curiosity. There was
a perfect mania. Women, children, old men, all made it a point of duty
to penetrate the mysteries of the colossal gun. The fare for the
descent was fixed at five dollars per head; and despite this high
charge, during the two months which preceded the experiment, the influx
of visitors enabled the Gun Club to pocket nearly five hundred thousand
dollars!

It is needless to say that the first visitors of the Columbiad were the
members of the Gun Club. This privilege was justly reserved for that
illustrious body. The ceremony took place on the 25th of September. A
basket of honor took down the president, J. T. Maston, Major
Elphinstone, General Morgan, Colonel Blomsberry, and other members of
the club, to the number of ten in all. How hot it was at the bottom of
that long tube of metal! They were half suffocated. But what delight!
What ecstasy! A table had been laid with six covers on the massive
stone which formed the bottom of the Columbiad, and lighted by a jet of
electric light resembling that of day itself. Numerous exquisite
dishes, which seemed to descend from heaven, were placed successively
before the guests, and the richest wines of France flowed in profusion
during this splendid repast, served nine hundred feet beneath the
surface of the earth!

The festival was animated, not to say somewhat noisy. Toasts flew
backward and forward. They drank to the earth and to her satellite, to
the Gun Club, the Union, the Moon, Diana, Phoebe, Selene, the “peaceful
courier of the night!” All the hurrahs, carried upward upon the
sonorous waves of the immense acoustic tube, arrived with the sound of
thunder at its mouth; and the multitude ranged round Stones Hill
heartily united their shouts with those of the ten revelers hidden from
view at the bottom of the gigantic Columbiad.

J. T. Maston was no longer master of himself. Whether he shouted or
gesticulated, ate or drank most, would be a difficult matter to
determine. At all events, he would not have given his place up for an
empire, “not even if the cannon—loaded, primed, and fired at that very
moment—were to blow him in pieces into the planetary world.”




CHAPTER XVII.
A TELEGRAPHIC DISPATCH


The great works undertaken by the Gun Club had now virtually come to an
end; and two months still remained before the day for the discharge of
the shot to the moon. To the general impatience these two months
appeared as long as years! Hitherto the smallest details of the
operation had been daily chronicled by the journals, which the public
devoured with eager eyes.

Just at this moment a circumstance, the most unexpected, the most
extraordinary and incredible, occurred to rouse afresh their panting
spirits, and to throw every mind into a state of the most violent
excitement.

One day, the 30th of September, at 3:47 P.M., a telegram, transmitted
by cable from Valentia (Ireland) to Newfoundland and the American
Mainland, arrived at the address of President Barbicane.

The president tore open the envelope, read the dispatch, and, despite
his remarkable powers of self-control, his lips turned pale and his
eyes grew dim, on reading the twenty words of this telegram.

Here is the text of the dispatch, which figures now in the archives of
the Gun Club:

FRANCE, PARIS,
30 September, 4 A.M.


            Barbicane, Tampa Town, Florida, United States.
    Substitute for your spherical shell a cylindro-conical projectile.
    I shall go inside. Shall arrive by steamer Atlanta.


MICHEL ARDAN.




CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PASSENGER OF THE ATLANTA


If this astounding news, instead of flying through the electric wires,
had simply arrived by post in the ordinary sealed envelope, Barbicane
would not have hesitated a moment. He would have held his tongue about
it, both as a measure of prudence, and in order not to have to
reconsider his plans. This telegram might be a cover for some jest,
especially as it came from a Frenchman. What human being would ever
have conceived the idea of such a journey? and, if such a person really
existed, he must be an idiot, whom one would shut up in a lunatic ward,
rather than within the walls of the projectile.

The contents of the dispatch, however, speedily became known; for the
telegraphic officials possessed but little discretion, and Michel
Ardan’s proposition ran at once throughout the several States of the
Union. Barbicane, had, therefore, no further motives for keeping
silence. Consequently, he called together such of his colleagues as
were at the moment in Tampa Town, and without any expression of his own
opinions simply read to them the laconic text itself. It was received
with every possible variety of expressions of doubt, incredulity, and
derision from every one, with the exception of J. T. Maston, who
exclaimed, “It is a grand idea, however!”

When Barbicane originally proposed to send a shot to the moon every one
looked upon the enterprise as simple and practicable enough—a mere
question of gunnery; but when a person, professing to be a reasonable
being, offered to take passage within the projectile, the whole thing
became a farce, or, in plainer language a humbug.

One question, however, remained. Did such a being exist? This telegram
flashed across the depths of the Atlantic, the designation of the
vessel on board which he was to take his passage, the date assigned for
his speedy arrival, all combined to impart a certain character of
reality to the proposal. They must get some clearer notion of the
matter. Scattered groups of inquirers at length condensed themselves
into a compact crowd, which made straight for the residence of
President Barbicane. That worthy individual was keeping quiet with the
intention of watching events as they arose. But he had forgotten to
take into account the public impatience; and it was with no pleasant
countenance that he watched the population of Tampa Town gathering
under his windows. The murmurs and vociferations below presently
obliged him to appear. He came forward, therefore, and on silence being
procured, a citizen put point-blank to him the following question: “Is
the person mentioned in the telegram, under the name of Michel Ardan,
on his way here? Yes or no.”

“Gentlemen,” replied Barbicane, “I know no more than you do.”

“We must know,” roared the impatient voices.

“Time will show,” calmly replied the president.

“Time has no business to keep a whole country in suspense,” replied the
orator. “Have you altered the plans of the projectile according to the
request of the telegram?”

“Not yet, gentlemen; but you are right! we must have better information
to go by. The telegraph must complete its information.”

“To the telegraph!” roared the crowd.

Barbicane descended; and heading the immense assemblage, led the way to
the telegraph office. A few minutes later a telegram was dispatched to
the secretary of the underwriters at Liverpool, requesting answers to
the following queries:

“About the ship Atlanta—when did she leave Europe? Had she on board a
Frenchman named Michel Ardan?”

Two hours afterward Barbicane received information too exact to leave
room for the smallest remaining doubt.

“The steamer Atlanta from Liverpool put to sea on the 2nd of October,
bound for Tampa Town, having on board a Frenchman borne on the list of
passengers by the name of Michel Ardan.”

That very evening he wrote to the house of Breadwill and Co.,
requesting them to suspend the casting of the projectile until the
receipt of further orders. On the 10th of October, at nine A.M., the
semaphores of the Bahama Canal signaled a thick smoke on the horizon.
Two hours later a large steamer exchanged signals with them. the name
of the Atlanta flew at once over Tampa Town. At four o’clock the
English vessel entered the Bay of Espiritu Santo. At five it crossed
the passage of Hillisborough Bay at full steam. At six she cast anchor
at Port Tampa. The anchor had scarcely caught the sandy bottom when
five hundred boats surrounded the Atlanta, and the steamer was taken by
assault. Barbicane was the first to set foot on deck, and in a voice of
which he vainly tried to conceal the emotion, called “Michel Ardan.”

“Here!” replied an individual perched on the poop.

Barbicane, with arms crossed, looked fixedly at the passenger of the
Atlanta.

He was a man of about forty-two years of age, of large build, but
slightly round-shouldered. His massive head momentarily shook a shock
of reddish hair, which resembled a lion’s mane. His face was short with
a broad forehead, and furnished with a moustache as bristly as a cat’s,
and little patches of yellowish whiskers upon full cheeks. Round,
wildish eyes, slightly near-sighted, completed a physiognomy
essentially feline. His nose was firmly shaped, his mouth particularly
sweet in expression, high forehead, intelligent and furrowed with
wrinkles like a newly-plowed field. The body was powerfully developed
and firmly fixed upon long legs. Muscular arms, and a general air of
decision gave him the appearance of a hardy, jolly, companion. He was
dressed in a suit of ample dimensions, loose neckerchief, open
shirtcollar, disclosing a robust neck; his cuffs were invariably
unbuttoned, through which appeared a pair of red hands.

On the bridge of the steamer, in the midst of the crowd, he bustled to
and fro, never still for a moment, “dragging his anchors,” as the
sailors say, gesticulating, making free with everybody, biting his
nails with nervous avidity. He was one of those originals which nature
sometimes invents in the freak of a moment, and of which she then
breaks the mould.

Among other peculiarities, this curiosity gave himself out for a
sublime ignoramus, “like Shakespeare,” and professed supreme contempt
for all scientific men. Those “fellows,” as he called them, “are only
fit to mark the points, while we play the game.” He was, in fact, a
thorough Bohemian, adventurous, but not an adventurer; a hare-brained
fellow, a kind of Icarus, only possessing relays of wings. For the
rest, he was ever in scrapes, ending invariably by falling on his feet,
like those little figures which they sell for children’s toys. In a few
words, his motto was “I have my opinions,” and the love of the
impossible constituted his ruling passion.

Such was the passenger of the Atlanta, always excitable, as if boiling
under the action of some internal fire by the character of his physical
organization. If ever two individuals offered a striking contrast to
each other, these were certainly Michel Ardan and the Yankee Barbicane;
both, moreover, being equally enterprising and daring, each in his own
way.

The scrutiny which the president of the Gun Club had instituted
regarding this new rival was quickly interrupted by the shouts and
hurrahs of the crowd. The cries became at last so uproarious, and the
popular enthusiasm assumed so personal a form, that Michel Ardan, after
having shaken hands some thousands of times, at the imminent risk of
leaving his fingers behind him, was fain at last to make a bolt for his
cabin.

Barbicane followed him without uttering a word.

“You are Barbicane, I suppose?” said Michel Ardan, in a tone of voice
in which he would have addressed a friend of twenty years’ standing.

“Yes,” replied the president of the Gun Club.

“All right! how d’ye do, Barbicane? how are you getting on—pretty well?
that’s right.”

“So,” said Barbicane without further preliminary, “you are quite
determined to go.”

“Quite decided.”

“Nothing will stop you?”

“Nothing. Have you modified your projectile according to my telegram.”

“I waited for your arrival. But,” asked Barbicane again, “have you
carefully reflected?”

“Reflected? have I any time to spare? I find an opportunity of making a
tour in the moon, and I mean to profit by it. There is the whole gist
of the matter.”

Barbicane looked hard at this man who spoke so lightly of his project
with such complete absence of anxiety. “But, at least,” said he, “you
have some plans, some means of carrying your project into execution?”

“Excellent, my dear Barbicane; only permit me to offer one remark: My
wish is to tell my story once for all, to everybody, and then have done
with it; then there will be no need for recapitulation. So, if you have
no objection, assemble your friends, colleagues, the whole town, all
Florida, all America if you like, and to-morrow I shall be ready to
explain my plans and answer any objections whatever that may be
advanced. You may rest assured I shall wait without stirring. Will that
suit you?”

“All right,” replied Barbicane.

So saying, the president left the cabin and informed the crowd of the
proposal of Michel Ardan. His words were received with clappings of
hands and shouts of joy. They had removed all difficulties. To-morrow
every one would contemplate at his ease this European hero. However,
some of the spectators, more infatuated than the rest, would not leave
the deck of the Atlanta. They passed the night on board. Among others
J. T. Maston got his hook fixed in the combing of the poop, and it
pretty nearly required the capstan to get it out again.

“He is a hero! a hero!” he cried, a theme of which he was never tired
of ringing the changes; “and we are only like weak, silly women,
compared with this European!”

As to the president, after having suggested to the visitors it was time
to retire, he re-entered the passenger’s cabin, and remained there till
the bell of the steamer made it midnight.

But then the two rivals in popularity shook hands heartily and parted
on terms of intimate friendship.




CHAPTER XIX.
A MONSTER MEETING


On the following day Barbicane, fearing that indiscreet questions might
be put to Michel Ardan, was desirous of reducing the number of the
audience to a few of the initiated, his own colleagues for instance. He
might as well have tried to check the Falls of Niagara! he was
compelled, therefore, to give up the idea, and let his new friend run
the chances of a public conference. The place chosen for this monster
meeting was a vast plain situated in the rear of the town. In a few
hours, thanks to the help of the shipping in port, an immense roofing
of canvas was stretched over the parched prairie, and protected it from
the burning rays of the sun. There three hundred thousand people braved
for many hours the stifling heat while awaiting the arrival of the
Frenchman. Of this crowd of spectators a first set could both see and
hear; a second set saw badly and heard nothing at all; and as for the
third, it could neither see nor hear anything at all. At three o’clock
Michel Ardan made his appearance, accompanied by the principal members
of the Gun Club. He was supported on his right by President Barbicane,
and on his left by J. T. Maston, more radiant than the midday sun, and
nearly as ruddy. Ardan mounted a platform, from the top of which his
view extended over a sea of black hats.

He exhibited not the slightest embarrassment; he was just as gay,
familiar, and pleasant as if he were at home. To the hurrahs which
greeted him he replied by a graceful bow; then, waving his hands to
request silence, he spoke in perfectly correct English as follows:

“Gentlemen, despite the very hot weather I request your patience for a
short time while I offer some explanations regarding the projects which
seem to have so interested you. I am neither an orator nor a man of
science, and I had no idea of addressing you in public; but my friend
Barbicane has told me that you would like to hear me, and I am quite at
your service. Listen to me, therefore, with your six hundred thousand
ears, and please excuse the faults of the speaker. Now pray do not
forget that you see before you a perfect ignoramus whose ignorance goes
so far that he cannot even understand the difficulties! It seemed to
him that it was a matter quite simple, natural, and easy to take one’s
place in a projectile and start for the moon! That journey must be
undertaken sooner or later; and, as for the mode of locomotion adopted,
it follows simply the law of progress. Man began by walking on
all-fours; then, one fine day, on two feet; then in a carriage; then in
a stage-coach; and lastly by railway. Well, the projectile is the
vehicle of the future, and the planets themselves are nothing else! Now
some of you, gentlemen, may imagine that the velocity we propose to
impart to it is extravagant. It is nothing of the kind. All the stars
exceed it in rapidity, and the earth herself is at this moment carrying
us round the sun at three times as rapid a rate, and yet she is a mere
lounger on the way compared with many others of the planets! And her
velocity is constantly decreasing. Is it not evident, then, I ask you,
that there will some day appear velocities far greater than these, of
which light or electricity will probably be the mechanical agent?

“Yes, gentlemen,” continued the orator, “in spite of the opinions of
certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon
this globe, as within some magic circle which it must never outstep, we
shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the
same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from
Liverpool to New York! Distance is but a relative expression, and must
end by being reduced to zero.”

The assembly, strongly predisposed as they were in favor of the French
hero, were slightly staggered at this bold theory. Michel Ardan
perceived the fact.

“Gentlemen,” he continued with a pleasant smile, “you do not seem quite
convinced. Very good! Let us reason the matter out. Do you know how
long it would take for an express train to reach the moon? Three
hundred days; no more! And what is that? The distance is no more than
nine times the circumference of the earth; and there are no sailors or
travelers, of even moderate activity, who have not made longer journeys
than that in their lifetime. And now consider that I shall be only
ninety- seven hours on my journey. Ah! I see you are reckoning that the
moon is a long way off from the earth, and that one must think twice
before making the experiment. What would you say, then, if we were
talking of going to Neptune, which revolves at a distance of more than
two thousand seven hundred and twenty millions of miles from the sun!
And yet what is that compared with the distance of the fixed stars,
some of which, such as Arcturus, are billions of miles distant from us?
And then you talk of the distance which separates the planets from the
sun! And there are people who affirm that such a thing as distance
exists. Absurdity, folly, idiotic nonsense! Would you know what I think
of our own solar universe? Shall I tell you my theory? It is very
simple! In my opinion the solar system is a solid homogeneous body; the
planets which compose it are in actual contact with each other; and
whatever space exists between them is nothing more than the space which
separates the molecules of the densest metal, such as silver, iron, or
platinum! I have the right, therefore, to affirm, and I repeat, with
the conviction which must penetrate all your minds, ‘Distance is but an
empty name; distance does not really exist!’”

“Hurrah!” cried one voice (need it be said it was that of J. T.
Maston). “Distance does not exist!” And overcome by the energy of his
movements, he nearly fell from the platform to the ground. He just
escaped a severe fall, which would have proved to him that distance was
by no means an empty name.

“Gentlemen,” resumed the orator, “I repeat that the distance between
the earth and her satellite is a mere trifle, and undeserving of
serious consideration. I am convinced that before twenty years are over
one-half of our earth will have paid a visit to the moon. Now, my
worthy friends, if you have any question to put to me, you will, I
fear, sadly embarrass a poor man like myself; still I will do my best
to answer you.”

Up to this point the president of the Gun Club had been satisfied with
the turn which the discussion had assumed. It became now, however,
desirable to divert Ardan from questions of a practical nature, with
which he was doubtless far less conversant. Barbicane, therefore,
hastened to get in a word, and began by asking his new friend whether
he thought that the moon and the planets were inhabited.

“You put before me a great problem, my worthy president,” replied the
orator, smiling. “Still, men of great intelligence, such as Plutarch,
Swedenborg, Bernardin de St. Pierre, and others have, if I mistake not,
pronounced in the affirmative. Looking at the question from the natural
philosopher’s point of view, I should say that nothing useless existed
in the world; and, replying to your question by another, I should
venture to assert, that if these worlds are habitable, they either are,
have been, or will be inhabited.”

“No one could answer more logically or fairly,” replied the president.
“The question then reverts to this: Are these worlds habitable? For my
own part I believe they are.”

“For myself, I feel certain of it,” said Michel Ardan.

“Nevertheless,” retorted one of the audience, “there are many arguments
against the habitability of the worlds. The conditions of life must
evidently be greatly modified upon the majority of them. To mention
only the planets, we should be either broiled alive in some, or frozen
to death in others, according as they are more or less removed from the
sun.”

“I regret,” replied Michel Ardan, “that I have not the honor of
personally knowing my contradictor, for I would have attempted to
answer him. His objection has its merits, I admit; but I think we may
successfully combat it, as well as all others which affect the
habitability of other worlds. If I were a natural philosopher, I would
tell him that if less of caloric were set in motion upon the planets
which are nearest to the sun, and more, on the contrary, upon those
which are farthest removed from it, this simple fact would alone
suffice to equalize the heat, and to render the temperature of those
worlds supportable by beings organized like ourselves. If I were a
naturalist, I would tell him that, according to some illustrious men of
science, nature has furnished us with instances upon the earth of
animals existing under very varying conditions of life; that fish
respire in a medium fatal to other animals; that amphibious creatures
possess a double existence very difficult of explanation; that certain
denizens of the seas maintain life at enormous depths, and there
support a pressure equal to that of fifty or sixty atmospheres without
being crushed; that several aquatic insects, insensible to temperature,
are met with equally among boiling springs and in the frozen plains of
the Polar Sea; in fine, that we cannot help recognizing in nature a
diversity of means of operation oftentimes incomprehensible, but not
the less real. If I were a chemist, I would tell him that the
aerolites, bodies evidently formed exteriorly of our terrestrial globe,
have, upon analysis, revealed indisputable traces of carbon, a
substance which owes its origin solely to organized beings, and which,
according to the experiments of Reichenbach, must necessarily itself
have been endued with animation. And lastly, were I a theologian, I
would tell him that the scheme of the Divine Redemption, according to
St. Paul, seems to be applicable, not merely to the earth, but to all
the celestial worlds. But, unfortunately, I am neither theologian, nor
chemist, nor naturalist, nor philosopher; therefore, in my absolute
ignorance of the great laws which govern the universe, I confine myself
to saying in reply, ‘I do not know whether the worlds are inhabited or
not: and since I do not know, I am going to see!’”

Whether Michel Ardan’s antagonist hazarded any further arguments or not
it is impossible to say, for the uproarious shouts of the crowd would
not allow any expression of opinion to gain a hearing. On silence being
restored, the triumphant orator contented himself with adding the
following remarks:

“Gentlemen, you will observe that I have but slightly touched upon this
great question. There is another altogether different line of argument
in favor of the habitability of the stars, which I omit for the
present. I only desire to call attention to one point. To those who
maintain that the planets are _not_ inhabited one may reply: You might
be perfectly in the right, if you could only show that the earth is the
best possible world, in spite of what Voltaire has said. She has but
_one_ satellite, while Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, Neptune have each
several, an advantage by no means to be despised. But that which
renders our own globe so uncomfortable is the inclination of its axis
to the plane of its orbit. Hence the inequality of days and nights;
hence the disagreeable diversity of the seasons. On the surface of our
unhappy spheroid we are always either too hot or too cold; we are
frozen in winter, broiled in summer; it is the planet of rheumatism,
coughs, bronchitis; while on the surface of Jupiter, for example, where
the axis is but slightly inclined, the inhabitants may enjoy uniform
temperatures. It possesses zones of perpetual springs, summers,
autumns, and winters; every Jovian may choose for himself what climate
he likes, and there spend the whole of his life in security from all
variations of temperature. You will, I am sure, readily admit this
superiority of Jupiter over our own planet, to say nothing of his
years, which each equal twelve of ours! Under such auspices and such
marvelous conditions of existence, it appears to me that the
inhabitants of so fortunate a world must be in every respect superior
to ourselves. All we require, in order to attain such perfection, is
the mere trifle of having an axis of rotation less inclined to the
plane of its orbit!”

“Hurrah!” roared an energetic voice, “let us unite our efforts, invent
the necessary machines, and rectify the earth’s axis!”

A thunder of applause followed this proposal, the author of which was,
of course, no other than J. T. Maston. And, in all probability, if the
truth must be told, if the Yankees could only have found a point of
application for it, they would have constructed a lever capable of
raising the earth and rectifying its axis. It was just this deficiency
which baffled these daring mechanicians.




CHAPTER XX.
ATTACK AND RIPOSTE


As soon as the excitement had subsided, the following words were heard
uttered in a strong and determined voice:

“Now that the speaker has favored us with so much imagination, would he
be so good as to return to his subject, and give us a little practical
view of the question?”

All eyes were directed toward the person who spoke. He was a little
dried-up man, of an active figure, with an American “goatee” beard.
Profiting by the different movements in the crowd, he had managed by
degrees to gain the front row of spectators. There, with arms crossed
and stern gaze, he watched the hero of the meeting. After having put
his question he remained silent, and appeared to take no notice of the
thousands of looks directed toward himself, nor of the murmur of
disapprobation excited by his words. Meeting at first with no reply, he
repeated his question with marked emphasis, adding, “We are here to
talk about the _moon_ and not about the _earth_.”

“You are right, sir,” replied Michel Ardan; “the discussion has become
irregular. We will return to the moon.”

“Sir,” said the unknown, “you pretend that our satellite is inhabited.
Very good, but if Selenites do exist, that race of beings assuredly
must live without breathing, for—I warn you for your own sake—there is
not the smallest particle of air on the surface of the moon.”

At this remark Ardan pushed up his shock of red hair; he saw that he
was on the point of being involved in a struggle with this person upon
the very gist of the whole question. He looked sternly at him in his
turn and said:

“Oh! so there is no air in the moon? And pray, if you are so good, who
ventures to affirm that?

“The men of science.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Sir,” replied Michel, “pleasantry apart, I have a profound respect for
men of science who do possess science, but a profound contempt for men
of science who do not.”

“Do you know any who belong to the latter category?”

“Decidedly. In France there are some who maintain that, mathematically,
a bird cannot possibly fly; and others who demonstrate theoretically
that fishes were never made to live in water.”

“I have nothing to do with persons of that description, and I can
quote, in support of my statement, names which you cannot refuse
deference to.”

“Then, sir, you will sadly embarrass a poor ignorant, who, besides,
asks nothing better than to learn.”

“Why, then, do you introduce scientific questions if you have never
studied them?” asked the unknown somewhat coarsely.

“For the reason that ‘he is always brave who never suspects danger.’ I
know nothing, it is true; but it is precisely my very weakness which
constitutes my strength.”

“Your weakness amounts to folly,” retorted the unknown in a passion.

“All the better,” replied our Frenchman, “if it carries me up to the
moon.”

Barbicane and his colleagues devoured with their eyes the intruder who
had so boldly placed himself in antagonism to their enterprise. Nobody
knew him, and the president, uneasy as to the result of so free a
discussion, watched his new friend with some anxiety. The meeting began
to be somewhat fidgety also, for the contest directed their attention
to the dangers, if not the actual impossibilities, of the proposed
expedition.

“Sir,” replied Ardan’s antagonist, “there are many and incontrovertible
reasons which prove the absence of an atmosphere in the moon. I might
say that, _a priori_, if one ever did exist, it must have been absorbed
by the earth; but I prefer to bring forward indisputable facts.”

“Bring them forward then, sir, as many as you please.”

“You know,” said the stranger, “that when any luminous rays cross a
medium such as the air, they are deflected out of the straight line; in
other words, they undergo refraction. Well! When stars are occulted by
the moon, their rays, on grazing the edge of her disc, exhibit not the
least deviation, nor offer the slightest indication of refraction. It
follows, therefore, that the moon cannot be surrounded by an
atmosphere.

“In point of fact,” replied Ardan, “this is your chief, if not your
_only_ argument; and a really scientific man might be puzzled to answer
it. For myself, I will simply say that it is defective, because it
assumes that the angular diameter of the moon has been completely
determined, which is not the case. But let us proceed. Tell me, my dear
sir, do you admit the existence of volcanoes on the moon’s surface?”

“Extinct, yes! In activity, no!”

“These volcanoes, however, were at one time in a state of activity?”

“True, but, as they furnish themselves the oxygen necessary for
combustion, the mere fact of their eruption does not prove the presence
of an atmosphere.”

“Proceed again, then; and let us set aside this class of arguments in
order to come to direct observations. In 1715 the astronomers Louville
and Halley, watching the eclipse of the 3rd of May, remarked some very
extraordinary scintillations. These jets of light, rapid in nature, and
of frequent recurrence, they attributed to thunderstorms generated in
the lunar atmosphere.”

“In 1715,” replied the unknown, “the astronomers Louville and Halley
mistook for lunar phenomena some which were purely terrestrial, such as
meteoric or other bodies which are generated in our own atmosphere.
This was the scientific explanation at the time of the facts; and that
is my answer now.”

“On again, then,” replied Ardan; “Herschel, in 1787, observed a great
number of luminous points on the moon’s surface, did he not?”

“Yes! but without offering any solution of them. Herschel himself never
inferred from them the necessity of a lunar atmosphere. And I may add
that Baeer and Maedler, the two great authorities upon the moon, are
quite agreed as to the entire absence of air on its surface.”

A movement was here manifest among the assemblage, who appeared to be
growing excited by the arguments of this singular personage.

“Let us proceed,” replied Ardan, with perfect coolness, “and come to
one important fact. A skillful French astronomer, M. Laussedat, in
watching the eclipse of July 18, 1860, probed that the horns of the
lunar crescent were rounded and truncated. Now, this appearance could
only have been produced by a deviation of the solar rays in traversing
the atmosphere of the moon. There is no other possible explanation of
the facts.”

“But is this established as a fact?”

“Absolutely certain!”

A counter-movement here took place in favor of the hero of the meeting,
whose opponent was now reduced to silence. Ardan resumed the
conversation; and without exhibiting any exultation at the advantage he
had gained, simply said:

“You see, then, my dear sir, we must not pronounce with absolute
positiveness against the existence of an atmosphere in the moon. That
atmosphere is, probably, of extreme rarity; nevertheless at the present
day science generally admits that it exists.”

“Not in the mountains, at all events,” returned the unknown, unwilling
to give in.

“No! but at the bottom of the valleys, and not exceeding a few hundred
feet in height.”

“In any case you will do well to take every precaution, for the air
will be terribly rarified.”

“My good sir, there will always be enough for a solitary individual;
besides, once arrived up there, I shall do my best to economize, and
not to breathe except on grand occasions!”

A tremendous roar of laughter rang in the ears of the mysterious
interlocutor, who glared fiercely round upon the assembly.

“Then,” continued Ardan, with a careless air, “since we are in accord
regarding the presence of a certain atmosphere, we are forced to admit
the presence of a certain quantity of water. This is a happy
consequence for me. Moreover, my amiable contradictor, permit me to
submit to you one further observation. We only know _one_ side of the
moon’s disc; and if there is but little air on the face presented to
us, it is possible that there is plenty on the one turned away from
us.”

“And for what reason?”

“Because the moon, under the action of the earth’s attraction, has
assumed the form of an egg, which we look at from the smaller end.
Hence it follows, by Hausen’s calculations, that its center of gravity
is situated in the other hemisphere. Hence it results that the great
mass of air and water must have been drawn away to the other face of
our satellite during the first days of its creation.”

“Pure fancies!” cried the unknown.

“No! Pure theories! which are based upon the laws of mechanics, and it
seems difficult to me to refute them. I appeal then to this meeting,
and I put it to them whether life, such as exists upon the earth, is
possible on the surface of the moon?”

Three hundred thousand auditors at once applauded the proposition.
Ardan’s opponent tried to get in another word, but he could not obtain
a hearing. Cries and menaces fell upon him like hail.

“Enough! enough!” cried some.

“Drive the intruder off!” shouted others.

“Turn him out!” roared the exasperated crowd.

But he, holding firmly on to the platform, did not budge an inch, and
let the storm pass on, which would soon have assumed formidable
proportions, if Michel Ardan had not quieted it by a gesture. He was
too chivalrous to abandon his opponent in an apparent extremity.

“You wished to say a few more words?” he asked, in a pleasant voice.

“Yes, a thousand; or rather, no, only one! If you persevere in your
enterprise, you must be a—”

“Very rash person! How can you treat me as such? me, who have demanded
a cylindro-conical projectile, in order to prevent turning round and
round on my way like a squirrel?”

“But, unhappy man, the dreadful recoil will smash you to pieces at your
starting.”

“My dear contradictor, you have just put your finger upon the true and
only difficulty; nevertheless, I have too good an opinion of the
industrial genius of the Americans not to believe that they will
succeed in overcoming it.”

“But the heat developed by the rapidity of the projectile in crossing
the strata of air?”

“Oh! the walls are thick, and I shall soon have crossed the
atmosphere.”

“But victuals and water?”

“I have calculated for a twelvemonth’s supply, and I shall be only four
days on the journey.”

“But for air to breathe on the road?”

“I shall make it by a chemical process.”

“But your fall on the moon, supposing you ever reach it?”

“It will be six times less dangerous than a sudden fall upon the earth,
because the weight will be only one-sixth as great on the surface of
the moon.”

“Still it will be enough to smash you like glass!”

“What is to prevent my retarding the shock by means of rockets
conveniently placed, and lighted at the right moment?”

“But after all, supposing all difficulties surmounted, all obstacles
removed, supposing everything combined to favor you, and granting that
you may arrive safe and sound in the moon, how will you come back?”

“I am not coming back!”

At this reply, almost sublime in its very simplicity, the assembly
became silent. But its silence was more eloquent than could have been
its cries of enthusiasm. The unknown profited by the opportunity and
once more protested:

“You will inevitably kill yourself!” he cried; “and your death will be
that of a madman, useless even to science!”

“Go on, my dear unknown, for truly your prophecies are most agreeable!”

“It really is too much!” cried Michel Ardan’s adversary. “I do not know
why I should continue so frivolous a discussion! Please yourself about
this insane expedition! We need not trouble ourselves about you!”

“Pray don’t stand upon ceremony!”

“No! another person is responsible for your act.”

“Who, may I ask?” demanded Michel Ardan in an imperious tone.

“The ignoramus who organized this equally absurd and impossible
experiment!”

The attack was direct. Barbicane, ever since the interference of the
unknown, had been making fearful efforts of self-control; now, however,
seeing himself directly attacked, he could restrain himself no longer.
He rose suddenly, and was rushing upon the enemy who thus braved him to
the face, when all at once he found himself separated from him.

The platform was lifted by a hundred strong arms, and the president of
the Gun Club shared with Michel Ardan triumphal honors. The shield was
heavy, but the bearers came in continuous relays, disputing,
struggling, even fighting among themselves in their eagerness to lend
their shoulders to this demonstration.

However, the unknown had not profited by the tumult to quit his post.
Besides he could not have done it in the midst of that compact crowd.
There he held on in the front row with crossed arms, glaring at
President Barbicane.

The shouts of the immense crowd continued at their highest pitch
throughout this triumphant march. Michel Ardan took it all with evident
pleasure. His face gleamed with delight. Several times the platform
seemed seized with pitching and rolling like a weatherbeaten ship. But
the two heros of the meeting had good sea-legs. They never stumbled;
and their vessel arrived without dues at the port of Tampa Town.

Michel Ardan managed fortunately to escape from the last embraces of
his vigorous admirers. He made for the Hotel Franklin, quickly gained
his chamber, and slid under the bedclothes, while an army of a hundred
thousand men kept watch under his windows.

During this time a scene, short, grave, and decisive, took place
between the mysterious personage and the president of the Gun Club.

Barbicane, free at last, had gone straight at his adversary.

“Come!” he said shortly.

The other followed him on the quay; and the two presently found
themselves alone at the entrance of an open wharf on Jones’ Fall.

The two enemies, still mutually unknown, gazed at each other.

“Who are you?” asked Barbicane.

“Captain Nicholl!”

“So I suspected. Hitherto chance has never thrown you in my way.”

“I am come for that purpose.”

“You have insulted me.”

“Publicly!”

“And you will answer to me for this insult?”

“At this very moment.”

“No! I desire that all that passes between us shall be secret. Their is
a wood situated three miles from Tampa, the wood of Skersnaw. Do you
know it?”

“I know it.”

“Will you be so good as to enter it to-morrow morning at five o’clock,
on one side?”

“Yes! if you will enter at the other side at the same hour.”

“And you will not forget your rifle?” said Barbicane.

“No more than you will forget yours?” replied Nicholl.

These words having been coldly spoken, the president of the Gun Club
and the captain parted. Barbicane returned to his lodging; but instead
of snatching a few hours of repose, he passed the night in endeavoring
to discover a means of evading the recoil of the projectile, and
resolving the difficult problem proposed by Michel Ardan during the
discussion at the meeting.




CHAPTER XXI.
HOW A FRENCHMAN MANAGES AN AFFAIR


While the contract of this duel was being discussed by the president
and the captain—this dreadful, savage duel, in which each adversary
became a man-hunter—Michel Ardan was resting from the fatigues of his
triumph. Resting is hardly an appropriate expression, for American beds
rival marble or granite tables for hardness.

Ardan was sleeping, then, badly enough, tossing about between the
cloths which served him for sheets, and he was dreaming of making a
more comfortable couch in his projectile when a frightful noise
disturbed his dreams. Thundering blows shook his door. They seemed to
be caused by some iron instrument. A great deal of loud talking was
distinguishable in this racket, which was rather too early in the
morning. “Open the door,” some one shrieked, “for heaven’s sake!” Ardan
saw no reason for complying with a demand so roughly expressed.
However, he got up and opened the door just as it was giving way before
the blows of this determined visitor. The secretary of the Gun Club
burst into the room. A bomb could not have made more noise or have
entered the room with less ceremony.

“Last night,” cried J. T. Maston, _ex abrupto_, “our president was
publicly insulted during the meeting. He provoked his adversary, who is
none other than Captain Nicholl! They are fighting this morning in the
wood of Skersnaw. I heard all the particulars from the mouth of
Barbicane himself. If he is killed, then our scheme is at an end. We
must prevent his duel; and one man alone has enough influence over
Barbicane to stop him, and that man is Michel Ardan.”

While J. T. Maston was speaking, Michel Ardan, without interrupting
him, had hastily put on his clothes; and, in less than two minutes, the
two friends were making for the suburbs of Tampa Town with rapid
strides.

It was during this walk that Maston told Ardan the state of the case.
He told him the real causes of the hostility between Barbicane and
Nicholl; how it was of old date, and why, thanks to unknown friends,
the president and the captain had, as yet, never met face to face. He
added that it arose simply from a rivalry between iron plates and shot,
and, finally, that the scene at the meeting was only the
long-wished-for opportunity for Nicholl to pay off an old grudge.

Nothing is more dreadful than private duels in America. The two
adversaries attack each other like wild beasts. Then it is that they
might well covet those wonderful properties of the Indians of the
prairies—their quick intelligence, their ingenious cunning, their scent
of the enemy. A single mistake, a moment’s hesitation, a single false
step may cause death. On these occasions Yankees are often accompanied
by their dogs, and keep up the struggle for hours.

“What demons you are!” cried Michel Ardan, when his companion had
depicted this scene to him with much energy.

“Yes, we are,” replied J. T. modestly; “but we had better make haste.”

Though Michel Ardan and he had crossed the plains still wet with dew,
and had taken the shortest route over creeks and ricefields, they could
not reach Skersnaw in under five hours and a half.

Barbicane must have passed the border half an hour ago.

There was an old bushman working there, occupied in selling fagots from
trees that had been leveled by his axe.

Maston ran toward him, saying, “Have you seen a man go into the wood,
armed with a rifle? Barbicane, the president, my best friend?”

The worthy secretary of the Gun Club thought that his president must be
known by all the world. But the bushman did not seem to understand him.

“A hunter?” said Ardan.

“A hunter? Yes,” replied the bushman.

“Long ago?”

“About an hour.”

“Too late!” cried Maston.

“Have you heard any gunshots?” asked Ardan.

“No!”

“Not one?”

“Not one! that hunter did not look as if he knew how to hunt!”

“What is to be done?” said Maston.

“We must go into the wood, at the risk of getting a ball which is not
intended for us.”

“Ah!” cried Maston, in a tone which could not be mistaken, “I would
rather have twenty balls in my own head than one in Barbicane’s.”

“Forward, then,” said Ardan, pressing his companion’s hand.

A few moments later the two friends had disappeared in the copse. It
was a dense thicket, in which rose huge cypresses, sycamores,
tulip-trees, olives, tamarinds, oaks, and magnolias. These different
trees had interwoven their branches into an inextricable maze, through
which the eye could not penetrate. Michel Ardan and Maston walked side
by side in silence through the tall grass, cutting themselves a path
through the strong creepers, casting curious glances on the bushes, and
momentarily expecting to hear the sound of rifles. As for the traces
which Barbicane ought to have left of his passage through the wood,
there was not a vestige of them visible: so they followed the barely
perceptible paths along which Indians had tracked some enemy, and which
the dense foliage darkly overshadowed.

After an hour spent in vain pursuit the two stopped in intensified
anxiety.

“It must be all over,” said Maston, discouraged. “A man like Barbicane
would not dodge with his enemy, or ensnare him, would not even
maneuver! He is too open, too brave. He has gone straight ahead, right
into the danger, and doubtless far enough from the bushman for the wind
to prevent his hearing the report of the rifles.”

“But surely,” replied Michel Ardan, “since we entered the wood we
should have heard!”

“And what if we came too late?” cried Maston in tones of despair.

For once Ardan had no reply to make, he and Maston resuming their walk
in silence. From time to time, indeed, they raised great shouts,
calling alternately Barbicane and Nicholl, neither of whom, however,
answered their cries. Only the birds, awakened by the sound, flew past
them and disappeared among the branches, while some frightened deer
fled precipitately before them.

For another hour their search was continued. The greater part of the
wood had been explored. There was nothing to reveal the presence of the
combatants. The information of the bushman was after all doubtful, and
Ardan was about to propose their abandoning this useless pursuit, when
all at once Maston stopped.

“Hush!” said he, “there is some one down there!”

“Some one?” repeated Michel Ardan.

“Yes; a man! He seems motionless. His rifle is not in his hands. What
can he be doing?”

“But can you recognize him?” asked Ardan, whose short sight was of
little use to him in such circumstances.

“Yes! yes! He is turning toward us,” answered Maston.

“And it is?”

“Captain Nicholl!”

“Nicholl?” cried Michel Ardan, feeling a terrible pang of grief.

“Nicholl unarmed! He has, then, no longer any fear of his adversary!”

“Let us go to him,” said Michel Ardan, “and find out the truth.”

But he and his companion had barely taken fifty steps, when they paused
to examine the captain more attentively. They expected to find a
bloodthirsty man, happy in his revenge.

On seeing him, they remained stupefied.

A net, composed of very fine meshes, hung between two enormous
tulip-trees, and in the midst of this snare, with its wings entangled,
was a poor little bird, uttering pitiful cries, while it vainly
struggled to escape. The bird-catcher who had laid this snare was no
human being, but a venomous spider, peculiar to that country, as large
as a pigeon’s egg, and armed with enormous claws. The hideous creature,
instead of rushing on its prey, had beaten a sudden retreat and taken
refuge in the upper branches of the tulip-tree, for a formidable enemy
menaced its stronghold.

Here, then, was Nicholl, his gun on the ground, forgetful of danger,
trying if possible to save the victim from its cobweb prison. At last
it was accomplished, and the little bird flew joyfully away and
disappeared.

Nicholl lovingly watched its flight, when he heard these words
pronounced by a voice full of emotion:

“You are indeed a brave man.”

He turned. Michel Ardan was before him, repeating in a different tone:

“And a kindhearted one!”

“Michel Ardan!” cried the captain. “Why are you here?”

“To press your hand, Nicholl, and to prevent you from either killing
Barbicane or being killed by him.”

“Barbicane!” returned the captain. “I have been looking for him for the
last two hours in vain. Where is he hiding?”

“Nicholl!” said Michel Ardan, “this is not courteous! we ought always
to treat an adversary with respect; rest assureed if Barbicane is still
alive we shall find him all the more easily; because if he has not,
like you, been amusing himself with freeing oppressed birds, he must be
looking for _you_. When we have found him, Michel Ardan tells you this,
there will be no duel between you.”

“Between President Barbicane and myself,” gravely replied Nicholl,
“there is a rivalry which the death of one of us—”

“Pooh, pooh!” said Ardan. “Brave fellows like you indeed! you shall not
fight!”

“I will fight, sir!”

“No!”

“Captain,” said J. T. Maston, with much feeling, “I am a friend of the
president’s, his _alter ego_, his second self; if you really must kill
some one, _shoot me!_ it will do just as well!”

“Sir,” Nicholl replied, seizing his rifle convulsively, “these jokes—”

“Our friend Maston is not joking,” replied Ardan. “I fully understand
his idea of being killed himself in order to save his friend. But
neither he nor Barbicane will fall before the balls of Captain Nicholl.
Indeed I have so attractive a proposal to make to the two rivals, that
both will be eager to accept it.”

“What is it?” asked Nicholl with manifest incredulity.

“Patience!” exclaimed Ardan. “I can only reveal it in the presence of
Barbicane.”

“Let us go in search of him then!” cried the captain.

The three men started off at once; the captain having discharged his
rifle threw it over his shoulder, and advanced in silence. Another half
hour passed, and the pursuit was still fruitless. Maston was oppressed
by sinister forebodings. He looked fiercely at Nicholl, asking himself
whether the captain’s vengeance had already been satisfied, and the
unfortunate Barbicane, shot, was perhaps lying dead on some bloody
track. The same thought seemed to occur to Ardan; and both were casting
inquiring glances on Nicholl, when suddenly Maston paused.

The motionless figure of a man leaning against a gigantic catalpa
twenty feet off appeared, half-veiled by the foliage.

“It is he!” said Maston.

Barbicane never moved. Ardan looked at the captain, but he did not
wince. Ardan went forward crying:

“Barbicane! Barbicane!”

No answer! Ardan rushed toward his friend; but in the act of seizing
his arms, he stopped short and uttered a cry of surprise.

Barbicane, pencil in hand, was tracing geometrical figures in a
memorandum book, while his unloaded rifle lay beside him on the ground.

Absorbed in his studies, Barbicane, in his turn forgetful of the duel,
had seen and heard nothing.

When Ardan took his hand, he looked up and stared at his visitor in
astonishment.

“Ah, it is you!” he cried at last. “I have found it, my friend, I have
found it!”

“What?”

“My plan!”

“What plan?”

“The plan for countering the effect of the shock at the departure of
the projectile!”

“Indeed?” said Michel Ardan, looking at the captain out of the corner
of his eye.

“Yes! water! simply water, which will act as a spring—ah! Maston,”
cried Barbicane, “you here also?”

“Himself,” replied Ardan; “and permit me to introduce to you at the
same time the worthy Captain Nicholl!”

“Nicholl!” cried Barbicane, who jumped up at once. “Pardon me, captain,
I had quite forgotten—I am ready!”

Michel Ardan interfered, without giving the two enemies time to say
anything more.

“Thank heaven!” said he. “It is a happy thing that brave men like you
two did not meet sooner! we should now have been mourning for one or
other of you. But, thanks to Providence, which has interfered, there is
now no further cause for alarm. When one forgets one’s anger in
mechanics or in cobwebs, it is a sign that the anger is not dangerous.”

Michel Ardan then told the president how the captain had been found
occupied.

“I put it to you now,” said he in conclusion, “are two such good
fellows as you are made on purpose to smash each other’s skulls with
shot?”

There was in “the situation” somewhat of the ridiculous, something
quite unexpected; Michel Ardan saw this, and determined to effect a
reconciliation.

“My good friends,” said he, with his most bewitching smile, “this is
nothing but a misunderstanding. Nothing more! well! to prove that it is
all over between you, accept frankly the proposal I am going to make to
you.”

“Make it,” said Nicholl.

“Our friend Barbicane believes that his projectile will go straight to
the moon?”

“Yes, certainly,” replied the president.

“And our friend Nicholl is persuaded it will fall back upon the earth?”

“I am certain of it,” cried the captain.

“Good!” said Ardan. “I cannot pretend to make you agree; but I suggest
this: Go with me, and so see whether we are stopped on our journey.”

“What?” exclaimed J. T. Maston, stupefied.

The two rivals, on this sudden proposal, looked steadily at each other.
Barbicane waited for the captain’s answer. Nicholl watched for the
decision of the president.

“Well?” said Michel. “There is now no fear of the shock!”

“Done!” cried Barbicane.

But quickly as he pronounced the word, he was not before Nicholl.

“Hurrah! bravo! hip! hip! hurrah!” cried Michel, giving a hand to each
of the late adversaries. “Now that it is all settled, my friends, allow
me to treat you after French fashion. Let us be off to breakfast!”




CHAPTER XXII.
THE NEW CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES


That same day all America heard of the affair of Captain Nicholl and
President Barbicane, as well as its singular _denouement_. From that
day forth, Michel Ardan had not one moment’s rest. Deputations from all
corners of the Union harassed him without cessation or intermission. He
was compelled to receive them all, whether he would or no. How many
hands he shook, how many people he was “hail-fellow-well-met” with, it
is impossible to guess! Such a triumphal result would have intoxicated
any other man; but he managed to keep himself in a state of delightful
_semi_-tipsiness.

Among the deputations of all kinds which assailed him, that of “The
Lunatics” were careful not to forget what they owed to the future
conqueror of the moon. One day, certain of these poor people, so
numerous in America, came to call upon him, and requested permission to
return with him to their native country.

“Singular hallucination!” said he to Barbicane, after having dismissed
the deputation with promises to convey numbers of messages to friends
in the moon. “Do you believe in the influence of the moon upon
distempers?”

“Scarcely!”

“No more do I, despite some remarkable recorded facts of history. For
instance, during an epidemic in 1693, a large number of persons died at
the very moment of an eclipse. The celebrated Bacon always fainted
during an eclipse. Charles VI relapsed six times into madness during
the year 1399, sometimes during the new, sometimes during the full
moon. Gall observed that insane persons underwent an accession of their
disorder twice in every month, at the epochs of new and full moon. In
fact, numerous observations made upon fevers, somnambulisms, and other
human maladies, seem to prove that the moon does exercise some
mysterious influence upon man.”

“But the how and the wherefore?” asked Barbicane.

“Well, I can only give you the answer which Arago borrowed from
Plutarch, which is nineteen centuries old. ‘Perhaps the stories are not
true!’”

In the height of his triumph, Michel Ardan had to encounter all the
annoyances incidental to a man of celebrity. Managers of entertainments
wanted to exhibit him. Barnum offered him a million dollars to make a
tour of the United States in his show. As for his photographs, they
were sold of all size, and his portrait taken in every imaginable
posture. More than half a million copies were disposed of in an
incredibly short space of time.

But it was not only the men who paid him homage, but the women as well.
He might have married well a hundred times over, if he had been willing
to settle in life. The old maids, in particular, of forty years and
upward, and dry in proportion, devoured his photographs day and night.
They would have married him by hundreds, even if he had imposed upon
them the condition of accompanying him into space. He had, however, no
intention of transplanting a race of Franco-Americans upon the surface
of the moon.

He therefore declined all offers.

As soon as he could withdraw from these somewhat embarrassing
demonstrations, he went, accompanied by his friends, to pay a visit to
the Columbiad. He was highly gratified by his inspection, and made the
descent to the bottom of the tube of this gigantic machine which was
presently to launch him to the regions of the moon. It is necessary
here to mention a proposal of J. T. Maston’s. When the secretary of the
Gun Club found that Barbicane and Nicholl accepted the proposal of
Michel Ardan, he determined to join them, and make one of a smug party
of four. So one day he determined to be admitted as one of the
travelers. Barbicane, pained at having to refuse him, gave him clearly
to understand that the projectile could not possibly contain so many
passengers. Maston, in despair, went in search of Michel Ardan, who
counseled him to resign himself to the situation, adding one or two
arguments _ad hominem_.

“You see, old fellow,” he said, “you must not take what I say in bad
part; but really, between ourselves, you are in too incomplete a
condition to appear in the moon!”

“Incomplete?” shrieked the valiant invalid.

“Yes, my dear fellow! imagine our meeting some of the inhabitants up
there! Would you like to give them such a melancholy notion of what
goes on down here? to teach them what war is, to inform them that we
employ our time chiefly in devouring each other, in smashing arms and
legs, and that too on a globe which is capable of supporting a hundred
billions of inhabitants, and which actually does contain nearly two
hundred millions? Why, my worthy friend, we should have to turn you out
of doors!”

“But still, if you arrive there in pieces, you will be as incomplete as
I am.”

“Unquestionably,” replied Michel Ardan; “but we shall not.”

In fact, a preparatory experiment, tried on the 18th of October, had
yielded the best results and caused the most well-grounded hopes of
success. Barbicane, desirous of obtaining some notion of the effect of
the shock at the moment of the projectile’s departure, had procured a
38-inch mortar from the arsenal of Pensacola. He had this placed on the
bank of Hillisborough Roads, in order that the shell might fall back
into the sea, and the shock be thereby destroyed. His object was to
ascertain the extent of the shock of departure, and not that of the
return.

A hollow projectile had been prepared for this curious experiment. A
thick padding fastened upon a kind of elastic network, made of the best
steel, lined the inside of the walls. It was a veritable _nest_ most
carefully wadded.

“What a pity I can’t find room in there,” said J. T. Maston, regretting
that his height did not allow of his trying the adventure.

Within this shell were shut up a large cat, and a squirrel belonging to
J. T. Maston, and of which he was particularly fond. They were
desirous, however, of ascertaining how this little animal, least of all
others subject to giddiness, would endure this experimental voyage.

The mortar was charged with 160 pounds of powder, and the shell placed
in the chamber. On being fired, the projectile rose with great
velocity, described a majestic parabola, attained a height of about a
thousand feet, and with a graceful curve descended in the midst of the
vessels that lay there at anchor.

Without a moment’s loss of time a small boat put off in the direction
of its fall; some divers plunged into the water and attached ropes to
the handles of the shell, which was quickly dragged on board. Five
minutes did not elapse between the moment of enclosing the animals and
that of unscrewing the coverlid of their prison.

Ardan, Barbicane, Maston, and Nicholl were present on board the boat,
and assisted at the operation with an interest which may readily be
comprehended. Hardly had the shell been opened when the cat leaped out,
slightly bruised, but full of life, and exhibiting no signs whatever of
having made an aerial expedition. No trace, however, of the squirrel
could be discovered. The truth at last became apparent—the cat had
eaten its fellow-traveler!

J. T. Maston grieved much for the loss of his poor squirrel, and
proposed to add its case to that of other martyrs to science.

After this experiment all hesitation, all fear disappeared. Besides,
Barbicane’s plans would ensure greater perfection for his projectile,
and go far to annihilate altogether the effects of the shock. Nothing
now remained but to go!

Two days later Michel Ardan received a message from the President of
the United States, an honor of which he showed himself especially
sensible.

After the example of his illustrious fellow-countryman, the Marquis de
la Fayette, the government had decreed to him the title of “Citizen of
the United States of America.”




CHAPTER XXIII.
THE PROJECTILE-VEHICLE


On the completion of the Columbiad the public interest centered in the
projectile itself, the vehicle which was destined to carry the three
hardy adventurers into space.

The new plans had been sent to Breadwill and Co., of Albany, with the
request for their speedy execution. The projectile was consequently
cast on the 2nd of November, and immediately forwarded by the Eastern
Railway to Stones Hill, which it reached without accident on the 10th
of that month, where Michel Ardan, Barbicane, and Nicholl were waiting
impatiently for it.

The projectile had now to be filled to the depth of three feet with a
bed of water, intended to support a water-tight wooden disc, which
worked easily within the walls of the projectile. It was upon this kind
of raft that the travelers were to take their place. This body of water
was divided by horizontal partitions, which the shock of the departure
would have to break in succession. Then each sheet of the water, from
the lowest to the highest, running off into escape tubes toward the top
of the projectile, constituted a kind of spring; and the wooden disc,
supplied with extremely powerful plugs, could not strike the lowest
plate except after breaking successively the different partitions.
Undoubtedly the travelers would still have to encounter a violent
recoil after the complete escapement of the water; but the first shock
would be almost entirely destroyed by this powerful spring. The upper
parts of the walls were lined with a thick padding of leather, fastened
upon springs of the best steel, behind which the escape tubes were
completely concealed; thus all imaginable precautions had been taken
for averting the first shock; and if they did get crushed, they must,
as Michel Ardan said, be made of very bad materials.

The entrance into this metallic tower was by a narrow aperture
contrived in the wall of the cone. This was hermetically closed by a
plate of aluminum, fastened internally by powerful screw-pressure. The
travelers could therefore quit their prison at pleasure, as soon as
they should reach the moon.

Light and view were given by means of four thick lenticular glass
scuttles, two pierced in the circular wall itself, the third in the
bottom, the fourth in the top. These scuttles then were protected
against the shock of departure by plates let into solid grooves, which
could easily be opened outward by unscrewing them from the inside.
Reservoirs firmly fixed contained water and the necessary provisions;
and fire and light were procurable by means of gas, contained in a
special reservoir under a pressure of several atmospheres. They had
only to turn a tap, and for six hours the gas would light and warm this
comfortable vehicle.

There now remained only the question of air; for allowing for the
consumption of air by Barbicane, his two companions, and two dogs which
he proposed taking with him, it was necessary to renew the air of the
projectile. Now air consists principally of twenty-one parts of oxygen
and seventy-nine of nitrogen. The lungs absorb the oxygen, which is
indispensable for the support of life, and reject the nitrogen. The air
expired loses nearly five per cent. of the former and contains nearly
an equal volume of carbonic acid, produced by the combustion of the
elements of the blood. In an air-tight enclosure, then, after a certain
time, all the oxygen of the air will be replaced by the carbonic acid—a
gas fatal to life. There were two things to be done then—first, to
replace the absorbed oxygen; secondly, to destroy the expired carbonic
acid; both easy enough to do, by means of chlorate of potassium and
caustic potash. The former is a salt which appears under the form of
white crystals; when raised to a temperature of 400 degrees it is
transformed into chlorure of potassium, and the oxygen which it
contains is entirely liberated. Now twenty-eight pounds of chlorate of
potassium produces seven pounds of oxygen, or 2,400 litres—the quantity
necessary for the travelers during twenty-four hours.

Caustic potash has a great affinity for carbonic acid; and it is
sufficient to shake it in order for it to seize upon the acid and form
bicarbonate of potassium. By these two means they would be enabled to
restore to the vitiated air its life- supporting properties.

It is necessary, however, to add that the experiments had hitherto been
made _in anima vili_. Whatever its scientific accuracy was, they were
at present ignorant how it would answer with human beings. The honor of
putting it to the proof was energetically claimed by J. T. Maston.

“Since I am not to go,” said the brave artillerist, “I may at least
live for a week in the projectile.”

It would have been hard to refuse him; so they consented to his wish. A
sufficient quantity of chlorate of potassium and of caustic potash was
placed at his disposal, together with provisions for eight days. And
having shaken hands with his friends, on the 12th of November, at six
o’clock A.M., after strictly informing them not to open his prison
before the 20th, at six o’clock P.M., he slid down the projectile, the
plate of which was at once hermetically sealed. What did he do with
himself during that week? They could get no information. The thickness
of the walls of the projectile prevented any sound reaching from the
inside to the outside. On the 20th of November, at six P.M. exactly,
the plate was opened. The friends of J. T. Maston had been all along in
a state of much anxiety; but they were promptly reassured on hearing a
jolly voice shouting a boisterous hurrah.

Presently afterward the secretary of the Gun Club appeared at the top
of the cone in a triumphant attitude. He had grown fat!




CHAPTER XXIV.
THE TELESCOPE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS


On the 20th of October in the preceding year, after the close of the
subscription, the president of the Gun Club had credited the
Observatory of Cambridge with the necessary sums for the construction
of a gigantic optical instrument. This instrument was designed for the
purpose of rendering visible on the surface of the moon any object
exceeding nine feet in diameter.

At the period when the Gun Club essayed their great experiment, such
instruments had reached a high degree of perfection, and produced some
magnificent results. Two telescopes in particular, at this time, were
possessed of remarkable power and of gigantic dimensions. The first,
constructed by Herschel, was thirty-six feet in length, and had an
object-glass of four feet six inches; it possessed a magnifying power
of 6,000. The second was raised in Ireland, in Parsonstown Park, and
belongs to Lord Rosse. The length of this tube is forty-eight feet, and
the diameter of its object-glass six feet; it magnifies 6,400 times,
and required an immense erection of brick work and masonry for the
purpose of working it, its weight being twelve and a half tons.

Still, despite these colossal dimensions, the actual enlargements
scarcely exceeded 6,000 times in round numbers; consequently, the moon
was brought within no nearer an apparent distance than thirty-nine
miles; and objects of less than sixty feet in diameter, unless they
were of very considerable length, were still imperceptible.

In the present case, dealing with a projectile nine feet in diameter
and fifteen feet long, it became necessary to bring the moon within an
apparent distance of five miles at most; and for that purpose to
establish a magnifying power of 48,000 times.

Such was the question proposed to the Observatory of Cambridge, There
was no lack of funds; the difficulty was purely one of construction.

After considerable discussion as to the best form and principle of the
proposed instrument the work was finally commenced. According to the
calculations of the Observatory of Cambridge, the tube of the new
reflector would require to be 280 feet in length, and the object-glass
sixteen feet in diameter. Colossal as these dimensions may appear, they
were diminutive in comparison with the 10,000 foot telescope proposed
by the astronomer Hooke only a few years ago!

Regarding the choice of locality, that matter was promptly determined.
The object was to select some lofty mountain, and there are not many of
these in the United States. In fact there are but two chains of
moderate elevation, between which runs the magnificent Mississippi, the
“king of rivers” as these Republican Yankees delight to call it.

Eastwards rise the Appalachians, the very highest point of which, in
New Hampshire, does not exceed the very moderate altitude of 5,600
feet.

On the west, however, rise the Rocky Mountains, that immense range
which, commencing at the Straights of Magellan, follows the western
coast of Southern America under the name of the Andes or the
Cordilleras, until it crosses the Isthmus of Panama, and runs up the
whole of North America to the very borders of the Polar Sea. The
highest elevation of this range still does not exceed 10,700 feet. With
this elevation, nevertheless, the Gun Club were compelled to be
content, inasmuch as they had determined that both telescope and
Columbiad should be erected within the limits of the Union. All the
necessary apparatus was consequently sent on to the summit of Long’s
Peak, in the territory of Missouri.

Neither pen nor language can describe the difficulties of all kinds
which the American engineers had to surmount, of the prodigies of
daring and skill which they accomplished. They had to raise enormous
stones, massive pieces of wrought iron, heavy corner-clamps and huge
portions of cylinder, with an object-glass weighing nearly 30,000
pounds, above the line of perpetual snow for more than 10,000 feet in
height, after crossing desert prairies, impenetrable forests, fearful
rapids, far from all centers of population, and in the midst of savage
regions, in which every detail of life becomes an almost insoluble
problem. And yet, notwithstanding these innumerable obstacles, American
genius triumphed. In less than a year after the commencement of the
works, toward the close of September, the gigantic reflector rose into
the air to a height of 280 feet. It was raised by means of an enormous
iron crane; an ingenious mechanism allowed it to be easily worked
toward all the points of the heavens, and to follow the stars from the
one horizon to the other during their journey through the heavens.

It had cost $400,000. The first time it was directed toward the moon
the observers evinced both curiosity and anxiety. What were they about
to discover in the field of this telescope which magnified objects
48,000 times? Would they perceive peoples, herds of lunar animals,
towns, lakes, seas? No! there was nothing which science had not already
discovered! and on all the points of its disc the volcanic nature of
the moon became determinable with the utmost precision.

But the telescope of the Rocky Mountains, before doing its duty to the
Gun Club, rendered immense services to astronomy. Thanks to its
penetrative power, the depths of the heavens were sounded to the utmost
extent; the apparent diameter of a great number of stars was accurately
measured; and Mr. Clark, of the Cambridge staff, resolved the Crab
nebula in Taurus, which the reflector of Lord Rosse had never been able
to decompose.




CHAPTER XXV.
FINAL DETAILS


It was the 22nd of November; the departure was to take place in ten
days. One operation alone remained to be accomplished to bring all to a
happy termination; an operation delicate and perilous, requiring
infinite precautions, and against the success of which Captain Nicholl
had laid his third bet. It was, in fact, nothing less than the loading
of the Columbiad, and the introduction into it of 400,000 pounds of
gun-cotton. Nicholl had thought, not perhaps without reason, that the
handling of such formidable quantities of pyroxyle would, in all
probability, involve a grave catastrophe; and at any rate, that this
immense mass of eminently inflammable matter would inevitably ignite
when submitted to the pressure of the projectile.

There were indeed dangers accruing as before from the carelessness of
the Americans, but Barbicane had set his heart on success, and took all
possible precautions. In the first place, he was very careful as to the
transportation of the gun-cotton to Stones Hill. He had it conveyed in
small quantities, carefully packed in sealed cases. These were brought
by rail from Tampa Town to the camp, and from thence were taken to the
Columbiad by barefooted workmen, who deposited them in their places by
means of cranes placed at the orifice of the cannon. No steam-engine
was permitted to work, and every fire was extinguished within two miles
of the works.

Even in November they feared to work by day, lest the sun’s rays acting
on the gun-cotton might lead to unhappy results. This led to their
working at night, by light produced in a vacuum by means of Ruhmkorff’s
apparatus, which threw an artificial brightness into the depths of the
Columbiad. There the cartridges were arranged with the utmost
regularity, connected by a metallic thread, destined to communicate to
them all simultaneously the electric spark, by which means this mass of
gun-cotton was eventually to be ignited.

By the 28th of November eight hundred cartridges had been placed in the
bottom of the Columbiad. So far the operation had been successful! But
what confusion, what anxieties, what struggles were undergone by
President Barbicane! In vain had he refused admission to Stones Hill;
every day the inquisitive neighbors scaled the palisades, some even
carrying their imprudence to the point of smoking while surrounded by
bales of gun-cotton. Barbicane was in a perpetual state of alarm. J. T.
Maston seconded him to the best of his ability, by giving vigorous
chase to the intruders, and carefully picking up the still lighted
cigar ends which the Yankees threw about. A somewhat difficult task!
seeing that more than 300,000 persons were gathered round the
enclosure. Michel Ardan had volunteered to superintend the transport of
the cartridges to the mouth of the Columbiad; but the president, having
surprised him with an enormous cigar in his mouth, while he was hunting
out the rash spectators to whom he himself offered so dangerous an
example, saw that he could not trust this fearless smoker, and was
therefore obliged to mount a special guard over him.

At last, Providence being propitious, this wonderful loading came to a
happy termination, Captain Nicholl’s third bet being thus lost. It
remained now to introduce the projectile into the Columbiad, and to
place it on its soft bed of gun-cotton.

But before doing this, all those things necessary for the journey had
to be carefully arranged in the projectile vehicle. These necessaries
were numerous; and had Ardan been allowed to follow his own wishes,
there would have been no space remaining for the travelers. It is
impossible to conceive of half the things this charming Frenchman
wished to convey to the moon. A veritable stock of useless trifles! But
Barbicane interfered and refused admission to anything not absolutely
needed. Several thermometers, barometers, and telescopes were packed in
the instrument case.

The travelers being desirous of examing the moon carefully during their
voyage, in order to facilitate their studies, they took with them Boeer
and Moeller’s excellent _Mappa Selenographica_, a masterpiece of
patience and observation, which they hoped would enable them to
identify those physical features in the moon, with which they were
acquainted. This map reproduced with scrupulous fidelity the smallest
details of the lunar surface which faces the earth; the mountains,
valleys, craters, peaks, and ridges were all represented, with their
exact dimensions, relative positions, and names; from the mountains
Doerfel and Leibnitz on the eastern side of the disc, to the _Mare
frigoris_ of the North Pole.

They took also three rifles and three fowling-pieces, and a large
quantity of balls, shot, and powder.

“We cannot tell whom we shall have to deal with,” said Michel Ardan.
“Men or beasts may possibly object to our visit. It is only wise to
take all precautions.”

These defensive weapons were accompanied by pickaxes, crowbars, saws,
and other useful implements, not to mention clothing adapted to every
temperature, from that of polar regions to that of the torrid zone.

Ardan wished to convey a number of animals of different sorts, not
indeed a pair of every known species, as he could not see the necessity
of acclimatizing serpents, tigers, alligators, or any other noxious
beasts in the moon. “Nevertheless,” he said to Barbicane, “some
valuable and useful beasts, bullocks, cows, horses, and donkeys, would
bear the journey very well, and would also be very useful to us.”

“I dare say, my dear Ardan,” replied the president, “but our
projectile-vehicle is no Noah’s ark, from which it differs both in
dimensions and object. Let us confine ourselves to possibilities.”

After a prolonged discussion, it was agreed that the travelers should
restrict themselves to a sporting-dog belonging to Nicholl, and to a
large Newfoundland. Several packets of seeds were also included among
the necessaries. Michel Ardan, indeed, was anxious to add some sacks
full of earth to sow them in; as it was, he took a dozen shrubs
carefully wrapped up in straw to plant in the moon.

The important question of provisions still remained; it being necessary
to provide against the possibility of their finding the moon absolutely
barren. Barbicane managed so successfully, that he supplied them with
sufficient rations for a year. These consisted of preserved meats and
vegetables, reduced by strong hydraulic pressure to the smallest
possible dimensions. They were also supplied with brandy, and took
water enough for two months, being confident, from astronomical
observations, that there was no lack of water on the moon’s surface. As
to provisions, doubtless the inhabitants of the _earth_ would find
nourishment somewhere in the _moon_. Ardan never questioned this;
indeed, had he done so, he would never have undertaken the journey.

“Besides,” he said one day to his friends, “we shall not be completely
abandoned by our terrestrial friends; they will take care not to forget
us.”

“No, indeed!” replied J. T. Maston.

“Nothing would be simpler,” replied Ardan; “the Columbiad will be
always there. Well! whenever the moon is in a favorable condition as to
the zenith, if not to the perigee, that is to say about once a year,
could you not send us a shell packed with provisions, which we might
expect on some appointed day?”

“Hurrah! hurrah!” cried J. T. Matson; “what an ingenious fellow! what a
splendid idea! Indeed, my good friends, we shall not forget you!”

“I shall reckon upon you! Then, you see, we shall receive news
regularly from the earth, and we shall indeed be stupid if we hit upon
no plan for communicating with our good friends here!”

These words inspired such confidence, that Michel Ardan carried all the
Gun Club with him in his enthusiasm. What he said seemed so simple and
so easy, so sure of success, that none could be so sordidly attached to
this earth as to hesitate to follow the three travelers on their lunar
expedition.

All being ready at last, it remained to place the projectile in the
Columbiad, an operation abundantly accompanied by dangers and
difficulties.

The enormous shell was conveyed to the summit of Stones Hill. There,
powerful cranes raised it, and held it suspended over the mouth of the
cylinder.

It was a fearful moment! What if the chains should break under its
enormous weight? The sudden fall of such a body would inevitably cause
the gun-cotton to explode!

Fortunately this did not happen; and some hours later the
projectile-vehicle descended gently into the heart of the cannon and
rested on its couch of pyroxyle, a veritable bed of explosive
eider-down. Its pressure had no result, other than the more effectual
ramming down of the charge in the Columbiad.

“I have lost,” said the captain, who forthwith paid President Barbicane
the sum of three thousand dollars.

Barbicane did not wish to accept the money from one of his
fellow-travelers, but gave way at last before the determination of
Nicholl, who wished before leaving the earth to fulfill all his
engagements.

“Now,” said Michel Ardan, “I have only one thing more to wish for you,
my brave captain.”

“What is that?” asked Nicholl.

“It is that you may lose your two other bets! Then we shall be sure not
to be stopped on our journey!”




CHAPTER XXVI.
FIRE!


The first of December had arrived! the fatal day! for, if the
projectile were not discharged that very night at 10h. 48m. 40s. P.M.,
more than eighteen years must roll by before the moon would again
present herself under the same conditions of zenith and perigee.

The weather was magnificent. Despite the approach of winter, the sun
shone brightly, and bathed in its radiant light that earth which three
of its denizens were about to abandon for a new world.

How many persons lost their rest on the night which preceded this
long-expected day! All hearts beat with disquietude, save only the
heart of Michel Ardan. That imperturbable personage came and went with
his habitual business-like air, while nothing whatever denoted that any
unusual matter preoccupied his mind.

After dawn, an innumerable multitude covered the prairie which extends,
as far as the eye can reach, round Stones Hill. Every quarter of an
hour the railway brought fresh accessions of sightseers; and, according
to the statement of the Tampa Town _Observer_, not less than five
millions of spectators thronged the soil of Florida.

For a whole month previously, the mass of these persons had bivouacked
round the enclosure, and laid the foundations for a town which was
afterward called “Ardan’s Town.” The whole plain was covered with huts,
cottages, and tents. Every nation under the sun was represented there;
and every language might be heard spoken at the same time. It was a
perfect Babel re-enacted. All the various classes of American society
were mingled together in terms of absolute equality. Bankers, farmers,
sailors, cotton-planters, brokers, merchants, watermen, magistrates,
elbowed each other in the most free-and-easy way. Louisiana Creoles
fraternized with farmers from Indiana; Kentucky and Tennessee gentlemen
and haughty Virginians conversed with trappers and the half-savages of
the lakes and butchers from Cincinnati. Broad-brimmed white hats and
Panamas, blue-cotton trousers, light-colored stockings, cambric frills,
were all here displayed; while upon shirt-fronts, wristbands, and
neckties, upon every finger, even upon the very ears, they wore an
assortment of rings, shirt-pins, brooches, and trinkets, of which the
value only equaled the execrable taste. Women, children, and servants,
in equally expensive dress, surrounded their husbands, fathers, or
masters, who resembled the patriarchs of tribes in the midst of their
immense households.

At meal-times all fell to work upon the dishes peculiar to the Southern
States, and consumed with an appetite that threatened speedy exhaustion
of the victualing powers of Florida, fricasseed frogs, stuffed monkey,
fish chowder, underdone ’possum, and raccoon steaks. And as for the
liquors which accompanied this indigestible repast! The shouts, the
vociferations that resounded through the bars and taverns decorated
with glasses, tankards, and bottles of marvelous shape, mortars for
pounding sugar, and bundles of straws! “Mint-julep” roars one of the
barmen; “Claret sangaree!” shouts another; “Cocktail!” “Brandy-smash!”
“Real mint-julep in the new style!” All these cries intermingled
produced a bewildering and deafening hubbub.

But on this day, 1st of December, such sounds were rare. No one thought
of eating or drinking, and at four P.M. there were vast numbers of
spectators who had not even taken their customary lunch! And, a still
more significant fact, even the national passion for play seemed
quelled for the time under the general excitement of the hour.

Up till nightfall, a dull, noiseless agitation, such as precedes great
catastrophes, ran through the anxious multitude. An indescribable
uneasiness pervaded all minds, an indefinable sensation which oppressed
the heart. Every one wished it was over.

However, about seven o’clock, the heavy silence was dissipated. The
moon rose above the horizon. Millions of hurrahs hailed her appearance.
She was punctual to the rendezvous, and shouts of welcome greeted her
on all sides, as her pale beams shone gracefully in the clear heavens.
At this moment the three intrepid travelers appeared. This was the
signal for renewed cries of still greater intensity. Instantly the vast
assemblage, as with one accord, struck up the national hymn of the
United States, and “Yankee Doodle,” sung by five million of hearty
throats, rose like a roaring tempest to the farthest limits of the
atmosphere. Then a profound silence reigned throughout the crowd.

The Frenchman and the two Americans had by this time entered the
enclosure reserved in the center of the multitude. They were
accompanied by the members of the Gun Club, and by deputations sent
from all the European Observatories. Barbicane, cool and collected, was
giving his final directions. Nicholl, with compressed lips, his arms
crossed behind his back, walked with a firm and measured step. Michel
Ardan, always easy, dressed in thorough traveler’s costume, leathern
gaiters on his legs, pouch by his side, in loose velvet suit, cigar in
mouth, was full of inexhaustible gayety, laughing, joking, playing
pranks with J. T. Maston. In one word, he was the thorough “Frenchman”
(and worse, a “Parisian”) to the last moment.

Ten o’clock struck! The moment had arrived for taking their places in
the projectile! The necessary operations for the descent, and the
subsequent removal of the cranes and scaffolding that inclined over the
mouth of the Columbiad, required a certain period of time.

Barbicane had regulated his chronometer to the tenth part of a second
by that of Murchison the engineer, who was charged with the duty of
firing the gun by means of an electric spark. Thus the travelers
enclosed within the projectile were enabled to follow with their eyes
the impassive needle which marked the precise moment of their
departure.

The moment had arrived for saying “good-by!” The scene was a touching
one. Despite his feverish gayety, even Michel Ardan was touched. J. T.
Maston had found in his own dry eyes one ancient tear, which he had
doubtless reserved for the occasion. He dropped it on the forehead of
his dear president.

“Can I not go?” he said, “there is still time!”

“Impossible, old fellow!” replied Barbicane. A few moments later, the
three fellow-travelers had ensconced themselves in the projectile, and
screwed down the plate which covered the entrance-aperture. The mouth
of the Columbiad, now completely disencumbered, was open entirely to
the sky.

The moon advanced upward in a heaven of the purest clearness,
outshining in her passage the twinkling light of the stars. She passed
over the constellation of the Twins, and was now nearing the halfway
point between the horizon and the zenith. A terrible silence weighed
upon the entire scene! Not a breath of wind upon the earth! not a sound
of breathing from the countless chests of the spectators! Their hearts
seemed afraid to beat! All eyes were fixed upon the yawning mouth of
the Columbiad.

Murchison followed with his eye the hand of his chronometer. It wanted
scarce forty seconds to the moment of departure, but each second seemed
to last an age! At the twentieth there was a general shudder, as it
occurred to the minds of that vast assemblage that the bold travelers
shut up within the projectile were also counting those terrible
seconds. Some few cries here and there escaped the crowd.

“Thirty-five!—thirty-six!—thirty-seven!—thirty-eight!—thirty-nine!—
forty! FIRE!!!”

Instantly Murchison pressed with his finger the key of the electric
battery, restored the current of the fluid, and discharged the spark
into the breech of the Columbiad.

An appalling unearthly report followed instantly, such as can be
compared to nothing whatever known, not even to the roar of thunder, or
the blast of volcanic explosions! No words can convey the slightest
idea of the terrific sound! An immense spout of fire shot up from the
bowels of the earth as from a crater. The earth heaved up, and with
great difficulty some few spectators obtained a momentary glimpse of
the projectile victoriously cleaving the air in the midst of the fiery
vapors!




CHAPTER XXVII.
FOUL WEATHER


At the moment when that pyramid of fire rose to a prodigious height
into the air, the glare of flame lit up the whole of Florida; and for a
moment day superseded night over a considerable extent of the country.
This immense canopy of fire was perceived at a distance of one hundred
miles out at sea, and more than one ship’s captain entered in his log
the appearance of this gigantic meteor.

The discharge of the Columbiad was accompanied by a perfect earthquake.
Florida was shaken to its very depths. The gases of the powder,
expanded by heat, forced back the atmospheric strata with tremendous
violence, and this artificial hurricane rushed like a water-spout
through the air.

Not a single spectator remained on his feet! Men, women children, all
lay prostrate like ears of corn under a tempest. There ensued a
terrible tumult; a large number of persons were seriously injured. J.
T. Maston, who, despite all dictates of prudence, had kept in advance
of the mass, was pitched back 120 feet, shooting like a projectile over
the heads of his fellow-citizens. Three hundred thousand persons
remained deaf for a time, and as though struck stupefied.

As soon as the first effects were over, the injured, the deaf, and
lastly, the crowd in general, woke up with frenzied cries. “Hurrah for
Ardan! Hurrah for Barbicane! Hurrah for Nicholl!” rose to the skies.
Thousands of persons, noses in air, armed with telescopes and
race-glasses, were questioning space, forgetting all contusions and
emotions in the one idea of watching for the projectile. They looked in
vain! It was no longer to be seen, and they were obliged to wait for
telegrams from Long’s Peak. The director of the Cambridge Observatory
was at his post on the Rocky Mountains; and to him, as a skillful and
persevering astronomer, all observations had been confided.

But an unforeseen phenomenon came in to subject the public impatience
to a severe trial.

The weather, hitherto so fine, suddenly changed; the sky became heavy
with clouds. It could not have been otherwise after the terrible
derangement of the atmospheric strata, and the dispersion of the
enormous quantity of vapor arising from the combustion of 200,000
pounds of pyroxyle!

On the morrow the horizon was covered with clouds—a thick and
impenetrable curtain between earth and sky, which unhappily extended as
far as the Rocky Mountains. It was a fatality! But since man had chosen
so to disturb the atmosphere, he was bound to accept the consequences
of his experiment.

Supposing, now, that the experiment had succeeded, the travelers having
started on the 1st of December, at 10h. 46m. 40s. P.M., were due on the
4th at 0h. P.M. at their destination. So that up to that time it would
have been very difficult after all to have observed, under such
conditions, a body so small as the shell. Therefore they waited with
what patience they might.

From the 4th to the 6th of December inclusive, the weather remaining
much the same in America, the great European instruments of Herschel,
Rosse, and Foucault, were constantly directed toward the moon, for the
weather was then magnificent; but the comparative weakness of their
glasses prevented any trustworthy observations being made.

On the 7th the sky seemed to lighten. They were in hopes now, but their
hope was of but short duration, and at night again thick clouds hid the
starry vault from all eyes.

Matters were now becoming serious, when on the 9th the sun reappeared
for an instant, as if for the purpose of teasing the Americans. It was
received with hisses; and wounded, no doubt, by such a reception,
showed itself very sparing of its rays.

On the 10th, no change! J. T. Maston went nearly mad, and great fears
were entertained regarding the brain of this worthy individual, which
had hitherto been so well preserved within his gutta-percha cranium.

But on the 11th one of those inexplicable tempests peculiar to those
intertropical regions was let loose in the atmosphere. A terrific east
wind swept away the groups of clouds which had been so long gathering,
and at night the semi-disc of the orb of night rode majestically amid
the soft constellations of the sky.




CHAPTER XXVIII.
A NEW STAR


That very night, the startling news so impatiently awaited, burst like
a thunderbolt over the United States of the Union, and thence, darting
across the ocean, ran through all the telegraphic wires of the globe.
The projectile had been detected, thanks to the gigantic reflector of
Long’s Peak! Here is the note received by the director of the
Observatory of Cambridge. It contains the scientific conclusion
regarding this great experiment of the Gun Club.

LONG’S PEAK, December 12. To the Officers of the Observatory of
Cambridge. The projectile discharged by the Columbiad at Stones Hill
has been detected by Messrs. Belfast and J. T. Maston, 12th of
December, at 8:47 P.M., the moon having entered her last quarter. This
projectile has not arrived at its destination. It has passed by the
side; but sufficiently near to be retained by the lunar attraction.

The rectilinear movement has thus become changed into a circular motion
of extreme velocity, and it is now pursuing an elliptical orbit round
the moon, of which it has become a true satellite.

The elements of this new star we have as yet been unable to determine;
we do not yet know the velocity of its passage. The distance which
separates it from the surface of the moon may be estimated at about
2,833 miles.

However, two hypotheses come here into our consideration.

1. Either the attraction of the moon will end by drawing them into
itself, and the travelers will attain their destination; or,

2. The projectile, following an immutable law, will continue to
gravitate round the moon till the end of time.

At some future time, our observations will be able to determine this
point, but till then the experiment of the Gun Club can have no other
result than to have provided our solar system with a new star. J.
BELFAST.

To how many questions did this unexpected _denouement_ give rise? What
mysterious results was the future reserving for the investigation of
science? At all events, the names of Nicholl, Barbicane, and Michel
Ardan were certain to be immortalized in the annals of astronomy!

When the dispatch from Long’s Peak had once become known, there was but
one universal feeling of surprise and alarm. Was it possible to go to
the aid of these bold travelers? No! for they had placed themselves
beyond the pale of humanity, by crossing the limits imposed by the
Creator on his earthly creatures. They had air enough for _two_ months;
they had victuals enough for _twelve;—but after that?_ There was only
one man who would not admit that the situation was desperate—he alone
had confidence; and that was their devoted friend J. T. Maston.

Besides, he never let them get out of sight. His home was henceforth
the post at Long’s Peak; his horizon, the mirror of that immense
reflector. As soon as the moon rose above the horizon, he immediately
caught her in the field of the telescope; he never let her go for an
instant out of his sight, and followed her assiduously in her course
through the stellar spaces. He watched with untiring patience the
passage of the projectile across her silvery disc, and really the
worthy man remained in perpetual communication with his three friends,
whom he did not despair of seeing again some day.

“Those three men,” said he, “have carried into space all the resources
of art, science, and industry. With that, one can do anything; and you
will see that, some day, they will come out all right.”




ROUND THE MOON

A SEQUEL TO

FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON




PRELIMINARY CHAPTER
THE FIRST PART OF THIS WORK, AND SERVING AS A PREFACE TO THE SECOND


During the year 186-, the whole world was greatly excited by a
scientific experiment unprecedented in the annals of science. The
members of the Gun Club, a circle of artillerymen formed at Baltimore
after the American war, conceived the idea of putting themselves in
communication with the moon!—yes, with the moon—by sending to her a
projectile. Their president, Barbicane, the promoter of the enterprise,
having consulted the astronomers of the Cambridge Observatory upon the
subject, took all necessary means to ensure the success of this
extraordinary enterprise, which had been declared practicable by the
majority of competent judges. After setting on foot a public
subscription, which realized nearly L1,200,000, they began the gigantic
work.

According to the advice forwarded from the members of the Observatory,
the gun destined to launch the projectile had to be fixed in a country
situated between the 0 and 28th degrees of north or south latitude, in
order to aim at the moon when at the zenith; and its initiatory
velocity was fixed at twelve thousand yards to the second. Launched on
the 1st of December, at 10hrs. 46m. 40s. P.M., it ought to reach the
moon four days after its departure, that is on the 5th of December, at
midnight precisely, at the moment of her attaining her perigee, that is
her nearest distance from the earth, which is exactly 86,410 leagues
(French), or 238,833 miles mean distance (English).

The principal members of the Gun Club, President Barbicane, Major
Elphinstone, the secretary Joseph T. Maston, and other learned men,
held several meetings, at which the shape and composition of the
projectile were discussed, also the position and nature of the gun, and
the quality and quantity of powder to be used. It was decided: First,
that the projectile should be a shell made of aluminum with a diameter
of 108 inches and a thickness of twelve inches to its walls; and should
weigh 19,250 pounds. Second, that the gun should be a Columbiad cast in
iron, 900 feet long, and run perpendicularly into the earth. Third,
that the charge should contain 400,000 pounds of gun-cotton, which,
giving out six billions of litres of gas in rear of the projectile,
would easily carry it toward the orb of night.

These questions determined President Barbicane, assisted by Murchison
the engineer, to choose a spot situated in Florida, in 27° 7′ North
latitude, and 77° 3′ West (Greenwich) longitude. It was on this spot,
after stupendous labor, that the Columbiad was cast with full success.
Things stood thus, when an incident took place which increased the
interest attached to this great enterprise a hundredfold.

A Frenchman, an enthusiastic Parisian, as witty as he was bold, asked
to be enclosed in the projectile, in order that he might reach the
moon, and reconnoiter this terrestrial satellite. The name of this
intrepid adventurer was Michel Ardan. He landed in America, was
received with enthusiasm, held meetings, saw himself carried in
triumph, reconciled President Barbicane to his mortal enemy, Captain
Nicholl, and, as a token of reconciliation, persuaded them both to
start with him in the projectile. The proposition being accepted, the
shape of the projectile was slightly altered. It was made of a
cylindro-conical form. This species of aerial car was lined with strong
springs and partitions to deaden the shock of departure. It was
provided with food for a year, water for some months, and gas for some
days. A self-acting apparatus supplied the three travelers with air to
breathe. At the same time, on one of the highest points of the Rocky
Mountains, the Gun Club had a gigantic telescope erected, in order that
they might be able to follow the course of the projectile through
space. All was then ready.

On the 30th of November, at the hour fixed upon, from the midst of an
extraordinary crowd of spectators, the departure took place, and for
the first time, three human beings quitted the terrestrial globe, and
launched into inter-planetary space with almost a certainty of reaching
their destination. These bold travelers, Michel Ardan, President
Barbicane, and Captain Nicholl, ought to make the passage in
ninety-seven hours, thirteen minutes, and twenty seconds. Consequently,
their arrival on the lunar disc could not take place until the 5th of
December at twelve at night, at the exact moment when the moon should
be full, and not on the 4th, as some badly informed journalists had
announced.

But an unforeseen circumstance, viz., the detonation produced by the
Columbiad, had the immediate effect of troubling the terrestrial
atmosphere, by accumulating a large quantity of vapor, a phenomenon
which excited universal indignation, for the moon was hidden from the
eyes of the watchers for several nights.

The worthy Joseph T. Maston, the staunchest friend of the three
travelers, started for the Rocky Mountains, accompanied by the Hon. J.
Belfast, director of the Cambridge Observatory, and reached the station
of Long’s Peak, where the telescope was erected which brought the moon
within an apparent distance of two leagues. The honorable secretary of
the Gun Club wished himself to observe the vehicle of his daring
friends.

The accumulation of the clouds in the atmosphere prevented all
observation on the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th of December.
Indeed it was thought that all observations would have to be put off to
the 3d of January in the following year; for the moon entering its last
quarter on the 11th, would then only present an ever-decreasing portion
of her disc, insufficient to allow of their following the course of the
projectile.

At length, to the general satisfaction, a heavy storm cleared the
atmosphere on the night of the 11th and 12th of December, and the moon,
with half-illuminated disc, was plainly to be seen upon the black sky.

That very night a telegram was sent from the station of Long’s Peak by
Joseph T. Maston and Belfast to the gentlemen of the Cambridge
Observatory, announcing that on the 11th of December at 8h. 47m. P.M.,
the projectile launched by the Columbiad of Stones Hill had been
detected by Messrs. Belfast and Maston—that it had deviated from its
course from some unknown cause, and had not reached its destination;
but that it had passed near enough to be retained by the lunar
attraction; that its rectilinear movement had been changed to a
circular one, and that following an elliptical orbit round the star of
night it had become its satellite. The telegram added that the elements
of this new star had not yet been calculated; and indeed three
observations made upon a star in three different positions are
necessary to determine these elements. Then it showed that the distance
separating the projectile from the lunar surface “might” be reckoned at
about 2,833 miles.

It ended with the double hypothesis: either the attraction of the moon
would draw it to herself, and the travelers thus attain their end; or
that the projectile, held in one immutable orbit, would gravitate
around the lunar disc to all eternity.

With such alternatives, what would be the fate of the travelers?
Certainly they had food for some time. But supposing they did succeed
in their rash enterprise, how would they return? Could they ever
return? Should they hear from them? These questions, debated by the
most learned pens of the day, strongly engrossed the public attention.

It is advisable here to make a remark which ought to be well considered
by hasty observers. When a purely speculative discovery is announced to
the public, it cannot be done with too much prudence. No one is obliged
to discover either a planet, a comet, or a satellite; and whoever makes
a mistake in such a case exposes himself justly to the derision of the
mass. Far better is it to wait; and that is what the impatient Joseph
T. Maston should have done before sending this telegram forth to the
world, which, according to his idea, told the whole result of the
enterprise. Indeed this telegram contained two sorts of errors, as was
proved eventually. First, errors of observation, concerning the
distance of the projectile from the surface of the moon, for on the
11th of December it was impossible to see it; and what Joseph T. Maston
had seen, or thought he saw, could not have been the projectile of the
Columbiad. Second, errors of theory on the fate in store for the said
projectile; for in making it a satellite of the moon, it was putting it
in direct contradiction of all mechanical laws.

One single hypothesis of the observers of Long’s Peak could ever be
realized, that which foresaw the case of the travelers (if still alive)
uniting their efforts with the lunar attraction to attain the surface
of the disc.

Now these men, as clever as they were daring, had survived the terrible
shock consequent on their departure, and it is their journey in the
projectile car which is here related in its most dramatic as well as in
its most singular details. This recital will destroy many illusions and
surmises; but it will give a true idea of the singular changes in store
for such an enterprise; it will bring out the scientific instincts of
Barbicane, the industrious resources of Nicholl, and the audacious
humor of Michel Ardan. Besides this, it will prove that their worthy
friend, Joseph T. Maston, was wasting his time, while leaning over the
gigantic telescope he watched the course of the moon through the starry
space.




CHAPTER I.
TWENTY MINUTES PAST TEN TO FORTY-SEVEN MINUTES PAST TEN P. M.


As ten o’clock struck, Michel Ardan, Barbicane, and Nicholl, took leave
of the numerous friends they were leaving on the earth. The two dogs,
destined to propagate the canine race on the lunar continents, were
already shut up in the projectile.

The three travelers approached the orifice of the enormous cast-iron
tube, and a crane let them down to the conical top of the projectile.
There, an opening made for the purpose gave them access to the aluminum
car. The tackle belonging to the crane being hauled from outside, the
mouth of the Columbiad was instantly disencumbered of its last
supports.

Nicholl, once introduced with his companions inside the projectile,
began to close the opening by means of a strong plate, held in position
by powerful screws. Other plates, closely fitted, covered the
lenticular glasses, and the travelers, hermetically enclosed in their
metal prison, were plunged in profound darkness.

“And now, my dear companions,” said Michel Ardan, “let us make
ourselves at home; I am a domesticated man and strong in housekeeping.
We are bound to make the best of our new lodgings, and make ourselves
comfortable. And first let us try and see a little. Gas was not
invented for moles.”

So saying, the thoughtless fellow lit a match by striking it on the
sole of his boot; and approached the burner fixed to the receptacle, in
which the carbonized hydrogen, stored at high pressure, sufficed for
the lighting and warming of the projectile for a hundred and forty-four
hours, or six days and six nights. The gas caught fire, and thus
lighted the projectile looked like a comfortable room with thickly
padded walls, furnished with a circular divan, and a roof rounded in
the shape of a dome.

Michel Ardan examined everything, and declared himself satisfied with
his installation.

“It is a prison,” said he, “but a traveling prison; and, with the right
of putting my nose to the window, I could well stand a lease of a
hundred years. You smile, Barbicane. Have you any _arriere-pensee_? Do
you say to yourself, ‘This prison may be our tomb?’ Tomb, perhaps;
still I would not change it for Mahomet’s, which floats in space but
never advances an inch!”

While Michel Ardan was speaking, Barbicane and Nicholl were making
their last preparations.

Nicholl’s chronometer marked twenty minutes past ten P.M. when the
three travelers were finally enclosed in their projectile. This
chronometer was set within the tenth of a second by that of Murchison
the engineer. Barbicane consulted it.

“My friends,” said he, “it is twenty minutes past ten. At forty- seven
minutes past ten Murchison will launch the electric spark on the wire
which communicates with the charge of the Columbiad. At that precise
moment we shall leave our spheroid. Thus we still have twenty-seven
minutes to remain on the earth.”

“Twenty-six minutes thirteen seconds,” replied the methodical Nicholl.

“Well!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, in a good-humored tone, “much may be
done in twenty-six minutes. The gravest questions of morals and
politics may be discussed, and even solved. Twenty-six minutes well
employed are worth more than twenty-six years in which nothing is done.
Some seconds of a Pascal or a Newton are more precious than the whole
existence of a crowd of raw simpletons—”

“And you conclude, then, you everlasting talker?” asked Barbicane.

“I conclude that we have twenty-six minutes left,” replied Ardan.

“Twenty-four only,” said Nicholl.

“Well, twenty-four, if you like, my noble captain,” said Ardan;
“twenty-four minutes in which to investigate—”

“Michel,” said Barbicane, “during the passage we shall have plenty of
time to investigate the most difficult questions. For the present we
must occupy ourselves with our departure.”

“Are we not ready?”

“Doubtless; but there are still some precautions to be taken, to deaden
as much as possible the first shock.”

“Have we not the water-cushions placed between the partition- breaks,
whose elasticity will sufficiently protect us?”

“I hope so, Michel,” replied Barbicane gently, “but I am not sure.”

“Ah, the joker!” exclaimed Michel Ardan. “He hopes!—He is not sure!—and
he waits for the moment when we are encased to make this deplorable
admission! I beg to be allowed to get out!”

“And how?” asked Barbicane.

“Humph!” said Michel Ardan, “it is not easy; we are in the train, and
the guard’s whistle will sound before twenty-four minutes are over.”

“Twenty,” said Nicholl.

For some moments the three travelers looked at each other. Then they
began to examine the objects imprisoned with them.

“Everything is in its place,” said Barbicane. “We have now to decide
how we can best place ourselves to resist the shock. Position cannot be
an indifferent matter; and we must, as much as possible, prevent the
rush of blood to the head.”

“Just so,” said Nicholl.

“Then,” replied Michel Ardan, ready to suit the action to the word,
“let us put our heads down and our feet in the air, like the clowns in
the grand circus.”

“No,” said Barbicane, “let us stretch ourselves on our sides; we shall
resist the shock better that way. Remember that, when the projectile
starts, it matters little whether we are in it or before it; it amounts
to much the same thing.”

“If it is only ‘much the same thing,’ I may cheer up,” said Michel
Ardan.

“Do you approve of my idea, Nicholl?” asked Barbicane.

“Entirely,” replied the captain. “We’ve still thirteen minutes and a
half.”

“That Nicholl is not a man,” exclaimed Michel; “he is a chronometer
with seconds, an escape, and eight holes.”

But his companions were not listening; they were taking up their last
positions with the most perfect coolness. They were like two methodical
travelers in a car, seeking to place themselves as comfortably as
possible.

We might well ask ourselves of what materials are the hearts of these
Americans made, to whom the approach of the most frightful danger added
no pulsation.

Three thick and solidly-made couches had been placed in the projectile.
Nicholl and Barbicane placed them in the center of the disc forming the
floor. There the three travelers were to stretch themselves some
moments before their departure.

During this time, Ardan, not being able to keep still, turned in his
narrow prison like a wild beast in a cage, chatting with his friends,
speaking to the dogs Diana and Satellite, to whom, as may be seen, he
had given significant names.

“Ah, Diana! Ah, Satellite!” he exclaimed, teasing them; “so you are
going to show the moon-dogs the good habits of the dogs of the earth!
That will do honor to the canine race! If ever we do come down again, I
will bring a cross type of ‘moon-dogs,’ which will make a stir!”

“If there _are_ dogs in the moon,” said Barbicane.

“There are,” said Michel Ardan, “just as there are horses, cows,
donkeys, and chickens. I bet that we shall find chickens.”

“A hundred dollars we shall find none!” said Nicholl.

“Done, my captain!” replied Ardan, clasping Nicholl’s hand. “But, by
the bye, you have already lost three bets with our president, as the
necessary funds for the enterprise have been found, as the operation of
casting has been successful, and lastly, as the Columbiad has been
loaded without accident, six thousand dollars.”

“Yes,” replied Nicholl. “Thirty-seven minutes six seconds past ten.”

“It is understood, captain. Well, before another quarter of an hour you
will have to count nine thousand dollars to the president; four
thousand because the Columbiad will not burst, and five thousand
because the projectile will rise more than six miles in the air.”

“I have the dollars,” replied Nicholl, slapping the pocket of this
coat. “I only ask to be allowed to pay.”

“Come, Nicholl. I see that you are a man of method, which I could never
be; but indeed you have made a series of bets of very little advantage
to yourself, allow me to tell you.”

“And why?” asked Nicholl.

“Because, if you gain the first, the Columbiad will have burst, and the
projectile with it; and Barbicane will no longer be there to reimburse
your dollars.”

“My stake is deposited at the bank in Baltimore,” replied Barbicane
simply; “and if Nicholl is not there, it will go to his heirs.”

“Ah, you practical men!” exclaimed Michel Ardan; “I admire you the more
for not being able to understand you.”

“Forty-two minutes past ten!” said Nicholl.

“Only five minutes more!” answered Barbicane.

“Yes, five little minutes!” replied Michel Ardan; “and we are enclosed
in a projectile, at the bottom of a gun 900 feet long! And under this
projectile are rammed 400,000 pounds of gun-cotton, which is equal to
1,600,000 pounds of ordinary powder! And friend Murchison, with his
chronometer in hand, his eye fixed on the needle, his finger on the
electric apparatus, is counting the seconds preparatory to launching us
into interplanetary space.”

“Enough, Michel, enough!” said Barbicane, in a serious voice; “let us
prepare. A few instants alone separate us from an eventful moment. One
clasp of the hand, my friends.”

“Yes,” exclaimed Michel Ardan, more moved than he wished to appear; and
the three bold companions were united in a last embrace.

“God preserve us!” said the religious Barbicane.

Michel Ardan and Nicholl stretched themselves on the couches placed in
the center of the disc.

“Forty-seven minutes past ten!” murmured the captain.

“Twenty seconds more!” Barbicane quickly put out the gas and lay down
by his companions, and the profound silence was only broken by the
ticking of the chronometer marking the seconds.

Suddenly a dreadful shock was felt, and the projectile, under the force
of six billions of litres of gas, developed by the combustion of
pyroxyle, mounted into space.




CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST HALF-HOUR


What had happened? What effect had this frightful shock produced? Had
the ingenuity of the constructors of the projectile obtained any happy
result? Had the shock been deadened, thanks to the springs, the four
plugs, the water-cushions, and the partition-breaks? Had they been able
to subdue the frightful pressure of the initiatory speed of more than
11,000 yards, which was enough to traverse Paris or New York in a
second? This was evidently the question suggested to the thousand
spectators of this moving scene. They forgot the aim of the journey,
and thought only of the travelers. And if one of them—Joseph T. Maston
for example—could have cast one glimpse into the projectile, what would
he have seen?

Nothing then. The darkness was profound. But its cylindro- conical
partitions had resisted wonderfully. Not a rent or a dent anywhere! The
wonderful projectile was not even heated under the intense deflagration
of the powder, nor liquefied, as they seemed to fear, in a shower of
aluminum.

The interior showed but little disorder; indeed, only a few objects had
been violently thrown toward the roof; but the most important seemed
not to have suffered from the shock at all; their fixtures were intact.

On the movable disc, sunk down to the bottom by the smashing of the
partition-breaks and the escape of the water, three bodies lay
apparently lifeless. Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan—did they
still breathe? or was the projectile nothing now but a metal coffin,
bearing three corpses into space?

Some minutes after the departure of the projectile, one of the bodies
moved, shook its arms, lifted its head, and finally succeeded in
getting on its knees. It was Michel Ardan. He felt himself all over,
gave a sonorous “Hem!” and then said:

“Michel Ardan is whole. How about the others?”

The courageous Frenchman tried to rise, but could not stand. His head
swam, from the rush of blood; he was blind; he was a drunken man.

“Bur-r!” said he. “It produces the same effect as two bottles of
Corton, though perhaps less agreeable to swallow.” Then, passing his
hand several times across his forehead and rubbing his temples, he
called in a firm voice:

“Nicholl! Barbicane!”

He waited anxiously. No answer; not even a sigh to show that the hearts
of his companions were still beating. He called again. The same
silence.

“The devil!” he exclaimed. “They look as if they had fallen from a
fifth story on their heads. Bah!” he added, with that imperturbable
confidence which nothing could check, “if a Frenchman can get on his
knees, two Americans ought to be able to get on their feet. But first
let us light up.”

Ardan felt the tide of life return by degrees. His blood became calm,
and returned to its accustomed circulation. Another effort restored his
equilibrium. He succeeded in rising, drew a match from his pocket, and
approaching the burner lighted it. The receiver had not suffered at
all. The gas had not escaped. Besides, the smell would have betrayed
it; and in that case Michel Ardan could not have carried a lighted
match with impunity through the space filled with hydrogen. The gas
mixing with the air would have produced a detonating mixture, and the
explosion would have finished what the shock had perhaps begun. When
the burner was lit, Ardan leaned over the bodies of his companions:
they were lying one on the other, an inert mass, Nicholl above,
Barbicane underneath.

Ardan lifted the captain, propped him up against the divan, and began
to rub vigorously. This means, used with judgment, restored Nicholl,
who opened his eyes, and instantly recovering his presence of mind,
seized Ardan’s hand and looked around him.

“And Barbicane?” said he.

“Each in turn,” replied Michel Ardan. “I began with you, Nicholl,
because you were on the top. Now let us look to Barbicane.” Saying
which, Ardan and Nicholl raised the president of the Gun Club and laid
him on the divan. He seemed to have suffered more than either of his
companions; he was bleeding, but Nicholl was reassured by finding that
the hemorrhage came from a slight wound on the shoulder, a mere graze,
which he bound up carefully.

Still, Barbicane was a long time coming to himself, which frightened
his friends, who did not spare friction.

“He breathes though,” said Nicholl, putting his ear to the chest of the
wounded man.

“Yes,” replied Ardan, “he breathes like a man who has some notion of
that daily operation. Rub, Nicholl; let us rub harder.” And the two
improvised practitioners worked so hard and so well that Barbicane
recovered his senses. He opened his eyes, sat up, took his two friends
by the hands, and his first words were—

“Nicholl, are we moving?”

Nicholl and Ardan looked at each other; they had not yet troubled
themselves about the projectile; their first thought had been for the
traveler, not for the car.

“Well, are we really moving?” repeated Michel Ardan.

“Or quietly resting on the soil of Florida?” asked Nicholl.

“Or at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico?” added Michel Ardan.

“What an idea!” exclaimed the president.

And this double hypothesis suggested by his companions had the effect
of recalling him to his senses. In any case they could not decide on
the position of the projectile. Its apparent immovability, and the want
of communication with the outside, prevented them from solving the
question. Perhaps the projectile was unwinding its course through
space. Perhaps after a short rise it had fallen upon the earth, or even
in the Gulf of Mexico—a fall which the narrowness of the peninsula of
Florida would render not impossible.

The case was serious, the problem interesting, and one that must be
solved as soon as possible. Thus, highly excited, Barbicane’s moral
energy triumphed over physical weakness, and he rose to his feet. He
listened. Outside was perfect silence; but the thick padding was enough
to intercept all sounds coming from the earth. But one circumstance
struck Barbicane, viz., that the temperature inside the projectile was
singularly high. The president drew a thermometer from its case and
consulted it. The instrument showed 81° Fahr.

“Yes,” he exclaimed, “yes, we are moving! This stifling heat,
penetrating through the partitions of the projectile, is produced by
its friction on the atmospheric strata. It will soon diminish, because
we are already floating in space, and after having nearly stifled, we
shall have to suffer intense cold.

“What!” said Michel Ardan. “According to your showing, Barbicane, we
are already beyond the limits of the terrestrial atmosphere?”

“Without a doubt, Michel. Listen to me. It is fifty-five minutes past
ten; we have been gone about eight minutes; and if our initiatory speed
has not been checked by the friction, six seconds would be enough for
us to pass through the forty miles of atmosphere which surrounds the
globe.”

“Just so,” replied Nicholl; “but in what proportion do you estimate the
diminution of speed by friction?”

“In the proportion of one-third, Nicholl. This diminution is
considerable, but according to my calculations it is nothing less. If,
then, we had an initiatory speed of 12,000 yards, on leaving the
atmosphere this speed would be reduced to 9,165 yards. In any case we
have already passed through this interval, and—”

“And then,” said Michel Ardan, “friend Nicholl has lost his two bets:
four thousand dollars because the Columbiad did not burst; five
thousand dollars because the projectile has risen more than six miles.
Now, Nicholl, pay up.”

“Let us prove it first,” said the captain, “and we will pay afterward.
It is quite possible that Barbicane’s reasoning is correct, and that I
have lost my nine thousand dollars. But a new hypothesis presents
itself to my mind, and it annuls the wager.”

“What is that?” asked Barbicane quickly.

“The hypothesis that, for some reason or other, fire was never set to
the powder, and we have not started at all.”

“My goodness, captain,” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “that hypothesis is not
worthy of my brain! It cannot be a serious one. For have we not been
half annihilated by the shock? Did I not recall you to life? Is not the
president’s shoulder still bleeding from the blow it has received?”

“Granted,” replied Nicholl; “but one question.”

“Well, captain?”

“Did you hear the detonation, which certainly ought to be loud?”

“No,” replied Ardan, much surprised; “certainly I did not hear the
detonation.”

“And you, Barbicane?”

“Nor I, either.”

“Very well,” said Nicholl.

“Well now,” murmured the president “why did we not hear the
detonation?”

The three friends looked at each other with a disconcerted air. It was
quite an inexplicable phenomenon. The projectile had started, and
consequently there must have been a detonation.

“Let us first find out where we are,” said Barbicane, “and let down
this panel.”

This very simple operation was soon accomplished.

The nuts which held the bolts to the outer plates of the right-hand
scuttle gave way under the pressure of the English wrench. These bolts
were pushed outside, and the buffers covered with India-rubber stopped
up the holes which let them through. Immediately the outer plate fell
back upon its hinges like a porthole, and the lenticular glass which
closed the scuttle appeared. A similar one was let into the thick
partition on the opposite side of the projectile, another in the top of
the dome, and finally a fourth in the middle of the base. They could,
therefore, make observations in four different directions; the
firmament by the side and most direct windows, the earth or the moon by
the upper and under openings in the projectile.

Barbicane and his two companions immediately rushed to the uncovered
window. But it was lit by no ray of light. Profound darkness surrounded
them, which, however, did not prevent the president from exclaiming:

“No, my friends, we have not fallen back upon the earth; no, nor are we
submerged in the Gulf of Mexico. Yes! we are mounting into space. See
those stars shining in the night, and that impenetrable darkness heaped
up between the earth and us!”

“Hurrah! hurrah!” exclaimed Michel Ardan and Nicholl in one voice.

Indeed, this thick darkness proved that the projectile had left the
earth, for the soil, brilliantly lit by the moon-beams would have been
visible to the travelers, if they had been lying on its surface. This
darkness also showed that the projectile had passed the atmospheric
strata, for the diffused light spread in the air would have been
reflected on the metal walls, which reflection was wanting. This light
would have lit the window, and the window was dark. Doubt was no longer
possible; the travelers had left the earth.

“I have lost,” said Nicholl.

“I congratulate you,” replied Ardan.

“Here are the nine thousand dollars,” said the captain, drawing a roll
of paper dollars from his pocket.

“Will you have a receipt for it?” asked Barbicane, taking the sum.

“If you do not mind,” answered Nicholl; “it is more business-like.”

And coolly and seriously, as if he had been at his strong-box, the
president drew forth his notebook, tore out a blank leaf, wrote a
proper receipt in pencil, dated and signed it with the usual
flourish,[1] and gave it to the captain, who carefully placed it in his
pocketbook. Michel Ardan, taking off his hat, bowed to his two
companions without speaking. So much formality under such circumstances
left him speechless. He had never before seen anything so “American.”

 [1] This is a purely French habit.


This affair settled, Barbicane and Nicholl had returned to the window,
and were watching the constellations. The stars looked like bright
points on the black sky. But from that side they could not see the orb
of night, which, traveling from east to west, would rise by degrees
toward the zenith. Its absence drew the following remark from Ardan:

“And the moon; will she perchance fail at our rendezvous?”

“Do not alarm yourself,” said Barbicane; “our future globe is at its
post, but we cannot see her from this side; let us open the other.”

“As Barbicane was about leaving the window to open the opposite
scuttle, his attention was attracted by the approach of a brilliant
object. It was an enormous disc, whose colossal dimension could not be
estimated. Its face, which was turned to the earth, was very bright.
One might have thought it a small moon reflecting the light of the
large one. She advanced with great speed, and seemed to describe an
orbit round the earth, which would intersect the passage of the
projectile. This body revolved upon its axis, and exhibited the
phenomena of all celestial bodies abandoned in space.

“Ah!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “What is that? another projectile?”

Barbicane did not answer. The appearance of this enormous body
surprised and troubled him. A collision was possible, and might be
attended with deplorable results; either the projectile would deviate
from its path, or a shock, breaking its impetus, might precipitate it
to earth; or, lastly, it might be irresistibly drawn away by the
powerful asteroid. The president caught at a glance the consequences of
these three hypotheses, either of which would, one way or the other,
bring their experiment to an unsuccessful and fatal termination. His
companions stood silently looking into space. The object grew rapidly
as it approached them, and by an optical illusion the projectile seemed
to be throwing itself before it.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “we shall run into one another!”

Instinctively the travelers drew back. Their dread was great, but it
did not last many seconds. The asteroid passed several hundred yards
from the projectile and disappeared, not so much from the rapidity of
its course, as that its face being opposite the moon, it was suddenly
merged into the perfect darkness of space.

“A happy journey to you,” exclaimed Michel Ardan, with a sigh of
relief. “Surely infinity of space is large enough for a poor little
projectile to walk through without fear. Now, what is this portentous
globe which nearly struck us?”

“I know,” replied Barbicane.

“Oh, indeed! you know everything.”

“It is,” said Barbicane, “a simple meteorite, but an enormous one,
which the attraction of the earth has retained as a satellite.”

“Is it possible!” exclaimed Michel Ardan; “the earth then has two moons
like Neptune?”

“Yes, my friends, two moons, though it passes generally for having only
one; but this second moon is so small, and its speed so great, that the
inhabitants of the earth cannot see it. It was by noticing disturbances
that a French astronomer, M. Petit, was able to determine the existence
of this second satellite and calculate its elements. According to his
observations, this meteorite will accomplish its revolution around the
earth in three hours and twenty minutes, which implies a wonderful rate
of speed.”

“Do all astronomers admit the existence of this satellite?” asked
Nicholl.

“No,” replied Barbicane; “but if, like us, they had met it, they could
no longer doubt it. Indeed, I think that this meteorite, which, had it
struck the projectile, would have much embarrassed us, will give us the
means of deciding what our position in space is.”

“How?” said Ardan.

“Because its distance is known, and when we met it, we were exactly
four thousand six hundred and fifty miles from the surface of the
terrestrial globe.”

“More than two thousand French leagues,” exclaimed Michel Ardan. “That
beats the express trains of the pitiful globe called the earth.”

“I should think so,” replied Nicholl, consulting his chronometer; “it
is eleven o’clock, and it is only thirteen minutes since we left the
American continent.”

“Only thirteen minutes?” said Barbicane.

“Yes,” said Nicholl; “and if our initiatory speed of twelve thousand
yards has been kept up, we shall have made about twenty thousand miles
in the hour.”

“That is all very well, my friends,” said the president, “but the
insoluble question still remains. Why did we not hear the detonation of
the Columbiad?”

For want of an answer the conversation dropped, and Barbicane began
thoughtfully to let down the shutter of the second side. He succeeded;
and through the uncovered glass the moon filled the projectile with a
brilliant light. Nicholl, as an economical man, put out the gas, now
useless, and whose brilliancy prevented any observation of the
inter-planetary space.

The lunar disc shone with wonderful purity. Her rays, no longer
filtered through the vapory atmosphere of the terrestrial globe, shone
through the glass, filling the air in the interior of the projectile
with silvery reflections. The black curtain of the firmament in reality
heightened the moon’s brilliancy, which in this void of ether
unfavorable to diffusion did not eclipse the neighboring stars. The
heavens, thus seen, presented quite a new aspect, and one which the
human eye could never dream of. One may conceive the interest with
which these bold men watched the orb of night, the great aim of their
journey.

In its motion the earth’s satellite was insensibly nearing the zenith,
the mathematical point which it ought to attain ninety-six hours later.
Her mountains, her plains, every projection was as clearly discernible
to their eyes as if they were observing it from some spot upon the
earth; but its light was developed through space with wonderful
intensity. The disc shone like a platinum mirror. Of the earth flying
from under their feet, the travelers had lost all recollection.

It was captain Nicholl who first recalled their attention to the
vanishing globe.

“Yes,” said Michel Ardan, “do not let us be ungrateful to it. Since we
are leaving our country, let our last looks be directed to it. I wish
to see the earth once more before it is quite hidden from my eyes.”

To satisfy his companions, Barbicane began to uncover the window at the
bottom of the projectile, which would allow them to observe the earth
direct. The disc, which the force of the projection had beaten down to
the base, was removed, not without difficulty. Its fragments, placed
carefully against a wall, might serve again upon occasion. Then a
circular gap appeared, nineteen inches in diameter, hollowed out of the
lower part of the projectile. A glass cover, six inches thick and
strengthened with upper fastenings, closed it tightly. Beneath was
fixed an aluminum plate, held in place by bolts. The screws being
undone, and the bolts let go, the plate fell down, and visible
communication was established between the interior and the exterior.

Michel Ardan knelt by the glass. It was cloudy, seemingly opaque.

“Well!” he exclaimed, “and the earth?”

“The earth?” said Barbicane. “There it is.”

“What! that little thread; that silver crescent?”

“Doubtless, Michel. In four days, when the moon will be full, at the
very time we shall reach it, the earth will be new, and will only
appear to us as a slender crescent which will soon disappear, and for
some days will be enveloped in utter darkness.”

“That the earth?” repeated Michel Ardan, looking with all his eyes at
the thin slip of his native planet.

The explanation given by President Barbicane was correct. The earth,
with respect to the projectile, was entering its last phase. It was in
its octant, and showed a crescent finely traced on the dark background
of the sky. Its light, rendered bluish by the thick strata of the
atmosphere was less intense than that of the crescent moon, but it was
of considerable dimensions, and looked like an enormous arch stretched
across the firmament. Some parts brilliantly lighted, especially on its
concave part, showed the presence of high mountains, often disappearing
behind thick spots, which are never seen on the lunar disc. They were
rings of clouds placed concentrically round the terrestrial globe.

While the travelers were trying to pierce the profound darkness, a
brilliant cluster of shooting stars burst upon their eyes. Hundreds of
meteorites, ignited by the friction of the atmosphere, irradiated the
shadow of the luminous train, and lined the cloudy parts of the disc
with their fire. At this period the earth was in its perihelion, and
the month of December is so propitious to these shooting stars, that
astronomers have counted as many as twenty-four thousand in an hour.
But Michel Ardan, disdaining scientific reasonings, preferred thinking
that the earth was thus saluting the departure of her three children
with her most brilliant fireworks.

Indeed this was all they saw of the globe lost in the solar world,
rising and setting to the great planets like a simple morning or
evening star! This globe, where they had left all their affections, was
nothing more than a fugitive crescent!

Long did the three friends look without speaking, though united in
heart, while the projectile sped onward with an ever-decreasing speed.
Then an irresistible drowsiness crept over their brain. Was it
weariness of body and mind? No doubt; for after the over-excitement of
those last hours passed upon earth, reaction was inevitable.

“Well,” said Nicholl, “since we must sleep, let us sleep.”

And stretching themselves on their couches, they were all three soon in
a profound slumber.

But they had not forgotten themselves more than a quarter of an hour,
when Barbicane sat up suddenly, and rousing his companions with a loud
voice, exclaimed—

“I have found it!”

“What have you found?” asked Michel Ardan, jumping from his bed.

“The reason why we did not hear the detonation of the Columbiad.”

“And it is—?” said Nicholl.

“Because our projectile traveled faster than the sound!”




CHAPTER III.
THEIR PLACE OF SHELTER


This curious but certainly correct explanation once given, the three
friends returned to their slumbers. Could they have found a calmer or
more peaceful spot to sleep in? On the earth, houses, towns, cottages,
and country feel every shock given to the exterior of the globe. On
sea, the vessels rocked by the waves are still in motion; in the air,
the balloon oscillates incessantly on the fluid strata of divers
densities. This projectile alone, floating in perfect space, in the
midst of perfect silence, offered perfect repose.

Thus the sleep of our adventurous travelers might have been
indefinitely prolonged, if an unexpected noise had not awakened them at
about seven o’clock in the morning of the 2nd of December, eight hours
after their departure.

This noise was a very natural barking.

“The dogs! it is the dogs!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, rising at once.

“They are hungry,” said Nicholl.

“By Jove!” replied Michel, “we have forgotten them.”

“Where are they?” asked Barbicane.

They looked and found one of the animals crouched under the divan.
Terrified and shaken by the initiatory shock, it had remained in the
corner till its voice returned with the pangs of hunger. It was the
amiable Diana, still very confused, who crept out of her retreat,
though not without much persuasion, Michel Ardan encouraging her with
most gracious words.

“Come, Diana,” said he: “come, my girl! thou whose destiny will be
marked in the cynegetic annals; thou whom the pagans would have given
as companion to the god Anubis, and Christians as friend to St. Roch;
thou who art rushing into interplanetary space, and wilt perhaps be the
Eve of all Selenite dogs! come, Diana, come here.”

Diana, flattered or not, advanced by degrees, uttering plaintive cries.

“Good,” said Barbicane: “I see Eve, but where is Adam?”

“Adam?” replied Michel; “Adam cannot be far off; he is there somewhere;
we must call him. Satellite! here, Satellite!”

But Satellite did not appear. Diana would not leave off howling. They
found, however, that she was not bruised, and they gave her a pie,
which silenced her complaints. As to Satellite, he seemed quite lost.
They had to hunt a long time before finding him in one of the upper
compartments of the projectile, whither some unaccountable shock must
have violently hurled him. The poor beast, much hurt, was in a piteous
state.

“The devil!” said Michel.

They brought the unfortunate dog down with great care. Its skull had
been broken against the roof, and it seemed unlikely that he could
recover from such a shock. Meanwhile, he was stretched comfortably on a
cushion. Once there, he heaved a sigh.

“We will take care of you,” said Michel; “we are responsible for your
existence. I would rather lose an arm than a paw of my poor Satellite.”

Saying which, he offered some water to the wounded dog, who swallowed
it with avidity.

This attention paid, the travelers watched the earth and the moon
attentively. The earth was now only discernible by a cloudy disc ending
in a crescent, rather more contracted than that of the previous
evening; but its expanse was still enormous, compared with that of the
moon, which was approaching nearer and nearer to a perfect circle.

“By Jove!” said Michel Ardan, “I am really sorry that we did not start
when the earth was full, that is to say, when our globe was in
opposition to the sun.”

“Why?” said Nicholl.

“Because we should have seen our continents and seas in a new light—the
first resplendent under the solar rays, the latter cloudy as
represented on some maps of the world. I should like to have seen those
poles of the earth on which the eye of man has never yet rested.”

“I dare say,” replied Barbicane; “but if the earth had been _full_, the
moon would have been _new_; that is to say, invisible, because of the
rays of the sun. It is better for us to see the destination we wish to
reach, than the point of departure.”

“You are right, Barbicane,” replied Captain Nicholl; “and, besides,
when we have reached the moon, we shall have time during the long lunar
nights to consider at our leisure the globe on which our likenesses
swarm.”

“Our likenesses!” exclaimed Michel Ardan; “They are no more our
likenesses than the Selenites are! We inhabit a new world, peopled by
ourselves—the projectile! I am Barbicane’s likeness, and Barbicane is
Nicholl’s. Beyond us, around us, human nature is at an end, and we are
the only population of this microcosm until we become pure Selenites.”

“In about eighty-eight hours,” replied the captain.

“Which means to say?” asked Michel Ardan.

“That it is half-past eight,” replied Nicholl.

“Very well,” retorted Michel; “then it is impossible for me to find
even the shadow of a reason why we should not go to breakfast.”

Indeed the inhabitants of the new star could not live without eating,
and their stomachs were suffering from the imperious laws of hunger.
Michel Ardan, as a Frenchman, was declared chief cook, an important
function, which raised no rival. The gas gave sufficient heat for the
culinary apparatus, and the provision box furnished the elements of
this first feast.

The breakfast began with three bowls of excellent soup, thanks to the
liquefaction in hot water of those precious cakes of Liebig, prepared
from the best parts of the ruminants of the Pampas. To the soup
succeeded some beefsteaks, compressed by an hydraulic press, as tender
and succulent as if brought straight from the kitchen of an English
eating-house. Michel, who was imaginative, maintained that they were
even “red.”

Preserved vegetables (“fresher than nature,” said the amiable Michel)
succeeded the dish of meat; and was followed by some cups of tea with
bread and butter, after the American fashion.

The beverage was declared exquisite, and was due to the infusion of the
choicest leaves, of which the emperor of Russia had given some chests
for the benefit of the travelers.

And lastly, to crown the repast, Ardan had brought out a fine bottle of
Nuits, which was found “by chance” in the provision-box. The three
friends drank to the union of the earth and her satellite.

And, as if he had not already done enough for the generous wine which
he had distilled on the slopes of Burgundy, the sun chose to be part of
the party. At this moment the projectile emerged from the conical
shadow cast by the terrestrial globe, and the rays of the radiant orb
struck the lower disc of the projectile direct occasioned by the angle
which the moon’s orbit makes with that of the earth.

“The sun!” exclaimed Michel Ardan.

“No doubt,” replied Barbicane; “I expected it.”

“But,” said Michel, “the conical shadow which the earth leaves in space
extends beyond the moon?”

“Far beyond it, if the atmospheric refraction is not taken into
consideration,” said Barbicane. “But when the moon is enveloped in this
shadow, it is because the centers of the three stars, the sun, the
earth, and the moon, are all in one and the same straight line. Then
the _nodes_ coincide with the _phases_ of the moon, and there is an
eclipse. If we had started when there was an eclipse of the moon, all
our passage would have been in the shadow, which would have been a
pity.”

“Why?”

“Because, though we are floating in space, our projectile, bathed in
the solar rays, will receive light and heat. It economizes the gas,
which is in every respect a good economy.”

Indeed, under these rays which no atmosphere can temper, either in
temperature or brilliancy, the projectile grew warm and bright, as if
it had passed suddenly from winter to summer. The moon above, the sun
beneath, were inundating it with their fire.

“It is pleasant here,” said Nicholl.

“I should think so,” said Michel Ardan. “With a little earth spread on
our aluminum planet we should have green peas in twenty-four hours. I
have but one fear, which is that the walls of the projectile might
melt.”

“Calm yourself, my worthy friend,” replied Barbicane; “the projectile
withstood a very much higher temperature than this as it slid through
the strata of the atmosphere. I should not be surprised if it did not
look like a meteor on fire to the eyes of the spectators in Florida.”

“But then J. T. Maston will think we are roasted!”

“What astonishes me,” said Barbicane, “is that we have not been. That
was a danger we had not provided for.”

“I feared it,” said Nicholl simply.

“And you never mentioned it, my sublime captain,” exclaimed Michel
Ardan, clasping his friend’s hand.

Barbicane now began to settle himself in the projectile as if he was
never to leave it. One must remember that this aerial car had a base
with a _superficies_ of fifty-four square feet. Its height to the roof
was twelve feet. Carefully laid out in the inside, and little
encumbered by instruments and traveling utensils, which each had their
particular place, it left the three travelers a certain freedom of
movement. The thick window inserted in the bottom could bear any amount
of weight, and Barbicane and his companions walked upon it as if it
were solid plank; but the sun striking it directly with its rays lit
the interior of the projectile from beneath, thus producing singular
effects of light.

They began by investigating the state of their store of water and
provisions, neither of which had suffered, thanks to the care taken to
deaden the shock. Their provisions were abundant, and plentiful enough
to last the three travelers for more than a year. Barbicane wished to
be cautious, in case the projectile should land on a part of the moon
which was utterly barren. As to water and the reserve of brandy, which
consisted of fifty gallons, there was only enough for two months; but
according to the last observations of astronomers, the moon had a low,
dense, and thick atmosphere, at least in the deep valleys, and there
springs and streams could not fail. Thus, during their passage, and for
the first year of their settlement on the lunar continent, these
adventurous explorers would suffer neither hunger nor thirst.

Now about the air in the projectile. There, too, they were secure.
Reiset and Regnaut’s apparatus, intended for the production of oxygen,
was supplied with chlorate of potassium for two months. They
necessarily consumed a certain quantity of gas, for they were obliged
to keep the producing substance at a temperature of above 400°. But
there again they were all safe. The apparatus only wanted a little
care. But it was not enough to renew the oxygen; they must absorb the
carbonic acid produced by expiration. During the last twelve hours the
atmosphere of the projectile had become charged with this deleterious
gas. Nicholl discovered the state of the air by observing Diana panting
painfully. The carbonic acid, by a phenomenon similar to that produced
in the famous Grotto del Cane, had collected at the bottom of the
projectile owing to its weight. Poor Diana, with her head low, would
suffer before her masters from the presence of this gas. But Captain
Nicholl hastened to remedy this state of things, by placing on the
floor several receivers containing caustic potash, which he shook about
for a time, and this substance, greedy of carbonic acid, soon
completely absorbed it, thus purifying the air.

An inventory of instruments was then begun. The thermometers and
barometers had resisted, all but one minimum thermometer, the glass of
which was broken. An excellent aneroid was drawn from the wadded box
which contained it and hung on the wall. Of course it was only affected
by and marked the pressure of the air inside the projectile, but it
also showed the quantity of moisture which it contained. At that moment
its needle oscillated between 25.24 and 25.08.

It was fine weather.

Barbicane had also brought several compasses, which he found intact.
One must understand that under present conditions their needles were
acting _wildly_, that is without any _constant_ direction. Indeed, at
the distance they were from the earth, the magnetic pole could have no
perceptible action upon the apparatus; but the box placed on the lunar
disc might perhaps exhibit some strange phenomena. In any case it would
be interesting to see whether the earth’s satellite submitted like
herself to its magnetic influence.

A hypsometer to measure the height of the lunar mountains, a sextant to
take the height of the sun, glasses which would be useful as they
neared the moon, all these instruments were carefully looked over, and
pronounced good in spite of the violent shock.

As to the pickaxes and different tools which were Nicholl’s especial
choice; as to the sacks of different kinds of grain and shrubs which
Michel Ardan hoped to transplant into Selenite ground, they were stowed
away in the upper part of the projectile. There was a sort of granary
there, loaded with things which the extravagant Frenchman had heaped
up. What they were no one knew, and the good-tempered fellow did not
explain. Now and then he climbed up by cramp-irons riveted to the
walls, but kept the inspection to himself. He arranged and rearranged,
he plunged his hand rapidly into certain mysterious boxes, singing in
one of the falsest of voices an old French refrain to enliven the
situation.

Barbicane observed with some interest that his guns and other arms had
not been damaged. These were important, because, heavily loaded, they
were to help lessen the fall of the projectile, when drawn by the lunar
attraction (after having passed the point of neutral attraction) on to
the moon’s surface; a fall which ought to be six times less rapid than
it would have been on the earth’s surface, thanks to the difference of
bulk. The inspection ended with general satisfaction, when each
returned to watch space through the side windows and the lower glass
coverlid.

There was the same view. The whole extent of the celestial sphere
swarmed with stars and constellations of wonderful purity, enough to
drive an astronomer out of his mind! On one side the sun, like the
mouth of a lighted oven, a dazzling disc without a halo, standing out
on the dark background of the sky! On the other, the moon returning its
fire by reflection, and apparently motionless in the midst of the
starry world. Then, a large spot seemingly nailed to the firmament,
bordered by a silvery cord; it was the earth! Here and there nebulous
masses like large flakes of starry snow; and from the zenith to the
nadir, an immense ring formed by an impalpable dust of stars, the
“Milky Way,” in the midst of which the sun ranks only as a star of the
fourth magnitude. The observers could not take their eyes from this
novel spectacle, of which no description could give an adequate idea.
What reflections it suggested! What emotions hitherto unknown awoke in
their souls! Barbicane wished to begin the relation of his journey
while under its first impressions, and hour after hour took notes of
all facts happening in the beginning of the enterprise. He wrote
quietly, with his large square writing, in a business-like style.

During this time Nicholl, the calculator, looked over the minutes of
their passage, and worked out figures with unparalleled dexterity.
Michel Ardan chatted first with Barbicane, who did not answer him, and
then with Nicholl, who did not hear him, with Diana, who understood
none of his theories, and lastly with himself, questioning and
answering, going and coming, busy with a thousand details; at one time
bent over the lower glass, at another roosting in the heights of the
projectile, and always singing. In this microcosm he represented French
loquacity and excitability, and we beg you to believe that they were
well represented. The day, or rather (for the expression is not
correct) the lapse of twelve hours, which forms a day upon the earth,
closed with a plentiful supper carefully prepared. No accident of any
nature had yet happened to shake the travelers’ confidence; so, full of
hope, already sure of success, they slept peacefully, while the
projectile under an uniformly decreasing speed was crossing the sky.




CHAPTER IV.
A LITTLE ALGEBRA


The night passed without incident. The word “night,” however, is
scarcely applicable.

The position of the projectile with regard to the sun did not change.
Astronomically, it was daylight on the lower part, and night on the
upper; so when during this narrative these words are used, they
represent the lapse of time between rising and setting of the sun upon
the earth.

The travelers’ sleep was rendered more peaceful by the projectile’s
excessive speed, for it seemed absolutely motionless. Not a motion
betrayed its onward course through space. The rate of progress, however
rapid it might be, cannot produce any sensible effect on the human
frame when it takes place in a vacuum, or when the mass of air
circulates with the body which is carried with it. What inhabitant of
the earth perceives its speed, which, however, is at the rate of 68,000
miles per hour? Motion under such conditions is “felt” no more than
repose; and when a body is in repose it will remain so as long as no
strange force displaces it; if moving, it will not stop unless an
obstacle comes in its way. This indifference to motion or repose is
called inertia.

Barbicane and his companions might have believed themselves perfectly
stationary, being shut up in the projectile; indeed, the effect would
have been the same if they had been on the outside of it. Had it not
been for the moon, which was increasing above them, they might have
sworn that they were floating in complete stagnation.

That morning, the 3rd of December, the travelers were awakened by a
joyous but unexpected noise; it was the crowing of a cock which sounded
through the car. Michel Ardan, who was the first on his feet, climbed
to the top of the projectile, and shutting a box, the lid of which was
partly open, said in a low voice, “Will you hold your tongue? That
creature will spoil my design!”

But Nicholl and Barbicane were awake.

“A cock!” said Nicholl.

“Why no, my friends,” Michel answered quickly; “it was I who wished to
awake you by this rural sound.” So saying, he gave vent to a splendid
cock-a-doodledoo, which would have done honor to the proudest of
poultry-yards.

The two Americans could not help laughing.

“Fine talent that,” said Nicholl, looking suspiciously at his
companion.

“Yes,” said Michel; “a joke in my country. It is very Gallic; they play
the cock so in the best society.”

Then turning the conversation:

“Barbicane, do you know what I have been thinking of all night?”

“No,” answered the president.

“Of our Cambridge friends. You have already remarked that I am an
ignoramus in mathematical subjects; and it is impossible for me to find
out how the savants of the observatory were able to calculate what
initiatory speed the projectile ought to have on leaving the Columbiad
in order to attain the moon.”

“You mean to say,” replied Barbicane, “to attain that neutral point
where the terrestrial and lunar attractions are equal; for, starting
from that point, situated about nine-tenths of the distance traveled
over, the projectile would simply fall upon the moon, on account of its
weight.”

“So be it,” said Michel; “but, once more; how could they calculate the
initiatory speed?”

“Nothing can be easier,” replied Barbicane.

“And you knew how to make that calculation?” asked Michel Ardan.

“Perfectly. Nicholl and I would have made it, if the observatory had
not saved us the trouble.”

“Very well, old Barbicane,” replied Michel; “they might have cut off my
head, beginning at my feet, before they could have made me solve that
problem.”

“Because you do not know algebra,” answered Barbicane quietly.

“Ah, there you are, you eaters of _x_1; you think you have said all
when you have said ‘Algebra.’”

“Michel,” said Barbicane, “can you use a forge without a hammer, or a
plow without a plowshare?”

“Hardly.”

“Well, algebra is a tool, like the plow or the hammer, and a good tool
to those who know how to use it.”

“Seriously?”

“Quite seriously.”

“And can you use that tool in my presence?”

“If it will interest you.”

“And show me how they calculated the initiatory speed of our car?”

“Yes, my worthy friend; taking into consideration all the elements of
the problem, the distance from the center of the earth to the center of
the moon, of the radius of the earth, of its bulk, and of the bulk of
the moon, I can tell exactly what ought to be the initiatory speed of
the projectile, and that by a simple formula.”

“Let us see.”

“You shall see it; only I shall not give you the real course drawn by
the projectile between the moon and the earth in considering their
motion round the sun. No, I shall consider these two orbs as perfectly
motionless, which will answer all our purpose.”

“And why?”

“Because it will be trying to solve the problem called ‘the problem of
the three bodies,’ for which the integral calculus is not yet far
enough advanced.”

“Then,” said Michel Ardan, in his sly tone, “mathematics have not said
their last word?”

“Certainly not,” replied Barbicane.

“Well, perhaps the Selenites have carried the integral calculus farther
than you have; and, by the bye, what is this ‘integral calculus?’”

“It is a calculation the converse of the differential,” replied
Barbicane seriously.

“Much obliged; it is all very clear, no doubt.”

“And now,” continued Barbicane, “a slip of paper and a bit of pencil,
and before a half-hour is over I will have found the required formula.”

Half an hour had not elapsed before Barbicane, raising his head, showed
Michel Ardan a page covered with algebraical signs, in which the
general formula for the solution was contained.

“Well, and does Nicholl understand what that means?”

“Of course, Michel,” replied the captain. “All these signs, which seem
cabalistic to you, form the plainest, the clearest, and the most
logical language to those who know how to read it.”

“And you pretend, Nicholl,” asked Michel, “that by means of these
hieroglyphics, more incomprehensible than the Egyptian Ibis, you can
find what initiatory speed it was necessary to give the projectile?”

“Incontestably,” replied Nicholl; “and even by this same formula I can
always tell you its speed at any point of its transit.”

“On your word?”

“On my word.”

“Then you are as cunning as our president.”

“No, Michel; the difficult part is what Barbicane has done; that is, to
get an equation which shall satisfy all the conditions of the problem.
The remainder is only a question of arithmetic, requiring merely the
knowledge of the four rules.”

“That is something!” replied Michel Ardan, who for his life could not
do addition right, and who defined the rule as a Chinese puzzle, which
allowed one to obtain all sorts of totals.

“The expression _v_ zero, which you see in that equation, is the speed
which the projectile will have on leaving the atmosphere.”

“Just so,” said Nicholl; “it is from that point that we must calculate
the velocity, since we know already that the velocity at departure was
exactly one and a half times more than on leaving the atmosphere.”

“I understand no more,” said Michel.

“It is a very simple calculation,” said Barbicane.

“Not as simple as I am,” retorted Michel.

“That means, that when our projectile reached the limits of the
terrestrial atmosphere it had already lost one-third of its initiatory
speed.”

“As much as that?”

“Yes, my friend; merely by friction against the atmospheric strata. You
understand that the faster it goes the more resistance it meets with
from the air.”

“That I admit,” answered Michel; “and I understand it, although your
x’s and zero’s, and algebraic formula, are rattling in my head like
nails in a bag.”

“First effects of algebra,” replied Barbicane; “and now, to finish, we
are going to prove the given number of these different expressions,
that is, work out their value.”

“Finish me!” replied Michel.

Barbicane took the paper, and began to make his calculations with great
rapidity. Nicholl looked over and greedily read the work as it
proceeded.

“That’s it! that’s it!” at last he cried.

“Is it clear?” asked Barbicane.

“It is written in letters of fire,” said Nicholl.

“Wonderful fellows!” muttered Ardan.

“Do you understand it at last?” asked Barbicane.

“Do I understand it?” cried Ardan; “my head is splitting with it.”

“And now,” said Nicholl, “to find out the speed of the projectile when
it leaves the atmosphere, we have only to calculate that.”

The captain, as a practical man equal to all difficulties, began to
write with frightful rapidity. Divisions and multiplications grew under
his fingers; the figures were like hail on the white page. Barbicane
watched him, while Michel Ardan nursed a growing headache with both
hands.

“Very well?” asked Barbicane, after some minutes’ silence.

“Well!” replied Nicholl; every calculation made, _v_ zero, that is to
say, the speed necessary for the projectile on leaving the atmosphere,
to enable it to reach the equal point of attraction, ought to be—”

“Yes?” said Barbicane.

“Twelve thousand yards.”

“What!” exclaimed Barbicane, starting; “you say—”

“Twelve thousand yards.”

“The devil!” cried the president, making a gesture of despair.

“What is the matter?” asked Michel Ardan, much surprised.

“What is the matter! why, if at this moment our speed had already
diminished one-third by friction, the initiatory speed ought to have
been—”

“Seventeen thousand yards.”

“And the Cambridge Observatory declared that twelve thousand yards was
enough at starting; and our projectile, which only started with that
speed—”

“Well?” asked Nicholl.

“Well, it will not be enough.”

“Good.”

“We shall not be able to reach the neutral point.”

“The deuce!”

“We shall not even get halfway.”

“In the name of the projectile!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, jumping as if
it was already on the point of striking the terrestrial globe.

“And we shall fall back upon the earth!”




CHAPTER V.
THE COLD OF SPACE


This revelation came like a thunderbolt. Who could have expected such
an error in calculation? Barbicane would not believe it. Nicholl
revised his figures: they were exact. As to the formula which had
determined them, they could not suspect its truth; it was evident that
an initiatory velocity of seventeen thousand yards in the first second
was necessary to enable them to reach the neutral point.

The three friends looked at each other silently. There was no thought
of breakfast. Barbicane, with clenched teeth, knitted brows, and hands
clasped convulsively, was watching through the window. Nicholl had
crossed his arms, and was examining his calculations. Michel Ardan was
muttering:

“That is just like these scientific men: they never do anything else. I
would give twenty pistoles if we could fall upon the Cambridge
Observatory and crush it, together with the whole lot of dabblers in
figures which it contains.”

Suddenly a thought struck the captain, which he at once communicated to
Barbicane.

“Ah!” said he; “it is seven o’clock in the morning; we have already
been gone thirty-two hours; more than half our passage is over, and we
are not falling that I am aware of.”

Barbicane did not answer, but after a rapid glance at the captain, took
a pair of compasses wherewith to measure the angular distance of the
terrestrial globe; then from the lower window he took an exact
observation, and noticed that the projectile was apparently stationary.
Then rising and wiping his forehead, on which large drops of
perspiration were standing, he put some figures on paper. Nicholl
understood that the president was deducting from the terrestrial
diameter the projectile’s distance from the earth. He watched him
anxiously.

“No,” exclaimed Barbicane, after some moments, “no, we are not falling!
no, we are already more than 50,000 leagues from the earth. We have
passed the point at which the projectile would have stopped if its
speed had only been 12,000 yards at starting. We are still going up.”

“That is evident,” replied Nicholl; “and we must conclude that our
initial speed, under the power of the 400,000 pounds of gun-cotton,
must have exceeded the required 12,000 yards. Now I can understand how,
after thirteen minutes only, we met the second satellite, which
gravitates round the earth at more than 2,000 leagues’ distance.”

“And this explanation is the more probable,” added Barbicane, “Because,
in throwing off the water enclosed between its partition-breaks, the
projectile found itself lightened of a considerable weight.”

“Just so,” said Nicholl.

“Ah, my brave Nicholl, we are saved!”

“Very well then,” said Michel Ardan quietly; “as we are safe, let us
have breakfast.”

Nicholl was not mistaken. The initial speed had been, very fortunately,
much above that estimated by the Cambridge Observatory; but the
Cambridge Observatory had nevertheless made a mistake.

The travelers, recovered from this false alarm, breakfasted merrily. If
they ate a good deal, they talked more. Their confidence was greater
after than before “the incident of the algebra.”

“Why should we not succeed?” said Michel Ardan; “why should we not
arrive safely? We are launched; we have no obstacle before us, no
stones in the way; the road is open, more so than that of a ship
battling with the sea; more open than that of a balloon battling with
the wind; and if a ship can reach its destination, a balloon go where
it pleases, why cannot our projectile attain its end and aim?”

“It _will_ attain it,” said Barbicane.

“If only to do honor to the Americans,” added Michel Ardan, “the only
people who could bring such an enterprise to a happy termination, and
the only one which could produce a President Barbicane. Ah, now we are
no longer uneasy, I begin to think, What will become of us? We shall
get right royally weary.”

Barbicane and Nicholl made a gesture of denial.

“But I have provided for the contingency, my friends,” replied Michel;
“you have only to speak, and I have chess, draughts, cards, and
dominoes at your disposal; nothing is wanting but a billiard-table.”

“What!” exclaimed Barbicane; “you brought away such trifles?”

“Certainly,” replied Michel, “and not only to distract ourselves, but
also with the laudable intention of endowing the Selenite smoking
divans with them.”

“My friend,” said Barbicane, “if the moon is inhabited, its inhabitants
must have appeared some thousands of years before those of the earth,
for we cannot doubt that their star is much older than ours. If then
these Selenites have existed their hundreds of thousands of years, and
if their brain is of the same organization of the human brain, they
have already invented all that we have invented, and even what we may
invent in future ages. They have nothing to learn from _us_, and we
have everything to learn from _them_.”

“What!” said Michel; “you believe that they have artists like Phidias,
Michael Angelo, or Raphael?”

“Yes.”

“Poets like Homer, Virgil, Milton, Lamartine, and Hugo?”

“I am sure of it.”

“Philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant?”

“I have no doubt of it.”

“Scientific men like Archimedes, Euclid, Pascal, Newton?”

“I could swear it.”

“Comic writers like Arnal, and photographers like—like Nadar?”

“Certain.”

“Then, friend Barbicane, if they are as strong as we are, and even
stronger—these Selenites—why have they not tried to communicate with
the earth? why have they not launched a lunar projectile to our
terrestrial regions?”

“Who told you that they have never done so?” said Barbicane seriously.

“Indeed,” added Nicholl, “it would be easier for them than for us, for
two reasons; first, because the attraction on the moon’s surface is six
times less than on that of the earth, which would allow a projectile to
rise more easily; secondly, because it would be enough to send such a
projectile only at 8,000 leagues instead of 80,000, which would require
the force of projection to be ten times less strong.”

“Then,” continued Michel, “I repeat it, why have they not done it?”

“And I repeat,” said Barbicane; “who told you that they have not done
it?”

“When?”

“Thousands of years before man appeared on earth.”

“And the projectile—where is the projectile? I demand to see the
projectile.”

“My friend,” replied Barbicane, “the sea covers five-sixths of our
globe. From that we may draw five good reasons for supposing that the
lunar projectile, if ever launched, is now at the bottom of the
Atlantic or the Pacific, unless it sped into some crevasse at that
period when the crust of the earth was not yet hardened.”

“Old Barbicane,” said Michel, “you have an answer for everything, and I
bow before your wisdom. But there is one hypothesis that would suit me
better than all the others, which is, the Selenites, being older than
we, are wiser, and have not invented gunpowder.”

At this moment Diana joined in the conversation by a sonorous barking.
She was asking for her breakfast.

“Ah!” said Michel Ardan, “in our discussion we have forgotten Diana and
Satellite.”

Immediately a good-sized pie was given to the dog, which devoured it
hungrily.

“Do you see, Barbicane,” said Michel, “we should have made a second
Noah’s ark of this projectile, and borne with us to the moon a couple
of every kind of domestic animal.”

“I dare say; but room would have failed us.”

“Oh!” said Michel, “we might have squeezed a little.”

“The fact is,” replied Nicholl, “that cows, bulls, and horses, and all
ruminants, would have been very useful on the lunar continent, but
unfortunately the car could neither have been made a stable nor a
shed.”

“Well, we might have at least brought a donkey, only a little donkey;
that courageous beast which old Silenus loved to mount. I love those
old donkeys; they are the least favored animals in creation; they are
not only beaten while alive, but even after they are dead.”

“How do you make that out?” asked Barbicane. “Why,” said Michel, “they
make their skins into drums.”

Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at this ridiculous
remark. But a cry from their merry companion stopped them. The latter
was leaning over the spot where Satellite lay. He rose, saying:

“My good Satellite is no longer ill.”

“Ah!” said Nicholl.

“No,” answered Michel, “he is dead! There,” added he, in a piteous
tone, “that is embarrassing. I much fear, my poor Diana, that you will
leave no progeny in the lunar regions!”

Indeed the unfortunate Satellite had not survived its wound. It was
quite dead. Michel Ardan looked at his friends with a rueful
countenance.

“One question presents itself,” said Barbicane. “We cannot keep the
dead body of this dog with us for the next forty-eight hours.”

“No! certainly not,” replied Nicholl; “but our scuttles are fixed on
hinges; they can be let down. We will open one, and throw the body out
into space.”

The president thought for some moments, and then said:

“Yes, we must do so, but at the same time taking very great
precautions.”

“Why?” asked Michel.

“For two reasons which you will understand,” answered Barbicane. “The
first relates to the air shut up in the projectile, and of which we
must lose as little as possible.”

“But we manufacture the air?”

“Only in part. We make only the oxygen, my worthy Michel; and with
regard to that, we must watch that the apparatus does not furnish the
oxygen in too great a quantity; for an excess would bring us very
serious physiological troubles. But if we make the oxygen, we do not
make the azote, that medium which the lungs do not absorb, and which
ought to remain intact; and that azote will escape rapidly through the
open scuttles.”

“Oh! the time for throwing out poor Satellite?” said Michel.

“Agreed; but we must act quickly.”

“And the second reason?” asked Michel.

“The second reason is that we must not let the outer cold, which is
excessive, penetrate the projectile or we shall be frozen to death.”

“But the sun?”

“The sun warms our projectile, which absorbs its rays; but it does not
warm the vacuum in which we are floating at this moment. Where there is
no air, there is no more heat than diffused light; and the same with
darkness; it is cold where the sun’s rays do not strike direct. This
temperature is only the temperature produced by the radiation of the
stars; that is to say, what the terrestrial globe would undergo if the
sun disappeared one day.”

“Which is not to be feared,” replied Nicholl.

“Who knows?” said Michel Ardan. “But, in admitting that the sun does
not go out, might it not happen that the earth might move away from
it?”

“There!” said Barbicane, “there is Michel with his ideas.”

“And,” continued Michel, “do we not know that in 1861 the earth passed
through the tail of a comet? Or let us suppose a comet whose power of
attraction is greater than that of the sun. The terrestrial orbit will
bend toward the wandering star, and the earth, becoming its satellite,
will be drawn such a distance that the rays of the sun will have no
action on its surface.”

“That _might_ happen, indeed,” replied Barbicane, “but the consequences
of such a displacement need not be so formidable as you suppose.”

“And why not?”

“Because the heat and cold would be equalized on our globe. It has been
calculated that, had our earth been carried along in its course by the
comet of 1861, at its perihelion, that is, its nearest approach to the
sun, it would have undergone a heat 28,000 times greater than that of
summer. But this heat, which is sufficient to evaporate the waters,
would have formed a thick ring of cloud, which would have modified that
excessive temperature; hence the compensation between the cold of the
aphelion and the heat of the perihelion.”

“At how many degrees,” asked Nicholl, “is the temperature of the
planetary spaces estimated?”

“Formerly,” replied Barbicane, “it was greatly exagerated; but now,
after the calculations of Fourier, of the French Academy of Science, it
is not supposed to exceed 60° Centigrade below zero.”

“Pooh!” said Michel, “that’s nothing!”

“It is very much,” replied Barbicane; “the temperature which was
observed in the polar regions, at Melville Island and Fort Reliance,
that is 76° Fahrenheit below zero.”

“If I mistake not,” said Nicholl, “M. Pouillet, another savant,
estimates the temperature of space at 250° Fahrenheit below zero. We
shall, however, be able to verify these calculations for ourselves.”

“Not at present; because the solar rays, beating directly upon our
thermometer, would give, on the contrary, a very high temperature. But,
when we arrive in the moon, during its fifteen days of night at either
face, we shall have leisure to make the experiment, for our satellite
lies in a vacuum.”

“What do you mean by a vacuum?” asked Michel. “Is it perfectly such?”

“It is absolutely void of air.”

“And is the air replaced by nothing whatever?”

“By the ether only,” replied Barbicane.

“And pray what is the ether?”

“The ether, my friend, is an agglomeration of imponderable atoms,
which, relatively to their dimensions, are as far removed from each
other as the celestial bodies are in space. It is these atoms which, by
their vibratory motion, produce both light and heat in the universe.”

They now proceeded to the burial of Satellite. They had merely to drop
him into space, in the same way that sailors drop a body into the sea;
but, as President Barbicane suggested, they must act quickly, so as to
lose as little as possible of that air whose elasticity would rapidly
have spread it into space. The bolts of the right scuttle, the opening
of which measured about twelve inches across, were carefully drawn,
while Michel, quite grieved, prepared to launch his dog into space. The
glass, raised by a powerful lever, which enabled it to overcome the
pressure of the inside air on the walls of the projectile, turned
rapidly on its hinges, and Satellite was thrown out. Scarcely a
particle of air could have escaped, and the operation was so successful
that later on Barbicane did not fear to dispose of the rubbish which
encumbered the car.




CHAPTER VI.
QUESTION AND ANSWER


On the 4th of December, when the travelers awoke after fifty-four
hours’ journey, the chronometer marked five o’clock of the terrestrial
morning. In time it was just over five hours and forty minutes, half of
that assigned to their sojourn in the projectile; but they had already
accomplished nearly seven-tenths of the way. This peculiarity was due
to their regularly decreasing speed.

Now when they observed the earth through the lower window, it looked
like nothing more than a dark spot, drowned in the solar rays. No more
crescent, no more cloudy light! The next day, at midnight, the earth
would be _new_, at the very moment when the moon would be full. Above,
the orb of night was nearing the line followed by the projectile, so as
to meet it at the given hour. All around the black vault was studded
with brilliant points, which seemed to move slowly; but, at the great
distance they were from them, their relative size did not seem to
change. The sun and stars appeared exactly as they do to us upon earth.
As to the moon, she was considerably larger; but the travelers’
glasses, not very powerful, did not allow them as yet to make any
useful observations upon her surface, or reconnoiter her
topographically or geologically.

Thus the time passed in never-ending conversations all about the moon.
Each one brought forward his own contingent of particular facts;
Barbicane and Nicholl always serious, Michel Ardan always enthusiastic.
The projectile, its situation, its direction, incidents which might
happen, the precautions necessitated by their fall on to the moon, were
inexhaustible matters of conjecture.

As they were breakfasting, a question of Michel’s, relating to the
projectile, provoked rather a curious answer from Barbicane, which is
worth repeating. Michel, supposing it to be roughly stopped, while
still under its formidable initial speed, wished to know what the
consequences of the stoppage would have been.

“But,” said Barbicane, “I do not see how it could have been stopped.”

“But let us suppose so,” said Michel.

“It is an impossible supposition,” said the practical Barbicane;
“unless that impulsive force had failed; but even then its speed would
diminish by degrees, and it would not have stopped suddenly.”

“Admit that it had struck a body in space.”

“What body?”

“Why that enormous meteor which we met.”

“Then,” said Nicholl, “the projectile would have been broken into a
thousand pieces, and we with it.”

“More than that,” replied Barbicane; “we should have been burned to
death.”

“Burned?” exclaimed Michel, “by Jove! I am sorry it did not happen,
‘just to see.’”

“And you would have seen,” replied Barbicane. “It is known now that
heat is only a modification of motion. When water is warmed—that is to
say, when heat is added to it—its particles are set in motion.”

“Well,” said Michel, “that is an ingenious theory!”

“And a true one, my worthy friend; for it explains every phenomenon of
caloric. Heat is but the motion of atoms, a simple oscillation of the
particles of a body. When they apply the brake to a train, the train
comes to a stop; but what becomes of the motion which it had previously
possessed? It is transformed into heat, and the brake becomes hot. Why
do they grease the axles of the wheels? To prevent their heating,
because this heat would be generated by the motion which is thus lost
by transformation.”

“Yes, I understand,” replied Michel, “perfectly. For example, when I
have run a long time, when I am swimming, when I am perspiring in large
drops, why am I obliged to stop? Simply because my motion is changed
into heat.”

Barbicane could not help smiling at Michel’s reply; then, returning to
his theory, said:

“Thus, in case of a shock, it would have been with our projectile as
with a ball which falls in a burning state after having struck the
metal plate; it is its motion which is turned into heat. Consequently I
affirm that, if our projectile had struck the meteor, its speed thus
suddenly checked would have raised a heat great enough to turn it into
vapor instantaneously.”

“Then,” asked Nicholl, “what would happen if the earth’s motion were to
stop suddenly?”

“Her temperature would be raised to such a pitch,” said Barbicane,
“that she would be at once reduced to vapor.”

“Well,” said Michel, “that is a way of ending the earth which will
greatly simplify things.”

“And if the earth fell upon the sun?” asked Nicholl.

“According to calculation,” replied Barbicane, “the fall would develop
a heat equal to that produced by 16,000 globes of coal, each equal in
bulk to our terrestrial globe.”

“Good additional heat for the sun,” replied Michel Ardan, “of which the
inhabitants of Uranus or Neptune would doubtless not complain; they
must be perished with cold on their planets.”

“Thus, my friends,” said Barbicane, “all motion suddenly stopped
produces heat. And this theory allows us to infer that the heat of the
solar disc is fed by a hail of meteors falling incessantly on its
surface. They have even calculated—”

“Oh, dear!” murmured Michel, “the figures are coming.”

“They have even calculated,” continued the imperturbable Barbicane,
“that the shock of each meteor on the sun ought to produce a heat equal
to that of 4,000 masses of coal of an equal bulk.”

“And what is the solar heat?” asked Michel.

“It is equal to that produced by the combustion of a stratum of coal
surrounding the sun to a depth of forty-seven miles.”

“And that heat—”

“Would be able to boil two billions nine hundred millions of cubic
myriameters[2] of water.”

 [2] The myriameter is equal to rather more than 10,936 cubic yards
 English.


“And it does not roast us!” exclaimed Michel.

“No,” replied Barbicane, “because the terrestrial atmosphere absorbs
four-tenths of the solar heat; besides, the quantity of heat
intercepted by the earth is but a billionth part of the entire
radiation.”

“I see that all is for the best,” said Michel, “and that this
atmosphere is a useful invention; for it not only allows us to breathe,
but it prevents us from roasting.”

“Yes!” said Nicholl, “unfortunately, it will not be the same in the
moon.”

“Bah!” said Michel, always hopeful. “If there are inhabitants, they
must breathe. If there are no longer any, they must have left enough
oxygen for three people, if only at the bottom of ravines, where its
own weight will cause it to accumulate, and we will not climb the
mountains; that is all.” And Michel, rising, went to look at the lunar
disc, which shone with intolerable brilliancy.

“By Jove!” said he, “it must be hot up there!”

“Without considering,” replied Nicholl, “that the day lasts 360 hours!”

“And to compensate that,” said Barbicane, “the nights have the same
length; and as heat is restored by radiation, their temperature can
only be that of the planetary space.”

“A pretty country, that!” exclaimed Michel. “Never mind! I wish I was
there! Ah! my dear comrades, it will be rather curious to have the
earth for our moon, to see it rise on the horizon, to recognize the
shape of its continents, and to say to oneself, ‘There is America,
there is Europe;’ then to follow it when it is about to lose itself in
the sun’s rays! By the bye, Barbicane, have the Selenites eclipses?”

“Yes, eclipses of the sun,” replied Barbicane, “when the centers of the
three orbs are on a line, the earth being in the middle. But they are
only partial, during which the earth, cast like a screen upon the solar
disc, allows the greater portion to be seen.”

“And why,” asked Nicholl, “is there no total eclipse? Does not the cone
of the shadow cast by the earth extend beyond the moon?”

“Yes, if we do not take into consideration the refraction produced by
the terrestrial atmosphere. No, if we take that refraction into
consideration. Thus let <lower case delta> be the horizontal parallel,
and _p_ the apparent semidiameter—”

“Oh!” said Michel. “Do speak plainly, you man of algebra!”

“Very well, replied Barbicane; “in popular language the mean distance
from the moon to the earth being sixty terrestrial radii, the length of
the cone of the shadow, on account of refraction, is reduced to less
than forty-two radii. The result is that when there are eclipses, the
moon finds itself beyond the cone of pure shadow, and that the sun
sends her its rays, not only from its edges, but also from its center.”

“Then,” said Michel, in a merry tone, “why are there eclipses, when
there ought not to be any?”

“Simply because the solar rays are weakened by this refraction, and the
atmosphere through which they pass extinguished the greater part of
them!”

“That reason satisfies me,” replied Michel. “Besides we shall see when
we get there. Now, tell me, Barbicane, do you believe that the moon is
an old comet?”

“There’s an idea!”

“Yes,” replied Michel, with an amiable swagger, “I have a few ideas of
that sort.”

“But that idea does not spring from Michel,” answered Nicholl.

“Well, then, I am a plagiarist.”

“No doubt about it. According to the ancients, the Arcadians pretend
that their ancestors inhabited the earth before the moon became her
satellite. Starting from this fact, some scientific men have seen in
the moon a comet whose orbit will one day bring it so near to the earth
that it will be held there by its attraction.”

“Is there any truth in this hypothesis?” asked Michel.

“None whatever,” said Barbicane, “and the proof is, that the moon has
preserved no trace of the gaseous envelope which always accompanies
comets.”

“But,” continued Nicholl, “Before becoming the earth’s satellite, could
not the moon, when in her perihelion, pass so near the sun as by
evaporation to get rid of all those gaseous substances?”

“It is possible, friend Nicholl, but not probable.”

“Why not?”

“Because—Faith I do not know.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Michel, “what hundred of volumes we might make of all
that we do not know!”

“Ah! indeed. What time is it?” asked Barbicane.

“Three o’clock,” answered Nicholl.

“How time goes,” said Michel, “in the conversation of scientific men
such as we are! Certainly, I feel I know too much! I feel that I am
becoming a well!”

Saying which, Michel hoisted himself to the roof of the projectile, “to
observe the moon better,” he pretended. During this time his companions
were watching through the lower glass. Nothing new to note!

When Michel Ardan came down, he went to the side scuttle; and suddenly
they heard an exclamation of surprise!

“What is it?” asked Barbicane.

The president approached the window, and saw a sort of flattened sack
floating some yards from the projectile. This object seemed as
motionless as the projectile, and was consequently animated with the
same ascending movement.

“What is that machine?” continued Michel Ardan. “Is it one of the
bodies which our projectile keeps within its attraction, and which will
accompany it to the moon?”

“What astonishes me,” said Nicholl, “is that the specific weight of the
body, which is certainly less than that of the projectile, allows it to
keep so perfectly on a level with it.”

“Nicholl,” replied Barbicane, after a moment’s reflection, “I do not
know what the object it, but I do know why it maintains our level.”

“And why?”

“Because we are floating in space, my dear captain, and in space bodies
fall or move (which is the same thing) with equal speed whatever be
their weight or form; it is the air, which by its resistance creates
these differences in weight. When you create a vacuum in a tube, the
objects you send through it, grains of dust or grains of lead, fall
with the same rapidity. Here in space is the same cause and the same
effect.”

“Just so,” said Nicholl, “and everything we throw out of the projectile
will accompany it until it reaches the moon.”

“Ah! fools that we are!” exclaimed Michel.

“Why that expletive?” asked Barbicane.

“Because we might have filled the projectile with useful objects,
books, instruments, tools, etc. We could have thrown them all out, and
all would have followed in our train. But happy thought! Why cannot we
walk outside like the meteor? Why cannot we launch into space through
the scuttle? What enjoyment it would be to feel oneself thus suspended
in ether, more favored than the birds who must use their wings to keep
themselves up!”

“Granted,” said Barbicane, “but how to breathe?”

“Hang the air, to fail so inopportunely!”

“But if it did not fail, Michel, your density being less than that of
the projectile, you would soon be left behind.”

“Then we must remain in our car?”

“We must!”

“Ah!” exclaimed Michel, in a load voice.

“What is the matter,” asked Nicholl.

“I know, I guess, what this pretended meteor is! It is no asteroid
which is accompanying us! It is not a piece of a planet.”

“What is it then?” asked Barbicane.

“It is our unfortunate dog! It is Diana’s husband!”

Indeed, this deformed, unrecognizable object, reduced to nothing, was
the body of Satellite, flattened like a bagpipe without wind, and ever
mounting, mounting!




CHAPTER VII.
A MOMENT OF INTOXICATION


Thus a phenomenon, curious but explicable, was happening under these
strange conditions.

Every object thrown from the projectile would follow the same course
and never stop until it did. There was a subject for conversation which
the whole evening could not exhaust.

Besides, the excitement of the three travelers increased as they drew
near the end of their journey. They expected unforseen incidents, and
new phenomena; and nothing would have astonished them in the frame of
mind they then were in. Their overexcited imagination went faster than
the projectile, whose speed was evidently diminishing, though
insensibly to themselves. But the moon grew larger to their eyes, and
they fancied if they stretched out their hands they could seize it.

The next day, the 5th of November, at five in the morning, all three
were on foot. That day was to be the last of their journey, if all
calculations were true. That very night, at twelve o’clock, in eighteen
hours, exactly at the full moon, they would reach its brilliant disc.
The next midnight would see that journey ended, the most extraordinary
of ancient or modern times. Thus from the first of the morning, through
the scuttles silvered by its rays, they saluted the orb of night with a
confident and joyous hurrah.

The moon was advancing majestically along the starry firmament. A few
more degrees, and she would reach the exact point where her meeting
with the projectile was to take place.

According to his own observations, Barbicane reckoned that they would
land on her northern hemisphere, where stretch immense plains, and
where mountains are rare. A favorable circumstance if, as they thought,
the lunar atmosphere was stored only in its depths.

“Besides,” observed Michel Ardan, “a plain is easier to disembark upon
than a mountain. A Selenite, deposited in Europe on the summit of Mont
Blanc, or in Asia on the top of the Himalayas, would not be quite in
the right place.”

“And,” added Captain Nicholl, “on a flat ground, the projectile will
remain motionless when it has once touched; whereas on a declivity it
would roll like an avalanche, and not being squirrels we should not
come out safe and sound. So it is all for the best.”

Indeed, the success of the audacious attempt no longer appeared
doubtful. But Barbicane was preoccupied with one thought; but not
wishing to make his companions uneasy, he kept silence on this subject.

The direction the projectile was taking toward the moon’s northern
hemisphere, showed that her course had been slightly altered. The
discharge, mathematically calculated, would carry the projectile to the
very center of the lunar disc. If it did not land there, there must
have been some deviation. What had caused it? Barbicane could neither
imagine nor determine the importance of the deviation, for there were
no points to go by.

He hoped, however, that it would have no other result than that of
bringing them nearer the upper border of the moon, a region more
suitable for landing.

Without imparting his uneasiness to his companions, Barbicane contented
himself with constantly observing the moon, in order to see whether the
course of the projectile would not be altered; for the situation would
have been terrible if it failed in its aim, and being carried beyond
the disc should be launched into interplanetary space. At that moment,
the moon, instead of appearing flat like a disc, showed its convexity.
If the sun’s rays had struck it obliquely, the shadow thrown would have
brought out the high mountains, which would have been clearly detached.
The eye might have gazed into the crater’s gaping abysses, and followed
the capricious fissures which wound through the immense plains. But all
relief was as yet leveled in intense brilliancy. They could scarcely
distinguish those large spots which give the moon the appearance of a
human face.

“Face, indeed!” said Michel Ardan; “but I am sorry for the amiable
sister of Apollo. A very pitted face!”

But the travelers, now so near the end, were incessantly observing this
new world. They imagined themselves walking through its unknown
countries, climbing its highest peaks, descending into its lowest
depths. Here and there they fancied they saw vast seas, scarcely kept
together under so rarefied an atmosphere, and water-courses emptying
the mountain tributaries. Leaning over the abyss, they hoped to catch
some sounds from that orb forever mute in the solitude of space. That
last day left them.

They took down the most trifling details. A vague uneasiness took
possession of them as they neared the end. This uneasiness would have
been doubled had they felt how their speed had decreased. It would have
seemed to them quite insufficient to carry them to the end. It was
because the projectile then “weighed” almost nothing. Its weight was
ever decreasing, and would be entirely annihilated on that line where
the lunar and terrestrial attractions would neutralize each other.

But in spite of his preoccupation, Michel Ardan did not forget to
prepare the morning repast with his accustomed punctuality. They ate
with a good appetite. Nothing was so excellent as the soup liquefied by
the heat of the gas; nothing better than the preserved meat. Some
glasses of good French wine crowned the repast, causing Michel Ardan to
remark that the lunar vines, warmed by that ardent sun, ought to
distill even more generous wines; that is, if they existed. In any
case, the far-seeing Frenchman had taken care not to forget in his
collection some precious cuttings of the Medoc and Cote d’Or, upon
which he founded his hopes.

Reiset and Regnaut’s apparatus worked with great regularity. Not an
atom of carbonic acid resisted the potash; and as to the oxygen,
Captain Nicholl said “it was of the first quality.” The little watery
vapor enclosed in the projectile mixing with the air tempered the
dryness; and many apartments in London, Paris, or New York, and many
theaters, were certainly not in such a healthy condition.

But that it might act with regularity, the apparatus must be kept in
perfect order; so each morning Michel visited the escape regulators,
tried the taps, and regulated the heat of the gas by the pyrometer.
Everything had gone well up to that time, and the travelers, imitating
the worthy Joseph T. Maston, began to acquire a degree of embonpoint
which would have rendered them unrecognizable if their imprisonment had
been prolonged to some months. In a word, they behaved like chickens in
a coop; they were getting fat.

In looking through the scuttle Barbicane saw the specter of the dog,
and other divers objects which had been thrown from the projectile,
obstinately following them. Diana howled lugubriously on seeing the
remains of Satellite, which seemed as motionless as if they reposed on
solid earth.

“Do you know, my friends,” said Michel Ardan, “that if one of us had
succumbed to the shock consequent on departure, we should have had a
great deal of trouble to bury him? What am I saying? to _etherize_ him,
as here ether takes the place of earth. You see the accusing body would
have followed us into space like a remorse.”

“That would have been sad,” said Nicholl.

“Ah!” continued Michel, “what I regret is not being able to take a walk
outside. What voluptuousness to float amid this radiant ether, to bathe
oneself in it, to wrap oneself in the sun’s pure rays. If Barbicane had
only thought of furnishing us with a diving apparatus and an air-pump,
I could have ventured out and assumed fanciful attitudes of feigned
monsters on the top of the projectile.”

“Well, old Michel,” replied Barbicane, “you would not have made a
feigned monster long, for in spite of your diver’s dress, swollen by
the expansion of air within you, you would have burst like a shell, or
rather like a balloon which has risen too high. So do not regret it,
and do not forget this—as long as we float in space, all sentimental
walks beyond the projectile are forbidden.”

Michel Ardan allowed himself to be convinced to a certain extent. He
admitted that the thing was difficult but not impossible, a word which
he never uttered.

The conversation passed from this subject to another, not failing him
for an instant. It seemed to the three friends as though, under present
conditions, ideas shot up in their brains as leaves shoot at the first
warmth of spring. They felt bewildered. In the middle of the questions
and answers which crossed each other, Nicholl put one question which
did not find an immediate solution.

“Ah, indeed!” said he; “it is all very well to go to the moon, but how
to get back again?”

His two interlocutors looked surprised. One would have thought that
this possibility now occurred to them for the first time.

“What do you mean by that, Nicholl?” asked Barbicane gravely.

“To ask for means to leave a country,” added Michel, “When we have not
yet arrived there, seems to me rather inopportune.”

“I do not say that, wishing to draw back,” replied Nicholl; “but I
repeat my question, and I ask, ‘How shall we return?’”

“I know nothing about it,” answered Barbicane.

“And I,” said Michel, “if I had known how to return, I would never have
started.”

“There’s an answer!” cried Nicholl.

“I quite approve of Michel’s words,” said Barbicane; “and add, that the
question has no real interest. Later, when we think it is advisable to
return, we will take counsel together. If the Columbiad is not there,
the projectile will be.”

“That is a step certainly. A ball without a gun!”

“The gun,” replied Barbicane, “can be manufactured. The powder can be
made. Neither metals, saltpeter, nor coal can fail in the depths of the
moon, and we need only go 8,000 leagues in order to fall upon the
terrestrial globe by virtue of the mere laws of weight.”

“Enough,” said Michel with animation. “Let it be no longer a question
of returning: we have already entertained it too long. As to
communicating with our former earthly colleagues, that will not be
difficult.”

“And how?”

“By means of meteors launched by lunar volcanoes.”

“Well thought of, Michel,” said Barbicane in a convinced tone of voice.
“Laplace has calculated that a force five times greater than that of
our gun would suffice to send a meteor from the moon to the earth, and
there is not one volcano which has not a greater power of propulsion
than that.”

“Hurrah!” exclaimed Michel; “these meteors are handy postmen, and cost
nothing. And how we shall be able to laugh at the post-office
administration! But now I think of it—”

“What do you think of?”

“A capital idea. Why did we not fasten a thread to our projectile, and
we could have exchanged telegrams with the earth?”

“The deuce!” answered Nicholl. “Do you consider the weight of a thread
250,000 miles long nothing?”

“As nothing. They could have trebled the Columbiad’s charge; they could
have quadrupled or quintupled it!” exclaimed Michel, with whom the verb
took a higher intonation each time.

“There is but one little objection to make to your proposition,”
replied Barbicane, “which is that, during the rotary motion of the
globe, our thread would have wound itself round it like a chain on a
capstan, and that it would inevitably have brought us to the ground.”

“By the thirty-nine stars of the Union!” said Michel, “I have nothing
but impracticable ideas to-day; ideas worthy of J. T. Maston. But I
have a notion that, if we do not return to earth, J. T. Maston will be
able to come to us.”

“Yes, he’ll come,” replied Barbicane; “he is a worthy and a courageous
comrade. Besides, what is easier? Is not the Columbiad still buried in
the soil of Florida? Is cotton and nitric acid wanted wherewith to
manufacture the pyroxyle? Will not the moon pass the zenith of Florida?
In eighteen years’ time will she not occupy exactly the same place as
to-day?”

“Yes,” continued Michel, “yes, Maston will come, and with him our
friends Elphinstone, Blomsberry, all the members of the Gun Club, and
they will be well received. And by and by they will run trains of
projectiles between the earth and the moon! Hurrah for J. T. Maston!”

It is probable that, if the Hon. J. T. Maston did not hear the hurrahs
uttered in his honor, his ears at least tingled. What was he doing
then? Doubtless, posted in the Rocky Mountains, at the station of
Long’s Peak, he was trying to find the invisible projectile gravitating
in space. If he was thinking of his dear companions, we must allow that
they were not far behind him; and that, under the influence of a
strange excitement, they were devoting to him their best thoughts.

But whence this excitement, which was evidently growing upon the
tenants of the projectile? Their sobriety could not be doubted. This
strange irritation of the brain, must it be attributed to the peculiar
circumstances under which they found themselves, to their proximity to
the orb of night, from which only a few hours separated them, to some
secret influence of the moon acting upon their nervous system? Their
faces were as rosy as if they had been exposed to the roaring flames of
an oven; their voices resounded in loud accents; their words escaped
like a champagne cork driven out by carbonic acid; their gestures
became annoying, they wanted so much room to perform them; and, strange
to say, they none of them noticed this great tension of the mind.

“Now,” said Nicholl, in a short tone, “now that I do not know whether
we shall ever return from the moon, I want to know what we are going to
do there?”

“What we are going to do there?” replied Barbicane, stamping with his
foot as if he was in a fencing saloon; “I do not know.”

“You do not know!” exclaimed Michel, with a bellow which provoked a
sonorous echo in the projectile.

“No, I have not even thought about it,” retorted Barbicane, in the same
loud tone.

“Well, I know,” replied Michel.

“Speak, then,” cried Nicholl, who could no longer contain the growling
of his voice.

“I shall speak if it suits me,” exclaimed Michel, seizing his
companions’ arms with violence.

“ _It must_ suit you,” said Barbicane, with an eye on fire and a
threatening hand. “It was you who drew us into this frightful journey,
and we want to know what for.”

“Yes,” said the captain, “now that I do not know _where_ I am going, I
want to know _why_ I am going.”

“Why?” exclaimed Michel, jumping a yard high, “why? To take possession
of the moon in the name of the United States; to add a fortieth State
to the Union; to colonize the lunar regions; to cultivate them, to
people them, to transport thither all the prodigies of art, of science,
and industry; to civilize the Selenites, unless they are more civilized
than we are; and to constitute them a republic, if they are not already
one!”

“And if there are no Selenites?” retorted Nicholl, who, under the
influence of this unaccountable intoxication, was very contradictory.

“Who said that there were no Selenites?” exclaimed Michel in a
threatening tone.

“I do,” howled Nicholl.

“Captain,” said Michel, “do not repeat that insolence, or I will knock
your teeth down your throat!”

The two adversaries were going to fall upon each other, and the
incoherent discussion threatened to merge into a fight, when Barbicane
intervened with one bound.

“Stop, miserable men,” said he, separating his two companions; “if
there are no Selenites, we will do without them.”

“Yes,” exclaimed Michel, who was not particular; “yes, we will do
without them. We have only to make Selenites. Down with the Selenites!”

“The empire of the moon belongs to us,” said Nicholl.

“Let us three constitute the republic.”

“I will be the congress,” cried Michel.

“And I the senate,” retorted Nicholl.

“And Barbicane, the president,” howled Michel.

“Not a president elected by the nation,” replied Barbicane.

“Very well, a president elected by the congress,” cried Michel; “and as
I am the congress, you are unanimously elected!”

“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! for President Barbicane,” exclaimed Nicholl.

“Hip! hip! hip!” vociferated Michel Ardan.

Then the president and the senate struck up in a tremendous voice the
popular song “Yankee Doodle,” while from the congress resounded the
masculine tones of the “Marseillaise.”

Then they struck up a frantic dance, with maniacal gestures, idiotic
stampings, and somersaults like those of the boneless clowns in the
circus. Diana, joining in the dance, and howling in her turn, jumped to
the top of the projectile. An unaccountable flapping of wings was then
heard amid most fantastic cock-crows, while five or six hens fluttered
like bats against the walls.

Then the three traveling companions, acted upon by some unaccountable
influence above that of intoxication, inflamed by the air which had set
their respiratory apparatus on fire, fell motionless to the bottom of
the projectile.




CHAPTER VIII.
AT SEVENTY-EIGHT THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN LEAGUES


What had happened? Whence the cause of this singular intoxication, the
consequences of which might have been very disastrous? A simple blunder
of Michel’s, which, fortunately, Nicholl was able to correct in time.

After a perfect swoon, which lasted some minutes, the captain,
recovering first, soon collected his scattered senses. Although he had
breakfasted only two hours before, he felt a gnawing hunger, as if he
had not eaten anything for several days. Everything about him, stomach
and brain, were overexcited to the highest degree. He got up and
demanded from Michel a supplementary repast. Michel, utterly done up,
did not answer.

Nicholl then tried to prepare some tea destined to help the absorption
of a dozen sandwiches. He first tried to get some fire, and struck a
match sharply. What was his surprise to see the sulphur shine with so
extraordinary a brilliancy as to be almost unbearable to the eye. From
the gas-burner which he lit rose a flame equal to a jet of electric
light.

A revelation dawned on Nicholl’s mind. That intensity of light, the
physiological troubles which had arisen in him, the overexcitement of
all his moral and quarrelsome faculties—he understood all.

“The oxygen!” he exclaimed.

And leaning over the air apparatus, he saw that the tap was allowing
the colorless gas to escape freely, life-giving, but in its pure state
producing the gravest disorders in the system. Michel had blunderingly
opened the tap of the apparatus to the full.

Nicholl hastened to stop the escape of oxygen with which the atmosphere
was saturated, which would have been the death of the travelers, not by
suffocation, but by combustion. An hour later, the air less charged
with it restored the lungs to their normal condition. By degrees the
three friends recovered from their intoxication; but they were obliged
to sleep themselves sober over their oxygen as a drunkard does over his
wine.

When Michel learned his share of the responsibility of this incident,
he was not much disconcerted. This unexpected drunkenness broke the
monotony of the journey. Many foolish things had been said while under
its influence, but also quickly forgotten.

“And then,” added the merry Frenchman, “I am not sorry to have tasted a
little of this heady gas. Do you know, my friends, that a curious
establishment might be founded with rooms of oxygen, where people whose
system is weakened could for a few hours live a more active life. Fancy
parties where the room was saturated with this heroic fluid, theaters
where it should be kept at high pressure; what passion in the souls of
the actors and spectators! what fire, what enthusiasm! And if, instead
of an assembly only a whole people could be saturated, what activity in
its functions, what a supplement to life it would derive. From an
exhausted nation they might make a great and strong one, and I know
more than one state in old Europe which ought to put itself under the
regime of oxygen for the sake of its health!”

Michel spoke with so much animation that one might have fancied that
the tap was still too open. But a few words from Barbicane soon
shattered his enthusiasm.

“That is all very well, friend Michel,” said he, “but will you inform
us where these chickens came from which have mixed themselves up in our
concert?”

“Those chickens?”

“Yes.”

Indeed, half a dozen chickens and a fine cock were walking about,
flapping their wings and chattering.

“Ah, the awkward things!” exclaimed Michel. “The oxygen has made them
revolt.”

“But what do you want to do with these chickens?” asked Barbicane.

“To acclimatize them in the moon, by Jove!”

“Then why did you hide them?”

“A joke, my worthy president, a simple joke, which has proved a
miserable failure. I wanted to set them free on the lunar continent,
without saying anything. Oh, what would have been your amazement on
seeing these earthly-winged animals pecking in your lunar fields!”

“You rascal, you unmitigated rascal,” replied Barbicane, “you do not
want oxygen to mount to the head. You are always what we were under the
influence of the gas; you are always foolish!”

“Ah, who says that we were not wise then?” replied Michel Ardan.

After this philosophical reflection, the three friends set about
restoring the order of the projectile. Chickens and cock were
reinstated in their coop. But while proceeding with this operation,
Barbicane and his two companions had a most desired perception of a new
phenomenon. From the moment of leaving the earth, their own weight,
that of the projectile, and the objects it enclosed, had been subject
to an increasing diminution. If they could not prove this loss of the
projectile, a moment would arrive when it would be sensibly felt upon
themselves and the utensils and instruments they used.

It is needless to say that a scale would not show this loss; for the
weight destined to weight the object would have lost exactly as much as
the object itself; but a spring steelyard for example, the tension of
which was independent of the attraction, would have given a just
estimate of this loss.

We know that the attraction, otherwise called the weight, is in
proportion to the densities of the bodies, and inversely as the squares
of the distances. Hence this effect: If the earth had been alone in
space, if the other celestial bodies had been suddenly annihilated, the
projectile, according to Newton’s laws, would weigh less as it got
farther from the earth, but without ever losing its weight entirely,
for the terrestrial attraction would always have made itself felt, at
whatever distance.

But, in reality, a time must come when the projectile would no longer
be subject to the law of weight, after allowing for the other celestial
bodies whose effect could not be set down as zero. Indeed, the
projectile’s course was being traced between the earth and the moon. As
it distanced the earth, the terrestrial attraction diminished: but the
lunar attraction rose in proportion. There must come a point where
these two attractions would neutralize each other: the projectile would
possess weight no longer. If the moon’s and the earth’s densities had
been equal, this point would have been at an equal distance between the
two orbs. But taking the different densities into consideration, it was
easy to reckon that this point would be situated at 47/60ths of the
whole journey, _i.e._, at 78,514 leagues from the earth. At this point,
a body having no principle of speed or displacement in itself, would
remain immovable forever, being attracted equally by both orbs, and not
being drawn more toward one than toward the other.

Now if the projectile’s impulsive force had been correctly calculated,
it would attain this point without speed, having lost all trace of
weight, as well as all the objects within it. What would happen then?
Three hypotheses presented themselves.

1. Either it would retain a certain amount of motion, and pass the
point of equal attraction, and fall upon the moon by virtue of the
excess of the lunar attraction over the terrestrial.

2. Or, its speed failing, and unable to reach the point of equal
attraction, it would fall upon the moon by virtue of the excess of the
lunar attraction over the terrestrial.

3. Or, lastly, animated with sufficient speed to enable it to reach the
neutral point, but not sufficient to pass it, it would remain forever
suspended in that spot like the pretended tomb of Mahomet, between the
zenith and the nadir.

Such was their situation; and Barbicane clearly explained the
consequences to his traveling companions, which greatly interested
them. But how should they know when the projectile had reached this
neutral point situated at that distance, especially when neither
themselves, nor the objects enclosed in the projectile, would be any
longer subject to the laws of weight?

Up to this time, the travelers, while admitting that this action was
constantly decreasing, had not yet become sensible to its total
absence.

But that day, about eleven o’clock in the morning, Nicholl having
accidentally let a glass slip from his hand, the glass, instead of
falling, remained suspended in the air.

“Ah!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “that is rather an amusing piece of
natural philosophy.”

And immediately divers other objects, firearms and bottles, abandoned
to themselves, held themselves up as by enchantment. Diana too, placed
in space by Michel, reproduced, but without any trick, the wonderful
suspension practiced by Caston and Robert Houdin. Indeed the dog did
not seem to know that she was floating in air.

The three adventurous companions were surprised and stupefied, despite
their scientific reasonings. They felt themselves being carried into
the domain of wonders! they felt that weight was really wanting to
their bodies. If they stretched out their arms, they did not attempt to
fall. Their heads shook on their shoulders. Their feet no longer clung
to the floor of the projectile. They were like drunken men having no
stability in themselves.

Fancy has depicted men without reflection, others without shadow. But
here reality, by the neutralizations of attractive forces, produced men
in whom nothing had any weight, and who weighed nothing themselves.

Suddenly Michel, taking a spring, left the floor and remained suspended
in the air, like Murillo’s monk of the _Cusine des Anges_.

The two friends joined him instantly, and all three formed a miraculous
“Ascension” in the center of the projectile.

“Is it to be believed? is it probable? is it possible?” exclaimed
Michel; “and yet it is so. Ah! if Raphael had seen us thus, what an
‘Assumption’ he would have thrown upon canvas!”

“The ‘Assumption’ cannot last,” replied Barbicane. “If the projectile
passes the neutral point, the lunar attraction will draw us to the
moon.”

“Then our feet will be upon the roof,” replied Michel.

“No,” said Barbicane, “because the projectile’s center of gravity is
very low; it will only turn by degrees.”

“Then all our portables will be upset from top to bottom, that is a
fact.”

“Calm yourself, Michel,” replied Nicholl; “no upset is to be feared;
not a thing will move, for the projectile’s evolution will be
imperceptible.”

“Just so,” continued Barbicane; “and when it has passed the point of
equal attraction, its base, being the heavier, will draw it
perpendicularly to the moon; but, in order that this phenomenon should
take place, we must have passed the neutral line.”

“Pass the neutral line,” cried Michel; “then let us do as the sailors
do when they cross the equator.”

A slight side movement brought Michel back toward the padded side;
thence he took a bottle and glasses, placed them “in space” before his
companions, and, drinking merrily, they saluted the line with a triple
hurrah. The influence of these attractions scarcely lasted an hour; the
travelers felt themselves insensibly drawn toward the floor, and
Barbicane fancied that the conical end of the projectile was varying a
little from its normal direction toward the moon. By an inverse motion
the base was approaching first; the lunar attraction was prevailing
over the terrestrial; the fall toward the moon was beginning, almost
imperceptibly as yet, but by degrees the attractive force would become
stronger, the fall would be more decided, the projectile, drawn by its
base, would turn its cone to the earth, and fall with ever-increasing
speed on to the surface of the Selenite continent; their destination
would then be attained. Now nothing could prevent the success of their
enterprise, and Nicholl and Michel Ardan shared Barbicane’s joy.

Then they chatted of all the phenomena which had astonished them one
after the other, particularly the neutralization of the laws of weight.
Michel Ardan, always enthusiastic, drew conclusions which were purely
fanciful.

“Ah, my worthy friends,” he exclaimed, “what progress we should make if
on earth we could throw off some of that weight, some of that chain
which binds us to her; it would be the prisoner set at liberty; no more
fatigue of either arms or legs. Or, if it is true that in order to fly
on the earth’s surface, to keep oneself suspended in the air merely by
the play of the muscles, there requires a strength a hundred and fifty
times greater than that which we possess, a simple act of volition, a
caprice, would bear us into space, if attraction did not exist.”

“Just so,” said Nicholl, smiling; “if we could succeed in suppressing
weight as they suppress pain by anaesthesia, that would change the face
of modern society!”

“Yes,” cried Michel, full of his subject, “destroy weight, and no more
burdens!”

“Well said,” replied Barbicane; “but if nothing had any weight, nothing
would keep in its place, not even your hat on your head, worthy Michel;
nor your house, whose stones only adhere by weight; nor a boat, whose
stability on the waves is only caused by weight; not even the ocean,
whose waves would no longer be equalized by terrestrial attraction; and
lastly, not even the atmosphere, whose atoms, being no longer held in
their places, would disperse in space!”

“That is tiresome,” retorted Michel; “nothing like these matter-of-fact
people for bringing one back to the bare reality.”

“But console yourself, Michel,” continued Barbicane, “for if no orb
exists from whence all laws of weight are banished, you are at least
going to visit one where it is much less than on the earth.”

“The moon?”

“Yes, the moon, on whose surface objects weigh six times less than on
the earth, a phenomenon easy to prove.”

“And we shall feel it?” asked Michel.

“Evidently, as two hundred pounds will only weigh thirty pounds on the
surface of the moon.”

“And our muscular strength will not diminish?”

“Not at all; instead of jumping one yard high, you will rise eighteen
feet high.”

“But we shall be regular Herculeses in the moon!” exclaimed Michel.

“Yes,” replied Nicholl; “for if the height of the Selenites is in
proportion to the density of their globe, they will be scarcely a foot
high.”

“Lilliputians!” ejaculated Michel; “I shall play the part of Gulliver.
We are going to realize the fable of the giants. This is the advantage
of leaving one’s own planet and over-running the solar world.”

“One moment, Michel,” answered Barbicane; “if you wish to play the part
of Gulliver, only visit the inferior planets, such as Mercury, Venus,
or Mars, whose density is a little less than that of the earth; but do
not venture into the great planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune;
for there the order will be changed, and you will become Lilliputian.”

“And in the sun?”

“In the sun, if its density is thirteen hundred and twenty-four
thousand times greater, and the attraction is twenty-seven times
greater than on the surface of our globe, keeping everything in
proportion, the inhabitants ought to be at least two hundred feet
high.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Michel; “I should be nothing more than a pigmy, a
shrimp!”

“Gulliver with the giants,” said Nicholl.

“Just so,” replied Barbicane.

“And it would not be quite useless to carry some pieces of artillery to
defend oneself.”

“Good,” replied Nicholl; “your projectiles would have no effect on the
sun; they would fall back upon the earth after some minutes.”

“That is a strong remark.”

“It is certain,” replied Barbicane; “the attraction is so great on this
enormous orb, that an object weighing 70,000 pounds on the earth would
weigh but 1,920 pounds on the surface of the sun. If you were to fall
upon it you would weigh—let me see—about 5,000 pounds, a weight which
you would never be able to raise again.”

“The devil!” said Michel; “one would want a portable crane. However, we
will be satisfied with the moon for the present; there at least we
shall cut a great figure. We will see about the sun by and by.”




CHAPTER IX.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF A DEVIATION


Barbicane had now no fear of the issue of the journey, at least as far
as the projectile’s impulsive force was concerned; its own speed would
carry it beyond the neutral line; it would certainly not return to
earth; it would certainly not remain motionless on the line of
attraction. One single hypothesis remained to be realized, the arrival
of the projectile at its destination by the action of the lunar
attraction.

It was in reality a fall of 8,296 leagues on an orb, it is true, where
weight could only be reckoned at one sixth of terrestrial weight; a
formidable fall, nevertheless, and one against which every precaution
must be taken without delay.

These precautions were of two sorts, some to deaden the shock when the
projectile should touch the lunar soil, others to delay the fall, and
consequently make it less violent.

To deaden the shock, it was a pity that Barbicane was no longer able to
employ the means which had so ably weakened the shock at departure,
that is to say, by water used as springs and the partition breaks.

The partitions still existed, but water failed, for they could not use
their reserve, which was precious, in case during the first days the
liquid element should be found wanting on lunar soil.

And indeed this reserve would have been quite insufficient for a
spring. The layer of water stored in the projectile at the time of
starting upon their journey occupied no less than three feet in depth,
and spread over a surface of not less than fifty-four square feet.
Besides, the cistern did not contain one-fifth part of it; they must
therefore give up this efficient means of deadening the shock of
arrival. Happily, Barbicane, not content with employing water, had
furnished the movable disc with strong spring plugs, destined to lessen
the shock against the base after the breaking of the horizontal
partitions. These plugs still existed; they had only to readjust them
and replace the movable disc; every piece, easy to handle, as their
weight was now scarcely felt, was quickly mounted.

The different pieces were fitted without trouble, it being only a
matter of bolts and screws; tools were not wanting, and soon the
reinstated disc lay on steel plugs, like a table on its legs. One
inconvenience resulted from the replacing of the disc, the lower window
was blocked up; thus it was impossible for the travelers to observe the
moon from that opening while they were being precipitated
perpendicularly upon her; but they were obliged to give it up; even by
the side openings they could still see vast lunar regions, as an
aeronaut sees the earth from his car.

This replacing of the disc was at least an hour’s work. It was past
twelve when all preparations were finished. Barbicane took fresh
observations on the inclination of the projectile, but to his annoyance
it had not turned over sufficiently for its fall; it seemed to take a
curve parallel to the lunar disc. The orb of night shone splendidly
into space, while opposite, the orb of day blazed with fire.

Their situation began to make them uneasy.

“Are we reaching our destination?” said Nicholl.

“Let us act as if we were about reaching it,” replied Barbicane.

“You are sceptical,” retorted Michel Ardan. “We shall arrive, and that,
too, quicker than we like.”

This answer brought Barbicane back to his preparations, and he occupied
himself with placing the contrivances intended to break their descent.
We may remember the scene of the meeting held at Tampa Town, in
Florida, when Captain Nicholl came forward as Barbicane’s enemy and
Michel Ardan’s adversary. To Captain Nicholl’s maintaining that the
projectile would smash like glass, Michel replied that he would break
their fall by means of rockets properly placed.

Thus, powerful fireworks, taking their starting-point from the base and
bursting outside, could, by producing a recoil, check to a certain
degree the projectile’s speed. These rockets were to burn in space, it
is true; but oxygen would not fail them, for they could supply
themselves with it, like the lunar volcanoes, the burning of which has
never yet been stopped by the want of atmosphere round the moon.

Barbicane had accordingly supplied himself with these fireworks,
enclosed in little steel guns, which could be screwed on to the base of
the projectile. Inside, these guns were flush with the bottom; outside,
they protruded about eighteen inches. There were twenty of them. An
opening left in the disc allowed them to light the match with which
each was provided. All the effect was felt outside. The burning mixture
had already been rammed into each gun. They had, then, nothing to do
but raise the metallic buffers fixed in the base, and replace them by
the guns, which fitted closely in their places.

This new work was finished about three o’clock, and after taking all
these precautions there remained but to wait. But the projectile was
perceptibly nearing the moon, and evidently succumbed to her influence
to a certain degree; though its own velocity also drew it in an oblique
direction. From these conflicting influences resulted a line which
might become a tangent. But it was certain that the projectile would
not fall directly on the moon; for its lower part, by reason of its
weight, ought to be turned toward her.

Barbicane’s uneasiness increased as he saw his projectile resist the
influence of gravitation. The Unknown was opening before him, the
Unknown in interplanetary space. The man of science thought he had
foreseen the only three hypotheses possible—the return to the earth,
the return to the moon, or stagnation on the neutral line; and here a
fourth hypothesis, big with all the terrors of the Infinite, surged up
inopportunely. To face it without flinching, one must be a resolute
savant like Barbicane, a phlegmatic being like Nicholl, or an audacious
adventurer like Michel Ardan.

Conversation was started upon this subject. Other men would have
considered the question from a practical point of view; they would have
asked themselves whither their projectile carriage was carrying them.
Not so with these; they sought for the cause which produced this
effect.

“So we have become diverted from our route,” said Michel; “but why?”

“I very much fear,” answered Nicholl, “that, in spite of all
precautions taken, the Columbiad was not fairly pointed. An error,
however small, would be enough to throw us out of the moon’s
attraction.”

“Then they must have aimed badly?” asked Michel.

“I do not think so,” replied Barbicane. “The perpendicularity of the
gun was exact, its direction to the zenith of the spot incontestible;
and the moon passing to the zenith of the spot, we ought to reach it at
the full. There is another reason, but it escapes me.”

“Are we not arriving too late?” asked Nicholl.

“Too late?” said Barbicane.

“Yes,” continued Nicholl. “The Cambridge Observatory’s note says that
the transit ought to be accomplished in ninety-seven hours thirteen
minutes and twenty seconds; which means to say, that _sooner_ the moon
will _not_ be at the point indicated, and _later_ it will have passed
it.”

“True,” replied Barbicane. “But we started the 1st of December, at
thirteen minutes and twenty-five seconds to eleven at night; and we
ought to arrive on the 5th at midnight, at the exact moment when the
moon would be full; and we are now at the 5th of December. It is now
half-past three in the evening; half-past eight ought to see us at the
end of our journey. Why do we not arrive?”

“Might it not be an excess of speed?” answered Nicholl; “for we know
now that its initial velocity was greater than they supposed.”

“No! a hundred times, no!” replied Barbicane. “An excess of speed, if
the direction of the projectile had been right, would not have
prevented us reaching the moon. No, there has been a deviation. We have
been turned out of our course.”

“By whom? by what?” asked Nicholl.

“I cannot say,” replied Barbicane.

“Very well, then, Barbicane,” said Michel, “do you wish to know my
opinion on the subject of finding out this deviation?”

“Speak.”

“I would not give half a dollar to know it. That we have deviated is a
fact. Where we are going matters little; we shall soon see. Since we
are being borne along in space we shall end by falling into some center
of attraction or other.”

Michel Ardan’s indifference did not content Barbicane. Not that he was
uneasy about the future, but he wanted to know at any cost _why_ his
projectile had deviated.

But the projectile continued its course sideways to the moon, and with
it the mass of things thrown out. Barbicane could even prove, by the
elevations which served as landmarks upon the moon, which was only two
thousand leagues distant, that its speed was becoming uniform—fresh
proof that there was no fall. Its impulsive force still prevailed over
the lunar attraction, but the projectile’s course was certainly
bringing it nearer to the moon, and they might hope that at a nearer
point the weight, predominating, would cause a decided fall.

The three friends, having nothing better to do, continued their
observations; but they could not yet determine the topographical
position of the satellite; every relief was leveled under the
reflection of the solar rays.

They watched thus through the side windows until eight o’clock at
night. The moon had grown so large in their eyes that it filled half of
the firmament. The sun on one side, and the orb of night on the other,
flooded the projectile with light.

At that moment Barbicane thought he could estimate the distance which
separated them from their aim at no more than 700 leagues. The speed of
the projectile seemed to him to be more than 200 yards, or about 170
leagues a second. Under the centripetal force, the base of the
projectile tended toward the moon; but the centrifugal still prevailed;
and it was probable that its rectilineal course would be changed to a
curve of some sort, the nature of which they could not at present
determine.

Barbicane was still seeking the solution of his insoluble problem.
Hours passed without any result. The projectile was evidently nearing
the moon, but it was also evident that it would never reach her. As to
the nearest distance at which it would pass her, that must be the
result of two forces, attraction and repulsion, affecting its motion.

“I ask but one thing,” said Michel; “that we may pass near enough to
penetrate her secrets.”

“Cursed be the thing that has caused our projectile to deviate from its
course,” cried Nicholl.

And, as if a light had suddenly broken in upon his mind, Barbicane
answered, “Then cursed be the meteor which crossed our path.”

“What?” said Michel Ardan.

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicholl.

“I mean,” said Barbicane in a decided tone, “I mean that our deviation
is owing solely to our meeting with this erring body.”

“But it did not even brush us as it passed,” said Michel.

“What does that matter? Its mass, compared to that of our projectile,
was enormous, and its attraction was enough to influence our course.”

“So little?” cried Nicholl.

“Yes, Nicholl; but however little it might be,” replied Barbicane, “in
a distance of 84,000 leagues, it wanted no more to make us miss the
moon.”




CHAPTER X.
THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON


Barbicane had evidently hit upon the only plausible reason of this
deviation. However slight it might have been, it had sufficed to modify
the course of the projectile. It was a fatality. The bold attempt had
miscarried by a fortuitous circumstance; and unless by some exceptional
event, they could now never reach the moon’s disc.

Would they pass near enough to be able to solve certain physical and
geological questions until then insoluble? This was the question, and
the only one, which occupied the minds of these bold travelers. As to
the fate in store for themselves, they did not even dream of it.

But what would become of them amid these infinite solitudes, these who
would soon want air? A few more days, and they would fall stifled in
this wandering projectile. But some days to these intrepid fellows was
a century; and they devoted all their time to observe that moon which
they no longer hoped to reach.

The distance which had then separated the projectile from the satellite
was estimated at about two hundred leagues. Under these conditions, as
regards the visibility of the details of the disc, the travelers were
farther from the moon than are the inhabitants of earth with their
powerful telescopes.

Indeed, we know that the instrument mounted by Lord Rosse at
Parsonstown, which magnifies 6,500 times, brings the moon to within an
apparent distance of sixteen leagues. And more than that, with the
powerful one set up at Long’s Peak, the orb of night, magnified 48,000
times, is brought to within less than two leagues, and objects having a
diameter of thirty feet are seen very distinctly. So that, at this
distance, the topographical details of the moon, observed without
glasses, could not be determined with precision. The eye caught the
vast outline of those immense depressions inappropriately called
“seas,” but they could not recognize their nature. The prominence of
the mountains disappeared under the splendid irradiation produced by
the reflection of the solar rays. The eye, dazzled as if it was leaning
over a bath of molten silver, turned from it involuntarily; but the
oblong form of the orb was quite clear. It appeared like a gigantic
egg, with the small end turned toward the earth. Indeed the moon,
liquid and pliable in the first days of its formation, was originally a
perfect sphere; but being soon drawn within the attraction of the
earth, it became elongated under the influence of gravitation. In
becoming a satellite, she lost her native purity of form; her center of
gravity was in advance of the center of her figure; and from this fact
some savants draw the conclusion that the air and water had taken
refuge on the opposite surface of the moon, which is never seen from
the earth. This alteration in the primitive form of the satellite was
only perceptible for a few moments. The distance of the projectile from
the moon diminished very rapidly under its speed, though that was much
less than its initial velocity—but eight or nine times greater than
that which propels our express trains. The oblique course of the
projectile, from its very obliquity, gave Michel Ardan some hopes of
striking the lunar disc at some point or other. He could not think that
they would never reach it. No! he could not believe it; and this
opinion he often repeated. But Barbicane, who was a better judge,
always answered him with merciless logic.

“No, Michel, no! We can only reach the moon by a fall, and we are not
falling. The centripetal force keeps us under the moon’s influence, but
the centrifugal force draws us irresistibly away from it.”

This was said in a tone which quenched Michel Ardan’s last hope.

The portion of the moon which the projectile was nearing was the
northern hemisphere, that which the selenographic maps place below; for
these maps are generally drawn after the outline given by the glasses,
and we know that they reverse the objects. Such was the _Mappa
Selenographica_ of Boeer and Moedler which Barbicane consulted. This
northern hemisphere presented vast plains, dotted with isolated
mountains.

At midnight the moon was full. At that precise moment the travelers
should have alighted upon it, if the mischievous meteor had not
diverted their course. The orb was exactly in the condition determined
by the Cambridge Observatory. It was mathematically at its perigee, and
at the zenith of the twenty-eighth parallel. An observer placed at the
bottom of the enormous Columbiad, pointed perpendicularly to the
horizon, would have framed the moon in the mouth of the gun. A straight
line drawn through the axis of the piece would have passed through the
center of the orb of night. It is needless to say, that during the
night of the 5th-6th of December, the travelers took not an instant’s
rest. Could they close their eyes when so near this new world? No! All
their feelings were concentrated in one single thought:—See!
Representatives of the earth, of humanity, past and present, all
centered in them! It is through their eyes that the human race look at
these lunar regions, and penetrate the secrets of their satellite! A
strange emotion filled their hearts as they went from one window to the
other. Their observations, reproduced by Barbicane, were rigidly
determined. To take them, they had glasses; to correct them, maps.

As regards the optical instruments at their disposal, they had
excellent marine glasses specially constructed for this journey. They
possessed magnifying powers of 100. They would thus have brought the
moon to within a distance (apparent) of less than 2,000 leagues from
the earth. But then, at a distance which for three hours in the morning
did not exceed sixty-five miles, and in a medium free from all
atmospheric disturbances, these instruments could reduce the lunar
surface to within less than 1,500 yards!




CHAPTER XI.
FANCY AND REALITY


“Have you ever seen the moon?” asked a professor, ironically, of one of
his pupils.

“No, sir!” replied the pupil, still more ironically, “but I must say I
have heard it spoken of.”

In one sense, the pupil’s witty answer might be given by a large
majority of sublunary beings. How many people have heard speak of the
moon who have never seen it—at least through a glass or a telescope!
How many have never examined the map of their satellite!

In looking at a selenographic map, one peculiarity strikes us. Contrary
to the arrangement followed for that of the Earth and Mars, the
continents occupy more particularly the southern hemisphere of the
lunar globe. These continents do not show such decided, clear, and
regular boundary lines as South America, Africa, and the Indian
peninsula. Their angular, capricious, and deeply indented coasts are
rich in gulfs and peninsulas. They remind one of the confusion in the
islands of the Sound, where the land is excessively indented. If
navigation ever existed on the surface of the moon, it must have been
wonderfully difficult and dangerous; and we may well pity the Selenite
sailors and hydrographers; the former, when they came upon these
perilous coasts, the latter when they took the soundings of its stormy
banks.

We may also notice that, on the lunar sphere, the south pole is much
more continental than the north pole. On the latter, there is but one
slight strip of land separated from other continents by vast seas.
Toward the south, continents clothe almost the whole of the hemisphere.
It is even possible that the Selenites have already planted the flag on
one of their poles, while Franklin, Ross, Kane, Dumont, d’Urville, and
Lambert have never yet been able to attain that unknown point of the
terrestrial globe.

As to islands, they are numerous on the surface of the moon. Nearly all
oblong or circular, and as if traced with the compass, they seem to
form one vast archipelago, equal to that charming group lying between
Greece and Asia Minor, and which mythology in ancient times adorned
with most graceful legends. Involuntarily the names of Naxos, Tenedos,
and Carpathos, rise before the mind, and we seek vainly for Ulysses’
vessel or the “clipper” of the Argonauts. So at least it was in Michel
Ardan’s eyes. To him it was a Grecian archipelago that he saw on the
map. To the eyes of his matter-of-fact companions, the aspect of these
coasts recalled rather the parceled-out land of New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia, and where the Frenchman discovered traces of the heroes of
fable, these Americans were marking the most favorable points for the
establishment of stores in the interests of lunar commerce and
industry.

After wandering over these vast continents, the eye is attracted by the
still greater seas. Not only their formation, but their situation and
aspect remind one of the terrestrial oceans; but again, as on earth,
these seas occupy the greater portion of the globe. But in point of
fact, these are not liquid spaces, but plains, the nature of which the
travelers hoped soon to determine. Astronomers, we must allow, have
graced these pretended seas with at least odd names, which science has
respected up to the present time. Michel Ardan was right when he
compared this map to a “Tendre card,” got up by a Scudary or a Cyrano
de Bergerac. “Only,” said he, “it is no longer the sentimental card of
the seventeenth century, it is the card of life, very neatly divided
into two parts, one feminine, the other masculine; the right hemisphere
for woman, the left for man.”

In speaking thus, Michel made his prosaic companions shrug their
shoulders. Barbicane and Nicholl looked upon the lunar map from a very
different point of view to that of their fantastic friend.
Nevertheless, their fantastic friend was a little in the right. Judge
for yourselves.

In the left hemisphere stretches the “Sea of Clouds,” where human
reason is so often shipwrecked. Not far off lies the “Sea of Rains,”
fed by all the fever of existence. Near this is the “Sea of Storms,”
where man is ever fighting against his passions, which too often gain
the victory. Then, worn out by deceit, treasons, infidelity, and the
whole body of terrestrial misery, what does he find at the end of his
career? that vast “Sea of Humors,” barely softened by some drops of the
waters from the “Gulf of Dew!” Clouds, rain, storms, and humors—does
the life of man contain aught but these? and is it not summed up in
these four words?

The right hemisphere, “dedicated to the ladies,” encloses smaller seas,
whose significant names contain every incident of a feminine existence.
There is the “Sea of Serenity,” over which the young girl bends; “The
Lake of Dreams,” reflecting a joyous future; “The Sea of Nectar,” with
its waves of tenderness and breezes of love; “The Sea of Fruitfulness;”
“The Sea of Crises;” then the “Sea of Vapors,” whose dimensions are
perhaps a little too confined; and lastly, that vast “Sea of
Tranquillity,” in which every false passion, every useless dream, every
unsatisfied desire is at length absorbed, and whose waves emerge
peacefully into the “Lake of Death!”

What a strange succession of names! What a singular division of the
moon’s two hemispheres, joined to one another like man and woman, and
forming that sphere of life carried into space! And was not the
fantastic Michel right in thus interpreting the fancies of the ancient
astronomers? But while his imagination thus roved over “the seas,” his
grave companions were considering things more geographically. They were
learning this new world by heart. They were measuring angles and
diameters.




CHAPTER XII.
OROGRAPHIC DETAILS


The course taken by the projectile, as we have before remarked, was
bearing it toward the moon’s northern hemisphere. The travelers were
far from the central point which they would have struck, had their
course not been subject to an irremediable deviation. It was past
midnight; and Barbicane then estimated the distance at seven hundred
and fifty miles, which was a little greater than the length of the
lunar radius, and which would diminish as it advanced nearer to the
North Pole. The projectile was then not at the altitude of the equator;
but across the tenth parallel, and from that latitude, carefully taken
on the map to the pole, Barbicane and his two companions were able to
observe the moon under the most favorable conditions. Indeed, by means
of glasses, the above-named distance was reduced to little more than
fourteen miles. The telescope of the Rocky Mountains brought the moon
much nearer; but the terrestrial atmosphere singularly lessened its
power. Thus Barbicane, posted in his projectile, with the glasses to
his eyes, could seize upon details which were almost imperceptible to
earthly observers.

“My friends,” said the president, in a serious voice, “I do not know
whither we are going; I do not know if we shall ever see the
terrestrial globe again. Nevertheless, let us proceed as if our work
would one day by useful to our fellow-men. Let us keep our minds free
from every other consideration. We are astronomers; and this projectile
is a room in the Cambridge University, carried into space. Let us make
our observations!”

This said, work was begun with great exactness; and they faithfully
reproduced the different aspects of the moon, at the different
distances which the projectile reached.

At the time that the projectile was as high as the tenth parallel,
north latitude, it seemed rigidly to follow the twentieth degree, east
longitude. We must here make one important remark with regard to the
map by which they were taking observations. In the selenographical maps
where, on account of the reversing of the objects by the glasses, the
south is above and the north below, it would seem natural that, on
account of that inversion, the east should be to the left hand, and the
west to the right. But it is not so. If the map were turned upside
down, showing the moon as we see her, the east would be to the left,
and the west to the right, contrary to that which exists on terrestrial
maps. The following is the reason of this anomaly. Observers in the
northern hemisphere (say in Europe) see the moon in the south—according
to them. When they take observations, they turn their backs to the
north, the reverse position to that which they occupy when they study a
terrestrial map. As they turn their backs to the north, the east is on
their left, and the west to their right. To observers in the southern
hemisphere (Patagonia for example), the moon’s west would be quite to
their left, and the east to their right, as the south is behind them.
Such is the reason of the apparent reversing of these two cardinal
points, and we must bear it in mind in order to be able to follow
President Barbicane’s observations.

With the help of Boeer and Moedler’s _Mappa Selenographica_, the
travelers were able at once to recognize that portion of the disc
enclosed within the field of their glasses.

“What are we looking at, at this moment?” asked Michel.

“At the northern part of the ‘Sea of Clouds,’” answered Barbicane. “We
are too far off to recognize its nature. Are these plains composed of
arid sand, as the first astronomer maintained? Or are they nothing but
immense forests, according to M. Warren de la Rue’s opinion, who gives
the moon an atmosphere, though a very low and a very dense one? That we
shall know by and by. We must affirm nothing until we are in a position
to do so.”

This “Sea of Clouds” is rather doubtfully marked out upon the maps. It
is supposed that these vast plains are strewn with blocks of lava from
the neighboring volcanoes on its right, Ptolemy, Purbach, Arzachel. But
the projectile was advancing, and sensibly nearing it. Soon there
appeared the heights which bound this sea at this northern limit.
Before them rose a mountain radiant with beauty, the top of which
seemed lost in an eruption of solar rays.

“That is—?” asked Michel.

“Copernicus,” replied Barbicane.

“Let us see Copernicus.”

This mount, situated in 9° north latitude and 20° east longitude, rose
to a height of 10,600 feet above the surface of the moon. It is quite
visible from the earth; and astronomers can study it with ease,
particularly during the phase between the last quarter and the new
moon, because then the shadows are thrown lengthways from east to west,
allowing them to measure the heights.

This Copernicus forms the most important of the radiating system,
situated in the southern hemisphere, according to Tycho Brahé. It rises
isolated like a gigantic lighthouse on that portion of the “Sea of
Clouds,” which is bounded by the “Sea of Tempests,” thus lighting by
its splendid rays two oceans at a time. It was a sight without an
equal, those long luminous trains, so dazzling in the full moon, and
which, passing the boundary chain on the north, extends to the “Sea of
Rains.” At one o’clock of the terrestrial morning, the projectile, like
a balloon borne into space, overlooked the top of this superb mount.
Barbicane could recognize perfectly its chief features. Copernicus is
comprised in the series of ringed mountains of the first order, in the
division of great circles. Like Kepler and Aristarchus, which overlook
the “Ocean of Tempests,” sometimes it appeared like a brilliant point
through the cloudy light, and was taken for a volcano in activity. But
it is only an extinct one—like all on that side of the moon. Its
circumference showed a diameter of about twenty-two leagues. The
glasses discovered traces of stratification produced by successive
eruptions, and the neighborhood was strewn with volcanic remains which
still choked some of the craters.

“There exist,” said Barbicane, “several kinds of circles on the surface
of the moon, and it is easy to see that Copernicus belongs to the
radiating class. If we were nearer, we should see the cones bristling
on the inside, which in former times were so many fiery mouths. A
curious arrangement, and one without an exception on the lunar disc, is
that the interior surface of these circles is the reverse of the
exterior, and contrary to the form taken by terrestrial craters. It
follows, then, that the general curve of the bottom of these circles
gives a sphere of a smaller diameter than that of the moon.”

“And why this peculiar disposition?” asked Nicholl.

“We do not know,” replied Barbicane.

“What splendid radiation!” said Michel. “One could hardly see a finer
spectacle, I think.”

“What would you say, then,” replied Barbicane, “if chance should bear
us toward the southern hemisphere?”

“Well, I should say that it was still more beautiful,” retorted Michel
Ardan.

At this moment the projectile hung perpendicularly over the circle. The
circumference of Copernicus formed almost a perfect circle, and its
steep escarpments were clearly defined. They could even distinguish a
second ringed enclosure. Around spread a grayish plain, of a wild
aspect, on which every relief was marked in yellow. At the bottom of
the circle, as if enclosed in a jewel case, sparkled for one instant
two or three eruptive cones, like enormous dazzling gems. Toward the
north the escarpments were lowered by a depression which would probably
have given access to the interior of the crater.

In passing over the surrounding plains, Barbicane noticed a great
number of less important mountains; and among others a little ringed
one called Guy Lussac, the breadth of which measured twelve miles.

Toward the south, the plain was very flat, without one elevation,
without one projection. Toward the north, on the contrary, till where
it was bounded by the “Sea of Storms,” it resembled a liquid surface
agitated by a storm, of which the hills and hollows formed a succession
of waves suddenly congealed. Over the whole of this, and in all
directions, lay the luminous lines, all converging to the summit of
Copernicus.

The travelers discussed the origin of these strange rays; but they
could not determine their nature any more than terrestrial observers.

“But why,” said Nicholl, “should not these rays be simply spurs of
mountains which reflect more vividly the light of the sun?”

“No,” replied Barbicane; “if it was so, under certain conditions of the
moon, these ridges would cast shadows, and they do not cast any.”

And indeed, these rays only appeared when the orb of day was in
opposition to the moon, and disappeared as soon as its rays became
oblique.

“But how have they endeavored to explain these lines of light?” asked
Michel; “for I cannot believe that savants would ever be stranded for
want of an explanation.”

“Yes,” replied Barbicane; “Herschel has put forward an opinion, but he
did not venture to affirm it.”

“Never mind. What was the opinion?”

“He thought that these rays might be streams of cooled lava which shone
when the sun beat straight upon them. It may be so; but nothing can be
less certain. Besides, if we pass nearer to Tycho, we shall be in a
better position to find out the cause of this radiation.”

“Do you know, my friends, what that plain, seen from the height we are
at, resembles?” said Michel.

“No,” replied Nicholl.

“Very well; with all those pieces of lava lengthened like rockets, it
resembles an immense game of spelikans thrown pellmell. There wants but
the hook to pull them out one by one.”

“Do be serious,” said Barbicane.

“Well, let us be serious,” replied Michel quietly; “and instead of
spelikans, let us put bones. This plain, would then be nothing but an
immense cemetery, on which would repose the mortal remains of thousands
of extinct generations. Do you prefer that high-flown comparison?”

“One is as good as the other,” retorted Barbicane.

“My word, you are difficult to please,” answered Michel.

“My worthy friend,” continued the matter-of-fact Barbicane, “it matters
but little what it _resembles_, when we do not know what it _is_.”

“Well answered,” exclaimed Michel. “That will teach me to reason with
savants.”

But the projectile continued to advance with almost uniform speed
around the lunar disc. The travelers, we may easily imagine, did not
dream of taking a moment’s rest. Every minute changed the landscape
which fled from beneath their gaze. About half past one o’clock in the
morning, they caught a glimpse of the tops of another mountain.
Barbicane, consulting his map, recognized Eratosthenes.

It was a ringed mountain nine thousand feet high, and one of those
circles so numerous on this satellite. With regard to this, Barbicane
related Kepler’s singular opinion on the formation of circles.
According to that celebrated mathematician, these crater-like cavities
had been dug by the hand of man.

“For what purpose?” asked Nicholl.

“For a very natural one,” replied Barbicane. “The Selenites might have
undertaken these immense works and dug these enormous holes for a
refuge and shield from the solar rays which beat upon them during
fifteen consecutive days.”

“The Selenites are not fools,” said Michel.

“A singular idea,” replied Nicholl; “but it is probable that Kepler did
not know the true dimensions of these circles, for the digging of them
would have been the work of giants quite impossible for the Selenites.”

“Why? if weight on the moon’s surface is six times less than on the
earth?” said Michel.

“But if the Selenites are six times smaller?” retorted Nicholl.

“And if there are _no_ Selenites?” added Barbicane.

This put an end to the discussion.

Soon Eratosthenes disappeared under the horizon without the projectile
being sufficiently near to allow close observation. This mountain
separated the Apennines from the Carpathians. In the lunar orography
they have discerned some chains of mountains, which are chiefly
distributed over the northern hemisphere. Some, however, occupy certain
portions of the southern hemisphere also.

About two o’clock in the morning Barbicane found that they were above
the twentieth lunar parallel. The distance of the projectile from the
moon was not more than six hundred miles. Barbicane, now perceiving
that the projectile was steadily approaching the lunar disc, did not
despair; if not of reaching her, at least of discovering the secrets of
her configuration.




CHAPTER XIII.
LUNAR LANDSCAPES


At half-past two in the morning, the projectile was over the thirteenth
lunar parallel and at the effective distance of five hundred miles,
reduced by the glasses to five. It still seemed impossible, however,
that it could ever touch any part of the disc. Its motive speed,
comparatively so moderate, was inexplicable to President Barbicane. At
that distance from the moon it must have been considerable, to enable
it to bear up against her attraction. Here was a phenomenon the cause
of which escaped them again. Besides, time failed them to investigate
the cause. All lunar relief was defiling under the eyes of the
travelers, and they would not lose a single detail.

Under the glasses the disc appeared at the distance of five miles. What
would an aeronaut, borne to this distance from the earth, distinguish
on its surface? We cannot say, since the greatest ascension has not
been more than 25,000 feet.

This, however, is an exact description of what Barbicane and his
companions saw at this height. Large patches of different colors
appeared on the disc. Selenographers are not agreed upon the nature of
these colors. There are several, and rather vividly marked. Julius
Schmidt pretends that, if the terrestrial oceans were dried up, a
Selenite observer could not distinguish on the globe a greater
diversity of shades between the oceans and the continental plains than
those on the moon present to a terrestrial observer. According to him,
the color common to the vast plains known by the name of “seas” is a
dark gray mixed with green and brown. Some of the large craters present
the same appearance. Barbicane knew this opinion of the German
selenographer, an opinion shared by Boeer and Moedler. Observation has
proved that right was on their side, and not on that of some
astronomers who admit the existence of only gray on the moon’s surface.
In some parts green was very distinct, such as springs, according to
Julius Schmidt, from the seas of “Serenity and Humors.” Barbicane also
noticed large craters, without any interior cones, which shed a bluish
tint similar to the reflection of a sheet of steel freshly polished.
These colors belonged really to the lunar disc, and did not result, as
some astronomers say, either from the imperfection in the objective of
the glasses or from the interposition of the terrestrial atmosphere.

Not a doubt existed in Barbicane’s mind with regard to it, as he
observed it through space, and so could not commit any optical error.
He considered the establishment of this fact as an acquisition to
science. Now, were these shades of green, belonging to tropical
vegetation, kept up by a low dense atmosphere? He could not yet say.

Farther on, he noticed a reddish tint, quite defined. The same shade
had before been observed at the bottom of an isolated enclosure, known
by the name of Lichtenburg’s circle, which is situated near the
Hercynian mountains, on the borders of the moon; but they could not
tell the nature of it.

They were not more fortunate with regard to another peculiarity of the
disc, for they could not decide upon the cause of it.

Michel Ardan was watching near the president, when he noticed long
white lines, vividly lighted up by the direct rays of the sun. It was a
succession of luminous furrows, very different from the radiation of
Copernicus not long before; they ran parallel with each other.

Michel, with his usual readiness, hastened to exclaim:

“Look there! cultivated fields!”

“Cultivated fields!” replied Nicholl, shrugging his shoulders.

“Plowed, at all events,” retorted Michel Ardan; “but what laborers
those Selenites must be, and what giant oxen they must harness to their
plow to cut such furrows!”

“They are not furrows,” said Barbicane; “they are _rifts_.”

“Rifts? stuff!” replied Michel mildly; “but what do you mean by ‘rifts’
in the scientific world?”

Barbicane immediately enlightened his companion as to what he knew
about lunar rifts. He knew that they were a kind of furrow found on
every part of the disc which was not mountainous; that these furrows,
generally isolated, measured from 400 to 500 leagues in length; that
their breadth varied from 1,000 to 1,500 yards, and that their borders
were strictly parallel; but he knew nothing more either of their
formation or their nature.

Barbicane, through his glasses, observed these rifts with great
attention. He noticed that their borders were formed of steep
declivities; they were long parallel ramparts, and with some small
amount of imagination he might have admitted the existence of long
lines of fortifications, raised by Selenite engineers. Of these
different rifts some were perfectly straight, as if cut by a line;
others were slightly curved, though still keeping their borders
parallel; some crossed each other, some cut through craters; here they
wound through ordinary cavities, such as Posidonius or Petavius; there
they wound through the seas, such as the “Sea of Serenity.”

These natural accidents naturally excited the imaginations of these
terrestrial astronomers. The first observations had not discovered
these rifts. Neither Hévelius, Cassin, La Hire, nor Herschel seemed to
have known them. It was Schroeter who in 1789 first drew attention to
them. Others followed who studied them, as Pastorff, Gruithuysen,
Boeer, and Moedler. At this time their number amounts to seventy; but,
if they have been counted, their nature has not yet been determined;
they are certainly _not_ fortifications, any more than they are the
ancient beds of dried-up rivers; for, on one side, the waters, so
slight on the moon’s surface, could never have worn such drains for
themselves; and, on the other, they often cross craters of great
elevation.

We must, however, allow that Michel Ardan had “an idea,” and that,
without knowing it, he coincided in that respect with Julius Schmidt.

“Why,” said he, “should not these unaccountable appearances be simply
phenomena of vegetation?”

“What do you mean?” asked Barbicane quickly.

“Do not excite yourself, my worthy president,” replied Michel; “might
it not be possible that the dark lines forming that bastion were rows
of trees regularly placed?”

“You stick to your vegetation, then?” said Barbicane.

“I like,” retorted Michel Ardan, “to explain what you savants cannot
explain; at least my hypotheses has the advantage of indicating why
these rifts disappear, or seem to disappear, at certain seasons.”

“And for what reason?”

“For the reason that the trees become invisible when they lose their
leaves, and visible again when they regain them.”

“Your explanation is ingenious, my dear companion,” replied Barbicane,
“but inadmissible.”

“Why?”

“Because, so to speak, there are no seasons on the moon’s surface, and
that, consequently, the phenomena of vegetation of which you speak
cannot occur.”

Indeed, the slight obliquity of the lunar axis keeps the sun at an
almost equal height in every latitude. Above the equatorial regions the
radiant orb almost invariably occupies the zenith, and does not pass
the limits of the horizon in the polar regions; thus, according to each
region, there reigns a perpetual winter, spring, summer, or autumn, as
in the planet Jupiter, whose axis is but little inclined upon its
orbit.

What origin do they attribute to these rifts? That is a question
difficult to solve. They are certainly anterior to the formation of
craters and circles, for several have introduced themselves by breaking
through their circular ramparts. Thus it may be that, contemporary with
the later geological epochs, they are due to the expansion of natural
forces.

But the projectile had now attained the fortieth degree of lunar
latitude, at a distance not exceeding 40 miles. Through the glasses
objects appeared to be only four miles distant.

At this point, under their feet, rose Mount Helicon, 1,520 feet high,
and round about the left rose moderate elevations, enclosing a small
portion of the “Sea of Rains,” under the name of the Gulf of Iris. The
terrestrial atmosphere would have to be one hundred and seventy times
more transparent than it is, to allow astronomers to make perfect
observations on the moon’s surface; but in the void in which the
projectile floated no fluid interposed itself between the eye of the
observer and the object observed. And more, Barbicane found himself
carried to a greater distance than the most powerful telescopes had
ever done before, either that of Lord Rosse or that of the Rocky
Mountains. He was, therefore, under extremely favorable conditions for
solving that great question of the habitability of the moon; but the
solution still escaped him; he could distinguish nothing but desert
beds, immense plains, and toward the north, arid mountains. Not a work
betrayed the hand of man; not a ruin marked his course; not a group of
animals was to be seen indicating life, even in an inferior degree. In
no part was there life, in no part was there an appearance of
vegetation. Of the three kingdoms which share the terrestrial globe
between them, one alone was represented on the lunar and that the
mineral.

“Ah, indeed!” said Michel Ardan, a little out of countenance; “then you
see no one?”

“No,” answered Nicholl; “up to this time, not a man, not an animal, not
a tree! After all, whether the atmosphere has taken refuge at the
bottom of cavities, in the midst of the circles, or even on the
opposite face of the moon, we cannot decide.”

“Besides,” added Barbicane, “even to the most piercing eye a man cannot
be distinguished farther than three and a half miles off; so that, if
there are any Selenites, they can see our projectile, but we cannot see
them.”

Toward four in the morning, at the height of the fiftieth parallel, the
distance was reduced to 300 miles. To the left ran a line of mountains
capriciously shaped, lying in the full light. To the right, on the
contrary, lay a black hollow resembling a vast well, unfathomable and
gloomy, drilled into the lunar soil.

This hole was the “Black Lake”; it was Pluto, a deep circle which can
be conveniently studied from the earth, between the last quarter and
the new moon, when the shadows fall from west to east.

This black color is rarely met with on the surface of the satellite. As
yet it has only been recognized in the depths of the circle of
Endymion, to the east of the “Cold Sea,” in the northern hemisphere,
and at the bottom of Grimaldi’s circle, on the equator, toward the
eastern border of the orb.

Pluto is an annular mountain, situated in 51° north latitude, and 9°
east longitude. Its circuit is forty-seven miles long and thirty-two
broad.

Barbicane regretted that they were not passing directly above this vast
opening. There was an abyss to fathom, perhaps some mysterious
phenomenon to surprise; but the projectile’s course could not be
altered. They must rigidly submit. They could not guide a balloon,
still less a projectile, when once enclosed within its walls. Toward
five in the morning the northern limits of the “Sea of Rains” was at
length passed. The mounts of Condamine and Fontenelle remained—one on
the right, the other on the left. That part of the disc beginning with
60° was becoming quite mountainous. The glasses brought them to within
two miles, less than that separating the summit of Mont Blanc from the
level of the sea. The whole region was bristling with spikes and
circles. Toward the 60° Philolaus stood predominant at a height of
5,550 feet with its elliptical crater, and seen from this distance, the
disc showed a very fantastical appearance. Landscapes were presented to
the eye under very different conditions from those on the earth, and
also very inferior to them.

The moon having no atmosphere, the consequences arising from the
absence of this gaseous envelope have already been shown. No twilight
on her surface; night following day and day following night with the
suddenness of a lamp which is extinguished or lighted amid profound
darkness—no transition from cold to heat, the temperature falling in an
instant from boiling point to the cold of space.

Another consequence of this want of air is that absolute darkness
reigns where the sun’s rays do not penetrate. That which on earth is
called diffusion of light, that luminous matter which the air holds in
suspension, which creates the twilight and the daybreak, which produces
the _umbrae_ and _penumbrae_, and all the magic of _chiaro-oscuro_,
does not exist on the moon. Hence the harshness of contrasts, which
only admit of two colors, black and white. If a Selenite were to shade
his eyes from the sun’s rays, the sky would seem absolutely black, and
the stars would shine to him as on the darkest night. Judge of the
impression produced on Barbicane and his three friends by this strange
scene! Their eyes were confused. They could no longer grasp the
respective distances of the different plains. A lunar landscape without
the softening of the phenomena of _chiaro-oscuro_ could not be rendered
by an earthly landscape painter; it would be spots of ink on a white
page—nothing more.

This aspect was not altered even when the projectile, at the height of
80°, was only separated from the moon by a distance of fifty miles; nor
even when, at five in the morning, it passed at less than twenty-five
miles from the mountain of Gioja, a distance reduced by the glasses to
a quarter of a mile. It seemed as if the moon might be touched by the
hand! It seemed impossible that, before long, the projectile would not
strike her, if only at the north pole, the brilliant arch of which was
so distinctly visible on the black sky.

Michel Ardan wanted to open one of the scuttles and throw himself on to
the moon’s surface! A very useless attempt; for if the projectile could
not attain any point whatever of the satellite, Michel, carried along
by its motion, could not attain it either.

At that moment, at six o’clock, the lunar pole appeared. The disc only
presented to the travelers’ gaze one half brilliantly lit up, while the
other disappeared in the darkness. Suddenly the projectile passed the
line of demarcation between intense light and absolute darkness, and
was plunged in profound night!




CHAPTER XIV.
THE NIGHT OF THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR HOURS AND A HALF


At the moment when this phenomenon took place so rapidly, the
projectile was skirting the moon’s north pole at less than twenty-five
miles distance. Some seconds had sufficed to plunge it into the
absolute darkness of space. The transition was so sudden, without
shade, without gradation of light, without attenuation of the luminous
waves, that the orb seemed to have been extinguished by a powerful
blow.

“Melted, disappeared!” Michel Ardan exclaimed, aghast.

Indeed, there was neither reflection nor shadow. Nothing more was to be
seen of that disc, formerly so dazzling. The darkness was complete. and
rendered even more so by the rays from the stars. It was “that
blackness” in which the lunar nights are insteeped, which last three
hundred and fifty-four hours and a half at each point of the disc, a
long night resulting from the equality of the translatory and rotary
movements of the moon. The projectile, immerged in the conical shadow
of the satellite, experienced the action of the solar rays no more than
any of its invisible points.

In the interior, the obscurity was complete. They could not see each
other. Hence the necessity of dispelling the darkness. However desirous
Barbicane might be to husband the gas, the reserve of which was small,
he was obliged to ask from it a fictitious light, an expensive
brilliancy which the sun then refused.

“Devil take the radiant orb!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “which forces us
to expend gas, instead of giving us his rays gratuitously.”

“Do not let us accuse the sun,” said Nicholl, “it is not his fault, but
that of the moon, which has come and placed herself like a screen
between us and it.”

“It is the sun!” continued Michel.

“It is the moon!” retorted Nicholl.

An idle dispute, which Barbicane put an end to by saying:

“My friends, it is neither the fault of the sun nor of the moon; it is
the fault of the _projectile_, which, instead of rigidly following its
course, has awkwardly missed it. To be more just, it is the fault of
that unfortunate meteor which has so deplorably altered our first
direction.”

“Well,” replied Michel Ardan, “as the matter is settled, let us have
breakfast. After a whole night of watching it is fair to build
ourselves up a little.”

This proposal meeting with no contradiction, Michel prepared the repast
in a few minutes. But they ate for eating’s sake, they drank without
toasts, without hurrahs. The bold travelers being borne away into
gloomy space, without their accustomed _cortege_ of rays, felt a vague
uneasiness in their hearts. The “strange” shadow so dear to Victor
Hugo’s pen bound them on all sides. But they talked over the
interminable night of three hundred and fifty-four hours and a half,
nearly fifteen days, which the law of physics has imposed on the
inhabitants of the moon.

Barbicane gave his friends some explanation of the causes and the
consequences of this curious phenomenon.

“Curious indeed,” said they; “for, if each hemisphere of the moon is
deprived of solar light for fifteen days, that above which we now float
does not even enjoy during its long night any view of the earth so
beautifully lit up. In a word she has no moon (applying this
designation to our globe) but on one side of her disc. Now if this were
the case with the earth—if, for example, Europe never saw the moon, and
she was only visible at the antipodes, imagine to yourself the
astonishment of a European on arriving in Australia.”

“They would make the voyage for nothing but to see the moon!” replied
Michel.

“Very well!” continued Barbicane, “that astonishment is reserved for
the Selenites who inhabit the face of the moon opposite to the earth, a
face which is ever invisible to our countrymen of the terrestrial
globe.”

“And which we should have seen,” added Nicholl, “if we had arrived here
when the moon was new, that is to say fifteen days later.”

“I will add, to make amends,” continued Barbicane, “that the
inhabitants of the visible face are singularly favored by nature, to
the detriment of their brethren on the invisible face. The latter, as
you see, have dark nights of 354 hours, without one single ray to break
the darkness. The other, on the contrary, when the sun which has given
its light for fifteen days sinks below the horizon, see a splendid orb
rise on the opposite horizon. It is the earth, which is thirteen times
greater than the diminutive moon that we know—the earth which developes
itself at a diameter of two degrees, and which sheds a light thirteen
times greater than that qualified by atmospheric strata—the earth which
only disappears at the moment when the sun reappears in its turn!”

“Nicely worded!” said Michel, “slightly academical perhaps.”

“It follows, then,” continued Barbicane, without knitting his brows,
“that the visible face of the disc must be very agreeable to inhabit,
since it always looks on either the sun when the moon is full, or on
the earth when the moon is new.”

“But,” said Nicholl, “that advantage must be well compensated by the
insupportable heat which the light brings with it.”

“The inconvenience, in that respect, is the same for the two faces, for
the earth’s light is evidently deprived of heat. But the invisible face
is still more searched by the heat than the visible face. I say that
for _you_, Nicholl, because Michel will probably not understand.”

“Thank you,” said Michel.

“Indeed,” continued Barbicane, “when the invisible face receives at the
same time light and heat from the sun, it is because the moon is new;
that is to say, she is situated between the sun and the earth. It
follows, then, considering the position which she occupies in
opposition when full, that she is nearer to the sun by twice her
distance from the earth; and that distance may be estimated at the
two-hundredth part of that which separates the sun from the earth, or
in round numbers 400,000 miles. So that invisible face is so much
nearer to the sun when she receives its rays.”

“Quite right,” replied Nicholl.

“On the contrary,” continued Barbicane.

“One moment,” said Michel, interrupting his grave companion.

“What do you want?”

“I ask to be allowed to continue the explanation.”

“And why?”

“To prove that I understand.”

“Get along with you,” said Barbicane, smiling.

“On the contrary,” said Michel, imitating the tone and gestures of the
president, “on the contrary, when the visible face of the moon is lit
by the sun, it is because the moon is full, that is to say, opposite
the sun with regard to the earth. The distance separating it from the
radiant orb is then increased in round numbers to 400,000 miles, and
the heat which she receives must be a little less.”

“Very well said!” exclaimed Barbicane. “Do you know, Michel, that, for
an amateur, you are intelligent.”

“Yes,” replied Michel coolly, “we are all so on the Boulevard des
Italiens.”

Barbicane gravely grasped the hand of his amiable companion, and
continued to enumerate the advantages reserved for the inhabitants of
the visible face.

Among others, he mentioned eclipses of the sun, which only take place
on this side of the lunar disc; since, in order that they may take
place, it is necessary for the moon to be _in opposition_. These
eclipses, caused by the interposition of the earth between the moon and
the sun, can last _two hours_; during which time, by reason of the rays
refracted by its atmosphere, the terrestrial globe can appear as
nothing but a black point upon the sun.

“So,” said Nicholl, “there is a hemisphere, that invisible hemisphere
which is very ill supplied, very ill treated, by nature.”

“Never mind,” replied Michel; “if we ever become Selenites, we will
inhabit the visible face. I like the light.”

“Unless, by any chance,” answered Nicholl, “the atmosphere should be
condensed on the other side, as certain astronomers pretend.”

“That would be a consideration,” said Michel.

Breakfast over, the observers returned to their post. They tried to see
through the darkened scuttles by extinguishing all light in the
projectile; but not a luminous spark made its way through the darkness.

One inexplicable fact preoccupied Barbicane. Why, having passed within
such a short distance of the moon—about twenty-five miles only—why the
projectile had not fallen? If its speed had been enormous, he could
have understood that the fall would not have taken place; but, with a
relatively moderate speed, that resistance to the moon’s attraction
could not be explained. Was the projectile under some foreign
influence? Did some kind of body retain it in the ether? It was quite
evident that it could never reach any point of the moon. Whither was it
going? Was it going farther from, or nearing, the disc? Was it being
borne in that profound darkness through the infinity of space? How
could they learn, how calculate, in the midst of this night? All these
questions made Barbicane uneasy, but he could not solve them.

Certainly, the invisible orb was _there_, perhaps only some few miles
off; but neither he nor his companions could see it. If there was any
noise on its surface, they could not hear it. Air, that medium of
sound, was wanting to transmit the groanings of that moon which the
Arabic legends call “a man already half granite, and still breathing.”

One must allow that that was enough to aggravate the most patient
observers. It was just that unknown hemisphere which was stealing from
their sight. That face which fifteen days sooner, or fifteen days
later, had been, or would be, splendidly illuminated by the solar rays,
was then being lost in utter darkness. In fifteen days where would the
projectile be? Who could say? Where would the chances of conflicting
attractions have drawn it to? The disappointment of the travelers in
the midst of this utter darkness may be imagined. All observation of
the lunar disc was impossible. The constellations alone claimed all
their attention; and we must allow that the astronomers Faye,
Charconac, and Secchi, never found themselves in circumstances so
favorable for their observation.

Indeed, nothing could equal the splendor of this starry world, bathed
in limpid ether. Its diamonds set in the heavenly vault sparkled
magnificently. The eye took in the firmament from the Southern Cross to
the North Star, those two constellations which in 12,000 years, by
reason of the succession of equinoxes, will resign their part of the
polar stars, the one to Canopus in the southern hemisphere, the other
to Wega in the northern. Imagination loses itself in this sublime
Infinity, amid which the projectile was gravitating, like a new star
created by the hand of man. From a natural cause, these constellations
shone with a soft luster; they did not twinkle, for there was no
atmosphere which, by the intervention of its layers unequally dense and
of different degrees of humidity, produces this scintillation. These
stars were soft eyes, looking out into the dark night, amid the silence
of absolute space.

Long did the travelers stand mute, watching the constellated firmament,
upon which the moon, like a vast screen, made an enormous black hole.
But at length a painful sensation drew them from their watchings. This
was an intense cold, which soon covered the inside of the glass of the
scuttles with a thick coating of ice. The sun was no longer warming the
projectile with its direct rays, and thus it was losing the heat stored
up in its walls by degrees. This heat was rapidly evaporating into
space by radiation, and a considerably lower temperature was the
result. The humidity of the interior was changed into ice upon contact
with the glass, preventing all observation.

Nicholl consulted the thermometer, and saw that it had fallen to
seventeen degrees (Centigrade) below zero.[3] So that, in spite of the
many reasons for economizing, Barbicane, after having begged light from
the gas, was also obliged to beg for heat. The projectile’s low
temperature was no longer endurable. Its tenants would have been frozen
to death.

 [3] 1° Fahrenheit.


“Well!” observed Michel, “we cannot reasonably complain of the monotony
of our journey! What variety we have had, at least in temperature. Now
we are blinded with light and saturated with heat, like the Indians of
the Pampas! now plunged into profound darkness, amid the cold, like the
Esquimaux of the north pole. No, indeed! we have no right to complain;
nature does wonders in our honor.”

“But,” asked Nicholl, “what is the temperature outside?”

“Exactly that of the planetary space,” replied Barbicane.

“Then,” continued Michel Ardan, “would not this be the time to make the
experiment which we dared not attempt when we were drowned in the sun’s
rays?

“It is now or never,” replied Barbicane, “for we are in a good position
to verify the temperature of space, and see if Fourier or Pouillet’s
calculations are exact.”

“In any case it is cold,” said Michel. “See! the steam of the interior
is condensing on the glasses of the scuttles. If the fall continues,
the vapor of our breath will fall in snow around us.”

“Let us prepare a thermometer,” said Barbicane.

We may imagine that an ordinary thermometer would afford no result
under the circumstances in which this instrument was to be exposed. The
mercury would have been frozen in its ball, as below 42° Fahrenheit
below zero it is no longer liquid. But Barbicane had furnished himself
with a spirit thermometer on Wafferdin’s system, which gives the minima
of excessively low temperatures.

Before beginning the experiment, this instrument was compared with an
ordinary one, and then Barbicane prepared to use it.

“How shall we set about it?” asked Nicholl.

“Nothing is easier,” replied Michel Ardan, who was never at a loss. “We
open the scuttle rapidly; throw out the instrument; it follows the
projectile with exemplary docility; and a quarter of an hour after,
draw it in.”

“With the hand?” asked Barbicane.

“With the hand,” replied Michel.

“Well, then, my friend, do not expose yourself,” answered Barbicane,
“for the hand that you draw in again will be nothing but a stump frozen
and deformed by the frightful cold.”

“Really!”

“You will feel as if you had had a terrible burn, like that of iron at
a white heat; for whether the heat leaves our bodies briskly or enters
briskly, it is exactly the same thing. Besides, I am not at all certain
that the objects we have thrown out are still following us.”

“Why not?” asked Nicholl.

“Because, if we are passing through an atmosphere of the slightest
density, these objects will be retarded. Again, the darkness prevents
our seeing if they still float around us. But in order not to expose
ourselves to the loss of our thermometer, we will fasten it, and we can
then more easily pull it back again.”

Barbicane’s advice was followed. Through the scuttle rapidly opened,
Nicholl threw out the instrument, which was held by a short cord, so
that it might be more easily drawn up. The scuttle had not been opened
more than a second, but that second had sufficed to let in a most
intense cold.

“The devil!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “it is cold enough to freeze a
white bear.”

Barbicane waited until half an hour had elapsed, which was more than
time enough to allow the instrument to fall to the level of the
surrounding temperature. Then it was rapidly pulled in.

Barbicane calculated the quantity of spirits of wine overflowed into
the little vial soldered to the lower part of the instrument, and said:

“A hundred and forty degrees Centigrade[4] below zero!”

 [4] 218 degrees Fahrenheit below zero.


M. Pouillet was right and Fourier wrong. That was the undoubted
temperature of the starry space. Such is, perhaps, that of the lunar
continents, when the orb of night has lost by radiation all the heat
which fifteen days of sun have poured into her.




CHAPTER XV.
HYPERBOLA OR PARABOLA


We may, perhaps, be astonished to find Barbicane and his companions so
little occupied with the future reserved for them in their metal prison
which was bearing them through the infinity of space. Instead of asking
where they were going, they passed their time making experiments, as if
they had been quietly installed in their own study.

We might answer that men so strong-minded were above such
anxieties—that they did not trouble themselves about such trifles—and
that they had something else to do than to occupy their minds with the
future.

The truth was that they were not masters of their projectile; they
could neither check its course, nor alter its direction.

A sailor can change the head of his ship as he pleases; an aeronaut can
give a vertical motion to his balloon. They, on the contrary, had no
power over their vehicle. Every maneuver was forbidden. Hence the
inclination to let things alone, or as the sailors say, “let her run.”

Where did they find themselves at this moment, at eight o’clock in the
morning of the day called upon the earth the 6th of December? Very
certainly in the neighborhood of the moon, and even near enough for her
to look to them like an enormous black screen upon the firmament. As to
the distance which separated them, it was impossible to estimate it.
The projectile, held by some unaccountable force, had been within four
miles of grazing the satellite’s north pole.

But since entering the cone of shadow these last two hours, had the
distance increased or diminished? Every point of mark was wanting by
which to estimate both the direction and the speed of the projectile.

Perhaps it was rapidly leaving the disc, so that it would soon quit the
pure shadow. Perhaps, again, on the other hand, it might be nearing it
so much that in a short time it might strike some high point on the
invisible hemisphere, which would doubtlessly have ended the journey
much to the detriment of the travelers.

A discussion arose on this subject, and Michel Ardan, always ready with
an explanation, gave it as his opinion that the projectile, held by the
lunar attraction, would end by falling on the surface of the
terrestrial globe like an aerolite.

“First of all, my friend,” answered Barbicane, “every aerolite does not
fall to the earth; it is only a small proportion which do so; and if we
had passed into an aerolite, it does not necessarily follow that we
should ever reach the surface of the moon.”

“But how if we get near enough?” replied Michel.

“Pure mistake,” replied Barbicane. “Have you not seen shooting stars
rush through the sky by thousands at certain seasons?”

“Yes.”

“Well, these stars, or rather corpuscles, only shine when they are
heated by gliding over the atmospheric layers. Now, if they enter the
atmosphere, they pass at least within forty miles of the earth, but
they seldom fall upon it. The same with our projectile. It may approach
very near to the moon, and not yet fall upon it.”

“But then,” asked Michel, “I shall be curious to know how our erring
vehicle will act in space?”

“I see but two hypotheses,” replied Barbicane, after some moments’
reflection.

“What are they?”

“The projectile has the choice between two mathematical curves, and it
will follow one or the other according to the speed with which it is
animated, and which at this moment I cannot estimate.”

“Yes,” said Nicholl, “it will follow either a parabola or a hyperbola.”

“Just so,” replied Barbicane. “With a certain speed it will assume the
parabola, and with a greater the hyperbola.”

“I like those grand words,” exclaimed Michel Ardan; “one knows directly
what they mean. And pray what is your parabola, if you please?”

“My friend,” answered the captain, “the parabola is a curve of the
second order, the result of the section of a cone intersected by a
plane parallel to one of the sides.”

“Ah! ah!” said Michel, in a satisfied tone.

“It is very nearly,” continued Nicholl, “the course described by a bomb
launched from a mortar.”

“Perfect! And the hyperbola?”

“The hyperbola, Michel, is a curve of the second order, produced by the
intersection of a conic surface and a plane parallel to its axis, and
constitutes two branches separated one from the other, both tending
indefinitely in the two directions.”

“Is it possible!” exclaimed Michel Ardan in a serious tone, as if they
had told him of some serious event. “What I particularly like in your
definition of the hyperbola (I was going to say hyperblague) is that it
is still more obscure than the word you pretend to define.”

Nicholl and Barbicane cared little for Michel Ardan’s fun. They were
deep in a scientific discussion. What curve would the projectile
follow? was their hobby. One maintained the hyperbola, the other the
parabola. They gave each other reasons bristling with _x_. Their
arguments were couched in language which made Michel jump. The
discussion was hot, and neither would give up his chosen curve to his
adversary.

This scientific dispute lasted so long that it made Michel very
impatient.

“Now, gentlemen cosines, will you cease to throw parabolas and
hyperbolas at each other’s heads? I want to understand the only
interesting question in the whole affair. We shall follow one or the
other of these curves? Good. But where will they lead us to?”

“Nowhere,” replied Nicholl.

“How, nowhere?”

“Evidently,” said Barbicane, “they are open curves, which may be
prolonged indefinitely.”

“Ah, savants!” cried Michel; “and what are either the one or the other
to us from the moment we know that they equally lead us into infinite
space?”

Barbicane and Nicholl could not forbear smiling. They had just been
creating “art for art’s sake.” Never had so idle a question been raised
at such an inopportune moment. The sinister truth remained that,
whether hyperbolically or parabolically borne away, the projectile
would never again meet either the earth or the moon.

What would become of these bold travelers in the immediate future? If
they did not die of hunger, if they did not die of thirst, in some
days, when the gas failed, they would die from want of air, unless the
cold had killed them first. Still, important as it was to economize the
gas, the excessive lowness of the surrounding temperature obliged them
to consume a certain quantity. Strictly speaking, they could do without
its _light_, but not without its _heat_. Fortunately the caloric
generated by Reiset’s and Regnaut’s apparatus raised the temperature of
the interior of the projectile a little, and without much expenditure
they were able to keep it bearable.

But observations had now become very difficult. the dampness of the
projectile was condensed on the windows and congealed immediately. This
cloudiness had to be dispersed continually. In any case they might hope
to be able to discover some phenomena of the highest interest.

But up to this time the disc remained dumb and dark. It did not answer
the multiplicity of questions put by these ardent minds; a matter which
drew this reflection from Michel, apparently a just one:

“If ever we begin this journey over again, we shall do well to choose
the time when the moon is at the full.”

“Certainly,” said Nicholl, “that circumstance will be more favorable. I
allow that the moon, immersed in the sun’s rays, will not be visible
during the transit, but instead we should see the earth, which would be
full. And what is more, if we were drawn round the moon, as at this
moment, we should at least have the advantage of seeing the invisible
part of her disc magnificently lit.”

“Well said, Nicholl,” replied Michel Ardan. “What do you think,
Barbicane?”

“I think this,” answered the grave president: “If ever we begin this
journey again, we shall start at the same time and under the same
conditions. Suppose we had attained our end, would it not have been
better to have found continents in broad daylight than a country
plunged in utter darkness? Would not our first installation have been
made under better circumstances? Yes, evidently. As to the invisible
side, we could have visited it in our exploring expeditions on the
lunar globe. So that the time of the full moon was well chosen. But we
ought to have arrived at the end; and in order to have so arrived, we
ought to have suffered no deviation on the road.”

“I have nothing to say to that,” answered Michel Ardan. “Here is,
however, a good opportunity lost of observing the other side of the
moon.”

But the projectile was now describing in the shadow that incalculable
course which no sight-mark would allow them to ascertain. Had its
direction been altered, either by the influence of the lunar
attraction, or by the action of some unknown star? Barbicane could not
say. But a change had taken place in the relative position of the
vehicle; and Barbicane verified it about four in the morning.

The change consisted in this, that the base of the projectile had
turned toward the moon’s surface, and was so held by a perpendicular
passing through its axis. The attraction, that is to say the weight,
had brought about this alteration. The heaviest part of the projectile
inclined toward the invisible disc as if it would fall upon it.

Was it falling? Were the travelers attaining that much desired end? No.
And the observation of a sign-point, quite inexplicable in itself,
showed Barbicane that his projectile was not nearing the moon, and that
it had shifted by following an almost concentric curve.

This point of mark was a luminous brightness, which Nicholl sighted
suddenly, on the limit of the horizon formed by the black disc. This
point could not be confounded with a star. It was a reddish
incandescence which increased by degrees, a decided proof that the
projectile was shifting toward it and not falling normally on the
surface of the moon.

“A volcano! it is a volcano in action!” cried Nicholl; “a disemboweling
of the interior fires of the moon! That world is not quite
extinguished.”

“Yes, an eruption,” replied Barbicane, who was carefully studying the
phenomenon through his night glass. “What should it be, if not a
volcano?”

“But, then,” said Michel Ardan, “in order to maintain that combustion,
there must be air. So the atmosphere does surround that part of the
moon.”

“Perhaps so,” replied Barbicane, “but not necessarily.

The volcano, by the decomposition of certain substances, can provide
its own oxygen, and thus throw flames into space. It seems to me that
the deflagration, by the intense brilliancy of the substances in
combustion, is produced in pure oxygen. We must not be in a hurry to
proclaim the existence of a lunar atmosphere.”

The fiery mountain must have been situated about the 45° south latitude
on the invisible part of the disc; but, to Barbicane’s great
displeasure, the curve which the projectile was describing was taking
it far from the point indicated by the eruption. Thus he could not
determine its nature exactly. Half an hour after being sighted, this
luminous point had disappeared behind the dark horizon; but the
verification of this phenomenon was of considerable consequence in
their selenographic studies. It proved that all heat had not yet
disappeared from the bowels of this globe; and where heat exists, who
can affirm that the vegetable kingdom, nay, even the animal kingdom
itself, has not up to this time resisted all destructive influences?
The existence of this volcano in eruption, unmistakably seen by these
earthly savants, would doubtless give rise to many theories favorable
to the grave question of the habitability of the moon.

Barbicane allowed himself to be carried away by these reflections. He
forgot himself in a deep reverie in which the mysterious destiny of the
lunar world was uppermost. He was seeking to combine together the facts
observed up to that time, when a new incident recalled him briskly to
reality. This incident was more than a cosmical phenomenon; it was a
threatened danger, the consequence of which might be disastrous in the
extreme.

Suddenly, in the midst of the ether, in the profound darkness, an
enormous mass appeared. It was like a moon, but an incandescent moon
whose brilliancy was all the more intolerable as it cut sharply on the
frightful darkness of space. This mass, of a circular form, threw a
light which filled the projectile. The forms of Barbicane, Nicholl, and
Michel Ardan, bathed in its white sheets, assumed that livid spectral
appearance which physicians produce with the fictitious light of
alcohol impregnated with salt.

“By Jove!” cried Michel Ardan, “we are hideous. What is that
ill-conditioned moon?”

“A meteor,” replied Barbicane.

“A meteor burning in space?”

“Yes.”

This shooting globe suddenly appearing in shadow at a distance of at
most 200 miles, ought, according to Barbicane, to have a diameter of
2,000 yards. It advanced at a speed of about one mile and a half per
second. It cut the projectile’s path and must reach it in some minutes.
As it approached it grew to enormous proportions.

Imagine, if possible, the situation of the travelers! It is impossible
to describe it. In spite of their courage, their _sang-froid_, their
carelessness of danger, they were mute, motionless with stiffened
limbs, a prey to frightful terror. Their projectile, the course of
which they could not alter, was rushing straight on this ignited mass,
more intense than the open mouth of an oven. It seemed as though they
were being precipitated toward an abyss of fire.

Barbicane had seized the hands of his two companions, and all three
looked through their half-open eyelids upon that asteroid heated to a
white heat. If thought was not destroyed within them, if their brains
still worked amid all this awe, they must have given themselves up for
lost.

Two minutes after the sudden appearance of the meteor (to them two
centuries of anguish) the projectile seemed almost about to strike it,
when the globe of fire burst like a bomb, but without making any noise
in that void where sound, which is but the agitation of the layers of
air, could not be generated.

Nicholl uttered a cry, and he and his companions rushed to the scuttle.
What a sight! What pen can describe it? What palette is rich enough in
colors to reproduce so magnificent a spectacle?

It was like the opening of a crater, like the scattering of an immense
conflagration. Thousands of luminous fragments lit up and irradiated
space with their fires. Every size, every color, was there
intermingled. There were rays of yellow and pale yellow, red, green,
gray—a crown of fireworks of all colors. Of the enormous and
much-dreaded globe there remained nothing but these fragments carried
in all directions, now become asteroids in their turn, some flaming
like a sword, some surrounded by a whitish cloud, and others leaving
behind them trains of brilliant cosmical dust.

These incandescent blocks crossed and struck each other, scattering
still smaller fragments, some of which struck the projectile. Its left
scuttle was even cracked by a violent shock. It seemed to be floating
amid a hail of howitzer shells, the smallest of which might destroy it
instantly.

The light which saturated the ether was so wonderfully intense, that
Michel, drawing Barbicane and Nicholl to his window, exclaimed, “The
invisible moon, visible at last!”

And through a luminous emanation, which lasted some seconds, the whole
three caught a glimpse of that mysterious disc which the eye of man now
saw for the first time. What could they distinguish at a distance which
they could not estimate? Some lengthened bands along the disc, real
clouds formed in the midst of a very confined atmosphere, from which
emerged not only all the mountains, but also projections of less
importance; its circles, its yawning craters, as capriciously placed as
on the visible surface. Then immense spaces, no longer arid plains, but
real seas, oceans, widely distributed, reflecting on their liquid
surface all the dazzling magic of the fires of space; and, lastly, on
the surface of the continents, large dark masses, looking like immense
forests under the rapid illumination of a brilliance.

Was it an illusion, a mistake, an optical illusion? Could they give a
scientific assent to an observation so superficially obtained? Dared
they pronounce upon the question of its habitability after so slight a
glimpse of the invisible disc?

But the lightnings in space subsided by degrees; its accidental
brilliancy died away; the asteroids dispersed in different directions
and were extinguished in the distance.

The ether returned to its accustomed darkness; the stars, eclipsed for
a moment, again twinkled in the firmament, and the disc, so hastily
discerned, was again buried in impenetrable night.




CHAPTER XVI.
THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE


The projectile had just escaped a terrible danger, and a very unforseen
one. Who would have thought of such an encounter with meteors? These
erring bodies might create serious perils for the travelers. They were
to them so many sandbanks upon that sea of ether which, less fortunate
than sailors, they could not escape. But did these adventurers complain
of space? No, not since nature had given them the splendid sight of a
cosmical meteor bursting from expansion, since this inimitable
firework, which no Ruggieri could imitate, had lit up for some seconds
the invisible glory of the moon. In that flash, continents, seas, and
forests had become visible to them. Did an atmosphere, then, bring to
this unknown face its life-giving atoms? Questions still insoluble, and
forever closed against human curiousity!

It was then half-past three in the afternoon. The projectile was
following its curvilinear direction round the moon. Had its course
again been altered by the meteor? It was to be feared so. But the
projectile must describe a curve unalterably determined by the laws of
mechanical reasoning. Barbicane was inclined to believe that this curve
would be rather a parabola than a hyperbola. But admitting the
parabola, the projectile must quickly have passed through the cone of
shadow projected into space opposite the sun. This cone, indeed, is
very narrow, the angular diameter of the moon being so little when
compared with the diameter of the orb of day; and up to this time the
projectile had been floating in this deep shadow. Whatever had been its
speed (and it could not have been insignificant), its period of
occultation continued. That was evident, but perhaps that would not
have been the case in a supposedly rigidly parabolical trajectory—a new
problem which tormented Barbicane’s brain, imprisoned as he was in a
circle of unknowns which he could not unravel.

Neither of the travelers thought of taking an instant’s repose. Each
one watched for an unexpected fact, which might throw some new light on
their uranographic studies. About five o’clock, Michel Ardan
distributed, under the name of dinner, some pieces of bread and cold
meat, which were quickly swallowed without either of them abandoning
their scuttle, the glass of which was incessantly encrusted by the
condensation of vapor.

About forty-five minutes past five in the evening, Nicholl, armed with
his glass, sighted toward the southern border of the moon, and in the
direction followed by the projectile, some bright points cut upon the
dark shield of the sky. They looked like a succession of sharp points
lengthened into a tremulous line. They were very bright. Such appeared
the terminal line of the moon when in one of her octants.

They could not be mistaken. It was no longer a simple meteor. This
luminous ridge had neither color nor motion. Nor was it a volcano in
eruption. And Barbicane did not hesitate to pronounce upon it.

“The sun!” he exclaimed.

“What! the sun?” answered Nicholl and Michel Ardan.

“Yes, my friends, it is the radiant orb itself lighting up the summit
of the mountains situated on the southern borders of the moon. We are
evidently nearing the south pole.”

“After having passed the north pole,” replied Michel. “We have made the
circuit of our satellite, then?”

“Yes, my good Michel.”

“Then, no more hyperbolas, no more parabolas, no more open curves to
fear?”

“No, but a closed curve.”

“Which is called—”

“An ellipse. Instead of losing itself in interplanetary space, it is
probable that the projectile will describe an elliptical orbit around
the moon.”

“Indeed!”

“And that it will become _her_ satellite.”

“Moon of the moon!” cried Michel Ardan.

“Only, I would have you observe, my worthy friend,” replied Barbicane,
“that we are none the less lost for that.”

“Yes, in another manner, and much more pleasantly,” answered the
careless Frenchman with his most amiable smile.




CHAPTER XVII.
TYCHO


At six in the evening the projectile passed the south pole at less than
forty miles off, a distance equal to that already reached at the north
pole. The elliptical curve was being rigidly carried out.

At this moment the travelers once more entered the blessed rays of the
sun. They saw once more those stars which move slowly from east to
west. The radiant orb was saluted by a triple hurrah. With its light it
also sent heat, which soon pierced the metal walls. The glass resumed
its accustomed appearance. The layers of ice melted as if by
enchantment; and immediately, for economy’s sake, the gas was put out,
the air apparatus alone consuming its usual quantity.

“Ah!” said Nicholl, “these rays of heat are good. With what impatience
must the Selenites wait the reappearance of the orb of day.”

“Yes,” replied Michel Ardan, “imbibing as it were the brilliant ether,
light and heat, all life is contained in them.”

At this moment the bottom of the projectile deviated somewhat from the
lunar surface, in order to follow the slightly lengthened elliptical
orbit. From this point, had the earth been at the full, Barbicane and
his companions could have seen it, but immersed in the sun’s
irradiation she was quite invisible. Another spectacle attracted their
attention, that of the southern part of the moon, brought by the
glasses to within 450 yards. They did not again leave the scuttles, and
noted every detail of this fantastical continent.

Mounts Doerful and Leibnitz formed two separate groups very near the
south pole. The first group extended from the pole to the eighty-fourth
parallel, on the eastern part of the orb; the second occupied the
eastern border, extending from the 65° of latitude to the pole.

On their capriciously formed ridge appeared dazzling sheets, as
mentioned by Pere Secchi. With more certainty than the illustrious
Roman astronomer, Barbicane was enabled to recognize their nature.

“They are snow,” he exclaimed.

“Snow?” repeated Nicholl.

“Yes, Nicholl, snow; the surface of which is deeply frozen. See how
they reflect the luminous rays. Cooled lava would never give out such
intense reflection. There must then be water, there must be air on the
moon. As little as you please, but the fact can no longer be
contested.” No, it could not be. And if ever Barbicane should see the
earth again, his notes will bear witness to this great fact in his
selenographic observations.

These mountains of Doerful and Leibnitz rose in the midst of plains of
a medium extent, which were bounded by an indefinite succession of
circles and annular ramparts. These two chains are the only ones met
with in this region of circles. Comparatively but slightly marked, they
throw up here and there some sharp points, the highest summit of which
attains an altitude of 24,600 feet.

But the projectile was high above all this landscape, and the
projections disappeared in the intense brilliancy of the disc. And to
the eyes of the travelers there reappeared that original aspect of the
lunar landscapes, raw in tone, without gradation of colors, and without
degrees of shadow, roughly black and white, from the want of diffusion
of light.

But the sight of this desolate world did not fail to captivate them by
its very strangeness. They were moving over this region as if they had
been borne on the breath of some storm, watching heights defile under
their feet, piercing the cavities with their eyes, going down into the
rifts, climbing the ramparts, sounding these mysterious holes, and
leveling all cracks. But no trace of vegetation, no appearance of
cities; nothing but stratification, beds of lava, overflowings polished
like immense mirrors, reflecting the sun’s rays with overpowering
brilliancy. Nothing belonging to a _living_ world—everything to a dead
world, where avalanches, rolling from the summits of the mountains,
would disperse noiselessly at the bottom of the abyss, retaining the
motion, but wanting the sound. In any case it was the image of death,
without its being possible even to say that life had ever existed
there.

Michel Ardan, however, thought he recognized a heap of ruins, to which
he drew Barbicane’s attention. It was about the 80th parallel, in 30°
longitude. This heap of stones, rather regularly placed, represented a
vast fortress, overlooking a long rift, which in former days had served
as a bed to the rivers of prehistorical times. Not far from that, rose
to a height of 17,400 feet the annular mountain of Short, equal to the
Asiatic Caucasus. Michel Ardan, with his accustomed ardor, maintained
“the evidences” of his fortress. Beneath it he discerned the dismantled
ramparts of a town; here the still intact arch of a portico, there two
or three columns lying under their base; farther on, a succession of
arches which must have supported the conduit of an aqueduct; in another
part the sunken pillars of a gigantic bridge, run into the thickest
parts of the rift. He distinguished all this, but with so much
imagination in his glance, and through glasses so fantastical, that we
must mistrust his observation. But who could affirm, who would dare to
say, that the amiable fellow did not really see that which his two
companions would not see?

Moments were too precious to be sacrificed in idle discussion. The
selenite city, whether imaginary or not, had already disappeared afar
off. The distance of the projectile from the lunar disc was on the
increase, and the details of the soil were being lost in a confused
jumble. The reliefs, the circles, the craters, and the plains alone
remained, and still showed their boundary lines distinctly. At this
moment, to the left, lay extended one of the finest circles of lunar
orography, one of the curiosities of this continent. It was Newton,
which Barbicane recognized without trouble, by referring to the _Mappa
Selenographica_.

Newton is situated in exactly 77° south latitude, and 16° east
longitude. It forms an annular crater, the ramparts of which, rising to
a height of 21,300 feet, seemed to be impassable.

Barbicane made his companions observe that the height of this mountain
above the surrounding plain was far from equaling the depth of its
crater. This enormous hole was beyond all measurement, and formed a
gloomy abyss, the bottom of which the sun’s rays could never reach.
There, according to Humboldt, reigns utter darkness, which the light of
the sun and the earth cannot break. Mythologists could well have made
it the mouth of hell.

“Newton,” said Barbicane, “is the most perfect type of these annular
mountains, of which the earth possesses no sample. They prove that the
moon’s formation, by means of cooling, is due to violent causes; for
while, under the pressure of internal fires the reliefs rise to
considerable height, the depths withdraw far below the lunar level.”

“I do not dispute the fact,” replied Michel Ardan.

Some minutes after passing Newton, the projectile directly overlooked
the annular mountains of Moret. It skirted at some distance the summits
of Blancanus, and at about half-past seven in the evening reached the
circle of Clavius.

This circle, one of the most remarkable of the disc, is situated in 58°
south latitude, and 15° east longitude. Its height is estimated at
22,950 feet. The travelers, at a distance of twenty-four miles (reduced
to four by their glasses) could admire this vast crater in its
entirety.

“Terrestrial volcanoes,” said Barbicane, “are but mole-hills compared
with those of the moon. Measuring the old craters formed by the first
eruptions of Vesuvius and Etna, we find them little more than three
miles in breadth. In France the circle of Cantal measures six miles
across; at Ceyland the circle of the island is forty miles, which is
considered the largest on the globe. What are these diameters against
that of Clavius, which we overlook at this moment?”

“What is its breadth?” asked Nicholl.

“It is 150 miles,” replied Barbicane. “This circle is certainly the
most important on the moon, but many others measure 150, 100, or 75
miles.”

“Ah! my friends,” exclaimed Michel, “can you picture to yourselves what
this now peaceful orb of night must have been when its craters, filled
with thunderings, vomited at the same time smoke and tongues of flame.
What a wonderful spectacle then, and now what decay! This moon is
nothing more than a thin carcase of fireworks, whose squibs, rockets,
serpents, and suns, after a superb brilliancy, have left but sadly
broken cases. Who can say the cause, the reason, the motive force of
these cataclysms?”

Barbicane was not listening to Michel Ardan; he was contemplating these
ramparts of Clavius, formed by large mountains spread over several
miles. At the bottom of the immense cavity burrowed hundreds of small
extinguished craters, riddling the soil like a colander, and overlooked
by a peak 15,000 feet high.

Around the plain appeared desolate. Nothing so arid as these reliefs,
nothing so sad as these ruins of mountains, and (if we may so express
ourselves) these fragments of peaks and mountains which strewed the
soil. The satellite seemed to have burst at this spot.

The projectile was still advancing, and this movement did not subside.
Circles, craters, and uprooted mountains succeeded each other
incessantly. No more plains; no more seas. A never ending Switzerland
and Norway. And lastly, in the canter of this region of crevasses, the
most splendid mountain on the lunar disc, the dazzling Tycho, in which
posterity will ever preserve the name of the illustrious Danish
astronomer.

In observing the full moon in a cloudless sky no one has failed to
remark this brilliant point of the southern hemisphere. Michel Ardan
used every metaphor that his imagination could supply to designate it
by. To him this Tycho was a focus of light, a center of irradiation, a
crater vomiting rays. It was the tire of a brilliant wheel, an
_asteria_ enclosing the disc with its silver tentacles, an enormous eye
filled with flames, a glory carved for Pluto’s head, a star launched by
the Creator’s hand, and crushed against the face of the moon!

Tycho forms such a concentration of light that the inhabitants of the
earth can see it without glasses, though at a distance of 240,000
miles! Imagine, then, its intensity to the eye of observers placed at a
distance of only fifty miles! Seen through this pure ether, its
brilliancy was so intolerable that Barbicane and his friends were
obliged to blacken their glasses with the gas smoke before they could
bear the splendor. Then silent, scarcely uttering an interjection of
admiration, they gazed, they contemplated. All their feelings, all
their impressions, were concentrated in that look, as under any violent
emotion all life is concentrated at the heart.

Tycho belongs to the system of radiating mountains, like Aristarchus
and Copernicus; but it is of all the most complete and decided, showing
unquestionably the frightful volcanic action to which the formation of
the moon is due. Tycho is situated in 43° south latitude, and 12° east
longitude. Its center is occupied by a crater fifty miles broad. It
assumes a slightly elliptical form, and is surrounded by an enclosure
of annular ramparts, which on the east and west overlook the outer
plain from a height of 15,000 feet. It is a group of Mont Blancs,
placed round one common center and crowned by radiating beams.

What this incomparable mountain really is, with all the projections
converging toward it, and the interior excrescences of its crater,
photography itself could never represent. Indeed, it is during the full
moon that Tycho is seen in all its splendor. Then all shadows
disappear, the foreshortening of perspective disappears, and all proofs
become white—a disagreeable fact: for this strange region would have
been marvelous if reproduced with photographic exactness. It is but a
group of hollows, craters, circles, a network of crests; then, as far
as the eye could see, a whole volcanic network cast upon this encrusted
soil. One can then understand that the bubbles of this central eruption
have kept their first form. Crystallized by cooling, they have
stereotyped that aspect which the moon formerly presented when under
the Plutonian forces.

The distance which separated the travelers from the annular summits of
Tycho was not so great but that they could catch the principal details.
Even on the causeway forming the fortifications of Tycho, the mountains
hanging on to the interior and exterior sloping flanks rose in stories
like gigantic terraces. They appeared to be higher by 300 or 400 feet
to the west than to the east. No system of terrestrial encampment could
equal these natural fortifications. A town built at the bottom of this
circular cavity would have been utterly inaccessible.

Inaccessible and wonderfully extended over this soil covered with
picturesque projections! Indeed, nature had not left the bottom of this
crater flat and empty. It possessed its own peculiar orography, a
mountainous system, making it a world in itself. The travelers could
distinguish clearly cones, central hills, remarkable positions of the
soil, naturally placed to receive the _chefs-d’œuvre_ of Selenite
architecture. There was marked out the place for a temple, here the
ground of a forum, on this spot the plan of a palace, in another the
plateau for a citadel; the whole overlooked by a central mountain of
1,500 feet. A vast circle, in which ancient Rome could have been held
in its entirety ten times over.

“Ah!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, enthusiastic at the sight; “what a grand
town might be constructed within that ring of mountains! A quiet city,
a peaceful refuge, beyond all human misery. How calm and isolated those
misanthropes, those haters of humanity might live there, and all who
have a distaste for social life!”

“All! It would be too small for them,” replied Barbicane simply.




CHAPTER XVIII.
GRAVE QUESTIONS


But the projectile had passed the _enceinte_ of Tycho, and Barbicane
and his two companions watched with scrupulous attention the brilliant
rays which the celebrated mountain shed so curiously over the horizon.

What was this radiant glory? What geological phenomenon had designed
these ardent beams? This question occupied Barbicane’s mind.

Under his eyes ran in all directions luminous furrows, raised at the
edges and concave in the center, some twelve miles, others thirty miles
broad. These brilliant trains extended in some places to within 600
miles of Tycho, and seemed to cover, particularly toward the east, the
northeast and the north, the half of the southern hemisphere. One of
these jets extended as far as the circle of Neander, situated on the
40th meridian. Another, by a slight curve, furrowed the “Sea of
Nectar,” breaking against the chain of Pyrenees, after a circuit of 800
miles. Others, toward the west, covered the “Sea of Clouds” and the
“Sea of Humors” with a luminous network. What was the origin of these
sparkling rays, which shone on the plains as well as on the reliefs, at
whatever height they might be? All started from a common center, the
crater of Tycho. They sprang from him. Herschel attributed their
brilliancy to currents of lava congealed by the cold; an opinion,
however, which has not been generally adopted. Other astronomers have
seen in these inexplicable rays a kind of moraines, rows of erratic
blocks, which had been thrown up at the period of Tycho’s formation.

“And why not?” asked Nicholl of Barbicane, who was relating and
rejecting these different opinions.

“Because the regularity of these luminous lines, and the violence
necessary to carry volcanic matter to such distances, is inexplicable.”

“Eh! by Jove!” replied Michel Ardan, “it seems easy enough to me to
explain the origin of these rays.”

“Indeed?” said Barbicane.

“Indeed,” continued Michel. “It is enough to say that it is a vast
star, similar to that produced by a ball or a stone thrown at a square
of glass!”

“Well!” replied Barbicane, smiling. “And what hand would be powerful
enough to throw a ball to give such a shock as that?”

“The hand is not necessary,” answered Nicholl, not at all confounded;
“and as to the stone, let us suppose it to be a comet.”

“Ah! those much-abused comets!” exclaimed Barbicane. “My brave Michel,
your explanation is not bad; but your comet is useless. The shock which
produced that rent must have some from the inside of the star. A
violent contraction of the lunar crust, while cooling, might suffice to
imprint this gigantic star.”

“A contraction! something like a lunar stomach-ache.” said Michel
Ardan.

“Besides,” added Barbicane, “this opinion is that of an English savant,
Nasmyth, and it seems to me to sufficiently explain the radiation of
these mountains.”

“That Nasmyth was no fool!” replied Michel.

Long did the travelers, whom such a sight could never weary, admire the
splendors of Tycho. Their projectile, saturated with luminous gleams in
the double irradiation of sun and moon, must have appeared like an
incandescent globe. They had passed suddenly from excessive cold to
intense heat. Nature was thus preparing them to become Selenites.
Become Selenites! That idea brought up once more the question of the
habitability of the moon. After what they had seen, could the travelers
solve it? Would they decide for or against it? Michel Ardan persuaded
his two friends to form an opinion, and asked them directly if they
thought that men and animals were represented in the lunar world.

“I think that we can answer,” said Barbicane; “but according to my idea
the question ought not to be put in that form. I ask it to be put
differently.”

“Put it your own way,” replied Michel.

“Here it is,” continued Barbicane. “The problem is a double one, and
requires a double solution. Is the moon _habitable_? Has the moon ever
been _inhabitable_?”

“Good!” replied Nicholl. “First let us see whether the moon is
habitable.”

“To tell the truth, I know nothing about it,” answered Michel.

“And I answer in the negative,” continued Barbicane. “In her actual
state, with her surrounding atmosphere certainly very much reduced, her
seas for the most part dried up, her insufficient supply of water
restricted, vegetation, sudden alternations of cold and heat, her days
and nights of 354 hours—the moon does not seem habitable to me, nor
does she seem propitious to animal development, nor sufficient for the
wants of existence as we understand it.”

“Agreed,” replied Nicholl. “But is not the moon habitable for creatures
differently organized from ourselves?”

“That question is more difficult to answer, but I will try; and I ask
Nicholl if _motion_ appears to him to be a necessary result of _life_,
whatever be its organization?”

“Without a doubt!” answered Nicholl.

“Then, my worthy companion, I would answer that we have observed the
lunar continent at a distance of 500 yards at most, and that nothing
seemed to us to move on the moon’s surface. The presence of any kind of
life would have been betrayed by its attendant marks, such as divers
buildings, and even by ruins. And what have we seen? Everywhere and
always the geological works of nature, never the work of man. If, then,
there exist representatives of the animal kingdom on the moon, they
must have fled to those unfathomable cavities which the eye cannot
reach; which I cannot admit, for they must have left traces of their
passage on those plains which the atmosphere must cover, however
slightly raised it may be. These traces are nowhere visible. There
remains but one hypothesis, that of a living race to which motion,
which is life, is foreign.”

“One might as well say, living creatures which do not live,” replied
Michel.

“Just so,” said Barbicane, “which for us has no meaning.”

“Then we may form our opinion?” said Michel.

“Yes,” replied Nicholl.

“Very well,” continued Michel Ardan, “the Scientific Commission
assembled in the projectile of the Gun Club, after having founded their
argument on facts recently observed, decide unanimously upon the
question of the habitability of the moon—‘_No!_ the moon is not
habitable.’”

This decision was consigned by President Barbicane to his notebook,
where the process of the sitting of the 6th of December may be seen.

“Now,” said Nicholl, “let us attack the second question, an
indispensable complement of the first. I ask the honorable commission,
if the moon is not habitable, has she ever been inhabited, Citizen
Barbicane?”

“My friends,” replied Barbicane, “I did not undertake this journey in
order to form an opinion on the past habitability of our satellite; but
I will add that our personal observations only confirm me in this
opinion. I believe, indeed I affirm, that the moon has been inhabited
by a human race organized like our own; that she has produced animals
anatomically formed like the terrestrial animals: but I add that these
races, human and animal, have had their day, and are now forever
extinct!”

“Then,” asked Michel, “the moon must be older than the earth?”

“No!” said Barbicane decidedly, “but a world which has grown old
quicker, and whose formation and deformation have been more rapid.
Relatively, the organizing force of matter has been much more violent
in the interior of the moon than in the interior of the terrestrial
globe. The actual state of this cracked, twisted, and burst disc
abundantly proves this. The moon and the earth were nothing but gaseous
masses originally. These gases have passed into a liquid state under
different influences, and the solid masses have been formed later. But
most certainly our sphere was still gaseous or liquid, when the moon
was solidified by cooling, and had become habitable.”

“I believe it,” said Nicholl.

“Then,” continued Barbicane, “an atmosphere surrounded it, the waters
contained within this gaseous envelope could not evaporate. Under the
influence of air, water, light, solar heat, and central heat,
vegetation took possession of the continents prepared to receive it,
and certainly life showed itself about this period, for nature does not
expend herself in vain; and a world so wonderfully formed for
habitation must necessarily be inhabited.”

“But,” said Nicholl, “many phenomena inherent in our satellite might
cramp the expansion of the animal and vegetable kingdom. For example,
its days and nights of 354 hours?”

“At the terrestrial poles they last six months,” said Michel.

“An argument of little value, since the poles are not inhabited.”

“Let us observe, my friends,” continued Barbicane, “that if in the
actual state of the moon its long nights and long days created
differences of temperature insupportable to organization, it was not so
at the historical period of time. The atmosphere enveloped the disc
with a fluid mantle; vapor deposited itself in the shape of clouds;
this natural screen tempered the ardor of the solar rays, and retained
the nocturnal radiation. Light, like heat, can diffuse itself in the
air; hence an equality between the influences which no longer exists,
now that atmosphere has almost entirely disappeared. And now I am going
to astonish you.”

“Astonish us?” said Michel Ardan.

“I firmly believe that at the period when the moon was inhabited, the
nights and days did not last 354 hours!”

“And why?” asked Nicholl quickly.

“Because most probably then the rotary motion of the moon upon her axis
was not equal to her revolution, an equality which presents each part
of her disc during fifteen days to the action of the solar rays.”

“Granted,” replied Nicholl, “but why should not these two motions have
been equal, as they are really so?”

“Because that equality has only been determined by terrestrial
attraction. And who can say that this attraction was powerful enough to
alter the motion of the moon at that period when the earth was still
fluid?”

“Just so,” replied Nicholl; “and who can say that the moon has always
been a satellite of the earth?”

“And who can say,” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “that the moon did not exist
before the earth?”

Their imaginations carried them away into an indefinite field of
hypothesis. Barbicane sought to restrain them.

“Those speculations are too high,” said he; “problems utterly
insoluble. Do not let us enter upon them. Let us only admit the
insufficiency of the primordial attraction; and then by the inequality
of the two motions of rotation and revolution, the days and nights
could have succeeded each other on the moon as they succeed each other
on the earth. Besides, even without these conditions, life was
possible.”

“And so,” asked Michel Ardan, “humanity has disappeared from the moon?”

“Yes,” replied Barbicane, “after having doubtless remained persistently
for millions of centuries; by degrees the atmosphere becoming rarefied,
the disc became uninhabitable, as the terrestrial globe will one day
become by cooling.”

“By cooling?”

“Certainly,” replied Barbicane; “as the internal fires became
extinguished, and the incandescent matter concentrated itself, the
lunar crust cooled. By degrees the consequences of these phenomena
showed themselves in the disappearance of organized beings, and by the
disappearance of vegetation. Soon the atmosphere was rarefied, probably
withdrawn by terrestrial attraction; then aerial departure of
respirable air, and disappearance of water by means of evaporation. At
this period the moon becoming uninhabitable, was no longer inhabited.
It was a dead world, such as we see it to-day.”

“And you say that the same fate is in store for the earth?”

“Most probably.”

“But when?”

“When the cooling of its crust shall have made it uninhabitable.”

“And have they calculated the time which our unfortunate sphere will
take to cool?”

“Certainly.”

“And you know these calculations?”

“Perfectly.”

“But speak, then, my clumsy savant,” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “for you
make me boil with impatience!”

“Very well, my good Michel,” replied Barbicane quietly; “we know what
diminution of temperature the earth undergoes in the lapse of a
century. And according to certain calculations, this mean temperature
will after a period of 400,000 years, be brought down to zero!”

“Four hundred thousand years!” exclaimed Michel. “Ah! I breathe again.
Really I was frightened to hear you; I imagined that we had not more
than 50,000 years to live.”

Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at their companion’s
uneasiness. Then Nicholl, who wished to end the discussion, put the
second question, which had just been considered again.

“Has the moon been inhabited?” he asked.

The answer was unanimously in the affirmative. But during this
discussion, fruitful in somewhat hazardous theories, the projectile was
rapidly leaving the moon: the lineaments faded away from the travelers’
eyes, mountains were confused in the distance; and of all the
wonderful, strange, and fantastical form of the earth’s satellite,
there soon remained nothing but the imperishable remembrance.




CHAPTER XIX.
A STRUGGLE AGAINST THE IMPOSSIBLE


For a long time Barbicane and his companions looked silently and sadly
upon that world which they had only seen from a distance, as Moses saw
the land of Canaan, and which they were leaving without a possibility
of ever returning to it. The projectile’s position with regard to the
moon had altered, and the base was now turned to the earth.

This change, which Barbicane verified, did not fail to surprise them.
If the projectile was to gravitate round the satellite in an elliptical
orbit, why was not its heaviest part turned toward it, as the moon
turns hers to the earth? That was a difficult point.

In watching the course of the projectile they could see that on leaving
the moon it followed a course analogous to that traced in approaching
her. It was describing a very long ellipse, which would most likely
extend to the point of equal attraction, where the influences of the
earth and its satellite are neutralized.

Such was the conclusion which Barbicane very justly drew from facts
already observed, a conviction which his two friends shared with him.

“And when arrived at this dead point, what will become of us?” asked
Michel Ardan.

“We don’t know,” replied Barbicane.

“But one can draw some hypotheses, I suppose?”

“Two,” answered Barbicane; “either the projectile’s speed will be
insufficient, and it will remain forever immovable on this line of
double attraction—”

“I prefer the other hypothesis, whatever it may be,” interrupted
Michel.

“Or,” continued Barbicane, “its speed will be sufficient, and it will
continue its elliptical course, to gravitate forever around the orb of
night.”

“A revolution not at all consoling,” said Michel, “to pass to the state
of humble servants to a moon whom we are accustomed to look upon as our
own handmaid. So that is the fate in store for us?”

Neither Barbicane nor Nicholl answered.

“You do not answer,” continued Michel impatiently.

“There is nothing to answer,” said Nicholl.

“Is there nothing to try?”

“No,” answered Barbicane. “Do you pretend to fight against the
impossible?”

“Why not? Do one Frenchman and two Americans shrink from such a word?”

“But what would you do?”

“Subdue this motion which is bearing us away.”

“Subdue it?”

“Yes,” continued Michel, getting animated, “or else alter it, and
employ it to the accomplishment of our own ends.”

“And how?”

“That is your affair. If artillerymen are not masters of their
projectile they are not artillerymen. If the projectile is to command
the gunner, we had better ram the gunner into the gun. My faith! fine
savants! who do not know what is to become of us after inducing me—”

“Inducing you!” cried Barbicane and Nicholl. “Inducing you! What do you
mean by that?”

“No recrimination,” said Michel. “I do not complain, the trip has
pleased me, and the projectile agrees with me; but let us do all that
is humanly possible to do the fall somewhere, even if only on the
moon.”

“We ask no better, my worthy Michel,” replied Barbicane, “but means
fail us.”

“We cannot alter the motion of the projectile?”

“No.”

“Nor diminish its speed?”

“No.”

“Not even by lightening it, as they lighten an overloaded vessel?”

“What would you throw out?” said Nicholl. “We have no ballast on board;
and indeed it seems to me that if lightened it would go much quicker.”

“Slower.”

“Quicker.”

“Neither slower nor quicker,” said Barbicane, wishing to make his two
friends agree; “for we float is space, and must no longer consider
specific weight.”

“Very well,” cried Michel Ardan in a decided voice; “then their remains
but one thing to do.”

“What is it?” asked Nicholl.

“Breakfast,” answered the cool, audacious Frenchman, who always brought
up this solution at the most difficult juncture.

In any case, if this operation had no influence on the projectile’s
course, it could at least be tried without inconvenience, and even with
success from a stomachic point of view. Certainly Michel had none but
good ideas.

They breakfasted then at two in the morning; the hour mattered little.
Michel served his usual repast, crowned by a glorious bottle drawn from
his private cellar. If ideas did not crowd on their brains, we must
despair of the Chambertin of 1853. The repast finished, observation
began again. Around the projectile, at an invariable distance, were the
objects which had been thrown out. Evidently, in its translatory motion
round the moon, it had not passed through any atmosphere, for the
specific weight of these different objects would have checked their
relative speed.

On the side of the terrestrial sphere nothing was to be seen. The earth
was but a day old, having been new the night before at twelve; and two
days must elapse before its crescent, freed from the solar rays, would
serve as a clock to the Selenites, as in its rotary movement each of
its points after twenty-four hours repasses the same lunar meridian.

On the moon’s side the sight was different; the orb shone in all her
splendor amid innumerable constellations, whose purity could not be
troubled by her rays. On the disc, the plains were already returning to
the dark tint which is seen from the earth. The other part of the
nimbus remained brilliant, and in the midst of this general brilliancy
Tycho shone prominently like a sun.

Barbicane had no means of estimating the projectile’s speed, but
reasoning showed that it must uniformly decrease, according to the laws
of mechanical reasoning. Having admitted that the projectile was
describing an orbit around the moon, this orbit must necessarily be
elliptical; science proves that it must be so. No motive body
circulating round an attracting body fails in this law. Every orbit
described in space is elliptical. And why should the projectile of the
Gun Club escape this natural arrangement? In elliptical orbits, the
attracting body always occupies one of the foci; so that at one moment
the satellite is nearer, and at another farther from the orb around
which it gravitates. When the earth is nearest the sun she is in her
perihelion; and in her aphelion at the farthest point. Speaking of the
moon, she is nearest to the earth in her perigee, and farthest from it
in her apogee. To use analogous expressions, with which the
astronomers’ language is enriched, if the projectile remains as a
satellite of the moon, we must say that it is in its “aposelene” at its
farthest point, and in its “periselene” at its nearest. In the latter
case, the projectile would attain its maximum of speed; and in the
former its minimum. It was evidently moving toward its aposelenitical
point; and Barbicane had reason to think that its speed would decrease
up to this point, and then increase by degrees as it neared the moon.
This speed would even become _nil_, if this point joined that of equal
attraction. Barbicane studied the consequences of these different
situations, and thinking what inference he could draw from them, when
he was roughly disturbed by a cry from Michel Ardan.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “I must admit we are down-right simpletons!”

“I do not say we are not,” replied Barbicane; “but why?”

“Because we have a very simple means of checking this speed which is
bearing us from the moon, and we do not use it!”

“And what is the means?”

“To use the recoil contained in our rockets.”

“Done!” said Nicholl.

“We have not used this force yet,” said Barbicane, “it is true, but we
will do so.”

“When?” asked Michel.

“When the time comes. Observe, my friends, that in the position
occupied by the projectile, an oblique position with regard to the
lunar disc, our rockets, in slightly altering its direction, might turn
it from the moon instead of drawing it nearer?”

“Just so,” replied Michel.

“Let us wait, then. By some inexplicable influence, the projectile is
turning its base toward the earth. It is probable that at the point of
equal attraction, its conical cap will be directed rigidly toward the
moon; at that moment we may hope that its speed will be _nil_; then
will be the moment to act, and with the influence of our rockets we may
perhaps provoke a fall directly on the surface of the lunar disc.”

“Bravo!” said Michel. “What we did not do, what we could not do on our
first passage at the dead point, because the projectile was then
endowed with too great a speed.”

“Very well reasoned,” said Nicholl.

“Let us wait patiently,” continued Barbicane. “Putting every chance on
our side, and after having so much despaired, I may say I think we
shall gain our end.”

This conclusion was a signal for Michel Ardan’s hips and hurrahs. And
none of the audacious boobies remembered the question that they
themselves had solved in the negative. No! the moon is not inhabited;
no! the moon is probably not habitable. And yet they were going to try
everything to reach her.

One single question remained to be solved. At what precise moment the
projectile would reach the point of equal attraction, on which the
travelers must play their last card. In order to calculate this to
within a few seconds, Barbicane had only to refer to his notes, and to
reckon the different heights taken on the lunar parallels. Thus the
time necessary to travel over the distance between the dead point and
the south pole would be equal to the distance separating the north pole
from the dead point. The hours representing the time traveled over were
carefully noted, and the calculation was easy. Barbicane found that
this point would be reached at one in the morning on the night of the
7th-8th of December. So that, if nothing interfered with its course, it
would reach the given point in twenty-two hours.

The rockets had primarily been placed to check the fall of the
projectile upon the moon, and now they were going to employ them for a
directly contrary purpose. In any case they were ready, and they had
only to wait for the moment to set fire to them.

“Since there is nothing else to be done,” said Nicholl, “I make a
proposition.”

“What is it?” asked Barbicane.

“I propose to go to sleep.”

“What a motion!” exclaimed Michel Ardan.

“It is forty hours since we closed our eyes,” said Nicholl. “Some hours
of sleep will restore our strength.”

“Never,” interrupted Michel.

“Well,” continued Nicholl, “every one to his taste; I shall go to
sleep.” And stretching himself on the divan, he soon snored like a
forty-eight pounder.

“That Nicholl has a good deal of sense,” said Barbicane; “presently I
shall follow his example.” Some moments after his continued bass
supported the captain’s baritone.

“Certainly,” said Michel Ardan, finding himself alone, “these practical
people have sometimes most opportune ideas.”

And with his long legs stretched out, and his great arms folded under
his head, Michel slept in his turn.

But this sleep could be neither peaceful nor lasting, the minds of
these three men were too much occupied, and some hours after, about
seven in the morning, all three were on foot at the same instant.

The projectile was still leaving the moon, and turning its conical part
more and more toward her.

An explicable phenomenon, but one which happily served Barbicane’s
ends.

Seventeen hours more, and the moment for action would have arrived.

The day seemed long. However bold the travelers might be, they were
greatly impressed by the approach of that moment which would decide
all—either precipitate their fall on to the moon, or forever chain them
in an immutable orbit. They counted the hours as they passed too slow
for their wish; Barbicane and Nicholl were obstinately plunged in their
calculations, Michel going and coming between the narrow walls, and
watching that impassive moon with a longing eye.

At times recollections of the earth crossed their minds. They saw once
more their friends of the Gun Club, and the dearest of all, J. T.
Maston. At that moment, the honorable secretary must be filling his
post on the Rocky Mountains. If he could see the projectile through the
glass of his gigantic telescope, what would he think? After seeing it
disappear behind the moon’s south pole, he would see them reappear by
the north pole! They must therefore be a satellite of a satellite! Had
J. T. Maston given this unexpected news to the world? Was this the
_denouement_ of this great enterprise?

But the day passed without incident. The terrestrial midnight arrived.
The 8th of December was beginning. One hour more, and the point of
equal attraction would be reached. What speed would then animate the
projectile? They could not estimate it. But no error could vitiate
Barbicane’s calculations. At one in the morning this speed ought to be
and would be _nil_.

Besides, another phenomenon would mark the projectile’s stopping-point
on the neutral line. At that spot the two attractions, lunar and
terrestrial, would be annulled. Objects would “weigh” no more. This
singular fact, which had surprised Barbicane and his companions so much
in going, would be repeated on their return under the very same
conditions. At this precise moment they must act.

Already the projectile’s conical top was sensibly turned toward the
lunar disc, presented in such a way as to utilize the whole of the
recoil produced by the pressure of the rocket apparatus. The chances
were in favor of the travelers. If its speed was utterly annulled on
this dead point, a decided movement toward the moon would suffice,
however slight, to determine its fall.

“Five minutes to one,” said Nicholl.

“All is ready,” replied Michel Ardan, directing a lighted match to the
flame of the gas.

“Wait!” said Barbicane, holding his chronometer in his hand.

At that moment weight had no effect. The travelers felt in themselves
the entire disappearance of it. They were very near the neutral point,
if they did not touch it.

“One o’clock,” said Barbicane.

Michel Ardan applied the lighted match to a train in communication with
the rockets. No detonation was heard in the inside, for there was no
air. But, through the scuttles, Barbicane saw a prolonged smoke, the
flames of which were immediately extinguished.

The projectile sustained a certain shock, which was sensibly felt in
the interior.

The three friends looked and listened without speaking, and scarcely
breathing. One might have heard the beating of their hearts amid this
perfect silence.

“Are we falling?” asked Michel Ardan, at length.

“No,” said Nicholl, “since the bottom of the projectile is not turning
to the lunar disc!”

At this moment, Barbicane, quitting his scuttle, turned to his two
companions. He was frightfully pale, his forehead wrinkled, and his
lips contracted.

“We are falling!” said he.

“Ah!” cried Michel Ardan, “on to the moon?”

“On to the earth!”

“The devil!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, adding philosophically, “well,
when we came into this projectile we were very doubtful as to the ease
with which we should get out of it!”

And now this fearful fall had begun. The speed retained had borne the
projectile beyond the dead point. The explosion of the rockets could
not divert its course. This speed in going had carried it over the
neutral line, and in returning had done the same thing. The laws of
physics condemned it _to pass through every point which it had already
gone through_. It was a terrible fall, from a height of 160,000 miles,
and no springs to break it. According to the laws of gunnery, the
projectile must strike the earth with a speed equal to that with which
it left the mouth of the Columbiad, a speed of 16,000 yards in the last
second.

But to give some figures of comparison, it has been reckoned that an
object thrown from the top of the towers of Notre Dame, the height of
which is only 200 feet, will arrive on the pavement at a speed of 240
miles per hour. Here the projectile must strike the earth with a speed
of 115,200 miles per hour.

“We are lost!” said Michel coolly.

“Very well! if we die,” answered Barbicane, with a sort of religious
enthusiasm, “the results of our travels will be magnificently spread.
It is His own secret that God will tell us! In the other life the soul
will want to know nothing, either of machines or engines! It will be
identified with eternal wisdom!”

“In fact,” interrupted Michel Ardan, “the whole of the other world may
well console us for the loss of that inferior orb called the moon!”

Barbicane crossed his arms on his breast, with a motion of sublime
resignation, saying at the same time:

“The will of heaven be done!”




CHAPTER XX.
THE SOUNDINGS OF THE SUSQUEHANNA


Well, lieutenant, and our soundings?”

“I think, sir, that the operation is nearing its completion,” replied
Lieutenant Bronsfield. “But who would have thought of finding such a
depth so near in shore, and only 200 miles from the American coast?”

“Certainly, Bronsfield, there is a great depression,” said Captain
Blomsberry. “In this spot there is a submarine valley worn by
Humboldt’s current, which skirts the coast of America as far as the
Straits of Magellan.”

“These great depths,” continued the lieutenant, “are not favorable for
laying telegraphic cables. A level bottom, like that supporting the
American cable between Valentia and Newfoundland, is much better.”

“I agree with you, Bronsfield. With your permission, lieutenant, where
are we now?”

“Sir, at this moment we have 3,508 fathoms of line out, and the ball
which draws the sounding lead has not yet touched the bottom; for if
so, it would have come up of itself.”

“Brook’s apparatus is very ingenious,” said Captain Blomsberry; “it
gives us very exact soundings.”

“Touch!” cried at this moment one of the men at the forewheel, who was
superintending the operation.

The captain and the lieutenant mounted the quarterdeck.

“What depth have we?” asked the captain.

“Three thousand six hundred and twenty-seven fathoms,” replied the
lieutenant, entering it in his notebook.

“Well, Bronsfield,” said the captain, “I will take down the result. Now
haul in the sounding line. It will be the work of some hours. In that
time the engineer can light the furnaces, and we shall be ready to
start as soon as you have finished. It is ten o’clock, and with your
permission, lieutenant, I will turn in.”

“Do so, sir; do so!” replied the lieutenant obligingly.

The captain of the Susquehanna, as brave a man as need be, and the
humble servant of his officers, returned to his cabin, took a
brandy-grog, which earned for the steward no end of praise, and turned
in, not without having complimented his servant upon his making beds,
and slept a peaceful sleep.

It was then ten at night. The eleventh day of the month of December was
drawing to a close in a magnificent night.

The Susquehanna, a corvette of 500 horse-power, of the United States
navy, was occupied in taking soundings in the Pacific Ocean about 200
miles off the American coast, following that long peninsula which
stretches down the coast of Mexico.

The wind had dropped by degrees. There was no disturbance in the air.
The pennant hung motionless from the maintop-gallant- mast truck.

Captain Jonathan Blomsberry (cousin-german of Colonel Blomsberry, one
of the most ardent supporters of the Gun Club, who had married an aunt
of the captain and daughter of an honorable Kentucky merchant)—Captain
Blomsberry could not have wished for finer weather in which to bring to
a close his delicate operations of sounding. His corvette had not even
felt the great tempest, which by sweeping away the groups of clouds on
the Rocky Mountains, had allowed them to observe the course of the
famous projectile.

Everything went well, and with all the fervor of a Presbyterian, he did
not forget to thank heaven for it. The series of soundings taken by the
Susquehanna, had for its aim the finding of a favorable spot for the
laying of a submarine cable to connect the Hawaiian Islands with the
coast of America.

It was a great undertaking, due to the instigation of a powerful
company. Its managing director, the intelligent Cyrus Field, purposed
even covering all the islands of Oceanica with a vast electrical
network, an immense enterprise, and one worthy of American genius.

To the corvette Susquehanna had been confided the first operations of
sounding. It was on the night of the 11th-12th of December, she was in
exactly 27° 7′ north latitude, and 41° 37′ west longitude, on the
meridian of Washington.

The moon, then in her last quarter, was beginning to rise above the
horizon.

After the departure of Captain Blomsberry, the lieutenant and some
officers were standing together on the poop. On the appearance of the
moon, their thoughts turned to that orb which the eyes of a whole
hemisphere were contemplating. The best naval glasses could not have
discovered the projectile wandering around its hemisphere, and yet all
were pointed toward that brilliant disc which millions of eyes were
looking at at the same moment.

“They have been gone ten days,” said Lieutenant Bronsfield at last.
“What has become of them?”

“They have arrived, lieutenant,” exclaimed a young midshipman, “and
they are doing what all travelers do when they arrive in a new country,
taking a walk!”

“Oh! I am sure of that, if you tell me so, my young friend,” said
Lieutenant Bronsfield, smiling.

“But,” continued another officer, “their arrival cannot be doubted. The
projectile was to reach the moon when full on the 5th at midnight. We
are now at the 11th of December, which makes six days. And in six times
twenty-four hours, without darkness, one would have time to settle
comfortably. I fancy I see my brave countrymen encamped at the bottom
of some valley, on the borders of a Selenite stream, near a projectile
half-buried by its fall amid volcanic rubbish, Captain Nicholl
beginning his leveling operations, President Barbicane writing out his
notes, and Michel Ardan embalming the lunar solitudes with the perfume
of his—”

“Yes! it must be so, it is so!” exclaimed the young midshipman, worked
up to a pitch of enthusiasm by this ideal description of his superior
officer.

“I should like to believe it,” replied the lieutenant, who was quite
unmoved. “Unfortunately direct news from the lunar world is still
wanting.”

“Beg pardon, lieutenant,” said the midshipman, “but cannot President
Barbicane write?”

A burst of laughter greeted this answer.

“No letters!” continued the young man quickly. “The postal
administration has something to see to there.”

“Might it not be the telegraphic service that is at fault?” asked one
of the officers ironically.

“Not necessarily,” replied the midshipman, not at all confused. “But it
is very easy to set up a graphic communication with the earth.”

“And how?”

“By means of the telescope at Long’s Peak. You know it brings the moon
to within four miles of the Rocky Mountains, and that it shows objects
on its surface of only nine feet in diameter. Very well; let our
industrious friends construct a giant alphabet; let them write words
three fathoms long, and sentences three miles long, and then they can
send us news of themselves.”

The young midshipman, who had a certain amount of imagination, was
loudly applauded; Lieutenant Bronsfield allowing that the idea was
possible, but observing that if by these means they could receive news
from the lunar world they could not send any from the terrestrial,
unless the Selenites had instruments fit for taking distant
observations at their disposal.

“Evidently,” said one of the officers; “but what has become of the
travelers? what they have done, what they have seen, that above all
must interest us. Besides, if the experiment has succeeded (which I do
not doubt), they will try it again. The Columbiad is still sunk in the
soil of Florida. It is now only a question of powder and shot; and
every time the moon is at her zenith a cargo of visitors may be sent to
her.”

“It is clear,” replied Lieutenant Bronsfield, “that J. T. Maston will
one day join his friends.”

“If he will have me,” cried the midshipman, “I am ready!”

“Oh! volunteers will not be wanting,” answered Bronsfield; “and if it
were allowed, half of the earth’s inhabitants would emigrate to the
moon!”

This conversation between the officers of the Susquehanna was kept up
until nearly one in the morning. We cannot say what blundering systems
were broached, what inconsistent theories advanced by these bold
spirits. Since Barbicane’s attempt, nothing seemed impossible to the
Americans. They had already designed an expedition, not only of
savants, but of a whole colony toward the Selenite borders, and a
complete army, consisting of infantry, artillery, and cavalry, to
conquer the lunar world.

At one in the morning, the hauling in of the sounding-line was not yet
completed; 1,670 fathoms were still out, which would entail some hours’
work. According to the commander’s orders, the fires had been lighted,
and steam was being got up. The Susquehanna could have started that
very instant.

At that moment (it was seventeen minutes past one in the morning)
Lieutenant Bronsfield was preparing to leave the watch and return to
his cabin, when his attention was attracted by a distant hissing noise.
His comrades and himself first thought that this hissing was caused by
the letting off of steam; but lifting their heads, they found that the
noise was produced in the highest regions of the air. They had not time
to question each other before the hissing became frightfully intense,
and suddenly there appeared to their dazzled eyes an enormous meteor,
ignited by the rapidity of its course and its friction through the
atmospheric strata.

This fiery mass grew larger to their eyes, and fell, with the noise of
thunder, upon the bowsprit, which it smashed close to the stem, and
buried itself in the waves with a deafening roar!

A few feet nearer, and the Susquehanna would have foundered with all on
board!

At this instant Captain Blomsberry appeared, half-dressed, and rushing
on to the forecastle-deck, whither all the officers had hurried,
exclaimed, “With your permission, gentlemen, what has happened?”

And the midshipman, making himself as it were the echo of the body,
cried, “Commander, it is ‘they’ come back again!”




CHAPTER XXI.
J. T. MASTON RECALLED


“It is ‘they’ come back again!” the young midshipman had said, and
every one had understood him. No one doubted but that the meteor was
the projectile of the Gun Club. As to the travelers which it enclosed,
opinions were divided regarding their fate.

“They are dead!” said one.

“They are alive!” said another; “the crater is deep, and the shock was
deadened.”

“But they must have wanted air,” continued a third speaker; “they must
have died of suffocation.”

“Burned!” replied a fourth; “the projectile was nothing but an
incandescent mass as it crossed the atmosphere.”

“What does it matter!” they exclaimed unanimously; “living or dead, we
must pull them out!”

But Captain Blomsberry had assembled his officers, and “with their
permission,” was holding a council. They must decide upon something to
be done immediately. The more hasty ones were for fishing up the
projectile. A difficult operation, though not an impossible one. But
the corvette had no proper machinery, which must be both fixed and
powerful; so it was resolved that they should put in at the nearest
port, and give information to the Gun Club of the projectile’s fall.

This determination was unanimous. The choice of the port had to be
discussed. The neighboring coast had no anchorage on 27° latitude.
Higher up, above the peninsula of Monterey, stands the important town
from which it takes its name; but, seated on the borders of a perfect
desert, it was not connected with the interior by a network of
telegraphic wires, and electricity alone could spread these important
news fast enough.

Some degrees above opened the bay of San Francisco. Through the capital
of the gold country communication would be easy with the heart of the
Union. And in less than two days the Susquehanna, by putting on high
pressure, could arrive in that port. She must therefore start at once.

The fires were made up; they could set off immediately. Two thousand
fathoms of line were still out, which Captain Blomsberry, not wishing
to lose precious time in hauling in, resolved to cut.

“we will fasten the end to a buoy,” said he, “and that buoy will show
us the exact spot where the projectile fell.”

“Besides,” replied Lieutenant Bronsfield, “we have our situation
exact—27° 7′ north latitude and 41° 37′ west longitude.”

“Well, Mr. Bronsfield,” replied the captain, “now, with your
permission, we will have the line cut.”

A strong buoy, strengthened by a couple of spars, was thrown into the
ocean. The end of the rope was carefully lashed to it; and, left solely
to the rise and fall of the billows, the buoy would not sensibly
deviate from the spot.

At this moment the engineer sent to inform the captain that steam was
up and they could start, for which agreeable communication the captain
thanked him. The course was then given north-northeast, and the
corvette, wearing, steered at full steam direct for San Francisco. It
was three in the morning.

Four hundred and fifty miles to cross; it was nothing for a good vessel
like the Susquehanna. In thirty-six hours she had covered that
distance; and on the 14th of December, at twenty-seven minutes past one
at night, she entered the bay of San Francisco.

At the sight of a ship of the national navy arriving at full speed,
with her bowsprit broken, public curiosity was greatly roused. A dense
crowd soon assembled on the quay, waiting for them to disembark.

After casting anchor, Captain Blomsberry and Lieutenant Bronsfield
entered an eight-pared cutter, which soon brought them to land.

They jumped on to the quay.

“The telegraph?” they asked, without answering one of the thousand
questions addressed to them.

The officer of the port conducted them to the telegraph office through
a concourse of spectators. Blomsberry and Bronsfield entered, while the
crowd crushed each other at the door.

Some minutes later a fourfold telegram was sent out—the first to the
Naval Secretary at Washington; the second to the vice-president of the
Gun Club, Baltimore; the third to the Hon. J. T. Maston, Long’s Peak,
Rocky Mountains; and the fourth to the sub-director of the Cambridge
Observatory, Massachusetts.

It was worded as follows:

In 20° 7′ north latitude, and 41° 37′ west longitude, on the 12th of
December, at seventeen minutes past one in the morning, the projectile
of the Columbiad fell into the Pacific. Send instructions.—BLOMSBERRY,
Commander Susquehanna.

Five minutes afterward the whole town of San Francisco learned the
news. Before six in the evening the different States of the Union had
heard the great catastrophe; and after midnight, by the cable, the
whole of Europe knew the result of the great American experiment. We
will not attempt to picture the effect produced on the entire world by
that unexpected denouement.

On receipt of the telegram the Naval Secretary telegraphed to the
Susquehanna to wait in the bay of San Francisco without extinguishing
her fires. Day and night she must be ready to put to sea.

The Cambridge observatory called a special meeting; and, with that
composure which distinguishes learned bodies in general, peacefully
discussed the scientific bearings of the question. At the Gun Club
there was an explosion. All the gunners were assembled. Vice-President
the Hon. Wilcome was in the act of reading the premature dispatch, in
which J. T. Maston and Belfast announced that the projectile had just
been seen in the gigantic reflector of Long’s Peak, and also that it
was held by lunar attraction, and was playing the part of under
satellite to the lunar world.

We know the truth on that point.

But on the arrival of Blomsberry’s dispatch, so decidely contradicting
J. T. Maston’s telegram, two parties were formed in the bosom of the
Gun Club. On one side were those who admitted the fall of the
projectile, and consequently the return of the travelers; on the other,
those who believed in the observations of Long’s Peak, concluded that
the commander of the Susquehanna had made a mistake. To the latter the
pretended projectile was nothing but a meteor! nothing but a meteor, a
shooting globe, which in its fall had smashed the bows of the corvette.
It was difficult to answer this argument, for the speed with which it
was animated must have made observation very difficult. The commander
of the Susquehanna and her officers might have made a mistake in all
good faith; one argument however, was in their favor, namely, that if
the projectile had fallen on the earth, its place of meeting with the
terrestrial globe could only take place on this 27° north latitude, and
(taking into consideration the time that had elapsed, and the rotary
motion of the earth) between the 41° and the 42° of west longitude. In
any case, it was decided in the Gun Club that Blomsberry brothers,
Bilsby, and Major Elphinstone should go straight to San Francisco, and
consult as to the means of raising the projectile from the depths of
the ocean.

These devoted men set off at once; and the railroad, which will soon
cross the whole of Central America, took them as far as St. Louis,
where the swift mail-coaches awaited them. Almost at the same moment in
which the Secretary of Marine, the vice-president of the Gun Club, and
the sub-director of the Observatory received the dispatch from San
Francisco, the Honorable J. T. Maston was undergoing the greatest
excitement he had ever experienced in his life, an excitement which
even the bursting of his pet gun, which had more than once nearly cost
him his life, had not caused him. We may remember that the secretary of
the Gun Club had started soon after the projectile (and almost as
quickly) for the station on Long’s Peak, in the Rocky Mountains, J.
Belfast, director of the Cambridge Observatory, accompanying him.
Arrived there, the two friends had installed themselves at once, never
quitting the summit of their enormous telescope. We know that this
gigantic instrument had been set up according to the reflecting system,
called by the English “front view.” This arrangement subjected all
objects to but one reflection, making the view consequently much
clearer; the result was that, when they were taking observation, J. T.
Maston and Belfast were placed in the _upper_ part of the instrument
and not in the lower, which they reached by a circular staircase, a
masterpiece of lightness, while below them opened a metal well
terminated by the metallic mirror, which measured two hundred and
eighty feet in depth.

It was on a narrow platform placed above the telescope that the two
savants passed their existence, execrating the day which hid the moon
from their eyes, and the clouds which obstinately veiled her during the
night.

What, then, was their delight when, after some days of waiting, on the
night of the 5th of December, they saw the vehicle which was bearing
their friends into space! To this delight succeeded a great deception,
when, trusting to a cursory observation, they launched their first
telegram to the world, erroneously affirming that the projectile had
become a satellite of the moon, gravitating in an immutable orbit.

From that moment it had never shown itself to their eyes—a
disappearance all the more easily explained, as it was then passing
behind the moon’s invisible disc; but when it was time for it to
reappear on the visible disc, one may imagine the impatience of the
fuming J. T. Maston and his not less impatient companion. Each minute
of the night they thought they saw the projectile once more, and they
did not see it. Hence constant discussions and violent disputes between
them, Belfast affirming that the projectile could not be seen, J. T.
Maston maintaining that “it had put his eyes out.”

“It is the projectile!” repeated J. T. Maston.

“No,” answered Belfast; “it is an avalanche detached from a lunar
mountain.”

“Well, we shall see it to-morrow.”

“No, we shall not see it any more. It is carried into space.”

“Yes!”

“No!”

And at these moments, when contradictions rained like hail, the
well-known irritability of the secretary of the Gun Club constituted a
permanent danger for the Honorable Belfast. The existence of these two
together would soon have become impossible; but an unforseen event cut
short their everlasting discussions.

During the night, from the 14th to the 15th of December, the two
irreconcilable friends were busy observing the lunar disc, J. T. Maston
abusing the learned Belfast as usual, who was by his side; the
secretary of the Gun Club maintaining for the thousandth time that he
had just seen the projectile, and adding that he could see Michel
Ardan’s face looking through one of the scuttles, at the same time
enforcing his argument by a series of gestures which his formidable
hook rendered very unpleasant.

At this moment Belfast’s servant appeared on the platform (it was ten
at night) and gave him a dispatch. It was the commander of the
Susquehanna’s telegram.

Belfast tore the envelope and read, and uttered a cry.

“What!” said J. T. Maston.

“The projectile!”

“Well!”

“Has fallen to the earth!”

Another cry, this time a perfect howl, answered him. He turned toward
J. T. Maston. The unfortunate man, imprudently leaning over the metal
tube, had disappeared in the immense telescope. A fall of two hundred
and eighty feet! Belfast, dismayed, rushed to the orifice of the
reflector.

He breathed. J. T. Maston, caught by his metal hook, was holding on by
one of the rings which bound the telescope together, uttering fearful
cries.

Belfast called. Help was brought, tackle was let down, and they hoisted
up, not without some trouble, the imprudent secretary of the Gun Club.

He reappeared at the upper orifice without hurt.

“Ah!” said he, “if I had broken the mirror?”

“You would have paid for it,” replied Belfast severely.

“And that cursed projectile has fallen?” asked J. T. Maston.

“Into the Pacific!”

“Let us go!”

A quarter of an hour after the two savants were descending the
declivity of the Rocky Mountains; and two days after, at the same time
as their friends of the Gun Club, they arrived at San Francisco, having
killed five horses on the road.

Elphinstone, the brothers Blomsberry, and Bilsby rushed toward them on
their arrival.

“What shall we do?” they exclaimed.

“Fish up the projectile,” replied J. T. Maston, “and the sooner the
better.”




CHAPTER XXII.
RECOVERED FROM THE SEA


The spot where the projectile sank under the waves was exactly known;
but the machinery to grasp it and bring it to the surface of the ocean
was still wanting. It must first be invented, then made. American
engineers could not be troubled with such trifles. The grappling-irons
once fixed, by their help they were sure to raise it in spite of its
weight, which was lessened by the density of the liquid in which it was
plunged.

But fishing-up the projectile was not the only thing to be thought of.
They must act promptly in the interest of the travelers. No one doubted
that they were still living.

“Yes,” repeated J. T. Maston incessantly, whose confidence gained over
everybody, “our friends are clever people, and they cannot have fallen
like simpletons. They are alive, quite alive; but we must make haste if
we wish to find them so. Food and water do not trouble me; they have
enough for a long while. But air, air, that is what they will soon
want; so quick, quick!”

And they did go quick. They fitted up the Susquehanna for her new
destination. Her powerful machinery was brought to bear upon the
hauling-chains. The aluminum projectile only weighed 19,250 pounds, a
weight very inferior to that of the transatlantic cable which had been
drawn up under similar conditions. The only difficulty was in fishing
up a cylindro-conical projectile, the walls of which were so smooth as
to offer no hold for the hooks. On that account Engineer Murchison
hastened to San Francisco, and had some enormous grappling-irons fixed
on an automatic system, which would never let the projectile go if it
once succeeded in seizing it in its powerful claws. Diving-dresses were
also prepared, which through this impervious covering allowed the
divers to observe the bottom of the sea. He also had put on board an
apparatus of compressed air very cleverly designed. There were perfect
chambers pierced with scuttles, which, with water let into certain
compartments, could draw it down into great depths. These apparatuses
were at San Francisco, where they had been used in the construction of
a submarine breakwater; and very fortunately it was so, for there was
no time to construct any. But in spite of the perfection of the
machinery, in spite of the ingenuity of the savants entrusted with the
use of them, the success of the operation was far from being certain.
How great were the chances against them, the projectile being 20,000
feet under the water! And if even it was brought to the surface, how
would the travelers have borne the terrible shock which 20,000 feet of
water had perhaps not sufficiently broken? At any rate they must act
quickly. J. T. Maston hurried the workmen day and night. He was ready
to don the diving-dress himself, or try the air apparatus, in order to
reconnoiter the situation of his courageous friends.

But in spite of all the diligence displayed in preparing the different
engines, in spite of the considerable sum placed at the disposal of the
Gun Club by the Government of the Union, five long days (five
centuries!) elapsed before the preparations were complete. During this
time public opinion was excited to the highest pitch. Telegrams were
exchanged incessantly throughout the entire world by means of wires and
electric cables. The saving of Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan was
an international affair. Every one who had subscribed to the Gun Club
was directly interested in the welfare of the travelers.

At length the hauling-chains, the air-chambers, and the automatic
grappling-irons were put on board. J. T. Maston, Engineer Murchison,
and the delegates of the Gun Club, were already in their cabins. They
had but to start, which they did on the 21st of December, at eight
o’clock at night, the corvette meeting with a beautiful sea, a
northeasterly wind, and rather sharp cold. The whole population of San
Francisco was gathered on the quay, greatly excited but silent,
reserving their hurrahs for the return. Steam was fully up, and the
screw of the Susquehanna carried them briskly out of the bay.

It is needless to relate the conversations on board between the
officers, sailors, and passengers. All these men had but one thought.
All these hearts beat under the same emotion. While they were hastening
to help them, what were Barbicane and his companions doing? What had
become of them? Were they able to attempt any bold maneuver to regain
their liberty? None could say. The truth is that every attempt must
have failed! Immersed nearly four miles under the ocean, this metal
prison defied every effort of its prisoners.

On the 23rd inst., at eight in the morning, after a rapid passage, the
Susquehanna was due at the fatal spot. They must wait till twelve to
take the reckoning exactly. The buoy to which the sounding line had
been lashed had not yet been recognized.

At twelve, Captain Blomsberry, assisted by his officers who
superintended the observations, took the reckoning in the presence of
the delegates of the Gun Club. Then there was a moment of anxiety. Her
position decided, the Susquehanna was found to be some minutes westward
of the spot where the projectile had disappeared beneath the waves.

The ship’s course was then changed so as to reach this exact point.

At forty-seven minutes past twelve they reached the buoy; it was in
perfect condition, and must have shifted but little.

“At last!” exclaimed J. T. Maston.

“Shall we begin?” asked Captain Blomsberry.

“Without losing a second.”

Every precaution was taken to keep the corvette almost completely
motionless. Before trying to seize the projectile, Engineer Murchison
wanted to find its exact position at the bottom of the ocean. The
submarine apparatus destined for this expedition was supplied with air.
The working of these engines was not without danger, for at 20,000 feet
below the surface of the water, and under such great pressure, they
were exposed to fracture, the consequences of which would be dreadful.

J. T. Maston, the brothers Blomsberry, and Engineer Murchison, without
heeding these dangers, took their places in the air-chamber. The
commander, posted on his bridge, superintended the operation, ready to
stop or haul in the chains on the slightest signal. The screw had been
shipped, and the whole power of the machinery collected on the capstan
would have quickly drawn the apparatus on board. The descent began at
twenty-five minutes past one at night, and the chamber, drawn under by
the reservoirs full of water, disappeared from the surface of the
ocean.

The emotion of the officers and sailors on board was now divided
between the prisoners in the projectile and the prisoners in the
submarine apparatus. As to the latter, they forgot themselves, and,
glued to the windows of the scuttles, attentively watched the liquid
mass through which they were passing.

The descent was rapid. At seventeen minutes past two, J. T. Maston and
his companions had reached the bottom of the Pacific; but they saw
nothing but an arid desert, no longer animated by either fauna or
flora. By the light of their lamps, furnished with powerful reflectors,
they could see the dark beds of the ocean for a considerable extent of
view, but the projectile was nowhere to be seen.

The impatience of these bold divers cannot be described, and having an
electrical communication with the corvette, they made a signal already
agreed upon, and for the space of a mile the Susquehanna moved their
chamber along some yards above the bottom.

Thus they explored the whole submarine plain, deceived at every turn by
optical illusions which almost broke their hearts. Here a rock, there a
projection from the ground, seemed to be the much-sought-for
projectile; but their mistake was soon discovered, and then they were
in despair.

“But where are they? where are they?” cried J. T. Maston. And the poor
man called loudly upon Nicholl, Barbicane, and Michel Ardan, as if his
unfortunate friends could either hear or answer him through such an
impenetrable medium! The search continued under these conditions until
the vitiated air compelled the divers to ascend.

The hauling in began about six in the evening, and was not ended before
midnight.

“To-morrow,” said J. T. Maston, as he set foot on the bridge of the
corvette.

“Yes,” answered Captain Blomsberry.

“And on another spot?”

“Yes.”

J. T. Maston did not doubt of their final success, but his companions,
no longer upheld by the excitement of the first hours, understood all
the difficulty of the enterprise. What seemed easy at San Francisco,
seemed here in the wide ocean almost impossible. The chances of success
diminished in rapid proportion; and it was from chance alone that the
meeting with the projectile might be expected.

The next day, the 24th, in spite of the fatigue of the previous day,
the operation was renewed. The corvette advanced some minutes to
westward, and the apparatus, provided with air, bore the same explorers
to the depths of the ocean.

The whole day passed in fruitless research; the bed of the sea was a
desert. The 25th brought no other result, nor the 26th.

It was disheartening. They thought of those unfortunates shut up in the
projectile for twenty-six days. Perhaps at that moment they were
experiencing the first approach of suffocation; that is, if they had
escaped the dangers of their fall. The air was spent, and doubtless
with the air all their _morale_.

“The air, possibly,” answered J. T. Maston resolutely, “but their
_morale_ never!”

On the 28th, after two more days of search, all hope was gone. This
projectile was but an atom in the immensity of the ocean. They must
give up all idea of finding it.

But J. T. Maston would not hear of going away. He would not abandon the
place without at least discovering the tomb of his friends. But
Commander Blomsberry could no longer persist, and in spite of the
exclamations of the worthy secretary, was obliged to give the order to
sail.

On the 29th of December, at nine A.M., the Susquehanna, heading
northeast, resumed her course to the bay of San Francisco.

It was ten in the morning; the corvette was under half-steam, as it was
regretting to leave the spot where the catastrophe had taken place,
when a sailor, perched on the main-top-gallant crosstrees, watching the
sea, cried suddenly:

“A buoy on the lee bow!”

The officers looked in the direction indicated, and by the help of
their glasses saw that the object signalled had the appearance of one
of those buoys which are used to mark the passages of bays or rivers.
But, singularly to say, a flag floating on the wind surmounted its
cone, which emerged five or six feet out of water. This buoy shone
under the rays of the sun as if it had been made of plates of silver.
Commander Blomsberry, J. T. Maston, and the delegates of the Gun Club
were mounted on the bridge, examining this object straying at random on
the waves.

All looked with feverish anxiety, but in silence. None dared give
expression to the thoughts which came to the minds of all.

The corvette approached to within two cables’ lengths of the object.

A shudder ran through the whole crew. That flag was the American flag!

At this moment a perfect howling was heard; it was the brave J. T.
Maston who had just fallen all in a heap. Forgetting on the one hand
that his right arm had been replaced by an iron hook, and on the other
that a simple gutta-percha cap covered his brain-box, he had given
himself a formidable blow.

They hurried toward him, picked him up, restored him to life. And what
were his first words?

“Ah! trebly brutes! quadruply idiots! quintuply boobies that we are!”

“What is it?” exclaimed everyone around him.

“What is it?”

“Come, speak!”

“It is, simpletons,” howled the terrible secretary, “it is that the
projectile only weighs 19,250 pounds!”

“Well?”

“And that it displaces twenty-eight tons, or in other words 56,000
pounds, and that consequently _it floats_!”

Ah! what stress the worthy man had laid on the verb “float!” And it was
true! All, yes! all these savants had forgotten this fundamental law,
namely, that on account of its specific lightness, the projectile,
after having been drawn by its fall to the greatest depths of the
ocean, must naturally return to the surface. And now it was floating
quietly at the mercy of the waves.

The boats were put to sea. J. T. Maston and his friends had rushed into
them! Excitement was at its height! Every heart beat loudly while they
advanced to the projectile. What did it contain? Living or dead?

Living, yes! living, at least unless death had struck Barbicane and his
two friends since they had hoisted the flag. Profound silence reigned
on the boats. All were breathless. Eyes no longer saw. One of the
scuttles of the projectile was open. Some pieces of glass remained in
the frame, showing that it had been broken. This scuttle was actually
five feet above the water.

A boat came alongside, that of J. T. Maston, and J. T. Maston rushed to
the broken window.

At that moment they heard a clear and merry voice, the voice of Michel
Ardan, exclaiming in an accent of triumph:

“White all, Barbicane, white all!”

Barbicane, Michel Ardan, and Nicholl were playing at dominoes!




CHAPTER XXIII.
THE END


We may remember the intense sympathy which had accompanied the
travelers on their departure. If at the beginning of the enterprise
they had excited such emotion both in the old and new world, with what
enthusiasm would they be received on their return! The millions of
spectators which had beset the peninsula of Florida, would they not
rush to meet these sublime adventurers? Those legions of strangers,
hurrying from all parts of the globe toward the American shores, would
they leave the Union without having seen Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel
Ardan? No! and the ardent passion of the public was bound to respond
worthily to the greatness of the enterprise. Human creatures who had
left the terrestrial sphere, and returned after this strange voyage
into celestial space, could not fail to be received as the prophet
Elias would be if he came back to earth. To see them first, and then to
hear them, such was the universal longing.

Barbicane, Michel Ardan, Nicholl, and the delegates of the Gun Club,
returning without delay to Baltimore, were received with indescribable
enthusiasm. The notes of President Barbicane’s voyage were ready to be
given to the public. The New York _Herald_ bought the manuscript at a
price not yet known, but which must have been very high. Indeed, during
the publication of “A Journey to the Moon,” the sale of this paper
amounted to five millions of copies. Three days after the return of the
travelers to the earth, the slightest detail of their expedition was
known. There remained nothing more but to see the heroes of this
superhuman enterprise.

The expedition of Barbicane and his friends round the moon had enabled
them to correct the many admitted theories regarding the terrestrial
satellite. These savants had observed _de visu_, and under particular
circumstances. They knew what systems should be rejected, what retained
with regard to the formation of that orb, its origin, its habitability.
Its past, present, and future had even given up their last secrets. Who
could advance objections against conscientious observers, who at less
than twenty-four miles distance had marked that curious mountain of
Tycho, the strangest system of lunar orography? How answer those
savants whose sight had penetrated the abyss of Pluto’s circle? How
contradict those bold ones whom the chances of their enterprise had
borne over that invisible face of the disc, which no human eye until
then had ever seen? It was now their turn to impose some limit on that
selenographic science, which had reconstructed the lunar world as
Cuvier did the skeleton of a fossil, and say, “The moon _was_ this, a
habitable world, inhabited before the earth. The moon _is_ that, a
world uninhabitable, and now uninhabited.”

To celebrate the return of its most illustrious member and his two
companions, the Gun Club decided upon giving a banquet, but a banquet
worthy of the conquerors, worthy of the American people, and under such
conditions that all the inhabitants of the Union could directly take
part in it.

All the head lines of railroads in the States were joined by flying
rails; and on all the platforms, lined with the same flags, and
decorated with the same ornaments, were tables laid and all served
alike. At certain hours, successively calculated, marked by electric
clocks which beat the seconds at the same time, the population were
invited to take their places at the banquet tables. For four days, from
the 5th to the 9th of January, the trains were stopped as they are on
Sundays on the railways of the United States, and every road was open.
One engine only at full speed, drawing a triumphal carriage, had the
right of traveling for those four days on the railroads of the United
States.

The engine was manned by a driver and a stoker, and bore, by special
favor, the Hon. J. T. Maston, secretary of the Gun Club. The carriage
was reserved for President Barbicane, Colonel Nicholl, and Michel
Ardan. At the whistle of the driver, amid the hurrahs, and all the
admiring vociferations of the American language, the train left the
platform of Baltimore. It traveled at a speed of one hundred and sixty
miles in the hour. But what was this speed compared with that which had
carried the three heroes from the mouth of the Columbiad?

Thus they sped from one town to the other, finding whole populations at
table on their road, saluting them with the same acclamations,
lavishing the same bravos! They traveled in this way through the east
of the Union, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine,
and New Hampshire; the north and west by New York, Ohio, Michigan, and
Wisconsin; returning to the south by Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas,
Texas, and Louisiana; they went to the southeast by Alabama and
Florida, going up by Georgia and the Carolinas, visiting the center by
Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and Indiana, and, after quitting the
Washington station, re-entered Baltimore, where for four days one would
have thought that the United States of America were seated at one
immense banquet, saluting them simultaneously with the same hurrahs!
The apotheosis was worthy of these three heroes whom fable would have
placed in the rank of demigods.

And now will this attempt, unprecedented in the annals of travels, lead
to any practical result? Will direct communication with the moon ever
be established? Will they ever lay the foundation of a traveling
service through the solar world? Will they go from one planet to
another, from Jupiter to Mercury, and after awhile from one star to
another, from the Polar to Sirius? Will this means of locomotion allow
us to visit those suns which swarm in the firmament?

To such questions no answer can be given. But knowing the bold
ingenuity of the Anglo-Saxon race, no one would be astonished if the
Americans seek to make some use of President Barbicane’s attempt.

Thus, some time after the return of the travelers, the public received
with marked favor the announcement of a company, limited, with a
capital of a hundred million of dollars, divided into a hundred
thousand shares of a thousand dollars each, under the name of the
“National Company of Interstellary Communication.” President,
Barbicane; vice-president, Captain Nicholl; secretary, J. T. Maston;
director of movements, Michel Ardan.

And as it is part of the American temperament to foresee everything in
business, even failure, the Honorable Harry Trolloppe, judge
commissioner, and Francis Drayton, magistrate, were nominated
beforehand!

THE END.




******* Notes: Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon” and “A Trip
Around It”

I originally intended to “correct” some of the numbers in the book. For
example, page 207 has “thirteenth” where “thirtieth” would be more
appropriate. Some of the densities and volumes and masses don’t match
up. The business with the wrong exhaust velocity of the gun is also a
bit confusing. The dates and times aren’t quite consistent throughout,
although they are close enough that Verne must have been working from a
time-line. For example, I think he has the time for the fall back to
earth exactly matching the time for the trip out. There are also
inconsistent spellings, for example “aluminum” and “aluminium”. Some of
these annoyed me, in the sense of disturbing my reading; since the
reader is reading for pleasure, the annoyance should be removed.

All cases of the British? spelling of aluminium have been changed to
the American spelling aluminum.

I decided that the correction project was going to be a lot of trouble,
and might be a perversion of the original work. I concentrated instead
on producing an accurate rendition of the text. However, if a French
speaker can find a French edition, it might be nice to see if the
translators introduced errors. The measurements seem to have been
converted from metric without regard for significant figures.
Occasional conversions are simply omitted, with “feet” inserted for
“meters” without fixing the numbers. These might be safely recomputed
without doing violence to the spirit of the original work. Whether one
should standardize the spelling of “aluminium” I don’t know.
“Aluminium” has a certain charm. I don’t know what American or English
usage was at the time. We might consider converting all the
temperatures to Fahrenheit. I suggest removing the page numbers,
undoing all the hyphenation, and repackaging the lines at a length of
(up to) 72 characters, with only occasional word breaks.

Page #s and a full reformating has been done. Line widow/orphans have
been painstakingly removed. Hypenated words at the end of lines have
been eliminated to the best of my judgement.

I think a table of units should be offered for the reader.
myriameter = 10 km
fathom = 6 feet; league ~ 3 miles, but don’t know French usage in 1865.
page 125 has perigee 86,410 leagues (French), or 238,833 miles <mean>
Would be nice to know the currency conversions of the day.

We may criticize Verne for his errors, but the remarkable thing is how
much he got right! I think this was the first engineering proposal for
space travel, using physics instead of magic. Verne deserves much of
the credit for inspiring the early rocket pioneers, and ultimately
today’s space program. As “literary” history, I note that Heinlein’s
“The Man Who Sold the Moon” borrows from it.

add conversion table for units. fathom, league, meter, mile, foot, C/F
contact publisher for translator information
is perihelium {sic} a real word? maybe substitute perihelion?

I have changed the one case of perihelium to the correct perihelion.

There’s an incorrect reference to Nov. 30 in the early part of book 2
to fix [I read it over and left it there. Close enough for fiction, but
I am sure they would have missed the moon by a lot.]

Dates were not fixed.

inconsistent spelling of Palliser, Palisser

This only occurs twice in the book, so both are left in.

pyroxyle sometimes with xile

‘yle’ ending was accepted by undisputed “majority rule”

aluminum and aluminium

The former accepted.

maybe 18000 instead of 17000 yards/sec?
30th degree of lunar latitude instead of 13th?
there seems to be an inconsistency in the title for book 2

Numbers, units, dates, times and math errors have NOT been changed.

Typographic conventions in the book:
The book uses ligatures for ff fi fl ffi ffl; I have simply spelled
these out.
Chapter N is in italics.
The chapter titles are in small caps.
The first word of each chapter has an oversize capital, and the rest of
the word is in small caps. If the first word is two letters or less,
the second word is also in small caps.
AM and PM are always in small caps, as A.M. or P.M.

All these have been changed to PG standards.

My typographic conventions:
There are a few lines longer than 80 character, usually because I have
inserted a {sic phrase} in the line. I am using % as a line-break
character in these cases; the % and the following new-line should be
deleted. {correction} I have indicated some candidates for correction
in braces.

All these were appreciated! and either corrected or ignored.

_italics_ are marked with underbars

These are left in for the next proofer to turn into CAPS for PG.

#SMALL CAPS# are enclosed in hash-marks
#
$ae $’e dollar-sign preceeds ligatures and accented characters.
The accent follows the $ and precedes the letter. I’ve tried to get ’
and ‘ (as accents) right.
I have used : as an accent marker for umlaut.

All are removed.

I’ve used ‘ and ’ to enclose (recursive) quotes. Ascii has no provision
for distinguishable open and close doublequotes.
The book uses ligatures for ff fi fl ffi ffl; I have simply spelled
these out.
L for British Pound.

All these conventions (except the circumflex) have been accepted.

bold indicates a different typeface

Removed (only one case) and probably a printers error?

δ indicates a non-ascii character, here the greek letter delta left in.




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