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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:48:54 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:48:54 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16457-8.txt b/16457-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..21e21de --- /dev/null +++ b/16457-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11886 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of All Around the Moon, by Jules Verne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: All Around the Moon + +Author: Jules Verne + +Translator: Edward Roth + +Release Date: August 6, 2005 [EBook #16457] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL AROUND THE MOON *** + + + + +Produced by Afra Ullah, Taavi Kalju and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +ALL + +AROUND THE MOON + +FROM THE FRENCH OF + +JULES VERNE + +AUTHOR OF "FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON", "TO THE SUN!" AND "OFF ON A +COMET!" + +BY + +EDWARD ROTH + +ILLUSTRATED + +PHILADELPHIA +DAVID MCKAY, PUBLISHER +23 SOUTH NINTH STREET + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PRELIMINARY + + I. FROM 10 P.M. TO 10. 46' 40'' + + II. THE FIRST HALF HOUR + + III. THEY MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME AND FEEL QUITE COMFORTABLE + + IV. FOR THE CORNELL GIRLS + + V. THE COLDS OF SPACE + + VI. INSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATION + + VII. A HIGH OLD TIME + + VIII. THE NEUTRAL POINT + + IX. A LITTLE OFF THE TRACK + + X. THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON + + XI. FACT AND FANCY + + XII. A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE LUNAR MOUNTAINS + + XIII. LUNAR LANDSCAPES + + XIV. A NIGHT OF FIFTEEN DAYS + + XV. GLIMPSES AT THE INVISIBLE + + XVI. THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE + + XVII. TYCHO + +XVIII. PUZZLING QUESTIONS + + XIX. IN EVERY FIGHT, THE IMPOSSIBLE WINS + + XX. OFF THE PACIFIC COAST + + XXI. NEWS FOR MARSTON! + + XXII. ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND + +XXIII. THE CLUB MEN GO A FISHING + + XXIV. FAREWELL TO THE BALTIMORE GUN CLUB + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + 1. HIS FIRST CARE WAS TO TURN ON THE GAS + + 2. DIANA AND SATELLITE + + 3. HE HELPED ARDAN TO LIFT BARBICAN + + 4. MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER + + 5. THEY DRANK TO THE SPEEDY UNION OF THE EARTH AND HER SATELLITE + + 6. DON'T I THOUGH? MY HEAD IS SPLITTING WITH IT! + + 7. POOR SATELLITE WAS DROPPED OUT + + 8. THE BODY OF THE DOG THROWN OUT YESTERDAY + + 9. A DEMONIACAL HULLABALOO + +10. THE OXYGEN! HE CRIED + +11. A GROUP _à la Jardin Mabille_ + +12. AN IMMENSE BATTLE-FIELD PILED WITH BLEACHING BONES + +13. NEVERTHELESS THE SOLUTION ESCAPED HIM + +14. IT'S COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE A WHITE BEAR + +15. THEY COULD UTTER NO WORD, THEY COULD BREATHE NO PRAYER + +16. THEY SEEMED HALF ASLEEP IN HIS VITALIZING BEAMS + +17. THESE ARCHES EVIDENTLY ONCE BORE THE PIPES OF AN AQUEDUCT + +18. ARDAN GAZED AT THE PAIR FOR A FEW MINUTES + +19. OLD MAC DISCOVERED TAKING OBSERVATIONS + +20. FOR A SECOND ONLY DID THEY CATCH ITS FLASH + +21. HOW IS THAT FOR HIGH? + +22. EVERYWHERE THEIR DEPARTURE WAS ACCOMPANIED WITH THE MOST TOUCHING + SYMPATHY + + + + +PRELIMINARY CHAPTER, + +RESUMING THE FIRST PART OF THE WORK AND SERVING AS AN INTRODUCTION TO +THE SECOND. + + +A few years ago the world was suddenly astounded by hearing of an +experiment of a most novel and daring nature, altogether unprecedented +in the annals of science. The BALTIMORE GUN CLUB, a society of +artillerymen started in America during the great Civil War, had +conceived the idea of nothing less than establishing direct +communication with the Moon by means of a projectile! President +Barbican, the originator of the enterprise, was strongly encouraged in +its feasibility by the astronomers of Cambridge Observatory, and took +upon himself to provide all the means necessary to secure its success. +Having realized by means of a public subscription the sum of nearly five +and a half millions of dollars, he immediately set himself to work at +the necessary gigantic labors. + +In accordance with the Cambridge men's note, the cannon intended to +discharge the projectile was to be planted in some country not further +than 28° north or south from the equator, so that it might be aimed +vertically at the Moon in the zenith. The bullet was to be animated with +an initial velocity of 12,000 yards to the second. It was to be fired +off on the night of December 1st, at thirteen minutes and twenty seconds +before eleven o'clock, precisely. Four days afterwards it was to hit the +Moon, at the very moment that she reached her _perigee_, that is to say, +her nearest point to the Earth, about 228,000 miles distant. + +The leading members of the Club, namely President Barbican, Secretary +Marston, Major Elphinstone and General Morgan, forming the executive +committee, held several meetings to discuss the shape and material of +the bullet, the nature and position of the cannon, and the quantity and +quality of the powder. The decision soon arrived at was as follows: +1st--The bullet was to be a hollow aluminium shell, its diameter nine +feet, its walls a foot in thickness, and its weight 19,250 pounds; +2nd--The cannon was to be a columbiad 900 feet in length, a well of that +depth forming the vertical mould in which it was to be cast, and +3rd--The powder was to be 400 thousand pounds of gun cotton, which, by +developing more than 200 thousand millions of cubic feet of gas under +the projectile, would easily send it as far as our satellite. + +These questions settled, Barbican, aided by Murphy, the Chief Engineer +of the Cold Spring Iron Works, selected a spot in Florida, near the 27th +degree north latitude, called Stony Hill, where after the performance of +many wonderful feats in mining engineering, the Columbiad was +successfully cast. + +Things had reached this state when an incident occurred which excited +the general interest a hundred fold. + +A Frenchman from Paris, Michel Ardan by name, eccentric, but keen and +shrewd as well as daring, demanded, by the Atlantic telegraph, +permission to be enclosed in the bullet so that he might be carried to +the Moon, where he was curious to make certain investigations. Received +in America with great enthusiasm, Ardan held a great meeting, +triumphantly carried his point, reconciled Barbican to his mortal foe, a +certain Captain M'Nicholl, and even, by way of clinching the +reconciliation, induced both the newly made friends to join him in his +contemplated trip to the Moon. + +The bullet, so modified as to become a hollow conical cylinder with +plenty of room inside, was further provided with powerful water-springs +and readily-ruptured partitions below the floor, intended to deaden the +dreadful concussion sure to accompany the start. It was supplied with +provisions for a year, water for a few months, and gas for nearly two +weeks. A self-acting apparatus, of ingenious construction, kept the +confined atmosphere sweet and healthy by manufacturing pure oxygen and +absorbing carbonic acid. Finally, the Gun Club had constructed, at +enormous expense, a gigantic telescope, which, from the summit of Long's +Peak, could pursue the Projectile as it winged its way through the +regions of space. Everything at last was ready. + +On December 1st, at the appointed moment, in the midst of an immense +concourse of spectators, the departure took place, and, for the first +time in the world's history, three human beings quitted our terrestrial +globe with some possibility in their favor of finally reaching a point +of destination in the inter-planetary spaces. They expected to +accomplish their journey in 97 hours, 13 minutes and 20 seconds, +consequently reaching the Lunar surface precisely at midnight on +December 5-6, the exact moment when the Moon would be full. + +Unfortunately, the instantaneous explosion of such a vast quantity of +gun-cotton, by giving rise to a violent commotion in the atmosphere, +generated so much vapor and mist as to render the Moon invisible for +several nights to the innumerable watchers in the Western Hemisphere, +who vainly tried to catch sight of her. + +In the meantime, J.T. Marston, the Secretary of the Gun Club, and a most +devoted friend of Barbican's, had started for Long's Peak, Colorado, on +the summit of which the immense telescope, already alluded to, had been +erected; it was of the reflecting kind, and possessed power sufficient +to bring the Moon within a distance of five miles. While Marston was +prosecuting his long journey with all possible speed, Professor +Belfast, who had charge of the telescope, was endeavoring to catch a +glimpse of the Projectile, but for a long time with no success. The +hazy, cloudy weather lasted for more than a week, to the great disgust +of the public at large. People even began to fear that further +observation would have to be deferred to the 3d of the following month, +January, as during the latter half of December the waning Moon could not +possibly give light enough to render the Projectile visible. + +At last, however, to the unbounded satisfaction of all, a violent +tempest suddenly cleared the sky, and on the 13th of December, shortly +after midnight, the Moon, verging towards her last quarter, revealed +herself sharp and bright on the dark background of the starry firmament. + +That same morning, a few hours before Marston's arrival at the summit of +Long's Peak, a very remarkable telegram had been dispatched by Professor +Belfast to the Smithsonian Institute, Washington. It announced: + +That on December 13th, at 2 o'clock in the morning, the Projectile shot +from Stony Hill had been perceived by Professor Belfast and his +assistants; that, deflected a little from its course by some unknown +cause, it had not reached its mark, though it had approached near enough +to be affected by the Lunar attraction; and that, its rectilineal motion +having become circular, it should henceforth continue to describe a +regular orbit around the Moon, of which in fact it had become the +Satellite. The dispatch went on further to state: + +That the _elements_ of the new heavenly body had not yet been +calculated, as at least three different observations, taken at different +times, were necessary to determine them. The distance of the Projectile +from the Lunar surface, however, might be set down roughly at roughly +2833 miles. + +The dispatch concluded with the following hypotheses, positively +pronounced to be the only two possible: Either, 1, The Lunar attraction +would finally prevail, in which case the travellers would reach their +destination; or 2, The Projectile, kept whirling forever in an immutable +orbit, would go on revolving around the Moon till time should be no +more. + +In either alternative, what should be the lot of the daring adventurers? +They had, it is true, abundant provisions to last them for some time, +but even supposing that they did reach the Moon and thereby completely +establish the practicability of their daring enterprise, how were they +ever to get back? _Could_ they ever get back? or ever even be heard +from? Questions of this nature, freely discussed by the ablest pens of +the day, kept the public mind in a very restless and excited condition. + +We must be pardoned here for making a little remark which, however, +astronomers and other scientific men of sanguine temperament would do +well to ponder over. An observer cannot be too cautious in announcing to +the public his discovery when it is of a nature purely speculative. +Nobody is obliged to discover a planet, or a comet, or even a satellite, +but, before announcing to the world that you have made such a discovery, +first make sure that such is really the fact. Because, you know, should +it afterwards come out that you have done nothing of the kind, you make +yourself a butt for the stupid jokes of the lowest newspaper scribblers. +Belfast had never thought of this. Impelled by his irrepressible rage +for discovery--the _furor inveniendi_ ascribed to all astronomers by +Aurelius Priscus--he had therefore been guilty of an indiscretion highly +un-scientific when his famous telegram, launched to the world at large +from the summit of the Rocky Mountains, pronounced so dogmatically on +the only possible issues of the great enterprise. + +The truth was that his telegram contained _two_ very important errors: +1. Error of _observation_, as facts afterwards proved; the Projectile +_was_ not seen on the 13th and _could_ not have been on that day, so +that the little black spot which Belfast professed to have seen was most +certainly not the Projectile; 2. Error of _theory_ regarding the final +fate of the Projectile, since to make it become the Moon's satellite was +flying in the face of one of the great fundamental laws of Theoretical +Mechanics. + +Only one, therefore, the first, of the hypotheses so positively +announced, was capable of realization. The travellers--that is to say if +they still lived--might so combine and unite their own efforts with +those of the Lunar attraction as actually to succeed at last in reaching +the Moon's surface. + +Now the travellers, those daring but cool-headed men who knew very well +what they were about, _did_ still live, they _had_ survived the +frightful concussion of the start, and it is to the faithful record of +their wonderful trip in the bullet-car, with all its singular and +dramatic details, that the present volume is devoted. The story may +destroy many illusions, prejudices and conjectures; but it will at least +give correct ideas of the strange incidents to which such an enterprise +is exposed, and it will certainly bring out in strong colors the effects +of Barbican's scientific conceptions, M'Nicholl's mechanical resources, +and Ardan's daring, eccentric, but brilliant and effective combinations. + +Besides, it will show that J.T. Marston, their faithful friend and a man +every way worthy of the friendship of such men, was only losing his time +while mirroring the Moon in the speculum of the gigantic telescope on +that lofty peak of the mountains. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +FROM 10 P.M. TO 10 46' 40''. + + +The moment that the great clock belonging to the works at Stony Hill had +struck ten, Barbican, Ardan and M'Nicholl began to take their last +farewells of the numerous friends surrounding them. The two dogs +intended to accompany them had been already deposited in the Projectile. +The three travellers approached the mouth of the enormous cannon, seated +themselves in the flying car, and once more took leave for the last time +of the vast throng standing in silence around them. The windlass +creaked, the car started, and the three daring men disappeared in the +yawning gulf. + +The trap-hole giving them ready access to the interior of the +Projectile, the car soon came back empty; the great windlass was +presently rolled away; the tackle and scaffolding were removed, and in a +short space of time the great mouth of the Columbiad was completely rid +of all obstructions. + +M'Nicholl took upon himself to fasten the door of the trap on the inside +by means of a powerful combination of screws and bolts of his own +invention. He also covered up very carefully the glass lights with +strong iron plates of extreme solidity and tightly fitting joints. + +Ardan's first care was to turn on the gas, which he found burning rather +low; but he lit no more than one burner, being desirous to economize as +much as possible their store of light and heat, which, as he well knew, +could not at the very utmost last them longer than a few weeks. + +Under the cheerful blaze, the interior of the Projectile looked like a +comfortable little chamber, with its circular sofa, nicely padded walls, +and dome shaped ceiling. + +All the articles that it contained, arms, instruments, utensils, etc., +were solidly fastened to the projections of the wadding, so as to +sustain the least injury possible from the first terrible shock. In +fact, all precautions possible, humanly speaking, had been taken to +counteract this, the first, and possibly one of the very greatest +dangers to which the courageous adventurers would be exposed. + +Ardan expressed himself to be quite pleased with the appearance of +things in general. + +"It's a prison, to be sure," said he "but not one of your ordinary +prisons that always keep in the one spot. For my part, as long as I can +have the privilege of looking out of the window, I am willing to lease +it for a hundred years. Ah! Barbican, that brings out one of your stony +smiles. You think our lease may last longer than that! Our tenement may +become our coffin, eh? Be it so. I prefer it anyway to Mahomet's; it may +indeed float in the air, but it won't be motionless as a milestone!" + +[Illustration: TURN ON THE GAS.] + +Barbican, having made sure by personal inspection that everything was in +perfect order, consulted his chronometer, which he had carefully set a +short time before with Chief Engineer Murphy's, who had been charged to +fire off the Projectile. + +"Friends," he said, "it is now twenty minutes past ten. At 10 46' 40'', +precisely, Murphy will send the electric current into the gun-cotton. We +have, therefore, twenty-six minutes more to remain on earth." + +"Twenty-six minutes and twenty seconds," observed Captain M'Nicholl, who +always aimed at mathematical precision. + +"Twenty-six minutes!" cried Ardan, gaily. "An age, a cycle, according to +the use you make of them. In twenty-six minutes how much can be done! +The weightiest questions of warfare, politics, morality, can be +discussed, even decided, in twenty-six minutes. Twenty-six minutes well +spent are infinitely more valuable than twenty-six lifetimes wasted! A +few seconds even, employed by a Pascal, or a Newton, or a Barbican, or +any other profoundly intellectual being + + Whose thoughts wander through eternity--" + +"As mad as Marston! Every bit!" muttered the Captain, half audibly. + +"What do you conclude from this rigmarole of yours?" interrupted +Barbican. + +"I conclude that we have twenty-six good minutes still left--" + +"Only twenty-four minutes, ten seconds," interrupted the Captain, watch +in hand. + +"Well, twenty-four minutes, Captain," Ardan went on; "now even in +twenty-four minutes, I maintain--" + +"Ardan," interrupted Barbican, "after a very little while we shall have +plenty of time for philosophical disputations. Just now let us think of +something far more pressing." + +"More pressing! what do you mean? are we not fully prepared?" + +"Yes, fully prepared, as far at least as we have been able to foresee. +But we may still, I think, possibly increase the number of precautions +to be taken against the terrible shock that we are so soon to +experience." + +"What? Have you any doubts whatever of the effectiveness of your +brilliant and extremely original idea? Don't you think that the layers +of water, regularly disposed in easily-ruptured partitions beneath this +floor, will afford us sufficient protection by their elasticity?" + +"I hope so, indeed, my dear friend, but I am by no means confident." + +"He hopes! He is by no means confident! Listen to that, Mac! Pretty time +to tell us so! Let me out of here!" + +"Too late!" observed the Captain quietly. "The trap-hole alone would +take ten or fifteen minutes to open." + +"Oh then I suppose I must make the best of it," said Ardan, laughing. +"All aboard, gentlemen! The train starts in twenty minutes!" + +"In nineteen minutes and eighteen seconds," said the Captain, who never +took his eye off the chronometer. + +The three travellers looked at each other for a little while, during +which even Ardan appeared to become serious. After another careful +glance at the several objects lying around them, Barbican said, quietly: + +"Everything is in its place, except ourselves. What we have now to do is +to decide on the position we must take in order to neutralize the shock +as much as possible. We must be particularly careful to guard against a +rush of blood to the head." + +"Correct!" said the Captain. + +"Suppose we stood on our heads, like the circus tumblers!" cried Ardan, +ready to suit the action to the word. + +"Better than that," said Barbican; "we can lie on our side. Keep clearly +in mind, dear friends, that at the instant of departure it makes very +little difference to us whether we are inside the bullet or in front of +it. There is, no doubt, _some_ difference," he added, seeing the great +eyes made by his friends, "but it is exceedingly little." + +"Thank heaven for the _some_!" interrupted Ardan, fervently. + +"Don't you approve of my suggestion, Captain?" asked Barbican. + +"Certainly," was the hasty reply. "That is to say, absolutely. +Seventeen minutes twenty-seven seconds!" + +"Mac isn't a human being at all!" cried Ardan, admiringly. "He is a +repeating chronometer, horizontal escapement, London-made lever, capped, +jewelled,--" + +His companions let him run on while they busied themselves in making +their last arrangements, with the greatest coolness and most systematic +method. In fact, I don't think of anything just now to compare them to +except a couple of old travellers who, having to pass the night in the +train, are trying to make themselves as comfortable as possible for +their long journey. In your profound astonishment, you may naturally ask +me of what strange material can the hearts of these Americans be made, +who can view without the slightest semblance of a flutter the approach +of the most appalling dangers? In your curiosity I fully participate, +but, I'm sorry to say, I can't gratify it. It is one of those things +that I could never find out. + +Three mattresses, thick and well wadded, spread on the disc forming the +false bottom of the Projectile, were arranged in lines whose parallelism +was simply perfect. But Ardan would never think of occupying his until +the very last moment. Walking up and down, with the restless nervousness +of a wild beast in a cage, he kept up a continuous fire of talk; at one +moment with his friends, at another with the dogs, addressing the latter +by the euphonious and suggestive names of Diana and Satellite. + +[Illustration: DIANA AND SATELLITE.] + +"Ho, pets!" he would exclaim as he patted them gently, "you must not +forget the noble part you are to play up there. You must be models of +canine deportment. The eyes of the whole Selenitic world will be upon +you. You are the standard bearers of your race. From you they will +receive their first impression regarding its merits. Let it be a +favorable one. Compel those Selenites to acknowledge, in spite of +themselves, that the terrestrial race of canines is far superior to that +of the very best Moon dog among them!" + +"Dogs in the Moon!" sneered M'Nicholl, "I like that!" + +"Plenty of dogs!" cried Ardan, "and horses too, and cows, and sheep, and +no end of chickens!" + +"A hundred dollars to one there isn't a single chicken within the whole +Lunar realm, not excluding even the invisible side!" cried the Captain, +in an authoritative tone, but never taking his eye off the chronometer. + +"I take that bet, my son," coolly replied Ardan, shaking the Captain's +hand by way of ratifying the wager; "and this reminds me, by the way, +Mac, that you have lost three bets already, to the pretty little tune of +six thousand dollars." + +"And paid them, too!" cried the captain, monotonously; "ten, thirty-six, +six!" + +"Yes, and in a quarter of an hour you will have to pay nine thousand +dollars more; four thousand because the Columbiad will not burst, and +five thousand because the Projectile will rise more than six miles from +the Earth." + +"I have the money ready," answered the Captain, touching his breeches +pocket. "When I lose I pay. Not sooner. Ten, thirty-eight, ten!" + +"Captain, you're a man of method, if there ever was one. I think, +however, that you made a mistake in your wagers." + +"How so?" asked the Captain listlessly, his eye still on the dial. + +"Because, by Jove, if you win there will be no more of you left to take +the money than there will be of Barbican to pay it!" + +"Friend Ardan," quietly observed Barbican, "my stakes are deposited in +the _Wall Street Bank_, of New York, with orders to pay them over to the +Captain's heirs, in case the Captain himself should fail to put in an +appearance at the proper time." + +"Oh! you rhinoceroses, you pachyderms, you granite men!" cried Ardan, +gasping with surprise; "you machines with iron heads, and iron hearts! I +may admire you, but I'm blessed if I understand you!" + +"Ten, forty-two, ten!" repeated M'Nicholl, as mechanically as if it was +the chronometer itself that spoke. + +"Four minutes and a half more," said Barbican. + +"Oh! four and a half little minutes!" went on Ardan. "Only think of it! +We are shut up in a bullet that lies in the chamber of a cannon nine +hundred feet long. Underneath this bullet is piled a charge of 400 +thousand pounds of gun-cotton, equivalent to 1600 thousand pounds of +ordinary gunpowder! And at this very instant our friend Murphy, +chronometer in hand, eye on dial, finger on discharger, is counting the +last seconds and getting ready to launch us into the limitless regions +of planetary--" + +"Ardan, dear friend," interrupted Barbican, in a grave tone, "a serious +moment is now at hand. Let us meet it with some interior recollection. +Give me your hands, my dear friends." + +"Certainly," said Ardan, with tears in his voice, and already at the +other extreme of his apparent levity. + +The three brave men united in one last, silent, but warm and impulsively +affectionate pressure. + +"And now, great God, our Creator, protect us! In Thee we trust!" prayed +Barbican, the others joining him with folded hands and bowed heads. + +"Ten, forty-six!" whispered the Captain, as he and Ardan quietly took +their places on the mattresses. + +Only forty seconds more! + +Barbican rapidly extinguishes the gas and lies down beside his +companions. + +The deathlike silence now reigning in the Projectile is interrupted only +by the sharp ticking of the chronometer as it beats the seconds. + +Suddenly, a dreadful shock is felt, and the Projectile, shot up by the +instantaneous development of 200,000 millions of cubic feet of gas, is +flying into space with inconceivable rapidity! + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE FIRST HALF HOUR. + + +What had taken place within the Projectile? What effect had been +produced by the frightful concussion? Had Barbican's ingenuity been +attended with a fortunate result? Had the shock been sufficiently +deadened by the springs, the buffers, the water layers, and the +partitions so readily ruptured? Had their combined effect succeeded in +counteracting the tremendous violence of a velocity of 12,000 yards a +second, actually sufficient to carry them from London to New York in six +minutes? These, and a hundred other questions of a similar nature were +asked that night by the millions who had been watching the explosion +from the base of Stony Hill. Themselves they forgot altogether for the +moment; they forgot everything in their absorbing anxiety regarding the +fate of the daring travellers. Had one among them, our friend Marston, +for instance, been favored with a glimpse at the interior of the +projectile, what would he have seen? + +Nothing at all at first, on account of the darkness; except that the +walls had solidly resisted the frightful shock. Not a crack, nor a bend, +nor a dent could be perceived; not even the slightest injury had the +admirably constructed piece of mechanical workmanship endured. It had +not yielded an inch to the enormous pressure, and, far from melting and +falling back to earth, as had been so seriously apprehended, in showers +of blazing aluminium, it was still as strong in every respect as it had +been on the very day that it left the Cold Spring Iron Works, glittering +like a silver dollar. + +Of real damage there was actually none, and even the disorder into which +things had been thrown in the interior by the violent shock was +comparatively slight. A few small objects lying around loose had been +furiously hurled against the ceiling, but the others appeared not to +have suffered the slightest injury. The straps that fastened them up +were unfrayed, and the fixtures that held them down were uncracked. + +The partitions beneath the disc having been ruptured, and the water +having escaped, the false floor had been dashed with tremendous violence +against the bottom of the Projectile, and on this disc at this moment +three human bodies could be seen lying perfectly still and motionless. + +Were they three corpses? Had the Projectile suddenly become a great +metallic coffin bearing its ghastly contents through the air with the +rapidity of a lightning flash? + +In a very few minutes after the shock, one of the bodies stirred a +little, the arms moved, the eyes opened, the head rose and tried to look +around; finally, with some difficulty, the body managed to get on its +knees. It was the Frenchman! He held his head tightly squeezed between +his hands for some time as if to keep it from splitting. Then he felt +himself rapidly all over, cleared his throat with a vigorous "hem!" +listened to the sound critically for an instant, and then said to +himself in a relieved tone, but in his native tongue: + +"One man all right! Call the roll for the others!" + +He tried to rise, but the effort was too great for his strength. He fell +back again, his brain swimming, his eyes bursting, his head splitting. +His state very much resembled that of a young man waking up in the +morning after his first tremendous "spree." + +"Br--rr!" he muttered to himself, still talking French; "this reminds me +of one of my wild nights long ago in the _Quartier Latin_, only +decidedly more so!" + +Lying quietly on his back for a while, he could soon feel that the +circulation of his blood, so suddenly and violently arrested by the +terrific shock, was gradually recovering its regular flow; his heart +grew more normal in its action; his head became clearer, and the pain +less distracting. + +"Time to call that roll," he at last exclaimed in a voice with some +pretensions to firmness; "Barbican! MacNicholl!" + +He listens anxiously for a reply. None comes. A snow-wrapt grave at +midnight is not more silent. In vain does he try to catch even the +faintest sound of breathing, though he listens intently enough to hear +the beating of their hearts; but he hears only his own. + +"Call that roll again!" he mutters in a voice far less assured than +before; "Barbican! MacNicholl!" + +The same fearful unearthly stillness. + +"The thing is getting decidedly monotonous!" he exclaimed, still +speaking French. Then rapidly recovering his consciousness as the full +horror of the situation began to break on his mind, he went on muttering +audibly: "Have they really hopped the twig? Bah! Fudge! what has not +been able to knock the life out of one little Frenchman can't have +killed two Americans! They're all right! But first and foremost, let us +enlighten the situation!" + +So saying, he contrived without much difficulty to get on his feet. +Balancing himself then for a moment, he began groping about for the gas. +But he stopped suddenly. + +"Hold on a minute!" he cried; "before lighting this match, let us see if +the gas has been escaping. Setting fire to a mixture of air and hydrogen +would make a pretty how-do-you-do! Such an explosion would infallibly +burst the Projectile, which so far seems all right, though I'm blest if +I can tell whether we're moving or not." + +He began sniffing and smelling to discover if possible the odor of +escaped gas. He could not detect the slightest sign of anything of the +kind. This gave him great courage. He knew of course that his senses +were not yet in good order, still he thought he might trust them so far +as to be certain that the gas had not escaped and that consequently all +the other receptacles were uninjured. + +At the touch of the match, the gas burst into light and burned with a +steady flame. Ardan immediately bent anxiously over the prostrate bodies +of his friends. They lay on each other like inert masses, M'Nicholl +stretched across Barbican. + +Ardan first lifted up the Captain, laid him on the sofa, opened his +clenched hands, rubbed them, and slapped the palms vigorously. Then he +went all over the body carefully, kneading it, rubbing it, and gently +patting it. In such intelligent efforts to restore suspended +circulation, he seemed perfectly at home, and after a few minutes his +patience was rewarded by seeing the Captain's pallid face gradually +recover its natural color, and by feeling his heart gradually beat with +a firm pulsation. + +At last M'Nicholl opened his eyes, stared at Ardan for an instant, +pressed his hand, looked around searchingly and anxiously, and at last +whispered in a faint voice: + +"How's Barbican?" + +"Barbican is all right, Captain," answered Ardan quietly, but still +speaking French. "I'll attend to him in a jiffy. He had to wait for his +turn. I began with you because you were the top man. We'll see in a +minute what we can do for dear old Barby (_ce cher Barbican_)!" + +In less than thirty seconds more, the Captain not only was able to sit +up himself, but he even insisted on helping Ardan to lift Barbican, +and deposit him gently on the sofa. + +[Illustration: HELPED ARDAN TO LIFT BARBICAN.] + +The poor President had evidently suffered more from the concussion than +either of his companions. As they took off his coat they were at first +terribly shocked at the sight of a great patch of blood staining his +shirt bosom, but they were inexpressibly relieved at finding that it +proceeded from a slight contusion of the shoulder, little more than skin +deep. + +Every approved operation that Ardan had performed for the Captain, both +now repeated for Barbican, but for a long time with nothing like a +favorable result. + +Ardan at first tried to encourage the Captain by whispers of a lively +and hopeful nature, but not yet understanding why M'Nicholl did not +deign to make a single reply, he grew reserved by degrees and at last +would not speak a single word. He worked at Barbican, however, just as +before. + +M'Nicholl interrupted himself every moment to lay his ear on the breast +of the unconscious man. At first he had shaken his head quite +despondingly, but by degrees he found himself more and more encouraged +to persist. + +"He breathes!" he whispered at last. + +"Yes, he has been breathing for some time," replied Ardan, quietly, +still unconsciously speaking French. "A little more rubbing and pulling +and pounding will make him as spry as a young grasshopper." + +They worked at him, in fact, so vigorously, intelligently and +perseveringly, that, after what they considered a long hour's labor, +they had the delight of seeing the pale face assume a healthy hue, the +inert limbs give signs of returning animation, and the breathing become +strong and regular. + +At last, Barbican suddenly opened his eyes, started into an upright +position on the sofa, took his friends by the hands, and, in a voice +showing complete consciousness, demanded eagerly: + +"Ardan, M'Nicholl, are we moving?" + +His friends looked at each other, a little amused, but more perplexed. +In their anxiety regarding their own and their friend's recovery, they +had never thought of asking such a question. His words recalled them at +once to a full sense of their situation. + +"Moving? Blessed if I can tell!" said Ardan, still speaking French. + +"We may be lying fifty feet deep in a Florida marsh, for all I know," +observed M'Nicholl. + +"Or, likely as not, in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico," suggested +Ardan, still in French. + +"Suppose we find out," observed Barbican, jumping up to try, his voice +as clear and his step as firm as ever. + +But trying is one thing, and finding out another. Having no means of +comparing themselves with external objects, they could not possibly tell +whether they were moving, or at an absolute stand-still. Though our +Earth is whirling us continually around the Sun at the tremendous speed +of 500 miles a minute, its inhabitants are totally unconscious of the +slightest motion. It was the same with our travellers. Through their own +personal consciousness they could tell absolutely nothing. Were they +shooting through space like a meteor? They could not tell. Had they +fallen back and buried themselves deep in the sandy soil of Florida, or, +still more likely, hundreds of fathoms deep beneath the waters of the +Gulf of Mexico? They could not form the slightest idea. + +Listening evidently could do no good. The profound silence proved +nothing. The padded walls of the Projectile were too thick to admit any +sound whether of wind, water, or human beings. Barbican, however, was +soon struck forcibly by one circumstance. He felt himself to be very +uncomfortably warm, and his friend's faces looked very hot and flushed. +Hastily removing the cover that protected the thermometer, he closely +inspected it, and in an instant uttered a joyous exclamation. + +"Hurrah!" he cried. "We're moving! There's no mistake about it. The +thermometer marks 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Such a stifling heat could not +come from the gas. It comes from the exterior walls of our projectile, +which atmospheric friction must have made almost red hot. But this heat +must soon diminish, because we are already far beyond the regions of the +atmosphere, so that instead of smothering we shall be shortly in danger +of freezing." + +"What?" asked Ardan, much bewildered. "We are already far beyond the +limits of the terrestrial atmosphere! Why do you think so?" + +M'Nicholl was still too much flustered to venture a word. + +"If you want me to answer your question satisfactorily, my dear Ardan," +replied Barbican, with a quiet smile, "you will have the kindness to put +your questions in English." + +"What do you mean, Barbican!" asked Ardan, hardly believing his ears. + +"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl, in the tone of a man who has suddenly made a +welcome but most unexpected discovery. + +"I don't know exactly how it is with the Captain," continued Barbican, +with the utmost tranquillity, "but for my part the study of the +languages never was my strong point, and though I always admired the +French, and even understood it pretty well, I never could converse in it +without giving myself more trouble than I always find it convenient to +assume." + +"You don't mean to say that I have been talking French to you all this +time!" cried Ardan, horror-stricken. + +"The most elegant French I ever heard, backed by the purest Parisian +accent," replied Barbican, highly amused; "Don't you think so, Captain?" +he added, turning to M'Nicholl, whose countenance still showed the most +comical traces of bewilderment. + +"Well, I swan to man!" cried the Captain, who always swore a little +when his feelings got beyond his control; "Ardan, the Boss has got the +rig on both of us this time, but rough as it is on you it is a darned +sight more so on me. Be hanged if I did not think you were talking +English the whole time, and I put the whole blame for not understanding +you on the disordered state of my brain!" + +Ardan only stared, and scratched his head, but Barbican actually--no, +not _laughed_, that serene nature could not _laugh_. His cast-iron +features puckered into a smile of the richest drollery, and his eyes +twinkled with the wickedest fun; but no undignified giggle escaped the +portal of those majestic lips. + +"It _sounds_ like French, I'd say to myself," continued the Captain, +"but I _know_ it's English, and by and by, when this whirring goes out +of my head, I shall easily understand it." + +Ardan now looked as if he was beginning to see the joke. + +"The most puzzling part of the thing to me," went on M'Nicholl, giving +his experience with the utmost gravity, "was why English sounded so like +_French_. If it was simple incomprehensible gibberish, I could readily +blame the state of my ears for it. But the idea that my bothered ears +could turn a mere confused, muzzled, buzzing reverberation into a sweet, +harmonious, articulate, though unintelligible, human language, made me +sure that I was fast becoming crazy, if I was not so already." + +"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Ardan, laughing till the tears came. "Now I +understand why the poor Captain made me no reply all the time, and +looked at me with such a hapless woe-begone expression of countenance. +The fact is, Barbican, that shock was too much both for M'Nicholl and +myself. You are the only man among us whose head is fire-proof, +blast-proof, and powder-proof. I really believe a burglar would have +greater difficulty in blowing your head-piece open than in bursting one +of those famous American safes your papers make such a fuss about. A +wonderful head, the Boss's, isn't it M'Nicholl?" + +"Yes," said the Captain, as slowly as if every word were a gem of the +profoundest thought, "the Boss has a fearful and a wonderful head!" + +"But now to business!" cried the versatile Ardan, "Why do you think, +Barbican, that we are at present beyond the limits of the terrestrial +atmosphere?" + +"For a very simple reason," said Barbican, pointing to the chronometer; +"it is now more than seven minutes after 11. We must, therefore, have +been in motion more than twenty minutes. Consequently, unless our +initial velocity has been very much diminished by the friction, we must +have long before this completely cleared the fifty miles of atmosphere +enveloping the earth." + +"Correct," said the Captain, cool as a cucumber, because once more in +complete possession of all his senses; "but how much do you think the +initial velocity to have been diminished by the friction?" + +"By a third, according to my calculations," replied Barbican, "which I +think are right. Supposing our initial velocity, therefore, to have been +12,000 yards per second, by the time we quitted the atmosphere it must +have been reduced to 8,000 yards per second. At that rate, we must have +gone by this time--" + +"Then, Mac, my boy, you've lost your two bets!" interrupted Ardan. "The +Columbiad has not burst, four thousand dollars; the Projectile has risen +at least six miles, five thousand dollars; come, Captain, bleed!" + +"Let me first be sure we're right," said the Captain, quietly. "I don't +deny, you see, that friend Barbican's arguments are quite right, and, +therefore, that I have lost my nine thousand dollars. But there is +another view of the case possible, which might annul the bet." + +"What other view?" asked Barbican, quickly. + +"Suppose," said the Captain, very drily, "that the powder had not +caught, and that we were still lying quietly at the bottom of the +Columbiad!" + +"By Jove!" laughed Ardan, "there's an idea truly worthy of my own +nondescript brain! We must surely have changed heads during that +concussion! No matter, there is some sense left in us yet. Come now, +Captain, consider a little, if you can. Weren't we both half-killed by +the shock? Didn't I rescue you from certain death with these two hands? +Don't you see Barbican's shoulder still bleeding by the violence of the +shock?" + +"Correct, friend Michael, correct in every particular," replied the +Captain, "But one little question." + +"Out with it!" + +"Friend Michael, you say we're moving?" + +"Yes." + +"In consequence of the explosion?" + +"Certainly!" + +"Which must have been attended with a tremendous report?" + +"Of course!" + +"Did you hear that report, friend Michael?" + +"N--o," replied Ardan, a little disconcerted at the question. "Well, no; +I can't say that I did hear any report." + +"Did you, friend Barbican?" + +"No," replied Barbican, promptly. "I heard no report whatever." + +His answer was ready, but his look was quite as disconcerted as Ardan's. + +"Well, friend Barbican and friend Michael," said the Captain, very drily +as he leered wickedly at both, "put that and that together and tell me +what you make of it." + +"It's a fact!" exclaimed Barbican, puzzled, but not bewildered. "Why did +we not hear that report?" + +"Too hard for me," said Ardan. "Give it up!" + +The three friends gazed at each other for a while with countenances +expressive of much perplexity. Barbican appeared to be the least +self-possessed of the party. It was a complete turning of the tables +from the state of things a few moments ago. The problem was certainly +simple enough, but for that very reason the more inexplicable. If they +were moving the explosion must have taken place; but if the explosion +had taken place, why had they not heard the report? + +Barbican's decision soon put an end to speculation. + +"Conjecture being useless," said he, "let us have recourse to facts. +First, let us see where we are. Drop the deadlights!" + +This operation, simple enough in itself and being immediately undertaken +by the whole three, was easily accomplished. The screws fastening the +bolts by which the external plates of the deadlights were solidly +pinned, readily yielded to the pressure of a powerful wrench. The bolts +were then driven outwards, and the holes which had contained them were +immediately filled with solid plugs of India rubber. The bolts once +driven out, the external plates dropped by their own weight, turning on +a hinge, like portholes, and the strong plate-glass forming the light +immediately showed itself. A second light exactly similar, could be +cleared away on the opposite side of the Projectile; a third, on the +summit of the dome, and a fourth, in the centre of the bottom. The +travellers could thus take observations in four different directions, +having an opportunity of gazing at the firmament through the side +lights, and at the Earth and the Moon through the lower and the upper +lights of the Projectile. + +Ardan and the Captain had commenced examining the floor, previous to +operating on the bottom light. But Barbican was the first to get through +his work at one of the side lights, and M'Nicholl and Ardan soon heard +him shouting: + +"No, my friends!" he exclaimed, in tones of decided emotion; "we have +_not_ fallen back to Earth; nor are we lying in the bottom of the Gulf +of Mexico. No! We are driving through space! Look at the stars +glittering all around! Brighter, but smaller than we have ever seen them +before! We have left the Earth and the Earth's atmosphere far behind +us!" + +"Hurrah! Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl and Ardan, feeling as if electric +shocks were coursing through them, though they could see nothing, +looking down from the side light, but the blackest and profoundest +obscurity. + +Barbican soon convinced them that this pitchy blackness proved that they +were not, and could not be, reposing on the surface of the Earth, where +at that moment, everything was illuminated by the bright moonlight; also +that they had passed the different layers of the atmosphere, where the +diffused and refracted rays would be also sure to reveal themselves +through the lights of the Projectile. They were, therefore, certainly +moving. No doubt was longer possible. + +"It's a fact!" observed the Captain, now quite convinced. "Then I've +lost!" + +"Let me congratulate you!" cried Ardan, shaking his hand. + +"Here is your nine thousand dollars, friend Barbican," said the Captain, +taking a roll of greenbacks of high denomination out of his +porte-monnaie. + +"You want a receipt, don't you, Captain?" asked Barbican, counting the +money. + +"Yes, I should prefer one, if it is not too much trouble," answered +M'Nicholl; "it saves dispute." + +Coolly and mechanically, as if seated at his desk, in his office, +Barbican opened his memorandum book, wrote a receipt on a blank page, +dated, signed and sealed it, and then handed it to the Captain, who put +it away carefully among the other papers of his portfolio. + +Ardan, taking off his hat, made a profound bow to both of his +companions, without saying a word. Such formality, under such +extraordinary circumstances, actually paralysed his tongue for the +moment. No wonder that he could not understand those Americans. Even +Indians would have surprised him by an exhibition of such stoicism. +After indulging in silent wonder for a minute or two, he joined his +companions who were now busy looking out at the starry sky. + +"Where is the Moon?" he asked. "How is it that we cannot see her?" + +"The fact of our not seeing her," answered Barbican, "gives me very +great satisfaction in one respect; it shows that our Projectile was shot +so rapidly out of the Columbiad that it had not time to be impressed +with the slightest revolving motion--for us a most fortunate matter. As +for the rest--see, there is _Cassiopeia_, a little to the left is +_Andromeda_, further down is the great square of _Pegasus_, and to the +southwest _Fomalhaut_ can be easily seen swallowing the _Cascade_. All +this shows we are looking west and consequently cannot see the Moon, +which is approaching the zenith from the east. Open the other light--But +hold on! Look here! What can this be?" + +The three travellers, looking westwardly in the direction of _Alpherat_, +saw a brilliant object rapidly approaching them. At a distance, it +looked like a dusky moon, but the side turned towards the Earth blazed +with a bright light, which every moment became more intense. It came +towards them with prodigious velocity and, what was worse, its path lay +so directly in the course of the Projectile that a collision seemed +inevitable. As it moved onward, from west to east, they could easily see +that it rotated on its axis, like all heavenly bodies; in fact, it +somewhat resembled a Moon on a small scale, describing its regular orbit +around the Earth. + +"_Mille tonerres!_" cried Ardan, greatly excited; "what is that? Can it +be another projectile?" M'Nicholl, wiping his spectacles, looked again, +but made no reply. Barbican looked puzzled and uneasy. A collision was +quite possible, and the results, even if not frightful in the highest +degree, must be extremely deplorable. The Projectile, if not absolutely +dashed to pieces, would be diverted from its own course and dragged +along in a new one in obedience to the irresistible attraction of this +furious asteroid. + +Barbican fully realized that either alternative involved the complete +failure of their enterprise. He kept perfectly still, but, never losing +his presence of mind, he curiously looked on the approaching object with +a gladiatorial eye, as if seeking to detect some unguarded point in his +terrible adversary. The Captain was equally silent; he looked like a man +who had fully made up his mind to regard every possible contingency with +the most stoical indifference. But Ardan's tongue, more fluent than +ever, rattled away incessantly. + +"Look! Look!" he exclaimed, in tones so perfectly expressive of his +rapidly alternating feelings as to render the medium of words totally +unnecessary. "How rapidly the cursed thing is nearing us! Plague take +your ugly phiz, the more I know you, the less I like you! Every second +she doubles in size! Come, Madame Projectile! Stir your stumps a little +livelier, old lady! He's making for you as straight as an arrow! We're +going right in his way, or he's coming in ours, I can't say which. It's +taking a mean advantage of us either way. As for ourselves--what can +_we_ do! Before such a monster as that we are as helpless as three men +in a little skiff shooting down the rapids to the brink of Niagara! Now +for it!" + +Nearer and nearer it came, but without noise, without sparks, without a +trail, though its lower part was brighter than ever. Its path lying +little above them, the nearer it came the more the collision seemed +inevitable. Imagine yourself caught on a narrow railroad bridge at +midnight with an express train approaching at full speed, its reflector +already dazzling you with its light, the roar of the cars rattling in +your ears, and you may conceive the feelings of the travellers. At last +it was so near that the travellers started back in affright, with eyes +shut, hair on end, and fully believing their last hour had come. Even +then Ardan had his _mot_. + +"We can neither switch off, down brakes, nor clap on more steam! Hard +luck!" + +In an instant all was over. The velocity of the Projectile was +fortunately great enough to carry it barely above the dangerous point; +and in a flash the terrible bolide disappeared rapidly several hundred +yards beneath the affrighted travellers. + +"Good bye! And may you never come back!" cried Ardan, hardly able to +breathe. "It's perfectly outrageous! Not room enough in infinite space +to let an unpretending bullet like ours move about a little without +incurring the risk of being run over by such a monster as that! What is +it anyhow? Do you know, Barbican?" + +"I do," was the reply. + +"Of course, you do! What is it that he don't know? Eh, Captain?" + +"It is a simple bolide, but one of such enormous dimensions that the +Earth's attraction has made it a satellite." + +"What!" cried Ardan, "another satellite besides the Moon? I hope there +are no more of them!" + +"They are pretty numerous," replied Barbican; "but they are so small and +they move with such enormous velocity that they are very seldom seen. +Petit, the Director of the Observatory of Toulouse, who these last years +has devoted much time and care to the observation of bolides, has +calculated that the very one we have just encountered moves with such +astonishing swiftness that it accomplishes its revolution around the +Earth in about 3 hours and 20 minutes!" + +"Whew!" whistled Ardan, "where should we be now if it had struck us!" + +"You don't mean to say, Barbican," observed M'Nicholl, "that Petit has +seen this very one?" + +"So it appears," replied Barbican. + +"And do all astronomers admit its existence?" asked the Captain. + +"Well, some of them have their doubts," replied Barbican-- + +"If the unbelievers had been here a minute or two ago," interrupted +Ardan, "they would never express a doubt again." + +"If Petit's calculation is right," continued Barbican, "I can even form +a very good idea as to our distance from the Earth." + +"It seems to me Barbican can do what he pleases here or elsewhere," +observed Ardan to the Captain. + +"Let us see, Barbican," asked M'Nicholl; "where has Petit's calculation +placed us?" + +"The bolide's distance being known," replied Barbican, "at the moment we +met it we were a little more than 5 thousand miles from the Earth's +surface." + +"Five thousand miles already!" cried Ardan, "why we have only just +started!" + +"Let us see about that," quietly observed the Captain, looking at his +chronometer, and calculating with his pencil. "It is now 10 minutes past +eleven; we have therefore been 23 minutes on the road. Supposing our +initial velocity of 10,000 yards or nearly seven miles a second, to have +been kept up, we should by this time be about 9,000 miles from the +Earth; but by allowing for friction and gravity, we can hardly be more +than 5,500 miles. Yes, friend Barbican, Petit does not seem to be very +wrong in his calculations." + +But Barbican hardly heard the observation. He had not yet answered the +puzzling question that had already presented itself to them for +solution; and until he had done so he could not attend to anything else. + +"That's all very well and good, Captain," he replied in an absorbed +manner, "but we have not yet been able to account for a very strange +phenomenon. Why didn't we hear the report?" + +No one replying, the conversation came to a stand-still, and Barbican, +still absorbed in his reflections, began clearing the second light of +its external shutter. In a few minutes the plate dropped, and the Moon +beams, flowing in, filled the interior of the Projectile with her +brilliant light. The Captain immediately put out the gas, from motives +of economy as well as because its glare somewhat interfered with the +observation of the interplanetary regions. + +The Lunar disc struck the travellers as glittering with a splendor and +purity of light that they had never witnessed before. The beams, no +longer strained through the misty atmosphere of the Earth, streamed +copiously in through the glass and coated the interior walls of the +Projectile with a brilliant silvery plating. The intense blackness of +the sky enhanced the dazzling radiance of the Moon. Even the stars +blazed with a new and unequalled splendor, and, in the absence of a +refracting atmosphere, they flamed as bright in the close proximity of +the Moon as in any other part of the sky. + +You can easily conceive the interest with which these bold travellers +gazed on the Starry Queen, the final object of their daring journey. She +was now insensibly approaching the zenith, the mathematical point which +she was to reach four days later. They presented their telescopes, but +her mountains, plains, craters and general characteristics hardly came +out a particle more sharply than if they had been viewed from the Earth. +Still, her light, unobstructed by air or vapor, shimmered with a lustre +actually transplendent. Her disc shone like a mirror of polished +platins. The travellers remained for some time absorbed in the silent +contemplation of the glorious scene. + +"How they're gazing at her this very moment from Stony Hill!" said the +Captain at last to break the silence. + +"By Jove!" cried Ardan; "It's true! Captain you're right. We were near +forgetting our dear old Mother, the Earth. What ungrateful children! Let +me feast my eyes once more on the blessed old creature!" + +Barbican, to satisfy his companion's desire, immediately commenced to +clear away the disc which covered the floor of the Projectile and +prevented them from getting at the lower light. This disc, though it had +been dashed to the bottom of the Projectile with great violence, was +still as strong as ever, and, being made in compartments fastened by +screws, to dismount it was no easy matter. Barbican, however, with the +help of the others, soon had it all taken apart, and put away the pieces +carefully, to serve again in case of need. A round hole about a foot and +a half in diameter appeared, bored through the floor of the Projectile. +It was closed by a circular pane of plate-glass, which was about six +inches thick, fastened by a ring of copper. Below, on the outside, the +glass was protected by an aluminium plate, kept in its place by strong +bolts and nuts. The latter being unscrewed, the bolts slipped out by +their own weight, the shutter fell, and a new communication was +established between the interior and the exterior. + +Ardan knelt down, applied his eye to the light, and tried to look out. +At first everything was quite dark and gloomy. + +"I see no Earth!" he exclaimed at last. + +"Don't you see a fine ribbon of light?" asked Barbican, "right beneath +us? A thin, pale, silvery crescent?" + +"Of course I do. Can that be the Earth?" + +"_Terra Mater_ herself, friend Ardan. That fine fillet of light, now +hardly visible on her eastern border, will disappear altogether as soon +as the Moon is full. Then, lying as she will be between the Sun and the +Moon, her illuminated face will be turned away from us altogether, and +for several days she will be involved in impenetrable darkness." + +"And that's the Earth!" repeated Ardan, hardly able to believe his eyes, +as he continued to gaze on the slight thread of silvery white light, +somewhat resembling the appearance of the "Young May Moon" a few hours +after sunset. + +Barbican's explanation was quite correct. The Earth, in reference to the +Moon or the Projectile, was in her last phase, or octant as it is +called, and showed a sharp-horned, attenuated, but brilliant crescent +strongly relieved by the black background of the sky. Its light, +rendered a little bluish by the density of the atmospheric envelopes, +was not quite as brilliant as the Moon's. But the Earth's crescent, +compared to the Lunar, was of dimensions much greater, being fully 4 +times larger. You would have called it a vast, beautiful, but very thin +bow extending over the sky. A few points, brighter than the rest, +particularly in its concave part, revealed the presence of lofty +mountains, probably the Himalayahs. But they disappeared every now and +then under thick vapory spots, which are never seen on the Lunar disc. +They were the thin concentric cloud rings that surround the terrestrial +sphere. + +However, the travellers' eyes were soon able to trace the rest of the +Earth's surface not only with facility, but even to follow its outline +with absolute delight. This was in consequence of two different +phenomena, one of which they could easily account for; but the other +they could not explain without Barbican's assistance. No wonder. Never +before had mortal eye beheld such a sight. Let us take each in its turn. + +We all know that the ashy light by means of which we perceive what is +called the _Old Moon in the Young Moon's arms_ is due to the +Earth-shine, or the reflection of the solar rays from the Earth to the +Moon. By a phenomenon exactly identical, the travellers could now see +that portion of the Earth's surface which was unillumined by the Sun; +only, as, in consequence of the different areas of the respective +surfaces, the _Earthlight_ is thirteen times more intense than the +_Moonlight_, the dark portion of the Earth's disc appeared considerably +more adumbrated than the _Old Moon_. + +But the other phenomenon had burst on them so suddenly that they +uttered a cry loud enough to wake up Barbican from his problem. They had +discovered a true starry ring! Around the Earth's outline, a ring, of +internally well defined thickness, but somewhat hazy on the outside, +could easily be traced by its surpassing brilliancy. Neither the +_Pleiades_, the _Northern Crown_, the _Magellanic Clouds_ nor the great +nebulas of _Orion_, or of _Argo_, no sparkling cluster, no corona, no +group of glittering star-dust that the travellers had ever gazed at, +presented such attractions as the diamond ring they now saw encompassing +the Earth, just as the brass meridian encompasses a terrestrial globe. +The resplendency of its light enchanted them, its pure softness +delighted them, its perfect regularity astonished them. What was it? +they asked Barbican. In a few words he explained it. The beautiful +luminous ring was simply an optical illusion, produced by the refraction +of the terrestrial atmosphere. All the stars in the neighborhood of the +Earth, and many actually behind it, had their rays refracted, diffused, +radiated, and finally converged to a focus by the atmosphere, as if by a +double convex lens of gigantic power. + +Whilst the travellers were profoundly absorbed in the contemplation of +this wondrous sight, a sparkling shower of shooting stars suddenly +flashed over the Earth's dark surface, making it for a moment as bright +as the external ring. Hundreds of bolides, catching fire from contact +with the atmosphere, streaked the darkness with their luminous trails, +overspreading it occasionally with sheets of electric flame. The Earth +was just then in her perihelion, and we all know that the months of +November and December are so highly favorable to the appearance of these +meteoric showers that at the famous display of November, 1866, +astronomers counted as many as 8,000 between midnight and four o'clock. + +Barbican explained the whole matter in a few words. The Earth, when +nearest to the sun, occasionally plunges into a group of countless +meteors travelling like comets, in eccentric orbits around the grand +centre of our solar system. The atmosphere strikes the rapidly moving +bodies with such violence as to set them on fire and render them visible +to us in beautiful star showers. But to this simple explanation of the +famous November meteors Ardan would not listen. He preferred believing +that Mother Earth, feeling that her three daring children were still +looking at her, though five thousand miles away, shot off her best +rocket-signals to show that she still thought of them and would never +let them out of her watchful eye. + +For hours they continued to gaze with indescribable interest on the +faintly luminous mass so easily distinguishable among the other heavenly +bodies. Jupiter blazed on their right, Mars flashed his ruddy light on +their left, Saturn with his rings looked like a round white spot on a +black wall; even Venus they could see almost directly under them, easily +recognizing her by her soft, sweetly scintillant light. But no planet or +constellation possessed any attraction for the travellers, as long as +their eyes could trace that shadowy, crescent-edged, diamond-girdled, +meteor-furrowed spheroid, the theatre of their existence, the home of so +many undying desires, the mysterious cradle of their race! + +Meantime the Projectile cleaved its way upwards, rapidly, unswervingly, +though with a gradually retarding velocity. As the Earth sensibly grew +darker, and the travellers' eyes grew dimmer, an irresistible somnolency +slowly stole over their weary frames. The extraordinary excitement they +had gone through during the last four or five hours, was naturally +followed by a profound reaction. + +"Captain, you're nodding," said Ardan at last, after a longer silence +than usual; "the fact is, Barbican is the only wake man of the party, +because he is puzzling over his problem. _Dum vivimus vivamus_! As we +are asleep let us be asleep!" + +So saying he threw himself on the mattress, and his companions +immediately followed the example. + +They had been lying hardly a quarter of an hour, when Barbican started +up with a cry so loud and sudden as instantly to awaken his companions. + +The bright moonlight showed them the President sitting up in his bed, +his eye blazing, his arms waving, as he shouted in a tone reminding them +of the day they had found him in St. Helena wood. + +"_Eureka!_ I've got it! I know it!" + +"What have you got?" cried Ardan, bouncing up and seizing him by the +right hand. + +"What do you know?" cried the Captain, stretching over and seizing him +by the left. + +"The reason why we did not hear the report!" + +"Well, why did not we hear it!" asked both rapidly in the same breath. + +"Because we were shot up 30 times faster than sound can travel!" + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THEY MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME AND FEEL QUITE COMFORTABLE. + + +This curious explanation given, and its soundness immediately +recognized, the three friends were soon fast wrapped in the arms of +Morpheus. Where in fact could they have found a spot more favorable for +undisturbed repose? On land, where the dwellings, whether in populous +city or lonely country, continually experience every shock that thrills +the Earth's crust? At sea, where between waves or winds or paddles or +screws or machinery, everything is tremor, quiver or jar? In the air, +where the balloon is incessantly twirling, oscillating, on account of +the ever varying strata of different densities, and even occasionally +threatening to spill you out? The Projectile alone, floating grandly +through the absolute void, in the midst of the profoundest silence, +could offer to its inmates the possibility of enjoying slumber the most +complete, repose the most profound. + +There is no telling how long our three daring travellers would have +continued to enjoy their sleep, if it had not been suddenly terminated +by an unexpected noise about seven o'clock in the morning of December +2nd, eight hours after their departure. + +This noise was most decidedly of barking. + +"The dogs! It's the dogs!" cried Ardan, springing up at a bound. + +"They must be hungry!" observed the Captain. + +"We have forgotten the poor creatures!" cried Barbican. + +"Where can they have gone to?" asked Ardan, looking for them in all +directions. + +At last they found one of them hiding under the sofa. Thunderstruck and +perfectly bewildered by the terrible shock, the poor animal had kept +close in its hiding place, never daring to utter a sound, until at last +the pangs of hunger had proved too strong even for its fright. + +They readily recognized the amiable Diana, but they could not allure the +shivering, whining animal from her retreat without a good deal of +coaxing. Ardan talked to her in his most honeyed and seductive accents, +while trying to pull her out by the neck. + +"Come out to your friends, charming Diana," he went on, "come out, my +beauty, destined for a lofty niche in the temple of canine glory! Come +out, worthy scion of a race deemed worthy by the Egyptians to be a +companion of the great god, Anubis, by the Christians, to be a friend of +the good Saint Roch! Come out and partake of a glory before which the +stars of Montargis and of St. Bernard shall henceforward pale their +ineffectual fire! Come out, my lady, and let me think o'er the countless +multiplication of thy species, so that, while sailing through the +interplanetary spaces, we may indulge in endless flights of fancy on +the number and variety of thy descendants who will ere long render the +Selenitic atmosphere vocal with canine ululation!" + +[Illustration: MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER.] + +Diana, whether flattered or not, allowed herself to be dragged out, +still uttering short, plaintive whines. A hasty examination satisfying +her friends that she was more frightened than hurt and more hungry than +either, they continued their search for her companion. + +"Satellite! Satellite! Step this way, sir!" cried Ardan. But no +Satellite appeared and, what was worse, not the slightest sound indicated +his presence. At last he was discovered on a ledge in the upper portion +of the Projectile, whither he had been shot by the terrible concussion. +Less fortunate than his female companion, the poor fellow had received a +frightful shock and his life was evidently in great danger. + +"The acclimatization project looks shaky!" cried Ardan, handing the +animal very carefully and tenderly to the others. Poor Satellite's head +had been crushed against the roof, but, though recovery seemed hopeless, +they laid the body on a soft cushion, and soon had the satisfaction of +hearing it give vent to a slight sigh. + +"Good!" said Ardan, "while there's life there's hope. You must not die +yet, old boy. We shall nurse you. We know our duty and shall not shirk +the responsibility. I should rather lose the right arm off my body than +be the cause of your death, poor Satellite! Try a little water?" + +The suffering creature swallowed the cool draught with evident avidity, +then sunk into a deep slumber. + +The friends, sitting around and having nothing more to do, looked out of +the window and began once more to watch the Earth and the Moon with +great attention. The glittering crescent of the Earth was evidently +narrower than it had been the preceding evening, but its volume was +still enormous when compared to the Lunar crescent, which was now +rapidly assuming the proportions of a perfect circle. + +"By Jove," suddenly exclaimed Ardan, "why didn't we start at the moment +of Full Earth?--that is when our globe and the Sun were in opposition?" + +"Why _should_ we!" growled M'Nicholl. + +"Because in that case we should be now looking at the great continents +and the great seas in a new light--the former glittering under the solar +rays, the latter darker and somewhat shaded, as we see them on certain +maps. How I should like to get a glimpse at those poles of the Earth, on +which the eye of man has never yet lighted!" + +"True," replied Barbican, "but if the Earth had been Full, the Moon +would have been New, that is to say, invisible to us on account of solar +irradiation. Of the two it is much preferable to be able to keep the +point of arrival in view rather than the point of departure." + +"You're right, Barbican," observed the Captain; "besides, once we're in +the Moon, the long Lunar night will give us plenty of time to gaze our +full at yonder great celestial body, our former home, and still +swarming with our fellow beings." + +"Our fellow beings no longer, dear boy!" cried Ardan. "We inhabit a new +world peopled by ourselves alone, the Projectile! Ardan is Barbican's +fellow being, and Barbican M'Nicholl's. Beyond us, outside us, humanity +ends, and we are now the only inhabitants of this microcosm, and so we +shall continue till the moment when we become Selenites pure and +simple." + +"Which shall be in about eighty-eight hours from now," replied the +Captain. + +"Which is as much as to say--?" asked Ardan. + +"That it is half past eight," replied M'Nicholl. + +"My regular hour for breakfast," exclaimed Ardan, "and I don't see the +shadow of a reason for changing it now." + +The proposition was most acceptable, especially to the Captain, who +frequently boasted that, whether on land or water, on mountain summits +or in the depths of mines, he had never missed a meal in all his life. +In escaping from the Earth, our travellers felt that they had by no +means escaped from the laws of humanity, and their stomachs now called +on them lustily to fill the aching void. Ardan, as a Frenchman, claimed +the post of chief cook, an important office, but his companions yielded +it with alacrity. The gas furnished the requisite heat, and the +provision chest supplied the materials for their first repast. They +commenced with three plates of excellent soup, extracted from _Liebig's_ +precious tablets, prepared from the best beef that ever roamed over the +Pampas. + +To this succeeded several tenderloin beefsteaks, which, though reduced +to a small bulk by the hydraulic engines of the _American Dessicating +Company_, were pronounced to be fully as tender, juicy and savory as if +they had just left the gridiron of a London Club House. Ardan even swore +that they were "bleeding," and the others were too busy to contradict +him. + +Preserved vegetables of various kinds, "fresher than nature," according +to Ardan, gave an agreeable variety to the entertainment, and these were +followed by several cups of magnificent tea, unanimously allowed to be +the best they had ever tasted. It was an odoriferous young hyson +gathered that very year, and presented to the Emperor of Russia by the +famous rebel chief Yakub Kushbegi, and of which Alexander had expressed +himself as very happy in being able to send a few boxes to his friend, +the distinguished President of the Baltimore Gun Club. To crown the +meal, Ardan unearthed an exquisite bottle of _Chambertin_, and, in +glasses sparkling with the richest juice of the _Cote d'or,_ the +travellers drank to the speedy union of the Earth and her satellite. + +And, as if his work among the generous vineyards of Burgundy had not +been enough to show his interest in the matter, even the Sun wished to +join the party. Precisely at this moment, the Projectile beginning to +leave the conical shadow cast by the Earth, the rays of the glorious +King of Day struck its lower surface, not obliquely, but +perpendicularly, on account of the slight obliquity of the Moon's orbit +with that of the Earth. + +[Illustration: TO THE UNION OF THE EARTH AND HER SATELLITE.] + +"The Sun," cried Ardan. + +"Of course," said Barbican, looking at his watch, "he's exactly up to +time." + +"How is it that we see him only through the bottom light of our +Projectile?" asked Ardan. + +"A moment's reflection must tell you," replied Barbican, "that when we +started last night, the Sun was almost directly below us; therefore, as +we continue to move in a straight line, he must still be in our rear." + +"That's clear enough," said the Captain, "but another consideration, I'm +free to say, rather perplexes me. Since our Earth lies between us and +the Sun, why don't we see the sunlight forming a great ring around the +globe, in other words, instead of the full Sun that we plainly see there +below, why do we not witness an annular eclipse?" + +"Your cool, clear head has not yet quite recovered from the shock, my +dear Captain;" replied Barbican, with a smile. "For two reasons we can't +see the ring eclipse: on account of the angle the Moon's orbit makes +with the Earth, the three bodies are not at present in a direct line; +we, therefore, see the Sun a little to the west of the earth; secondly, +even if they were exactly in a straight line, we should still be far +from the point whence an annular eclipse would be visible." + +"That's true," said Ardan; "the cone of the Earth's shadow must extend +far beyond the Moon." + +"Nearly four times as far," said Barbican; "still, as the Moon's orbit +and the Earth's do not lie in exactly the same plane, a Lunar eclipse +can occur only when the nodes coincide with the period of the Full Moon, +which is generally twice, never more than three times in a year. If we +had started about four days before the occurrence of a Lunar eclipse, we +should travel all the time in the dark. This would have been obnoxious +for many reasons." + +"One, for instance?" + +"An evident one is that, though at the present moment we are moving +through a vacuum, our Projectile, steeped in the solar rays, revels in +their light and heat. Hence great saving in gas, an important point in +our household economy." + +In effect, the solar rays, tempered by no genial medium like our +atmosphere, soon began to glare and glow with such intensity, that the +Projectile under their influence, felt like suddenly passing from winter +to summer. Between the Moon overhead and the Sun beneath it was actually +inundated with fiery rays. + +"One feels good here," cried the Captain, rubbing his hands. + +"A little too good," cried Ardan. "It's already like a hot-house. With a +little garden clay, I could raise you a splendid crop of peas in +twenty-four hours. I hope in heaven the walls of our Projectile won't +melt like wax!" + +"Don't be alarmed, dear friend," observed Barbican, quietly. "The +Projectile has seen the worst as far as heat is concerned; when tearing +through the atmosphere, she endured a temperature with which what she is +liable to at present stands no comparison. In fact, I should not be +astonished if, in the eyes of our friends at Stony Hill, it had +resembled for a moment or two a red-hot meteor." + +"Poor Marston must have looked on us as roasted alive!" observed Ardan. + +"What could have saved us I'm sure I can't tell," replied Barbican. "I +must acknowledge that against such a danger, I had made no provision +whatever." + +"I knew all about it," said the Captain, "and on the strength of it, I +had laid my fifth wager." + +"Probably," laughed Ardan, "there was not time enough to get grilled in: +I have heard of men who dipped their fingers into molten iron with +impunity." + +Whilst Ardan and the Captain were arguing the point, Barbican began +busying himself in making everything as comfortable as if, instead of a +four days' journey, one of four years was contemplated. The reader, no +doubt, remembers that the floor of the Projectile contained about 50 +square feet; that the chamber was nine feet high; that space was +economized as much as possible, nothing but the most absolute +necessities being admitted, of which each was kept strictly in its own +place; therefore, the travellers had room enough to move around in with +a certain liberty. The thick glass window in the floor was quite as +solid as any other part of it; but the Sun, streaming in from below, +lit up the Projectile strangely, producing some very singular and +startling effects of light appearing to come in by the wrong way. + +The first thing now to be done was to see after the water cask and the +provision chest. They were not injured in the slightest respect, thanks +to the means taken to counteract the shock. The provisions were in good +condition, and abundant enough to supply the travellers for a whole +year--Barbican having taken care to be on the safe side, in case the +Projectile might land in a deserted region of the Moon. As for the water +and the other liquors, the travellers had enough only for two months. +Relying on the latest observations of astronomers, they had convinced +themselves that the Moon's atmosphere, being heavy, dense and thick in +the deep valleys, springs and streams of water could hardly fail to show +themselves there. During the journey, therefore, and for the first year +of their installation on the Lunar continent, the daring travellers +would be pretty safe from all danger of hunger or thirst. + +The air supply proved also to be quite satisfactory. The _Reiset_ and +_Regnault_ apparatus for producing oxygen contained a supply of chlorate +of potash sufficient for two months. As the productive material had to +be maintained at a temperature of between 7 and 8 hundred degrees Fahr., +a steady consumption of gas was required; but here too the supply far +exceeded the demand. The whole arrangement worked charmingly, requiring +only an odd glance now and then. The high temperature changing the +chlorate into a chloride, the oxygen was disengaged gradually but +abundantly, every eighteen pounds of chlorate of potash, furnishing the +seven pounds of oxygen necessary for the daily consumption of the +inmates of the Projectile. + +Still--as the reader need hardly be reminded--it was not sufficient to +renew the exhausted oxygen; the complete purification of the air +required the absorption of the carbonic acid, exhaled from the lungs. +For nearly 12 hours the atmosphere had been gradually becoming more and +more charged with this deleterious gas, produced from the combustion of +the blood by the inspired oxygen. The Captain soon saw this, by noticing +with what difficulty Diana was panting. She even appeared to be +smothering, for the carbonic acid--as in the famous _Grotto del Cane_ on +the banks of Lake Agnano, near Naples--was collecting like water on the +floor of the Projectile, on account of its great specific gravity. It +already threatened the poor dog's life, though not yet endangering that +of her masters. The Captain, seeing this state of things, hastily laid +on the floor one or two cups containing caustic potash and water, and +stirred the mixture gently: this substance, having a powerful affinity +for carbonic acid, greedily absorbed it, and after a few moments the air +was completely purified. + +The others had begun by this time to check off the state of the +instruments. The thermometer and the barometer were all right, except +one self-recorder of which the glass had got broken. An excellent +aneroid barometer, taken safe and sound out of its wadded box, was +carefully hung on a hook in the wall. It marked not only the pressure of +the air in the Projectile, but also the quantity of the watery vapor +that it contained. The needle, oscillating a little beyond thirty, +pointed pretty steadily at "_Fair_." + +The mariner's compasses were also found to be quite free from injury. It +is, of course, hardly necessary to say that the needles pointed in no +particular direction, the magnetic pole of the Earth being unable at +such a distance to exercise any appreciable influence on them. But when +brought to the Moon, it was expected that these compasses, once more +subjected to the influence of the current, would attest certain +phenomena. In any case, it would be interesting to verify if the Earth +and her satellite were similarly affected by the magnetic forces. + +A hypsometer, or instrument for ascertaining the heights of the Lunar +mountains by the barometric pressure under which water boils, a sextant +to measure the altitude of the Sun, a theodolite for taking horizontal +or vertical angles, telescopes, of indispensable necessity when the +travellers should approach the Moon,--all these instruments, carefully +examined, were found to be still in perfect working order, +notwithstanding the violence of the terrible shock at the start. + +As to the picks, spades, and other tools that had been carefully +selected by the Captain; also the bags of various kinds of grain and +the bundles of various kinds of shrubs, which Ardan expected to +transplant to the Lunar plains--they were all still safe in their places +around the upper corners of the Projectile. + +Some other articles were also up there which evidently possessed great +interest for the Frenchman. What they were nobody else seemed to know, +and he seemed to be in no hurry to tell. Every now and then, he would +climb up, by means of iron pins fixed in the wall, to inspect his +treasures; whatever they were, he arranged them and rearranged them with +evident pleasure, and as he rapidly passed a careful hand through +certain mysterious boxes, he joyfully sang in the falsest possible of +false voices the lively piece from _Nicolo_: + + _Le temps est beau, la route est belle, + La promenade est un plaisir_. + + {The day is bright, our hearts are light.} + {How sweet to rove through wood and dell.} + +or the well known air in _Mignon_: + + _Legères hirondelles, + Oiseaux bénis de Dieu, + Ouvrez-ouvrez vos ailes, + Envolez-vous! adieu!_ + + {Farewell, happy Swallows, farewell!} + {With summer for ever to dwell} + {Ye leave our northern strand} + {For the genial southern land} + {Balmy with breezes bland.} + {Return? Ah, who can tell?} + {Farewell, happy Swallows, farewell!} + +Barbican was much gratified to find that his rockets and other fireworks +had not received the least injury. He relied upon them for the +performance of a very important service as soon as the Projectile, +having passed the point of neutral attraction between the Earth and the +Moon, would begin to fall with accelerated velocity towards the Lunar +surface. This descent, though--thanks to the respective volumes of the +attracting bodies--six times less rapid than it would have been on the +surface of the Earth, would still be violent enough to dash the +Projectile into a thousand pieces. But Barbican confidently expected by +means of his powerful rockets to offer very considerable obstruction to +the violence of this fall, if not to counteract its terrible effects +altogether. + +The inspection having thus given general satisfaction, the travellers +once more set themselves to watching external space through the lights +in the sides and the floor of the Projectile. + +Everything still appeared to be in the same state as before. Nothing was +changed. The vast arch of the celestial dome glittered with stars, and +constellations blazed with a light clear and pure enough to throw an +astronomer into an ecstasy of admiration. Below them shone the Sun, like +the mouth of a white-hot furnace, his dazzling disc defined sharply on +the pitch-black back-ground of the sky. Above them the Moon, reflecting +back his rays from her glowing surface, appeared to stand motionless in +the midst of the starry host. + +A little to the east of the Sun, they could see a pretty large dark +spot, like a hole in the sky, the broad silver fringe on one edge fading +off into a faint glimmering mist on the other--it was the Earth. Here +and there in all directions, nebulous masses gleamed like large flakes +of star dust, in which, from nadir to zenith, the eye could trace +without a break that vast ring of impalpable star powder, the famous +_Milky Way_, through the midst of which the beams of our glorious Sun +struggle with the dusky pallor of a star of only the fourth magnitude. + +Our observers were never weary of gazing on this magnificent and novel +spectacle, of the grandeur of which, it is hardly necessary to say, no +description can give an adequate idea. What profound reflections it +suggested to their understandings! What vivid emotions it enkindled in +their imaginations! Barbican, desirous of commenting the story of the +journey while still influenced by these inspiring impressions, noted +carefully hour by hour every fact that signalized the beginning of his +enterprise. He wrote out his notes very carefully and systematically, +his round full hand, as business-like as ever, never betraying the +slightest emotion. + +The Captain was quite as busy, but in a different way. Pulling out his +tablets, he reviewed his calculations regarding the motion of +projectiles, their velocities, ranges and paths, their retardations and +their accelerations, jotting down the figures with a rapidity wonderful +to behold. Ardan neither wrote nor calculated, but kept up an incessant +fire of small talk, now with Barbican, who hardly ever answered him, +now with M'Nicholl, who never heard him, occasionally with Diana, who +never understood him, but oftenest with himself, because, as he said, he +liked not only to talk to a sensible man but also to hear what a +sensible man had to say. He never stood still for a moment, but kept +"bobbing around" with the effervescent briskness of a bee, at one time +roosting at the top of the ladder, at another peering through the floor +light, now to the right, then to the left, always humming scraps from +the _Opera Bouffe_, but never changing the air. In the small space which +was then a whole world to the travellers, he represented to the life the +animation and loquacity of the French, and I need hardly say he played +his part to perfection. + +The eventful day, or, to speak more correctly, the space of twelve hours +which with us forms a day, ended for our travellers with an abundant +supper, exquisitely cooked. It was highly enjoyed. + +No incident had yet occurred of a nature calculated to shake their +confidence. Apprehending none therefore, full of hope rather and already +certain of success, they were soon lost in a peaceful slumber, whilst +the Projectile, moving rapidly, though with a velocity uniformly +retarding, still cleaved its way through the pathless regions of the +empyrean. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A CHAPTER FOR THE CORNELL GIRLS. + + +No incident worth recording occurred during the night, if night indeed +it could be called. In reality there was now no night or even day in the +Projectile, or rather, strictly speaking, it was always _night_ on the +upper end of the bullet, and always _day_ on the lower. Whenever, +therefore, the words _night_ and _day_ occur in our story, the reader +will readily understand them as referring to those spaces of time that +are so called in our Earthly almanacs, and were so measured by the +travellers' chronometers. + +The repose of our friends must indeed have been undisturbed, if absolute +freedom from sound or jar of any kind could secure tranquillity. In +spite of its immense velocity, the Projectile still seemed to be +perfectly motionless. Not the slightest sign of movement could be +detected. Change of locality, though ever so rapid, can never reveal +itself to our senses when it takes place in a vacuum, or when the +enveloping atmosphere travels at the same rate as the moving body. +Though we are incessantly whirled around the Sun at the rate of about +seventy thousand miles an hour, which of us is conscious of the +slightest motion? In such a case, as far as sensation is concerned, +motion and repose are absolutely identical. Neither has any effect one +way or another on a material body. Is such a body in motion? It remains +in motion until some obstacle stops it. Is it at rest? It remains at +rest until some superior force compels it to change its position. This +indifference of bodies to motion or rest is what physicists call +_inertia_. + +Barbican and his companions, therefore, shut up in the Projectile, could +readily imagine themselves to be completely motionless. Had they been +outside, the effect would have been precisely the same. No rush of air, +no jarring sensation would betray the slightest movement. But for the +sight of the Moon gradually growing larger above them, and of the Earth +gradually growing smaller beneath them, they could safely swear that +they were fast anchored in an ocean of deathlike immobility. + +Towards the morning of next day (December 3), they were awakened by a +joyful, but quite unexpected sound. + +"Cock-a-doodle! doo!" accompanied by a decided flapping of wings. + +The Frenchman, on his feet in one instant and on the top of the ladder +in another, attempted to shut the lid of a half open box, speaking in an +angry but suppressed voice: + +"Stop this hullabaloo, won't you? Do you want me to fail in my great +combination!" + +"Hello?" cried Barbican and M'Nicholl, starting up and rubbing their +eyes. + +"What noise was that?" asked Barbican. + +"Seems to me I heard the crowing of a cock," observed the Captain. + +"I never thought your ears could be so easily deceived, Captain," cried +Ardan, quickly, "Let us try it again," and, flapping his ribs with his +arms, he gave vent to a crow so loud and natural that the lustiest +chanticleer that ever saluted the orb of day might be proud of it. + +The Captain roared right out, and even Barbican snickered, but as they +saw that their companion evidently wanted to conceal something, they +immediately assumed straight faces and pretended to think no more about +the matter. + +"Barbican," said Ardan, coming down the ladder and evidently anxious to +change the conversation, "have you any idea of what I was thinking about +all night?" + +"Not the slightest." + +"I was thinking of the promptness of the reply you received last year +from the authorities of Cambridge University, when you asked them about +the feasibility of sending a bullet to the Moon. You know very well by +this time what a perfect ignoramus I am in Mathematics. I own I have +been often puzzled when thinking on what grounds they could form such a +positive opinion, in a case where I am certain that the calculation must +be an exceedingly delicate matter." + +"The feasibility, you mean to say," replied Barbican, "not exactly of +sending a bullet to the Moon, but of sending it to the neutral point +between the Earth and the Moon, which lies at about nine-tenths of the +journey, where the two attractions counteract each other. Because that +point once passed, the Projectile would reach the Moon's surface by +virtue of its own weight." + +"Well, reaching that neutral point be it;" replied Ardan, "but, once +more, I should like to know how they have been able to come at the +necessary initial velocity of 12,000 yards a second?" + +"Nothing simpler," answered Barbican. + +"Could you have done it yourself?" asked the Frenchman. + +"Without the slightest difficulty. The Captain and myself could have +readily solved the problem, only the reply from the University saved us +the trouble." + +"Well, Barbican, dear boy," observed Ardan, "all I've got to say is, you +might chop the head off my body, beginning with my feet, before you +could make me go through such a calculation." + +"Simply because you don't understand Algebra," replied Barbican, +quietly. + +"Oh! that's all very well!" cried Ardan, with an ironical smile. "You +great _x+y_ men think you settle everything by uttering the word +_Algebra_!" + +"Ardan," asked Barbican, "do you think people could beat iron without a +hammer, or turn up furrows without a plough?" + +"Hardly." + +"Well, Algebra is an instrument or utensil just as much as a hammer or a +plough, and a very good instrument too if you know how to make use of +it." + +"You're in earnest?" + +"Quite so." + +"And you can handle the instrument right before my eyes?" + +"Certainly, if it interests you so much." + +"You can show me how they got at the initial velocity of our +Projectile?" + +"With the greatest pleasure. By taking into proper consideration all the +elements of the problem, viz.: (1) the distance between the centres of +the Earth and the Moon, (2) the Earth's radius, (3) its volume, and (4) +the Moon's volume, I can easily calculate what must be the initial +velocity, and that too by a very simple formula." + +"Let us have the formula." + +"In one moment; only I can't give you the curve really described by the +Projectile as it moves between the Earth and the Moon; this is to be +obtained by allowing for their combined movement around the Sun. I will +consider the Earth and the Sun to be motionless, that being sufficient +for our present purpose." + +"Why so?" + +"Because to give you that exact curve would be to solve a point in the +'Problem of the Three Bodies,' which Integral Calculus has not yet +reached." + +"What!" cried Ardan, in a mocking tone, "is there really anything that +Mathematics can't do?" + +"Yes," said Barbican, "there is still a great deal that Mathematics +can't even attempt." + +"So far, so good;" resumed Ardan. "Now then what is this Integral +Calculus of yours?" + +"It is a branch of Mathematics that has for its object the summation of +a certain infinite series of indefinitely small terms: but for the +solution of which, we must generally know the function of which a given +function is the differential coefficient. In other words," continued +Barbican, "in it we return from the differential coefficient, to the +function from which it was deduced." + +"Clear as mud!" cried Ardan, with a hearty laugh. + +"Now then, let me have a bit of paper and a pencil," added Barbican, +"and in half an hour you shall have your formula; meantime you can +easily find something interesting to do." + +In a few seconds Barbican was profoundly absorbed in his problem, while +M'Nicholl was watching out of the window, and Ardan was busily employed +in preparing breakfast. + +The morning meal was not quite ready, when Barbican, raising his head, +showed Ardan a page covered with algebraic signs at the end of which +stood the following formula:-- + + 1 2 2 r m' r r +--- (v' - v ) = gr {--- - 1 + --- (----- - -----) } + 2 x m d - x d - r + +"Which means?" asked Ardan. + +"It means," said the Captain, now taking part in the discussion, "that +the half of _v_ prime squared minus _v_ squared equals _gr_ multiplied +by _r_ over _x_ minus one plus _m_ prime over _m_ multiplied by _r_ over +_d_ minus _x_ minus _r_ over _d_ minus _r_ ... that is--" + +"That is," interrupted Ardan, in a roar of laughter, "_x_ stradlegs on +_y_, making for _z_ and jumping over _p_! Do _you_ mean to say you +understand the terrible jargon, Captain?" + +"Nothing is clearer, Ardan." + +"You too, Captain! Then of course I must give in gracefully, and declare +that the sun at noon-day is not more palpably evident than the sense of +Barbican's formula." + +"You asked for Algebra, you know," observed Barbican. + +"Rock crystal is nothing to it!" + +"The fact is, Barbican," said the Captain, who had been looking over the +paper, "you have worked the thing out very well. You have the integral +equation of the living forces, and I have no doubt it will give us the +result sought for." + +"Yes, but I should like to understand it, you know," cried Ardan: "I +would give ten years of the Captain's life to understand it!" + +"Listen then," said Barbican. "Half of _v_ prime squared less _v_ +squared, is the formula giving us the half variation of the living +force." + +"Mac pretends he understands all that!" + +"You need not be a _Solomon_ to do it," said the Captain. "All these +signs that you appear to consider so cabalistic form a language the +clearest, the shortest, and the most logical, for all those who can read +it." + +"You pretend, Captain, that, by means of these hieroglyphics, far more +incomprehensible than the sacred Ibis of the Egyptians, you can +discover the velocity at which the Projectile should start?" + +"Most undoubtedly," replied the Captain, "and, by the same formula I can +even tell you the rate of our velocity at any particular point of our +journey." + +"You can?" + +"I can." + +"Then you're just as deep a one as our President." + +"No, Ardan; not at all. The really difficult part of the question +Barbican has done. That is, to make out such an equation as takes into +account all the conditions of the problem. After that, it's a simple +affair of Arithmetic, requiring only a knowledge of the four rules to +work it out." + +"Very simple," observed Ardan, who always got muddled at any kind of a +difficult sum in addition. + +"Captain," said Barbican, "_you_ could have found the formulas too, if +you tried." + +"I don't know about that," was the Captain's reply, "but I do know that +this formula is wonderfully come at." + +"Now, Ardan, listen a moment," said Barbican, "and you will see what +sense there is in all these letters." + +"I listen," sighed Ardan with the resignation of a martyr. + +"_d_ is the distance from the centre of the Earth to the centre of the +Moon, for it is from the centres that we must calculate the +attractions." + +"That I comprehend." + +"_r_ is the radius of the Earth." + +"That I comprehend." + +"_m_ is the mass or volume of the Earth; _m_ prime that of the Moon. We +must take the mass of the two attracting bodies into consideration, +since attraction is in direct proportion to their masses." + +"That I comprehend." + +"_g_ is the gravity or the velocity acquired at the end of a second by a +body falling towards the centre of the Earth. Clear?" + +"That I comprehend." + +"Now I represent by _x_ the varying distance that separates the +Projectile from the centre of the Earth, and by _v_ prime its velocity +at that distance." + +"That I comprehend." + +"Finally, _v_ is its velocity when quitting our atmosphere." + +"Yes," chimed in the Captain, "it is for this point, you see, that the +velocity had to be calculated, because we know already that the initial +velocity is exactly the three halves of the velocity when the Projectile +quits the atmosphere." + +"That I don't comprehend," cried the Frenchman, energetically. + +"It's simple enough, however," said Barbican. + +"Not so simple as a simpleton," replied the Frenchman. + +"The Captain merely means," said Barbican, "that at the instant the +Projectile quitted the terrestrial atmosphere it had already lost a +third of its initial velocity." + +"So much as a third?" + +"Yes, by friction against the atmospheric layers: the quicker its +motion, the greater resistance it encountered." + +"That of course I admit, but your _v_ squared and your _v_ prime squared +rattle in my head like nails in a box!" + +"The usual effect of Algebra on one who is a stranger to it; to finish +you, our next step is to express numerically the value of these several +symbols. Now some of them are already known, and some are to be +calculated." + +"Hand the latter over to me," said the Captain. + +"First," continued Barbican: "_r_, the Earth's radius is, in the +latitude of Florida, about 3,921 miles. _d_, the distance from the +centre of the Earth to the centre of the Moon is 56 terrestrial radii, +which the Captain calculates to be...?" + +"To be," cried M'Nicholl working rapidly with his pencil, "219,572 +miles, the moment the Moon is in her _perigee_, or nearest point to the +Earth." + +"Very well," continued Barbican. "Now _m_ prime over _m_, that is the +ratio of the Moon's mass to that of the Earth is about the 1/81. _g_ +gravity being at Florida about 32-1/4 feet, of course _g_ x _r_ must +be--how much, Captain?" + +"38,465 miles," replied M'Nicholl. + +"Now then?" asked Ardan. + +[Illustration: MY HEAD IS SPLITTING WITH IT.] + +"Now then," replied Barbican, "the expression having numerical values, I +am trying to find _v_, that is to say, the initial velocity which the +Projectile must possess in order to reach the point where the two +attractions neutralize each other. Here the velocity being null, _v_ +prime becomes zero, and _x_ the required distance of this neutral point +must be represented by the nine-tenths of _d_, the distance between the +two centres." + +"I have a vague kind of idea that it must be so," said Ardan. + +"I shall, therefore, have the following result;" continued Barbican, +figuring up; "_x_ being nine-tenths of _d_, and _v_ prime being zero, my +formula becomes:-- + + 2 10 r 1 10 r r +v = gr {1 - ----- - ---- (----- - -----) } + d 81 d d - r " + +The Captain read it off rapidly. + +"Right! that's correct!" he cried. + +"You think so?" asked Barbican. + +"As true as Euclid!" exclaimed M'Nicholl. + +"Wonderful fellows," murmured the Frenchman, smiling with admiration. + +"You understand now, Ardan, don't you?" asked Barbican. + +"Don't I though?" exclaimed Ardan, "why my head is splitting with it!" + +"Therefore," continued Barbican, + +" 2 10 r 1 10 r r +2v = 2gr {1 - ----- - ---- (----- - -----) } + d 81 d d - r " + +"And now," exclaimed M'Nicholl, sharpening his pencil; "in order to +obtain the velocity of the Projectile when leaving the atmosphere, we +have only to make a slight calculation." + +The Captain, who before clerking on a Mississippi steamboat had been +professor of Mathematics in an Indiana university, felt quite at home at +the work. He rained figures from his pencil with a velocity that would +have made Marston stare. Page after page was filled with his +multiplications and divisions, while Barbican looked quietly on, and +Ardan impatiently stroked his head and ears to keep down a rising +head-ache. + +"Well?" at last asked Barbican, seeing the Captain stop and throw a +somewhat hasty glance over his work. + +"Well," answered M'Nicholl slowly but confidently, "the calculation is +made, I think correctly; and _v_, that is, the velocity of the +Projectile when quitting the atmosphere, sufficient to carry it to the +neutral point, should be at least ..." + +"How much?" asked Barbican, eagerly. + +"Should be at least 11,972 yards the first second." + +"What!" cried Barbican, jumping off his seat. "How much did you say?" + +"11,972 yards the first second it quits the atmosphere." + +"Oh, malediction!" cried Barbican, with a gesture of terrible despair. + +"What's the matter?" asked Ardan, very much surprised. + +"Enough is the matter!" answered Barbican excitedly. "This velocity +having been diminished by a third, our initial velocity should have been +at least ..." + +"17,958 yards the first second!" cried M'Nicholl, rapidly flourishing +his pencil. + +"But the Cambridge Observatory having declared that 12,000 yards the +first second were sufficient, our Projectile started with no greater +velocity!" + +"Well?" asked M'Nicholl. + +"Well, such a velocity will never do!" + +"How??" } +"How!!" } cried the Captain and Ardan in one voice. + +"We can never reach the neutral point!" + +"Thunder and lightning" + +"Fire and Fury!" + +"We can't get even halfway!" + +"Heaven and Earth!" + +"_Mille noms d'un boulet!_" cried Ardan, wildly gesticulating. + +"And we shall fall back to the Earth!" + +"Oh!" + +"Ah!" + +They could say no more. This fearful revelation took them like a stroke +of apoplexy. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE COLDS OF SPACE. + + +How could they imagine that the Observatory men had committed such a +blunder? Barbican would not believe it possible. He made the Captain go +over his calculation again and again; but no flaw was to be found in it. +He himself carefully examined it, figure after figure, but he could find +nothing wrong. They both took up the formula and subjected it to the +strongest tests; but it was invulnerable. There was no denying the fact. +The Cambridge professors had undoubtedly blundered in saying that an +initial velocity of 12,000 yards a second would be enough to carry them +to the neutral point. A velocity of nearly 18,000 yards would be the +very lowest required for such a purpose. They had simply forgotten to +allow a third for friction. + +The three friends kept profound silence for some time. Breakfast now was +the last thing thought of. Barbican, with teeth grating, fingers +clutching, and eye-brows closely contracting, gazed grimly through the +window. The Captain, as a last resource, once more examined his +calculations, earnestly hoping to find a figure wrong. Ardan could +neither sit, stand nor lie still for a second, though he tried all +three. His silence, of course, did not last long. + +"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed bitterly. "Precious scientific men! Villainous +old hombogues! The whole set not worth a straw! I hope to gracious, +since we must fall, that we shall drop down plumb on Cambridge +Observatory, and not leave a single one of the miserable old women, +called professors, alive in the premises!" + +A certain expression in Ardan's angry exclamation had struck the Captain +like a shot, and set his temples throbbing violently. + +"_Must_ fall!" he exclaimed, starting up suddenly. "Let us see about +that! It is now seven o'clock in the morning. We must have, therefore, +been at least thirty-two hours on the road, and more than half of our +passage is already made. If we are going to fall at all, we must be +falling now! I'm certain we're not, but, Barbican, you have to find it +out!" + +Barbican caught the idea like lightning, and, seizing a compass, he +began through the floor window to measure the visual angle of the +distant Earth. The apparent immobility of the Projectile allowed him to +do this with great exactness. Then laying aside the instrument, and +wiping off the thick drops of sweat that bedewed his forehead, he began +jotting down some figures on a piece of paper. The Captain looked on +with keen interest; he knew very well that Barbican was calculating +their distance from the Earth by the apparent measure of the terrestrial +diameter, and he eyed him anxiously. + +Pretty soon his friends saw a color stealing into Barbican's pale face, +and a triumphant light glittering in his eye. + +"No, my brave boys!" he exclaimed at last throwing down his pencil, +"we're not falling! Far from it, we are at present more than 150 +thousand miles from the Earth!" + +"Hurrah!" } +"Bravo!" } cried M'Nicholl and Ardan, in a breath. + +"We have passed the point where we should have stopped if we had had no +more initial velocity than the Cambridge men allowed us!" + +"Hurrah! hurrah!" + +"Bravo, Bravissimo!" + +"And we're still going up!" + +"Glory, glory, hallelujah!" sang M'Nicholl, in the highest excitement. + +"_Vive ce cher Barbican!_" cried Ardan, bursting into French as usual +whenever his feelings had the better of him. + +"Of course we're marching on!" continued M'Nicholl, "and I know the +reason why, too. Those 400,000 pounds of gun-cotton gave us greater +initial velocity than we had expected!" + +"You're right, Captain!" added Barbican; "besides, you must not forget +that, by getting rid of the water, the Projectile was relieved of +considerable weight!" + +"Correct again!" cried the Captain. "I had not thought of that!" + +"Therefore, my brave boys," continued Barbican, with some excitement; +"away with melancholy! We're all right!" + +"Yes; everything is lovely and the goose hangs high!" cried the Captain, +who on grand occasions was not above a little slang. + +"Talking of goose reminds me of breakfast," cried Ardan; "I assure you, +my fright has not taken away my appetite!" + +"Yes," continued Barbican. "Captain, you're quite right. Our initial +velocity very fortunately was much greater than what our Cambridge +friends had calculated for us!" + +"Hang our Cambridge friends and their calculations!" cried Ardan, with +some asperity; "as usual with your scientific men they've more brass +than brains! If we're not now bed-fellows with the oysters in the Gulf +of Mexico, no thanks to our kind Cambridge friends. But talking of +oysters, let me remind you again that breakfast is ready." + +The meal was a most joyous one. They ate much, they talked more, but +they laughed most. The little incident of Algebra had certainly very +much enlivened the situation. + +"Now, my boys," Ardan went on, "all things thus turning out quite +comfortable, I would just ask you why we should not succeed? We are +fairly started. No breakers ahead that I can see. No rock on our road. +It is freer than the ships on the raging ocean, aye, freer than the +balloons in the blustering air. But the ship arrives at her destination; +the balloon, borne on the wings of the wind, rises to as high an +altitude as can be endured; why then should not our Projectile reach the +Moon?" + +"It _will_ reach the Moon!" nodded Barbican. + +"We shall reach the Moon or know for what!" cried M'Nicholl, +enthusiastically. + +"The great American nation must not be disappointed!" continued Ardan. +"They are the only people on Earth capable of originating such an +enterprise! They are the only people capable of producing a Barbican!" + +"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl. + +"That point settled," continued the Frenchman, "another question comes +up to which I have not yet called your attention. When we get to the +Moon, what shall we do there? How are we going to amuse ourselves? I'm +afraid our life there will be awfully slow!" + +His companions emphatically disclaimed the possibility of such a thing. + +"You may deny it, but I know better, and knowing better, I have laid in +my stores accordingly. You have but to choose. I possess a varied +assortment. Chess, draughts, cards, dominoes--everything in fact, but a +billiard table?" + +"What!" exclaimed Barbican; "cumbered yourself with such gimcracks?" + +"Such gimcracks are not only good to amuse ourselves with, but are +eminently calculated also to win us the friendship of the Selenites." + +"Friend Michael," said Barbican, "if the Moon is inhabited at all, her +inhabitants must have appeared several thousand years before the advent +of Man on our Earth, for there seems to be very little doubt that Luna +is considerably older than Terra in her present state. Therefore, +Selenites, if their brain is organized like our own, must have by this +time invented all that we are possessed of, and even much which we are +still to invent in the course of ages. The probability is that, instead +of their learning from us, we shall have much to learn from them." + +"What!" asked Ardan, "you think they have artists like Phidias, Michael +Angelo and Raphael?" + +"Certainly." + +"And poets like Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakspeare, Göthe and Hugo?" + +"Not a doubt of it." + +"And philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Bacon, Kant?" + +"Why not?" + +"And scientists like Euclid, Archimedes, Copernicus, Newton, Pascal?" + +"I should think so." + +"And famous actors, and singers, and composers, and--and photographers?" + +"I could almost swear to it." + +"Then, dear boy, since they have gone ahead as far as we and even +farther, why have not those great Selenites tried to start a +communication with the Earth? Why have they not fired a projectile from +the regions lunar to the regions terrestrial?" + +"Who says they have not done so?" asked Barbican, coolly. + +"Attempting such a communication," observed the Captain, "would +certainly be much easier for them than for us, principally for two +reasons. First, attraction on the Moon's surface being six times less +than on the Earth's, a projectile could be sent off more rapidly; +second, because, as this projectile need be sent only 24 instead of 240 +thousand miles, they could do it with a quantity of powder ten times +less than what we should require for the same purpose." + +"Then I ask again," said the Frenchman; "why haven't they made such an +attempt?" + +"And I reply again," answered Barbican. "How do you know that they have +not made such an attempt?" + +"Made it? When?" + +"Thousands of years ago, before the invention of writing, before even +the appearance of Man on the Earth." + +"But the bullet?" asked Ardan, triumphantly; "Where's the bullet? +Produce the bullet!" + +"Friend Michael," answered Barbican, with a quiet smile, "you appear to +forget that the 5/6 of the surface of our Earth is water. 5 to 1, +therefore, that the bullet is more likely to be lying this moment at the +bottom of the Atlantic or the Pacific than anywhere else on the surface +of our globe. Besides, it may have sunk into some weak point of the +surface, at the early epoch when the crust of the Earth had not acquired +sufficient solidity." + +"Captain," said Ardan, turning with a smile to M'Nicholl; "no use in +trying to catch Barby; slippery as an eel, he has an answer for +everything. Still I have a theory on the subject myself, which I think +it no harm to ventilate. It is this: The Selenites have never sent us +any projectile at all, simply because they had no gunpowder: being older +and wiser than we, they were never such fools as to invent any.--But, +what's that? Diana howling for her breakfast! Good! Like genuine +scientific men, while squabbling over nonsense, we let the poor animals +die of hunger. Excuse us, Diana; it is not the first time the little +suffer from the senseless disputes of the great." + +So saying he laid before the animal a very toothsome pie, and +contemplated with evident pleasure her very successful efforts towards +its hasty and complete disappearance. + +"Looking at Diana," he went on, "makes me almost wish we had made a +Noah's Ark of our Projectile by introducing into it a pair of all the +domestic animals!" + +"Not room enough," observed Barbican. + +"No doubt," remarked the Captain, "the ox, the cow, the horse, the goat, +all the ruminating animals would be very useful in the Lunar continent. +But we couldn't turn our Projectile into a stable, you know." + +"Still, we might have made room for a pair of poor little donkeys!" +observed Ardan; "how I love the poor beasts. Fellow feeling, you will +say. No doubt, but there really is no animal I pity more. They are the +most ill-treated brutes in all creation. They are not only banged during +life; they are banged worse after death!" + +"Hey! How do you make that out?" asked his companions, surprised. + +"Because we make their skins into drum heads!" replied Ardan, with an +air, as if answering a conundrum. + +Barbican and M'Nicholl could hardly help laughing at the absurd reply of +their lively companion, but their hilarity was soon stopped by the +expression his face assumed as he bent over Satellite's body, where it +lay stretched on the sofa. + +"What's the matter now?" asked Barbican. + +"Satellite's attack is over," replied Ardan. + +"Good!" said M'Nicholl, misunderstanding him. + +"Yes, I suppose it is good for the poor fellow," observed Ardan, in +melancholy accents. "Life with one's skull broken is hardly an enviable +possession. Our grand acclimatization project is knocked sky high, in +more senses than one!" + +There was no doubt of the poor dog's death. The expression of Ardan's +countenance, as he looked at his friends, was of a very rueful order. + +"Well," said the practical Barbican, "there's no help for that now; the +next thing to be done is to get rid of the body. We can't keep it here +with us forty-eight hours longer." + +"Of course not," replied the Captain, "nor need we; our lights, being +provided with hinges, can be lifted back. What is to prevent us from +opening one of them, and flinging the body out through it!" + +The President of the Gun Club reflected a few minutes; then he spoke: + +"Yes, it can be done; but we must take the most careful precautions." + +"Why so?" asked Ardan. + +"For two simple reasons;" replied Barbican; "the first refers to the air +enclosed in the Projectile, and of which we must be very careful to lose +only the least possible quantity." + +"But as we manufacture air ourselves!" objected Ardan. + +"We manufacture air only partly, friend Michael," replied Barbican. "We +manufacture only oxygen; we can't supply nitrogen--By the bye, Ardan, +won't you watch the apparatus carefully every now and then to see that +the oxygen is not generated too freely. Very serious consequences would +attend an immoderate supply of oxygen--No, we can't manufacture +nitrogen, which is so absolutely necessary for our air and which might +escape readily through the open windows." + +"What! the few seconds we should require for flinging out poor +Satellite?" + +"A very few seconds indeed they should be," said Barbican, very gravely. + +"Your second reason?" asked Ardan. + +"The second reason is, that we must not allow the external cold, which +must be exceedingly great, to penetrate into our Projectile and freeze +us alive." + +"But the Sun, you know--" + +"Yes, the Sun heats our Projectile, but it does not heat the vacuum +through which we are now floating. Where there is no air there can +neither be heat nor light; just as wherever the rays of the Sun do not +arrive directly, it must be both cold and dark. The temperature around +us, if there be anything that can be called temperature, is produced +solely by stellar radiation. I need not say how low that is in the +scale, or that it would be the temperature to which our Earth should +fall, if the Sun were suddenly extinguished." + +"Little fear of that for a few more million years," said M'Nicholl. + +"Who can tell?" asked Ardan. "Besides, even admitting that the Sun will +not soon be extinguished, what is to prevent the Earth from shooting +away from him?" + +"Let friend Michael speak," said Barbican, with a smile, to the Captain; +"we may learn something." + +"Certainly you may," continued the Frenchman, "if you have room for +anything new. Were we not struck by a comet's tail in 1861?" + +"So it was said, anyhow," observed the Captain. "I well remember what +nonsense there was in the papers about the 'phosphorescent auroral +glare.'" + +"Well," continued the Frenchman, "suppose the comet of 1861 influenced +the Earth by an attraction superior to the Sun's. What would be the +consequence? Would not the Earth follow the attracting body, become its +satellite, and thus at last be dragged off to such a distance that the +Sun's rays could no longer excite heat on her surface?" + +"Well, that might possibly occur," said Barbican slowly, "but even then +I question if the consequences would be so terrible as you seem to +apprehend." + +"Why not?" + +"Because the cold and the heat might still manage to be nearly equalized +on our globe. It has been calculated that, had the Earth been carried +off by the comet of '61, when arrived at her greatest distance, she +would have experienced a temperature hardly sixteen times greater than +the heat we receive from the Moon, which, as everybody knows, produces +no appreciable effect, even when concentrated to a focus by the most +powerful lenses." + +"Well then," exclaimed Ardan, "at such a temperature--" + +"Wait a moment," replied Barbican. "Have you never heard of the +principle of compensation? Listen to another calculation. Had the Earth +been dragged along with the comet, it has been calculated that at her +perihelion, or nearest point to the Sun, she would have to endure a heat +28,000 times greater than our mean summer temperature. But this heat, +fully capable of turning the rocks into glass and the oceans into vapor, +before proceeding to such extremity, must have first formed a thick +interposing ring of clouds, and thus considerably modified the excessive +temperature. Therefore, between the extreme cold of the aphelion and the +excessive heat of the perihelion, by the great law of compensation, it +is probable that the mean temperature would be tolerably endurable." + +"At how many degrees is the temperature of the interplanetary space +estimated?" asked M'Nicholl. + +"Some time ago," replied Barbican, "this temperature was considered to +be very low indeed--millions and millions of degrees below zero. But +Fourrier of Auxerre, a distinguished member of the _Académie des +Sciences_, whose _Mémoires_ on the temperature of the Planetary spaces +appeared about 1827, reduced these figures to considerably diminished +proportions. According to his careful estimation, the temperature of +space is not much lower than 70 or 80 degrees Fahr. below zero." + +"No more?" asked Ardan. + +"No more," answered Barbican, "though I must acknowledge we have only +his word for it, as the _Mémoire_ in which he had recorded all the +elements of that important determination, has been lost somewhere, and +is no longer to be found." + +"I don't attach the slightest importance to his, or to any man's words, +unless they are sustained by reliable evidence," exclaimed M'Nicholl. +"Besides, if I'm not very much mistaken, Pouillet--another countryman of +yours, Ardan, and an Academician as well as Fourrier--esteems the +temperature of interplanetary spaces to be at least 256° Fahr. below +zero. This we can easily verify for ourselves this moment by actual +experiment." + +"Not just now exactly," observed Barbican, "for the solar rays, +striking our Projectile directly, would give us a very elevated instead +of a very low temperature. But once arrived at the Moon, during those +nights fifteen days long, which each of her faces experiences +alternately, we shall have plenty of time to make an experiment with +every condition in our favor. To be sure, our Satellite is at present +moving in a vacuum." + +"A vacuum?" asked Ardan; "a perfect vacuum?" + +"Well, a perfect vacuum as far as air is concerned." + +"But is the air replaced by nothing?" + +"Oh yes," replied Barbican. "By ether." + +"Ah, ether! and what, pray, is ether?" + +"Ether, friend Michael, is an elastic gas consisting of imponderable +atoms, which, as we are told by works on molecular physics, are, in +proportion to their size, as far apart as the celestial bodies are from +each other in space. This distance is less than the 1/3000000 x 1/1000', +or the one trillionth of a foot. The vibrations of the molecules of this +ether produce the sensations of light and heat, by making 430 trillions +of undulations per second, each undulation being hardly more than the +one ten-millionth of an inch in width." + +"Trillions per second! ten-millionths of an inch in width!" cried Ardan. +"These oscillations have been very neatly counted and ticketed, and +checked off! Ah, friend Barbican," continued the Frenchman, shaking his +head, "these numbers are just tremendous guesses, frightening the ear +but revealing nothing to the intelligence." + +"To get ideas, however, we must calculate--" + +"No, no!" interrupted Ardan: "not calculate, but compare. A trillion +tells you nothing--Comparison, everything. For instance, you say, the +volume of _Uranus_ is 76 times greater than the Earth's; _Saturn's_ 900 +times greater; _Jupiter's_ 1300 times greater; the Sun's 1300 thousand +times greater--You may tell me all that till I'm tired hearing it, and I +shall still be almost as ignorant as ever. For my part I prefer to be +told one of those simple comparisons that I find in the old almanacs: +The Sun is a globe two feet in diameter; _Jupiter_, a good sized orange; +_Saturn_, a smaller orange; _Neptune_, a plum; _Uranus_, a good sized +cherry; the Earth, a pea; _Venus_, also a pea but somewhat smaller; +_Mars_, a large pin's head; _Mercury_, a mustard seed; _Juno_, +_Ceres_, _Vesta_, _Pallas_, and the other asteroids so many grains +of sand. Be told something like that, and you have got at least the tail +of an idea!" + +This learned burst of Ardan's had the natural effect of making his +hearers forget what they had been arguing about, and they therefore +proceeded at once to dispose of Satellite's body. It was a simple matter +enough--no more than to fling it out of the Projectile into space, just +as the sailors get rid of a dead body by throwing it into the sea. Only +in this operation they had to act, as Barbican recommended, with the +utmost care and dispatch, so as to lose as little as possible of the +internal air, which, by its great elasticity, would violently strive to +escape. The bolts of the floor-light, which was more than a foot in +diameter, were carefully unscrewed, while Ardan, a good deal affected, +prepared to launch his dog's body into space. The glass, worked by a +powerful lever which enabled it to overcome the pressure of the enclosed +air, turned quickly on its hinges, and poor Satellite was dropped out. +The whole operation was so well managed that very little air escaped, +and ever afterwards Barbican employed the same means to rid the +Projectile of all the litter and other useless matter by which it was +occasionally encumbered. + +The evening of this third of December wore away without further +incident. As soon as Barbican had announced that the Projectile was +still winging its way, though with retarded velocity, towards the lunar +disc, the travellers quietly retired to rest. + +[Illustration: POOR SATELLITE WAS DROPPED OUT.] + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +INSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATION. + + +On the fourth of December, the Projectile chronometers marked five +o'clock in the morning, just as the travellers woke up from a pleasant +slumber. They had now been 54 hours on their journey. As to lapse of +_time_, they had passed not much more than half of the number of hours +during which their trip was to last; but, as to lapse of _space_, they +had already accomplished very nearly the seven-tenths of their passage. +This difference between time and distance was due to the regular +retardation of their velocity. + +They looked at the earth through the floor-light, but it was little more +than visible--a black spot drowned in the solar rays. No longer any sign +of a crescent, no longer any sign of ashy light. Next day, towards +midnight, the Earth was to be _new_, at the precise moment when the Moon +was to be _full_. Overhead, they could see the Queen of Night coming +nearer and nearer to the line followed by the Projectile, and evidently +approaching the point where both should meet at the appointed moment. +All around, the black vault of heaven was dotted with luminous points +which seemed to move somewhat, though, of course, in their extreme +distance their relative size underwent no change. The Sun and the stars +looked exactly as they had appeared when observed from the Earth. The +Moon indeed had become considerably enlarged in size, but the +travellers' telescopes were still too weak to enable them to make any +important observation regarding the nature of her surface, or that might +determine her topographical or geological features. + +Naturally, therefore, the time slipped away in endless conversation. The +Moon, of course, was the chief topic. Each one contributed his share of +peculiar information, or peculiar ignorance, as the case might be. +Barbican and M'Nicholl always treated the subject gravely, as became +learned scientists, but Ardan preferred to look on things with the eye +of fancy. The Projectile, its situation, its direction, the incidents +possible to occur, the precautions necessary to take in order to break +the fall on the Moon's surface--these and many other subjects furnished +endless food for constant debate and inexhaustible conjectures. + +For instance, at breakfast that morning, a question of Ardan's regarding +the Projectile drew from Barbican an answer curious enough to be +reported. + +"Suppose, on the night that we were shot up from Stony Hill," said +Ardan, "suppose the Projectile had encountered some obstacle powerful +enough to stop it--what would be the consequence of the sudden halt?" + +"But," replied Barbican, "I don't understand what obstacle it could have +met powerful enough to stop it." + +"Suppose some obstacle, for the sake of argument," said Ardan. + +"Suppose what can't be supposed," replied the matter-of-fact Barbican, +"what cannot possibly be supposed, unless indeed the original impulse +proved too weak. In that case, the velocity would have decreased by +degrees, but the Projectile itself would not have suddenly stopped." + +"Suppose it had struck against some body in space." + +"What body, for instance?" + +"Well, that enormous bolide which we met." + +"Oh!" hastily observed the Captain, "the Projectile would have been +dashed into a thousand pieces and we along with it." + +"Better than that," observed Barbican; "we should have been burned +alive." + +"Burned alive!" laughed Ardan. "What a pity we missed so interesting an +experiment! How I should have liked to find out how it felt!" + +"You would not have much time to record your observations, friend +Michael, I assure you," observed Barbican. "The case is plain enough. +Heat and motion are convertible terms. What do we mean by heating water? +Simply giving increased, in fact, violent motion to its molecules." + +"Well!" exclaimed the Frenchman, "that's an ingenious theory any how!" + +"Not only ingenious but correct, my dear friend, for it completely +explains all the phenomena of caloric. Heat is nothing but molecular +movement, the violent oscillation of the particles of a body. When you +apply the brakes to the train, the train stops. But what has become of +its motion? It turns into heat and makes the brakes hot. Why do people +grease the axles? To hinder them from getting too hot, which they +assuredly would become if friction was allowed to obstruct the motion. +You understand, don't you?" + +"Don't I though?" replied Ardan, apparently in earnest. "Let me show you +how thoroughly. When I have been running hard and long, I feel myself +perspiring like a bull and hot as a furnace. Why am I then forced to +stop? Simply because my motion has been transformed into heat! Of +course, I understand all about it!" + +Barbican smiled a moment at this comical illustration of his theory and +then went on: + +"Accordingly, in case of a collision it would have been all over +instantly with our Projectile. You have seen what becomes of the bullet +that strikes the iron target. It is flattened out of all shape; +sometimes it is even melted into a thin film. Its motion has been turned +into heat. Therefore, I maintain that if our Projectile had struck that +bolide, its velocity, suddenly checked, would have given rise to a heat +capable of completely volatilizing it in less than a second." + +"Not a doubt of it!" said the Captain. "President," he added after a +moment, "haven't they calculated what would be the result, if the Earth +were suddenly brought to a stand-still in her journey, through her +orbit?" + +"It has been calculated," answered Barbican, "that in such a case so +much heat would be developed as would instantly reduce her to vapor." + +"Hm!" exclaimed Ardan; "a remarkably simple way for putting an end to +the world!" + +"And supposing the Earth to fall into the Sun?" asked the Captain. + +"Such a fall," answered Barbican, "according to the calculations of +Tyndall and Thomson, would develop an amount of heat equal to that +produced by sixteen hundred globes of burning coal, each globe equal in +size to the earth itself. Furthermore such a fall would supply the Sun +with at least as much heat as he expends in a hundred years!" + +"A hundred years! Good! Nothing like accuracy!" cried Ardan. "Such +infallible calculators as Messrs. Tyndall and Thomson I can easily +excuse for any airs they may give themselves. They must be of an order +much higher than that of ordinary mortals like us!" + +"I would not answer myself for the accuracy of such intricate problems," +quietly observed Barbican; "but there is no doubt whatever regarding one +fact: motion suddenly interrupted always develops heat. And this has +given rise to another theory regarding the maintenance of the Sun's +temperature at a constant point. An incessant rain of bolides falling on +his surface compensates sufficiently for the heat that he is +continually giving forth. It has been calculated--" + +"Good Lord deliver us!" cried Ardan, putting his hands to his ears: +"here comes Tyndall and Thomson again!" + +--"It has been calculated," continued Barbican, not heeding the +interruption, "that the shock of every bolide drawn to the Sun's surface +by gravity, must produce there an amount of heat equal to that of the +combustion of four thousand blocks of coal, each the same size as the +falling bolide." + +"I'll wager another cent that our bold savants calculated the heat of +the Sun himself," cried Ardan, with an incredulous laugh. + +"That is precisely what they have done," answered Barbican referring to +his memorandum book; "the heat emitted by the Sun," he continued, "is +exactly that which would be produced by the combustion of a layer of +coal enveloping the Sun's surface, like an atmosphere, 17 miles in +thickness." + +"Well done! and such heat would be capable of--?" + +"Of melting in an hour a stratum of ice 2400 feet thick, or, according +to another calculation, of raising a globe of ice-cold water, 3 times +the size of our Earth, to the boiling point in an hour." + +"Why not calculate the exact fraction of a second it would take to cook +a couple of eggs?" laughed Ardan. "I should as soon believe in one +calculation as in the other.--But--by the by--why does not such extreme +heat cook us all up like so many beefsteaks?" + +"For two very good and sufficient reasons," answered Barbican. "In the +first place, the terrestrial atmosphere absorbs the 4/10 of the solar +heat. In the second, the quantity of solar heat intercepted by the Earth +is only about the two billionth part of all that is radiated." + +"How fortunate to have such a handy thing as an atmosphere around us," +cried the Frenchman; "it not only enables us to breathe, but it actually +keeps us from sizzling up like griskins." + +"Yes," said the Captain, "but unfortunately we can't say so much for the +Moon." + +"Oh pshaw!" cried Ardan, always full of confidence. "It's all right +there too! The Moon is either inhabited or she is not. If she is, the +inhabitants must breathe. If she is not, there must be oxygen enough +left for we, us and co., even if we should have to go after it to the +bottom of the ravines, where, by its gravity, it must have accumulated! +So much the better! we shall not have to climb those thundering +mountains!" + +So saying, he jumped up and began to gaze with considerable interest on +the lunar disc, which just then was glittering with dazzling brightness. + +"By Jove!" he exclaimed at length; "it must be pretty hot up there!" + +"I should think so," observed the Captain; "especially when you remember +that the day up there lasts 360 hours!" + +"Yes," observed Barbican, "but remember on the other hand that the +nights are just as long, and, as the heat escapes by radiation, the mean +temperature cannot be much greater than that of interplanetary space." + +"A high old place for living in!" cried Ardan. "No matter! I wish we +were there now! Wouldn't it be jolly, dear boys, to have old Mother +Earth for our Moon, to see her always on our sky, never rising, never +setting, never undergoing any change except from New Earth to Last +Quarter! Would not it be fun to trace the shape of our great Oceans and +Continents, and to say: 'there is the Mediterranean! there is China! +there is the gulf of Mexico! there is the white line of the Rocky +Mountains where old Marston is watching for us with his big telescope!' +Then we should see every line, and brightness, and shadow fade away by +degrees, as she came nearer and nearer to the Sun, until at last she sat +completely lost in his dazzling rays! But--by the way--Barbican, are +there any eclipses in the Moon?" + +"O yes; solar eclipses" replied Barbican, "must always occur whenever +the centres of the three heavenly bodies are in the same line, the Earth +occupying the middle place. However, such eclipses must always be +annular, as the Earth, projected like a screen on the solar disc, allows +more than half of the Sun to be still visible." + +"How is that?" asked M'Nicholl, "no total eclipses in the Moon? Surely +the cone of the Earth's shadow must extend far enough to envelop her +surface?" + +"It does reach her, in one sense," replied Barbican, "but it does not in +another. Remember the great refraction of the solar rays that must be +produced by the Earth's atmosphere. It is easy to show that this +refraction prevents the Sun from ever being totally invisible. See +here!" he continued, pulling out his tablets, "Let _a_ represent the +horizontal parallax, and _b_ the half of the Sun's apparent diameter--" + +"Ouch!" cried the Frenchman, making a wry face, "here comes Mr. _x_ +square riding to the mischief on a pair of double zeros again! Talk +English, or Yankee, or Dutch, or Greek, and I'm your man! Even a little +Arabic I can digest! But hang me, if I can endure your Algebra!" + +"Well then, talking Yankee," replied Barbican with a smile, "the mean +distance of the Moon from the Earth being sixty terrestrial radii, the +length of the conic shadow, in consequence of atmospheric refraction, is +reduced to less than forty-two radii. Consequently, at the moment of an +eclipse, the Moon is far beyond the reach of the real shadow, so that +she can see not only the border rays of the Sun, but even those +proceeding from his very centre." + +"Oh then," cried Ardan with a loud laugh, "we have an eclipse of the Sun +at the moment when the Sun is quite visible! Isn't that very like a +bull, Mr. Philosopher Barbican?" + +"Yet it is perfectly true notwithstanding," answered Barbican. "At such +a moment the Sun is not eclipsed, because we can see him: and then again +he is eclipsed because we see him only by means of a few of his rays, +and even these have lost nearly all their brightness in their passage +through the terrestrial atmosphere!" + +"Barbican is right, friend Michael," observed the Captain slowly: "the +same phenomenon occurs on earth every morning at sunrise, when +refraction shows us + + '_the Sun new ris'n + Looking through the horizontal misty air, + Shorn of his beams._'" + +"He must be right," said Ardan, who, to do him justice, though quick at +seeing a reason, was quicker to acknowledge its justice: "yes, he must +be right, because I begin to understand at last very clearly what he +really meant. However, we can judge for ourselves when we get +there.--But, apropos of nothing, tell me, Barbican, what do you think of +the Moon being an ancient comet, which had come so far within the sphere +of the Earth's attraction as to be kept there and turned into a +satellite?" + +"Well, that _is_ an original idea!" said Barbican with a smile. + +"My ideas generally are of that category," observed Ardan with an +affectation of dry pomposity. + +"Not this time, however, friend Michael," observed M'Nicholl. + +"Oh! I'm a plagiarist, am I?" asked the Frenchman, pretending to be +irritated. + +"Well, something very like it," observed M'Nicholl quietly. "Apollonius +Rhodius, as I read one evening in the Philadelphia Library, speaks of +the Arcadians of Greece having a tradition that their ancestors were so +ancient that they inhabited the Earth long before the Moon had ever +become our satellite. They therefore called them [Greek: _Proselênoi_] +or _Ante-lunarians_. Now starting with some such wild notion as this, +certain scientists have looked on the Moon as an ancient comet brought +close enough to the Earth to be retained in its orbit by terrestrial +attraction." + +"Why may not there be something plausible in such a hypothesis?" asked +Ardan with some curiosity. + +"There is nothing whatever in it," replied Barbican decidedly: "a simple +proof is the fact that the Moon does not retain the slightest trace of +the vaporous envelope by which comets are always surrounded." + +"Lost her tail you mean," said Ardan. "Pooh! Easy to account for that! +It might have got cut off by coming too close to the Sun!" + +"It might, friend Michael, but an amputation by such means is not very +likely." + +"No? Why not?" + +"Because--because--By Jove, I can't say, because I don't know," cried +Barbican with a quiet smile on his countenance. + +"Oh what a lot of volumes," cried Ardan, "could be made out of what we +don't know!" + +"At present, for instance," observed M'Nicholl, "I don't know what +o'clock it is." + +"Three o'clock!" said Barbican, glancing at his chronometer. + +"No!" cried Ardan in surprise. "Bless us! How rapidly the time passes +when we are engaged in scientific conversation! Ouf! I'm getting +decidedly too learned! I feel as if I had swallowed a library!" + +"I feel," observed M'Nicholl, "as if I had been listening to a lecture +on Astronomy in the _Star_ course." + +"Better stir around a little more," said the Frenchman; "fatigue of body +is the best antidote to such severe mental labor as ours. I'll run up +the ladder a bit." So saying, he paid another visit to the upper portion +of the Projectile and remained there awhile whistling _Malbrouk_, whilst +his companions amused themselves in looking through the floor window. + +Ardan was coming down the ladder, when his whistling was cut short by a +sudden exclamation of surprise. + +"What's the matter?" asked Barbican quickly, as he looked up and saw the +Frenchman pointing to something outside the Projectile. + +Approaching the window, Barbican saw with much surprise a sort of +flattened bag floating in space and only a few yards off. It seemed +perfectly motionless, and, consequently, the travellers knew that it +must be animated by the same ascensional movement as themselves. + +"What on earth can such a consarn be, Barbican?" asked Ardan, who every +now and then liked to ventilate his stock of American slang. "Is it one +of those particles of meteoric matter you were speaking of just now, +caught within the sphere of our Projectile's attraction and accompanying +us to the Moon?" + +"What I am surprised at," observed the Captain, "is that though the +specific gravity of that body is far inferior to that of our Projectile, +it moves with exactly the same velocity." + +"Captain," said Barbican, after a moment's reflection, "I know no more +what that object is than you do, but I can understand very well why it +keeps abreast with the Projectile." + +"Very well then, why?" + +"Because, my dear Captain, we are moving through a vacuum, and because +all bodies fall or move--the same thing--with equal velocity through a +vacuum, no matter what may be their shape or their specific gravity. It +is the air alone that makes a difference of weight. Produce an +artificial vacuum in a glass tube and you will see that all objects +whatever falling through, whether bits of feather or grains of shot, +move with precisely the same rapidity. Up here, in space, like cause and +like effect." + +"Correct," assented M'Nicholl. "Everything therefore that we shall throw +out of the Projectile is bound to accompany us to the Moon." + +"Well, we _were_ smart!" cried Ardan suddenly. + +"How so, friend Michael?" asked Barbican. + +"Why not have packed the Projectile with ever so many useful objects, +books, instruments, tools, et cetera, and fling them out into space once +we were fairly started! They would have all followed us safely! Nothing +would have been lost! And--now I think on it--why not fling ourselves +out through the window? Shouldn't we be as safe out there as that +bolide? What fun it would be to feel ourselves sustained and upborne in +the ether, more highly favored even than the birds, who must keep on +flapping their wings continually to prevent themselves from falling!" + +"Very true, my dear boy," observed Barbican; "but how could we breathe?" + +"It's a fact," exclaimed the Frenchman. "Hang the air for spoiling our +fun! So we must remain shut up in our Projectile?" + +"Not a doubt of it!" + +--"Oh Thunder!" roared Ardan, suddenly striking his forehead. + +"What ails you?" asked the Captain, somewhat surprised. + +"Now I know what that bolide of ours is! Why didn't we think of it +before? It is no asteroid! It is no particle of meteoric matter! Nor is +it a piece of a shattered planet!" + +"What is it then?" asked both of his companions in one voice. + +[Illustration: SATELLITE'S BODY FLYING THROUGH SPACE.] + +"It is nothing more or less than the body of the dog that we threw out +yesterday!" + +So in fact it was. That shapeless, unrecognizable mass, melted, +expunged, flat as a bladder under an unexhausted receiver, drained of +its air, was poor Satellite's body, flying like a rocket through space, +and rising higher and higher in close company with the rapidly ascending +Projectile! + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +A HIGH OLD TIME. + + +A new phenomenon, therefore, strange but logical, startling but +admitting of easy explanation, was now presented to their view, +affording a fresh subject for lively discussion. Not that they disputed +much about it. They soon agreed on a principle from which they readily +deducted the following general law: _Every object thrown out of the +Projectile should partake of the Projectile's motion: it should +therefore follow the same path, and never cease to move until the +Projectile itself came to a stand-still._ + +But, in sober truth, they were at anything but a loss of subjects of +warm discussion. As the end of their journey began to approach, their +senses became keener and their sensations vivider. Steeled against +surprise, they looked for the unexpected, the strange, the startling; +and the only thing at which they would have wondered would be to be five +minutes without having something new to wonder at. Their excited +imaginations flew far ahead of the Projectile, whose velocity, by the +way, began to be retarded very decidedly by this time, though, of +course, the travellers had as yet no means to become aware of it. The +Moon's size on the sky was meantime getting larger and larger; her +apparent distance was growing shorter and shorter, until at last they +could almost imagine that by putting their hands out they could nearly +touch her. + +Next morning, December 5th, all were up and dressed at a very early +hour. This was to be the last day of their journey, if all calculations +were correct. That very night, at 12 o'clock, within nineteen hours at +furthest, at the very moment of Full Moon, they were to reach her +resplendent surface. At that hour was to be completed the most +extraordinary journey ever undertaken by man in ancient or modern times. +Naturally enough, therefore, they found themselves unable to sleep after +four o'clock in the morning; peering upwards through the windows now +visibly glittering under the rays of the Moon, they spent some very +exciting hours in gazing at her slowly enlarging disc, and shouting at +her with confident and joyful hurrahs. + +The majestic Queen of the Stars had now risen so high in the spangled +heavens that she could hardly rise higher. In a few degrees more she +would reach the exact point of space where her junction with the +Projectile was to be effected. According to his own observations, +Barbican calculated that they should strike her in the northern +hemisphere, where her plains, or _seas_ as they are called, are immense, +and her mountains are comparatively rare. This, of course, would be so +much the more favorable, if, as was to be apprehended, the lunar +atmosphere was confined exclusively to the low lands. + +"Besides," as Ardan observed, "a plain is a more suitable landing place +than a mountain. A Selenite deposited on the top of Mount Everest or +even on Mont Blanc, could hardly be considered, in strict language, to +have arrived on Earth." + +"Not to talk," added M'Nicholl, "of the comfort of the thing! When you +land on a plain, there you are. When you land on a peak or on a steep +mountain side, where are you? Tumbling over an embankment with the train +going forty miles an hour, would be nothing to it." + +"Therefore, Captain Barbican," cried the Frenchman, "as we should like +to appear before the Selenites in full skins, please land us in the snug +though unromantic North. We shall have time enough to break our necks in +the South." + +Barbican made no reply to his companions, because a new reflection had +begun to trouble him, to talk about which would have done no good. There +was certainly something wrong. The Projectile was evidently heading +towards the northern hemisphere of the Moon. What did this prove? +Clearly, a deviation resulting from some cause. The bullet, lodged, +aimed, and fired with the most careful mathematical precision, had been +calculated to reach the very centre of the Moon's disc. Clearly it was +not going to the centre now. What could have produced the deviation? +This Barbican could not tell; nor could he even determine its extent, +having no points of sight by which to make his observations. For the +present he tried to console himself with the hope that the deviation of +the Projectile would be followed by no worse consequence than carrying +them towards the northern border of the Moon, where for several reasons +it would be comparatively easier to alight. Carefully avoiding, +therefore, the use of any expression which might needlessly alarm his +companions, he continued to observe the Moon as carefully as he could, +hoping every moment to find some grounds for believing that the +deviation from the centre was only a slight one. He almost shuddered at +the thought of what would be their situation, if the bullet, missing its +aim, should pass the Moon, and plunge into the interplanetary space +beyond it. + +As he continued to gaze, the Moon, instead of presenting the usual +flatness of her disc, began decidedly to show a surface somewhat convex. +Had the Sun been shining on her obliquely, the shadows would have +certainly thrown the great mountains into strong relief. The eye could +then bury itself deep in the yawning chasms of the craters, and easily +follow the cracks, streaks, and ridges which stripe, flecker, and bar +the immensity of her plains. But for the present all relief was lost in +the dazzling glare. The Captain could hardly distinguish even those dark +spots that impart to the full Moon some resemblance to the human face. + +"Face!" cried Ardan: "well, a very fanciful eye may detect a face, +though, for the sake of Apollo's beauteous sister, I regret to say, a +terribly pockmarked one!" + +The travellers, now evidently approaching the end of their journey, +observed the rapidly increasing world above them with newer and greater +curiosity every moment. Their fancies enkindled at the sight of the new +and strange scenes dimly presented to their view. In imagination they +climbed to the summit of this lofty peak. They let themselves down to +the abyss of that yawning crater. Here they imagined they saw vast seas +hardly kept in their basins by a rarefied atmosphere; there they thought +they could trace mighty rivers bearing to vast oceans the tribute of the +snowy mountains. In the first promptings of their eager curiosity, they +peered greedily into her cavernous depths, and almost expected, amidst +the deathlike hush of inaudible nature, to surprise some sound from the +mystic orb floating up there in eternal silence through a boundless +ocean of never ending vacuum. + +This last day of their journey left their memories stored with thrilling +recollections. They took careful note of the slightest details. As they +neared their destination, they felt themselves invaded by a vague, +undefined restlessness. But this restlessness would have given way to +decided uneasiness, if they had known at what a slow rate they were +travelling. They would have surely concluded that their present velocity +would never be able to take them as far as the neutral point, not to +talk of passing it. The reason of such considerable retardation was, +that by this time the Projectile had reached such a great distance from +the Earth that it had hardly any weight. But even this weight, such as +it was, was to be diminished still further, and finally, to vanish +altogether as soon as the bullet reached the neutral point, where the +two attractions, terrestrial and lunar, should counteract each other +with new and surprising effects. + +Notwithstanding the absorbing nature of his observations, Ardan never +forgot to prepare breakfast with his usual punctuality. It was eaten +readily and relished heartily. Nothing could be more exquisite than his +calf's foot jelly liquefied and prepared by gas heat, except perhaps his +meat biscuits of preserved Texas beef and Southdown mutton. A bottle of +Château Yquem and another of Clos de Vougeot, both of superlative +excellence in quality and flavor, crowned the repast. Their vicinity to +the Moon and their incessant glancing at her surface did not prevent the +travellers from touching each other's glasses merrily and often. Ardan +took occasion to remark that the lunar vineyards--if any existed--must +be magnificent, considering the intense solar heat they continually +experienced. Not that he counted on them too confidently, for he told +his friends that to provide for the worst he had supplied himself with a +few cases of the best vintages of Médoc and the Côte d'Or, of which the +bottles, then under discussion, might be taken as very favorable +specimens. + +The Reiset and Regnault apparatus for purifying the air worked +splendidly, and maintained the atmosphere in a perfectly sanitary +condition. Not an atom of carbonic acid could resist the caustic potash; +and as for the oxygen, according to M'Nicholl's expression, "it was A +prime number one!" + +The small quantity of watery vapor enclosed in the Projectile did no +more harm than serving to temper the dryness of the air: many a splendid +_salon_ in New York, London, or Paris, and many an auditorium, even of +theatre, opera house or Academy of Music, could be considered its +inferior in what concerned its hygienic condition. + +To keep it in perfect working order, the apparatus should be carefully +attended to. This, Ardan looked on as his own peculiar occupation. He +was never tired regulating the tubes, trying the taps, and testing the +heat of the gas by the pyrometer. So far everything had worked +satisfactorily, and the travellers, following the example of their +friend Marston on a previous occasion, began to get so stout that their +own mothers would not know them in another month, should their +imprisonment last so long. Ardan said they all looked so sleek and +thriving that he was reminded forcibly of a nice lot of pigs fattening +in a pen for a country fair. But how long was this good fortune of +theirs going to last? + +Whenever they took their eyes off the Moon, they could not help noticing +that they were still attended outside by the spectre of Satellite's +corpse and by the other refuse of the Projectile. An occasional +melancholy howl also attested Diana's recognition of her companion's +unhappy fate. The travellers saw with surprise that these waifs still +seemed perfectly motionless in space, and kept their respective +distances apart as mathematically as if they had been fastened with +nails to a stone wall. + +"I tell you what, dear boys;" observed Ardan, commenting on this curious +phenomenon; "if the concussion had been a little too violent for one of +us that night, his survivors would have been seriously embarrassed in +trying to get rid of his remains. With no earth to cover him up, no sea +to plunge him into, his corpse would never disappear from view, but +would pursue us day and night, grim and ghastly like an avenging ghost!" + +"Ugh!" said the Captain, shuddering at the idea. + +"But, by the bye, Barbican!" cried the Frenchman, dropping the subject +with his usual abruptness; "you have forgotten something else! Why +didn't you bring a scaphander and an air pump? I could then venture out +of the Projectile as readily and as safely as the diver leaves his boat +and walks about on the bottom of the river! What fun to float in the +midst of that mysterious ether! to steep myself, aye, actually to revel +in the pure rays of the glorious sun! I should have ventured out on the +very point of the Projectile, and there I should have danced and +postured and kicked and bobbed and capered in a style that Taglioni +never dreamed of!" + +"Shouldn't I like to see you!" cried the Captain grimly, smiling at the +idea. + +"You would not see him long!" observed Barbican quietly. "The air +confined in his body, freed from external pressure, would burst him like +a shell, or like a balloon that suddenly rises to too great a height in +the air! A scaphander would have been a fatal gift. Don't regret its +absence, friend Michael; never forget this axiom: _As long as we are +floating in empty space, the only spot where safety is possible is +inside the Projectile!_" + +The words "possible" and "impossible" always grated on Ardan's ears. If +he had been a lexicographer, he would have rigidly excluded them from +his dictionary, both as meaningless and useless. He was preparing an +answer for Barbican, when he was cut out by a sudden observation from +M'Nicholl. + +"See here, friends!" cried the Captain; "this going to the Moon is all +very well, but how shall we get back?" + +His listeners looked at each other with a surprised and perplexed air. +The question, though a very natural one, now appeared to have presented +itself to their consideration absolutely for the first time. + +"What do you mean by such a question, Captain?" asked Barbican in a +grave judicial tone. + +"Mac, my boy," said Ardan seriously, "don't it strike you as a little +out of order to ask how you are to return when you have not got there +yet?" + +"I don't ask the question with any idea of backing out," observed the +Captain quietly; "as a matter of purely scientific inquiry, I repeat my +question: how are we to return?" + +"I don't know," replied Barbican promptly. + +"For my part," said Ardan; "if I had known how to get back, I should +have never come at all!" + +"Well! of all the answers!" said the Captain, lifting his hands and +shaking his head. + +"The best under the circumstances;" observed Barbican; "and I shall +further observe that such a question as yours at present is both useless +and uncalled for. On some future occasion, when we shall consider it +advisable to return, the question will be in order, and we shall discuss +it with all the attention it deserves. Though the Columbiad is at Stony +Hill, the Projectile will still be in the Moon." + +"Much we shall gain by that! A bullet without a gun!" + +"The gun we can make and the powder too!" replied Barbican confidently. +"Metal and sulphur and charcoal and saltpetre are likely enough to be +present in sufficient quantities beneath the Moon's surface. Besides, to +return is a problem of comparatively easy solution: we should have to +overcome the lunar attraction only--a slight matter--the rest of the +business would be readily done by gravity." + +"Enough said on the subject!" exclaimed Ardan curtly; "how to get back +is indefinitely postponed! How to communicate with our friends on the +Earth, is another matter, and, as it seems to me, an extremely easy +one." + +"Let us hear the very easy means by which you propose to communicate +with our friends on Earth," asked the Captain, with a sneer, for he was +by this time a little out of humor. + +"By means of bolides ejected from the lunar volcanoes," replied the +Frenchman without an instant's hesitation. + +"Well said, friend Ardan," exclaimed Barbican. "I am quite disposed to +acknowledge the feasibility of your plan. Laplace has calculated that a +force five times greater than that of an ordinary cannon would be +sufficient to send a bolide from the Moon to the Earth. Now there is no +cannon that can vie in force with even the smallest volcano." + +"Hurrah!" cried Ardan, delighted at his success; "just imagine the +pleasure of sending our letters postage free! But--oh! what a splendid +idea!--Dolts that we were for not thinking of it sooner!" + +"Let us have the splendid idea!" cried the Captain, with some of his old +acrimony. + +"Why didn't we fasten a wire to the Projectile?" asked Ardan, +triumphantly, "It would have enabled us to exchange telegrams with the +Earth!" + +"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the Captain, rapidly recovering his good humor; +"decidedly the best joke of the season! Ha! ha! ha! Of course you have +calculated the weight of a wire 240 thousand miles long?" + +"No matter about its weight!" cried the Frenchman impetuously; "we +should have laughed at its weight! We could have tripled the charge of +the Columbiad; we could have quadrupled it!--aye, quintupled it, if +necessary!" he added in tones evidently increasing in loudness and +violence. + +"Yes, friend Michael," observed Barbican; "but there is a slight and +unfortunately a fatal defect in your project. The Earth, by its +rotation, would have wrapped our wire around herself, like thread around +a spool, and dragged us back almost with the speed of lightning!" + +"By the Nine gods of Porsena!" cried Ardan, "something is wrong with my +head to-day! My brain is out of joint, and I am making as nice a mess of +things as my friend Marston was ever capable of! By the bye--talking of +Marston--if we never return to the Earth, what is to prevent him from +following us to the Moon?" + +"Nothing!" replied Barbican; "he is a faithful friend and a reliable +comrade. Besides, what is easier? Is not the Columbiad still at Stony +Hill? Cannot gun-cotton be readily manufactured on any occasion? Will +not the Moon again pass through the zenith of Florida? Eighteen years +from now, will she not occupy exactly the same spot that she does +to-day?" + +"Certainly!" cried Ardan, with increasing enthusiasm, "Marston will +come! and Elphinstone of the torpedo! and the gallant Bloomsbury, and +Billsby the brave, and all our friends of the Baltimore Gun Club! And we +shall receive them with all the honors! And then we shall establish +projectile trains between the Earth and the Moon! Hurrah for J.T. +Marston!" + +"Hurrah for Secretary Marston!" cried the Captain, with an enthusiasm +almost equal to Ardan's. + +"Hurrah for my dear friend Marston!" cried Barbican, hardly less +excited than his comrades. + +Our old acquaintance, Marston, of course could not have heard the joyous +acclamations that welcomed his name, but at that moment he certainly +must have felt his ears most unaccountably tingling. What was he doing +at the time? He was rattling along the banks of the Kansas River, as +fast as an express train could take him, on the road to Long's Peak, +where, by means of the great Telescope, he expected to find some traces +of the Projectile that contained his friends. He never forgot them for a +moment, but of course he little dreamed that his name at that very time +was exciting their vividest recollections and their warmest applause. + +In fact, their recollections were rather too vivid, and their applause +decidedly too warm. Was not the animation that prevailed among the +guests of the Projectile of a very unusual character, and was it not +becoming more and more violent every moment? Could the wine have caused +it? No; though not teetotallers, they never drank to excess. Could the +Moon's proximity, shedding her subtle, mysterious influence over their +nervous systems, have stimulated them to a degree that was threatening +to border on frenzy? Their faces were as red as if they were standing +before a hot fire; their breathing was loud, and their lungs heaved like +a smith's bellows; their eyes blazed like burning coals; their voices +sounded as loud and harsh as that of a stump speaker trying to make +himself heard by an inattentive or hostile crowd; their words popped +from their lips like corks from Champagne bottles; their gesticulating +became wilder and in fact more alarming--considering the little room +left in the Projectile for muscular displays of any kind. + +But the most extraordinary part of the whole phenomenon was that neither +of them, not even Barbican, had the slightest consciousness of any +strange or unusual ebullition of spirits either on his own part or on +that of the others. + +"See here, gentlemen!" said the Captain in a quick imperious manner--the +roughness of his old life on the Mississippi would still break out--"See +here, gentlemen! It seems I'm not to know if we are to return from the +Moon. Well!--Pass that for the present! But there is one thing I _must_ +know!" + +"Hear! hear the Captain!" cried Barbican, stamping with his foot, like +an excited fencing master. "There is one thing he _must_ know!" + +"I want to know what we're going to do when we get there!" + +"He wants to know what we're going to do when we get there! A sensible +question! Answer it, Ardan!" + +"Answer it yourself, Barbican! You know more about the Moon than I do! +You know more about it than all the Nasmyths that ever lived!" + +"I'm blessed if I know anything at all about it!" cried Barbican, with a +joyous laugh. "Ha, ha, ha! The first eastern shore Marylander or any +other simpleton you meet in Baltimore, knows as much about the Moon as +I do! Why we're going there, I can't tell! What we're going to do when +we get there, can't tell either! Ardan knows all about it! He can tell! +He's taking us there!" + +"Certainly I can tell! should I have offered to take you there without a +good object in view?" cried Ardan, husky with continual roaring. "Answer +me that!" + +"No conundrums!" cried the Captain, in a voice sourer and rougher than +ever; "tell us if you can in plain English, what the demon we have come +here for!" + +"I'll tell you if I feel like it," cried Ardan, folding his arms with an +aspect of great dignity; "and I'll not tell you if I don't feel like +it!" + +"What's that?" cried Barbican. "You'll not give us an answer when we ask +you a reasonable question?" + +"Never!" cried Ardan, with great determination. "I'll never answer a +question reasonable or unreasonable, unless it is asked in a proper +manner!" + +"None of your French airs here!" exclaimed M'Nicholl, by this time +almost completely out of himself between anger and excitement. "I don't +know where I am; I don't know where I'm going; I don't know why I'm +going; _you_ know all about it, Ardan, or at least you think you do! +Well then, give me a plain answer to a plain question, or by the +Thirty-eight States of our glorious Union, I shall know what for!" + +"Listen, Ardan!" cried Barbican, grappling with the Frenchman, and with +some difficulty restraining him from flying at M'Nicholl's throat; "You +ought to tell him! It is only your duty! One day you found us both in +St. Helena woods, where we had no more idea of going to the Moon than of +sailing to the South Pole! There you twisted us both around your finger, +and induced us to follow you blindly on the most formidable journey ever +undertaken by man! And now you refuse to tell us what it was all for!" + +"I don't refuse, dear old Barbican! To you, at least, I can't refuse +anything!" cried Ardan, seizing his friend's hands and wringing them +violently. Then letting them go and suddenly starting back, "you wish to +know," he continued in resounding tones, "why we have followed out the +grandest idea that ever set a human brain on fire! Why we have +undertaken a journey that for length, danger, and novelty, for +fascinating, soul-stirring and delirious sensations, for all that can +attract man's burning heart, and satisfy the intensest cravings of his +intellect, far surpasses the vividest realities of Dante's passionate +dream! Well, I will tell you! It is to annex another World to the New +One! It is to take possession of the Moon in the name of the United +States of America! It is to add a thirty-ninth State to the glorious +Union! It is to colonize the lunar regions, to cultivate them, to people +them, to transport to them some of our wonders of art, science, and +industry! It is to civilize the Selenites, unless they are more +civilized already than we are ourselves! It is to make them all good +Republicans, if they are not so already!" + +"Provided, of course, that there are Selenites in existence!" sneered +the Captain, now sourer than ever, and in his unaccountable excitement +doubly irritating. + +"Who says there are no Selenites?" cried Ardan fiercely, with fists +clenched and brows contracted. + +"I do!" cried M'Nicholl stoutly; "I deny the existence of anything of +the kind, and I denounce every one that maintains any such whim as a +visionary, if not a fool!" + +Ardan's reply to this taunt was a desperate facer, which, however, +Barbican managed to stop while on its way towards the Captain's nose. +M'Nicholl, seeing himself struck at, immediately assumed such a posture +of defence as showed him to be no novice at the business. A battle +seemed unavoidable; but even at this trying moment Barbican showed +himself equal to the emergency. + +"Stop, you crazy fellows! you ninnyhammers! you overgrown babies!" he +exclaimed, seizing his companions by the collar, and violently swinging +them around with his vast strength until they stood back to back; "what +are you going to fight about? Suppose there are Lunarians in the Moon! +Is that a reason why there should be Lunatics in the Projectile! But, +Ardan, why do you insist on Lunarians? Are we so shiftless that we can't +do without them when we get to the Moon?" + +"I don't insist on them!" cried Ardan, who submitted to Barbican like a +child. "Hang the Lunarians! Certainly, we can do without them! What do I +care for them? Down with them!" + +"Yes, down with the Lunarians!" cried M'Nicholl as spitefully as if he +had even the slightest belief in their existence. + +"We shall take possession of the Moon ourselves!" cried Ardan. +"Lunarians or no Lunarians!" + +"We three shall constitute a Republic!" cried M'Nicholl. + +"I shall be the House!" cried Ardan. + +"And I the Senate!" answered the Captain. + +"And Barbican our first President!" shrieked the Frenchman. + +"Our first and last!" roared M'Nicholl. + +"No objections to a third term!" yelled Ardan. + +"He's welcome to any number of terms he pleases!" vociferated M'Nicholl. + +"Hurrah for President Barbican of the Lunatic--I mean of the Lunar +Republic!" screamed Ardan. + +"Long may he wave, and may his shadow never grow less!" shouted Captain +M'Nicholl, his eyes almost out of their sockets. + +Then with voices reminding you of sand fiercely blown against the window +panes, the _President_ and the _Senate_ chanted the immortal _Yankee +Doodle_, whilst the _House_ delivered itself of the _Marseillaise_, in a +style which even the wildest Jacobins in Robespierre's day could hardly +have surpassed. + +But long before either song was ended, all three broke out into a +dance, wild, insensate, furious, delirious, paroxysmatical. No Orphic +festivals on Mount Cithaeron ever raged more wildly. No Bacchic revels +on Mount Parnassus were ever more corybantic. Diana, demented by the +maddening example, joined in the orgie, howling and barking frantically +in her turn, and wildly jumping as high as the ceiling of the +Projectile. Then came new accessions to the infernal din. Wings suddenly +began to flutter, cocks to crow, hens to cluck; and five or six +chickens, managing to escape out of their coop, flew backwards and +forwards blindly, with frightened screams, dashing against each other +and against the walls of the Projectile, and altogether getting up as +demoniacal a hullabaloo as could be made by ten thousand bats that you +suddenly disturbed in a cavern where they had slept through the winter. + +Then the three companions, no longer able to withstand the overpowering +influence of the mysterious force that mastered them, intoxicated, more +than drunk, burned by the air that scorched their organs of respiration, +dropped at last, and lay flat, motionless, senseless as dabs of clay, on +the floor of the Projectile. + +[Illustration: A DEMONIACAL HULLABALOO.] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE NEUTRAL POINT. + + +What had taken place? Whence proceeded this strange intoxication whose +consequences might have proved so disastrous? A little forgetfulness on +Ardan's part had done the whole mischief, but fortunately M'Nicholl was +able to remedy it in time. + +After a regular fainting spell several minutes long, the Captain was the +first man to return to consciousness and the full recovery of his +intellectual faculties. His first feelings were far from pleasant. His +stomach gnawed him as if he had not eaten for a week, though he had +taken breakfast only a few hours before; his eyes were dim, his brain +throbbing, and his limbs shaking. In short, he presented every symptom +usually seen in a man dying of starvation. Picking himself up with much +care and difficulty, he roared out to Ardan for something to eat. Seeing +that the Frenchman was unable or unwilling to respond, he concluded to +help himself, by beginning first of all to prepare a little tea. To do +this, fire was necessary; so, to light his lamp, he struck a match. + +But what was his surprise at seeing the sulphur tip of the match blazing +with a light so bright and dazzling that his eyes could hardly bear it! +Touching it to the gas burner, a stream of light flashed forth equal in +its intensity to the flame of an electric lamp. Then he understood it +all in an instant. The dazzling glare, his maddened brain, his gnawing +stomach--all were now clear as the noon-day Sun. + +"The oxygen!" he cried, and, suddenly stooping down and examining the +tap of the air apparatus, he saw that it had been only half turned off. +Consequently the air was gradually getting more and more impregnated +with this powerful gas, colorless, odorless, tasteless, infinitely +precious, but, unless when strongly diluted with nitrogen, capable of +producing fatal disorders in the human system. Ardan, startled by +M'Nicholl's question about the means of returning from the Moon, had +turned the cock only half off. + +The Captain instantly stopped the escape of the oxygen, but not one +moment too soon. It had completely saturated the atmosphere. A few +minutes more and it would have killed the travellers, not like carbonic +acid, by smothering them, but by burning them up, as a strong draught +burns up the coals in a stove. + +[Illustration: "THE OXYGEN!" HE CRIED.] + +It took nearly an hour for the air to become pure enough to allow the +lungs their natural play. Slowly and by degrees, the travellers +recovered from their intoxication; they had actually to sleep off the +fumes of the oxygen as a drunkard has to sleep off the effects of his +brandy. When Ardan learned that he was responsible for the whole +trouble, do you think the information disconcerted him? Not a bit of it. +On the contrary, he was rather proud of having done something +startling, to break the monotony of the journey; and to put a little +life, as he said, into old Barbican and the grim Captain, so as to get a +little fun out of such grave philosophers. + +After laughing heartily at the comical figure cut by his two friends +capering like crazy students at the _Closerie des Lilas_, he went on +moralizing on the incident: + +"For my part, I'm not a bit sorry for having partaken of this fuddling +gas. It gives me an idea, dear boys. Would it not be worth some +enterprising fellow's while to establish a sanatorium provided with +oxygen chambers, where people of a debilitated state of health could +enjoy a few hours of intensely active existence! There's money in it, as +you Americans say. Just suppose balls or parties given in halls where +the air would be provided with an extra supply of this enrapturing gas! +Or, theatres where the atmosphere would be maintained in a highly +oxygenated condition. What passion, what fire in the actors! What +enthusiasm in the spectators! And, carrying the idea a little further, +if, instead of an assembly or an audience, we should oxygenize towns, +cities, a whole country--what activity would be infused into the whole +people! What new life would electrify a stagnant community! Out of an +old used-up nation we could perhaps make a bran-new one, and, for my +part, I know more than one state in old Europe where this oxygen +experiment might be attended with a decided advantage, or where, at all +events, it could do no harm!" + +The Frenchman spoke so glibly and gesticulated so earnestly that +M'Nicholl once more gravely examined the stop-cock; but Barbican damped +his enthusiasm by a single observation. + +"Friend Michael," said he, "your new and interesting idea we shall +discuss at a more favorable opportunity. At present we want to know +where all these cocks and hens have come from." + +"These cocks and hens?" + +"Yes." + +Ardan threw a glance of comical bewilderment on half a dozen or so of +splendid barn-yard fowls that were now beginning to recover from the +effects of the oxygen. For an instant he could not utter a word; then, +shrugging his shoulders, he muttered in a low voice: + +"Catastrophe prematurely exploded!" + +"What are you going to do with these chickens?" persisted Barbican. + +"Acclimatize them in the Moon, by Jove! what else?" was the ready reply. + +"Why conceal them then?" + +"A hoax, a poor hoax, dear President, which proves a miserable failure! +I intended to let them loose on the Lunar Continent at the first +favorable opportunity. I often had a good laugh to myself, thinking of +your astonishment and the Captain's at seeing a lot of American poultry +scratching for worms on a Lunar dunghill!" + +"Ah! wag, jester, incorrigible _farceur_!" cried Barbican with a smile; +"you want no nitrous oxide to put a bee in your bonnet! He is always as +bad as you and I were for a short time, M'Nicholl, under the laughing +gas! He's never had a sensible moment in his life!" + +"I can't say the same of you," replied Ardan; "you had at least one +sensible moment in all your lives, and that was about an hour ago!" + +Their incessant chattering did not prevent the friends from at once +repairing the disorder of the interior of the Projectile. Cocks and hens +were put back in their cages. But while doing so, the friends were +astonished to find that the birds, though good sized creatures, and now +pretty fat and plump, hardly felt heavier in their hands than if they +had been so many sparrows. This drew their interested attention to a new +phenomenon. + +From the moment they had left the Earth, their own weight, and that of +the Projectile and the objects therein contained, had been undergoing a +progressive diminution. They might never be able to ascertain this fact +with regard to the Projectile, but the moment was now rapidly +approaching when the loss of weight would become perfectly sensible, +both regarding themselves and the tools and instruments surrounding +them. Of course, it is quite clear, that this decrease could not be +indicated by an ordinary scales, as the weight to balance the object +would have lost precisely as much as the object itself. But a spring +balance, for instance, in which the tension of the coil is independent +of attraction, would have readily given the exact equivalent of the +loss. + +Attraction or weight, according to Newton's well known law, acting in +direct proportion to the mass of the attracting body and in inverse +proportion to the square of the distance, this consequence clearly +follows: Had the Earth been alone in space, or had the other heavenly +bodies been suddenly annihilated, the further from the Earth the +Projectile would be, the less weight it would have. However, it would +never _entirely_ lose its weight, as the terrestrial attraction would +have always made itself felt at no matter what distance. But as the +Earth is not the only celestial body possessing attraction, it is +evident that there may be a point in space where the respective +attractions may be entirely annihilated by mutual counteraction. Of this +phenomenon the present instance was a case in point. In a short time, +the Projectile and its contents would for a few moments be absolutely +and completely deprived of all weight whatsoever. + +The path described by the Projectile was evidently a line from the Earth +to the Moon averaging somewhat less than 240,000 miles in length. +According as the distance between the Projectile and the Earth was +increasing, the terrestrial attraction was diminishing in the ratio of +the square of the distance, and the lunar attraction was augmenting in +the same proportion. + +As before observed, the point was not now far off where, the two +attractions counteracting each other, the bullet would actually weigh +nothing at all. If the masses of the Earth and the Moon had been equal, +this should evidently be found half way between the two bodies. But by +making allowance for the difference of the respective masses, it was +easy to calculate that this point would be situated at the 9/10 of the +total distance, or, in round numbers, at something less than 216,000 +miles from the Earth. + +At this point, a body that possessed no energy or principle of movement +within itself, would remain forever, relatively motionless, suspended +like Mahomet's coffin, being equally attracted by the two orbs and +nothing impelling it in one direction rather than in the other. + +Now the Projectile at this moment was nearing this point; if it reached +it, what would be the consequence? + +To this question three answers presented themselves, all possible under +the circumstances, but very different in their results. + +1. Suppose the Projectile to possess velocity enough to pass the neutral +point. In such case, it would undoubtedly proceed onward to the Moon, +being drawn thither by Lunar attraction. + +2. Suppose it lacked the requisite velocity for reaching the neutral +point. In such a case it would just as certainly fall back to the Earth, +in obedience to the law of Terrestrial attraction. + +3. Suppose it to be animated by just sufficient velocity to reach the +neutral point, but not to pass it. In that case, the Projectile would +remain forever in the same spot, perfectly motionless as far as regards +the Earth and the Moon, though of course following them both in their +annual orbits round the Sun. + +Such was now the state of things, which Barbican tried to explain to his +friends, who, it need hardly be said, listened to his remarks with the +most intense interest. How were they to know, they asked him, the +precise instant at which the Projectile would reach the neutral point? +That would be an easy matter, he assured them. It would be at the very +moment when both themselves and all the other objects contained in the +Projectile would be completely free from every operation of the law of +gravity; in other words, when everything would cease to have weight. + +This gradual diminution of the action of gravity, the travellers had +been for some time noticing, but they had not yet witnessed its total +cessation. But that very morning, about an hour before noon, as the +Captain was making some little experiment in Chemistry, he happened by +accident to overturn a glass full of water. What was his surprise at +seeing that neither the glass nor the water fell to the floor! Both +remained suspended in the air almost completely motionless. + +"The prettiest experiment I ever saw!" cried Ardan; "let us have more of +it!" + +And seizing the bottles, the arms, and the other objects in the +Projectile, he arranged them around each other in the air with some +regard to symmetry and proportion. The different articles, keeping +strictly each in its own place, formed a very attractive group wonderful +to behold. Diana, placed in the apex of the pyramid, would remind you of +those marvellous suspensions in the air performed by Houdin, Herman, and +a few other first class wizards. Only being kept in her place without +being hampered by invisible strings, the animal rather seemed to enjoy +the exhibition, though in all probability she was hardly conscious of +any thing unusual in her appearance. + +Our travellers had been fully prepared for such a phenomenon, yet it +struck them with as much surprise as if they had never uttered a +scientific reason to account for it. They saw that, no longer subject to +the ordinary laws of nature, they were now entering the realms of the +marvellous. They felt that their bodies were absolutely without weight. +Their arms, fully extended, no longer sought their sides. Their heads +oscillated unsteadily on their shoulders. Their feet no longer rested on +the floor. In their efforts to hold themselves straight, they looked +like drunken men trying to maintain the perpendicular. We have all read +stories of some men deprived of the power of reflecting light and of +others who could not cast a shadow. But here reality, no fantastic +story, showed you men who, through the counteraction of attractive +forces, could tell no difference between light substances and heavy +substances, and who absolutely had no weight whatever themselves! + +"Let us take graceful attitudes!" cried Ardan, "and imagine we are +playing _tableaux_! Let us, for instance, form a grand historical group +of the three great goddesses of the nineteenth century. Barbican will +represent Minerva or _Science_; the Captain, Bellona or _War_; while I, +as Madre Natura, the newly born goddess of _Progress_, floating +gracefully over you both, extend my hands so, fondly patronizing the +one, but grandly ordering off the other, to the regions of eternal +night! More on your toe, Captain! Your right foot a little higher! Look +at Barbican's admirable pose! Now then, prepare to receive orders for a +new tableau! Form group _à la Jardin Mabille!_ Presto! Change!" + +In an instant, our travellers, changing attitudes, formed the new group +with tolerable success. Even Barbican, who had been to Paris in his +youth, yielding for a moment to the humor of the thing, acted the _naif +Anglais_ to the life. The Captain was frisky enough to remind you of a +middle-aged Frenchman from the provinces, on a hasty visit to the +capital for a few days' fun. Ardan was in raptures. + +"Oh! if Raphael could only see us!" he exclaimed in a kind of ecstasy. +"He would paint such a picture as would throw all his other masterpieces +in the shade!" + +"Knock spots out of the best of them by fifty per cent!" cried the +Captain, gesticulating well enough _à l'étudiant_, but rather mixing his +metaphors. + +[Illustration: A GROUP _A LA JARDIN MABILLE_.] + +"He should be pretty quick in getting through the job," observed +Barbican, the first as usual to recover tranquillity. "As soon as the +Projectile will have passed the neutral point--in half an hour at +longest--lunar attraction will draw us to the Moon." + +"We shall have to crawl on the ceiling then like flies," said Ardan. + +"Not at all," said the Captain; "the Projectile, having its centre of +gravity very low, will turn upside down by degrees." + +"Upside down!" cried Ardan. "That will be a nice mess! everything +higgledy-piggledy!" + +"No danger, friend Michael," said M'Nicholl; "there shall be no disorder +whatever; nothing will quit its place; the movement of the Projectile +will be effected by such slow degrees as to be imperceptible." + +"Yes," added Barbican, "as soon as we shall have passed the neutral +point, the base of the Projectile, its heaviest part, will swing around +gradually until it faces the Moon. Before this phenomenon, however, can +take place, we must of course cross the line." + +"Cross the line!" cried the Frenchman; "then let us imitate the sailors +when they do the same thing in the Atlantic Ocean! Splice the main +brace!" + +A slight effort carried him sailing over to the side of the Projectile. +Opening a cupboard and taking out a bottle and a few glasses, he placed +them on a tray. Then setting the tray itself in the air as on a table in +front of his companions, he filled the glasses, passed them around, and, +in a lively speech interrupted with many a joyous hurrah, congratulated +his companions on their glorious achievement in being the first that +ever crossed the lunar line. + +This counteracting influence of the attractions lasted nearly an hour. +By that time the travellers could keep themselves on the floor without +much effort. Barbican also made his companions remark that the conical +point of the Projectile diverged a little from the direct line to the +Moon, while by an inverse movement, as they could notice through the +window of the floor, the base was gradually turning away from the Earth. +The Lunar attraction was evidently getting the better of the +Terrestrial. The fall towards the Moon, though still almost insensible, +was certainly beginning. + +It could not be more than the eightieth part of an inch in the first +second. But by degrees, as the attractive force would increase, the fall +would be more decided, and the Projectile, overbalanced by its base, and +presenting its cone to the Earth, would descend with accelerated +velocity to the Lunar surface. The object of their daring attempt would +then be successfully attained. No further obstacle, therefore, being +likely to stand in the way of the complete success of the enterprise, +the Captain and the Frenchman cordially shook hands with Barbican, all +kept congratulating each other on their good fortune as long as the +bottle lasted. + +They could not talk enough about the wonderful phenomenon lately +witnessed; the chief point, the neutralization of the law of gravity, +particularly, supplied them with an inexhaustible subject. The +Frenchman, as usual, as enthusiastic in his fancy, as he was fanciful in +his enthusiasm, got off some characteristic remarks. + +"What a fine thing it would be, my boys," he exclaimed, "if on Earth we +could be so fortunate as we have been here, and get rid of that weight +that keeps us down like lead, that rivets us to it like an adamantine +chain! Then should we prisoners become free! Adieu forever to all +weariness of arms or feet! At present, in order to fly over the surface +of the Earth by the simple exertion of our muscles or even to sustain +ourselves in the air, we require a muscular force fifty times greater +than we possess; but if attraction did not exist, the simplest act of +the will, our slightest whim even, would be sufficient to transport us +to whatever part of space we wished to visit." + +"Ardan, you had better invent something to kill attraction," observed +M'Nicholl drily; "you can do it if you try. Jackson and Morton have +killed pain by sulphuric ether. Suppose you try your hand on +attraction!" + +"It would be worth a trial!" cried Ardan, so full of his subject as not +to notice the Captain's jeering tone; "attraction once destroyed, there +is an end forever to all loads, packs and burdens! How the poor omnibus +horses would rejoice! Adieu forever to all cranes, derricks, capstans, +jack-screws, and even hotel-elevators! We could dispense with all +ladders, door steps, and even stair-cases!" + +"And with all houses too," interrupted Barbican; "or, at least, we +_should_ dispense with them because we could not have them. If there was +no weight, you could neither make a wall of bricks nor cover your house +with a roof. Even your hat would not stay on your head. The cars would +not stay on the railway nor the boats on the water. What do I say? We +could not have any water. Even the Ocean would leave its bed and float +away into space. Nay, the atmosphere itself would leave us, being +detained in its place by terrestrial attraction and by nothing else." + +"Too true, Mr. President," replied Ardan after a pause. "It's a fact. I +acknowledge the corn, as Marston says. But how you positive fellows do +knock holes into our pretty little creations of fancy!" + +"Don't feel so bad about it, Ardan;" observed M'Nicholl; "though there +may be no orb from which gravity is excluded altogether, we shall soon +land in one, where it is much less powerful than on the Earth." + +"You mean the Moon!" + +"Yes, the Moon. Her mass being 1/89 of the Earth's, her attractive power +should be in the same proportion; that is, a boy 10 years old, whose +weight on Earth is about 90 lbs., would weigh on the Moon only about 1 +pound, if nothing else were to be taken into consideration. But when +standing on the surface of the Moon, he is relatively 4 times nearer to +the centre than when he is standing on the surface of the Earth. His +weight, therefore, having to be increased by the square of the distance, +must be sixteen times greater. Now 16 times 1/89 being less than 1/5, it +is clear that my weight of 150 pounds will be cut down to nearly 30 as +soon as we reach the Moon's surface." + +"And mine?" asked Ardan. + +"Yours will hardly reach 25 pounds, I should think," was the reply. + +"Shall my muscular strength diminish in the same proportion?" was the +next question. + +"On the contrary, it will be relatively so much the more increased that +you can take a stride 15 feet in width as easily as you can now take one +of ordinary length." + +"We shall be all Samsons, then, in the Moon!" cried Ardan. + +"Especially," replied M'Nicholl, "if the stature of the Selenites is in +proportion to the mass of their globe." + +"If so, what should be their height?" + +"A tall man would hardly be twelve inches in his boots!" + +"They must be veritable Lilliputians then!" cried Ardan; "and we are all +to be Gullivers! The old myth of the Giants realized! Perhaps the Titans +that played such famous parts in the prehistoric period of our Earth, +were adventurers like ourselves, casually arrived from some great +planet!" + +"Not from such planets as _Mercury_, _Venus_ or _Mars_ anyhow, friend +Michael," observed Barbican. "But the inhabitants of _Jupiter_, +_Saturn_, _Uranus,_ or _Neptune_, if they bear the same proportion to +their planet that we do ours, must certainly be regular Brobdignagians." + +"Let us keep severely away from all planets of the latter class then," +said Ardan. "I never liked to play the part of Lilliputian myself. But +how about the Sun, Barbican? I always had a hankering after the Sun!" + +"The Sun's volume is about 1-1/3 million times greater than that of the +Earth, but his density being only about 1/4, the attraction on his +surface is hardly 30 times greater than that of our globe. Still, every +proportion observed, the inhabitants of the Sun can't be much less than +150 or 160 feet in height." + +"_Mille tonnerres!_" cried Ardan, "I should be there like Ulysses among +the Cyclops! I'll tell you what it is, Barbican; if we ever decide on +going to the Sun, we must provide ourselves before hand with a few of +your Rodman's Columbiads to frighten off the Solarians!" + +"Your Columbiads would not do great execution there," observed +M'Nicholl; "your bullet would be hardly out of the barrel when it would +drop to the surface like a heavy stone pushed off the wall of a house." + +"Oh! I like that!" laughed the incredulous Ardan. + +"A little calculation, however, shows the Captain's remark to be +perfectly just," said Barbican. "Rodman's ordinary 15 inch Columbiad +requires a charge of 100 pounds of mammoth powder to throw a ball of +500 pounds weight. What could such a charge do with a ball weighing 30 +times as much or 15,000 pounds? Reflect on the enormous weight +everything must have on the surface of the Sun! Your hat, for instance, +would weigh 20 or 30 pounds. Your cigar nearly a pound. In short, your +own weight on the Sun's surface would be so great, more than two tons, +that if you ever fell you should never be able to pick yourself up +again!" + +"Yes," added the Captain, "and whenever you wanted to eat or drink you +should rig up a set of powerful machinery to hoist the eatables and +drinkables into your mouth." + +"Enough of the Sun to-day, boys!" cried Ardan, shrugging his shoulders; +"I don't contemplate going there at present. Let us be satisfied with +the Moon! There, at least, we shall be of some account!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A LITTLE OFF THE TRACK. + + +Barbican's mind was now completely at rest at least on one subject. The +original force of the discharge had been great enough to send the +Projectile beyond the neutral line. Therefore, there was no longer any +danger of its falling back to the Earth. Therefore, there was no longer +any danger of its resting eternally motionless on the point of the +counteracting attractions. The next subject to engage his attention was +the question: would the Projectile, under the influence of lunar +attraction, succeed in reaching its destination? + +The only way in which it _could_ succeed was by falling through a space +of nearly 24,000 miles and then striking the Moon's surface. A most +terrific fall! Even taking the lunar attraction to be only the one-sixth +of the Earth's, such a fall was simply bewildering to think of. The +greatest height to which a balloon ever ascended was seven miles +(Glaisher, 1862). Imagine a fall from even that distance! Then imagine a +fall from a height of four thousand miles! + +Yet it was for a fall of this appalling kind on the surface of the Moon +that the travellers had now to prepare themselves. Instead of avoiding +it, however, they eagerly desired it and would be very much +disappointed if they missed it. They had taken the best precautions they +could devise to guard against the terrific shock. These were mainly of +two kinds: one was intended to counteract as much as possible the +fearful results to be expected the instant the Projectile touched the +lunar surface; the other, to retard the velocity of the fall itself, and +thereby to render it less violent. + +The best arrangement of the first kind was certainly Barbican's +water-contrivance for counteracting the shock at starting, which has +been so fully described in our former volume. (See _Baltimore Gun Club_, +page 353.) But unfortunately it could be no longer employed. Even if the +partitions were in working order, the water--two thousand pounds in +weight had been required--was no longer to be had. The little still left +in the tanks was of no account for such a purpose. Besides, they had not +a single drop of the precious liquid to spare, for they were as yet +anything but sanguine regarding the facility of finding water on the +Moon's surface. + +Fortunately, however, as the gentle reader may remember, Barbican, +besides using water to break the concussion, had provided the movable +disc with stout pillars containing a strong buffing apparatus, intended +to protect it from striking the bottom too violently after the +destruction of the different partitions. These buffers were still good, +and, gravity being as yet almost imperceptible, to put them once more in +order and adjust them to the disc was not a difficult task. + +The travellers set to work at once and soon accomplished it. The +different pieces were put together readily--a mere matter of bolts and +screws, with plenty of tools to manage them. In a short time the +repaired disc rested on its steel buffers, like a table on its legs, or +rather like a sofa seat on its springs. The new arrangement was attended +with at least one disadvantage. The bottom light being covered up, a +convenient view of the Moon's surface could not be had as soon as they +should begin to fall in a perpendicular descent. This, however, was only +a slight matter, as the side lights would permit the adventurers to +enjoy quite as favorable a view of the vast regions of the Moon as is +afforded to balloon travellers when looking down on the Earth over the +sides of their car. + +The disc arrangement was completed in about an hour, but it was not till +past twelve o'clock before things were restored to their usual order. +Barbican then tried to make fresh observations regarding the inclination +of the Projectile; but to his very decided chagrin he found that it had +not yet turned over sufficiently to commence the perpendicular fall: on +the contrary, it even seemed to be following a curve rather parallel +with that of the lunar disc. The Queen of the Stars now glittered with a +light more dazzling than ever, whilst from an opposite part of the sky +the glorious King of Day flooded her with his fires. + +The situation began to look a little serious. + +"Shall we ever get there!" asked the Captain. + +"Let us be prepared for getting there, any how," was Barbican's dubious +reply. + +"You're a pretty pair of suspenders," said Ardan cheerily (he meant of +course doubting hesitators, but his fluent command of English sometimes +led him into such solecisms). "Certainly we shall get there--and perhaps +a little sooner than will be good for us." + +This reply sharply recalled Barbican to the task he had undertaken, and +he now went to work seriously, trying to combine arrangements to break +the fall. The reader may perhaps remember Ardan's reply to the Captain +on the day of the famous meeting in Tampa. + +"Your fall would be violent enough," the Captain had urged, "to splinter +you like glass into a thousand fragments." + +"And what shall prevent me," had been Ardan's ready reply, "from +breaking my fall by means of counteracting rockets suitably disposed, +and let off at the proper time?" + +The practical utility of this idea had at once impressed Barbican. It +could hardly be doubted that powerful rockets, fastened on the outside +to the bottom of the Projectile, could, when discharged, considerably +retard the velocity of the fall by their sturdy recoil. They could burn +in a vacuum by means of oxygen furnished by themselves, as powder burns +in the chamber of a gun, or as the volcanoes of the Moon continue their +action regardless of the absence of a lunar atmosphere. + +Barbican had therefore provided himself with rockets enclosed in strong +steel gun barrels, grooved on the outside so that they could be screwed +into corresponding holes already made with much care in the bottom of +the Projectile. They were just long enough, when flush with the floor +inside, to project outside by about six inches. They were twenty in +number, and formed two concentric circles around the dead light. Small +holes in the disc gave admission to the wires by which each of the +rockets was to be discharged externally by electricity. The whole effect +was therefore to be confined to the outside. The mixtures having been +already carefully deposited in each barrel, nothing further need be done +than to take away the metallic plugs which had been screwed into the +bottom of the Projectile, and replace them by the rockets, every one of +which was found to fit its grooved chamber with rigid exactness. + +This evidently should have been all done before the disc had been +finally laid on its springs. But as this had to be lifted up again in +order to reach the bottom of the Projectile, more work was to be done +than was strictly necessary. Though the labor was not very hard, +considering that gravity had as yet scarcely made itself felt, M'Nicholl +and Ardan were not sorry to have their little joke at Barbican's +expense. The Frenchman began humming + + "_Aliquandoque bonus dormitat Homerus,_" + +to a tune from _Orphée aux Enfers_, and the Captain said something +about the Philadelphia Highway Commissioners who pave a street one day, +and tear it up the next to lay the gas pipes. But his friends' humor was +all lost on Barbican, who was so wrapped up in his work that he probably +never heard a word they said. + +Towards three o'clock every preparation was made, every possible +precaution taken, and now our bold adventurers had nothing more to do +than watch and wait. + +The Projectile was certainly approaching the Moon. It had by this time +turned over considerably under the influence of attraction, but its own +original motion still followed a decidedly oblique direction. The +consequence of these two forces might possibly be a tangent, line +approaching the edge of the Moon's disc. One thing was certain: the +Projectile had not yet commenced to fall directly towards her surface; +its base, in which its centre of gravity lay, was still turned away +considerably from the perpendicular. + +Barbican's countenance soon showed perplexity and even alarm. His +Projectile was proving intractable to the laws of gravitation. The +_unknown_ was opening out dimly before him, the great boundless unknown +of the starry plains. In his pride and confidence as a scientist, he had +flattered himself with having sounded the consequence of every possible +hypothesis regarding the Projectile's ultimate fate: the return to the +Earth; the arrival at the Moon; and the motionless dead stop at the +neutral point. But here, a new and incomprehensible fourth hypothesis, +big with the terrors of the mystic infinite, rose up before his +disturbed mind, like a grim and hollow ghost. After a few seconds, +however, he looked at it straight in the face without wincing. His +companions showed themselves just as firm. Whether it was science that +emboldened Barbican, his phlegmatic stoicism that propped up the +Captain, or his enthusiastic vivacity that cheered the irrepressible +Ardan, I cannot exactly say. But certainly they were all soon talking +over the matter as calmly as you or I would discuss the advisability of +taking a sail on the lake some beautiful evening in July. + +Their first remarks were decidedly peculiar and quite characteristic. +Other men would have asked themselves where the Projectile was taking +them to. Do you think such a question ever occurred to them? Not a bit +of it. They simply began asking each other what could have been the +cause of this new and strange state of things. + +"Off the track, it appears," observed Ardan. "How's that?" + +"My opinion is," answered the Captain, "that the Projectile was not +aimed true. Every possible precaution had been taken, I am well aware, +but we all know that an inch, a line, even the tenth part of a hair's +breadth wrong at the start would have sent us thousands of miles off our +course by this time." + +"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked Ardan. + +"I don't think there was any error at the start," was the confident +reply; "not even so much as a line! We took too many tests proving the +absolute perpendicularity of the Columbiad, to entertain the slightest +doubt on that subject. Its direction towards the zenith being +incontestable, I don't see why we should not reach the Moon when she +comes to the zenith." + +"Perhaps we're behind time," suggested Ardan. + +"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked the Captain. "You know +the Cambridge men said the journey had to be done in 97 hours 13 minutes +and 20 seconds. That's as much as to say that if we're not up to time we +shall miss the Moon." + +"Correct," said Barbican. "But we _can't_ be behind time. We started, +you know, on December 1st, at 13 minutes and 20 seconds before 11 +o'clock, and we were to arrive four days later at midnight precisely. +To-day is December 5th Gentlemen, please examine your watches. It is now +half past three in the afternoon. Eight hours and a half are sufficient +to take us to our journey's end. Why should we not arrive there?" + +"How about being ahead of time?" asked the Captain. + +"Just so!" said Ardan. "You know we have discovered the initial velocity +to have been greater than was expected." + +"Not at all! not at all!" cried Barbican "A slight excess of velocity +would have done no harm whatever had the direction of the Projectile +been perfectly true. No. There must have been a digression. We must have +been switched off!" + +"Switched off? By what?" asked both his listeners in one breath. + +"I can't tell," said Barbican curtly. + +"Well!" said Ardan; "if Barbican can't tell, there is an end to all +further talk on the subject. We're switched off--that's enough for me. +What has done it? I don't care. Where are we going to? I don't care. +What is the use of pestering our brains about it? We shall soon find +out. We are floating around in space, and we shall end by hauling up +somewhere or other." + +But in this indifference Barbican was far from participating. Not that +he was not prepared to meet the future with a bold and manly heart. It +was his inability to answer his own question that rendered him uneasy. +What _had_ switched them off? He would have given worlds for an answer, +but his brain sorely puzzled sought one in vain. + +In the mean time, the Projectile continued to turn its side rather than +its base towards the Moon; that is, to assume a lateral rather than a +direct movement, and this movement was fully participated in by the +multitude of the objects that had been thrown outside. Barbican could +even convince himself by sighting several points on the lunar surface, +by this time hardly more than fifteen or eighteen thousand miles +distant, that the velocity of the Projectile instead of accelerating was +becoming more and more uniform. This was another proof that there was +no perpendicular fall. However, though the original impulsive force was +still superior to the Moon's attraction, the travellers were evidently +approaching the lunar disc, and there was every reason to hope that they +would at last reach a point where, the lunar attraction at last having +the best of it, a decided fall should be the result. + +The three friends, it need hardly be said, continued to make their +observations with redoubled interest, if redoubled interest were +possible. But with all their care they could as yet determine nothing +regarding the topographical details of our radiant satellite. Her +surface still reflected the solar rays too dazzlingly to show the relief +necessary for satisfactory observation. + +Our travellers kept steadily on the watch looking out of the side +lights, till eight o'clock in the evening, by which time the Moon had +grown so large in their eyes that she covered up fully half the sky. At +this time the Projectile itself must have looked like a streak of light, +reflecting, as it did, the Sun's brilliancy on the one side and the +Moon's splendor on the other. + +Barbican now took a careful observation and calculated that they could +not be much more than 2,000 miles from the object of their journey. The +velocity of the Projectile he calculated to be about 650 feet per second +or 450 miles an hour. They had therefore still plenty of time to reach +the Moon in about four hours. But though the bottom of the Projectile +continued to turn towards the lunar surface in obedience to the law of +centripetal force, the centrifugal force was still evidently strong +enough to change the path which it followed into some kind of curve, the +exact nature of which would be exceedingly difficult to calculate. + +The careful observations that Barbican continued to take did not however +prevent him from endeavoring to solve his difficult problem. What _had_ +switched them off? The hours passed on, but brought no result. That the +adventurers were approaching the Moon was evident, but it was just as +evident that they should never reach her. The nearest point the +Projectile could ever possibly attain would only be the result of two +opposite forces, the attractive and the repulsive, which, as was now +clear, influenced its motion. Therefore, to land in the Moon was an +utter impossibility, and any such idea was to be given up at once and +for ever. + +"_Quand même_! What of it!" cried Ardan; after some moments' silence. +"We're not to land in the Moon! Well! let us do the next best +thing--pass close enough to discover her secrets!" + +But M'Nicholl could not accept the situation so coolly. On the contrary, +he decidedly lost his temper, as is occasionally the case with even +phlegmatic men. He muttered an oath or two, but in a voice hardly loud +enough to reach Barbican's ear. At last, impatient of further restraint, +he burst out: + +"Who the deuce cares for her secrets? To the hangman with her secrets! +We started to land in the Moon! That's what's got to be done! That I +want or nothing! Confound the darned thing, I say, whatever it was, +whether on the Earth or off it, that shoved us off the track!" + +"On the Earth or off it!" cried Barbican, striking his head suddenly; +"now I see it! You're right, Captain! Confound the bolide that we met +the first night of our journey!" + +"Hey?" cried Ardan. + +"What do you mean?" asked M'Nicholl. + +"I mean," replied Barbican, with a voice now perfectly calm, and in a +tone of quiet conviction, "that our deviation is due altogether to that +wandering meteor." + +"Why, it did not even graze us!" cried Ardan. + +"No matter for that," replied Barbican. "Its mass, compared to ours, was +enormous, and its attraction was undoubtedly sufficiently great to +influence our deviation." + +"Hardly enough to be appreciable," urged M'Nicholl. + +"Right again, Captain," observed Barbican. "But just remember an +observation of your own made this very afternoon: an inch, a line, even +the tenth part of a hair's breadth wrong at the beginning, in a journey +of 240 thousand miles, would be sufficient to make us miss the Moon!" + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON. + + +Barbican's happy conjecture had probably hit the nail on the head. The +divergency even of a second may amount to millions of miles if you only +have your lines long enough. The Projectile had certainly gone off its +direct course; whatever the cause, the fact was undoubted. It was a +great pity. The daring attempt must end in a failure due altogether to a +fortuitous accident, against which no human foresight could have +possibly taken precaution. Unless in case of the occurrence of some +other most improbable accident, reaching the Moon was evidently now +impossible. To failure, therefore, our travellers had to make up their +minds. + +But was nothing to be gained by the trip? Though missing actual contact +with the Moon, might they not pass near enough to solve several problems +in physics and geology over which scientists had been for a long time +puzzling their brains in vain? Even this would be some compensation for +all their trouble, courage, and intelligence. As to what was to be their +own fate, to what doom were themselves to be reserved--they never +appeared to think of such a thing. They knew very well that in the midst +of those infinite solitudes they should soon find themselves without +air. The slight supply that kept them from smothering could not +possibly last more than five or six days longer. Five or six days! What +of that? _Quand même_! as Ardan often exclaimed. Five or six days were +centuries to our bold adventurers! At present every second was a year in +events, and infinitely too precious to be squandered away in mere +preparations for possible contingencies. The Moon could never be +reached, but was it not possible that her surface could be carefully +observed? This they set themselves at once to find out. + +The distance now separating them from our Satellite they estimated at +about 400 miles. Therefore relatively to their power of discovering the +details of her disc, they were still farther off from the Moon than some +of our modern astronomers are to-day, when provided with their powerful +telescopes. + +We know, for example, that Lord Rosse's great telescope at Parsonstown, +possessing a power of magnifying 6000 times, brings the Moon to within +40 miles of us; not to speak of Barbican's great telescope on the summit +of Long's Peak, by which the Moon, magnified 48,000 times, was brought +within 5 miles of the Earth, where it therefore could reveal with +sufficient distinctness every object above 40 feet in diameter. + +Therefore our adventurers, though at such a comparatively small +distance, could not make out the topographical details of the Moon with +any satisfaction by their unaided vision. The eye indeed could easily +enough catch the rugged outline of these vast depressions improperly +called "Seas," but it could do very little more. Its powers of +adjustability seemed to fail before the strange and bewildering scene. +The prominence of the mountains vanished, not only through the +foreshortening, but also in the dazzling radiation produced by the +direct reflection of the solar rays. After a short time therefore, +completely foiled by the blinding glare, the eye turned itself +unwillingly away, as if from a furnace of molten silver. + +The spherical surface, however, had long since begun to reveal its +convexity. The Moon was gradually assuming the appearance of a gigantic +egg with the smaller end turned towards the Earth. In the earlier days +of her formation, while still in a state of mobility, she had been +probably a perfect sphere in shape, but, under the influence of +terrestrial gravity operating for uncounted ages, she was drawn at last +so much towards the centre of attraction as to resemble somewhat a +prolate spheriod. By becoming a satellite, she had lost the native +perfect regularity of her outline; her centre of gravity had shifted +from her real centre; and as a result of this arrangement, some +scientists have drawn the conclusion that the Moon's air and water have +been attracted to that portion of her surface which is always invisible +to the inhabitants of the Earth. + +The convexity of her outline, this bulging prominence of her surface, +however, did not last long. The travellers were getting too near to +notice it. They were beginning to survey the Moon as balloonists survey +the Earth. The Projectile was now moving with great rapidity--with +nothing like its initial velocity, but still eight or nine times faster +than an express train. Its line of movement, however, being oblique +instead of direct, was so deceptive as to induce Ardan to flatter +himself that they might still reach the lunar surface. He could never +persuade himself to believe that they should get so near their aim and +still miss it. No; nothing might, could, would or should induce him to +believe it, he repeated again and again. But Barbican's pitiless logic +left him no reply. + +"No, dear friend, no. We can reach the Moon only by a fall, and we don't +fall. Centripetal force keeps us at least for a while under the lunar +influence, but centrifugal force drives us away irresistibly." + +These words were uttered in a tone that killed Ardan's last and fondest +hope. + + * * * * * + +The portion of the Moon they were now approaching was her northern +hemisphere, found usually in the lower part of lunar maps. The lens of a +telescope, as is well known, gives only the inverted image of the +object; therefore, when an upright image is required, an additional +glass must be used. But as every additional glass is an additional +obstruction to the light, the object glass of a Lunar telescope is +employed without a corrector; light is thereby saved, and in viewing the +Moon, as in viewing a map, it evidently makes very little difference +whether we see her inverted or not. Maps of the Moon therefore, being +drawn from the image formed by the telescope, show the north in the +lower part, and _vice versa_. Of this kind was the _Mappa +Selenographica_, by Beer and Maedler, so often previously alluded to and +now carefully consulted by Barbican. The northern hemisphere, towards +which they were now rapidly approaching, presented a strong contrast +with the southern, by its vast plains and great depressions, checkered +here and there by very remarkable isolated mountains.[A] + +At midnight the Moon was full. This was the precise moment at which the +travellers would have landed had not that unlucky bolide drawn them off +the track. The Moon was therefore strictly up to time, arriving at the +instant rigidly determined by the Cambridge Observatory. She occupied +the exact point, to a mathematical nicety, where our 28th parallel +crossed the perigee. An observer posted in the bottom of the Columbiad +at Stony Hill, would have found himself at this moment precisely under +the Moon. The axis of the enormous gun, continued upwards vertically, +would have struck the orb of night exactly in her centre. + +It is hardly necessary to tell our readers that, during this memorable +night of the 5th and 6th of December, the travellers had no desire to +close their eyes. Could they do so, even if they had desired? No! All +their faculties, thoughts, and desires, were concentrated in one single +word: "Look!" Representatives of the Earth, and of all humanity past and +present, they felt that it was with their eyes that the race of man +contemplated the lunar regions and penetrated the secrets of our +satellite! A certain indescribable emotion therefore, combined with an +undefined sense of responsibility, held possession of their hearts, as +they moved silently from window to window. + +Their observations, recorded by Barbican, were vigorously remade, +revised, and re-determined, by the others. To make them, they had +telescopes which they now began to employ with great advantage. To +regulate and investigate them, they had the best maps of the day. + +Whilst occupied in this silent work, they could not help throwing a +short retrospective glance on the former Observers of the Moon. + +The first of these was Galileo. His slight telescope magnified only +thirty times, still, in the spots flecking the lunar surface, like the +eyes checkering a peacock's tail, he was the first to discover mountains +and even to measure their heights. These, considering the difficulties +under which he labored, were wonderfully accurate, but unfortunately he +made no map embodying his observations. + +A few years afterwards, Hevel of Dantzic, (1611-1688) a Polish +astronomer--more generally known as Hevelius, his works being all +written in Latin--undertook to correct Galileo's measurements. But as +his method could be strictly accurate only twice a month--the periods of +the first and second quadratures--his rectifications could be hardly +called successful. + +Still it is to the labors of this eminent astronomer, carried on +uninterruptedly for fifty years in his own observatory, that we owe the +first map of the Moon. It was published in 1647 under the name of +_Selenographia_. He represented the circular mountains by open spots +somewhat round in shape, and by shaded figures he indicated the vast +plains, or, as he called them, the _seas_, that occupied so much of her +surface. These he designated by names taken from our Earth. His map +shows you a _Mount Sinai_ the midst of an _Arabia_, an _Ætna_ in the +centre of a _Sicily_, _Alps_, _Apennines_, _Carpathians_, a +_Mediterranean_, a _Palus Mæolis_, a _Pontus Euxinus_, and a _Caspian +Sea_. But these names seem to have been given capriciously and at +random, for they never recall any resemblance existing between +themselves and their namesakes on our globe. In the wide open spot, for +instance, connected on the south with vast continents and terminating in +a point, it would be no easy matter to recognize the reversed image of +the _Indian Peninsula_, the _Bay of Bengal_, and _Cochin China_. +Naturally, therefore, these names were nearly all soon dropped; but +another system of nomenclature, proposed by an astronomer better +acquainted with the human heart, met with a success that has lasted to +the present day. + +This was Father Riccioli, a Jesuit, and (1598-1671) a contemporary of +Hevelius. In his _Astronomia Reformata_, (1665), he published a rough +and incorrect map of the Moon, compiled from observations made by +Grimaldi of Ferrara; but in designating the mountains, he named them +after eminent astronomers, and this idea of his has been carefully +carried out by map makers of later times. + +A third map of the Moon was published at Rome in 1666 by Dominico +Cassini of Nice (1625-1712), the famous discoverer of Saturn's +satellites. Though somewhat incorrect regarding measurements, it was +superior to Riccioli's in execution, and for a long time it was +considered a standard work. Copies of this map are still to be found, +but Cassini's original copper-plate, preserved for a long time at the +_Imprimerie Royale_ in Paris, was at last sold to a brazier, by no less +a personage than the Director of the establishment himself, who, +according to Arago, wanted to get rid of what he considered useless +lumber! + +La Hire (1640-1718), professor of astronomy in the _Collège de France_, +and an accomplished draughtsman, drew a map of the Moon which was +thirteen feet in diameter. This map could be seen long afterwards in the +library of St. Genevieve, Paris, but it was never engraved. + +About 1760, Mayer, a famous German astronomer and the director of the +observatory of Göttingen, began the publication of a magnificent map of +the Moon, drawn after lunar measurements all rigorously verified by +himself. Unfortunately his death in 1762 interrupted a work which would +have surpassed in accuracy every previous effort of the kind. + +Next appears Schroeter of Erfurt (1745-1816), a fine observer (he first +discovered the Lunar _Rills_), but a poor draughtsman: his maps are +therefore of little value. Lohrman of Dresden published in 1838 an +excellent map of the Moon, 15 inches in diameter, accompanied by +descriptive text and several charts of particular portions on a larger +scale. + +But this and all other maps were thrown completely into the shade by +Beer and Maedler's famous _Mappa Selenographica_, so often alluded to in +the course of this work. This map, projected orthographically--that is, +one in which all the rays proceeding from the surface to the eye are +supposed to be parallel to each other--gives a reproduction of the lunar +disc exactly as it appears. The representation of the mountains and +plains is therefore correct only in the central portion; elsewhere, +north, south, east, or west, the features, being foreshortened, are +crowded together, and cannot be compared in measurement with those in +the centre. It is more than three feet square; for convenient reference +it is divided into four parts, each having a very full index; in short, +this map is in all respects a master piece of lunar cartography.[B] + +After Beer and Maedler, we should allude to Julius Schmitt's (of Athens) +excellent selenographic reliefs: to Doctor Draper's, and to Father +Secchi's successful application of photography to lunar representation; +to De La Rue's (of London) magnificent stereographs of the Moon, to be +had at every optician's; to the clear and correct map prepared by +Lecouturier and Chapuis in 1860; to the many beautiful pictures of the +Moon in various phases of illumination obtained by the Messrs. Bond of +Harvard University; to Rutherford's (of New York) unparalleled lunar +photographs; and finally to Nasmyth and Carpenter's wonderful work on +the Moon, illustrated by photographs of her surface in detail, prepared +from models at which they had been laboring for more than a quarter of +the century. + +Of all these maps, pictures, and projections, Barbican had provided +himself with only two--Beer and Maedler's in German, and Lecouturier and +Chapuis' in French. These he considered quite sufficient for all +purposes, and certainly they considerably simplified his labors as an +observer. + +His best optical instruments were several excellent marine telescopes, +manufactured especially under his direction. Magnifying the object a +hundred times, on the surface of the Earth they would have brought the +Moon to within a distance of somewhat less than 2400 miles. But at the +point to which our travellers had arrived towards three o'clock in the +morning, and which could hardly be more than 12 or 1300 miles from the +Moon, these telescopes, ranging through a medium disturbed by no +atmosphere, easily brought the lunar surface to within less than 13 +miles' distance from the eyes of our adventurers. + +Therefore they should now see objects in the Moon as clearly as people +can see the opposite bank of a river that is about 12 miles wide. + +[Footnote A: In our Map of the Moon, prepared expressly for this work, +we have so far improved on Beer and Maedler as to give her surface as it +appears to the naked eye: that is, the north is in the north; only we +must always remember that the west is and must be on the _right hand_.] + +[Footnote B: In our Map the _Mappa Selenographica_ is copied as closely +and as fully as is necessary for understanding the details of the story. +For further information the reader is referred to Nasmyth's late +magnificent work: the MOON.] + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +FACT AND FANCY. + + +"Have you ever seen the Moon?" said a teacher ironically one day in +class to one of his pupils. + +"No, sir;" was the pert reply; "but I think I can safely say I've heard +it spoken about." + +Though saying what he considered a smart thing, the pupil was probably +perfectly right. Like the immense majority of his fellow beings, he had +looked at the Moon, heard her talked of, written poetry about her, but, +in the strict sense of the term, he had probably never seen her--that +is--scanned her, examined her, surveyed her, inspected her, reconnoitred +her--even with an opera glass! Not one in a thousand, not one in ten +thousand, has ever examined even the map of our only Satellite. To guard +our beloved and intelligent reader against this reproach, we have +prepared an excellent reduction of Beer and Maedler's _Mappa_, on which, +for the better understanding of what is to follow, we hope he will +occasionally cast a gracious eye. + +When you look at any map of the Moon, you are struck first of all with +one peculiarity. Contrary to the arrangement prevailing in Mars and on +our Earth, the continents occupy principally the southern hemisphere of +the lunar orb. Then these continents are far from presenting such sharp +and regular outlines as distinguish the Indian Peninsula, Africa, and +South America. On the contrary, their coasts, angular, jagged, and +deeply indented, abound in bays and peninsulas. They remind you of the +coast of Norway, or of the islands in the Sound, where the land seems to +be cut up into endless divisions. If navigation ever existed on the +Moon's surface, it must have been of a singularly difficult and +dangerous nature, and we can scarcely say which of the two should be +more pitied--the sailors who had to steer through these dangerous and +complicated passes, or the map-makers who had to designate them on their +charts. + +You will also remark that the southern pole of the Moon is much more +_continental_ than the northern. Around the latter, there exists only a +slight fringe of lands separated from the other continents by vast +"seas." This word "seas"--a term employed by the first lunar map +constructors--is still retained to designate those vast depressions on +the Moon's surface, once perhaps covered with water, though they are now +only enormous plains. In the south, the continents cover nearly the +whole hemisphere. It is therefore possible that the Selenites have +planted their flag on at least one of their poles, whereas the Parrys +and Franklins of England, the Kanes and the Wilkeses of America, the +Dumont d'Urvilles and the Lamberts of France, have so far met with +obstacles completely insurmountable, while in search of those unknown +points of our terrestrial globe. + +The islands--the next feature on the Moon's surface--are exceedingly +numerous. Generally oblong or circular in shape and almost as regular in +outline as if drawn with a compass, they form vast archipelagoes like +the famous group lying between Greece and Asia Minor, which mythology +has made the scene of her earliest and most charming legends. As we gaze +at them, the names of Naxos, Tenedos, Milo, and Carpathos rise up before +our mind's eye, and we begin looking around for the Trojan fleet and +Jason's Argo. This, at least, was Ardan's idea, and at first his eyes +would see nothing on the map but a Grecian archipelago. But his +companions, sound practical men, and therefore totally devoid of +sentiment, were reminded by these rugged coasts of the beetling cliffs +of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; so that, where the Frenchman saw the +tracks of ancient heroes, the Americans saw only commodious shipping +points and favorable sites for trading posts--all, of course, in the +purest interest of lunar commerce and industry. + +To end our hasty sketch of the continental portion of the Moon, we must +say a few words regarding her orthography or mountain systems. With a +fair telescope you can distinguish very readily her mountain chains, her +isolated mountains, her circuses or ring formations, and her rills, +cracks and radiating streaks. The character of the whole lunar relief is +comprised in these divisions. It is a surface prodigiously reticulated, +upheaved and depressed, apparently without the slightest order or +system. It is a vast Switzerland, an enormous Norway, where everything +is the result of direct plutonic action. This surface, so rugged, craggy +and wrinkled, seems to be the result of successive contractions of the +crust, at an early period of the planet's existence. The examination of +the lunar disc is therefore highly favorable for the study of the great +geological phenomena of our own globe. As certain astronomers have +remarked, the Moon's surface, though older than the Earth's, has +remained younger. That is, it has undergone less change. No water has +broken through its rugged elevations, filled up its scowling cavities, +and by incessant action tended continuously to the production of a +general level. No atmosphere, by its disintegrating, decomposing +influence has softened off the rugged features of the plutonic +mountains. Volcanic action alone, unaffected by either aqueous or +atmospheric forces, can here be seen in all its glory. In other words +the Moon looks now as our Earth did endless ages ago, when "she was void +and empty and when darkness sat upon the face of the deep;" eons of ages +ago, long before the tides of the ocean and the winds of the atmosphere +had begun to strew her rough surface with sand and clay, rock and coal, +forest and meadow, gradually preparing it, according to the laws of our +beneficent Creator, to be at last the pleasant though the temporary +abode of Man! + +Having wandered over vast continents, your eye is attracted by the +"seas" of dimensions still vaster. Not only their shape, situation, and +look, remind us of our own oceans, but, again like them, they occupy +the greater part of the Moon's surface. The "seas," or, more correctly, +plains, excited our travellers' curiosity to a very high degree, and +they set themselves at once to examine their nature. + +The astronomer who first gave names to those "seas" in all probability +was a Frenchman. Hevelius, however, respected them, even Riccioli did +not disturb them, and so they have come down to us. Ardan laughed +heartily at the fancies which they called up, and said the whole thing +reminded him of one of those "maps of matrimony" that he had once seen +or read of in the works of Scudéry or Cyrano de Bergerac. + +"However," he added, "I must say that this map has much more reality in +it than could be found in the sentimental maps of the 17th century. In +fact, I have no difficulty whatever in calling it the _Map of Life!_ +very neatly divided into two parts, the east and the west, the masculine +and the feminine. The women on the right, and the men on the left!" + +At such observations, Ardan's companions only shrugged their shoulders. +A map of the Moon in their eyes was a map of the Moon, no more, no less; +their romantic friend might view it as he pleased. Nevertheless, their +romantic friend was not altogether wrong. Judge a little for yourselves. + +What is the first "sea" you find in the hemisphere on the left? The +_Mare Imbrium_ or the Rainy Sea, a fit emblem of our human life, beaten +by many a pitiless storm. In a corresponding part of the southern +hemisphere you see _Mare Nubium_, the Cloudy Sea, in which our poor +human reason so often gets befogged. Close to this lies _Mare Humorum_, +the Sea of Humors, where we sail about, the sport of each fitful breeze, +"everything by starts and nothing long." Around all, embracing all, lies +_Oceanus Procellarum_, the Ocean of Tempests, where, engaged in one +continuous struggle with the gusty whirlwinds, excited by our own +passions or those of others, so few of us escape shipwreck. And, when +disgusted by the difficulties of life, its deceptions, its treacheries +and all the other miseries "that flesh is heir to," where do we too +often fly to avoid them? To the _Sinus Iridium_ or the _Sinus Roris_, +that is Rainbow Gulf and Dewy Gulf whose glittering lights, alas! give +forth no real illumination to guide our stumbling feet, whose sun-tipped +pinnacles have less substance than a dream, whose enchanting waters all +evaporate before we can lift a cup-full to our parched lips! Showers, +storms, fogs, rainbows--is not the whole mortal life of man comprised in +these four words? + +Now turn to the hemisphere on the right, the women's side, and you also +discover "seas," more numerous indeed, but of smaller dimensions and +with gentler names, as more befitting the feminine temperament. First +comes _Mare Serenitatis_, the Sea of Serenity, so expressive of the +calm, tranquil soul of an innocent maiden. Near it is _Lacus Somniorum_, +the Lake of Dreams, in which she loves to gaze at her gilded and rosy +future. In the southern division is seen _Mare Nectaris_, the Sea of +Nectar, over whose soft heaving billows she is gently wafted by Love's +caressing winds, "Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm." Not far +off is _Mare Fecunditatis_, the Sea of Fertility, in which she becomes +the happy mother of rejoicing children. A little north is _Mare +Crisium_, the Sea of Crises where her life and happiness are sometimes +exposed to sudden, and unexpected dangers which fortunately, however, +seldom end fatally. Far to the left, near the men's side, is _Mare +Vaporum_, the Sea of Vapors, into which, though it is rather small, and +full of sunken rocks, she sometimes allows herself to wander, moody, and +pouting, and not exactly knowing where she wants to go or what she wants +to do. Between the two last expands the great _Mare Tranquillitatis_, +the Sea of Tranquillity, into whose quiet depths are at last absorbed +all her simulated passions, all her futile aspirations, all her +unglutted desires, and whose unruffled waters are gliding on forever in +noiseless current towards _Lacus Mortis_, the Lake of Death, whose misty +shores + + "In ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods are girt." + +So at least Ardan mused as he stooped over Beer and Maedler's map. Did +not these strange successive names somewhat justify his flights of +fancy? Surely they had a wonderful variety of meaning. Was it by +accident or by forethought deep that the two hemispheres of the Moon had +been thus so strangely divided, yet, as man to woman, though divided +still united, and thus forming even in the cold regions of space a +perfect image of our terrestrial existence? Who can say that our +romantic French friend was altogether wrong in thus explaining the +astute fancies of the old astronomers? + +His companions, however, it need hardly be said, never saw the "seas" in +that light. They looked on them not with sentimental but with +geographical eyes. They studied this new world and tried to get it by +heart, working at it like a school boy at his lessons. They began by +measuring its angles and diameters. + +To their practical, common sense vision _Mare Nubium_, the Cloudy Sea, +was an immense depression of the surface, sprinkled here and there with +a few circular mountains. Covering a great portion of that part of the +southern hemisphere which lies east of the centre, it occupied a space +of about 270 thousand square miles, its central point lying in 15° south +latitude and 20° east longitude. Northeast from this lay _Oceanus +Procellarum_, the Ocean of Tempests, the most extensive of all the +plains on the lunar disc, embracing a surface of about half a million of +square miles, its centre being in 10° north and 45° east. From its bosom +those wonderful mountains _Kepler_ and _Aristarchus_ lifted their vast +ramparts glittering with innumerable streaks radiating in all +directions. + +To the north, in the direction of _Mare Frigoris_, extends _Mare +Imbrium_, the Sea of Rains, its central point in 35° north and 20° +east. It is somewhat circular in shape, and it covers a space of about +300 thousand square miles. South of _Oceanus Procellarum_ and separated +from _Mare Nubium_ by a goodly number of ring mountains, lies the little +basin of _Mare Humorum_, the Sea of Humors, containing only about 66 +thousand square miles, its central point having a latitude of 25° south +and a longitude of 40° east. + +On the shores of these great seas three "Gulfs" are easily found: _Sinus +Aestuum_, the Gulf of the Tides, northeast of the centre; _Sinus +Iridium_, the Gulf of the Rainbows, northeast of the _Mare Imbrium_; and +_Sinus Roris_, the Dewy Gulf, a little further northeast. All seem to be +small plains enclosed between chains of lofty mountains. + +The western hemisphere, dedicated to the ladies, according to Ardan, and +therefore naturally more capricious, was remarkable for "seas" of +smaller dimensions, but much more numerous. These were principally: +_Mare Serenitatis_, the Sea of Serenity, 25° north and 20° west, +comprising a surface of about 130 thousand square miles; _Mare Crisium_, +the Sea of Crises, a round, well defined, dark depression towards the +northwestern edge, 17° north 55° west, embracing a surface of 60 +thousand square miles, a regular Caspian Sea in fact, only that the +plateau in which it lies buried is surrounded by a girdle of much higher +mountains. Then towards the equator, with a latitude of 5° north and a +longitude of 25° west, appears _Mare Tranquillitatis_, the Sea of +Tranquillity, occupying about 180 thousand square miles. This +communicates on the south with _Mare Nectaris_, the Sea of Nectar, +embracing an extent of about 42 thousand square miles, with a mean +latitude of 15° south and a longitude of 35° west. Southwest from _Mare +Tranquillitatis_, lies _Mare Fecunditatis_, the Sea of Fertility, the +greatest in this hemisphere, as it occupies an extent of more than 300 +thousand square miles, its latitude being 3° south and its longitude 50° +west. For away to the north, on the borders of the _Mare Frigoris_, or +Icy Sea, is seen the small _Mare Humboldtianum_, or Humboldt Sea, with a +surface of about 10 thousand square miles. Corresponding to this in the +southern hemisphere lies the _Mare Australe_, or South Sea, whose +surface, as it extends along the western rim, is rather difficult to +calculate. Finally, right in the centre of the lunar disc, where the +equator intersects the first meridian, can be seen _Sinus Medii_, the +Central Gulf, the common property therefore of all the hemispheres, the +northern and southern, as well as of the eastern and western. + +Into these great divisions the surface of our satellite resolved itself +before the eyes of Barbican and M'Nicholl. Adding up the various +measurements, they found that the surface of her visible hemisphere was +about 7-1/2 millions of square miles, of which about the two thirds +comprised the volcanoes, the mountain chains, the rings, the islands--in +short, the land portion of the lunar surface; the other third comprised +the "seas," the "lakes," the "marshes," the "bays" or "gulfs," and the +other divisions usually assigned to water. + +To all this deeply interesting information, though the fruit of +observation the closest, aided and confirmed by calculation the +profoundest, Ardan listened with the utmost indifference. In fact, even +his French politeness could not suppress two or three decided yawns, +which of course the mathematicians were too absorbed to notice. + +In their enthusiasm they tried to make him understand that though the +Moon is 13-1/2 times smaller than our Earth, she can show more than 50 +thousand craters, which astronomers have already counted and designated +by specific names. + +"To conclude this portion of our investigation therefore," cried +Barbican, clearing his throat, and occupying Aldan's right ear,--"the +Moon's surface is a honey combed, perforated, punctured--" + +"A fistulous, a rugose, salebrous,--" cut in the Captain, close on the +left. + +--"And highly cribriform superficies--" cried Barbican. + +--"A sieve, a riddle, a colander--" shouted the Captain. + +--"A skimming dish, a buckwheat cake, a lump of green cheese--" went on +Barbican--. + +--In fact, there is no knowing how far they would have proceeded with +their designations, comparisons, and scientific expressions, had not +Ardan, driven to extremities by Barbican's last profanity, suddenly +jumped up, broken away from his companions, and clapped a forcible +extinguisher on their eloquence by putting his hands on their lips and +keeping them there awhile. Then striking a grand attitude, he looked +towards the Moon and burst out in accents of thrilling indignation: + +"Pardon, O beautiful Diana of the Ephesians! Pardon, O Phoebe, thou +pearl-faced goddess of night beloved of Greece! O Isis, thou sympathetic +queen of Nile-washed cities! O Astarte, thou favorite deity of the +Syrian hills! O Artemis, thou symbolical daughter of Jupiter and Latona, +that is of light and darkness! O brilliant sister of the radiant Apollo! +enshrined in the enchanting strains of Virgil and Homer, which I only +half learned at college, and therefore unfortunately forget just now! +Otherwise what pleasure I should have had in hurling them at the heads +of Barbican, M'Nicholl, and every other barbarous iconoclast of the +nineteenth century!--" + +Here he stopped short, for two reasons: first he was out of breath; +secondly, he saw that the irrepressible scientists had been too busy +making observations of their own to hear a single word of what he had +uttered, and were probably totally unconscious that he had spoken at +all. In a few seconds his breath came back in full blast, but the idea +of talking when only deaf men were listening was so disconcerting as to +leave him actually unable to get off another syllable. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE LUNAR MOUNTAINS. + + +I am rather inclined to believe myself that not one word of Ardan's +rhapsody had been ever heard by Barbican or M'Nicholl. Long before he +had spoken his last words, they had once more become mute as statues, +and now were both eagerly watching, pencil in hand, spyglass to eye, the +northern lunar hemisphere towards which they were rapidly but indirectly +approaching. They had fully made up their minds by this time that they +were leaving far behind them the central point which they would have +probably reached half an hour ago if they had not been shunted off their +course by that inopportune bolide. + +About half past twelve o'clock, Barbican broke the dead silence by +saying that after a careful calculation they were now only about 875 +miles from the Moon's surface, a distance two hundred miles less in +length than the lunar radius, and which was still to be diminished as +they advanced further north. They were at that moment ten degrees north +of the equator, almost directly over the ridge lying between the _Mare +Serenitatis_ and the _Mare Tranquillitatis_. From this latitude all the +way up to the north pole the travellers enjoyed a most satisfactory view +of the Moon in all directions and under the most favorable conditions. +By means of their spyglasses, magnifying a hundred times, they cut down +this distance of 875 miles to about 9. The great telescope of the Rocky +Mountains, by its enormous magnifying power of 48,000, brought the Moon, +it is true, within a distance of 5 miles, or nearly twice as near; but +this advantage of nearness was considerably more than counterbalanced by +a want of clearness, resulting from the haziness and refractiveness of +the terrestrial atmosphere, not to mention those fatal defects in the +reflector that the art of man has not yet succeeded in remedying. +Accordingly, our travellers, armed with excellent telescopes--of just +power enough to be no injury to clearness,--and posted on unequalled +vantage ground, began already to distinguish certain details that had +probably never been noticed before by terrestrial observers. Even Ardan, +by this time quite recovered from his fit of sentiment and probably +infected a little by the scientific enthusiasm of his companions, began +to observe and note and observe and note, alternately, with all the +_sangfroid_ of a veteran astronomer. + +"Friends," said Barbican, again interrupting a silence that had lasted +perhaps ten minutes, "whither we are going I can't say; if we shall ever +revisit the Earth, I can't tell. Still, it is our duty so to act in all +respects as if these labors of ours were one day to be of service to our +fellow-creatures. Let us keep our souls free from every distraction. We +are now astronomers. We see now what no mortal eye has ever gazed on +before. This Projectile is simply a work room of the great Cambridge +Observatory lifted into space. Let us take observations!" + +With these words, he set to work with a renewed ardor, in which his +companions fully participated. The consequence was that they soon had +several of the outline maps covered with the best sketches they could +make of the Moon's various aspects thus presented under such favorable +circumstances. They could now remark not only that they were passing the +tenth degree of north latitude, but that the Projectile followed almost +directly the twentieth degree of east longitude. + +"One thing always puzzled me when examining maps of the Moon," observed +Ardan, "and I can't say that I see it yet as clearly as if I had thought +over the matter. It is this. I could understand, when looking through a +lens at an object, why we get only its reversed image--a simple law of +optics explains _that_. Therefore, in a map of the Moon, as the bottom +means the north and the top the south, why does not the right mean the +west and the left the east? I suppose I could have made this out by a +little thought, but thinking, that is reflection, not being my forte, it +is the last thing I ever care to do. Barbican, throw me a word or two on +the subject." + +"I can see what troubles you," answered Barbican, "but I can also see +that one moment's reflection would have put an end to your perplexity. +On ordinary maps of the Earth's surface when the north is the top, the +right hand must be the east, the left hand the west, and so on. That is +simply because we look _down_ from _above_. And such a map seen through +a lens will appear reversed in all respects. But in looking at the Moon, +that is _up_ from _down_, we change our position so far that our right +hand points west and our left east. Consequently, in our reversed map, +though the north becomes south, the right remains east, and--" + +"Enough said! I see it at a glance! Thank you, Barbican. Why did not +they make you a professor of astronomy? Your hint will save me a world +of trouble."[C] + +Aided by the _Mappa Selenographica_, the travellers could easily +recognize the different portions of the Moon over which they were now +moving. An occasional glance at our reduction of this map, given as a +frontispiece, will enable the gentle reader to follow the travellers on +the line in which they moved and to understand the remarks and +observations in which they occasionally indulged. + +"Where are we now?" asked Ardan. + +"Over the northern shores of the _Mare Nubium_," replied Barbican. "But +we are still too far off to see with any certainty what they are like. +What is the _Mare_ itself? A sea, according to the early astronomers? a +plain of solid sand, according to later authority? or an immense forest, +according to De la Rue of London, so far the Moon's most successful +photographer? This gentleman's authority, Ardan, would have given you +decided support in your famous dispute with the Captain at the meeting +near Tampa, for he says very decidedly that the Moon has an atmosphere, +very low to be sure but very dense. This, however, we must find out for +ourselves; and in the meantime let us affirm nothing until we have good +grounds for positive assertion." + +_Mare Nubium_, though not very clearly outlined on the maps, is easily +recognized by lying directly east of the regions about the centre. It +would appear as if this vast plain were sprinkled with immense lava +blocks shot forth from the great volcanoes on the right, _Ptolemaeus_, +_Alphonse_, _Alpetragius_ and _Arzachel_. But the Projectile advanced so +rapidly that these mountains soon disappeared, and the travellers were +not long before they could distinguish the great peaks that closed the +"Sea" on its northern boundary. Here a radiating mountain showed a +summit so dazzling with the reflection of the solar rays that Ardan +could not help crying out: + +"It looks like one of the carbon points of an electric light projected +on a screen! What do you call it, Barbican?" + +"_Copernicus_," replied the President. "Let us examine old +_Copernicus_!" + +This grand crater is deservedly considered one of the greatest of the +lunar wonders. It lifts its giant ramparts to upwards of 12,000 feet +above the level of the lunar surface. Being quite visible from the Earth +and well situated for observation, it is a favorite object for +astronomical study; this is particularly the case during the phase +existing between Last Quarter and the New Moon, when its vast shadows, +projected boldly from the east towards the west, allow its prodigious +dimensions to be measured. + +After _Tycho_, which is situated in the southern hemisphere, +_Copernicus_ forms the most important radiating mountain in the lunar +disc. It looms up, single and isolated, like a gigantic light-house, on +the peninsula separating _Mare Nubium_ from _Oceanus Procellarum_ on one +side and from _Mare Imbrium_ on the other; thus illuminating with its +splendid radiation three "Seas" at a time. The wonderful complexity of +its bright streaks diverging on all sides from its centre presented a +scene alike splendid and unique. These streaks, the travellers thought, +could be traced further north than in any other direction: they fancied +they could detect them even in the _Mare Imbrium_, but this of course +might be owing to the point from which they made their observations. At +one o'clock in the morning, the Projectile, flying through space, was +exactly over this magnificent mountain. + +In spite of the brilliant sunlight that was blazing around them, the +travellers could easily recognize the peculiar features of _Copernicus_. +It belongs to those ring mountains of the first class called Circuses. +Like _Kepler_ and _Aristarchus_, who rule over _Oceanus Procellarum_, +_Copernicus_, when viewed through our telescopes, sometimes glistens so +brightly through the ashy light of the Moon that it has been frequently +taken for a volcano in full activity. Whatever it may have been once, +however, it is certainly nothing more now than, like all the other +mountains on the visible side of the Moon, an extinct volcano, only with +a crater of such exceeding grandeur and sublimity as to throw utterly +into the shade everything like it on our Earth. The crater of Etna is at +most little more than a mile across. The crater of _Copernicus_ has a +diameter of at least 50 miles. Within it, the travellers could easily +discover by their glasses an immense number of terraced ridges, probably +landslips, alternating with stratifications resulting from successive +eruptions. Here and there, but particularly in the southern side, they +caught glimpses of shadows of such intense blackness, projected across +the plateau and lying there like pitch spots, that they could not tell +them from yawning chasms of incalculable depth. Outside the crater the +shadows were almost as deep, whilst on the plains all around, +particularly in the west, so many small craters could be detected that +the eye in vain attempted to count them. + +"Many circular mountains of this kind," observed Barbican, "can be seen +on the lunar surface, but _Copernicus_, though not one of the greatest, +is one of the most remarkable on account of those diverging streaks of +bright light that you see radiating from its summit. By looking +steadily into its crater, you can see more cones than mortal eye ever +lit on before. They are so numerous as to render the interior plateau +quite rugged, and were formerly so many openings giving vent to fire and +volcanic matter. A curious and very common arrangement of this internal +plateau of lunar craters is its lying at a lower level than the external +plains, quite the contrary to a terrestrial crater, which generally has +its bottom much higher than the level of the surrounding country. It +follows therefore that the deep lying curve of the bottom of these ring +mountains would give a sphere with a diameter somewhat smaller than the +Moon's." + +"What can be the cause of this peculiarity?" asked M'Nicholl. + +"I can't tell;" answered Barbican, "but, as a conjecture, I should say +that it is probably to the comparatively smaller area of the Moon and +the more violent character of her volcanic action that the extremely +rugged character of her surface is mainly due." + +"Why, it's the _Campi Phlegraei_ or the Fire Fields of Naples over +again!" cried Ardan suddenly. "There's _Monte Barbaro_, there's the +_Solfatara_, there is the crater of _Astroni_, and there is the _Monte +Nuovo_, as plain as the hand on my body!" + +"The great resemblance between the region you speak of and the general +surface of the Moon has been often remarked;" observed Barbican, "but +it is even still more striking in the neighborhood of _Theophilus_ on +the borders of _Mare Nectaris_." + +"That's _Mare Nectaris_, the gray spot over there on the southwest, +isn't it?" asked M'Nicholl; "is there any likelihood of our getting a +better view of it?" + +"Not the slightest," answered Barbican, "unless we go round the Moon and +return this way, like a satellite describing its orbit." + +By this time they had arrived at a point vertical to the mountain +centre. _Copernicus's_ vast ramparts formed a perfect circle or rather a +pair of concentric circles. All around the mountain extended a dark +grayish plain of savage aspect, on which the peak shadows projected +themselves in sharp relief. In the gloomy bottom of the crater, whose +dimensions are vast enough to swallow Mont Blanc body and bones, could +be distinguished a magnificent group of cones, at least half a mile in +height and glittering like piles of crystal. Towards the north several +breaches could be seen in the ramparts, due probably to a caving in of +immense masses accumulated on the summit of the precipitous walls. + +As already observed, the surrounding plains were dotted with numberless +craters mostly of small dimensions, except _Gay Lussac_ on the north, +whose crater was about 12 miles in diameter. Towards the southwest and +the immediate east, the plain appeared to be very flat, no protuberance, +no prominence of any kind lifting itself above the general dead level. +Towards the north, on the contrary, as far as where the peninsula +jutted on _Oceanus Procellarum_, the plain looked like a sea of lava +wildly lashed for a while by a furious hurricane and then, when its +waves and breakers and driving ridges were at their wildest, suddenly +frozen into solidity. Over this rugged, rumpled, wrinkled surface and in +all directions, ran the wonderful streaks whose radiating point appeared +to be the summit of _Copernicus_. Many of them appeared to be ten miles +wide and hundreds of miles in length. + +The travellers disputed for some time on the origin of these strange +radii, but could hardly be said to have arrived at any conclusion more +satisfactory than that already reached by some terrestrial observers. + +To M'Nicholl's question: + +"Why can't these streaks be simply prolonged mountain crests reflecting +the sun's rays more vividly by their superior altitude and comparative +smoothness?" + +Barbican readily replied: + +"These streaks _can't_ be mountain crests, because, if they were, under +certain conditions of solar illumination they should project +_shadows_--a thing which they have never been known to do under any +circumstances whatever. In fact, it is only during the period of the +full Moon that these streaks are seen at all; as soon as the sun's rays +become oblique, they disappear altogether--a proof that their appearance +is due altogether to peculiar advantages in their surface for the +reflection of light." + +"Dear boys, will you allow me to give my little guess on the subject?" +asked Ardan. + +His companions were profuse in expressing their desire to hear it. + +"Well then," he resumed, "seeing that these bright streaks invariably +start from a certain point to radiate in all directions, why not suppose +them to be streams of lava issuing from the crater and flowing down the +mountain side until they cooled?" + +"Such a supposition or something like it has been put forth by +Herschel," replied Barbican; "but your own sense will convince you that +it is quite untenable when you consider that lava, however hot and +liquid it may be at the commencement of its journey, cannot flow on for +hundreds of miles, up hills, across ravines, and over plains, all the +time in streams of almost exactly equal width." + +"That theory of yours holds no more water than mine, Ardan," observed +M'Nicholl. + +"Correct, Captain," replied the Frenchman; "Barbican has a trick of +knocking the bottom out of every weaker vessel. But let us hear what he +has to say on the subject himself. What is your theory. Barbican?" + +"My theory," said Barbican, "is pretty much the same as that lately +presented by an English astronomer, Nasmyth, who has devoted much study +and reflection to lunar matters. Of course, I only formulate my theory, +I don't affirm it. These streaks are cracks, made in the Moon's surface +by cooling or by shrinkage, through which volcanic matter has been +forced up by internal pressure. The sinking ice of a frozen lake, when +meeting with some sharp pointed rock, cracks in a radiating manner: +every one of its fissures then admits the water, which immediately +spreads laterally over the ice pretty much as the lava spreads itself +over the lunar surface. This theory accounts for the radiating nature of +the streaks, their great and nearly equal thickness, their immense +length, their inability to cast a shadow, and their invisibility at any +time except at or near the Full Moon. Still it is nothing but a theory, +and I don't deny that serious objections may be brought against it." + +"Do you know, dear boys," cried Ardan, led off as usual by the slightest +fancy, "do you know what I am thinking of when I look down on the great +rugged plains spread out beneath us?" + +"I can't say, I'm sure," replied Barbican, somewhat piqued at the little +attention he had secured for his theory. + +"Well, what are you thinking of?" asked M'Nicholl. + +"Spillikins!" answered Ardan triumphantly. + +"Spillikins?" cried his companions, somewhat surprised. + +"Yes, Spillikins! These rocks, these blocks, these peaks, these streaks, +these cones, these cracks, these ramparts, these escarpments,--what are +they but a set of spillikins, though I acknowledge on a grand scale? I +wish I had a little hook to pull them one by one!" + +[Illustration: AN IMMENSE BATTLEFIELD.] + +"Oh, do be serious, Ardan!" cried Barbican, a little impatiently. + +"Certainly," replied Ardan. "Let us be serious, Captain, since +seriousness best befits the subject in hand. What do you think of +another comparison? Does not this plain look like an immense battle +field piled with the bleaching bones of myriads who had slaughtered each +other to a man at the bidding of some mighty Caesar? What do you think +of that lofty comparison, hey?" + +"It is quite on a par with the other," muttered Barbican. + +"He's hard to please, Captain," continued Ardan, "but let us try him +again! Does not this plain look like--?" + +"My worthy friend," interrupted Barbican, quietly, but in a tone to +discourage further discussion, "what you think the plain _looks like_ is +of very slight import, as long as you know no more than a child what it +really _is_!" + +"Bravo, Barbican! well put!" cried the irrepressible Frenchman. "Shall I +ever realize the absurdity of my entering into an argument with a +scientist!" + +But this time the Projectile, though advancing northward with a pretty +uniform velocity, had neither gained nor lost in its nearness to the +lunar disc. Each moment altering the character of the fleeting landscape +beneath them, the travellers, as may well be imagined, never thought of +taking an instant's repose. At about half past one, looking to their +right on the west, they saw the summits of another mountain; Barbican, +consulting his map, recognized _Eratosthenes_. + +This was a ring mountain, about 33 miles in diameter, having, like +_Copernicus_, a crater of immense profundity containing central cones. +Whilst they were directing their glasses towards its gloomy depths, +Barbican mentioned to his friends Kepler's strange idea regarding the +formation of these ring mountains. "They must have been constructed," he +said, "by mortal hands." + +"With what object?" asked the Captain. + +"A very natural one," answered Barbican. "The Selenites must have +undertaken the immense labor of digging these enormous pits at places of +refuge in which they could protect themselves against the fierce solar +rays that beat against them for 15 days in succession!" + +"Not a bad idea, that of the Selenites!" exclaimed Ardan. + +"An absurd idea!" cried M'Nicholl. "But probably Kepler never knew the +real dimensions of these craters. Barbican knows the trouble and time +required to dig a well in Stony Hill only nine hundred feet deep. To dig +out a single lunar crater would take hundreds and hundreds of years, and +even then they should be giants who would attempt it!" + +"Why so?" asked Ardan. "In the Moon, where gravity is six times less +than on the Earth, the labor of the Selenites can't be compared with +that of men like us." + +"But suppose a Selenite to be six times smaller than a man like us!" +urged M'Nicholl. + +"And suppose a Selenite never had an existence at all!" interposed +Barbican with his usual success in putting an end to the argument. "But +never mind the Selenites now. Observe _Eratosthenes_ as long as you have +the opportunity." + +"Which will not be very long," said M'Nicholl. "He is already sinking +out of view too far to the right to be carefully observed." + +"What are those peaks beyond him?" asked Ardan. + +"The _Apennines_," answered Barbican; "and those on the left are the +_Carpathians_." + +"I have seen very few mountain chains or ranges in the Moon," remarked +Ardan, after some minutes' observation. + +"Mountains chains are not numerous in the Moon," replied Barbican, "and +in that respect her oreographic system presents a decided contrast with +that of the Earth. With us the ranges are many, the craters few; in the +Moon the ranges are few and the craters innumerable." + +Barbican might have spoken of another curious feature regarding the +mountain ranges: namely, that they are chiefly confined to the northern +hemisphere, where the craters are fewest and the "seas" the most +extensive. + +For the benefit of those interested, and to be done at once with this +part of the subject, we give in the following little table a list of the +chief lunar mountain chains, with their latitude, and respective +heights in English feet. + + _Name._ _Degrees of Latitude._ _Height._ + + { _Altai Mountains_ 17° to 28 13,000ft. +Southern { _Cordilleras_ 10 to 20 12,000 +Hemisphere. { _Pyrenees_ 8 to 18 12,000 + { _Riphean_ 5 to 10 2,600 + + { _Haemus_ 10 to 20 6,300 + { _Carpathian_ 15 to 19 6,000 + { _Apennines_ 14 to 27 18,000 +Northern { _Taurus_ 25 to 34 8,500 +Hemisphere. { _Hercynian_ 17 to 29 3,400 + { _Caucasus_ 33 to 40 17,000 + { _Alps_ 42 to 30 10,000 + +Of these different chains, the most important is that of the +_Apennines_, about 450 miles long, a length, however, far inferior to +that of many of the great mountain ranges of our globe. They skirt the +western shores of the _Mare Imbrium_, over which they rise in immense +cliffs, 18 or 20 thousand feet in height, steep as a wall and casting +over the plain intensely black shadows at least 90 miles long. Of Mt. +_Huyghens_, the highest in the group, the travellers were just barely +able to distinguish the sharp angular summit in the far west. To the +east, however, the _Carpathians_, extending from the 18th to 30th +degrees of east longitude, lay directly under their eyes and could be +examined in all the peculiarities of their distribution. + +Barbican proposed a hypothesis regarding the formation of those +mountains, which his companions thought at least as good as any other. +Looking carefully over the _Carpathians_ and catching occasional +glimpses of semi-circular formations and half domes, he concluded that +the chain must have formerly been a succession of vast craters. Then had +come some mighty internal discharge, or rather the subsidence to which +_Mare Imbrium_ is due, for it immediately broke off or swallowed up one +half of those mountains, leaving the other half steep as a wall on one +side and sloping gently on the other to the level of the surrounding +plains. The _Carpathians_ were therefore pretty nearly in the same +condition as the crater mountains _Ptolemy_, _Alpetragius_ and +_Arzachel_ would find themselves in, if some terrible cataclysm, by +tearing away their eastern ramparts, had turned them into a chain of +mountains whose towering cliffs would nod threateningly over the western +shores of _Mare Nubium_. The mean height of the _Carpathians_ is about +6,000 feet, the altitude of certain points in the Pyrenees such as the +_Port of Pineda_, or _Roland's Breach_, in the shadow of _Mont Perdu_. +The northern slopes of the _Carpathians_ sink rapidly towards the shores +of the vast _Mare Imbrium_. + +Towards two o'clock in the morning, Barbican calculated the Projectile +to be on the 20th northern parallel, and therefore almost immediately +over the little ring mountain called _Pytheas_, about 4600 feet in +height. The distance of the travellers from the Moon at this point +could not be more than about 750 miles, reduced to about 7 by means of +their excellent telescopes. + +_Mare Imbrium_, the Sea of Rains here revealed itself in all its +vastness to the eyes of the travellers, though it must be acknowledged +that the immense depression so called, did not afford them a very clear +idea regarding its exact boundaries. Right ahead of them rose _Lambert_ +about a mile in height; and further on, more to the left, in the +direction of _Oceanus Procellarum_, _Euler_ revealed itself by its +glittering radiations. This mountain, of about the same height as +_Lambert_, had been the object of very interesting calculations on the +part of Schroeter of Erfurt. This keen observer, desirous of inquiring +into the probable origin of the lunar mountains, had proposed to himself +the following question: Does the volume of the crater appear to be equal +to that of the surrounding ramparts? His calculations showing him that +this was generally the case, he naturally concluded that these ramparts +must therefore have been the product of a single eruption, for +successive eruptions of volcanic matter would have disturbed this +correlation. _Euler_ alone, he found, to be an exception to this general +law, as the volume of its crater appeared to be twice as great as that +of the mass surrounding it. It must therefore have been formed by +several eruptions in succession, but in that case what had become of the +ejected matter? + +Theories of this nature and all manner of scientific questions were, of +course, perfectly permissible to terrestrial astronomers laboring under +the disadvantage of imperfect instruments. But Barbican could not think +of wasting his time in any speculation of the kind, and now, seeing that +his Projectile perceptibly approached the lunar disc, though he +despaired of ever reaching it, he was more sanguine than ever of being +soon able to discover positively and unquestionably some of the secrets +of its formation. + +[Footnote C: We must again remind our readers that, in our map, though +every thing is set down as it appears to the eye not as it is reversed +by the telescope, still, for the reason made so clear by Barbican, the +right hand side must be the west and the left the east.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +LUNAR LANDSCAPES + + +At half past two in the morning of December 6th, the travellers crossed +the 30th northern parallel, at a distance from the lunar surface of 625 +miles, reduced to about 6 by their spy-glasses. Barbican could not yet +see the least probability of their landing at any point of the disc. The +velocity of the Projectile was decidedly slow, but for that reason +extremely puzzling. Barbican could not account for it. At such a +proximity to the Moon, the velocity, one would think, should be very +great indeed to be able to counteract the lunar attraction. Why did it +not fall? Barbican could not tell; his companions were equally in the +dark. Ardan said he gave it up. Besides they had no time to spend in +investigating it. The lunar panorama was unrolling all its splendors +beneath them, and they could not bear to lose one of its slightest +details. + +The lunar disc being brought within a distance of about six miles by the +spy-glasses, it is a fair question to ask, what _could_ an aeronaut at +such an elevation from our Earth discover on its surface? At present +that question can hardly be answered, the most remarkable balloon +ascensions never having passed an altitude of five miles under +circumstances favorable for observers. Here, however, is an account, +carefully transcribed from notes taken on the spot, of what Barbican and +his companions _did_ see from their peculiar post of observation. + +Varieties of color, in the first place, appeared here and there upon the +disc. Selenographers are not quite agreed as to the nature of these +colors. Not that such colors are without variety or too faint to be +easily distinguished. Schmidt of Athens even says that if our oceans on +earth were all evaporated, an observer in the Moon would hardly find the +seas and continents of our globe even so well outlined as those of the +Moon are to the eye of a terrestrial observer. According to him, the +shade of color distinguishing those vast plains known as "seas" is a +dark gray dashed with green and brown,--a color presented also by a few +of the great craters. + +This opinion of Schmidt's, shared by Beer and Maedler, Barbican's +observations now convinced him to be far better founded than that of +certain astronomers who admit of no color at all being visible on the +Moon's surface but gray. In certain spots the greenish tint was quite +decided, particularly in _Mare Serenitatis_ and _Mare Humorum,_ the very +localities where Schmidt had most noticed it. Barbican also remarked +that several large craters, of the class that had no interior cones, +reflected a kind of bluish tinge, somewhat like that given forth by a +freshly polished steel plate. These tints, he now saw enough to convince +him, proceeded really from the lunar surface, and were not due, as +certain astronomers asserted, either to the imperfections of the +spy-glasses, or to the interference of the terrestrial atmosphere. His +singular opportunity for correct observation allowed him to entertain no +doubt whatever on the subject. Hampered by no atmosphere, he was free +from all liability to optical illusion. Satisfied therefore as to the +reality of these tints, he considered such knowledge a positive gain to +science. But that greenish tint--to what was it due? To a dense tropical +vegetation maintained by a low atmosphere, a mile or so in thickness? +Possibly. But this was another question that could not be answered at +present. + +Further on he could detect here and there traces of a decidedly ruddy +tint. Such a shade he knew had been already detected in the _Palus +Somnii_, near _Mare Crisium_, and in the circular area of _Lichtenberg_, +near the _Hercynian Mountains_, on the eastern edge of the Moon. To what +cause was this tint to be attributed? To the actual color of the surface +itself? Or to that of the lava covering it here and there? Or to the +color resulting from the mixture of other colors seen at a distance too +great to allow of their being distinguished separately? Impossible to +tell. + +Barbican and his companions succeeded no better at a new problem that +soon engaged their undivided attention. It deserves some detail. + +Having passed _Lambert_, being just over _Timocharis_, all were +attentively gazing at the magnificent crater of _Archimedes_ with a +diameter of 52 miles across and ramparts more than 5000 feet in height, +when Ardan startled his companions by suddenly exclaiming: + +"Hello! Cultivated fields as I am a living man!" + +"What do you mean by your cultivated fields?" asked M'Nicholl sourly, +wiping his glasses and shrugging his shoulders. + +"Certainly cultivated fields!" replied Ardan. "Don't you see the +furrows? They're certainly plain enough. They are white too from +glistening in the sun, but they are quite different from the radiating +streaks of _Copernicus_. Why, their sides are perfectly parallel!" + +"Where are those furrows?" asked M'Nicholl, putting his glasses to his +eye and adjusting the focus. + +"You can see them in all directions," answered Ardan; "but two are +particularly visible: one running north from _Archimedes_, the other +south towards the _Apennines_." + +M'Nicholl's face, as he gazed, gradually assumed a grin which soon +developed into a snicker, if not a positive laugh, as he observed to +Ardan: + +"Your Selenites must be Brobdignagians, their oxen Leviathans, and their +ploughs bigger than Marston's famous cannon, if these are furrows!" + +"How's that, Barbican?" asked Ardan doubtfully, but unwilling to submit +to M'Nicholl. + +"They're not furrows, dear friend," said Barbican, "and can't be, +either, simply on account of their immense size. They are what the +German astronomers called _Rillen_; the French, _rainures_, and the +English, _grooves_, _canals_, _clefts_, _cracks_, _chasms_, or +_fissures_." + +"You have a good stock of names for them anyhow," observed Ardan, "if +that does any good." + +"The number of names given them," answered Barbican, "shows how little +is really known about them. They have been observed in all the level +portion of the Moon's surface. Small as they appear to us, a little +calculation must convince you that they are in some places hundreds of +miles in length, a mile in width and probably in many points several +miles in depth. Their width and depth, however, vary, though their +sides, so far as observed, are always rigorously parallel. Let us take a +good look at them." + +Putting the glass to his eye, Barbican examined the clefts for some time +with close attention. He saw that their banks were sharp edged and +extremely steep. In many places they were of such geometrical regularity +that he readily excused Gruithuysen's idea of deeming them to be +gigantic earthworks thrown up by the Selenite engineers. Some of them +were as straight as if laid out with a line, others were curved a little +here and there, though still maintaining the strict parallelism of their +sides. These crossed each other; those entered craters and came out at +the other side. Here, they furrowed annular plateaus, such as +_Posidonius_ or _Petavius_. There, they wrinkled whole seas, for +instance, _Mare Serenitatis_. + +These curious peculiarities of the lunar surface had interested the +astronomic mind to a very high degree at their first discovery, and have +proved to be very perplexing problems ever since. The first observers do +not seem to have noticed them. Neither Hevelius, nor Cassini, nor La +Hire, nor Herschel, makes a single remark regarding their nature. + +It was Schroeter, in 1789, who called the attention of scientists to +them for the first time. He had only 11 to show, but Lohrmann soon +recorded 75 more. Pastorff, Gruithuysen, and particularly Beer and +Maedler were still more successful, but Julius Schmidt, the famous +astronomer of Athens, has raised their number up to 425, and has even +published their names in a catalogue. But counting them is one thing, +determining their nature is another. They are not fortifications, +certainly: and cannot be ancient beds of dried up rivers, for two very +good and sufficient reasons: first, water, even under the most favorable +circumstances on the Moon's surface, could have never ploughed up such +vast channels; secondly, these chasms often traverse lofty craters +through and through, like an immense railroad cutting. + +At these details, Ardan's imagination became unusually excited and of +course it was not without some result. It even happened that he hit on +an idea that had already suggested itself to Schmidt of Athens. + +"Why not consider them," he asked, "to be the simple phenomena of +vegetation?" + +"What do you mean?" asked Barbican. + +"Rows of sugar cane?" suggested M'Nicholl with a snicker. + +"Not exactly, my worthy Captain," answered Ardan quietly, "though you +were perhaps nearer to the mark than you expected. I don't mean exactly +rows of sugar cane, but I do mean vast avenues of trees--poplars, for +instance--planted regularly on each side of a great high road." + +"Still harping on vegetation!" said the Captain. "Ardan, what a splendid +historian was spoiled in you! The less you know about your facts, the +readier you are to account for them." + +"_Ma foi_," said Ardan simply, "I do only what the greatest of your +scientific men do--that is, guess. There is this difference however +between us--I call my guesses, guesses, mere conjecture;--they dignify +theirs as profound theories or as astounding discoveries!" + +"Often the case, friend Ardan, too often the case," said Barbican. + +"In the question under consideration, however," continued the Frenchman, +"my conjecture has this advantage over some others: it explains why +these rills appear and seem to disappear at regular intervals." + +"Let us hear the explanation," said the Captain. + +"They become invisible when the trees lose their leaves, and they +reappear when they resume them." + +"His explanation is not without ingenuity," observed Barbican to +M'Nicholl, "but, my dear friend," turning to Ardan, "it is hardly +admissible." + +"Probably not," said Ardan, "but why not?" + +"Because as the Sun is nearly always vertical to the lunar equator, the +Moon can have no change of seasons worth mentioning; therefore her +vegetation can present none of the phenomena that you speak of." + +This was perfectly true. The slight obliquity of the Moon's axis, only +1-1/2°, keeps the Sun in the same altitude the whole year around. In the +equatorial regions he is always vertical, and in the polar he is never +higher than the horizon. Therefore, there can be no change of seasons; +according to the latitude, it is a perpetual winter, spring, summer, or +autumn the whole year round. This state of things is almost precisely +similar to that which prevails in Jupiter, who also stands nearly +upright in his orbit, the inclination of his axis being only about 3°. + +But how to account for the _grooves_? A very hard nut to crack. They +must certainly be a later formation than the craters and the rings, for +they are often found breaking right through the circular ramparts. +Probably the latest of all lunar features, the results of the last +geological epochs, they are due altogether to expansion or shrinkage +acting on a large scale and brought about by the great forces of nature, +operating after a manner altogether unknown on our earth. Such at least +was Barbican's idea. + +"My friends," he quietly observed, "without meaning to put forward any +pretentious claims to originality, but by simply turning to account some +advantages that have never before befallen contemplative mortal eye, why +not construct a little hypothesis of our own regarding the nature of +these grooves and the causes that gave them birth? Look at that great +chasm just below us, somewhat to the right. It is at least fifty or +sixty miles long and runs along the base of the _Apennines_ in a line +almost perfectly straight. Does not its parallelism with the mountain +chain suggest a causative relation? See that other mighty _rill_, at +least a hundred and fifty miles long, starting directly north of it and +pursuing so true a course that it cleaves _Archimedes_ almost cleanly +into two. The nearer it lies to the mountain, as you perceive, the +greater its width; as it recedes in either direction it grows narrower. +Does not everything point out to one great cause of their origin? They +are simple crevasses, like those so often noticed on Alpine glaciers, +only that these tremendous cracks in the surface are produced by the +shrinkage of the crust consequent on cooling. Can we point out some +analogies to this on the Earth? Certainly. The defile of the Jordan, +terminating in the awful depression of the Dead Sea, no doubt occurs to +you on the moment. But the _Yosemite Valley_, as I saw it ten years ago, +is an apter comparison. There I stood on the brink of a tremendous chasm +with perpendicular walls, a mile in width, a mile in depth and eight +miles in length. Judge if I was astounded! But how should we feel it, +when travelling on the lunar surface, we should suddenly find ourselves +on the brink of a yawning chasm two miles wide, fifty miles long, and so +fathomless in sheer vertical depth as to leave its black profundities +absolutely invisible in spite of the dazzling sunlight!" + +"I feel my flesh already crawling even in the anticipation!" cried +Ardan. + +"I shan't regret it much if we never get to the Moon," growled +M'Nicholl; "I never hankered after it anyhow!" + +By this time the Projectile had reached the fortieth degree of lunar +latitude, and could hardly be further than five hundred miles from the +surface, a distance reduced to about 5 miles by the travellers' glasses. +Away to their left appeared _Helicon_, a ring mountain about 1600 feet +high; and still further to the left the eye could catch a glimpse of the +cliffs enclosing a semi-elliptical portion of _Mare Imbrium_, called the +_Sinus Iridium_, or Bay of the Rainbows. + +In order to allow astronomers to make complete observations on the lunar +surface, the terrestrial atmosphere should possess a transparency +seventy times greater than its present power of transmission. But in the +void through which the Projectile was now floating, no fluid whatever +interposed between the eye of the observer and the object observed. +Besides, the travellers now found themselves at a distance that had +never before been reached by the most powerful telescopes, including +even Lord Rosse's and the great instrument on the Rocky Mountains. +Barbican was therefore in a condition singularly favorable to resolve +the great question concerning the Moon's inhabitableness. Nevertheless, +the solution still escaped him. He could discover nothing around him but +a dreary waste of immense plains, and towards the north, beneath him, +bare mountains of the aridest character. + +Not the slightest vestige of man's work could be detected over the vast +expanse. Not the slightest sign of a ruin spoke of his ever having been +there. Nothing betrayed the slightest trace of the development of animal +life, even in an inferior degree. No movement. Not the least glimpse of +vegetation. Of the three great kingdoms that hold dominion on the +surface of the globe, the mineral, the vegetable and the animal, one +alone was represented on the lunar sphere: the mineral, the whole +mineral, and nothing but the mineral. + +"Why!" exclaimed Ardan, with a disconcerted look, after a long and +searching examination, "I can't find anybody. Everything is as +motionless as a street in Pompeii at 4 o'clock in the morning!" + +[Illustration: THE SOLUTION STILL ESCAPED HIM.] + +"Good comparison, friend Ardan;" observed M'Nicholl. "Lava, slag, +volcanic eminences, vitreous matter glistening like ice, piles of +scoria, pitch black shadows, dazzling streaks, like rivers of light +breaking over jagged rocks--these are now beneath my eye--these alone I +can detect--not a man--not an animal--not a tree. The great American +Desert is a land of milk and honey in comparison with the joyless orb +over which we are now moving. However, even yet we can predicate +nothing positive. The atmosphere may have taken refuge in the depths of +the chasms, in the interior of the craters, or even on the opposite side +of the Moon, for all we know!" + +"Still we must remember," observed Barbican, "that even the sharpest eye +cannot detect a man at a distance greater than four miles and a-half, +and our glasses have not yet brought us nearer than five." + +"Which means to say," observed Ardan, "that though we can't see the +Selenites, they can see our Projectile!" + +But matters had not improved much when, towards four o'clock in the +morning, the travellers found themselves on the 50th parallel, and at a +distance of only about 375 miles from the lunar surface. Still no trace +of the least movement, or even of the lowest form of life. + +"What peaked mountain is that which we have just passed on our right?" +asked Ardan. "It is quite remarkable, standing as it does in almost +solitary grandeur in the barren plain." + +"That is _Pico_," answered Barbican. "It is at least 8000 feet high and +is well known to terrestrial astronomers as well by its peculiar shadow +as on account of its comparative isolation. See the collection of +perfectly formed little craters nestling around its base." + +"Barbican," asked M'Nicholl suddenly, "what peak is that which lies +almost directly south of _Pico_? I see it plainly, but I can't find it +on my map." + +"I have remarked that pyramidal peak myself," replied Barbican; "but I +can assure you that so far it has received no name as yet, although it +is likely enough to have been distinguished by the terrestrial +astronomers. It can't be less than 4000 feet in height." + +"I propose we called it _Barbican_!" cried Ardan enthusiastically. + +"Agreed!" answered M'Nicholl, "unless we can find a higher one." + +"We must be before-hand with Schmidt of Athens!" exclaimed Ardan. "He +will leave nothing unnamed that his telescope can catch a glimpse of." + +"Passed unanimously!" cried M'Nicholl. + +"And officially recorded!" added the Frenchman, making the proper entry +on his map. + +"_Salve, Mt. Barbican!_" then cried both gentlemen, rising and taking +off their hats respectfully to the distant peak. + +"Look to the west!" interrupted Barbican, watching, as usual, while his +companions were talking, and probably perfectly unconscious of what they +were saying; "directly to the west! Now tell me what you see!" + +"I see a vast valley!" answered M'Nicholl. + +"Straight as an arrow!" added Ardan. + +"Running through lofty mountains!" cried M'Nicholl. + +"Cut through with a pair of saws and scooped out with a chisel!" cried +Ardan. + +"See the shadows of those peaks!" cried M'Nicholl catching fire at the +sight. "Black, long, and sharp as if cast by cathedral spires!" + +"Oh! ye crags and peaks!" burst forth Ardan; "how I should like to catch +even a faint echo of the chorus you could chant, if a wild storm roared +over your beetling summits! The pine forests of Norwegian mountains +howling in midwinter would not be an accordeon in comparison!" + +"Wonderful instance of subsidence on a grand scale!" exclaimed the +Captain, hastily relapsing into science. + +"Not at all!" cried the Frenchman, still true to his colors; "no +subsidence there! A comet simply came too close and left its mark as it +flew past." + +"Fanciful exclamations, dear friends," observed Barbican; "but I'm not +surprised at your excitement. Yonder is the famous _Valley of the Alps_, +a standing enigma to all selenographers. How it could have been formed, +no one can tell. Even wilder guesses than yours, Ardan, have been +hazarded on the subject. All we can state positively at present +regarding this wonderful formation, is what I have just recorded in my +note-book: the _Valley of the Alps_ is about 5 mile wide and 70 or 80 +long: it is remarkably flat and free from _debris_, though the mountains +on each side rise like walls to the height of at least 10,000 +feet.--Over the whole surface of our Earth I know of no natural +phenomenon that can be at all compared with it." + +"Another wonder almost in front of us!" cried Ardan. "I see a vast lake +black as pitch and round as a crater; it is surrounded by such lofty +mountains that their shadows reach clear across, rendering the interior +quite invisible!" + +"That's _Plato_;" said M'Nicholl; "I know it well; it's the darkest spot +on the Moon: many a night I gazed at it from my little observatory in +Broad Street, Philadelphia." + +"Right, Captain," said Barbican; "the crater _Plato_, is, indeed, +generally considered the blackest spot on the Moon, but I am inclined to +consider the spots _Grimaldi_ and _Riccioli_ on the extreme eastern edge +to be somewhat darker. If you take my glass, Ardan, which is of somewhat +greater power than yours, you will distinctly see the bottom of the +crater. The reflective power of its plateau probably proceeds from the +exceedingly great number of small craters that you can detect there." + +"I think I see something like them now," said Ardan. "But I am sorry the +Projectile's course will not give us a vertical view." + +"Can't be helped!" said Barbican; "we must go where it takes us. The day +may come when man can steer the projectile or the balloon in which he is +shut up, in any way he pleases, but that day has not come yet!" + +Towards five in the morning, the northern limit of _Mare Imbrium_ was +finally passed, and _Mare Frigoris_ spread its frost-colored plains +far to the right and left. On the east the travellers could easily see +the ring-mountain _Condamine_, about 4000 feet high, while a little +ahead on the right they could plainly distinguish _Fontenelle_ with an +altitude nearly twice as great. _Mare Frigoris_ was soon passed, and the +whole lunar surface beneath the travellers, as far as they could see in +all directions, now bristled with mountains, crags, and peaks. Indeed, +at the 70th parallel the "Seas" or plains seem to have come to an end. +The spy-glasses now brought the surface to within about three miles, a +distance less than that between the hotel at Chamouni and the summit of +Mont Blanc. To the left, they had no difficulty in distinguishing the +ramparts of _Philolaus_, about 12,000 feet high, but though the crater +had a diameter of nearly thirty miles, the black shadows prevented the +slightest sign of its interior from being seen. The Sun was now sinking +very low, and the illuminated surface of the Moon was reduced to a +narrow rim. + +By this time, too, the bird's eye view to which the observations had so +far principally confined, decidedly altered its character. They could +now look back at the lunar mountains that they had been just sailing +over--a view somewhat like that enjoyed by a tourist standing on the +summit of Mt. St. Gothard as he sees the sun setting behind the peaks of +the Bernese Oberland. The lunar landscapes however, though seen under +these new and ever varying conditions, "hardly gained much by the +change," according to Ardan's expression. On the contrary, they looked, +if possible, more dreary and inhospitable than before. + +The Moon having no atmosphere, the benefit of this gaseous envelope in +softening off and nicely shading the approaches of light and darkness, +heat and cold, is never felt on her surface. There, no twilight ever +softly ushers in the brilliant sun, or sweetly heralds the near approach +of night's dark shadow. Night follows day, and day night, with the +startling suddenness of a match struck or a lamp extinguished in a +cavern. Nor can it present any gradual transition from either extreme of +temperature. Hot jumps to cold, and cold jumps to hot. A moment after a +glacial midnight, it is a roasting noon. Without an instant's warning +the temperature falls from 212° Fahrenheit to the icy winter of +interstellar space. The surface is all dazzling glare, or pitchy gloom. +Wherever the direct rays of the sun do not fall, darkness reigns +supreme. What we call diffused light on Earth, the grateful result of +refraction, the luminous matter held in suspension by the air, the +mother of our dawns and our dusks, of our blushing mornings and our dewy +eyes, of our shades, our penumbras, our tints and all the other magical +effects of _chiaro-oscuro_--this diffused light has absolutely no +existence on the surface of the Moon. Nothing is there to break the +inexorable contrast between intense white and intense black. At mid-day, +let a Selenite shade his eyes and look at the sky: it will appear to him +as black as pitch, while the stars still sparkle before him as vividly +as they do to us on the coldest and darkest night in winter. + +From this you can judge of the impression made on our travellers by +those strange lunar landscapes. Even their decided novelty and very +strange character produced any thing but a pleasing effect on the organs +of sight. With all their enthusiasm, the travellers felt their eyes "get +out of gear," as Ardan said, like those of a man blind from his birth +and suddenly restored to sight. They could not adjust them so as to be +able to realize the different plains of vision. All things seemed in a +heap. Foreground and background were indistinguishably commingled. No +painter could ever transfer a lunar landscape to his canvas. + +"Landscape," Ardan said; "what do you mean by a landscape? Can you call +a bottle of ink intensely black, spilled over a sheet of paper intensely +white, a landscape?" + +At the eightieth degree, when the Projectile was hardly 100 miles +distant from the Moon, the aspect of things underwent no improvement. On +the contrary, the nearer the travellers approached the lunar surface, +the drearier, the more inhospitable, and the more _unearthly_, +everything seem to look. Still when five o'clock in the morning brought +our travellers to within 50 miles of _Mount Gioja_--which their +spy-glasses rendered as visible as if it was only about half a mile off, +Ardan could not control himself. + +"Why, we're there" he exclaimed; "we can touch her with our hands! Open +the windows and let me out! Don't mind letting me go by myself. It is +not very inviting quarters I admit. But as we are come to the jumping +off place, I want to see the whole thing through. Open the lower window +and let me out. I can take care of myself!" + +"That's what's more than any other man can do," said M'Nicholl drily, +"who wants to take a jump of 50 miles!" + +"Better not try it, friend Ardan," said Barbican grimly: "think of +Satellite! The Moon is no more attainable by your body than by our +Projectile. You are far more comfortable in here than when floating +about in empty space like a bolide." + +Ardan, unwilling to quarrel with his companions, appeared to give in; +but he secretly consoled himself by a hope which he had been +entertaining for some time, and which now looked like assuming the +appearance of a certainty. The Projectile had been lately approaching +the Moon's surface so rapidly that it at last seemed actually impossible +not to finally touch it somewhere in the neighborhood of the north pole, +whose dazzling ridges now presented themselves in sharp and strong +relief against the black sky. Therefore he kept silent, but quietly +bided his time. + +The Projectile moved on, evidently getting nearer and nearer to the +lunar surface. The Moon now appeared to the travellers as she does to us +towards the beginning of her Second Quarter, that is as a bright +crescent instead of a hemisphere. On one side, glaring dazzling light; +on the other, cavernous pitchy darkness. The line separating both was +broken into a thousand bits of protuberances and concavities, dented, +notched, and jagged. + +At six o'clock the travellers found themselves exactly over the north +pole. They were quietly gazing at the rapidly shifting features of the +wondrous view unrolling itself beneath them, and were silently wondering +what was to come next, when, suddenly, the Projectile passed the +dividing line. The Sun and Moon instantly vanished from view. The next +moment, without the slightest warning the travellers found themselves +plunged in an ocean of the most appalling darkness! + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +A NIGHT OF FIFTEEN DAYS. + + +The Projectile being not quite 30 miles from the Moon's north pole when +the startling phenomenon, recorded in our last chapter, took place, a +few seconds were quite sufficient to launch it at once from the +brightest day into the unknown realms of night. The transition was so +abrupt, so unexpected, without the slightest shading off, from dazzling +effulgence to Cimmerian gloom, that the Moon seemed to have been +suddenly extinguished like a lamp when the gas is turned off. + +"Where's the Moon?" cried Ardan in amazement. + +"It appears as if she had been wiped out of creation!" cried M'Nicholl. + +Barbican said nothing, but observed carefully. Not a particle, however, +could he see of the disc that had glittered so resplendently before his +eyes a few moments ago. Not a shadow, not a gleam, not the slightest +vestige could he trace of its existence. The darkness being profound, +the dazzling splendor of the stars only gave a deeper blackness to the +pitchy sky. No wonder. The travellers found themselves now in a night +that had plenty of time not only to become black itself, but to steep +everything connected with it in palpable blackness. This was the night +354-1/4 hours long, during which the invisible face of the Moon is +turned away from the Sun. In this black darkness the Projectile now +fully participated. Having plunged into the Moon's shadow, it was as +effectually cut off from the action of the solar rays as was every point +on the invisible lunar surface itself. + +The travellers being no longer able to see each other, it was proposed +to light the gas, though such an unexpected demand on a commodity at +once so scarce and so valuable was certainly disquieting. The gas, it +will be remembered, had been intended for heating alone, not +illumination, of which both Sun and Moon had promised a never ending +supply. But here both Sun and Moon, in a single instant vanished from +before their eyes and left them in Stygian darkness. + +"It's all the Sun's fault!" cried Ardan, angrily trying to throw the +blame on something, and, like every angry man in such circumstances, +bound to be rather nonsensical. + +"Put the saddle on the right horse, Ardan," said M'Nicholl +patronizingly, always delighted at an opportunity of counting a point +off the Frenchman. "You mean it's all the Moon's fault, don't you, in +setting herself like a screen between us and the Sun?" + +"No, I don't!" cried Ardan, not at all soothed by his friend's +patronizing tone, and sticking like a man to his first assertion right +or wrong. "I know what I say! It will be all the Sun's fault if we use +up our gas!" + +"Nonsense!" said M'Nicholl. "It's the Moon, who by her interposition has +cut off the Sun's light." + +"The Sun had no business to allow it to be cut off," said Ardan, still +angry and therefore decidedly loose in his assertions. + +Before M'Nicholl could reply, Barbican interposed, and his even voice +was soon heard pouring balm on the troubled waters. + +"Dear friends," he observed, "a little reflection on either side would +convince you that our present situation is neither the Moon's fault nor +the Sun's fault. If anything is to be blamed for it, it is our +Projectile which, instead of rigidly following its allotted course, has +awkwardly contrived to deviate from it. However, strict justice must +acquit even the Projectile. It only obeyed a great law of nature in +shifting its course as soon as it came within the sphere of that +inopportune bolide's influence." + +"All right!" said Ardan, as usual in the best of humor after Barbican +had laid down the law. "I have no doubt it is exactly as you say; and, +now that all is settled, suppose we take breakfast. After such a hard +night spent in work, a little refreshment would not be out of place!" + +Such a proposition being too reasonable even for M'Nicholl to oppose, +Ardan turned on the gas, and had everything ready for the meal in a few +minutes. But, this time, breakfast was consumed in absolute silence. No +toasts were offered, no hurrahs were uttered. A painful uneasiness had +seized the hearts of the daring travellers. The darkness into which +they were so suddenly plunged, told decidedly on their spirits. They +felt almost as if they had been suddenly deprived of their sight. That +thick, dismal savage blackness, which Victor Hugo's pen is so fond of +occasionally revelling in, surrounded them on all sides and crushed them +like an iron shroud. + +It was felt worse than ever when, breakfast being over, Ardan carefully +turned off the gas, and everything within the Projectile was as dark as +without. However, though they could not see each other's faces, they +could hear each other's voices, and therefore they soon began to talk. +The most natural subject of conversation was this terrible night 354 +hours long, which the laws of nature have imposed on the Lunar +inhabitants. Barbican undertook to give his friends some explanation +regarding the cause of the startling phenomenon, and the consequences +resulting from it. + +"Yes, startling is the word for it," observed Barbican, replying to a +remark of Ardan's; "and still more so when we reflect that not only are +both lunar hemispheres deprived, by turns, of sun light for nearly 15 +days, but that also the particular hemisphere over which we are at this +moment floating is all that long night completely deprived of +earth-light. In other words, it is only one side of the Moon's disc that +ever receives any light from the Earth. From nearly every portion of one +side of the Moon, the Earth is always as completely absent as the Sun is +from us at midnight. Suppose an analogous case existed on the Earth; +suppose, for instance, that neither in Europe, Asia or North America +was the Moon ever visible--that, in fact, it was to be seen only at our +antipodes. With what astonishment should we contemplate her for the +first time on our arrival in Australia or New Zealand!" + +"Every man of us would pack off to Australia to see her!" cried Ardan. + +"Yes," said M'Nicholl sententiously; "for a visit to the South Sea a +Turk would willingly forego Mecca; and a Bostonian would prefer Sidney +even to Paris." + +"Well," resumed Barbican, "this interesting marvel is reserved for the +Selenite that inhabits the side of the Moon which is always turned away +from our globe." + +"And which," added the Captain, "we should have had the unspeakable +satisfaction of contemplating if we had only arrived at the period when +the Sun and the Earth are not at the same side of the Moon--that is, 15 +days sooner or later than now." + +"For my part, however," continued Barbican, not heeding these +interruptions, "I must confess that, notwithstanding the magnificent +splendor of the spectacle when viewed for the first time by the Selenite +who inhabits the dark side of the Moon, I should prefer to be a resident +on the illuminated side. The former, when his long, blazing, roasting, +dazzling day is over, has a night 354 hours long, whose darkness, like +that, just now surrounding us, is ever unrelieved save by the cold +cheerless rays of the stars. But the latter has hardly seen his fiery +sun sinking on one horizon when he beholds rising on the opposite one an +orb, milder, paler, and colder indeed than the Sun, but fully as large +as thirteen of our full Moons, and therefore shedding thirteen times as +much light. This would be our Earth. It would pass through all its +phases too, exactly like our Satellite. The Selenites would have their +New Earth, Full Earth, and Last Quarter. At midnight, grandly +illuminated, it would shine with the greatest glory. But that is almost +as much as can be said for it. Its futile heat would but poorly +compensate for its superior radiance. All the calorie accumulated in the +lunar soil during the 354 hours day would have by this time radiated +completely into space. An intensity of cold would prevail, in comparison +to which a Greenland winter is tropical. The temperature of interstellar +space, 250° below zero, would be reached. Our Selenite, heartily tired +of the cold pale Earth, would gladly see her sink towards the horizon, +waning as she sank, till at last she appeared no more than half full. +Then suddenly a faint rim of the solar orb reveals itself on the edge of +the opposite sky. Slowly, more than 14 times more slowly than with us, +does the Sun lift himself above the lunar horizon. In half an hour, only +half his disc is revealed, but that is more than enough to flood the +lunar landscape with a dazzling intensity of light, of which we have no +counterpart on Earth. No atmosphere refracts it, no hazy screen softens +it, no enveloping vapor absorbs it, no obstructing medium colors it. It +breaks on the eye, harsh, white, dazzling, blinding, like the electric +light seen a few yards off. As the hours wear away, the more blasting +becomes the glare; and the higher he rises in the black sky, but slowly, +slowly. It takes him seven of our days to reach the meridian. By that +time the heat has increased from an arctic temperature to double the +boiling water point, from 250° below zero to 500° above it, or the point +at which tin melts. Subjected to these extremes, the glassy rocks crack, +shiver and crumble away; enormous land slides occur; peaks topple over; +and tons of debris, crashing down the mountains, are swallowed up +forever in the yawing chasms of the bottomless craters." + +"Bravo!" cried Ardan, clapping his hands softly: "our President is +sublime! He reminds me of the overture of _Guillaume Tell_!" + +"Souvenir de Marston!" growled M'Nicholl. + +"These phenomena," continued Barbican, heedless of interruption and his +voice betraying a slight glow of excitement, "these phenomena going on +without interruption from month to month, from year to year, from age to +age, from _eon_ to _eon_, have finally convinced me that--what?" he +asked his hearers, interrupting himself suddenly. + +--"That the existence at the present time--" answered M'Nicholl. + +--"Of either animal or vegetable life--" interrupted Ardan. + +--"In the Moon is hardly possible!" cried both in one voice. + +"Besides?" asked Barbican: "even if there _is_ any life--?" + +--"That to live on the dark side would be much more inconvenient than on +the light side!" cried M'Nicholl promptly. + +--"That there is no choice between them!" cried Ardan just as ready. +"For my part, I should think a residence on Mt. Erebus or in Grinnell +Land a terrestrial paradise in comparison to either. The _Earth shine_ +might illuminate the light side of the Moon a little during the long +night, but for any practical advantage towards heat or life, it would be +perfectly useless!" + +"But there is another serious difference between the two sides," said +Barbican, "in addition to those enumerated. The dark side is actually +more troubled with excessive variations of temperature than the light +one." + +"That assertion of our worthy President," interrupted Ardan, "with all +possible respect for his superior knowledge, I am disposed to question." + +"It's as clear as day!" said Barbican. + +"As clear as mud, you mean, Mr. President;" interrupted Ardan, "the +temperature of the light side is excited by two objects at the same +time, the Earth and the Sun, whereas--" + +--"I beg your pardon, Ardan--" said Barbican. + +--"Granted, dear boy--granted with the utmost pleasure!" interrupted the +Frenchman. + +"I shall probably have to direct my observations altogether to you, +Captain," continued Barbican; "friend Michael interrupts me so often +that I'm afraid he can hardly understand my remarks." + +"I always admired your candor, Barbican," said Ardan; "it's a noble +quality, a grand quality!" + +"Don't mention it," replied Barbican, turning towards M'Nicholl, still +in the dark, and addressing him exclusively; "You see, my dear Captain, +the period at which the Moon's invisible side receives at once its light +and heat is exactly the period of her _conjunction_, that is to say, +when she is lying between the Earth and the Sun. In comparison therefore +with the place which she had occupied at her _opposition_, or when her +visible side was fully illuminated, she is nearer to the Sun by double +her distance from the Earth, or nearly 480 thousand miles. Therefore, my +dear Captain, you can see how when the invisible side of the Moon is +turned towards the Sun, she is nearly half a million of miles nearer to +him than she had been before. Therefore, her heat should be so much the +greater." + +"I see it at a glance," said the Captain. + +"Whereas--" continued Barbican. + +"One moment!" cried Ardan. + +"Another interruption!" exclaimed Barbican; "What is the meaning of it, +Sir?" + +"I ask my honorable friend the privilege of the floor for one moment," +cried Ardan. + +"What for?" + +"To continue the explanation." + +"Why so?" + +"To show that I can understand as well as interrupt!" + +"You have the floor!" exclaimed Barbican, in a voice no longer showing +any traces of ill humor. + +"I expected no less from the honorable gentleman's well known courtesy," +replied Ardan. Then changing his manner and imitating to the life +Barbican's voice, articulation, and gestures, he continued: "Whereas, +you see, my dear Captain, the period at which the Moon's visible side +receives at once its light and heat, is exactly the period of her +_opposition_, that is to say, when she is lying on one side of the Earth +and the Sun at the other. In comparison therefore with the point which +she had occupied in _conjunction_, or when her invisible side was fully +illuminated, she is farther from the Sun by double her distance from the +Earth, or nearly 480,000 miles. Therefore, my dear Captain, you can +readily see how when the Moon's invisible side is turned _from_ the Sun, +she is nearly half a million miles further from him than she had been +before. Therefore her heat should be so much the less." + +"Well done, friend Ardan!" cried Barbican, clapping his hands with +pleasure. "Yes, Captain, he understood it as well as either of us the +whole time. Intelligence, not indifference, caused him to interrupt. +Wonderful fellow!" + +"That's the kind of a man I am!" replied Ardan, not without some degree +of complacency. Then he added simply: "Barbican, my friend, if I +understand your explanations so readily, attribute it all to their +astonishing lucidity. If I have any faculity, it is that of being able +to scent common sense at the first glimmer. Your sentences are so +steeped in it that I catch their full meaning long before you end +them--hence my apparent inattention. But we're not yet done with the +visible face of the Moon: it seems to me you have not yet enumerated all +the advantages in which it surpasses the other side." + +"Another of these advantages," continued Barbican, "is that it is from +the visible side alone that eclipses of the Sun can be seen. This is +self-evident, the interposition of the Earth being possible only between +this visible face and the Sun. Furthermore, such eclipses of the Sun +would be of a far more imposing character than anything of the kind to +be witnessed from our Earth. This is chiefly for two reasons: first, +when we, terrestrians, see the Sun eclipsed, we notice that, the discs +of the two orbs being of about the same apparent size, one cannot hide +the other except for a short time; second, as the two bodies are moving +in opposite directions, the total duration of the eclipse, even under +the most favorable circumstances, can't last longer than 7 minutes. +Whereas to a Selenite who sees the Earth eclipse the Sun, not only does +the Earth's disc appear four times larger than the Sun's, but also, as +his day is 14 times longer than ours, the two heavenly bodies must +remain several hours in contact. Besides, notwithstanding the apparent +superiority of the Earth's disc, the refracting power of the atmosphere +will never allow the Sun to be eclipsed altogether. Even when completely +screened by the Earth, he would form a beautiful circle around her of +yellow, red, and crimson light, in which she would appear to float like +a vast sphere of jet in a glowing sea of gold, rubies, sparkling +carbuncles and garnets." + +"It seems to me," said M'Nicholl, "that, taking everything into +consideration, the invisible side has been rather shabbily treated." + +"I know I should not stay there very long," said Ardan; "the desire of +seeing such a splendid sight as that eclipse would be enough to bring me +to the visible side as soon as possible." + +"Yes, I have no doubt of that, friend Michael," pursued Barbican; "but +to see the eclipse it would not be necessary to quit the dark hemisphere +altogether. You are, of course, aware that in consequence of her +librations, or noddings, or wobblings, the Moon presents to the eyes of +the Earth a little more than the exact half of her disc. She has two +motions, one on her path around the Earth, and the other a shifting +around on her own axis by which she endeavors to keep the same side +always turned towards our sphere. This she cannot always do, as while +one motion, the latter, is strictly uniform, the other being eccentric, +sometimes accelerating her and sometimes retarding, she has not time to +shift herself around completely and with perfect correspondence of +movement. At her perigee, for instance, she moves forward quicker than +she can shift, so that we detect a portion of her western border before +she has time to conceal it. Similarly, at her apogee, when her rate of +motion is comparatively slow, she shifts a little too quickly for her +velocity, and therefore cannot help revealing a certain portion of her +eastern border. She shows altogether about 8 degrees of the dark side, +about 4 at the east and 4 at the west, so that, out of her 360 degrees, +about 188, in other words, a little more than 57 per cent., about 4/7 of +the entire surface, becomes visible to human eyes. Consequently a +Selenite could catch an occasional glimpse of our Earth, without +altogether quitting the dark side." + +"No matter for that!" cried Ardan; "if we ever become Selenites we must +inhabit the visible side. My weak point is light, and that I must have +when it can be got." + +"Unless, as perhaps in this case, you might be paying too dear for it," +observed M'Nicholl. "How would you like to pay for your light by the +loss of the atmosphere, which, according to some philosophers, is piled +away on the dark side?" + +"Ah! In that case I should consider a little before committing myself," +replied Ardan, "I should like to hear your opinion regarding such a +notion, Barbican. Hey! Do your hear? Have astronomers any valid reasons +for supposing the atmosphere to have fled to the dark side of the Moon?" + +"Defer that question till some other time, Ardan," whispered M'Nicholl; +"Barbican is just now thinking out something that interests him far more +deeply than any empty speculation of astronomers. If you are near the +window, look out through it towards the Moon. Can you see anything?" + +"I can feel the window with my hand; but for all I can see, I might as +well be over head and ears in a hogshead of ink." + +The two friends kept up a desultory conversation, but Barbican did not +hear them. One fact, in particular, troubled him, and he sought in vain +to account for it. Having come so near the Moon--about 30 miles--why had +not the Projectile gone all the way? Had its velocity been very great, +the tendency to fall could certainly be counteracted. But the velocity +being undeniably very moderate, how explain such a decided resistance to +Lunar attraction? Had the Projectile come within the sphere of some +strange unknown influence? Did the neighborhood of some mysterious body +retain it firmly imbedded in ether? That it would never reach the Moon, +was now beyond all doubt; but where was it going? Nearer to her or +further off? Or was it rushing resistlessly into infinity on the wings +of that pitchy night? Who could tell, know, calculate--who could even +guess, amid the horror of this gloomy blackness? Questions, like these, +left Barbican no rest; in vain he tried to grapple with them; he felt +like a child before them, baffled and almost despairing. + +In fact, what could be more tantalizing? Just outside their windows, +only a few leagues off, perhaps only a few miles, lay the radiant planet +of the night, but in every respect as far off from the eyes of himself +and his companions as if she was hiding at the other side of Jupiter! +And to their ears she was no nearer. Earthquakes of the old Titanic type +might at that very moment be upheaving her surface with resistless +force, crashing mountain against mountain as fiercely as wave meets wave +around the storm-lashed cliffs of Cape Horn. But not the faintest far +off murmur even of such a mighty tumult could break the dead brooding +silence that surrounded the travellers. Nay, the Moon, realizing the +weird fancy of the Arabian poet, who calls her a "giant stiffening into +granite, but struggling madly against his doom," might shriek, in a +spasm of agony, loudly enough to be heard in Sirius. But our travellers +could not hear it. Their ears no sound could now reach. They could no +more detect the rending of a continent than the falling of a feather. +Air, the propagator and transmitter of sound, was absent from her +surface. Her cries, her struggles, her groans, were all smothered +beneath the impenetrable tomb of eternal silence! + +These were some of the fanciful ideas by which Ardan tried to amuse his +companions in the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. His efforts, +however well meant, were not successful. M'Nicholl's growls were more +savage than usual, and even Barbican's patience was decidedly giving +way. The loss of the other face they could have easily borne--with most +of its details they had been already familiar. But, no, it must be the +dark face that now escaped their observation! The very one that for +numberless reasons they were actually dying to see! They looked out of +the windows once more at the black Moon beneath them. + +There it lay below them, a round black spot, hiding the sweet faces of +the stars, but otherwise no more distinguishable by the travellers than +if they were lying in the depths of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. And +just think. Only fifteen days before, that dark face had been splendidly +illuminated by the solar beams, every crater lustrous, every peak +sparkling, every streak glistening under the vertical ray. In fifteen +days later, a day light the most brilliant would have replaced a +midnight the most Cimmerian. But in fifteen days later, where would the +Projectile be? In what direction would it have been drawn by the forces +innumerable of attractions incalculable? To such a question as this, +even Ardan would reply only by an ominous shake of the head. + +We know already that our travellers, as well as astronomers generally, +judging from that portion of the dark side occasionally revealed by the +Moon's librations, were _pretty certain_ that there is no great +difference between her two sides, as far as regards their physical +constitutions. This portion, about the seventh part, shows plains and +mountains, circles and craters, all of precisely the same nature as +those already laid down on the chart. Judging therefore from analogy, +the other three-sevenths are, in all probability a world in every +respect exactly like the visible face--that is, arid, desert, dead. But +our travellers also knew that _pretty certain_ is far from _quite +certain_, and that arguing merely from analogy may enable you to give a +good guess, but can never lead you to an undoubted conclusion. What if +the atmosphere had really withdrawn to this dark face? And if air, why +not water? Would not this be enough to infuse life into the whole +continent? Why should not vegetation flourish on its plains, fish in its +seas, animals in its forests, and man in every one of its zones that +were capable of sustaining life? To these interesting questions, what a +satisfaction it would be to be able to answer positively one way or +another! For thousands of difficult problems a mere glimpse at this +hemisphere would be enough to furnish a satisfactory reply. How glorious +it would be to contemplate a realm on which the eye of man has never yet +rested! + +Great, therefore, as you may readily conceive, was the depression of our +travellers' spirits, as they pursued their way, enveloped in a veil of +darkness the most profound. Still even then Ardan, as usual, formed +somewhat of an exception. Finding it impossible to see a particle of the +Lunar surface, he gave it up for good, and tried to console himself by +gazing at the stars, which now fairly blazed in the spangled heavens. +And certainly never before had astronomer enjoyed an opportunity for +gazing at the heavenly bodies under such peculiar advantages. How Fraye +of Paris, Chacornac of Lyons, and Father Secchi of Rome would have +envied him! + +For, candidly and truly speaking, never before had mortal eye revelled +on such a scene of starry splendor. The black sky sparkled with lustrous +fires, like the ceiling of a vast hall of ebony encrusted with flashing +diamonds. Ardan's eye could take in the whole extent in an easy sweep +from the _Southern Cross_ to the _Little Bear_, thus embracing within +one glance not only the two polar stars of the present day, but also +_Campus_ and _Vega_, which, by reason of the _precession of the +Equinoxes_, are to be our polar stars 12,000 years hence. His +imagination, as if intoxicated, reeled wildly through these sublime +infinitudes and got lost in them. He forgot all about himself and all +about his companions. He forgot even the strangeness of the fate that +had sent them wandering through these forbidden regions, like a +bewildered comet that had lost its way. With what a soft sweet light +every star glowed! No matter what its magnitude, the stream that flowed +from it looked calm and holy. No twinkling, no scintillation, no +nictitation, disturbed their pure and lambent gleam. No atmosphere here +interposed its layers of humidity or of unequal density to interrupt the +stately majesty of their effulgence. The longer he gazed upon them, the +more absorbing became their attraction. He felt that they were great +kindly eyes looking down even yet with benevolence and protection on +himself and his companions now driving wildly through space, and lost +in the pathless depths of the black ocean of infinity! + +He soon became aware that his friends, following his example, had +interested themselves in gazing at the stars, and were now just as +absorbed as himself in the contemplation of the transcendent spectacle. +For a long time all three continued to feast their eyes on all the +glories of the starry firmament; but, strange to say, the part that +seemed to possess the strangest and weirdest fascination for their +wandering glances was the spot where the vast disc of the Moon showed +like an enormous round hole, black and soundless, and apparently deep +enough to permit a glance into the darkest mysteries of the infinite. + +A disagreeable sensation, however, against which they had been for some +time struggling, at last put an end to their contemplations, and +compelled them to think of themselves. This was nothing less than a +pretty sharp cold, at first somewhat endurable, but which soon covered +the inside surface of the window panes with a thick coating of ice. The +fact was that, the Sun's direct rays having no longer an opportunity of +warming up the Projectile, the latter began to lose rapidly by radiation +whatever heat it had stored away within its walls. The consequence was a +very decided falling of the thermometer, and so thick a condensation of +the internal moisture on the window glasses as to soon render all +external observations extremely difficult, if not actually impossible. + +The Captain, as the oldest man in the party, claimed the privilege of +saying he could stand it no longer. Striking a light, he consulted the +thermometer and cried out: + +"Seventeen degrees below zero, centigrade! that is certainly low enough +to make an old fellow like me feel rather chilly!" + +"Just one degree and a half above zero, Fahrenheit!" observed Barbican; +"I really had no idea that it was so cold." + +His teeth actually chattered so much that he could hardly articulate; +still he, as well as the others, disliked to entrench on their short +supply of gas. + +"One feature of our journey that I particularly admire," said Ardan, +trying to laugh with freezing lips, "is that we can't complain of +monotony. At one time we are frying with the heat and blinded with the +light, like Indians caught on a burning prairie; at another, we are +freezing in the pitchy darkness of a hyperborean winter, like Sir John +Franklin's merry men in the Bay of Boothia. _Madame La Nature_, you +don't forget your devotees; on the contrary, you overwhelm us with your +attentions!" + +"Our external temperature may be reckoned at how much?" asked the +Captain, making a desperate effort to keep up the conversation. + +"The temperature outside our Projectile must be precisely the same as +that of interstellar space in general," answered Barbican. + +"Is not this precisely the moment then," interposed Ardan, quickly, +"for making an experiment which we could never have made as long as we +were in the sunshine?" + +"That's so!" exclaimed Barbican; "now or never! I'm glad you thought of +it, Ardan. We are just now in the position to find out the temperature +of space by actual experiment, and so see whose calculations are right, +Fourier's or Pouillet's." + +"Let's see," asked Ardan, "who was Fourier, and who was Pouillet?" + +"Baron Fourier, of the French Academy, wrote a famous treatise on +_Heat_, which I remember reading twenty years ago in Penington's book +store," promptly responded the Captain; "Pouillet was an eminent +professor of Physics at the Sorbonne, where he died, last year, I +think." + +"Thank you, Captain," said Ardan; "the cold does not injure your memory, +though it is decidedly on the advance. See how thick the ice is already +on the window panes! Let it only keep on and we shall soon have our +breaths falling around us in flakes of snow." + +"Let us prepare a thermometer," said Barbican, who had already set +himself to work in a business-like manner. + +A thermometer of the usual kind, as may be readily supposed, would be of +no use whatever in the experiment that was now about to be made. In an +ordinary thermometer Mercury freezes hard when exposed to a temperature +of 40° below zero. But Barbican had provided himself with a _Minimum_, +_self-recording_ thermometer, of a peculiar nature, invented by +Wolferdin, a friend of Arago's, which could correctly register +exceedingly low degrees of temperature. Before beginning the experiment, +this instrument was tested by comparison with one of the usual kind, and +then Barbican hesitated a few moments regarding the best means of +employing it. + +"How shall we start this experiment?" asked the Captain. + +"Nothing simpler," answered Ardan, always ready to reply; "you just open +your windows, and fling out your thermometer. It follows your +Projectile, as a calf follows her mother. In a quarter of an hour you +put out your hand--" + +"Put out your hand!" interrupted Barbican. + +"Put out your hand--" continued Ardan, quietly. + +"You do nothing of the kind," again interrupted Barbican; "that is, +unless you prefer, instead of a hand, to pull back a frozen stump, +shapeless, colorless and lifeless!" + +"I prefer a hand," said Ardan, surprised and interested. + +"Yes," continued Barbican, "the instant your hand left the Projectile, +it would experience the same terrible sensations as is produced by +cauterizing it with an iron bar white hot. For heat, whether rushing +rapidly out of our bodies or rapidly entering them, is identically the +same force and does the same amount of damage. Besides I am by no means +certain that we are still followed by the objects that we flung out of +the Projectile." + +"Why not?" asked M'Nicholl; "we saw them all outside not long ago." + +"But we can't see them outside now," answered Barbican; "that may be +accounted for, I know, by the darkness, but it may be also by the fact +of their not being there at all. In a case like this, we can't rely on +uncertainties. Therefore, to make sure of not losing our thermometer, we +shall fasten it with a string and easily pull it in whenever we like." + +This advice being adopted, the window was opened quickly, and the +instrument was thrown out at once by M'Nicholl, who held it fastened by +a short stout cord so that it could be pulled in immediately. The window +had hardly been open for longer than a second, yet that second had been +enough to admit a terrible icy chill into the interior of the +Projectile. + +"Ten thousand ice-bergs!" cried Ardan, shivering all over; "it's cold +enough to freeze a white bear!" + +Barbican waited quietly for half an hour; that time he considered quite +long enough to enable the instrument to acquire the temperature of the +interstellar space. Then he gave the signal, and it was instantly pulled +in. + +It took him a few moments to calculate the quantity of mercury that had +escaped into the little diaphragm attached to the lower part of the +instrument; then he said: + +"A hundred and forty degrees, centigrade, below zero!" + +[Illustration: IT'S COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE A WHITE BEAR.] + +"Two hundred and twenty degrees, Fahrenheit, below zero!" cried +M'Nicholl; "no wonder that we should feel a little chilly!" + +"Pouillet is right, then," said Barbican, "and Fourier wrong." + +"Another victory for Sorbonne over the Academy!" cried Ardan. "_Vive la +Sorbonne!_ Not that I'm a bit proud of finding myself in the midst of a +temperature so very _distingué_--though it is more than three times +colder than Hayes ever felt it at Humboldt Glacier or Nevenoff at +Yakoutsk. If Madame the Moon becomes as cold as this every time that her +surface is withdrawn from the sunlight for fourteen days, I don't think, +boys, that her hospitality is much to hanker after!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +GLIMPSES AT THE INVISIBLE. + + +In spite of the dreadful condition in which the three friends now found +themselves, and the still more dreadful future that awaited them, it +must be acknowledged that Ardan bravely kept up his spirits. And his +companions were just as cheerful. Their philosophy was quite simple and +perfectly intelligible. What they could bear, they bore without +murmuring. When it became unbearable, they only complained, if +complaining would do any good. Imprisoned in an iron shroud, flying +through profound darkness into the infinite abysses of space, nearly a +quarter million of miles distant from all human aid, freezing with the +icy cold, their little stock not only of gas but of _air_ rapidly +running lower and lower, a near future of the most impenetrable +obscurity looming up before them, they never once thought of wasting +time in asking such useless questions as where they were going, or what +fate was about to befall them. Knowing that no good could possibly +result from inaction or despair, they carefully kept their wits about +them, making their experiments and recording their observations as +calmly and as deliberately as if they were working at home in the quiet +retirement of their own cabinets. + +Any other course of action, however, would have been perfectly absurd +on their part, and this no one knew better than themselves. Even if +desirous to act otherwise, what could they have done? As powerless over +the Projectile as a baby over a locomotive, they could neither clap +brakes to its movement nor switch off its direction. A sailor can turn +his ship's head at pleasure; an aeronaut has little trouble, by means of +his ballast and his throttle-valve, in giving a vertical movement to his +balloon. But nothing of this kind could our travellers attempt. No helm, +or ballast, or throttle-valve could avail them now. Nothing in the world +could be done to prevent things from following their own course to the +bitter end. + +If these three men would permit themselves to hazard an expression at +all on the subject, which they didn't, each could have done it by his +own favorite motto, so admirably expressive of his individual nature. +"_Donnez tête baissée!_" (Go it baldheaded!) showed Ardan's +uncalculating impetuosity and his Celtic blood. "_Fata quocunque +vocant!_" (To its logical consequence!) revealed Barbican's +imperturbable stoicism, culture hardening rather than loosening the +original British phlegm. Whilst M'Nicholl's "Screw down the valve and +let her rip!" betrayed at once his unconquerable Yankee coolness and his +old experiences as a Western steamboat captain. + +Where were they now, at eight o'clock in the morning of the day called +in America the sixth of December? Near the Moon, very certainly; near +enough, in fact, for them to perceive easily in the dark the great round +screen which she formed between themselves and the Projectile on one +side, and the Earth, Sun, and stars on the other. But as to the exact +distance at which she lay from them--they had no possible means of +calculating it. The Projectile, impelled and maintained by forces +inexplicable and even incomprehensible, had come within less than thirty +miles from the Moon's north pole. But during those two hours of +immersion in the dark shadow, had this distance been increased or +diminished? There was evidently no stand-point whereby to estimate +either the Projectile's direction or its velocity. Perhaps, moving +rapidly away from the Moon, it would be soon out of her shadow +altogether. Perhaps, on the contrary, gradually approaching her surface, +it might come into contact at any moment with some sharp invisible peak +of the Lunar mountains--a catastrophe sure to put a sudden end to the +trip, and the travellers too. + +An excited discussion on this subject soon sprang up, in which all +naturally took part. Ardan's imagination as usual getting the better of +his reason, he maintained very warmly that the Projectile, caught and +retained by the Moon's attraction, could not help falling on her +surface, just as an aerolite cannot help falling on our Earth. + +"Softly, dear boy, softly," replied Barbican; "aerolites _can_ help +falling on the Earth, and the proof is, that few of them _do_ fall--most +of them don't. Therefore, even granting that we had already assumed the +nature of an aerolite, it does not necessarily follow that we should +fall on the Moon." + +"But," objected Ardan, "if we approach only near enough, I don't see how +we can help--" + +"You don't see, it may be," said Barbican, "but you can see, if you only +reflect a moment. Have you not often seen the November meteors, for +instance, streaking the skies, thousands at a time?" + +"Yes; on several occasions I was so fortunate." + +"Well, did you ever see any of them strike the Earth's surface?" asked +Barbican. + +"I can't say I ever did," was the candid reply, "but--" + +"Well, these shooting stars," continued Barbican, "or rather these +wandering particles of matter, shine only from being inflamed by the +friction of the atmosphere. Therefore they can never be at a greater +distance from the Earth than 30 or 40 miles at furthest, and yet they +seldom fall on it. So with our Projectile. It may go very close to the +Moon without falling into it." + +"But our roving Projectile must pull up somewhere in the long run," +replied Ardan, "and I should like to know where that somewhere can be, +if not in the Moon." + +"Softly again, dear boy," said Barbican; "how do you know that our +Projectile must pull up somewhere?" + +"It's self-evident," replied Ardan; "it can't keep moving for ever." + +"Whether it can or it can't depends altogether on which one of two +mathematical curves it has followed in describing its course. According +to the velocity with which it was endowed at a certain moment, it must +follow either the one or the other; but this velocity I do not consider +myself just now able to calculate." + +"Exactly so," chimed in M'Nicholl; "it must describe and keep on +describing either a parabola or a hyperbola." + +"Precisely," said Barbican; "at a certain velocity it would take a +parabolic curve; with a velocity considerably greater it should describe +a hyperbolic curve." + +"I always did like nice corpulent words," said Ardan, trying to laugh; +"bloated and unwieldy, they express in a neat handy way exactly what you +mean. Of course, I know all about the high--high--those high curves, and +those low curves. No matter. Explain them to me all the same. Consider +me most deplorably ignorant on the nature of these curves." + +"Well," said the Captain, a little bumptiously, "a parabola is a curve +of the second order, formed by the intersection of a cone by a plane +parallel to one of its sides." + +"You don't say so!" cried Ardan, with mouth agape. "Do tell!" + +"It is pretty nearly the path taken by a shell shot from a mortar." + +"Well now!" observed Ardan, apparently much surprised; "who'd have +thought it? Now for the high--high--bully old curve!" + +"The hyperbola," continued the Captain, not minding Ardan's antics, "the +hyperbola is a curve of the second order, formed from the intersection +of a cone by a plane parallel to its axis, or rather parallel to its two +_generatrices_, constituting two separate branches, extending +indefinitely in both directions." + +"Oh, what an accomplished scientist I'm going to turn out, if only left +long enough at your feet, illustrious _maestro_!" cried Ardan, with +effusion. "Only figure it to yourselves, boys; before the Captain's +lucid explanations, I fully expected to hear something about the high +curves and the low curves in the back of an Ancient Thomas! Oh, Michael, +Michael, why didn't you know the Captain earlier?" + +But the Captain was now too deeply interested in a hot discussion with +Barbican to notice that the Frenchman was only funning him. Which of the +two curves had been the one most probably taken by the Projectile? +Barbican maintained it was the parabolic; M'Nicholl insisted that it was +the hyperbolic. Their tempers were not improved by the severe cold, and +both became rather excited in the dispute. They drew so many lines on +the table, and crossed them so often with others, that nothing was left +at last but a great blot. They covered bits of paper with _x_'s and +_y_'s, which they read out like so many classic passages, shouting them, +declaiming them, drawing attention to the strong points by gesticulation +so forcible and voice so loud that neither of the disputants could hear +a word that the other said. Possibly the very great difference in +temperature between the external air in contact with their skin and the +blood coursing through their veins, had given rise to magnetic currents +as potential in their effects as a superabundant supply of oxygen. At +all events, the language they soon began to employ in the enforcement of +their arguments fairly made the Frenchman's hair stand on end. + +"You probably forget the important difference between a _directrix_ and +an _axis_," hotly observed Barbican. + +"I know what an _abscissa_ is, any how!" cried the Captain. "Can you say +as much?" + +"Did you ever understand what is meant by a _double ordinate_?" asked +Barbican, trying to keep cool. + +"More than you ever did about a _transverse_ and a _conjugate!_" replied +the Captain, with much asperity. + +"Any one not convinced at a glance that this _eccentricity_ is equal to +_unity_, must be blind as a bat!" exclaimed Barbican, fast losing his +ordinary urbanity. + +"_Less_ than _unity_, you mean! If you want spectacles, here are mine!" +shouted the Captain, angrily tearing them off and offering them to his +adversary. + +"Dear boys!" interposed Ardan-- + +--"The _eccentricity_ is _equal_ to _unity_!" cried Barbican. + +--"The _eccentricity_ is _less_ than _unity_!" screamed M'Nicholl. + +"Talking of eccentricity--" put in Ardan. + +--"Therefore it's a _parabola_, and must be!" cried Barbican, +triumphantly. + +--"Therefore it's _hyperbola_ and nothing shorter!" was the Captain's +quite as confident reply. + +"For gracious sake!--" resumed Ardan. + +"Then produce your _asymptote_!" exclaimed Barbican, with an angry +sneer. + +"Let us see the _symmetrical point_!" roared the Captain, quite +savagely. + +"Dear boys! old fellows!--" cried Ardan, as loud as his lungs would let +him. + +"It's useless to argue with a Mississippi steamboat Captain," ejaculated +Barbican; "he never gives in till he blows up!" + +"Never try to convince a Yankee schoolmaster," replied M'Nicholl; "he +has one book by heart and don't believe in any other!" + +"Here, friend Michael, get me a cord, won't you? It's the only way to +convince him!" cried Barbican, hastily turning to the Frenchman. + +"Hand me over that ruler, Ardan!" yelled the Captain. "The heavy one! +It's the only way now left to bring him to reason!" + +"Look here, Barbican and M'Nicholl!" cried Ardan, at last making himself +heard, and keeping a tight hold both on the cord and the ruler. "This +thing has gone far enough! Come. Stop your talk, and answer me a few +questions. What do you want of this cord, Barbican?" + +"To describe a parabolic curve!" + +"And what are you going to do with the ruler, M'Nicholl!" + +"To help draw a true hyperbola!" + +"Promise me, Barbican, that you're not going to lasso the Captain!" + +"Lasso the Captain! Ha! ha! ha!" + +"You promise, M'Nicholl, that you're not going to brain the President!" + +"I brain the President! Ho! ho! ho!" + +"I want merely to convince him that it is a parabola!" + +"I only want to make it clear as day that it is hyperbola!" + +"Does it make any real difference whether it is one or the other?" +yelled Ardan. + +"The greatest possible difference--in the Eye of Science." + +"A radical and incontrovertible difference--in the Eye of Science!" + +"Oh! Hang the Eye of Science--will either curve take us to the Moon?" + +"No!" + +"Will either take us back to the Earth?" + +"No!" + +"Will either take us anywhere that you know of?" + +"No!" + +"Why not?" + +"Because they are both _open_ curves, and therefore can never end!" + +"Is it of the slightest possible importance which of the two curves +controls the Projectile?" + +"Not the slightest--except in the Eye of Science!" + +"Then let the Eye of Science and her parabolas and hyperbolas, and +conjugates, and asymptotes, and the rest of the confounded nonsensical +farrago, all go to pot! What's the use of bothering your heads about +them here! Have you not enough to trouble you otherwise? A nice pair of +scientists you are? 'Stanislow' scientists, probably. Do _real_ +scientists lose their tempers for a trifle? Am I ever to see my ideal of +a true scientific man in the flesh? Barbican came very near realizing my +idea perfectly; but I see that Science just has as little effect as +Culture in driving the Old Adam out of us! The idea of the only +simpleton in the lot having to lecture the others on propriety of +deportment! I thought they were going to tear each other's eyes out! Ha! +Ha! Ha! It's _impayable_! Give me that cord, Michael! Hand me the heavy +ruler, Ardan! It's the only way to bring him to reason! Ho! Ho! Ho! It's +too good! I shall never get over it!" and he laughed till his sides +ached and his cheeks streamed. + +His laughter was so contagious, and his merriment so genuine, that there +was really no resisting it, and the next few minutes witnessed nothing +but laughing, and handshaking and rib-punching in the Projectile--though +Heaven knows there was very little for the poor fellows to be merry +about. As they could neither reach the Moon nor return to the Earth, +what _was_ to befall them? The immediate outlook was the very reverse of +exhilarating. If they did not die of hunger, if they did not die of +thirst, the reason would simply be that, in a few days, as soon as their +gas was exhausted, they would die for want of air, unless indeed the icy +cold had killed them beforehand! + +By this time, in fact, the temperature had become so exceedingly cold +that a further encroachment on their little stock of gas could be put +off no longer. The light, of course, they could manage to do without; +but a little heat was absolutely necessary to prevent them from freezing +to death. Fortunately, however, the caloric developed by the Reiset and +Regnault process for purifying the air, raised the internal temperature +of the Projectile a little, so that, with an expenditure of gas much +less than they had expected, our travellers were able to maintain it at +a degree capable of sustaining human life. + +By this time, also, all observations through the windows had become +exceedingly difficult. The internal moisture condensed so thick and +congealed so hard on the glass that nothing short of continued friction +could keep up its transparency. But this friction, however laborious +they might regard it at other times, they thought very little of just +now, when observation had become far more interesting and important than +ever. + +If the Moon had any atmosphere, our travellers were near enough now to +strike any meteor that might be rushing through it. If the Projectile +itself were floating in it, as was possible, would not such a good +conductor of sound convey to their ears the reflexion of some lunar +echo, the roar of some storm raging among the mountains, the rattling of +some plunging avalanche, or the detonations of some eructating volcano? +And suppose some lunar Etna or Vesuvius was flashing out its fires, was +it not even possible that their eye could catch a glimpse of the lurid +gleam? One or two facts of this kind, well attested, would singularly +elucidate the vexatious question of a lunar atmosphere, which is still +so far from being decided. Full of such thoughts and intensely +interested in them, Barbican, M'Nicholl and Ardan, patient as +astronomers at a transit of Venus, watched steadily at their windows, +and allowed nothing worth noticing to escape their searching gaze. + +Ardan's patience first gave out. He showed it by an observation natural +enough, for that matter, to a mind unaccustomed to long stretches of +careful thought: + +"This darkness is absolutely killing! If we ever take this trip again, +it must be about the time of the New Moon!" + +"There I agree with you, Ardan," observed the Captain. "That would be +just the time to start. The Moon herself, I grant, would be lost in the +solar rays and therefore invisible all the time of our trip, but in +compensation, we should have the Full Earth in full view. Besides--and +this is your chief point, no doubt, Ardan--if we should happen to be +drawn round the Moon, just as we are at the present moment, we should +enjoy the inestimable advantage of beholding her invisible side +magnificently illuminated!" + +"My idea exactly, Captain," said Ardan. "What is your opinion on this +point, Barbican?" + +"My opinion is as follows:" answered Barbican, gravely. "If we ever +repeat this journey, we shall start precisely at the same time and under +precisely the same circumstances. You forget that our only object is to +reach the Moon. Now suppose we had really landed there, as we expected +to do yesterday, would it not have been much more agreeable to behold +the lunar continents enjoying the full light of day than to find them +plunged in the dismal obscurity of night? Would not our first +installation of discovery have been under circumstances decidedly +extremely favorable? Your silence shows that you agree with me. As to +the invisible side, once landed, we should have the power to visit it +when we pleased, and therefore we could always choose whatever time +would best suit our purpose. Therefore, if we wanted to land in the +Moon, the period of the Full Moon was the best period to select. The +period was well chosen, the time was well calculated, the force was well +applied, the Projectile was well aimed, but missing our way spoiled +everything." + +"That's sound logic, no doubt," said Ardan; "still I can't help thinking +that all for want of a little light we are losing, probably forever, a +splendid opportunity of seeing the Moon's invisible side. How about the +other planets, Barbican? Do you think that their inhabitants are as +ignorant regarding their satellites as we are regarding ours?" + +"On that subject," observed M'Nicholl, "I could venture an answer +myself, though, of course, without pretending to speak dogmatically on +any such open question. The satellites of the other planets, by their +comparative proximity, must be much easier to study than our Moon. The +Saturnians, the Uranians, the Jovians, cannot have had very serious +difficulty in effecting some communication with their satellites. +Jupiter's four moons, for instance, though on an average actually 2-1/2 +times farther from their planet's centre than the Moon is from us, are +comparatively four times nearer to him on account of his radius being +eleven times greater than the Earth's. With Saturn's eight moons, the +case is almost precisely similar. Their average distance is nearly three +times greater than that of our Moon; but as Saturn's diameter is about 9 +times greater than the Earth's, his bodyguards are really between 3 and +4 times nearer to their principal than ours is to us. As to Uranus, his +first satellite, _Ariel_, half as far from him as our Moon is from the +Earth, is comparatively, though not actually, eight times nearer." + +"Therefore," said Barbican, now taking up the subject, "an experiment +analogous to ours, starting from either of these three planets, would +have encountered fewer difficulties. But the whole question resolves +itself into this. _If_ the Jovians and the rest have been able to quit +their planets, they have probably succeeded in discovering the invisible +sides of their satellites. But if they have _not_ been able to do so, +why, they're not a bit wiser than ourselves--But what's the matter with +the Projectile? It's certainly shifting!" + +Shifting it certainly was. While the path it described as it swung +blindly through the darkness, could not be laid down by any chart for +want of a starting point, Barbican and his companions soon became aware +of a decided modification of its relative position with regard to the +Moon's surface. Instead of its side, as heretofore, it now presented its +base to the Moon's disc, and its axis had become rigidly vertical to the +lunar horizon. Of this new feature in their journey, Barbican had +assured himself by the most undoubted proof towards four o'clock in the +morning. What was the cause? Gravity, of course. The heavier portion of +the Projectile gravitated towards the Moon's centre exactly as if they +were falling towards her surface. + +But _were_ they falling? Were they at last, contrary to all +expectations, about to reach the goal that they had been so ardently +wishing for? No! A sight-point, just discovered by M'Nicholl, very soon +convinced Barbican that the Projectile was as far as ever from +approaching the Moon, but was moving around it in a curve pretty near +concentric. + +M'Nicholl's discovery, a luminous gleam flickering on the distant verge +of the black disc, at once engrossed the complete attention of our +travellers and set them to divining its course. It could not possibly be +confounded with a star. Its glare was reddish, like that of a distant +furnace on a dark night; it kept steadily increasing in size and +brightness, thus showing beyond a doubt how the Projectile was +moving--in the direction of the luminous point, and _not_ vertically +falling towards the Moon's surface. + +"It's a volcano!" cried the Captain, in great excitement; "a volcano in +full blast! An outlet of the Moon's internal fires! Therefore she can't +be a burnt out cinder!" + +"It certainly looks like a volcano," replied Barbican, carefully +investigating this new and puzzling phenomenon with his night-glass. "If +it is not one, in fact, what can it be?" + +"To maintain combustion," commenced Ardan syllogistically and +sententiously, "air is necessary. An undoubted case of combustion lies +before us. Therefore, this part of the Moon _must_ have an atmosphere!" + +"Perhaps so," observed Barbican, "but not necessarily so. The volcano, +by decomposing certain substances, gunpowder for instance, may be able +to furnish its own oxygen, and thus explode in a vacuum. That blaze, in +fact, seems to me to possess the intensity and the blinding glare of +objects burning in pure oxygen. Let us therefore be not over hasty in +jumping at the conclusion of the existence of a lunar atmosphere." + +This fire mountain was situated, according to the most plausible +conjecture, somewhere in the neighborhood of the 45th degree, south +latitude, of the Moon's invisible side. For a little while the +travellers indulged the fond hope that they were directly approaching +it, but, to their great disappointment, the path described by the +Projectile lay in a different direction. Its nature therefore they had +no opportunity of ascertaining. It began to disappear behind the dark +horizon within less than half an hour after the time that M'Nicholl had +signalled it. Still, the fact of the uncontested existence of such a +phenomenon was a grand one, and of considerable importance in +selenographic investigations. It proved that heat had not altogether +disappeared from the lunar world; and the existence of heat once +settled, who can say positively that the vegetable kingdom and even the +animal kingdom have not likewise resisted so far every influence tending +to destroy them? If terrestrial astronomers could only be convinced, by +undoubted evidence, of the existence of this active volcano on the +Moon's surface, they would certainly admit of very considerable +modifications in the present doubts regarding her inhabitability. + +Thoughts of this kind continued to occupy the minds of our travellers +even for some time after the little spark of light had been extinguished +in the black gloom. But they said very little; even Ardan was silent, +and continued to look out of the window. Barbican surrendered himself up +to a reverie regarding the mysterious destinies of the lunar world. Was +its present condition a foreshadowing of what our Earth is to become? +M'Nicholl, too, was lost in speculation. Was the Moon older or younger +than the Earth in the order of Creation? Had she ever been a beautiful +world of life, and color, and magnificent variety? If so, had her +inhabitants-- + +Great Mercy, what a cry from Ardan! It sounded human, so seldom do we +hear a shriek so expressive at once of surprise and horror and even +terror! It brought back his startled companions to their senses in a +second. Nor did they ask him for the cause of his alarm. It was only too +clear. Right in their very path, a blazing ball of fire had suddenly +risen up before their eyes, the pitchy darkness all round it rendering +its glare still more blinding. Its phosphoric coruscation filled the +Projectile with white streams of lurid light, tinging the contents with +a pallor indescribably ghastly. The travellers' faces in particular, +gleamed with that peculiar livid and cadaverous tinge, blue and yellow, +which magicians so readily produce by burning table salt in alcohol. + +"_Sacré!_" cried Ardan who always spoke his own language when much +excited. "What a pair of beauties you are! Say, Barbican! What +thundering thing is coming at us now?" + +"Another bolide," answered Barbican, his eye as calm as ever, though a +faint tremor was quite perceptible in his voice. + +"A bolide? Burning _in vacuo_? You are joking!" + +"I was never more in earnest," was the President's quiet reply, as he +looked through his closed fingers. + +He knew exactly what he was saying. The dazzling glitter did not deceive +_him_. Such a meteor seen from the Earth could not appear much brighter +than the Full Moon, but here in the midst of the black ether and +unsoftened by the veil of the atmosphere, it was absolutely blinding. +These wandering bodies carry in themselves the principle of their +incandescence. Oxygen is by no means necessary for their combustion. +Some of them indeed often take fire as they rush through the layers of +our atmosphere, and generally burn out before they strike the Earth. But +others, on the contrary, and the greater number too, follow a track +through space far more distant from the Earth than the fifty miles +supposed to limit our atmosphere. In October, 1844, one of these meteors +had appeared in the sky at an altitude calculated to be at least 320 +miles; and in August, 1841, another had vanished when it had reached the +height of 450 miles. A few even of those seen from the Earth must have +been several miles in diameter. The velocity with which some of them +have been calculated to move, from east to west, in a direction contrary +to that of the Earth, is astounding enough to exceed belief--about fifty +miles in a second. Our Earth does not move quite 20 miles in a second, +though it goes a thousand times quicker than the fastest locomotive. + +[Illustration: THEY COULD UTTER NO WORD.] + +Barbican calculated like lightning that the present object of their +alarm was only about 250 miles distant from them, and could not be +less than a mile and a quarter in diameter. It was coming on at the rate +of more than a mile a second or about 75 miles a minute. It lay right in +the path of the Projectile, and in a very few seconds indeed a terrible +collision was inevitable. The enormous rate at which it grew in size, +showed the terrible velocity at which it was approaching. + +You can hardly imagine the situation of our poor travellers at the sight +of this frightful apparition. I shall certainly not attempt to describe +it. In spite of their singular courage, wonderful coolness, +extraordinary fortitude, they were now breathless, motionless, almost +helpless; their muscles were tightened to their utmost tension; their +eyes stared out of their sockets; their faces were petrified with +horror. No wonder. Their Projectile, whose course they were powerless as +children to guide, was making straight for this fiery mass, whose glare +in a few seconds had become more blinding than the open vent of a +reverberating furnace. Their own Projectile was carrying them headlong +into a bottomless abyss of fire! + +Still, even in this moment of horror, their presence of mind, or at +least their consciousness, never abandoned them. Barbican had grasped +each of his friends by the hand, and all three tried as well as they +could to watch through half-closed eyelids the white-hot asteroid's +rapid approach. They could utter no word, they could breathe no prayer. +They gave themselves up for lost--in the agony of terror that partially +interrupted the ordinary functions of their brains, this was absolutely +all they could do! Hardly three minutes had elapsed since Ardan had +caught the first glimpse of it--three ages of agony! Now it was on them! +In a second--in less than a second, the terrible fireball had burst like +a shell! Thousands of glittering fragments were flying around them in +all directions--but with no more noise than is made by so many light +flakes of thistle-down floating about some warm afternoon in summer. The +blinding, blasting steely white glare of the explosion almost bereft the +travellers of the use of their eyesight forever, but no more report +reached their ears than if it had taken place at the bottom of the Gulf +of Mexico. In an atmosphere like ours, such a crash would have burst the +ear-membranes of ten thousand elephants! + +In the middle of the commotion another loud cry was suddenly heard. It +was the Captain who called this time. His companions rushed to his +window and all looked out together in the same direction. + +What a sight met their eyes! What pen can describe it? What pencil can +reproduce the magnificence of its coloring? It was a Vesuvius at his +best and wildest, at the moment just after the old cone has fallen in. +Millions of luminous fragments streaked the sky with their blazing +fires. All sizes and shapes of light, all colors and shades of colors, +were inextricably mingled together. Irradiations in gold, scintillations +in crimson, splendors in emerald, lucidities in ultramarine--a dazzling +girandola of every tint and of every hue. Of the enormous fireball, an +instant ago such an object of dread, nothing now remained but these +glittering pieces, shooting about in all directions, each one an +asteroid in its turn. Some flew out straight and gleaming like a steel +sword; others rushed here and there irregularly like chips struck off a +red-hot rock; and others left long trails of glittering cosmical dust +behind them like the nebulous tail of Donati's comet. + +These incandescent blocks crossed each other, struck each other, crushed +each other into still smaller fragments, one of which, grazing the +Projectile, jarred it so violently that the very window at which the +travellers were standing, was cracked by the shock. Our friends felt, in +fact, as if they were the objective point at which endless volleys of +blazing shells were aimed, any of them powerful enough, if it only hit +them fair, to make as short work of the Projectile as you could of an +egg-shell. They had many hairbreadth escapes, but fortunately the +cracking of the glass proved to be the only serious damage of which they +could complain. + +This extraordinary illumination lasted altogether only a few seconds; +every one of its details was of a most singular and exciting nature--but +one of its greatest wonders was yet to come. The ether, saturated with +luminous matter, developed an intensity of blazing brightness unequalled +by the lime light, the magnesium light, the electric light, or any other +dazzling source of illumination with which we are acquainted on earth. +It flashed out of these asteroids in all directions, and downwards, of +course, as well as elsewhere. At one particular instant, it was so very +vivid that Ardan, who happened to be looking downwards, cried out, as if +in transport: + +"Oh!! The Moon! Visible at last!" + +And the three companions, thrilling with indescribable emotion, shot a +hasty glance through the openings of the coruscating field beneath them. +Did they really catch a glimpse of the mysterious invisible disc that +the eye of man had never before lit upon? For a second or so they gazed +with enraptured fascination at all they could see. What did they see, +what could they see at a distance so uncertain that Barbican has never +been able even to guess at it? Not much. Ardan was reminded of the night +he had stood on the battlements of Dover Castle, a few years before, +when the fitful flashes of a thunder storm gave him occasional and very +uncertain glimpses of the French coast at the opposite side of the +strait. Misty strips long and narrow, extending over one portion of the +disc--probably cloud-scuds sustained by a highly rarefied +atmosphere--permitted only a very dreamy idea of lofty mountains +stretching beneath them in shapeless proportions, of smaller reliefs, +circuses, yawning craters, and the other capricious, sponge-like +formations so common on the visible side. Elsewhere the watchers became +aware for an instant of immense spaces, certainly not arid plains, but +seas, real oceans, vast and calm, reflecting from their placid depths +the dazzling fireworks of the weird and wildly flashing meteors. +Farther on, but very darkly as if behind a screen, shadowy continents +revealed themselves, their surfaces flecked with black cloudy masses, +probably great forests, with here and there a-- + +Nothing more! In less than a second the illumination had come to an end, +involving everything in the Moon's direction once more in pitchy +darkness. + +But had the impression made on the travellers' eyes been a mere vision +or the result of a reality? an optical delusion or the shadow of a solid +fact? Could an observation so rapid, so fleeting, so superficial, be +really regarded as a genuine scientific affirmation? Could such a feeble +glimmer of the invisible disc justify them in pronouncing a decided +opinion on the inhabitability of the Moon? To such questions as these, +rising spontaneously and simultaneously in the minds of our travellers, +they could not reply at the moment; they could not reply to them long +afterwards; even to this day they can give them no satisfactory answer. +All they could do at the moment, they did. To every sight and sound they +kept their eyes and ears open, and, by observing the most perfect +silence, they sought to render their impressions too vivid to admit of +deception. + +There was now, however, nothing to be heard, and very little more to be +seen. The few coruscations that flashed over the sky, gradually became +fewer and dimmer; the asteroids sought paths further and further apart, +and finally disappeared altogether. The ether resumed its original +blackness. The stars, eclipsed for a moment, blazed out again on the +firmament, and the invisible disc, that had flashed into view for an +instant, once more relapsed forever into the impenetrable depths of +night. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. + + +Exceedingly narrow and exceedingly fortunate had been the escape of the +Projectile. And from a danger too the most unlikely and the most +unexpected. Who would have ever dreamed of even the possibility of such +an encounter? And was all danger over? The sight of one of these erratic +bolides certainly justified the gravest apprehensions of our travellers +regarding the existence of others. Worse than the sunken reefs of the +Southern Seas or the snags of the Mississippi, how could the Projectile +be expected to avoid them? Drifting along blindly through the boundless +ethereal ocean, _her_ inmates, even if they saw the danger, were totally +powerless to turn her aside. Like a ship without a rudder, like a +runaway horse, like a collapsed balloon, like an iceberg in an Atlantic +storm, like a boat in the Niagara rapids, she moved on sullenly, +recklessly, mechanically, mayhap into the very jaws of the most +frightful danger, the bright intelligences within no more able to modify +her motions even by a finger's breadth than they were able to affect +Mercury's movements around the Sun. + +But did our friends complain of the new perils now looming up before +them? They never thought of such a thing. On the contrary, they only +considered themselves (after the lapse of a few minutes to calm their +nerves) extremely lucky in having witnessed this fresh glory of +exuberant nature, this transcendent display of fireworks which not only +cast into absolute insignificance anything of the kind they had ever +seen on Earth, but had actually enabled them by its dazzling +illumination to gaze for a second or two at the Moon's mysterious +invisible disc. This glorious momentary glance, worth a whole lifetime +of ordinary existence, had revealed to mortal ken her continents, her +oceans, her forests. But did it also convince them of the existence of +an atmosphere on her surface whose vivifying molecules would render +_life_ possible? This question they had again to leave unanswered--it +will hardly ever be answered in a way quite satisfactory to human +curiosity. Still, infinite was their satisfaction at having hovered even +for an instant on the very verge of such a great problem's solution. + +It was now half-past three in the afternoon. The Projectile still +pursued its curving but otherwise unknown path over the Moon's invisible +face. Had this path been disturbed by that dangerous meteor? There was +every reason to fear so--though, disturbance or no disturbance, the +curve it described should still be one strictly in accordance with the +laws of Mechanical Philosophy. Whether it was a parabola or a hyperbola, +however, or whether it was disturbed or not, made very little difference +as, in any case, the Projectile was bound to quit pretty soon the cone +of the shadow, at a point directly opposite to where it had entered it. +This cone could not possibly be of very great extent, considering the +very slight ratio borne by the Moon's diameter when compared with the +Sun's. Still, to all appearances, the Projectile seemed to be quite as +deeply immersed in the shadow as ever, and there was apparently not the +slightest sign of such a state of things coming soon to an end. At what +rate was the Projectile now moving? Hard to say, but certainly not +slowly, certainly rapidly enough to be out of the shadow by this time, +if describing a curve rigidly parabolic. Was the curve therefore _not_ +parabolic? Another puzzling problem and sadly bewildering to poor +Barbican, who had now almost lost his reason by attempting to clear up +questions that were proving altogether too profound for his overworked +brains. + +Not that he ever thought of taking rest. Not that his companions thought +of taking rest. Far from it. With senses as high-strung as ever, they +still watched carefully for every new fact, every unexpected incident +that might throw some light on the sidereal investigations. Even their +dinner, or what was called so, consisted of only a few bits of bread and +meat, distributed by Ardan at five o'clock, and swallowed mechanically. +They did not even turn on the gas full head to see what they were +eating; each man stood solidly at his window, the glass of which they +had enough to do in keeping free from the rapidly condensing moisture. + +At about half-past five, however, M'Nicholl, who had been gazing for +some time with his telescope in a particular direction, called the +attention of his companions to some bright specks of light barely +discernible in that part of the horizon towards which the Projectile was +evidently moving. His words were hardly uttered when his companions +announced the same discovery. They could soon all see the glittering +specks not only becoming more and more numerous, but also gradually +assuming the shape of an extremely slender, but extremely brilliant +crescent. Rapidly more brilliant and more decided in shape the profile +gradually grew, till it soon resembled the first faint sketch of the New +Moon that we catch of evenings in the western sky, or rather the first +glimpse we get of her limb as it slowly moves out of eclipse. But it was +inconceivably brighter than either, and was furthermore strangely +relieved by the pitchy blackness both of sky and Moon. In fact, it soon +became so brilliant as to dispel in a moment all doubt as to its +particular nature. No meteor could present such a perfect shape; no +volcano, such dazzling splendor. + +"The Sun!" cried Barbican. + +"The Sun?" asked M'Nicholl and Ardan in some astonishment. + +"Yes, dear friends; it is the Sun himself that you now see; these +summits that you behold him gilding are the mountains that lie on the +Moon's southern rim. We are rapidly nearing her south pole." + +"After doubling her north pole!" cried Ardan; "why, we must be +circumnavigating her!" + +"Exactly; sailing all around her." + +"Hurrah! Then we're all right at last! There's nothing more to fear from +your hyperbolas or parabolas or any other of your open curves!" + +"Nothing more, certainly, from an open curve, but every thing from a +closed one." + +"A closed curve! What is it called? And what is the trouble?" + +"An eclipse it is called; and the trouble is that, instead of flying off +into the boundless regions of space, our Projectile will probably +describe an elliptical orbit around the Moon--" + +--"What!" cried M'Nicholl, in amazement, "and be her satellite for +ever!" + +"All right and proper," said Ardan; "why shouldn't she have one of her +own?" + +"Only, my dear friend," said Barbican to Ardan, "this change of curve +involves no change in the doom of the Projectile. We are as infallibly +lost by an ellipse as by a parabola." + +"Well, there was one thing I never could reconcile myself to in the +whole arrangement," replied Ardan cheerfully; "and that was destruction +by an open curve. Safe from that, I could say, 'Fate, do your worst!' +Besides, I don't believe in the infallibility of your ellipsic. It may +prove just as unreliable as the hyperbola. And it is no harm to hope +that it may!" + +From present appearances there was very little to justify Ardan's hope. +Barbican's theory of the elliptic orbit was unfortunately too well +grounded to allow a single reasonable doubt to be expressed regarding +the Projectile's fate. It was to gravitate for ever around the Moon--a +sub-satellite. It was a new born individual in the astral universe, a +microcosm, a little world in itself, containing, however, only three +inhabitants and even these destined to perish pretty soon for want of +air. Our travellers, therefore, had no particular reason for rejoicing +over the new destiny reserved for the Projectile in obedience to the +inexorable laws of the centripetal and centrifugal forces. They were +soon, it is true, to have the opportunity of beholding once more the +illuminated face of the Moon. They might even live long enough to catch +a last glimpse of the distant Earth bathed in the glory of the solar +rays. They might even have strength enough left to be able to chant one +solemn final eternal adieu to their dear old Mother World, upon whose +features their mortal eyes should never again rest in love and longing! +Then, what was their Projectile to become? An inert, lifeless, extinct +mass, not a particle better than the most defunct asteroid that wanders +blindly through the fields of ether. A gloomy fate to look forward to. +Yet, instead of grieving over the inevitable, our bold travellers +actually felt thrilled with delight at the prospect of even a momentary +deliverance from those gloomy depths of darkness and of once more +finding themselves, even if only for a few hours, in the cheerful +precincts illuminated by the genial light of the blessed Sun! + +The ring of light, in the meantime, becoming brighter and brighter, +Barbican was not long in discovering and pointing out to his companions +the different mountains that lay around the Moon's south pole. + +"There is _Leibnitz_ on your right," said he, "and on your left you can +easily see the peaks of _Doerfel_. Belonging rather to the Moon's dark +side than to her Earth side, they are visible to terrestrial astronomers +only when she is in her highest northern latitudes. Those faint peaks +beyond them that you can catch with such difficulty must be those of +_Newton_ and _Curtius_." + +"How in the world can you tell?" asked Ardan. + +"They are the highest mountains in the circumpolar regions," replied +Barbican. "They have been measured with the greatest care; _Newton_ is +23,000 feet high." + +"More or less!" laughed Ardan. "What Delphic oracle says so?" + +"Dear friend," replied Barbican quietly, "the visible mountains of the +Moon have been measured so carefully and so accurately that I should +hardly hesitate in affirming their altitude to be as well known as that +of Mont Blanc, or, at least, as those of the chief peaks in the +Himalayahs or the Rocky Mountain Range." + +"I should like to know how people set about it," observed Ardan +incredulously. + +"There are several well known methods of approaching this problem," +replied Barbican; "and as these methods, though founded on different +principles, bring us constantly to the same result, we may pretty +safely conclude that our calculations are right. We have no time, just +now to draw diagrams, but, if I express myself clearly, you will no +doubt easily catch the general principle." + +"Go ahead!" answered Ardan. "Anything but Algebra." + +"We want no Algebra now," said Barbican, "It can't enable us to find +principles, though it certainly enables us to apply them. Well. The Sun +at a certain altitude shines on one side of a mountain and flings a +shadow on the other. The length of this shadow is easily found by means +of a telescope, whose object glass is provided with a micrometer. This +consists simply of two parallel spider threads, one of which is +stationary and the other movable. The Moon's real diameter being known +and occupying a certain space on the object glass, the exact space +occupied by the shadow can be easily ascertained by means of the movable +thread. This space, compared with the Moon's space, will give us the +length of the shadow. Now, as under the same circumstances a certain +height can cast only a certain shadow, of course a knowledge of the one +must give you that of the other, and _vice versa_. This method, stated +roughly, was that followed by Galileo, and, in our own day, by Beer and +Maedler, with extraordinary success." + +"I certainly see some sense in this method," said Ardan, "if they took +extraordinary pains to observe correctly. The least carelessness would +set them wrong, not only by feet but by miles. We have time enough, +however, to listen to another method before we get into the full blaze +of the glorious old Sol." + +"The other method," interrupted M'Nicholl laying down his telescope to +rest his eyes, and now joining in the conversation to give himself +something to do, "is called that of the _tangent rays_. A solar ray, +barely passing the edge of the Moon's surface, is caught on the peak of +a mountain the rest of which lies in shadow. The distance between this +starry peak and the line separating the light from the darkness, we +measure carefully by means of our telescope. Then--" + +"I see it at a glance!" interrupted Ardan with lighting eye; "the ray, +being a tangent, of course makes right angles with the radius, which is +known: consequently we have two sides and one angle--quite enough to +find the other parts of the triangle. Very ingenious--but now, that I +think of it--is not this method absolutely impracticable for every +mountain except those in the immediate neighborhood of the light and +shadow line?" + +"That's a defect easily remedied by patience," explained Barbican--the +Captain, who did not like being interrupted, having withdrawn to his +telescope--"As this line is continually changing, in course of time all +the mountains must come near it. A third method--to measure the mountain +profile directly by means of the micrometer--is evidently applicable +only to altitudes lying exactly on the lunar rim." + +"That is clear enough," said Ardan, "and another point is also very +clear. In Full Moon no measurement is possible. When no shadows are +made, none can be measured. Measurements, right or wrong, are possible +only when the solar rays strike the Moon's surface obliquely with regard +to the observer. Am I right, Signor Barbicani, maestro illustrissimo?" + +"Perfectly right," replied Barbican. "You are an apt pupil." + +"Say that again," said Ardan. "I want Mac to hear it." + +Barbican humored him by repeating the observation, but M'Nicholl would +only notice it by a grunt of doubtful meaning. + +"Was Galileo tolerably successful in his calculations?" asked Ardan, +resuming the conversation. + +Before answering this question, Barbican unrolled the map of the Moon, +which a faint light like that of day-break now enabled him to examine. +He then went on: "Galileo was wonderfully successful--considering that +the telescope which he employed was a poor instrument of his own +construction, magnifying only thirty times. He gave the lunar mountains +a height of about 26,000 feet--an altitude cut down by Hevelius, but +almost doubled by Riccioli. Herschel was the first to come pretty close +to the truth, but Beer and Maedler, whose _Mappa Selenographica_ now +lies before us, have left really nothing more to be done for lunar +astronomy--except, of course, to pay a personal visit to the +Moon--which we have tried to do, but I fear with a very poor prospect of +success." + +"Cheer up! cheer up!" cried Ardan. "It's not all over yet by long odds. +Who can say what is still in store for us? Another bolide may shunt us +off our ellipse and even send us to the Moon's surface." + +Then seeing Barbican shake his head ominously and his countenance become +more and more depressed, this true friend tried to brighten him up a bit +by feigning to take deep interest in a subject that to him was +absolutely the driest in the world. + +"Meer and Baedler--I mean Beer and Maedler," he went on, "must have +measured at least forty or fifty mountains to their satisfaction." + +"Forty or fifty!" exclaimed Barbican. "They measured no fewer than a +thousand and ninety-five lunar mountains and crater summits with a +perfect success. Six of these reach an altitude of upwards of 18,000 +feet, and twenty-two are more than 15,000 feet high." + +"Which is the highest in the lot?" asked Ardan, keenly relishing +Barbican's earnestness. + +"_Doerfel_ in the southern hemisphere, the peak of which I have just +pointed out, is the highest of the lunar mountains so far measured," +replied Barbican. "It is nearly 25,000 feet high." + +"Indeed! Five thousand feet lower than Mount Everest--still for a lunar +mountain, it is quite a respectable altitude." + +"Respectable! Why it's an enormous altitude, my dear friend, if you +compare it with the Moon's diameter. The Earth's diameter being more +than 3-1/2 times greater than the Moon's, if the Earth's mountains bore +the same ratio to those of the Moon, Everest should be more than sixteen +miles high, whereas it is not quite six." + +"How do the general heights of the Himalayahs compare with those of the +highest lunar mountains?" asked Ardan, wondering what would be his next +question. + +"Fifteen peaks in the eastern or higher division of the Himalayahs, are +higher than the loftiest lunar peaks," replied Barbican. "Even in the +western, or lower section of the Himalayahs, some of the peaks exceed +_Doerfel_." + +"Which are the chief lunar mountains that exceed Mont Blanc in +altitude?" asked Ardan, bravely suppressing a yawn. + +"The following dozen, ranged, if my memory does not fail me, in the +exact order of their respective heights;" replied Barbican, never +wearied in answering such questions: "_Newton_, _Curtius_, _Casatus_, +_Rheita_, _Short_, _Huyghens_, _Biancanus_, _Tycho_, _Kircher_, +_Clavius_, _Endymion_, and _Catharina_." + +"Now those not quite up to Mont Blanc?" asked Ardan, hardly knowing what +to say. + +"Here they are, about half a dozen of them: _Moretus_, _Theophilus_, +_Harpalus_, _Eratosthenes_, _Werner_, and _Piccolomini_," answered +Barbican as ready as a schoolboy reciting his lesson, and pointing them +out on the map as quickly as a compositor distributing his type. + +"The next in rank?" asked Ardan, astounded at his friend's wonderful +memory. + +"The next in rank," replied Barbican promptly, "are those about the size +of the Matterhorn, that is to say about 2-3/4 miles in height. They are +_Macrobius_, _Delambre_, and _Conon_. Come," he added, seeing Ardan +hesitating and at a loss what other question to ask, "don't you want to +know what lunar mountains are about the same height as the Peak of +Teneriffe? or as Ætna? or as Mount Washington? You need not be afraid of +puzzling me. I studied up the subject thoroughly, and therefore know all +about it." + +"Oh! I could listen to you with delight all day long!" cried Ardan, +enthusiastically, though with some embarrassment, for he felt a twinge +of conscience in acting so falsely towards his beloved friend. "The fact +is," he went on, "such a rational conversation as the present, on such +an absorbing subject, with such a perfect master--" + +"The Sun!" cried M'Nicholl starting up and cheering. "He's cleared the +disc completely, and he's now himself again! Long life to him! Hurrah!" + +"Hurrah!" cried the others quite as enthusiastically (Ardan did not seem +a bit desirous to finish his sentence). + +They tossed their maps aside and hastened to the window. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +TYCHO. + + +It was now exactly six o'clock in the evening. The Sun, completely clear +of all contact with the lunar disc, steeped the whole Projectile in his +golden rays. The travellers, vertically over the Moon's south pole, +were, as Barbican soon ascertained, about 30 miles distant from it, the +exact distance they had been from the north pole--a proof that the +elliptic curve still maintained itself with mathematical rigor. + +For some time, the travellers' whole attention was concentrated on the +glorious Sun. His light was inexpressibly cheering; and his heat, soon +penetrating the walls of the Projectile, infused a new and sweet life +into their chilled and exhausted frames. The ice rapidly disappeared, +and the windows soon resumed their former perfect transparency. + +"Oh! how good the pleasant sunlight is!" cried the Captain, sinking on a +seat in a quiet ecstasy of enjoyment. "How I pity Ardan's poor friends +the Selenites during that night so long and so icy! How impatient they +must be to see the Sun back again!" + +"Yes," said Ardan, also sitting down the better to bask in the vivifying +rays, "his light no doubt brings them to life and keeps them alive. +Without light or heat during all that dreary winter, they must freeze +stiff like the frogs or become torpid like the bears. I can't imagine +how they could get through it otherwise." + +"I'm glad _we're_ through it anyhow," observed M'Nicholl. "I may at once +acknowledge that I felt perfectly miserable as long as it lasted. I can +now easily understand how the combined cold and darkness killed Doctor +Kane's Esquimaux dogs. It was near killing me. I was so miserable that +at last I could neither talk myself nor bear to hear others talk." + +"My own case exactly," said Barbican--"that is," he added hastily, +correcting himself, "I tried to talk because I found Ardan so +interested, but in spite of all we said, and saw, and had to think of, +Byron's terrible dream would continually rise up before me: + + "The bright Sun was extinguished, and the Stars + Wandered all darkling in the eternal space, + Rayless and pathless, and the icy Earth + Swung blind and blackening in the Moonless air. + Morn came and went, and came and brought no day! + And men forgot their passions in the dread + Of this their desolation, and all hearts + Were chilled into a selfish prayer for _light_!" + +As he pronounced these words in accents at once monotonous and +melancholy, Ardan, fully appreciative, quietly gesticulated in perfect +cadence with the rhythm. Then the three men remained completely silent +for several minutes. Buried in recollection, or lost in thought, or +magnetized by the bright Sun, they seemed to be half asleep while +steeping their limbs in his vitalizing beams. + +Barbican was the first to dissolve the reverie by jumping up. His sharp +eye had noticed that the base of the Projectile, instead of keeping +rigidly perpendicular to the lunar surface, turned away a little, so as +to render the elliptical orbit somewhat elongated. This he made his +companions immediately observe, and also called their attention to the +fact that from this point they could easily have seen the Earth had it +been Full, but that now, drowned in the Sun's beams, it was quite +invisible. A more attractive spectacle, however, soon engaged their +undivided attention--that of the Moon's southern regions, now brought +within about the third of a mile by their telescopes. Immediately +resuming their posts by the windows, they carefully noted every feature +presented by the fantastic panorama that stretched itself out in endless +lengths beneath their wondering eyes. + +[Illustration: THEY SEEMED HALF ASLEEP.] + +Mount _Leibnitz_ and Mount _Doerfel_ form two separate groups developed +in the regions of the extreme south. The first extends westwardly from +the pole to the 84th parallel; the second, on the southeastern border, +starting from the pole, reaches the neighborhood of the 65th. In the +entangled valleys of their clustered peaks, appeared the dazzling sheets +of white, noted by Father Secchi, but their peculiar nature Barbican +could now examine with a greater prospect of certainty than the +illustrious Roman astronomer had ever enjoyed. + +"They're beds of snow," he said at last in a decided tone. + +"Snow!" exclaimed M'Nicholl. + +"Yes, snow, or rather glaciers heavily coated with glittering ice. See +how vividly they reflect the Sun's rays. Consolidated beds of lava could +never shine with such dazzling uniformity. Therefore there must be both +water and air on the Moon's surface. Not much--perhaps very little if +you insist on it--but the fact that there is some can now no longer be +questioned." + +This assertion of Barbican's, made so positively by a man who never +decided unless when thoroughly convinced, was a great triumph for Ardan, +who, as the gracious reader doubtless remembers, had had a famous +dispute with M'Nicholl on that very subject at Tampa.[D] His eyes +brightened and a smile of pleasure played around his lips, but, with a +great effort at self-restraint, he kept perfectly silent and would not +permit himself even to look in the direction of the Captain. As for +M'Nicholl, he was apparently too much absorbed in _Doerfel_ and +_Leibnitz_ to mind anything else. + +These mountains rose from plains of moderate extent, bounded by an +indefinite succession of walled hollows and ring ramparts. They are the +only chains met in this region of ridge-brimmed craters and circles; +distinguished by no particular feature, they project a few pointed peaks +here and there, some of which exceed four miles and a half in height. +This altitude, however, foreshortened as it was by the vertical position +of the Projectile, could not be noticed just then, even if correct +observation had been permitted by the dazzling surface. + +Once more again before the travellers' eyes the Moon's disc revealed +itself in all the old familiar features so characteristic of lunar +landscapes--no blending of tones, no softening of colors, no graduation +of shadows, every line glaring in white or black by reason of the total +absence of refracted light. And yet the wonderfully peculiar character +of this desolate world imparted to it a weird attraction as strangely +fascinating as ever. + +Over this chaotic region the travellers were now sweeping, as if borne +on the wings of a storm; the peaks defiled beneath them; the yawning +chasms revealed their ruin-strewn floors; the fissured cracks untwisted +themselves; the ramparts showed all their sides; the mysterious holes +presented their impenetrable depths; the clustered mountain summits and +rings rapidly decomposed themselves: but in a moment again all had +become more inextricably entangled than ever. Everything appeared to be +the finished handiwork of volcanic agency, in the utmost purity and +highest perfection. None of the mollifying effects of air or water could +here be noticed. No smooth-capped mountains, no gently winding river +channels, no vast prairie-lands of deposited sediment, no traces of +vegetation, no signs of agriculture, no vestiges of a great city. +Nothing but vast beds of glistering lava, now rough like immense piles +of scoriae and clinker, now smooth like crystal mirrors, and reflecting +the Sun's rays with the same intolerable glare. Not the faintest speck +of life. A world absolutely and completely dead, fixed, still, +motionless--save when a gigantic land-slide, breaking off the vertical +wall of a crater, plunged down into the soundless depths, with all the +fury too of a crashing avalanche, with all the speed of a Niagara, but, +in the total absence of atmosphere, noiseless as a feather, as a snow +flake, as a grain of impalpable dust. + +Careful observations, taken by Barbican and repeated by his companions, +soon satisfied them that the ridgy outline of the mountains on the +Moon's border, though perhaps due to different forces from those acting +in the centre, still presented a character generally uniform. The same +bulwark-surrounded hollows, the same abrupt projections of surface. Yet +a different arrangement, as Barbican pointed out to his companions, +might be naturally expected. In the central portion of the disc, the +Moon's crust, before solidification, must have been subjected to two +attractions--that of the Moon herself and that of the Earth--acting, +however, in contrary directions and therefore, in a certain sense, +serving to neutralize each other. Towards the border of her disc, on the +contrary, the terrestrial attraction, having acted in a direction +perpendicular to that of the lunar, should have exerted greater power, +and therefore given a different shape to the general contour. But no +remarkable difference had so far been perceived by terrestrial +observers; and none could now be detected by our travellers. Therefore +the Moon must have found in herself alone the principle of her shape and +of her superficial development--that is, she owed nothing to external +influences. "Arago was perfectly right, therefore," concluded Barbican, +"in the remarkable opinion to which he gave expression thirty years ago: + +'No external action whatever has contributed to the formation of the +Moon's diversified surface.'" + +"But don't you think, Barbican," asked the Captain, "that every force, +internal or external, that might modify the Moon's shape, has ceased +long ago?" + +"I am rather inclined to that opinion," said Barbican; "it is not, +however, a new one. Descartes maintained that as the Earth is an extinct +Sun, so is the Moon an extinct Earth. My own opinion at present is that +the Moon is now the image of death, but I can't say if she has ever been +the abode of life." + +"The abode of life!" cried Ardan, who had great repugnance in accepting +the idea that the Moon was no better than a heap of cinders and ashes; +"why, look there! If those are not as neat a set of the ruins of an +abandoned city as ever I saw, I should like to know what they are!" + +[Illustration: ONCE MORE THE PIPES OF AN AQUEDUCT.] + +He pointed to some very remarkable rocky formations in the +neighborhood of _Short_, a ring mountain rising to an altitude +considerably higher than that of Mont Blanc. Even Barbican and M'Nicholl +could detect some regularity and semblance of order in the arrangement +of these rocks, but this, of course, they looked on as a mere freak of +nature, like the Lurlei Rock, the Giant's Causeway, or the Old Man of +the Franconia Mountains. Ardan, however, would not accept such an easy +mode of getting rid of a difficulty. + +"See the ruins on that bluff," he exclaimed; "those steep sides must +have been washed by a great river in the prehistoric times. That was the +fortress. Farther down lay the city. There are the dismantled ramparts; +why, there's the very coping of a portico still intact! Don't you see +three broken pillars lying beside their pedestals? There! a little to +the left of those arches that evidently once bore the pipes of an +aqueduct! You don't see them? Well, look a little to the right, and +there is something that you can see! As I'm a living man I have no +difficulty in discerning the gigantic butments of a great bridge that +formerly spanned that immense river!" + +Did he really see all this? To this day he affirms stoutly that he did, +and even greater wonders besides. His companions, however, without +denying that he had good grounds for his assertion on this subject or +questioning the general accuracy of his observations, content themselves +with saying that the reason why they had failed to discover the +wonderful city, was that Ardan's telescope was of a strange and +peculiar construction. Being somewhat short-sighted, he had had it +manufactured expressly for his own use, but it was of such singular +power that his companions could not use it without hurting their eyes. + +But, whether the ruins were real or not, the moments were evidently too +precious to be lost in idle discussion. The great city of the Selenites +soon disappeared on the remote horizon, and, what was of far greater +importance, the distance of the Projectile from the Moon's disc began to +increase so sensibly that the smaller details of the surface were soon +lost in a confused mass, and it was only the lofty heights, the wide +craters, the great ring mountains, and the vast plains that still +continued to give sharp, distinctive outlines. + +A little to their left, the travellers could now plainly distinguish one +of the most remarkable of the Moon's craters, _Newton_, so well known to +all lunar astronomers. Its ramparts, forming a perfect circle, rise to +such a height, at least 22,000 feet, as to seem insurmountable. + +"You can, no doubt, notice for yourselves," said Barbican, "that the +external height of this mountain is far from being equal to the depth of +its crater. The enormous pit, in fact, seems to be a soundless sea of +pitchy black, the bottom of which the Sun's rays have never reached. +There, as Humboldt says, reigns eternal darkness, so absolute that +Earth-shine or even Sunlight is never able to dispel it. Had Michael's +friends the old mythologists ever known anything about it, they would +doubtless have made it the entrance to the infernal regions. On the +whole surface of our Earth, there is no mountain even remotely +resembling it. It is a perfect type of the lunar crater. Like most of +them, it shows that the peculiar formation of the Moon's surface is due, +first, to the cooling of the lunar crust; secondly, to the cracking from +internal pressure; and, thirdly, to the violent volcanic action in +consequence. This must have been of a far fiercer nature than it has +ever been with us. The matter was ejected to a vast height till great +mountains were formed; and still the action went on, until at last the +floor of the crater sank to a depth far lower than the level of the +external plain." + +"You may be right," said Ardan by way of reply; "as for me, I'm looking +out for another city. But I'm sorry to say that our Projectile is +increasing its distance so fast that, even if one lay at my feet at this +moment, I doubt very much if I could see it a bit better than either you +or the Captain." + +_Newton_ was soon passed, and the Projectile followed a course that took +it directly over the ring mountain _Moretus_. A little to the west the +travellers could easily distinguish the summits of _Blancanus_, 7,000 +feet high, and, towards seven o'clock in the evening, they were +approaching the neighborhood of _Clavius_. + +This walled-plain, one of the most remarkable on the Moon, lies 55° S. +by 15° E. Its height is estimated at 16,000 feet, but it is considered +to be about a hundred and fifty miles in diameter. Of this vast crater, +the travellers now at a distance of 250 miles, reduced to 2-1/2 by their +telescopes, had a magnificent bird's-eye view. + +"Our terrestrial volcanoes," said Barbican, "as you can now readily +judge for yourselves, are no more than molehills when compared with +those of the Moon. Measure the old craters formed by the early eruptions +of Vesuvius and Ætna, and you will find them little more than three +miles in diameter. The crater of Cantal in central France is only about +six miles in width; the famous valley in Ceylon, called the _Crater_, +though not at all due to volcanic action, is 44 miles across and is +considered to be the greatest in the world. But even this is very little +in comparison to the diameter of _Clavius_ lying beneath us at the +present moment." + +"How much is its diameter?" asked the Captain. + +"At least one hundred and forty-two miles," replied Barbican; "it is +probably the greatest in the Moon, but many others measure more than a +hundred miles across." + +"Dear boys," said Ardan, half to himself, half to the others, "only +imagine the delicious state of things on the surface of the gentle Moon +when these craters, brimming over with hissing lava, were vomiting +forth, all at the same time, showers of melted stones, clouds of +blinding smoke, and sheets of blasting flame! What an intensely +overpowering spectacle was here presented once, but now, how are the +mighty fallen! Our Moon, as at present beheld, seems to be nothing more +than the skinny spectre left after a brilliant display of fireworks, +when the spluttering crackers, the glittering wheels, the hissing +serpents, the revolving suns, and the dazzling stars, are all 'played +out', and nothing remains to tell of the gorgeous spectacle but a few +blackened sticks and half a dozen half burned bits of pasteboard. I +should like to hear one of you trying to explain the cause, the reason, +the principle, the philosophy of such tremendous cataclysms!" + +Barbican's only reply was a series of nods, for in truth he had not +heard a single word of Ardan's philosophic explosion. His ears were with +his eyes, and these were obstinately bent on the gigantic ramparts of +_Clavius_, formed of concentric mountain ridges, which were actually +leagues in depth. On the floor of the vast cavity, could be seen +hundreds of smaller craters, mottling it like a skimming dish, and +pierced here and there by sharp peaks, one of which could hardly be less +than 15,000 feet high. + +All around, the plain was desolate in the extreme. You could not +conceive how anything could be barrener than these serrated outlines, or +gloomier than these shattered mountains--until you looked at the plain +that encircled them. Ardan hardly exaggerated when he called it the +scene of a battle fought thousands of years ago but still white with the +hideous bones of overthrown peaks, slaughtered mountains and mutilated +precipices! + + "Hills amid the air encountered hills, + Hurled to and fro in jaculation dire," + +murmured M'Nicholl, who could quote you Milton quite as readily as the +Bible. + +"This must have been the spot," muttered Barbican to himself, "where the +brittle shell of the cooling sphere, being thicker than usual, offered +greater resistance to an eruption of the red-hot nucleus. Hence these +piled up buttresses, and these orderless heaps of consolidated lava and +ejected scoriæ." + +The Projectile advanced, but the scene of desolation seemed to remain +unchanged. Craters, ring mountains, pitted plateaus dotted with +shapeless wrecks, succeeded each other without interruption. For level +plain, for dark "sea," for smooth plateau, the eye here sought in vain. +It was a Swiss Greenland, an Icelandic Norway, a Sahara of shattered +crust studded with countless hills of glassy lava. + +At last, in the very centre of this blistered region, right too at its +very culmination, the travellers came on the brightest and most +remarkable mountain of the Moon. In the dazzling _Tycho_ they found it +an easy matter to recognize the famous lunar point, which the world will +for ever designate by the name of the distinguished astronomer of +Denmark. + +This brilliant luminosity of the southern hemisphere, no one that ever +gazes at the Full Moon in a cloudless sky, can help noticing. Ardan, who +had always particularly admired it, now hailed it as an old friend, and +almost exhausted breath, imagination and vocabulary in the epithets with +which he greeted this cynosure of the lunar mountains. + +"Hail!" he cried, "thou blazing focus of glittering streaks, thou +coruscating nucleus of irradiation, thou starting point of rays +divergent, thou egress of meteoric flashes! Hub of the silver wheel that +ever rolls in silent majesty over the starry plains of Night! Paragon of +jewels enchased in a carcanet of dazzling brilliants! Eye of the +universe, beaming with heavenly resplendescence! + +"Who shall say what thou art? Diana's nimbus? The golden clasp of her +floating robes? The blazing head of the great bolt that rivets the lunar +hemispheres in union inseverable? Or cans't thou have been some errant +bolide, which missing its way, butted blindly against the lunar face, +and there stuck fast, like a Minie ball mashed against a cast-iron +target? Alas! nobody knows. Not even Barbican is able to penetrate thy +mystery. But one thing _I_ know. Thy dazzling glare so sore my eyes hath +made that longer on thy light to gaze I do not dare. Captain, have you +any smoked glass?" + +In spite of this anti-climax, Ardan's companions could hardly consider +his utterings either as ridiculous or over enthusiastic. They could +easily excuse his excitement on the subject. And so could we, if we only +remember that _Tycho_, though nearly a quarter of a million miles +distant, is such a luminous point on the lunar disc, that almost any +moonlit night it can be easily perceived by the unaided terrestrial eye. +What then must have been its splendor in the eyes of our travellers +whose telescopes brought it actually four thousand times nearer! No +wonder that with smoked glasses, they endeavored to soften off its +effulgent glare! Then in hushed silence, or at most uttering at +intervals a few interjections expressive of their intense admiration, +they remained for some time completely engrossed in the overwhelming +spectacle. For the time being, every sentiment, impression, thought, +feeling on their part, was concentrated in the eye, just as at other +times under violent excitement every throb of our life is concentrated +in the heart. + +_Tycho_ belongs to the system of lunar craters that is called +_radiating_, like _Aristarchus_ or _Copernicus_, which had been already +seen and highly admired by our travellers at their first approach to the +Moon. But it is decidedly the most remarkable and conspicuous of them +all. It occupies the great focus of disruption, whence it sends out +great streaks thousands of miles in length; and it gives the most +unmistakable evidence of the terribly eruptive nature of those forces +that once shattered the Moon's solidified shell in this portion of the +lunar surface. + +Situated in the southern latitude of 43° by an eastern longitude of 12°, +_Tycho's_ crater, somewhat elliptical in shape, is 54 miles in diameter +and upwards of 16,000 feet in depth. Its lofty ramparts are buttressed +by other mountains, Mont Blancs in size, all grouped around it, and all +streaked with the great divergent fissures that radiate from it as a +centre. + +Of what this incomparable mountain really is, with all these lines of +projections converging towards it and with all these prominent points +of relief protruding within its crater, photography has, so far, been +able to give us only a very unsatisfactory idea. The reason too is very +simple: it is only at Full Moon that _Tycho_ reveals himself in all his +splendor. The shadows therefore vanishing, the perspective +foreshortenings disappear and the views become little better than a dead +blank. This is the more to be regretted as this wonderful region is well +worthy of being represented with the greatest possible photographic +accuracy. It is a vast agglomeration of holes, craters, ring formations, +a complicated intersection of crests--in short, a distracting volcanic +network flung over the blistered soil. The ebullitions of the central +eruption still evidently preserve their original form. As they first +appeared, so they lie. Crystallizing as they cooled, they have +stereotyped in imperishable characters the aspect formerly presented by +the whole Moon's surface under the influences of recent plutonic +upheaval. + +Our travellers were far more fortunate than the photographers. The +distance separating them from the peaks of _Tycho's_ concentric terraces +was not so considerable as to conceal the principal details from a very +satisfactory view. They could easily distinguish the annular ramparts of +the external circumvallation, the mountains buttressing the gigantic +walls internally as well as externally, the vast esplanades descending +irregularly and abruptly to the sunken plains all around. They could +even detect a difference of a few hundred feet in altitude in favor of +the western or right hand side over the eastern. They could also see +that these dividing ridges were actually inaccessible and completely +unsurmountable, at least by ordinary terrestrian efforts. No system of +castrametation ever devised by Polybius or Vauban could bear the +slightest comparison with such vast fortifications, A city built on the +floor of the circular cavity could be no more reached by the outside +Lunarians than if it had been built in the planet Mars. + +This idea set Ardan off again. "Yes," said he, "such a city would be at +once completely inaccessible, and still not inconveniently situated in a +plateau full of aspects decidedly picturesque. Even in the depths of +this immense crater, Nature, as you can see, has left no flat and empty +void. You can easily trace its special oreography, its various mountain +systems which turn it into a regular world on a small scale. Notice its +cones, its central hills, its valleys, its substructures already cut and +dry and therefore quietly prepared to receive the masterpieces of +Selenite architecture. Down there to the left is a lovely spot for a +Saint Peter's; to the right, a magnificent site for a Forum; here a +Louvre could be built capable of entrancing Michael Angelo himself; +there a citadel could be raised to which even Gibraltar would be a +molehill! In the middle rises a sharp peak which can hardly be less than +a mile in height--a grand pedestal for the statue of some Selenite +Vincent de Paul or George Washington. And around them all is a mighty +mountain-ring at least 3 miles high, but which, to an eye looking from +the centre of our vast city, could not appear to be more than five or +six hundred feet. Enormous circus, where mighty Rome herself in her +palmiest days, though increased tenfold, would have no reason to +complain for want of room!" + +He stopped for a few seconds, perhaps to take breath, and then resumed: + +"Oh what an abode of serene happiness could be constructed within this +shadow-fringed ring of the mighty mountains! O blessed refuge, +unassailable by aught of human ills! What a calm unruffled life could be +enjoyed within thy hallowed precincts, even by those cynics, those +haters of humanity, those disgusted reconstructors of society, those +misanthropes and misogynists old and young, who are continually writing +whining verses in odd corners of the newspapers!" + +"Right at last, Ardan, my boy!" cried M'Nicholl, quietly rubbing the +glass of his spectacles; "I should like to see the whole lot of them +carted in there without a moment's delay!" + +"It couldn't hold the half of them!" observed Barbican drily. + +[Footnote D: BALTIMORE GUN CLUB, pp. 295 _et seq._] + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +PUZZLING QUESTIONS. + + +It was not until the Projectile had passed a little beyond _Tycho's_ +immense concavity that Barbican and his friends had a good opportunity +for observing the brilliant streaks sent so wonderfully flying in all +directions from this celebrated mountain as a common centre. They +examined them for some time with the closest attention. + +What could be the nature of this radiating aureola? By what geological +phenomena could this blazing coma have been possibly produced? Such +questions were the most natural things in the world for Barbican and his +companions to propound to themselves, as indeed they have been to every +astronomer from the beginning of time, and probably will be to the end. + +What _did_ they see? What you can see, what anybody can see on a clear +night when the Moon is full--only our friends had all the advantages of +a closer view. From _Tycho_, as a focus, radiated in all directions, as +from the head of a peeled orange, more than a hundred luminous streaks +or channels, edges raised, middle depressed--or perhaps _vice versa_, +owing to an optical illusion--some at least twelve miles wide, some +fully thirty. In certain directions they ran for a distance of at least +six hundred miles, and seemed--especially towards the west, northwest, +and north--to cover half the southern hemisphere. One of these flashes +extended as far as _Neander_ on the 40th meridian; another, curving +around so as to furrow the _Mare Nectaris_, came to an end on the chain +of the _Pyrenees_, after a course of perhaps a little more than seven +hundred miles. On the east, some of them barred with luminous network +the _Mare Nubium_ and even the _Mare Humorum_. + +The most puzzling feature of these glittering streaks was that they ran +their course directly onward, apparently neither obstructed by valley, +crater, or mountain ridge however high. They all started, as said +before, from one common focus, _Tycho's_ crater. From this they +certainly all seemed to emanate. Could they be rivers of lava once +vomited from that centre by resistless volcanic agency and afterwards +crystallized into glassy rock? This idea of Herschel's, Barbican had no +hesitation in qualifying as exceedingly absurd. Rivers running in +perfectly straight lines, across plains, and _up_ as well as _down_ +mountains! + +"Other astronomers," he continued, "have looked on these streaks as a +peculiar kind of _moraines_, that is, long lines of erratic blocks +belched forth with mighty power at the period of _Tycho's_ own +upheaval." + +"How do you like that theory, Barbican," asked the Captain. + +"It's not a particle better than Herschel's," was the reply; "no +volcanic action could project rocks to a distance of six or seven +hundred miles, not to talk of laying them down so regularly that we +can't detect a break in them." + +"Happy thought!" cried Ardan suddenly; "it seems to me that I can tell +the cause of these radiating streaks!" + +"Let us hear it," said Barbican. + +"Certainly," was Ardan's reply; "these streaks are all only the parts of +what we call a 'star,' as made by a stone striking ice; or by a ball, a +pane of glass." + +"Not bad," smiled Barbican approvingly; "only where is the hand that +flung the stone or threw the ball?" + +"The hand is hardly necessary," replied Ardan, by no means disconcerted; +"but as for the ball, what do you say to a comet?" + +Here M'Nicholl laughed so loud that Ardan was seriously irritated. +However, before he could say anything cutting enough to make the Captain +mind his manners, Barbican had quickly resumed: + +"Dear friend, let the comets alone, I beg of you; the old astronomers +fled to them on all occasions and made them explain every difficulty--" + +--"The comets were all used up long ago--" interrupted M'Nicholl. + +--"Yes," went on Barbican, as serenely as a judge, "comets, they said, +had fallen on the surface in meteoric showers and crushed in the crater +cavities; comets had dried up the water; comets had whisked off the +atmosphere; comets had done everything. All pure assumption! In your +case, however, friend Michael, no comet whatever is necessary. The shock +that gave rise to your great 'star' may have come from the interior +rather than the exterior. A violent contraction of the lunar crust in +the process of cooling may have given birth to your gigantic 'star' +formation." + +"I accept the amendment," said Ardan, now in the best of humor and +looking triumphantly at M'Nicholl. + +"An English scientist," continued Barbican, "Nasmyth by name, is +decidedly of your opinion, especially ever since a little experiment of +his own has confirmed him in it. He filled a glass globe with water, +hermetically sealed it, and then plunged it into a hot bath. The +enclosed water, expanding at a greater rate than the glass, burst the +latter, but, in doing so, it made a vast number of cracks all diverging +in every direction from the focus of disruption. Something like this he +conceives to have taken place around _Tycho_. As the crust cooled, it +cracked. The lava from the interior, oozing out, spread itself on both +sides of the cracks. This certainly explains pretty satisfactorily why +those flat glistening streaks are of much greater width than the +fissures through which the lava had at first made its way to the +surface." + +"Well done for an Englishman!" cried Ardan in great spirits. + +"He's no Englishman," said M'Nicholl, glad to have an opportunity of +coming off with some credit. "He is the famous Scotch engineer who +invented the steam hammer, the steam ram, and discovered the 'willow +leaves' in the Sun's disc." + +"Better and better," said Ardan--"but, powers of Vulcan! What makes it +so hot? I'm actually roasting!" + +This observation was hardly necessary to make his companions conscious +that by this time they felt extremely uncomfortable. The heat had become +quite oppressive. Between the natural caloric of the Sun and the +reflected caloric of the Moon, the Projectile was fast turning into a +regular bake oven. This transition from intense cold to intense heat was +already about quite as much as they could bear. + +"What shall we do, Barbican?" asked Ardan, seeing that for some time no +one else appeared inclined to say a word. + +"Nothing, at least yet awhile, friend Ardan," replied Barbican, "I have +been watching the thermometer carefully for the last few minutes, and, +though we are at present at 38° centigrade, or 100° Fahrenheit, I have +noticed that the mercury is slowly falling. You can also easily remark +for yourself that the floor of the Projectile is turning away more and +more from the lunar surface. From this I conclude quite confidently, and +I see that the Captain agrees with me, that all danger of death from +intense heat, though decidedly alarming ten minutes ago, is over for the +present and, for some time at least, it may be dismissed from further +consideration." + +"I'm not very sorry for it," said Ardan cheerfully; "neither to be +baked like a pie in an oven nor roasted like a fat goose before a fire +is the kind of death I should like to die of." + +"Yet from such a death you would suffer no more than your friends the +Selenites are exposed to every day of their lives," said the Captain, +evidently determined on getting up an argument. + +"I understand the full bearing of your allusion, my dear Captain," +replied Ardan quickly, but not at all in a tone showing that he was +disposed to second M'Nicholl's expectations. + +He was, in fact, fast losing all his old habits of positivism. Latterly +he had seen much, but he had reflected more. The deeper he had +reflected, the more inclined he had become to accept the conclusion that +the less he knew. Hence he had decided that if M'Nicholl wanted an +argument it should not be with him. All speculative disputes he should +henceforth avoid; he would listen with pleasure to all that could be +urged on each side; he might even skirmish a little here and there as +the spirit moved him; but a regular pitched battle on a subject purely +speculative he was fully determined never again to enter into. + +"Yes, dear Captain," he continued, "that pointed arrow of yours has by +no means missed its mark, but I can't deny that my faith is beginning to +be what you call a little 'shaky' in the existence of my friends the +Selenites. However, I should like to have your square opinion on the +matter. Barbican's also. We have witnessed many strange lunar phenomena +lately, closer and clearer than mortal eye ever rested on them before. +Has what we have seen confirmed any theory of yours or confounded any +hypothesis? Have you seen enough to induce you to adopt decided +conclusions? I will put the question formally. Do you, or do you not, +think that the Moon resembles the Earth in being the abode of animals +and intelligent beings? Come, answer, _messieurs_. Yes, or no?" + +"I think we can answer your question categorically," replied Barbican, +"if you modify its form a little." + +"Put the question any way you please," said Ardan; "only you answer it! +I'm not particular about the form." + +"Good," said Barbican; "the question, being a double one, demands a +double answer. First: _Is the Moon inhabitable?_ Second: _Has the Moon +ever been inhabited?_" + +"That's the way to go about it," said the Captain. "Now then, Ardan, +what do _you_ say to the first question? Yes, or no?" + +"I really can't say anything," replied Ardan. "In the presence of such +distinguished scientists, I'm only a listener, a 'mere looker on in +Vienna' as the Divine Williams has it. However, for the sake of +argument, suppose I reply in the affirmative, and say that _the Moon is +inhabitable_." + +"If you do, I shall most unhesitatingly contradict you," said Barbican, +feeling just then in splendid humor for carrying on an argument, not, of +course, for the sake of contradicting or conquering or crushing or +showing off or for any other vulgar weakness of lower minds, but for the +noble and indeed the only motive that should impel a philosopher--that +of _enlightening_ and _convincing_, "In taking the negative side, +however, or saying that the Moon is not inhabitable, I shall not be +satisfied with merely negative arguments. Many words, however, are not +required. Look at her present condition: her atmosphere dwindled away to +the lowest ebb; her 'seas' dried up or very nearly so; her waters +reduced to next to nothing; her vegetation, if existing at all, existing +only on the scantiest scale; her transitions from intense heat to +intense cold, as we ourselves can testify, sudden in the extreme; her +nights and her days each nearly 360 hours long. With all this positively +against her and nothing at all that we know of positively for her, I +have very little hesitation in saying that the Moon appears to me to be +absolutely uninhabitable. She seems to me not only unpropitious to the +development of the animal kingdom but actually incapable of sustaining +life at all--that is, in the sense that we usually attach to such a +term." + +"That saving clause is well introduced, friend Barbican," said +M'Nicholl, who, seeing no chance of demolishing Ardan, had not yet made +up his mind as to having another little bout with the President. "For +surely you would not venture to assert that the Moon is uninhabitable by +a race of beings having an organization different from ours?" + +"That question too, Captain," replied Barbican, "though a much more +difficult one, I shall try to answer. First, however, let us see, +Captain, if we agree on some fundamental points. How do we detect the +existence of life? Is it not by _movement_? Is not _motion_ its result, +no matter what may be its organization?" + +"Well," said the Captain in a drawling way, "I guess we may grant that." + +"Then, dear friends," resumed Barbican, "I must remind you that, though +we have had the privilege of observing the lunar continents at a +distance of not more than one-third of a mile, we have never yet caught +sight of the first thing moving on her surface. The presence of +humanity, even of the lowest type, would have revealed itself in some +form or other, by boundaries, by buildings, even by ruins. Now what +_have_ we seen? Everywhere and always, the geological works of _nature_; +nowhere and never, the orderly labors of _man_. Therefore, if any +representatives of animal life exist in the Moon, they must have taken +refuge in those bottomless abysses where our eyes were unable to track +them. And even this I can't admit. They could not always remain in these +cavities. If there is any atmosphere at all in the Moon, it must be +found in her immense low-lying plains. Over those plains her inhabitants +must have often passed, and on those plains they must in some way or +other have left some mark, some trace, some vestige of their existence, +were it even only a road. But you both know well that nowhere are any +such traces visible: therefore, they don't exist; therefore, no lunar +inhabitants exist--except, of course, such a race of beings, if we can +imagine any such, as could exist without revealing their existence by +_movement_." + +"That is to say," broke in Ardan, to give what he conceived a sharper +point to Barbican's cogent arguments, "such a race of beings as could +exist without existing!" + +"Precisely," said Barbican: "Life without movement, and no life at all, +are equivalent expressions." + +"Captain," said Ardan, with all the gravity he could assume, "have you +anything more to say before the Moderator of our little Debating Society +gives his opinion on the arguments regarding the question before the +house?" + +"No more at present," said the Captain, biding his time. + +"Then," resumed Ardan, rising with much dignity, "the Committee on Lunar +Explorations, appointed by the Honorable Baltimore Gun Club, solemnly +assembled in the Projectile belonging to the aforesaid learned and +respectable Society, having carefully weighed all the arguments advanced +on each side of the question, and having also carefully considered all +the new facts bearing on the case that have lately come under the +personal notice of said Committee, unanimously decides negatively on the +question now before the chair for investigation--namely, 'Is the Moon +inhabitable?' Barbican, as chairman of the Committee, I empower you to +duly record our solemn decision--_No, the Moon is not inhabitable_." + +Barbican, opening his note-book, made the proper entry among the minutes +of the meeting of December 6th. + +"Now then, gentlemen," continued Ardan, "if you are ready for the second +question, the necessary complement of the first, we may as well approach +it at once. I propound it for discussion in the following form: _Has the +Moon ever been inhabited?_ Captain, the Committee would be delighted to +hear your remarks on the subject." + +"Gentlemen," began the Captain in reply, "I had formed my opinion +regarding the ancient inhabitability of our Satellite long before I ever +dreamed of testing my theory by anything like our present journey. I +will now add that all our observations, so far made, have only served to +confirm me in my opinion. I now venture to assert, not only with every +kind of probability in my favor but also on what I consider most +excellent arguments, that the Moon was once inhabited by a race of +beings possessing an organization similar to our own, that she once +produced animals anatomically resembling our terrestrial animals, and +that all these living organizations, human and animal, have had their +day, that that day vanished ages and ages ago, and that, consequently, +_Life_, extinguished forever, can never again reveal its existence there +under any form." + +"Is the Chair," asked Ardan, "to infer from the honorable gentleman's +observations that he considers the Moon to be a world much older than +the Earth?" + +"Not exactly that," replied the Captain without hesitation; "I rather +mean to say that the Moon is a world that grew old more rapidly than the +Earth; that it came to maturity earlier; that it ripened quicker, and +was stricken with old age sooner. Owing to the difference of the volumes +of the two worlds, the organizing forces of matter must have been +comparatively much more violent in the interior of the Moon than in the +interior of the Earth. The present condition of its surface, as we see +it lying there beneath us at this moment, places this assertion beyond +all possibility of doubt. Wrinkled, pitted, knotted, furrowed, scarred, +nothing that we can show on Earth resembles it. Moon and Earth were +called into existence by the Creator probably at the same period of +time. In the first stages of their existence, they do not seem to have +been anything better than masses of gas. Acted upon by various forces +and various influences, all of course directed by an omnipotent +intelligence, these gases by degrees became liquid, and the liquids grew +condensed into solids until solidity could retain its shape. But the two +heavenly bodies, though starting at the same time, developed at a very +different ratio. Most undoubtedly, our globe was still gaseous or at +most only liquid, at the period when the Moon, already hardened by +cooling, began to become inhabitable." + +"_Most undoubtedly_ is good!" observed Ardan admiringly. + +"At this period," continued the learned Captain, "an atmosphere +surrounded her. The waters, shut in by this gaseous envelope, could no +longer evaporate. Under the combined influences of air, water, light, +and solar heat as well as internal heat, vegetation began to overspread +the continents by this time ready to receive it, and most undoubtedly--I +mean--a--incontestably--it was at this epoch that _life_ manifested +itself on the lunar surface. I say _incontestably_ advisedly, for Nature +never exhausts herself in producing useless things, and therefore a +world, so wonderfully inhabitable, _must_ of necessity have had +inhabitants." + +"I like _of necessity_ too," said Ardan, who could never keep still; "I +always did, when I felt my arguments to be what you call a little +shaky." + +"But, my dear Captain," here observed Barbican, "have you taken into +consideration some of the peculiarities of our Satellite which are +decidedly opposed to the development of vegetable and animal existence? +Those nights and days, for instance, 354 hours long?" + +"I have considered them all," answered the brave Captain. "Days and +nights of such an enormous length would at the present time, I grant, +give rise to variations in temperature altogether intolerable to any +ordinary organization. But things were quite different in the era +alluded to. At that time, the atmosphere enveloped the Moon in a gaseous +mantle, and the vapors took the shape of clouds. By the screen thus +formed by the hand of nature, the heat of the solar rays was tempered +and the nocturnal radiation retarded. Light too, as well as heat, could +be modified, tempered, and _genialized_ if I may use the expression, by +the air. This produced a healthy counterpoise of forces, which, now that +the atmosphere has completely disappeared, of course exists no longer. +Besides--friend Ardan, you will excuse me for telling you something new, +something that will surprise you--" + +--"Surprise me, my dear boy, fire away surprising me!" cried Ardan. "I +like dearly to be surprised. All I regret is that you scientists have +surprised me so much already that I shall never have a good, hearty, +genuine surprise again!" + +--"I am most firmly convinced," continued the Captain, hardly waiting +for Ardan to finish, "that, at the period of the Moon's occupancy by +living creatures, her days and nights were by no means 354 hours long." + +"Well! if anything could surprise me," said Ardan quickly, "such an +assertion as that most certainly would. On what does the honorable +gentleman base his _most firm conviction_?" + +"We know," replied the Captain, "that the reason of the Moon's present +long day and night is the exact equality of the periods of her rotation +on her axis and of her revolution around the Earth. When she has turned +once around the Earth, she has turned once around herself. Consequently, +her back is turned to the Sun during one-half of the month; and her face +during the other half. Now, I don't believe that this state of things +existed at the period referred to." + +"The gentleman does not believe!" exclaimed Ardan. "The Chair must be +excused for reminding the honorable gentleman that it can not accept his +incredulity as a sound and valid argument. These two movements have +certainly equal periods now; why not always?" + +"For the simple reason that this equality of periods is due altogether +to the influence of terrestrial attraction," replied the ready Captain. +"This attraction at present, I grant, is so great that it actually +disables the Moon from revolving on herself; consequently she must +always keep the same face turned towards the Earth. But who can assert +that this attraction was powerful enough to exert the same influence at +the epoch when the Earth herself was only a fluid substance? In fact, +who can even assert that the Moon has always been the Earth's +satellite?" + +"Ah, who indeed?" exclaimed Ardan. "And who can assert that the Moon did +not exist long before the Earth was called into being at all? In fact, +who can assert that the Earth itself is not a great piece broken off the +Moon? Nothing like asking absurd questions! I've often found them +passing for the best kind of arguments!" + +"Friend Ardan," interposed Barbican, who noticed that the Captain was a +little too disconcerted to give a ready reply; "Friend Ardan, I must say +you are not quite wrong in showing how certain methods of reasoning, +legitimate enough in themselves, may be easily abused by being carried +too far. I think, however, that the Captain might maintain his position +without having recourse to speculations altogether too gigantic for +ordinary intellect. By simply admitting the insufficiency of the +primordeal attraction to preserve a perfect balance between the +movements of the lunar rotation and revolution, we can easily see how +the nights and days could once succeed each other on the Moon exactly as +they do at present on the Earth." + +"Nothing can be clearer!" resumed the brave Captain, once more rushing +to the charge. "Besides, even without this alternation of days and +nights, life on the lunar surface was quite possible." + +"Of course it was possible," said Ardan; "everything is possible except +what contradicts itself. It is possible too that every possibility is a +fact; therefore, it _is_ a fact. However," he added, not wishing to +press the Captain's weak points too closely, "let all these logical +niceties pass for the present. Now that you have established the +existence of your humanity in the Moon, the Chair would respectfully ask +how it has all so completely disappeared?" + +"It disappeared completely thousands, perhaps millions, of years ago," +replied the unabashed Captain. "It perished from the physical +impossibility of living any longer in a world where the atmosphere had +become by degrees too rare to be able to perform its functions as the +great resuscitating medium of dependent existences. What took place on +the Moon is only what is to take place some day or other on the Earth, +when it is sufficiently cooled off." + +"Cooled off?" + +"Yes," replied the Captain as confidently and with as little hesitation +as if he was explaining some of the details of his great machine-shop in +Philadelphia; "You see, according as the internal fire near the surface +was extinguished or was withdrawn towards the centre, the lunar shell +naturally cooled off. The logical consequences, of course, then +gradually took place: extinction of organized beings; and then +extinction of vegetation. The atmosphere, in the meantime, became +thinner and thinner--partly drawn off with the water evaporated by the +terrestrial attraction, and partly sinking with the solid water into the +crust-cracks caused by cooling. With the disappearance of air capable of +respiration, and of water capable of motion, the Moon, of course, became +uninhabitable. From that day it became the abode of death, as completely +as it is at the present moment." + +"That is the fate in store for our Earth?" + +"In all probability." + +"And when is it to befall us?" + +"Just as soon as the crust becomes cold enough to be uninhabitable." + +"Perhaps your philosophership has taken the trouble to calculate how +many years it will take our unfortunate _Terra Mater_ to cool off?" + +"Well; I have." + +"And you can rely on your figures?" + +"Implicitly." + +"Why not tell it at once then to a fellow that's dying of impatience to +know all about it? Captain, the Chair considers you one of the most +tantalizing creatures in existence!" + +"If you only listen, you will hear," replied M'Nicholl quietly. "By +careful observations, extended through a series of many years, men have +been able to discover the average loss of temperature endured by the +Earth in a century. Taking this as the ground work of their +calculations, they have ascertained that our Earth shall become an +uninhabitable planet in about--" + +"Don't cut her life too short! Be merciful!" cried Ardan in a pleading +tone half in earnest. "Come, a good long day, your Honor! A good long +day!" + +"The planet that we call the Earth," continued the Captain, as grave as +a judge, "will become uninhabitable to human beings, after a lapse of +400 thousand years from the present time." + +"Hurrah!" cried Ardan, much relieved. "_Vive la Science!_ Henceforward, +what miscreant will persist in saying that the Savants are good for +nothing? Proudly pointing to this calculation, can't they exclaim to all +defamers: 'Silence, croakers! Our services are invaluable! Haven't we +insured the Earth for 400 thousand years?' Again I say _vive la +Science!_" + +"Ardan," began the Captain with some asperity, "the foundations on +which Science has raised--" + +"I'm half converted already," interrupted Ardan in a cheery tone; "I do +really believe that Science is not altogether unmitigated homebogue! +_Vive_--" + +--"But what has all this to do with the question under discussion?" +interrupted Barbican, desirous to keep his friends from losing their +tempers in idle disputation. + +"True!" said Ardan. "The Chair, thankful for being called to order, +would respectfully remind the house that the question before it is: _Has +the Moon been inhabited?_ Affirmative has been heard. Negative is called +on to reply. Mr. Barbican has the _parole_." + +But Mr. Barbican was unwilling just then to enter too deeply into such +an exceedingly difficult subject. "The probabilities," he contented +himself with saying, "would appear to be in favor of the Captain's +speculations. But we must never forget that they _are_ +speculations--nothing more. Not the slightest evidence has yet been +produced that the Moon is anything else than 'a dead and useless waste +of extinct volcanoes.' No signs of cities, no signs of buildings, not +even of ruins, none of anything that could be reasonably ascribed to the +labors of intelligent creatures. No sign of change of any kind has been +established. As for the agreement between the Moon's rotation and her +revolution, which compels her to keep the same face constantly turned +towards the Earth, we don't know that it has not existed from the +beginning. As for what is called the effect of volcanic agency upon her +surface, we don't know that her peculiar blistered appearance may not +have been brought about altogether by the bubbling and spitting that +blisters molten iron when cooling and contracting. Some close observers +have even ventured to account for her craters by saying they were due to +pelting showers of meteoric rain. Then again as to her atmosphere--why +should she have lost her atmosphere? Why should it sink into craters? +Atmosphere is gas, great in volume, small in matter; where would there +be room for it? Solidified by the intense cold? Possibly in the night +time. But would not the heat of the long day be great enough to thaw it +back again? The same trouble attends the alleged disappearance of the +water. Swallowed up in the cavernous cracks, it is said. But why are +there cracks? Cooling is not always attended by cracking. Water cools +without cracking; cannon balls cool without cracking. Too much stress +has been laid on the great difference between the _nucleus_ and the +_crust_: it is really impossible to say where one ends and the other +begins. In fact, no theory explains satisfactorily anything regarding +the present state of the Moon's surface. In fact, from the day that +Galileo compared her clustering craters to 'eyes on a peacock's tail' to +the present time, we must acknowledge that we know nothing more than we +can actually see, not one particle more of the Moon's history than our +telescopes reveal to our corporal eyes!" + +"In the lucid opinion of the honorable and learned gentleman who spoke +last," said Ardan, "the Chair is compelled to concur. Therefore, as to +the second question before the house for deliberation, _Has the Moon +been ever inhabited?_ the Chair gets out of its difficulty, as a Scotch +jury does when it has not evidence enough either way, by returning a +solemn verdict of _Not Proven!_" + +"And with this conclusion," said Barbican, hastily rising, "of a subject +on which, to tell the truth, we are unable as yet to throw any light +worth speaking of, let us be satisfied for the present. Another question +of greater moment to us just now is: where are we? It seems to me that +we are increasing our distance from the Moon very decidedly and very +rapidly." + +It was easy to see that he was quite right in this observation. The +Projectile, still following a northerly course and therefore approaching +the lunar equator, was certainly getting farther and farther from the +Moon. Even at 30° S., only ten degrees farther north than the latitude +of _Tycho_, the travellers had considerable difficulty, comparatively, +in observing the details of _Pitatus_, a walled mountain on the south +shores of the _Mare Nubium_. In the "sea" itself, over which they now +floated, they could see very little, but far to the left, on the 20th +parallel, they could discern the vast crater of _Bullialdus_, 9,000 +feet deep. On the right, they had just caught a glimpse of _Purbach_, a +depressed valley almost square in shape with a round crater in the +centre, when Ardan suddenly cried out: + +"A Railroad!" + +And, sure enough, right under them, a little northeast of _Purbach_, the +travellers easily distinguished a long line straight and black, really +not unlike a railroad cutting through a low hilly country. + +This, Barbican explained, was of course no railway, but a steep cliff, +at least 1,000 feet high, casting a very deep shadow, and probably the +result of the caving in of the surface on the eastern edge. + +Then they saw the immense crater of _Arzachel_ and in its midst a cone +mountain shining with dazzling splendor. A little north of this, they +could detect the outlines of another crater, _Alphonse_, at least 70 +miles in diameter. Close to it they could easily distinguish the immense +crater or, as some observers call it, Ramparted Plain, _Ptolemy_, so +well known to lunar astronomers, occupying, as it does, such a favorable +position near the centre of the Moon, and having a diameter fully, in +one direction at least, 120 miles long. + +The travellers were now in about the same latitude as that at which they +had at first approached the Moon, and it was here that they began most +unquestionably to leave her. They looked and looked, readjusting their +glasses, but the details were becoming more and more difficult to catch. +The reliefs grew more and more blurred and the outlines dimmer and +dimmer. Even the great mountain profiles began to fade away, the +dazzling colors to grow duller, the jet black shadows greyer, and the +general effect mistier. + +At last, the distance had become so great that, of this lunar world so +wonderful, so fantastic, so weird, so mysterious, our travellers by +degrees lost even the consciousness, and their sensations, lately so +vivid, grew fainter and fainter, until finally they resembled those of a +man who is suddenly awakened from a peculiarly strange and impressive +dream. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +IN EVERY FIGHT, THE IMPOSSIBLE WINS. + + +No matter what we have been accustomed to, it is sad to bid it farewell +forever. The glimpse of the Moon's wondrous world imparted to Barbican +and his companions had been, like that of the Promised Land to Moses on +Mount Pisgah, only a distant and a dark one, yet it was with +inexpressibly mournful eyes that, silent and thoughtful, they now +watched her fading away slowly from their view, the conviction +impressing itself deeper and deeper in their souls that, slight as their +acquaintance had been, it was never to be renewed again. All doubt on +the subject was removed by the position gradually, but decidedly, +assumed by the Projectile. Its base was turning away slowly and steadily +from the Moon, and pointing surely and unmistakably towards the Earth. + +Barbican had been long carefully noticing this modification, but without +being able to explain it. That the Projectile should withdraw a long +distance from the Moon and still be her satellite, he could understand; +but, being her satellite, why not present towards her its heaviest +segment, as the Moon does towards the Earth? That was the point which he +could not readily clear up. + +By carefully noting its path, he thought he could see that the +Projectile, though now decidedly leaving the Moon, still followed a +curve exactly analogous to that by which it had approached her. It must +therefore be describing a very elongated ellipse, which might possibly +extend even to the neutral point where the lunar and terrestrial +attractions were mutually overcome. + +With this surmise of Barbican's, his companions appeared rather disposed +to agree, though, of course, it gave rise to new questions. + +"Suppose we reach this dead point," asked Ardan; "what then is to become +of us?" + +"Can't tell!" was Barbican's unsatisfactory reply. + +"But you can form a few hypotheses?" + +"Yes, two!" + +"Let us have them." + +"The velocity will be either sufficient to carry us past the dead point, +or it will not: sufficient, we shall keep on, just as we are now, +gravitating forever around the Moon--" + +--"Hypothesis number two will have at least one point in its favor," +interrupted as usual the incorrigible Ardan; "it can't be worse than +hypothesis number one!" + +--"Insufficient," continued Barbican, laying down the law, "we shall +rest forever motionless on the dead point of the mutually neutralizing +attractions." + +"A pleasant prospect!" observed Ardan: "from the worst possible to no +better! Isn't it, Barbican?" + +"Nothing to say," was Barbican's only reply. + +"Have you nothing to say either, Captain?" asked Ardan, beginning to be +a little vexed at the apparent apathy of his companions. + +"Nothing whatever," replied M'Nicholl, giving point to his words by a +despairing shake of his head. + +"You don't mean surely that we're going to sit here, like bumps on a +log, doing nothing until it will be too late to attempt anything?" + +"Nothing whatever can be done," said Barbican gloomily. "It is vain to +struggle against the impossible." + +"Impossible! Where did you get that word? I thought the American +schoolboys had cut it out of their dictionaries!" + +"That must have been since my time," said Barbican smiling grimly. + +"It still sticks in a few old copies anyhow," drawled M'Nicholl drily, +as he carefully wiped his glasses. + +"Well! it has no business _here_!" said Ardan. "What! A pair of live +Yankees and a Frenchman, of the nineteenth century too, recoil before an +old fashioned word that hardly scared our grandfathers!" + +"What can we do?" + +"Correct the movement that's now running away with us!" + +"Correct it?" + +"Certainly, correct it! or modify it! or clap brakes on it! or take +some advantage of it that will be in our favor! What matters the exact +term so you comprehend me?" + +"Easy talking!" + +"As easy doing!" + +"Doing what? Doing how?" + +"The what, and the how, is your business, not mine! What kind of an +artillery man is he who can't master his bullets? The gunner who cannot +command his own gun should be rammed into it head foremost himself and +blown from its mouth! A nice pair of savants _you_ are! There you sit as +helpless as a couple of babies, after having inveigled me--" + +"Inveigled!!" cried Barbican and M'Nicholl starting to their feet in an +instant; "WHAT!!!" + +"Come, come!" went on Ardan, not giving his indignant friends time to +utter a syllable; "I don't want any recrimination! I'm not the one to +complain! I'll even let up a little if you consider the expression too +strong! I'll even withdraw it altogether, and assert that the trip +delights me! that the Projectile is a thing after my own heart! that I +was never in better spirits than at the present moment! I don't +complain, I only appeal to your own good sense, and call upon you with +all my voice to do everything possible, so that we may go _somewhere_, +since it appears we can't get to the Moon!" + +"But that's exactly what we want to do ourselves, friend Ardan," said +Barbican, endeavoring to give an example of calmness to the impatient +M'Nicholl; "the only trouble is that we have not the means to do it." + +"Can't we modify the Projectile's movement?" + +"No." + +"Nor diminish its velocity?" + +"No." + +"Not even by lightening it, as a heavily laden ship is lightened, by +throwing cargo overboard?" + +"What can we throw overboard? We have no ballast like balloon-men." + +"I should like to know," interrupted M'Nicholl, "what would be the good +of throwing anything at all overboard. Any one with a particle of common +sense in his head, can see that the lightened Projectile should only +move the quicker!" + +"Slower, you mean," said Ardan. + +"Quicker, I mean," replied the Captain. + +"Neither quicker nor slower, dear friends," interposed Barbican, +desirous to stop a quarrel; "we are floating, you know, in an absolute +void, where specific gravity never counts." + +"Well then, my friends," said Ardan in a resigned tone that he evidently +endeavored to render calm, "since the worst is come to the worst, there +is but one thing left for us to do!" + +"What's that?" said the Captain, getting ready to combat some new piece +of nonsense. + +"To take our breakfast!" said the Frenchman curtly. + +It was a resource he had often fallen back on in difficult +conjunctures. Nor did it fail him now. + +Though it was not a project that claimed to affect either the velocity +or the direction of the Projectile, still, as it was eminently +practicable and not only unattended by no inconvenience on the one hand +but evidently fraught with many advantages on the other, it met with +decided and instantaneous success. It was rather an early hour for +breakfast, two o'clock in the morning, yet the meal was keenly relished. +Ardan served it up in charming style and crowned the dessert with a few +bottles of a wine especially selected for the occasion from his own +private stock. It was a _Tokay Imperial_ of 1863, the genuine _Essenz_, +from Prince Esterhazy's own wine cellar, and the best brain stimulant +and brain clearer in the world, as every connoisseur knows. + +It was near four o'clock in the morning when our travellers, now well +fortified physically and morally, once more resumed their observations +with renewed courage and determination, and with a system of recording +really perfect in its arrangements. + +Around the Projectile, they could still see floating most of the objects +that had been dropped out of the window. This convinced them that, +during their revolution around the Moon, they had not passed through any +atmosphere; had anything of the kind been encountered, it would have +revealed its presence by its retarding effect on the different objects +that now followed close in the wake of the Projectile. One or two that +were missing had been probably struck and carried off by a fragment of +the exploded bolide. + +Of the Earth nothing as yet could be seen. She was only one day Old, +having been New the previous evening, and two days were still to elapse +before her crescent would be sufficiently cleared of the solar rays to +be capable of performing her ordinary duty of serving as a time-piece +for the Selenites. For, as the reflecting reader need hardly be +reminded, since she rotates with perfect regularity on her axis, she can +make such rotations visible to the Selenites by bringing some particular +point on her surface once every twenty-four hours directly over the same +lunar meridian. + +Towards the Moon, the view though far less distinct, was still almost as +dazzling as ever. The radiant Queen of Night still glittered in all her +splendor in the midst of the starry host, whose pure white light seemed +to borrow only additional purity and silvery whiteness from the gorgeous +contrast. On her disc, the "seas" were already beginning to assume the +ashy tint so well known to us on Earth, but the rest of her surface +sparkled with all its former radiation, _Tycho_ glowing like a sun in +the midst of the general resplendescence. + +Barbican attempted in vain to obtain even a tolerable approximation of +the velocity at which the Projectile was now moving. He had to content +himself with the knowledge that it was diminishing at a uniform rate--of +which indeed a little reflection on a well known law of Dynamics readily +convinced him. He had not much difficulty even in explaining the matter +to his friends. + +"Once admitting," said he, "the Projectile to describe an orbit round +the Moon, that orbit must of necessity be an ellipse. Every moving body +circulating regularly around another, describes an ellipse. Science has +proved this incontestably. The satellites describe ellipses around the +planets, the planets around the Sun, the Sun himself describes an +ellipse around the unknown star that serves as a pivot for our whole +solar system. How can our Baltimore Gun Club Projectile then escape the +universal law? + +"Now what is the consequence of this law? If the orbit were a _circle_, +the satellite would always preserve the same distance from its primary, +and its velocity should therefore be constant. But the orbit being an +_ellipse_, and the attracting body always occupying one of the foci, the +satellite must evidently lie nearer to this focus in one part of its +orbit than in another. The Earth when nearest to the Sun, is in her +_perihelion_; when most distant, in her _aphelion_. The Moon, with +regard to the Earth, is similarly in her _perigee_, and her _apogee_. +Analogous expressions denoting the relations of the Projectile towards +the Moon, would be _periselene_ and _aposelene_. At its _aposelene_ the +Projectile's velocity would have reached its minimum; at +the _periselene_, its maximum. As it is to the former point that we are +now moving, clearly the velocity must keep on diminishing until that +point is reached. Then, _if it does not die out altogether_, it must +spring up again, and even accelerate as it reapproaches the Moon. Now +the great trouble is this: If the _Aposelenetic_ point should coincide +with the point of lunar attraction, our velocity must certainly become +_nil_, and the Projectile must remain relatively motionless forever!" + +"What do you mean by 'relatively motionless'?" asked M'Nicholl, who was +carefully studying the situation. + +"I mean, of course, not absolutely motionless," answered Barbican; +"absolute immobility is, as you are well aware, altogether impossible, +but motionless with regard to the Earth and the--" + +"By Mahomet's jackass!" interrupted Ardan hastily, "I must say we're a +precious set of _imbéciles_!" + +"I don't deny it, dear friend," said Barbican quietly, notwithstanding +the unceremonious interruption; "but why do you say so just now?" + +"Because though we are possessed of the power of retarding the velocity +that takes us from the Moon, we have never thought of employing it!" + +"What do you mean?" + +"Do you forget the rockets?" + +"It's a fact!" cried M'Nicholl. "How have we forgotten them?" + +"I'm sure I can't tell," answered Barbican, "unless, perhaps, because we +had too many other things to think about. Your thought, my dear friend, +is a most happy one, and, of course, we shall utilize it." + +"When? How soon?" + +"At the first favorable opportunity, not sooner. For you can see for +yourselves, dear friends," he went on explaining, "that with the present +obliquity of the Projectile with regard to the lunar disc, a discharge +of our rockets would be more likely to send us away from the Moon than +towards her. Of course, you are both still desirous of reaching the +Moon?" + +"Most emphatically so!" + +"Then by reserving our rockets for the last chance, we may possibly get +there after all. In consequence of some force, to me utterly +inexplicable, the Projectile still seems disposed to turn its base +towards the Earth. In fact, it is likely enough that at the neutral +point its cone will point vertically to the Moon. That being the moment +when its velocity will most probably be _nil_, it will also be the +moment for us to discharge our rockets, and the possibility is that we +may force a direct fall on the lunar disc." + +"Good!" cried Ardan, clapping hands. + +"Why didn't we execute this grand manoeuvre the first time we reached +the neutral point?" asked M'Nicholl a little crustily. + +"It would be useless," answered Barbican; "the Projectile's velocity at +that time, as you no doubt remember, not only did not need rockets, but +was actually too great to be affected by them." + +"True!" chimed in Ardan; "a wind of four miles an hour is very little +use to a steamer going ten." + +"That assertion," cried M'Nicholl, "I am rather dis--" + +--"Dear friends," interposed Barbican, his pale face beaming and his +clear voice ringing with the new excitement; "let us just now waste no +time in mere words. We have one more chance, perhaps a great one. Let us +not throw it away! We have been on the brink of despair--" + +--"Beyond it!" cried Ardan. + +--"But I now begin to see a possibility, nay, a very decided +probability, of our being able to attain the great end at last!" + +"Bravo!" cried Ardan. + +"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl. + +"Yes! my brave boys!" cried Barbican as enthusiastically as his +companions; "all's not over yet by a long shot!" + +What had brought about this great revulsion in the spirits of our bold +adventurers? The breakfast? Prince Esterhazy's Tokay? The latter, most +probably. What had become of the resolutions they had discussed so ably +and passed so decidedly a few hours before? _Was the Moon inhabited? No! +Was the Moon habitable? No!_ Yet in the face of all this--or rather as +coolly as if such subjects had never been alluded to--here were the +reckless scientists actually thinking of nothing but how to work heaven +and earth in order to get there! + +One question more remained to be answered before they played their last +trump, namely: "At what precise moment would the Projectile reach the +neutral point?" + +To this Barbican had very little trouble in finding an answer. The time +spent in proceeding from the south pole to the dead point being +evidently equal to the time previously spent in proceeding from the dead +point to the north pole--to ascertain the former, he had only to +calculate the latter. This was easily done. To refer to his notes, to +check off the different rates of velocity at which they had readied the +different parallels, and to turn these rates into time, required only a +very few minutes careful calculation. The Projectile then was to reach +the point of neutral attraction at one o'clock in the morning of +December 8th. At the present time, it was five o'clock in the morning of +the 7th; therefore, if nothing unforeseen should occur in the meantime, +their great and final effort was to be made about twenty hours later. + +The rockets, so often alluded to as an idea of Ardan's and already fully +described, had been originally provided to break the violence of the +Projectile's fall on the lunar surface; but now the dauntless travellers +were about to employ them for a purpose precisely the reverse. In any +case, having been put in proper order for immediate use, nothing more +now remained to be done till the moment should come for firing them off. + +"Now then, friends," said M'Nicholl, rubbing his eyes but hardly able to +keep them open, "I'm not over fond of talking, but this time I think I +may offer a slight proposition." + +"We shall be most happy to entertain it, my dear Captain," said +Barbican. + +[Illustration: ARDAN GAZED ON THE PAIR.] + +"I propose we lie down and take a good nap." + +"Good gracious!" protested Ardan; "What next?" + +"We have not had a blessed wink for forty hours," continued the Captain; +"a little sleep would recuperate us wonderfully." + +"No sleep now!" exclaimed Ardan. + +"Every man to his taste!" said M'Nicholl; "mine at present is certainly +to turn in!" and suiting the action to the word, he coiled himself on +the sofa, and in a few minutes his deep regular breathing showed his +slumber to be as tranquil as an infant's. + +Barbican looked at him in a kindly way, but only for a very short time; +his eyes grew so filmy that he could not keep them open any longer. "The +Captain," he said, "may not be without his little faults, but for good +practical sense he is worth a ship-load like you and me, Ardan. By Jove, +I'm going to imitate him, and, friend Michael, you might do worse!" + +In a short time he was as unconscious as the Captain. + +Ardan gazed on the pair for a few minutes, and then began to feel quite +lonely. Even his animals were fast asleep. He tried to look out, but +observing without having anybody to listen to your observations, is dull +work. He looked again at the sleeping pair, and then he gave in. + +"It can't be denied," he muttered, slowly nodding his head, "that even +your practical men sometimes stumble on a good idea." + +Then curling up his long legs, and folding his arms under his head, his +restless brain was soon forming fantastic shapes for itself in the +mysterious land of dreams. + +But his slumbers were too much disturbed to last long. After an uneasy, +restless, unrefreshing attempt at repose, he sat up at about half-past +seven o'clock, and began stretching himself, when he found his +companions already awake and discussing the situation in whispers. + +The Projectile, they were remarking, was still pursuing its way from the +Moon, and turning its conical point more and more in her direction. This +latter phenomenon, though as puzzling as ever, Barbican regarded with +decided pleasure: the more directly the conical summit pointed to the +Moon at the exact moment, the more directly towards her surface would +the rockets communicate their reactionary motion. + +Nearly seventeen hours, however, were still to elapse before that +moment, that all important moment, would arrive. + +The time began to drag. The excitement produced by the Moon's vicinity +had died out. Our travellers, though as daring and as confident as ever, +could not help feeling a certain sinking of heart at the approach of the +moment for deciding either alternative of their doom in this +world--their fall to the Moon, or their eternal imprisonment in a +changeless orbit. Barbican and M'Nicholl tried to kill time by revising +their calculations and putting their notes in order; Ardan, by +feverishly walking back and forth from window to window, and stopping +for a second or two to throw a nervous glance at the cold, silent and +impassive Moon. + +Now and then reminiscences of our lower world would flit across their +brains. Visions of the famous Gun Club rose up before them the oftenest, +with their dear friend Marston always the central figure. What was his +bustling, honest, good-natured, impetuous heart at now? Most probably he +was standing bravely at his post on the Rocky Mountains, his eye glued +to the great Telescope, his whole soul peering through its tube. Had he +seen the Projectile before it vanished behind the Moon's north pole? +Could he have caught a glimpse of it at its reappearance? If so, could +he have concluded it to be the satellite of a satellite! Could Belfast +have announced to the world such a startling piece of intelligence? Was +that all the Earth was ever to know of their great enterprise? What were +the speculations of the Scientific World upon the subject? etc., etc. + +In listless questions and desultory conversation of this kind the day +slowly wore away, without the occurrence of any incident whatever to +relieve its weary monotony. Midnight arrived, December the seventh was +dead. As Ardan said: "_Le Sept Decembre est mort; vive le Huit!_" In one +hour more, the neutral point would be reached. At what velocity was the +Projectile now moving? Barbican could not exactly tell, but he felt +quite certain that no serious error had slipped into his calculations. +At one o'clock that night, _nil_ the velocity was to be, and _nil_ it +would be! + +Another phenomenon, in any case, was to mark the arrival of the exact +moment. At the dead point, the two attractions, terrestrial and lunar, +would again exactly counterbalance each other. For a few seconds, +objects would no longer possess the slightest weight. This curious +circumstance, which had so much surprised and amused the travellers at +its first occurrence, was now to appear again as soon as the conditions +should become identical. During these few seconds then would come the +moment for striking the decisive blow. + +They could soon notice the gradual approach of this important instant. +Objects began to weigh sensibly lighter. The conical point of the +Projectile had become almost directly under the centre of the lunar +surface. This gladdened the hearts of the bold adventurers. The recoil +of the rockets losing none of its power by oblique action, the chances +pronounced decidedly in their favor. Now, only supposing the +Projectile's velocity to be absolutely annihilated at the dead point, +the slightest force directing it towards the Moon would be _certain_ to +cause it finally to fall on her surface. + +Supposing!--but supposing the contrary! + +--Even these brave adventurers had not the courage to suppose the +contrary! + +"Five minutes to one o'clock," said M'Nicholl, his eyes never quitting +his watch. + +"Ready?" asked Barbican of Ardan. + +"Ay, ay, sir!" was Ardan's reply, as he made sure that the electric +apparatus to discharge the rockets was in perfect working order. + +"Wait till I give the word," said Barbican, pulling out his chronometer. + +The moment was now evidently close at hand. The objects lying around had +no weight. The travellers felt their bodies to be as buoyant as a +hydrogen balloon. Barbican let go his chronometer, but it kept its place +as firmly in empty space before his eyes as if it had been nailed to the +wall! + +"One o'clock!" cried Barbican in a solemn tone. + +Ardan instantly touched the discharging key of the little electric +battery. A dull, dead, distant report was immediately heard, +communicated probably by the vibration of the Projectile to the internal +air. But Ardan saw through the window a long thin flash, which vanished +in a second. At the same moment, the three friends became +instantaneously conscious of a slight shock experienced by the +Projectile. + +They looked at each other, speechless, breathless, for about as long as +it would take you to count five: the silence so intense that they could +easily hear the pulsation of their hearts. Ardan was the first to break +it. + +"Are we falling or are we not?" he asked in a loud whisper. + +"We're not!" answered M'Nicholl, also hardly speaking above his breath. +"The base of the Projectile is still turned away as far as ever from the +Moon!" + +Barbican, who had been looking out of the window, now turned hastily +towards his companions. His face frightened them. He was deadly pale; +his eyes stared, and his lips were painfully contracted. + +"We _are_ falling!" he shrieked huskily. + +"Towards the Moon?" exclaimed his companions. + +"No!" was the terrible reply. "Towards the Earth!" + +"_Sacré!_" cried Ardan, as usually letting off his excitement in French. + +"Fire and fury!" cried M'Nicholl, completely startled out of his +habitual _sang froid_. + +"Thunder and lightning!" swore the usually serene Barbican, now +completely stunned by the blow. "I had never expected this!" + +Ardan was the first to recover from the deadening shock: his levity came +to his relief. + +"First impressions are always right," he muttered philosophically. "The +moment I set eyes on the confounded thing, it reminded me of the +Bastille; it is now proving its likeness to a worse place: easy enough +to get into, but no redemption out of it!" + +There was no longer any doubt possible on the subject. The terrible fall +had begun. The Projectile had retained velocity enough not only to carry +it beyond the dead point, but it was even able to completely overcome +the feeble resistance offered by the rockets. It was all clear now. The +same velocity that had carried the Projectile beyond the neutral point +on its way to the Moon, was still swaying it on its return to the Earth. +A well known law of motion required that, in the path which it was now +about to describe, _it should repass, on its return through all the +points through which it had already passed during its departure_. + +No wonder that our friends were struck almost senseless when the fearful +fall they were now about to encounter, flashed upon them in all its +horror. They were to fall a clear distance of nearly 200 thousand miles! +To lighten or counteract such a descent, the most powerful springs, +checks, rockets, screens, deadeners, even if the whole Earth were +engaged in their construction--would produce no more effect than so many +spiderwebs. According to a simple law in Ballistics, _the Projectile was +to strike the Earth with a velocity equal to that by which it had been +animated when issuing from the mouth of the Columbiad_--a velocity of at +least seven miles a second! + +To have even a faint idea of this enormous velocity, let us make a +little comparison. A body falling from the summit of a steeple a hundred +and fifty feet high, dashes against the pavement with a velocity of +fifty five miles an hour. Falling from the summit of St. Peter's, it +strikes the earth at the rate of 300 miles an hour, or five times +quicker than the rapidest express train. Falling from the neutral +point, the Projectile should strike the Earth with a velocity of more +than 25,000 miles an hour! + +"We are lost!" said M'Nicholl gloomily, his philosophy yielding to +despair. + +"One consolation, boys!" cried Ardan, genial to the last. "We shall die +together!" + +"If we die," said Barbican calmly, but with a kind of suppressed +enthusiasm, "it will be only to remove to a more extended sphere of our +investigations. In the other world, we can pursue our inquiries under +far more favorable auspices. There the wonders of our great Creator, +clothed in brighter light, shall be brought within a shorter range. We +shall require no machine, nor projectile, nor material contrivance of +any kind to be enabled to contemplate them in all their grandeur and to +appreciate them fully and intelligently. Our souls, enlightened by the +emanations of the Eternal Wisdom, shall revel forever in the blessed +rays of Eternal Knowledge!" + +"A grand view to take of it, dear friend Barbican;" replied Ardan, "and +a consoling one too. The privilege of roaming at will through God's +great universe should make ample amends for missing the Moon!" + +M'Nicholl fixed his eyes on Barbican admiringly, feebly muttering with +hardly moving lips: + +"Grit to the marrow! Grit to the marrow!" + +Barbican, head bowed in reverence, arms folded across his breast, meekly +and uncomplainingly uttered with sublime resignation: + +"Thy will be done!" + +"Amen!" answered his companions, in a loud and fervent whisper. + + * * * * * + +They were soon falling through the boundless regions of space with +inconceivable rapidity! + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +OFF THE PACIFIC COAST. + + +"Well, Lieutenant, how goes the sounding?" + +"Pretty lively, Captain; we're nearly through;" replied the Lieutenant. +"But it's a tremendous depth so near land. We can't be more than 250 +miles from the California coast." + +"The depression certainly is far deeper than I had expected," observed +Captain Bloomsbury. "We have probably lit on a submarine valley +channelled out by the Japanese Current." + +"The Japanese Current, Captain?" + +"Certainly; that branch of it which breaks on the western shores of +North America and then flows southeast towards the Isthmus of Panama." + +"That may account for it, Captain," replied young Brownson; "at least, I +hope it does, for then we may expect the valley to get shallower as we +leave the land. So far, there's no sign of a Telegraphic Plateau in this +quarter of the globe." + +"Probably not, Brownson. How is the line now?" + +"We have paid out 3500 fathoms already, Captain, but, judging from the +rate the reel goes at, we are still some distance from bottom." + +As he spoke, he pointed to a tall derrick temporarily rigged up at the +stern of the vessel for the purpose of working the sounding apparatus, +and surrounded by a group of busy men. Through a block pulley strongly +lashed to the derrick, a stout cord of the best Italian hemp, wound off +a large reel placed amidships, was now running rapidly and with a slight +whirring noise. + +"I hope it's not the 'cup-lead' you are using, Brownson?" said the +Captain, after a few minutes observation. + +"Oh no, Captain, certainly not," replied the Lieutenant. "It's only +Brooke's apparatus that is of any use in such depths." + +"Clever fellow that Brooke," observed the Captain; "served with him +under Maury. His detachment of the weight is really the starting point +for every new improvement in sounding gear. The English, the French, and +even our own, are nothing but modifications of that fundamental +principle. Exceedingly clever fellow!" + +"Bottom!" sang out one of the men standing near the derrick and watching +the operations. + +The Captain and the Lieutenant immediately advanced to question him. + +"What's the depth, Coleman?" asked the Lieutenant. + +"21,762 feet," was the prompt reply, which Brownson immediately +inscribed in his note-book, handing a duplicate to the Captain. + +"All right, Lieutenant," observed the Captain, after a moment's +inspection of the figures. "While I enter it in the log, you haul the +line aboard. To do so, I need hardly remind you, is a task involving +care and patience. In spite of all our gallant little donkey engine can +do, it's a six hours job at least. Meanwhile, the Chief Engineer had +better give orders for firing up, so that we may be ready to start as +soon as you're through. It's now close on to four bells, and with your +permission I shall turn in. Let me be called at three. Good night!" + +"Goodnight, Captain!" replied Brownson, who spent the next two hours +pacing backward and forward on the quarter deck, watching the hauling in +of the sounding line, and occasionally casting a glance towards all +quarters of the sky. + +It was a glorious night. The innumerable stars glittered with the +brilliancy of the purest gems. The ship, hove to in order to take the +soundings, swung gently on the faintly heaving ocean breast. You felt +you were in a tropical clime, for, though no breath fanned your cheek, +your senses easily detected the delicious odor of a distant garden of +sweet roses. The sea sparkled with phosphorescence. Not a sound was +heard except the panting of the hard-worked little donkey-engine and the +whirr of the line as it came up taut and dripping from the ocean depths. +The lamp, hanging from the mast, threw a bright glare on deck, +presenting the strongest contrast with the black shadows, firm and +motionless as marble. The 11th day of December was now near its last +hour. + +The steamer was the _Susquehanna_, a screw, of the United States Navy, +4,000 in tonnage, and carrying 20 guns. She had been detached to take +soundings between the Pacific coast and the Sandwich Islands, the +initiatory movement towards laying down an Ocean Cable, which the +_Pacific Cable Company_ contemplated finally extending to China. She lay +just now a few hundred miles directly south of San Diego, an old Spanish +town in southwestern California, and the point which is expected to be +the terminus of the great _Texas and Pacific Railroad_. + +The Captain, John Bloomsbury by name, but better known as 'High-Low +Jack' from his great love of that game--the only one he was ever known +to play--was a near relation of our old friend Colonel Bloomsbury of the +Baltimore Gun Club. Of a good Kentucky family, and educated at +Annapolis, he had passed his meridian without ever being heard of, when +suddenly the news that he had run the gauntlet in a little gunboat past +the terrible batteries of Island Number Ten, amidst a perfect storm of +shell, grape and canister discharged at less than a hundred yards +distance, burst on the American nation on the sixth of April, 1862, and +inscribed his name at once in deep characters on the list of the giants +of the Great War. But war had never been his vocation. With the return +of peace, he had sought and obtained employment on the Western Coast +Survey, where every thing he did he looked on as a labor of love. The +Sounding Expedition he had particularly coveted, and, once entered upon +it, he discharged his duties with characteristic energy. + +He could not have had more favorable weather than the present for a +successful performance of the nice and delicate investigations of +sounding. His vessel had even been fortunate enough to have lain +altogether out of the track of the terrible wind storm already alluded +to, which, starting from somewhere southwest of the Sierra Madre, had +swept away every vestige of mist from the summits of the Rocky Mountains +and, by revealing the Moon in all her splendor, had enabled Belfast to +send the famous despatch announcing that he had seen the Projectile. +Every feature of the expedition was, in fact, advancing so favorably +that the Captain expected to be able, in a month or two, to submit to +the _P.C. Company_ a most satisfactory report of his labors. + +Cyrus W. Field, the life and soul of the whole enterprise, flushed with +honors still in full bloom (the Atlantic Telegraph Cable having been +just laid), could congratulate himself with good reason on having found +a treasure in the Captain. High-Low Jack was the congenial spirit by +whose active and intelligent aid he promised himself the pleasure of +seeing before long the whole Pacific Ocean covered with a vast +reticulation of electric cables. The practical part, therefore, being in +such safe hands, Mr. Field could remain with a quiet conscience in +Washington, New York or London, seeing after the financial part of the +grand undertaking, worthy of the Nineteenth Century, worthy of the Great +Republic, and eminently worthy of the illustrious CYRUS W. himself! + +As already mentioned, the _Susquehanna_ lay a few hundred miles south +of San Diego, or, to be more accurate, in 27° 7' North Latitude and 118° +37' West Longitude (Greenwich). + +It was now a little past midnight. The Moon, in her last quarter, was +just beginning to peep over the eastern horizon. Lieutenant Brownson, +leaving the quarter deck, had gone to the forecastle, where he found a +crowd of officers talking together earnestly and directing their glasses +towards her disc. Even here, out on the ocean, the Queen of the night, +was as great an object of attraction as on the North American Continent +generally, where, that very night and that very hour, at least 40 +million pairs of eyes were anxiously gazing at her. Apparently forgetful +that even the very best of their glasses could no more see the +Projectile than angulate Sirius, the officers held them fast to their +eyes for five minutes at a time, and then took them away only to talk +with remarkable fluency on what they had not discovered. + +"Any sign of them yet, gentlemen?" asked Brownson gaily as he joined the +group. "It's now pretty near time for them to put in an appearance. +They're gone ten days I should think." + +"They're there, Lieutenant! not a doubt of it!" cried a young midshipman, +fresh from Annapolis, and of course "throughly posted" in the latest +revelations of Astronomy. "I feel as certain of their being there as I +am of our being here on the forecastle of the _Susquehanna_!" + +"I must agree with you of course, Mr. Midshipman," replied Brownson +with a slight smile; "I have no grounds whatever for contradicting you." + +"Neither have I," observed another officer, the surgeon of the vessel. +"The Projectile was to have reached the Moon when at her full, which was +at midnight on the 5th. To-day was the 11th. This gives them six days of +clear light--time enough in all conscience not only to land safely but +to install themselves quite comfortably in their new home. In fact, I +see them there already--" + +"In my mind's eye, Horatio!" laughed one of the group. "Though the Doc +wears glasses, he can see more than any ten men on board." + +--"Already"--pursued the Doctor, heedless of the interruption. "_Scene_, +a stony valley near a Selenite stream; the Projectile on the right, half +buried in volcanic _scoriae_, but apparently not much the worse for the +wear; ring mountains, craters, sharp peaks, etc. all around; old MAC +discovered taking observations with his levelling staff; BARBICAN +perched on the summit of a sharp pointed rock, writing up his note-book; +ARDAN, eye-glass on nose, hat under arm, legs apart, puffing at his +_Imperador_, like a--" + +[Illustration: MAC DISCOVERED TAKING OBSERVATIONS.] + +--"A locomotive!" interrupted the young Midshipman, his excitable +imagination so far getting the better of him as to make him forget his +manners. He had just finished Locke's famous MOON HOAX, and his brain +was still full of its pictures. "In the background," he went on, "can be +seen thousands of _Vespertiliones-Homines_ or _Man-Bats_, in all the +various attitudes of curiosity, alarm, or consternation; some of them +peeping around the rocks, some fluttering from peak to peak, all +gibbering a language more or less resembling the notes of birds. _Enter_ +LUNATICO, King of the Selenites--" + +"Excuse us, Mr. Midshipman," interrupted Brownson with an easy smile, +"Locke's authority may have great weight among the young Middies at +Annapolis, but it does not rank very high at present in the estimation +of practical scientists." This rebuff administered to the conceited +little Midshipman, a rebuff which the Doctor particularly relished, +Brownson continued: "Gentlemen, we certainly know nothing whatever +regarding our friends' fate; guessing gives no information. How we ever +are to hear from the Moon until we are connected with it by a lunar +cable, I can't even imagine. The probability is that we shall never--" + +"Excuse me, Lieutenant," interrupted the unrebuffed little Midshipman; +"Can't Barbican write?" + +A shout of derisive comments greeted this question. + +"Certainly he can write, and send his letter by the Pony Express!" cried +one. + +"A Postal Card would be cheaper!" cried another. + +"The _New York Herald_ will send a reporter after it!" was the +exclamation of a third. + +"Keep cool, just keep cool, gentlemen," persisted the little Midshipman, +not in the least abashed by the uproarious hilarity excited by his +remarks. "I asked if Barbican couldn't write. In that question I see +nothing whatever to laugh at. Can't a man write without being obliged to +send his letters?" + +"This is all nonsense," said the Doctor. "What's the use of a man +writing to you if he can't send you what he writes?" + +"What's the use of his sending it to you if he can have it read without +that trouble?" answered the little Midshipman in a confident tone. "Is +there not a telescope at Long's Peak? Doesn't it bring the Moon within a +few miles of the Rocky Mountains, and enable us to see on her surface, +objects as small as nine feet in diameter? Well! What's to prevent +Barbican and his friends from constructing a gigantic alphabet? If they +write words of even a few hundred yards and sentences a mile or two +long, what is to prevent us from reading them? Catch the idea now, eh?" + +They did catch the idea, and heartily applauded the little Middy for his +smartness. Even the Doctor saw a certain kind of merit in it, and +Brownson acknowledged it to be quite feasible. In fact, expanding on it, +the Lieutenant assured his hearers that, by means of large parabolic +reflectors, luminous groups of rays could be dispatched from the Earth, +of sufficient brightness to establish direct communication even with +Venus or Mars, where these rays would be quite as visible as the planet +Neptune is from the Earth. He even added that those brilliant points of +light, which have been quite frequently observed in Mars and Venus, are +perhaps signals made to the Earth by the inhabitants of these planets. +He concluded, however, by observing that, though we might by these means +succeed in obtaining news from the Moon, we could not possibly send any +intelligence back in return, unless indeed the Selenites had at their +disposal optical instruments at least as good as ours. + +All agreed that this was very true, and, as is generally the case when +one keeps all the talk to himself, the conversation now assumed so +serious a turn that for some time it was hardly worth recording. + +At last the Chief Engineer, excited by some remark that had been made, +observed with much earnestness: + +"You may say what you please, gentlemen, but I would willingly give my +last dollar to know what has become of those brave men! Have they done +anything? Have they seen anything? I hope they have. But I should dearly +like to know. Ever so little success would warrant a repetition of the +great experiment. The Columbiad is still to the good in Florida, as it +will be for many a long day. There are millions of men to day as curious +as I am upon the subject. Therefore it will be only a question of mere +powder and bullets if a cargo of visitors is not sent to the Moon every +time she passes our zenith. + +"Marston would be one of the first of them," observed Brownson, lighting +his cigar. + +"Oh, he would have plenty of company!" cried the Midshipman. "I should +be delighted to go if he'd only take me." + +"No doubt you would, Mr. Midshipman," said Brownson, "the wise men, you +know, are not all dead yet." + +"Nor the fools either, Lieutenant," growled old Frisby, the fourth +officer, getting tired of the conversation. + +"There is no question at all about it," observed another; "every time a +Projectile started, it would take off as many as it could carry." + +"I wish it would only start often enough to improve the breed!" growled +old Frisby. + +"I have no doubt whatever," added the Chief Engineer, "that the thing +would get so fashionable at last that half the inhabitants of the Earth +would take a trip to the Moon." + +"I should limit that privilege strictly to some of our friends in +Washington," said old Frisby, whose temper had been soured probably by a +neglect to recognize his long services; "and most of them I should by +all means insist on sending to the Moon. Every month I would ram a whole +raft of them into the Columbiad, with a charge under them strong enough +to blow them all to the--But--Hey!--what in creation's that?" + +[Illustration: FOR A SECOND ONLY DID THEY CATCH ITS FLASH.] + +Whilst the officer was speaking, his companions had suddenly caught a +sound in the air which reminded them immediately of the whistling scream +of a Lancaster shell. At first they thought the steam was escaping +somewhere, but, looking upwards, they saw that the strange noise +proceeded from a ball of dazzling brightness, directly over their heads, +and evidently falling towards them with tremendous velocity. Too +frightened to say a word, they could only see that in its light the +whole ship blazed like fireworks, and the whole sea glittered like a +silver lake. Quicker than tongue can utter, or mind can conceive, it +flashed before their eyes for a second, an enormous bolide set on fire +by friction with the atmosphere, and gleaming in its white heat like a +stream of molten iron gushing straight from the furnace. For a second +only did they catch its flash before their eyes; then striking the +bowsprit of the vessel, which it shivered into a thousand pieces, it +vanished in the sea in an instant with a hiss, a scream, and a roar, all +equally indescribable. For some time the utmost confusion reigned on +deck. With eyes too dazzled to see, ears still ringing with the +frightful combination of unearthly sounds, faces splashed with floods of +sea water, and noses stifled with clouds of scalding steam, the crew of +the _Susquehanna_ could hardly realize that their marvellous escape by a +few feet from instant and certain destruction was an accomplished fact, +not a frightful dream. They were still engaged in trying to open their +eyes and to get the hot water out of their ears, when they suddenly +heard the trumpet voice of Captain Bloomsbury crying, as he stood half +dressed on the head of the cabin stairs: + +"What's up, gentlemen? In heaven's name, what's up?" + +The little Midshipman had been knocked flat by the concussion and +stunned by the uproar. But before any body else could reply, his voice +was heard, clear and sharp, piercing the din like an arrow: + +"It's THEY, Captain! Didn't I tell you so?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +NEWS FOR MARSTON! + + +In a few minutes, consciousness had restored order on board the +_Susquehanna_, but the excitement was as great as ever. They had escaped +by a hairsbreadth the terrible fate of being both burned and drowned +without a moment's warning, without a single soul being left alive to +tell the fatal tale; but on this neither officer nor man appeared to +bestow the slightest thought. They were wholly engrossed with the +terrible catastrophe that had befallen the famous adventurers. What was +the loss of the _Susquehanna_ and all it contained, in comparison to the +loss experienced by the world at large in the terrible tragic +_dénouement_ just witnessed? The worst had now come to the worst. At +last the long agony was over forever. Those three gallant men, who had +not only conceived but had actually executed the grandest and most +daring enterprise of ancient or modern times, had paid by the most +fearful of deaths, for their sublime devotion to science and their +unselfish desire to extend the bounds of human knowledge! Before such a +reflection as this, all other considerations were at once reduced to +proportions of the most absolute insignificance. + +But was the death of the adventurers so very certain after all? Hope is +hard to kill. Consciousness had brought reflection, reflection doubt, +and doubt had resuscitated hope. + +"It's they!" had exclaimed the little Midshipman, and the cry had +thrilled every heart on board as with an electric shock. Everybody had +instantly understood it. Everybody had felt it to be true. Nothing could +be more certain than that the meteor which had just flashed before their +eyes was the famous projectile of the Baltimore Gun Club. Nothing could +be truer than that it contained the three world renowned men and that it +now lay in the black depths of the Pacific Ocean. + +But here opinions began to diverge. Some courageous breasts soon refused +to accept the prevalent idea. + +"They're killed by the shock!" cried the crowd. + +"Killed?" exclaimed the hopeful ones; "Not a bit of it! The water here +is deep enough to break a fall twice as great." + +"They're smothered for want of air!" exclaimed the crowd. + +"Their stock may not be run out yet!" was the ready reply. "Their air +apparatus is still on hand." + +"They're burned to a cinder!" shrieked the crowd. + +"They had not time to be burned!" answered the Band of Hope. "The +Projectile did not get hot till it reached the atmosphere, through which +it tore in a few seconds." + +"If they're neither burned nor smothered nor killed by the shock, +they're sure to be drowned!" persisted the crowd, with redoubled +lamentations. + +"Fish 'em up first!" cried the Hopeful Band. "Come! Let's lose no time! +Let's fish 'em up at once!" + +The cries of Hope prevailed. The unanimous opinion of a council of the +officers hastily summoned together by the Captain was to go to work and +fish up the Projectile with the least possible delay. But was such an +operation possible? asked a doubter. Yes! was the overwhelming reply; +difficult, no doubt, but still quite possible. Certainly, however, such +an attempt was not immediately possible as the _Susquehanna_ had no +machinery strong enough or suitable enough for a piece of work involving +such a nicety of detailed operations, not to speak of its exceeding +difficulty. The next unanimous decision, therefore, was to start the +vessel at once for the nearest port, whence they could instantly +telegraph the Projectile's arrival to the Baltimore Gun Club. + +But what _was_ the nearest port? A serious question, to answer which in +a satisfactory manner the Captain had to carefully examine his sailing +charts. The neighboring shores of the California Peninsula, low and +sandy, were absolutely destitute of good harbors. San Diego, about a +day's sail directly north, possessed an excellent harbor, but, not yet +having telegraphic communication with the rest of the Union, it was of +course not to be thought of. San Pedro Bay was too open to be approached +in winter. The Santa Barbara Channel was liable to the same objection, +not to mention the trouble often caused by kelp and wintry fogs. The bay +of San Luis Obispo was still worse in every respect; having no islands +to act as a breakwater, landing there in winter was often impossible. +The harbor of the picturesque old town of Monterey was safe enough, but +some uncertainty regarding sure telegraphic communications with San +Francisco, decided the council not to venture it. Half Moon Bay, a +little to the north, would be just as risky, and in moments like the +present when every minute was worth a day, no risk involving the +slightest loss of time could be ventured. + +Evidently, therefore, the most advisable plan was to sail directly for +the bay of San Francisco, the Golden Gate, the finest harbor on the +Pacific Coast and one of the safest in the world. Here telegraphic +communication with all parts of the Union was assured beyond a doubt. +San Francisco, about 750 miles distant, the _Susquehanna_ could probably +make in three days; with a little increased pressure, possibly in two +days and a-half. The sooner then she started, the better. + +The fires were soon in full blast. The vessel could get under weigh at +once. In fact, nothing delayed immediate departure but the consideration +that two miles of sounding line were still to be hauled up from the +ocean depths. Rut the Captain, after a moment's thought, unwilling that +any more time should be lost, determined to cut it. Then marking its +position by fastening its end to a buoy, he could haul it up at his +leisure on his return. + +"Besides," said he, "the buoy will show us the precise spot where the +Projectile fell." + +"As for that, Captain," observed Brownson, "the exact spot has been +carefully recorded already: 27° 7' north latitude by 41° 37' west +longitude, reckoning from the meridian of Washington." + +"All right, Lieutenant," said the Captain curtly. "Cut the line!" + +A large cone-shaped metal buoy, strengthened still further by a couple +of stout spars to which it was securely lashed, was soon rigged up on +deck, whence, being hoisted overboard, the whole apparatus was carefully +lowered to the surface of the sea. By means of a ring in the small end +of the buoy, the latter was then solidly attached to the part of the +sounding line that still remained in the water, and all possible +precautions were taken to diminish the danger of friction, caused by the +contrary currents, tidal waves, and the ordinary heaving swells of +ocean. + +It was now a little after three o'clock in the morning. The Chief +Engineer announced everything to be in perfect readiness for starting. +The Captain gave the signal, directing the pilot to steer straight for +San Francisco, north-north by west. The waters under the stern began to +boil and foam; the ship very soon felt and yielded to the power that +animated her; and in a few minutes she was making at least twelve knots +an hour. Her sailing powers were somewhat higher than this, but it was +necessary to be careful in the neighborhood of such a dangerous coast as +that of California. + +Seven hundred and fifty miles of smooth waters presented no very +difficult task to a fast traveller like the _Susquehanna_, yet it was +not till two days and a-half afterwards that she sighted the Golden +Gate. As usual, the coast was foggy; neither Point Lobos nor Point +Boneta could be seen. But Captain Bloomsbury, well acquainted with every +portion of this coast, ran as close along the southern shore as he +dared, the fog-gun at Point Boneta safely directing his course. Here +expecting to be able to gain a few hours time by signalling to the outer +telegraph station on Point Lobos, he had caused to be painted on a sail +in large black letters: "THE MOONMEN ARE BACK!" but the officers in +attendance, though their fog-horn could be easily heard--the distance +not being quite two miles--were unfortunately not able to see it. +Perhaps they did see it, but feared a hoax. + +Giving the Fort Point a good wide berth, the _Susquehanna_ found the fog +gradually clearing away, and by half-past three the passengers, looking +under it, enjoyed the glorious view of the Contra Costa mountains east +of San Francisco, which had obtained for this entrance the famous and +well deserved appellation of the Golden Gate. In another half hour, they +had doubled Black Point, and were lying safely at anchor between the +islands of Alcatraz and Yerba Buena. In less than five minutes +afterwards the Captain was quickly lowered into his gig, and eight stout +pairs of arms were pulling him rapidly to shore. + +The usual crowd of idlers had collected that evening on the summit of +Telegraph Hill to enjoy the magnificent view, which for variety, extent, +beauty and grandeur, is probably unsurpassed on earth. Of course, the +inevitable reporter, hot after an item, was not absent. The +_Susquehanna_ had hardly crossed the bar, when they caught sight of her. +A government vessel entering the bay at full speed, is something to look +at even in San Francisco. Even during the war, it would be considered +rather unusual. But they soon remarked that her bowsprit was completely +broken off. _Very_ unusual. Something decidedly is the matter. See! The +vessel is hardly anchored when the Captain leaves her and makes for +Megg's Wharf at North Point as hard as ever his men can pull! Something +_must_ be the matter--and down the steep hill they all rush as fast as +ever their legs can carry them to the landing at Megg's Wharf. + +The Captain could hardly force his way through the dense throng, but he +made no attempt whatever to gratify their ill dissembled curiosity. + +"Carriage!" he cried, in a voice seldom heard outside the din of battle. + +In a moment seventeen able-bodied cabmen were trying to tear him limb +from limb. + +"To the telegraph office! Like lightning!" were his stifled mutterings, +as he struggled in the arms of the Irish giant who had at last +succeeded in securing him. + +"To the telegraph office!" cried most of the crowd, running after him +like fox hounds, but the more knowing ones immediately began questioning +the boatmen in the Captain's gig. These honest fellows, nothing loth to +tell all that they knew and more that they invented, soon had the +satisfaction of finding themselves the centrepoint of a wonder stricken +audience, greedily swallowing up every item of the extraordinary news +and still hungrily gaping for more. + +By this time, however, an important dispatch was flying east, bearing +four different addresses: To the Secretary of the U.S. Navy, Washington; +To Colonel Joseph Wilcox, Vice-President _pro tem._, Baltimore Gun Club, +Md; To J.T. Marston, Esq. Long's Peak, Grand County, Colorado; and To +Professor Wenlock, Sub-Director of the Cambridge Observatory, Mass. + +This dispatch read as follows: + + "In latitude twenty-seven degrees seven minutes north and longitude + forty-one degrees thirty-seven minutes west shortly after one + o'clock on the morning of twelfth instant Columbiad Projectile fell + in Pacific--send instructions-- + + BLOOMSBURY, + + _Captain_, SUSQUEHANNA." + +In five minutes more all San Francisco had the news. An hour later, the +newspaper boys were shrieking it through the great cities of the +States. Before bed-time every man, woman, and child in the country had +heard it and gone into ecstasies over it. Owing to the difference in +longitude, the people of Europe could not hear it till after midnight. +But next morning the astounding issue of the great American enterprise +fell on them like a thunder clap. + +We must, of course, decline all attempts at describing the effects of +this most unexpected intelligence on the world at large. + +The Secretary of the Navy immediately telegraphed directions to the +_Susquehanna_ to keep a full head of steam up night and day so as to be +ready to give instant execution to orders received at any moment. + +The Observatory authorities at Cambridge held a special meeting that +very evening, where, with all the serene calmness so characteristic of +learned societies, they discussed the scientific points of the question +in all its bearings. But, before committing themselves to any decided +opinion, they unanimously resolved to wait for the development of +further details. + +At the rooms of the Gun Club in Baltimore there was a terrible time. The +kind reader no doubt remembers the nature of the dispatch sent one day +previously by Professor Belfast from the Long's Peak observatory, +announcing that the Projectile had been seen but that it had become the +Moon's satellite, destined to revolve around her forever and ever till +time should be no more. The reader is also kindly aware by this time +that such dispatch was not supported by the slightest foundations in +fact. The learned Professor, in a moment of temporary cerebral +excitation, to which even the greatest scientist is just as liable as +the rest of us, had taken some little meteor or, still more probably, +some little fly-speck in the telescope for the Projectile. The worst of +it was that he had not only boldly proclaimed his alleged discovery to +the world at large but he had even explained all about it with the well +known easy pomposity that "Science" sometimes ventures to assume. The +consequences of all this may be readily guessed. The Baltimore Gun Club +had split up immediately into two violently opposed parties. Those +gentlemen who regularly conned the scientific magazines, took every word +of the learned Professor's dispatch for gospel--or rather for something +of far higher value, and more strictly in accordance with the highly +advanced scientific developments of the day. But the others, who never +read anything but the daily papers and who could not bear the idea of +losing Barbican, laughed the whole thing to scorn. Belfast, they said, +had seen as much of the Projectile as he had of the "Open Polar Sea," +and the rest of the dispatch was mere twaddle, though asserted with all +the sternness of a religious dogma and enveloped in the usual scientific +slang. + +The meeting held in the Club House, 24 Monument Square, Baltimore, on +the evening of the 13th, had been therefore disorderly in the highest +degree. Long before the appointed hour, the great hall was densely +packed and the greatest uproar prevailed. Vice-President Wilcox took the +chair, and all was comparatively quiet until Colonel Bloomsbury, the +Honorary Secretary in Marston's absence, commenced to read Belfast's +dispatch. Then the scene, according to the account given in the next +day's _Sun_, from whose columns we condense our report, actually +"beggared description." Roars, yells, cheers, counter-cheers, clappings, +hissings, stampings, squallings, whistlings, barkings, mewings, cock +crowings, all of the most fearful and demoniacal character, turned the +immense hall into a regular pandemonium. In vain did President Wilcox +fire off his detonating bell, with a report on ordinary occasions as +loud as the roar of a small piece of ordnance. In the dreadful noise +then prevailing it was no more heard than the fizz of a lucifer match. + +Some cries, however, made themselves occasionally heard in the pauses of +the din. "Read! Read!" "Dry up!" "Sit down!" "Give him an egg!" "Fair +play!" "Hurrah for Barbican!" "Down with his enemies!" "Free Speech!" +"Belfast won't bite you!" "He'd like to bite Barbican, but his teeth +aren't sharp enough!" "Barbican's a martyr to science, let's hear his +fate!" "Martyr be hanged; the Old Man is to the good yet!" "Belfast is +the grandest name in Science!" "Groans for the grandest name!" (Awful +groans.) "Three cheers for Old Man Barbican!" (The exceptional strength +alone of the walls saved the building, from being blown out by an +explosion in which at least 5,000 pairs of lungs participated.) + +"Three cheers for M'Nicholl and the Frenchman!" This was followed by +another burst of cheering so hearty, vigorous and long continued that +the scientific party, or _Belfasters_ as they were now called, seeing +that further prolongation of the meet was perfectly useless, moved to +adjourn. It was carried unanimously. President Wilcox left the chair, +the meeting broke up in the wildest disorder--the scientists rather +crest fallen, but the Barbican men quite jubilant for having been so +successful in preventing the reading of that detested dispatch. + +Little sleeping was done that night in Baltimore, and less business next +day. Even in the public schools so little work was done by the children +that S.T. Wallace, Esq., President of the Education Board, advised an +anticipation of the usual Christmas recess by a week. Every one talked +of the Projectile; nothing was heard at the corners but discussions +regarding its probable fate. All Baltimore was immediately rent into two +parties, the _Belfasters_ and the _Barbicanites_. The latter was the +most enthusiastic and noisy, the former decidedly the most numerous and +influential. + +Science, or rather pseudo-science, always exerts a mysterious attraction +of an exceedingly powerful nature over the generality--that is, the more +ignorant portion of the human race. Assert the most absurd nonsense, +call it a scientific truth, and back it up with strange words which, +like _potentiality_, etc., sound as if they had a meaning but in +reality have none, and nine out of every ten men who read your book will +believe you. Acquire a remarkable name in one branch of human knowledge, +and presto! you are infallible in all. Who can contradict you, if you +only wrap up your assertions in specious phrases that not one man in a +million attempts to ascertain the real meaning of? We like so much to be +saved the trouble of thinking, that it is far easier and more +comfortable to be led than to contradict, to fall in quietly with the +great flock of sheep that jump blindly after their leader than to remain +apart, making one's self ridiculous by foolishly attempting to argue. +Real argument, in fact, is very difficult, for several reasons: first, +you must understand your subject _well_, which is hardly likely; +secondly, your opponent must also understand it well, which is even less +likely; thirdly, you must listen patiently to his arguments, which is +still less likely; and fourthly, he must listen to yours, the least +likely of all. If a quack advertises a panacea for all human ills at a +dollar a bottle, a hundred will buy the bottle, for one that will try +how many are killed by it. What would the investigator gain by charging +the quack with murder? Nobody would believe him, because nobody would +take the trouble to follow his arguments. His adversary, first in the +field, had gained the popular ear, and remained the unassailable master +of the situation. Our love of "Science" rests upon our admiration of +intellect, only unfortunately the intellect is too often that of other +people, not our own. + +The very sound of Belfast's phrases, for instance, "satellite," "lunar +attraction," "immutable path of its orbit," etc, convinced the greater +part of the "intelligent" community that he who used them so flippantly +must be an exceedingly great man. Therefore, he had completely proved +his case. Therefore, the great majority of the ladies and gentlemen that +regularly attend the scientific lectures of the Peabody Institute, +pronounced Barbican's fate and that of his companions to be sealed. Next +morning's newspapers contained lengthy obituary notices of the Great +Balloon-attics as the witty man of the _New York Herald_ phrased it, +some of which might be considered quite complimentary. These, all +industriously copied into the evening papers, the people were carefully +reading over again, some with honest regret, some deriving a great moral +lesson from an attempt exceedingly reprehensible in every point of view, +but most, we are sorry to acknowledge, with a feeling of ill concealed +pleasure. Had not they always said how it was to end? Was there anything +more absurd ever conceived? Scientific men too! Hang such science! If +you want a real scientific man, no wind bag, no sham, take Belfast! _He_ +knows what he's talking about! No taking _him_ in! Didn't he by means of +the Monster Telescope, see the Projectile, as large as life, whirling +round and round the Moon? Anyway, what else could have happened? Wasn't +it what anybody's common sense expected? Don't you remember a +conversation we had with you one day? etc., etc. + +The _Barbicanites_ were very doleful, but they never though of giving +in. They would die sooner. When pressed for a scientific reply to a +scientific argument, they denied that there was any argument to reply +to. What! Had not Belfast seen the Projectile? No! Was not the Great +Telescope then good for anything? Yes, but not for everything! Did not +Belfast know his business? No! Did they mean to say that he had seen +nothing at all? Well, not exactly that, but those scientific gentlemen +can seldom be trusted; in their rage for discovery, they make a mountain +out of a molehill, or, what is worse, they start a theory and then +distort facts to support it. Answers of this kind either led directly to +a fight, or the _Belfasters_ moved away thoroughly disgusted with the +ignorance of their opponents, who could not see a chain of reasoning as +bright as the noonday sun. + +Things were in this feverish state on the evening of the 14th, when, all +at once, Bloomsbury's dispatch arrived in Baltimore. I need not say that +it dropped like a spark in a keg of gun powder. The first question all +asked was: Is it genuine or bogus? real or got up by the stockbrokers? +But a few flashes backwards and forwards over the wires soon settled +that point. The stunning effects of the new blow were hardly over when +the _Barbicanites_ began to perceive that the wonderful intelligence was +decidedly in their favor. Was it not a distinct contradiction of the +whole story told by their opponents? If Barbican and his friends were +lying at the bottom of the Pacific, they were certainly not +circumgyrating around the Moon. If it was the Projectile that had broken +off the bowsprit of the _Susquehanna_, it could not certainly be the +Projectile that Belfast had seen only the day previous doing the duty +of a satellite. Did not the truth of one incident render the other an +absolute impossibility? If Bloomsbury was right, was not Belfast an ass? +Hurrah! + +The new revelation did not improve poor Barbican's fate a bit--no matter +for that! Did not the _party_ gain by it? What would the _Belfasters_ +say now? Would not they hold down their heads in confusion and disgrace? + +The _Belfasters_, with a versatility highly creditable to human nature, +did nothing of the kind. Rapidly adopting the very line of tactics they +had just been so severely censuring, they simply denied the whole thing. +What! the truth of the Bloomsbury dispatch? Yes, every word of it! Had +not Bloomsbury seen the Projectile? No! Were not his eyes good for +anything? Yes, but not for everything! Did not the Captain know his +business? No! Did they mean to say that the bowsprit of the +_Susquehanna_ had not been broken off? Well, not exactly that, but those +naval gentlemen are not always to be trusted; after a pleasant little +supper, they often see the wrong light-house, or, what is worse, in +their desire to shield their negligence from censure, they dodge the +blame by trying to show that the accident was unavoidable. The +_Susquehanna's_ bowsprit had been snapped off, in all probability, by +some sudden squall, or, what was still more likely, some little aerolite +had struck it and frightened the crew into fits. When answers of this +kind did not lead to blows, the case was an exceptional one indeed. The +contestants were so numerous and so excited that the police at last +began to think of letting them fight it out without any interference. +Marshal O'Kane, though ably assisted by his 12 officers and 500 +patrolmen, had a terrible time of it. The most respectable men in +Baltimore, with eyes blackened, noses bleeding, and collars torn, saw +the inside of a prison that night for the first time in all their lives. +Men that even the Great War had left the warmest of friends, now abused +each other like fishwomen. The prison could not hold the half of those +arrested. They were all, however, discharged next morning, for the +simple reason that the Mayor and the aldermen had been themselves +engaged in so many pugilistic combats during the night that they were +altogether disabled from attending to their magisterial duties next day. + +Our readers, however, may be quite assured that, even in the wildest +whirl of the tremendous excitement around them, all the members of the +Baltimore Gun Club did not lose their heads. In spite of the determined +opposition of the _Belfasters_ who would not allow the Bloomsbury +dispatch to be read at the special meeting called that evening, a few +succeeded in adjourning to a committee-room, where Joseph Wilcox, Esq., +presiding, our old friends Colonel Bloomsbury, Major Elphinstone, Tom +Hunter, Billsby the brave, General Morgan, Chief Engineer John Murphy, +and about as many more as were sufficient to form a quorum, declared +themselves to be in regular session, and proceeded quietly to debate on +the nature of Captain Bloomsbury's dispatch. + +Was it of a nature to justify immediate action or not? Decided +unanimously in the affirmative. Why so? Because, whether actually true +or untrue, the incident it announced was not impossible. Had it indeed +announced the Projectile to have fallen in California or in South +America, there would have been good valid reasons to question its +accuracy. But by taking into consideration the Moon's distance, and the +time elapsed between the moment of the start and that of the presumed +fall (about 10 days), and also the Earth's revolution in the meantime, +it was soon calculated that the point at which the Projectile should +strike our globe, if it struck it at all, would be somewhere about 27° +north latitude, and 42° west longitude--the very identical spot given in +the Captain's dispatch! This certainly was a strong point in its favor, +especially as there was positively nothing valid whatever to urge +against it. + +A decided resolution was therefore immediately taken. Everything that +man could do was to be done at once, in order to fish up their brave +associates from the depths of the Pacific. That very night, in fact, +whilst the streets of Baltimore were still resounding with the yells of +contending _Belfasters_ and _Barbicanites_, a committee of four, Morgan, +Hunter, Murphy, and Elphinstone, were speeding over the Alleghanies in a +special train, placed at their disposal by the _Baltimore and Ohio +Railroad Company_, and fast enough to land them in Chicago pretty early +on the following evening. + +Here a fresh locomotive and a Pullman car taking charge of them, they +were whirled off to Omaha, reaching that busy locality at about supper +time on the evening of December 16th. The Pacific Train, as it was +called though at that time running no further west than Julesburg, +instead of waiting for the regular hour of starting, fired up that very +night, and was soon pulling the famous Baltimore Club men up the slopes +of the Nebraska at the rate of forty miles an hour. They were awakened +before light next morning by the guard, who told them that Julesburg, +which they were just entering, was the last point so far reached by the +rails. But their regret at this circumstance was most unexpectedly and +joyfully interrupted by finding their hands warmly clasped and their +names cheerily cried out by their old and beloved friend, J.T. Marston, +the illustrious Secretary of the Baltimore Gun Club. + +At the close of the first volume of our entertaining and veracious +history, we left this most devoted friend and admirer of Barbican +established firmly at his post on the summit of Long's Peak, beside the +Great Telescope, watching the skies, night and day, for some traces of +his departed friends. There, as the gracious Reader will also remember, +he had come a little too late to catch that sight of the Projectile +which Belfast had at first reported so confidently, but of which the +Professor by degrees had begun to entertain the most serious doubts. + +In these doubts, however, Marston, strange to say, would not permit +himself for one moment to share. Belfast might shake his head as much as +he pleased; he, Marston, was no fickle reed to be shaken by every wind; +he firmly believed the Projectile to be there before him, actually in +sight, if he could only see it. All the long night of the 13th, and even +for several hours of the 14th, he never quitted the telescope for a +single instant. The midnight sky was in magnificent order; not a speck +dimmed its azure of an intensely dark tint. The stars blazed out like +fires; the Moon refused none of her secrets to the scientists who were +gazing at her so intently that night from the platform on the summit of +Long's Peak. But no black spot crawling over her resplendent surface +rewarded their eager gaze. Marston indeed would occasionally utter a +joyful cry announcing some discovery, but in a moment after he was +confessing with groans that it was all a false alarm. Towards morning, +Belfast gave up in despair and went to take a sleep; but no sleep for +Marston. Though he was now quite alone, the assistants having also +retired, he kept on talking incessantly to himself, expressing the most +unbounded confidence in the safety of his friends, and the absolute +certainty of their return. It was not until some hours after the Sun +had risen and the Moon had disappeared behind the snowy peaks of the +west, that he at last withdrew his weary eye from the glass through +which every image formed by the great reflector was to be viewed. The +countenance he turned on Belfast, who had now come back, was rueful in +the extreme. It was the image of grief and despair. + +"Did you see nothing whatever during the night, Professor?" he asked of +Belfast, though he knew very well the answer he was to get. + +"Nothing whatever." + +"But you saw them once, didn't you?" + +"Them! Who?" + +"Our friends." + +"Oh! the Projectile--well--I think I must have made some oversight." + +"Don't say that! Did not Mr. M'Connell see it also?" + +"No. He only wrote out what I dictated." + +"Why, you must have seen it! I have seen it myself!" + +"You shall never see it again! It's shot off into space." + +"You're as wrong now as you thought you were right yesterday." + +"I'm sorry to say I was wrong yesterday; but I have every reason to +believe I'm right to-day." + +"We shall see! Wait till to-night!" + +"To-night! Too late! As far as the Projectile is concerned, night is now +no better than day." + +The learned Professor was quite right, but in a way which he did not +exactly expect. That very evening, after a weary day, apparently a month +long, during which Marston sought in vain for a few hours' repose, just +as all hands, well wrapped up in warm furs, were getting ready to assume +their posts once more near the mouth of the gigantic Telescope, Mr. +M'Connell hastily presented himself with a dispatch for Belfast. + +The Professor was listlessly breaking the envelope, when he uttered a +sharp cry of surprise. + +"Hey!" cried Marston quickly. "What's up now?" + +"Oh!! The Pro--pro--projectile!!" + +"What of it? What? Oh what?? Speak!!" + +"IT'S BACK!!" + +Marston uttered a wild yell of mingled horror, surprise, and joy, jumped +a little into the air, and then fell flat and motionless on the +platform. Had Belfast shot him with a ten pound weight, right between +the two eyes, he could not have knocked him flatter or stiffer. Having +neither slept all night, nor eaten all day, the poor fellow's system had +become so weak that such unexpected news was really more than he could +bear. Besides, as one of the Cambridge men of the party, a young medical +student, remarked: the thin, cold air of these high mountains was +extremely enervating. + +The astronomers, all exceedingly alarmed, did what they could to recover +their friend from his fit, but it was nearly ten minutes before they had +the satisfaction of seeing his limbs moving with a slight quiver and +his breast beginning to heave. At last the color came back to his face +and his eyes opened. He stared around for a few seconds at his friends, +evidently unconscious, but his senses were not long in returning. + +"Say!" he uttered at last in a faint voice. + +"Well!" replied Belfast. + +"Where is that infernal Pro--pro--jectile?" + +"In the Pacific Ocean." + +"What??" + +He was on his feet in an instant. + +"Say that again!" + +"In the Pacific Ocean." + +"Hurrah! All right! Old Barbican's not made into mincemeat yet! No, +sirree! Let's start!" + +"Where for?" + +"San Francisco!" + +"When?" + +"This instant!" + +"In the dark?" + +"We shall soon have the light of the Moon! Curse her! it's the least she +can do after all the trouble she has given us!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND. + + +Leaving M'Connell and a few other Cambridge men to take charge of the +Great Telescope, Marston and Belfast in little more than an hour after +the receipt of the exciting dispatch, were scudding down the slopes of +Long's Peak by the only possible route--the inclined railroad. This +mode of travelling, however, highly satisfactory as far as it went, +ceased altogether at the mountain foot, at the point where the Dale +River formed a junction with Cache la Poudre Creek. But Marston, having +already mapped out the whole journey with some care and forethought, was +ready for almost every emergency. Instinctively feeling that the first +act of the Baltimore Gun Club would be to send a Committee to San +Francisco to investigate matters, he had determined to meet this +deputation on the route, and his only trouble now was to determine at +what point he would be most likely to catch them. His great start, he +knew perfectly well, could not put him more than a day in advance of +them: they having the advantage of a railroad nearly all the way, whilst +himself and Belfast could not help losing much time in struggling +through ravines, canyons, mountain precipices, and densely tangled +forests, not to mention the possibility of a brush or two with prowling +Indians, before they could strike the line of the Pacific Railroad, +along which he knew the Club men to be approaching. After a few hours +rest at La Porte, a little settlement lately started in the valley, +early in the morning they took the stage that passed through from Denver +to Cheyenne, a town at that time hardly a year old but already +flourishing, with a busy population of several thousand inhabitants. + +Losing not a moment at Cheyenne, where they arrived much sooner than +they had anticipated, they took places in Wells, Fargo and Co.'s +_Overland Stage Mail_ bound east, and were soon flying towards Julesburg +at the rate of twelve miles an hour. Here Marston was anxious to meet +the Club men, as at this point the Pacific Railroad divided into two +branches--one bearing north, the other south of the Great Salt Lake +--and he feared they might take the wrong one. + +But he arrived in Julesburg fully 10 hours before the Committee, so that +himself and Belfast had not only ample time to rest a little after their +rapid flight from Long's Peak, but also to make every possible +preparation for the terrible journey of more than fifteen hundred miles +that still lay before them. + +This journey, undertaken at a most unseasonable period of the year, and +over one of the most terrible deserts in the world, would require a +volume for itself. Constantly presenting the sharpest points of contrast +between the most savage features of wild barbaric nature on the one +hand, and the most touching traits of the sweetest humanity on the +other, the story of our Club men's adventures, if only well told, could +hardly fail to be highly interesting. But instead of a volume, we can +give it only a chapter, and that a short one. + +From Julesburg, the last station on the eastern end of the Pacific +Railroad, to Cisco, the last station on its western end, the distance is +probably about fifteen hundred miles, about as far as Constantinople is +from London, or Moscow from Paris. This enormous stretch of country had +to be travelled all the way by, at the best, a six horse stage tearing +along night and day at a uniform rate, road or no road, of ten miles an +hour. But this was the least of the trouble. Bands of hostile Indians +were a constant source of watchfulness and trouble, against which even a +most liberal stock of rifles and revolvers were not always a +reassurance. Whirlwinds of dust often overwhelmed the travellers so +completely that they could hardly tell day from night, whilst blasts of +icy chill, sweeping down from the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains, +often made them imagine themselves in the midst of the horrors of an +Arctic winter. + +The predominant scenery gave no pleasure to the eye or exhilaration to +the mind. It was of the dreariest description. Days and days passed with +hardly a house to be seen, or a tree or a blade of grass. I might even +add, or a mountain or a river, for the one was too often a heap of +agglomerated sand and clay cut into unsightly chasms by the rain, and +the other generally degenerated into a mere stagnant swamp, its +shallowness and dryness increasing regularly with its length. The only +houses were log ranches, called Relays, hardly visible in their sandy +surroundings, and separate from each other by a mean distance of ten +miles. The only trees were either stunted cedars, so far apart, as to be +often denominated Lone Trees; and, besides wormwood, the only plant was +the sage plant, about two feet high, gray, dry, crisp, and emitting a +sharp pungent odor by no means pleasant. + +In fact, Barbican and his companions had seen nothing drearier or +savager in the dreariest and savagest of lunar landscapes than the +scenes occasionally presented to Marston and his friends in their +headlong journey on the track of the great Pacific Railroad. Here, +bowlders, high, square, straight and plumb as an immense hotel, blocked +up your way; there, lay an endless level, flat as the palm of your hand, +over which your eye might roam in vain in search of something green like +a meadow, yellow like a cornfield, or black like ploughed ground--a mere +boundless waste of dirty white from the stunted wormwood, often rendered +misty with the clouds of smarting alkali dust. + +Occasionally, however, this savage scenery decidedly changed its +character. Now, a lovely glen would smile before our travellers, +traversed by tinkling streams, waving with sweet grasses, dotted with +little groves, alive with hares, antelopes, and even elks, but +apparently never yet trodden by the foot of man. Now, our Club men felt +like travelling on clouds, as they careered along the great plateau +west of the Black Hills, fully 8,000 feet above the level of the sea, +though even there the grass was as green and fresh as if it grew in some +sequestered valley of Pennsylvania. Again, + + "In this untravelled world whose margin fades + For ever and for ever as they moved," + +they would find themselves in an immense, tawny, treeless plain, +outlined by mountains so distant as to resemble fantastic cloud piles. +Here for days they would have to skirt the coasts of a Lake, vast, +unruffled, unrippled, apparently of metallic consistency, from whose +sapphire depths rose pyramidal islands to a height of fully three +thousand feet above the surface. + +In a few days all would change. No more sand wastes, salt water flats, +or clouds of blinding alkali dust. The travellers' road, at the foot of +black precipitous cliffs, would wind along the brink of a roaring +torrent, whose devious course would lead them into the heart of the +Sierras, where misty peaks solemnly sentinelled the nestling vales still +smiling in genial summer verdure. Across these they were often whirled +through immense forests of varied character, here dense enough to +obscure the track, there swaying in the sweet sunlight and vocal with +joyous birds of bright and gorgeous plumage. Then tropical vegetation +would completely hide the trail, crystal lakes would obstruct it, +cascades shooting down from perpendicular rocks would obliterate it, +mountain passes barricaded by basaltic columns would render it +uncertain, and on one occasion it was completely covered up by a fall of +snow to a depth of more than twenty feet. + +But nothing could oppose serious delay to our travellers. Their motto +was ever "onward!" and what they lost in one hour by some mishap they +endeavored to recover on the next by redoubled speed. They felt that +they would be no friends of Barbican's if they were discouraged by +impossibilities. Besides, what would have been real impossibilities at +another time, several concurrent circumstances now rendered +comparatively easy. + +The surveys, the gradings, the cuttings, and the other preliminary +labors in the great Pacific Railroad, gave them incalculable aid. +Horses, help, carriages, provisions were always in abundance. Their +object being well known, they had the best wishes of every hand on the +road. People remained up for them all hours of the night, no matter at +what station they were expected. The warmest and most comfortable of +meals were always ready for them, for which no charge would be taken on +any account. In Utah, a deputation of Mormons galloped alongside them +for forty miles to help them over some points of the road that had been +often found difficult. The season was the finest known for many years. +In short, as an old Californian said as he saw them shooting over the +rickety bridge that crossed the Bear River at Corinne: "they had +everything in their favor--_luck_ as well as _pluck_!" + +The rate at which they performed this terrible ride across the +Continent and the progress they made each day, some readers may consider +worthy of a few more items for the sake of future reference. Discarding +the ordinary overland mail stage as altogether too slow for their +purpose, they hired at Julesburg a strong, well built carriage, large +enough to hold them all comfortably; but this they had to replace twice +before they came to their journey's end. Their team always consisted of +the best six horses that could be found, and their driver was the famous +Hank Monk of California, who, happening to be in Julesburg about that +time, volunteered to see them safely landed in Cisco on the summit of +the Sierra Nevada. They were enabled to change horses as near as +possible every hour, by telegraphing ahead in the morning, during the +day, and often far into the hours of night. + +Starting from Julesburg early in the morning of the 17th, their first +resting place for a few hours at night was Granite Canyon, twenty miles +west of Cheyenne, and just at the foot of the pass over the Black Hills. +On the 18th, night-fall found them entering St. Mary's, at the further +end of the pass between Rattle Snake Hills and Elk Mountain. It was +after 5 o'clock and already dark on the 19th, when the travellers, +hurrying with all speed through the gloomy gorge of slate formation +leading to the banks of the Green River, found the ford too deep to be +ventured before morning. The 20th was a clear cold day very favorable +for brisk locomotion, and the bright sun had not quite disappeared +behind the Wahsatch Mountains when the Club men, having crossed the +Bear River, began to leave the lofty plateau of the Rocky Mountains by +the great inclined plane marked by the lines of the Echo and the Weber +Rivers on their way to the valley of the Great American Desert. + +Quitting Castle Rock early on the morning of the 21st, they soon came in +sight of the Great Salt Lake, along the northern shores of which they +sped all day, taking shelter after night-fall at Terrace, in a miserable +log cabin surrounded by piles of drifting sand. The 22d was a terrible +day. The sand was blinding, the alkali dust choking, the ride for five +or six hours was up considerable grade; still they had accomplished +their 150 miles before resting for the night at Elko, even at this +period a flourishing little village on the banks of the Humboldt. After +another smothering ride on the 23d, they rested, at Winnemucca, another +flourishing village, situated at the precise point in the desert where +the Little Humboldt joins Humboldt River, without, however, making the +channel fuller or wider. The 24th was decidedly the hardest day, their +course lying through the worst part of the terrible Nevada desert. But a +glimpse of the Sierras looming in the western horizon gave them courage +and strength enough to reach Wadsworth, at their foot, a little before +midnight. Our travellers had now but one day's journey more to make +before reaching the railroad at Cisco, but, this being a very steep +ascent nearly all the way up, each mile cost almost twice as much time +and exertion. + +At last, late in the evening of Christmas Day, amidst the most +enthusiastic cheers of all the inhabitants of Cisco, who welcomed them +with a splendid pine brand procession, Marston and his friends, +thoroughly used up, feet swelled, limbs bruised, bones aching, stomachs +seasick, eyes bleared, ears ringing, and brains on fire for want of +rest, took their places in the State Car waiting for them, and started +without a moment's delay for Sacramento, about a hundred miles distant. +How delicious was the change to our poor travellers! Washed, refreshed, +and lying at full length on luxurious sofas, their sensations, as the +locomotive spun them down the ringing grooves of the steep Sierras, can +be more easily imagined than described. They were all fast asleep when +the train entered Sacramento, but the Mayor and the other city +authorities who had waited up to receive them, had them carried +carefully, so as not to disturb their slumbers, on board the _Yo +Semite_, a fine steamer belonging to the California Navigation Company, +which landed them safely at San Francisco about noon on the 26th, after +accomplishing the extraordinary winter journey of 1500 miles over land +in little more than nine days, only about 200 miles being done by steam. + +Half-past two P.M. found our travellers bathed, dressed, shaved, dined, +and ready to receive company in the grand parlor of the _Occidental +Hotel_. Captain Bloomsbury was the first to call. + +Marston hobbled eagerly towards him and asked: + +"What have you done towards fishing them up, Captain?" + +"A good deal, Mr. Marston; indeed almost everything is ready." + +"Is that really the case, Captain?" asked all, very agreeably surprised. + +"Yes, gentlemen, I am most happy to state that I am quite in earnest." + +"Can we start to-morrow?" asked General Morgan. "We have not a moment to +spare, you know." + +"We can start at noon to-morrow at latest," replied the Captain, "if the +foundry men do a little extra work to-night." + +"We must start this very day, Captain Bloomsbury," cried Marston +resolutely; "Barbican has been lying two weeks and thirteen hours in the +depths of the Pacific! If he is still alive, no thanks to Marston! He +must by this time have given me up! The grappling irons must be got on +board at once, Captain, and let us start this evening!" + +At half-past four that very evening, a shot from the Fort and a lowering +of the Stars and Stripes from its flagstaff saluted the _Susquehanna_, +as she steamed proudly out of the Golden Gate at the lively rate of +fifteen knots an hour. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE CLUB MEN GO A FISHING. + + +Captain Bloomsbury was perfectly right when he said that almost +everything was ready for the commencement of the great work which the +Club men had to accomplish. Considering how much was required, this was +certainly saying a great deal; but here also, as on many other +occasions, fortune had singularly favored the Club men. + +San Francisco Bay, as everybody knows, though one of the finest and +safest harbors in the world, is not without some danger from hidden +rocks. One of these in particular, the Anita Rock as it was called, +lying right in mid channel, had become so notorious for the wrecks of +which it was the cause, that, after much time spent in the consideration +of the subject, the authorities had at last determined to blow it up. +This undertaking having been very satisfactorily accomplished by means +of _dynamite_ or giant powder, another improvement in the harbor had +been also undertaken with great success. The wrecks of many vessels lay +scattered here and there pretty numerously, some, like that of the +_Flying Dragon_, in spots so shallow that they could be easily seen at +low water, but others sunk at least twenty fathoms deep, like that of +the _Caroline_, which had gone down in 1851, not far from Blossom Rock, +with a treasure on board of 20,000 ounces of gold. The attempt to clear +away these wrecks had also turned out very well; even sufficient +treasure had been recovered to repay all the expense, though the +preparations for the purpose by the contractors, M'Gowan and Co. had +been made on the most extensive scale, and in accordance with the latest +improvements in the apparatus for submarine operations. + +Buoys, made of huge canvas sacks, coated with India rubber, and guarded +by a net work of strong cordage, had been manufactured and provided by +the _New York Submarine Company_. These buoys, when inflated and working +in pairs, had a lifting capacity of 30 tons a pair. Reservoirs of air, +provided with powerful compression pumps, always accompanied the buoys. +To attach the latter, in a collapsed condition, with strong chains to +the sides of the vessels which were to be lifted, a diving apparatus was +necessary. This also the _New York Company_ had provided, and it was so +perfect in its way that, by means of peculiar appliances of easy +management, the diver could walk about on the bottom, take his own +bearings, ascend to the surface at pleasure, and open his helmet without +assistance. A few sets likewise of Rouquayrol and Denayrouze's famous +submarine armor had been provided. These would prove of invaluable +advantage in all operations performed at great sea depths, as its +distinctive feature, "the regulator," could maintain, what is not done +by any other diving armor, a constant equality of pressure on the lungs +between the external and the internal air. + +But perhaps the most useful article of all was a new form of diving bell +called the _Nautilus_, a kind of submarine boat, capable of lateral as +well as vertical movement at the will of its occupants. Constructed with +double sides, the intervening chambers could be filled either with water +or air according as descent or ascent was required. A proper supply of +water enabled the machine to descend to depths impossible to be reached +otherwise; this water could then be expelled by an ingenious +contrivance, which, replacing it with air, enabled the diver to rise +towards the surface as fast as he pleased. + +All these and many other portions of the submarine apparatus which had +been employed that very year for clearing the channel, lifting the +wrecks and recovering the treasure, lay now at San Francisco, unused +fortunately on account of the season of the year, and therefore they +could be readily obtained for the asking. They had even been generously +offered to Captain Bloomsbury, who, in obedience to a telegram from +Washington, had kept his crew busily employed for nearly two weeks +night and day in transferring them all safely on board the +_Susquehanna_. + +Marston was the first to make a careful inspection of every article +intended for the operation. + +"Do you consider these buoys powerful enough to lift the Projectile, +Captain?" he asked next morning, as the vessel was briskly heading +southward, at a distance of ten or twelve miles from the coast on their +left. + +"You can easily calculate that problem yourself, Mr. Marston," replied +the Captain. "It presents no difficulty. The Projectile weighs about 20 +thousand pounds, or 10 tons?" + +"Correct!" + +"Well, a pair of these buoys when inflated can raise a weight of 30 +tons." + +"So far so good. But how do you propose attaching them to the +Projectile?" + +"We simply let them descend in a state of collapse; the diver, going +down with them, will have no difficulty in making a fast connection. As +soon as they are inflated the Projectile will come up like a cork." + +"Can the divers readily reach such depths?" + +"That remains to be seen Mr. Marston." + +"Captain," said Morgan, now joining the party, "you are a worthy member +of our Gun Club. You have done wonders. Heaven grant it may not be all +in vain! Who knows if our poor friends are still alive?" + +"Hush!" cried Marston quickly. "Have more sense than to ask such +questions. Is Barbican alive! Am _I_ alive? They're all alive, I tell +you, only we must be quick about reaching them before the air gives out. +That's what's the matter! Air! Provisions, water--abundance! But +air--oh! that's their weak point! Quick, Captain, quick--They're +throwing the reel--I must see her rate!" So saying, he hurried off to +the stern, followed by General Morgan. Chief Engineer Murphy and the +Captain of the _Susquehanna_ were thus left for awhile together. + +These two men had a long talk on the object of their journey and the +likelihood of anything satisfactory being accomplished. The man of the +sea candidly acknowledged his apprehensions. He had done everything in +his power towards collecting suitable machinery for fishing up the +Projectile, but he had done it all, he said, more as a matter of duty +than because he believed that any good could result from it; in fact, he +never expected to see the bold adventurers again either living or dead. +Murphy, who well understood not only what machinery was capable of +effecting, but also what it would surely fail in, at first expressed the +greatest confidence in the prosperous issue of the undertaking. But when +he learned, as he now did for the first time, that the ocean bed on +which the Projectile was lying could be hardly less than 20,000 feet +below the surface, he assumed a countenance as grave as the Captain's, +and at once confessed that, unless their usual luck stood by them, his +poor friends had not the slightest possible chance of ever being fished +up from the depths of the Pacific. + +The conversation maintained among the officers and the others on board +the _Susquehanna_, was pretty much of the same nature. It is almost +needless to say that all heads--except Belfast's, whose scientific mind +rejected the Projectile theory with the most serene contempt--were +filled with the same idea, all hearts throbbed with the same emotion. +Wouldn't it be glorious to fish them up alive and well? What were they +doing just now? Doing? _Doing!_ Their bodies most probably were lying in +a shapeless pile on the floor of the Projectile, like a heap of clothes, +the uppermost man being the last smothered; or perhaps floating about in +the water inside the Projectile, like dead gold fish in an aquarium; or +perhaps burned to a cinder, like papers in a "champion" safe after a +great fire; or, who knows? perhaps at that very moment the poor fellows +were making their last and almost superhuman struggles to burst their +watery prison and ascend once more into the cheerful regions of light +and air! Alas! How vain must such puny efforts prove! Plunged into ocean +depths of three or four miles beneath the surface, subjected to an +inconceivable pressure of millions and millions of tons of sea water, +their metallic shroud was utterly unassailable from within, and utterly +unapproachable from without! + +Early on the morning of December 29th, the Captain calculating from his +log that they must now be very near the spot where they had witnessed +the extraordinary phenomenon, the _Susquehanna_ hove to. Having to wait +till noon to find his exact position, he ordered the steamer to take a +short circular course of a few hours' duration, in hope of sighting the +buoy. But though at least a hundred telescopes scanned the calm ocean +breast for many miles in all directions, it was nowhere to be seen. + +Precisely at noon, aided by his officers and in the presence of +Marston, Belfast, and the Gun Club Committee, the Captain took his +observations. After a moment or two of the most profound interest, it +was a great gratification to all to learn that the _Susquehanna_ was on +the right parallel, and only about 15 miles west of the precise spot +where the Projectile had disappeared beneath the waves. The steamer +started at once in the direction indicated, and a minute or two before +one o'clock the Captain said they were "there." No sign of the buoy +could yet be seen in any direction; it had probably been drifted +southward by the Mexican coast current which slowly glides along these +shores from December to April. + +"At last!" cried Marston, with a sigh of great relief. + +"Shall we commence at once?" asked the Captain. + +"Without losing the twenty thousandth part of a second!" answered +Marston; "life or death depends upon our dispatch!" + +The _Susquehanna_ again hove to, and this time all possible precautions +were taken to keep her in a state of perfect immobility--an operation +easily accomplished in these pacific latitudes, where cloud and wind and +water are often as motionless as if all life had died out of the world. +In fact, as the boats were quietly lowered, preparatory for beginning +the operations, the mirror like calmness of sea, sky, and ship so +impressed the Doctor, who was of a poetical turn of mind, that he could +not help exclaiming to the little Midshipman, who was standing nearest: + +"Coleridge realized, with variations: + + The breeze drops down, the sail drops down, + All's still as still can be; + If we speak, it is only to break + The silence of the sea. + Still are the clouds, still are the shrouds, + No life, no breath, no motion; + Idle are all as a painted ship + Upon a painted ocean!" + +Chief Engineer Murphy now took command. Before letting down the buoys, +the first thing evidently to be done was to find out, if possible, the +precise point where the Projectile lay. For this purpose, the Nautilus +was clearly the only part of the machinery that could be employed with +advantage. Its chambers were accordingly soon filled with water, its air +reservoirs were also soon completely charged, and the Nautilus itself, +suspended by chains from the end of a yard, lay quietly on the ocean +surface, its manhole on the top remaining open for the reception of +those who were willing to encounter the dangers that awaited it in the +fearful depths of the Pacific. Every one looking on was well aware that, +after a few hundred feet below the surface, the pressure would grow more +and more enormous, until at last it became quite doubtful if any line +could bear the tremendous strain. It was even possible that at a certain +depth the walls of the Nautilus might be crushed in like an eggshell, +and the whole machine made as flat as two leaves of paper pasted +together. + +Perfectly conscious of the nature of the tremendous risk they were about +to run, Marston, Morgan, and Murphy quietly bade their friends a short +farewell and were lowered into the manhole. The Nautilus having room +enough for four, Belfast had been expected to be of the party but, +feeling a little sea sick, the Professor backed out at the last moment, +to the great joy of Mr. Watkins, the famous reporter of the _N.Y. +Herald_, who was immediately allowed to take his place. + +Every provision against immediate danger had been made. By means of +preconcerted signals, the inmates could have themselves drawn up, let +down, or carried laterally in whatever direction they pleased. By +barometers and other instruments they could readily ascertain the +pressure of the air and water, also how far they had descended and at +what rate they were moving. The Captain, from his bridge, carefully +superintended every detail of the operation. All signals he insisted on +attending to himself personally, transmitting them instantly by his bell +to the engineer below. The whole power of the steam engine had been +brought to bear on the windlass; the chains could withstand an enormous +strain. The wheels had been carefully oiled and tested beforehand; the +signalling apparatus had been subjected to the rigidest examination; and +every portion of the machinery had been proved to be in admirable +working order. + +The chances of immediate and unforeseen danger, it is true, had been +somewhat diminished by all these precautions. The risk, nevertheless, +was fearful. The slightest accident or even carelessness might easily +lead to the most disastrous consequence. + +Five minutes after two o'clock, the manhole being closed, the lamps lit, +and everything pronounced all right, the signal for the descent was +given, and the Nautilus immediately disappeared beneath the waters. A +double anxiety now possessed all on board the _Susquehanna_: the +prisoners in the Nautilus were in danger as well as the prisoners in the +Projectile. Marston and his friends, however, were anything but +disquieted on their own account, and, pencil in hand and noses flattened +on the glass plates, they examined carefully everything they could see +in the liquid masses through which they were descending. + +For the first five hundred feet, the descent was accomplished with +little trouble. The Nautilus sank rather slowly, at a uniform rate of a +foot to the second. It had not been two minutes under water when the +light of day completely disappeared. But for this the occupants were +fully prepared, having provided themselves with powerful lamps, whose +brilliant light, radiating from polished reflectors, gave them an +opportunity of seeing clearly around it for a distance of eight or ten +feet in all directions. Owing to the superlatively excellent +construction of the Nautilus, also on account of the _scaphanders_, or +suits of diving armor, with which Marston and his friends had clothed +themselves, the disagreeable sensations to which divers are ordinarily +exposed, were hardly felt at all in the beginning of the descent. + +Marston was about to congratulate his companions on the favorable +auspices inaugurating their trip, when Murphy, consulting the +instrument, discovered to his great surprise that the Nautilus was not +making its time. In reply to their signal "faster!" the downward +movement increased a little, but it soon relaxed again. Instead of less +than two minutes, as at the beginning, it now took twelve minutes to +make a hundred feet. They had gone only seven hundred feet in +thirty-seven minutes. In spite of repeated signalling, their progress +during the next hour was even still more alarming, one hundred feet +taking exactly 59 minutes. To shorten detail, it required two hours more +to make another hundred feet; and then the Nautilus, after taking ten +minutes to crawl an inch further, came to a perfect stand still. The +pressure of the water had evidently now become too enormous to allow +further descent. + +The Clubmen's distress was very great; Marston's, in particular, was +indescribable. In vain, catching at straws, he signalled "eastwards!" +"westwards!" "northwards!" or "southwards!" the Nautilus moved readily +every way but downwards. + +"Oh! what shall we do?" he cried in despair; "Barbican, must we really +give you up though separated from us by the short distance of only a few +miles?" + +At last, nothing better being to be done, the unwilling signal "heave +upwards!" was given, and the hauling up commenced. It was done very +slowly, and with the greatest care. A sudden jerk might snap the chains; +an incautious twist might put a kink on the air tube; besides, it was +well known that the sudden removal of heavy pressure resulting from +rapid ascent, is attended by very disagreeable sensations, which have +sometimes even proved fatal. + +It was near midnight when the Clubmen were lifted out of the manhole. +Their faces were pale, their eyes bloodshot, their figures stooped. Even +the _Herald_ Reporter seemed to have got enough of exploring. But +Marston was as confident as ever, and tried to be as brisk. + +He had hardly swallowed the refreshment so positively enjoined in the +circumstances, when he abruptly addressed the Captain: + +"What's the weight of your heaviest cannon balls?" + +"Thirty pounds, Mr. Marston." + +"Can't you attach thirty of them to the Nautilus and sink us again?" + +"Certainly, Mr. Marston, if you wish it. It shall be the first thing +done to-morrow." + +"To-night, Captain! At once! Barbican has not an instant to lose." + +"At once then be it, Mr. Marston. Just as you say." + +The new sinkers were soon attached to the Nautilus, which disappeared +once more with all its former occupants inside, except the _Herald_ +Reporter, who had fallen asleep over his notes, or at least seemed to +be. He had probably made up his mind as to the likelihood of the +Nautilus ever getting back again. + +The second descent was quicker than the first, but just as futile. At +1152 feet, the Nautilus positively refused to go a single inch further. +Marston looked like a man in a stupor. He made no objection to the +signal given by the others to return; he even helped to cut the ropes by +which the cannon balls had been attached. Not a single word was spoken +by the party, as they slowly rose to the surface. Marston seemed to be +struggling against despair. For the first time, the impossibility of the +great enterprise seemed to dawn upon him. He and his friends had +undertaken a great fight with the mighty Ocean, which now played with +them as a giant with a pigmy. To reach the bottom was evidently +completely out of their power; and what was infinitely worse, there was +nothing to be gained by reaching it. The Projectile was not on the +bottom; it could not even have got to the bottom. Marston said it all in +a few words to the Captain, as the Clubmen stepped on deck a few hours +later: + +"Barbican is floating midway in the depths of the Pacific, like Mahomet +in his coffin!" + +Blindly yielding, however, to the melancholy hope that is born of +despair, Marston and his friends renewed the search next day, the 30th, +but they were all too worn out with watching and excitement to be able +to continue it longer than a few hours. After a night's rest, it was +renewed the day following, the 31st, with some vigor, and a good part of +the ocean lying between Guadalupe and Benito islands was carefully +investigated to a depth of seven or eight hundred feet. No traces +whatever of the Projectile. Several California steamers, plying between +San Francisco and Panama, passed the _Susquehanna_ within hailing +distance. But to every question, the invariable reply one melancholy +burden bore: + +"No luck!" + +All hands were now in despair. Marston could neither eat nor drink. He +never even spoke the whole day, except on two occasions. Once, when +somebody heard him muttering: + +"He's now seventeen days in the ocean!" + +The second time he spoke, the words seemed to be forced out of him. +Belfast admitted, for the sake of argument, that the Projectile had +fallen into the ocean, but he strongly denounced the absurd idea of its +occupants being still alive. "Under such circumstances," went on the +learned Professor, "further prolongation of vital energy would be simply +impossible. Want of air, want of food, want of courage--" + +"No, sir!" interrupted Marston quite savagely. "Want of air, of meat, of +drink, as much as you like! But when you speak of Barbican's want of +courage, you don't know what you are talking about! No holy martyr ever +died at the stake with a loftier courage than my noble friend +Barbican!" + +That night he asked the Captain if he would not sail down as far as Cape +San Lucas. Bloomsbury saw that further search was all labor lost, but he +respected such heroic grief too highly to give a positive refusal. He +consented to devote the following day, New Year's, to an exploring +expedition as far as Magdalena Bay, making the most diligent inquiries +in all directions. + +But New Year's was just as barren of results as any of its predecessors, +and, a little before sunset, Captain Bloomsbury, regardless of further +entreaties and unwilling to risk further delay, gave orders to 'bout +ship and return to San Francisco. + +The _Susquehanna_ was slowly turning around in obedience to her wheel, +as if reluctant to abandon forever a search in which humanity at large +was interested, when the look-out man, stationed in the forecastle, +suddenly sang out: + +"A buoy to the nor'east, not far from shore!" + +All telescopes were instantly turned in the direction indicated. The +buoy, or whatever object it was, could be readily distinguished. It +certainly did look like one of those buoys used to mark out the channel +that ships follow when entering a harbor. But as the vessel slowly +approached it, a small flag, flapping in the dying wind--a strange +feature in a buoy--was seen to surmount its cone, which a nearer +approach showed to be emerging four or five feet from the water. And for +a buoy too it was exceedingly bright and shiny, reflecting the red rays +of the setting sun as strongly as if its surface was crystal or polished +metal! + +"Call Mr. Marston on deck at once!" cried the Captain, his voice +betraying unwonted excitement as he put the glass again to his eye. + +Marston, thoroughly worn out by his incessant anxiety during the day, +had been just carried below by his friends, and they were now trying to +make him take a little refreshment and repose. But the Captain's order +brought them all on deck like a flash. + +They found the whole crew gazing in one direction, and, though speaking +in little more than whispers, evidently in a state of extraordinary +excitement. + +What could all this mean? Was there any ground for hope? The thought +sent a pang of delight through Marston's wildly beating heart that +almost choked him. + +The Captain beckoned to the Club men to take a place on the bridge +beside himself. They instantly obeyed, all quietly yielding them a +passage. + +The vessel was now only about a quarter of a mile distant from the +object and therefore near enough to allow it to be distinguished without +the aid of a glass. + +What! The flag bore the well known Stars and Stripes! + +An electric shudder of glad surprise shot through the assembled crowd. +They still spoke, however, in whispers, hardly daring to utter their +thoughts aloud. + +The silence was suddenly startled by a howl of mingled ecstasy and rage +from Marston. + +He would have fallen off the bridge, had not the others held him firmly. +Then he burst into a laugh loud and long, and quite as formidable as his +howl. + +Then he tore away from his friends, and began beating himself over the +head. + +"Oh!" he cried in accents between a yell and a groan, "what chuckleheads +we are! What numskulls! What jackasses! What double-treble-barrelled +gibbering idiots!" Then he fell to beating himself over the head again. + +"What's the matter, Marston, for heaven's sake!" cried his friends, +vainly trying to hold him. + +"Speak for yourself!" cried others, Belfast among the number. + +"No exception, Belfast! You're as bad as the rest of us! We're all a set +of unmitigated, demoralized, dog-goned old lunatics! Ha! Ha! Ha!" + +"Speak plainly, Marston! Tell us what you mean!" + +"I mean," roared the terrible Secretary, "that we are no better than a +lot of cabbage heads, dead beats, and frauds, calling ourselves +scientists! O Barbican, how you must blush for us! If we were +schoolboys, we should all be skinned alive for our ignorance! Do you +forget, you herd of ignoramuses, that the Projectile weighs only ten +tons?" + +"We don't forget it! We know it well! What of it?" + +"This of it: it can't sink in water without displacing its own volume +in water; its own volume in water weighs thirty tons! Consequently, it +can't sink; more consequently, it hasn't sunk; and, most consequently, +there it is before us, bobbing up and down all the time under our very +noses! O Barbican, how can we ever venture to look at you straight in +the face again!" + +Marston's extravagant manner of showing it did not prevent him from +being perfectly right. With all their knowledge of physics, not a single +one of those scientific gentlemen had remembered the great fundamental +law that governs sinking or floating bodies. Thanks to its slight +specific gravity, the Projectile, after reaching unknown depths of ocean +through the terrific momentum of its fall, had been at last arrested in +its course and even obliged to return to the surface. + +By this time, all the passengers of the _Susquehanna_ could easily +recognize the object of such weary longings and desperate searches, +floating quietly a short distance before them in the last rays of the +declining day! + +The boats were out in an instant. Marston and his friends took the +Captain's gig. The rowers pulled with a will towards the rapidly nearing +Projectile. What did it contain? The living or the dead? The living +certainly! as Marston whispered to those around him; otherwise how could +they have ever run up that flag? + +The boats approached in perfect silence, all hearts throbbing with the +intensity of newly awakened hope, all eyes eagerly watching for some +sign to confirm it. No part of the windows appeared over the water, but +the trap hole had been thrown open, and through it came the pole that +bore the American flag. Marston made for the trap hole and, as it was +only a few feet above the surface, he had no difficulty in looking in. + +At that moment, a joyful shout of triumph rose from the interior, and +the whole boat's crew heard a dry drawling voice with a nasal twang +exclaiming: + +"Queen! How is that for high?" + +It was instantly answered by another voice, shriller, louder, quicker, +more joyous and triumphant in tone, but slightly tinged with a foreign +accent: + +"King! My brave Mac! How is that for high?" + +The deep, clear, calm voice that spoke next thrilled the listeners +outside with an emotion that we shall not attempt to portray. Except +that their ears could detect in it the faintest possible emotion of +triumph, it was in all respects as cool, resolute, and self-possessed as +ever: + +"Ace! Dear friends, how is that for high?" + +They were quietly enjoying a little game of High-Low-Jack! + +[Illustration: HOW IS THAT FOR HIGH?] + +How they must have been startled by the wild cheers that suddenly rang +around their ocean-prison! How madly were these cheers re-echoed from +the decks of the _Susquehanna_! Who can describe the welcome that +greeted these long lost, long beloved, long despaired of Sons of Earth, +now so suddenly and unexpectedly rescued from destruction, and +restored once more to the wonderstricken eyes of admiring humanity? Who +can describe the scenes of joy and exuberant happiness, and deep felt +gratitude, and roaring rollicking merriment, that were witnessed on +board the steamer that night and during the next three days! + +As for Marston, it need hardly be said that he was simply ecstatic, but +it may interest both the psychologist and the philologist to learn that +the expression _How is that for high?_ struck him at once as with a kind +of frenzy. It became immediately such a favorite tongue morsel of his +that ever since he has been employing it on all occasions, appropriate +or otherwise. Thanks to his exertions in its behalf all over the +country, the phrase is now the most popular of the day, well known and +relished in every part of the Union. If we can judge from its present +hold on the popular ear it will continue to live and flourish for many a +long day to come; it may even be accepted as the popular expression of +triumph in those dim, distant, future years when the memory not only of +the wonderful occasion of its formation but also of the illustrious men +themselves who originated it, has been consigned forever to the dark +tomb of oblivion! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +FAREWELL TO THE BALTIMORE GUN CLUB. + + +The intense interest of our extraordinary but most veracious history +having reached its culmination at the end of the last chapter, our +absorbing chronicle might with every propriety have been then and there +concluded; but we can't part from our gracious and most indulgent reader +before giving him a few more details which may be instructive perhaps, +if not amusing. + +No doubt he kindly remembers the world-wide sympathy with which our +three famous travellers had started on their memorable trip to the Moon. +If so, he may be able to form some idea of the enthusiasm universally +excited by the news of their safe return. Would not the millions of +spectators that had thronged Florida to witness their departure, now +rush to the other extremity of the Union to welcome them back? Could +those innumerable Europeans, Africans and Asiatics, who had visited the +United States simply to have a look at M'Nicholl, Ardan and Barbican, +ever think of quitting the country without having seen those wonderful +men again? Certainly not! Nay, more--the reception and the welcome that +those heroes would everywhere be greeted with, should be on a scale +fully commensurate with the grandeur of their own gigantic enterprise. +The Sons of Earth who had fearlessly quitted this terrestrial globe and +who had succeeded in returning after accomplishing a journey +inconceivably wonderful, well deserved to be received with every +extremity of pride, pomp and glorious circumstance that the world is +capable of displaying. + +To catch a glimpse of these demi-gods, to hear the sound of their +voices, perhaps even to touch their hands--these were the only emotions +with which the great heart of the country at large was now throbbing. + +To gratify this natural yearning of humanity, to afford not only to +every foreigner but to every native in the land an opportunity of +beholding the three heroes who had reflected such indelible glory on the +American name, and to do it all in a manner eminently worthy of the +great American Nation, instantly became the desire of the American +People. + +To desire a thing, and to have it, are synonymous terms with the great +people of the American Republic. + +A little thinking simplified the matter considerably: as all the people +could not go to the heroes, the heroes should go to all the people. + +So decided, so done. + +It was nearly two months before Barbican and his friends could get back +to Baltimore. The winter travelling over the Rocky Mountains had been +very difficult on account of the heavy snows, and, even when they found +themselves in the level country, though they tried to travel as +privately as possible, and for the present positively declined all +public receptions, they were compelled to spend some time in the houses +of the warm friends near whom they passed in the course of their long +journey. + +The rough notes of their Moon adventures--the only ones that they could +furnish just then--circulating like wild fire and devoured with +universal avidity, only imparted a keener whet to the public desire to +feast their eyes on such men. These notes were telegraphed free to every +newspaper in the country, but the longest and best account of the +"_Journey to the Moon_" appeared in the columns of the _New York +Herald_, owing to the fact that Watkins the reporter had had the +adventurers all to himself during the whole of the three days' trip of +the _Susquehanna_ back to San Francisco. In a week after their return, +every man, woman, and child in the United States knew by heart some of +the main facts and incidents in the famous journey; but, of course, it +is needless to say that they knew nothing at all about the finer points +and the highly interesting minor details of the astounding story. These +are now all laid before the highly favored reader for the first time. I +presume it is unnecessary to add that they are worthy of his most +implicit confidence, having been industriously and conscientiously +compiled from the daily journals of the three travellers, revised, +corrected, and digested very carefully by Barbican himself. + +It was, of course, too early at this period for the critics to pass a +decided opinion on the nature of the information furnished by our +travellers. Besides, the Moon is an exceedingly difficult subject. Very +few newspaper men in the country are capable of offering a single +opinion regarding her that is worth reading. This is probably also the +reason why half-scientists talk so much dogmatic nonsense about her. + +Enough, however, had appeared in the notes to warrant the general +opinion that Barbican's explorations had set at rest forever several pet +theories lately started regarding the nature of our satellite. He and +his friends had seen her with their own eyes, and under such favorable +circumstances as to be altogether exceptional. Regarding her formation, +her origin, her inhabitability, they could easily tell what system +_should_ be rejected and what _might_ be admitted. Her past, her +present, and her future, had been alike laid bare before their eyes. How +can you object to the positive assertion of a conscientious man who has +passed within a few hundred miles of _Tycho_, the culminating point in +the strangest of all the strange systems of lunar oreography? What reply +can you make to a man who has sounded the dark abysses of the _Plato_ +crater? How can you dare to contradict those men whom the vicissitudes +of their daring journey had swept over the dark, Invisible Face of the +Moon, never before revealed to human eye? It was now confessedly the +privilege and the right of these men to set limits to that selenographic +science which had till now been making itself so very busy in +reconstructing the lunar world. They could now say, authoritatively, +like Cuvier lecturing over a fossil skeleton: "Once the Moon was this, a +habitable world, and inhabitable long before our Earth! And now the Moon +is that, an uninhabitable world, and uninhabitable ages and ages ago!" + +We must not even dream of undertaking a description of the grand _fête_ +by which the return of the illustrious members of the Gun Club was to be +adequately celebrated, and the natural curiosity of their countrymen to +see them was to be reasonably gratified. It was one worthy in every way +of its recipients, worthy of the Gun Club, worthy of the Great Republic, +and, best of all, every man, woman, and child in the United States could +take part in it. It required at least three months to prepare it: but +this was not to be regretted as its leading idea could not be properly +carried out during the severe colds of winter. + +All the great railroads of the Union had been closely united by +temporary rails, a uniform gauge had been everywhere adopted, and every +other necessary arrangement had been made to enable a splendid palace +car, expressly manufactured for the occasion by Pullman himself, to +visit every chief point in the United States without ever breaking +connection. Through the principal street in each city, or streets if one +was not large enough, rails had been laid so as to admit the passage of +the triumphal car. In many cities, as a precaution against unfavorable +weather, these streets had been arched over with glass, thus becoming +grand arcades, many of which have been allowed to remain so to the +present day. The houses lining these streets, hung with tapestry, +decorated with flowers, waving with banners, were all to be illuminated +at night time in a style at once both the most brilliant and the most +tasteful. On the sidewalks, tables had been laid, often miles and miles +long, at the public expense; these were to be covered with every kind of +eatables, exquisitely cooked, in the greatest profusion, and free to +everyone for twelve hours before the arrival of the illustrious guests +and also for twelve hours after their departure. The idea mainly aimed +at was that, at the grand national banquet about to take place, every +inhabitant of the United States, without exception, could consider +Barbican and his companions as his own particular guests for the time +being, thus giving them a welcome the heartiest and most unanimous that +the world has ever yet witnessed. + +Evergreens were to deck the lamp-posts; triumphal arches to span the +streets; fountains, squirting _eau de cologne_, to perfume and cool the +air; bands, stationed at proper intervals, to play the most inspiring +music; and boys and girls from public and private schools, dressed in +picturesque attire, to sing songs of joy and glory. The people, seated +at the banquetting tables, were to rise and cheer and toast the heroes +as they passed; the military companies, in splendid uniforms, were to +salute them with presented arms; while the bells pealed from the church +towers, the great guns roared from the armories, _feux de joie_ +resounded from the ships in the harbor, until the day's wildest whirl of +excitement was continued far into the night by a general illumination +and a surpassing display of fireworks. Right in the very heart of the +city, the slowly moving triumphal car was always to halt long enough to +allow the Club men to join the cheering citizens at their meal, which +was to be breakfast, dinner or supper according to that part of the day +at which the halt was made. + +The number of champagne bottles drunk on these occasions, or of the +speeches made, or of the jokes told, or of the toasts offered, or of the +hands shaken, of course, I cannot now weary my kind reader by detailing, +though I have the whole account lying before me in black and white, +written out day by day in Barbican's own bold hand. Yet I should like to +give a few extracts from this wonderful journal. It is a perfect model +of accuracy and system. Whether detailing his own doings or those of the +innumerable people he met, Caesar himself never wrote anything more +lucid or more pointed. But nothing sets the extraordinary nature of this +great man in a better light than the firm, commanding, masterly +character of the handwriting in which these records are made. The +elegant penmanship all through might easily pass for copper plate +engraving--except on one page, dated "_Boston, after dinner_," where, +candor compels me to acknowledge, the "Solid Men" appear to have +succeeded in rendering his iron nerves the least bit wabbly. + +The palace car had been so constructed that, by turning a few cranks and +pulling out a few bolts, it was transformed at once into a highly +decorated and extremely comfortable open barouche. Marston took the seat +usually occupied by the driver: Ardan and M'Nicholl sat immediately +under him, face to face with Barbican, who, in order that everyone might +be able to distinguish him, was to keep all the back seat for himself, +the post of honor. + +On Monday morning, the fifth of May, a month generally the pleasantest +in the United States, the grand national banquet commenced in Baltimore, +and lasted twenty-four hours. The Gun Club insisted on paying all the +expenses of the day, and the city compromised by being allowed to +celebrate in whatever way it pleased the reception of the Club men on +their return. + +They started on their trip that same day in the midst of one of the +grandest ovations possible to conceive. They stopped for a little while +at Wilmington, but they took dinner in Philadelphia, where the splendor +of Broad Street (at present the finest boulevard in the world, being 113 +feet wide and five miles long) can be more easily alluded to than even +partially described. + +The house fronts glittered with flowers, flags, pictures, tapestries, +and other decorations; the chimneys and roofs swarmed with men and boys +cheerfully risking their necks every moment to get one glance at the +"Moon men"; every window was a brilliant bouquet of beautiful ladies +waving their scented handkerchiefs and showering their sweetest smiles; +the elevated tables on the sidewalks, groaning with an abundance of +excellent and varied food, were lined with men, women, and children, +who, however occupied in eating and drinking, never forgot to salute the +heroes, cheering them lustily as they slowly moved along; the spacious +street itself, just paved from end to end with smooth Belgian blocks, +was a living moving panorama of soldiers, temperance men, free masons, +and other societies, radiant in gorgeous uniforms, brilliant in flashing +banners, and simply perfect in the rhythmic cadence of their tread, +wings of delicious music seeming to bear them onward in their proud and +stately march. + +A vast awning, spanning the street from ridge to ridge, had been so +prepared and arranged that, in case of rain or too strong a glare from +the summer sun, it could be opened out wholly or partially in the space +of a very few minutes. There was not, however, the slightest occasion +for using it, the weather being exceedingly fine, almost paradisiacal, +as Marston loved to phrase it. + +[Illustration: THEIR ARRIVAL WAS WELCOMED WITH EQUAL _FURORE_.] + +The "Moon men" supped and spent the night in New York, where they were +received with even greater enthusiasm than at Philadelphia. But no +detailed description can be given of their majestic progress from city +to city through all portions of the mighty Republic. It is enough to say +that they visited every important town from Portland to San Francisco, +from Salt Lake City to New Orleans, from Mobile to Charleston, and from +Saint Louis to Baltimore; that, in every section of the great country, +preparations for their reception were equally as enthusiastic, their +arrival was welcomed with equal _furore_, and their departure +accompanied with an equal amount of affectionate and touching sympathy. + +The _New York Herald_ reporter, Mr. Watkins, followed them closely +everywhere in a palace car of his own, and kept the public fully +enlightened regarding every incident worth regarding along the route, +almost as soon as it happened. He was enabled to do this by means of a +portable telegraphic machine of new and most ingenious construction. +Though its motive power was electricity, it could dispense with the +ordinary instruments and even with wires altogether, yet it managed to +transmit messages to most parts of the world with an accuracy that, +considering how seldom it failed, is almost miraculous. The principle +actuating it, though guessed at by many shrewd scientists, is still a +profound secret and will probably remain so for some time longer, the +_Herald_ having purchased the right to its sole and exclusive use for +fifteen years, at an enormous cost. + +Who shall say that the apotheosis of our three heroes was not worthy of +them, or that, had they lived in the old prehistoric times, they would +not have taken the loftiest places among the demi-gods? + +As the tremendous whirl of excitement began slowly to die away, the +more thoughtful heads of the Great Republic began asking each other a +few questions: + +Can this wonderful journey, unprecedented in the annals of wonderful +journeys, ever lead to any practical result? + +Shall we ever live to see direct communication established with the +Moon? + +Will any Air Line of space navigation ever undertake to start a system +of locomotion between the different members of the solar system? + +Have we any reasonable grounds for ever expecting to see trains running +between planet and planet, as from Mars to Jupiter and, possibly +afterwards, from star to star, as from Polaris to Sirius? + +Even to-day these are exceedingly puzzling questions, and, with all our +much vaunted scientific progress, such as "no fellow can make out." But +if we only reflect a moment on the audacious go-a-headiveness of the +Yankee branch of the Anglo Saxon race, we shall easily conclude that the +American people will never rest quietly until they have pushed to its +last result and to every logical consequence the astounding step so +daringly conceived and so wonderfully carried out by their great +countryman Barbican. + +In fact, within a very few months after the return of the Club men from +the Continental Banquet, as it was called in the papers, the country was +flooded by a number of little books, like Insurance pamphlets, thrust +into every letter box and pushed under every door, announcing the +formation of a new company called _The Grand Interstellar Communication +Society_. The Capital was to be 100 million dollars, at a thousand +dollars a share: J.P. BARBICAN, ESQ., P.G.C. was to be President; +Colonel JOSHUA D. M'NICHOLL, Vice-President; Hon. J.T. MARSTON, +Secretary; Chevalier MICHAEL ARDAN, General Manager; JOHN MURPHY, ESQ., +Chief Engineer; H. PHILLIPS COLEMAN, ESQ. (Philadelphia lawyer), Legal +Adviser; and the Astrological Adviser was to be Professor HENRY of +Washington. (Belfast's blunder had injured him so much in public +estimation, his former partisans having become his most merciless +revilers, that it was considered advisable to omit his name altogether +even in the list of the Directors.) + +From the very beginning, the moneyed public looked on the G.I.C.S, with +decided favor, and its shares were bought up pretty freely. Conducted on +strictly honorable principles, keeping carefully aloof from all such +damaging connection as the _Credit Mobilier_, and having its books +always thrown open for public inspection, its reputation even to-day is +excellent and continually improving in the popular estimation. Holding +out no utopian inducements to catch the unwary, and making no wheedling +promises to blind the guileless, it states its great objects with all +their great advantages, without at the same time suppressing its +enormous and perhaps insuperable difficulties. People know exactly what +to think of it, and, whether it ever meets with perfect success or +proves a complete failure, no one in the country will ever think of +casting a slur on the bright name of its peerless President, J.P. +Barbican. + +For a few years this great man devoted every faculty of his mind to the +furthering of the Company's objects. But in the midst of his labors, the +rapid approach of the CENTENNIAL surprised him. After a long and careful +consultation on the subject, the Directors and Stockholders of the +G.I.C.S. advised him to suspend all further labors in their behalf for a +few years, in order that he might be freer to devote the full energies +of his giant intellect towards celebrating the first hundredth +anniversary of his country's Independence--as all true Americans would +wish to see it celebrated--in a manner every way worthy of the GREAT +REPUBLIC OF THE WEST! + +Obeying orders instantly and with the single-idea'd, unselfish +enthusiasm of his nature, he threw himself at once heart and soul into +the great enterprise. Though possessing no official prominence--this he +absolutely insists upon--he is well known to be the great fountain head +whence emanate all the life, order, dispatch, simplicity, economy, and +wonderful harmony which, so far, have so eminently characterized the +magnificent project. With all operations for raising the necessary +funds--further than by giving some sound practical advice--he positively +refused to connect himself (this may be the reason why subscriptions to +the Centennial stock are so slow in coming in), but in the proper +apportionment of expenses and the strict surveillance of the mechanical, +engineering, and architectural departments, his services have proved +invaluable. His experience in the vast operations at Stony Hill has +given him great skill in the difficult art of managing men. His voice is +seldom heard at the meetings, but when it is, people seem to take a +pleasure in readily submitting to its dictates. + +In wet weather or dry, in hot weather or cold, he may still be seen +every day at Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, leisurely strolling from +building to building, picking his steps quietly through the bustling +crowds of busy workmen, never speaking a word, not even to Marston his +faithful shadow, often pencilling something in his pocket book, stopping +occasionally to look apparently nowhere, but never, you may be sure, +allowing a single detail in the restless panorama around him to escape +the piercing shaft of his eagle glance. + +He is evidently determined on rendering the great CENTENNIAL of his +country a still greater and more wonderful success than even his own +world-famous and never to be forgotten JOURNEY through the boundless +fields of ether, and ALL AROUND THE MOON! + +END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of All Around the Moon, by Jules Verne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL AROUND THE MOON *** + +***** This file should be named 16457-8.txt or 16457-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/4/5/16457/ + +Produced by Afra Ullah, Taavi Kalju and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: All Around the Moon + +Author: Jules Verne + +Translator: Edward Roth + +Release Date: August 6, 2005 [EBook #16457] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL AROUND THE MOON *** + + + + +Produced by Afra Ullah, Taavi Kalju and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class='ctr'> +<table summary="covers"> + <tr> + <td> + <div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/01.jpg" + alt="spine" + title="spine" /> + </div> + </td> + <td> + <div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/02.jpg" + alt="cover" + title="cover" /> + </div> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<h1>ALL</h1> + +<h1>AROUND THE MOON</h1> + +<h3>FROM THE FRENCH OF</h3> + +<h2>JULES VERNE</h2> + +<h4>AUTHOR OF "FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON", "TO THE SUN!" AND "OFF ON A +COMET!"</h4> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>EDWARD ROTH</h2> + +<h4>ILLUSTRATED</h4> + +<h4> +PHILADELPHIA<br /> +DAVID MCKAY, PUBLISHER<br /> +23 SOUTH NINTH STREET<br /> +</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<div class='ctr'> +<table summary="Contents"> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CONTENTS"><b>CONTENTS</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"><b>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#PRELIMINARY_CHAPTER"><b>PRELIMINARY CHAPTER</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I. FROM 10 P.M. TO 10. 46' 40''</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II. THE FIRST HALF HOUR</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III. THEY MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME AND FEEL QUITE COMFORTABLE</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV. FOR THE CORNELL GIRLS</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V. THE COLDS OF SPACE</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI. INSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATION</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII. A HIGH OLD TIME</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII. THE NEUTRAL POINT</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX. A LITTLE OFF THE TRACK</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X. THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI. FACT AND FANCY</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII. A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE LUNAR MOUNTAINS</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII. LUNAR LANDSCAPES</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV. A NIGHT OF FIFTEEN DAYS</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV. GLIMPSES AT THE INVISIBLE</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI. THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII. TYCHO</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII. PUZZLING QUESTIONS</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX. IN EVERY FIGHT, THE IMPOSSIBLE WINS</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX. OFF THE PACIFIC COAST</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI. NEWS FOR MARSTON!</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII. ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII. THE CLUB MEN GO A FISHING</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV. FAREWELL TO THE BALTIMORE GUN CLUB</b></a></td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2> + +<div class='ctr'> +<table summary="List of Illustrations"> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image01"><b>1. HIS FIRST CARE WAS TO TURN ON THE GAS</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image02"><b>2. DIANA AND SATELLITE</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image03"><b>3. HE HELPED ARDAN TO LIFT BARBICAN</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image04"><b>4. MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image05"><b>5. THEY DRANK TO THE SPEEDY UNION OF THE EARTH AND HER SATELLITE</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image06"><b>6. DON'T I THOUGH? MY HEAD IS SPLITTING WITH IT!</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image07"><b>7. POOR SATELLITE WAS DROPPED OUT</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image08"><b>8. THE BODY OF THE DOG THROWN OUT YESTERDAY</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image09"><b>9. A DEMONIACAL HULLABALOO</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image10"><b>10. THE OXYGEN! HE CRIED</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image11"><b>11. A GROUP <i>à la Jardin Mabille</i></b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image12"><b>12. AN IMMENSE BATTLE-FIELD PILED WITH BLEACHING BONES</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image13"><b>13. NEVERTHELESS THE SOLUTION ESCAPED HIM</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image14"><b>14. IT'S COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE A WHITE BEAR</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image15"><b>15. THEY COULD UTTER NO WORD, THEY COULD BREATHE NO PRAYER</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image16"><b>16. THEY SEEMED HALF ASLEEP IN HIS VITALIZING BEAMS</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image17"><b>17. THESE ARCHES EVIDENTLY ONCE BORE THE PIPES OF AN AQUEDUCT</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image18"><b>18. ARDAN GAZED AT THE PAIR FOR A FEW MINUTES</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image19"><b>19. OLD MAC DISCOVERED TAKING OBSERVATIONS</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image20"><b>20. FOR A SECOND ONLY DID THEY CATCH ITS FLASH</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image21"><b>21. HOW IS THAT FOR HIGH?</b></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#image22"><b>22. EVERYWHERE THEIR DEPARTURE WAS ACCOMPANIED WITH THE MOST TOUCHING SYMPATHY</b></a></td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PRELIMINARY_CHAPTER" id="PRELIMINARY_CHAPTER"></a>PRELIMINARY CHAPTER,</h2> + +<h3>RESUMING THE FIRST PART OF THE WORK AND SERVING AS AN INTRODUCTION TO +THE SECOND.</h3> + + +<p>A few years ago the world was suddenly astounded by hearing of an +experiment of a most novel and daring nature, altogether unprecedented +in the annals of science. The BALTIMORE GUN CLUB, a society of +artillerymen started in America during the great Civil War, had +conceived the idea of nothing less than establishing direct +communication with the Moon by means of a projectile! President +Barbican, the originator of the enterprise, was strongly encouraged in +its feasibility by the astronomers of Cambridge Observatory, and took +upon himself to provide all the means necessary to secure its success. +Having realized by means of a public subscription the sum of nearly five +and a half millions of dollars, he immediately set himself to work at +the necessary gigantic labors.</p> + +<p>In accordance with the Cambridge men's note, the cannon intended to +discharge the projectile was to be planted in some country not further +than 28° north or south from the equator, so that it might be aimed +vertically at the Moon in the zenith. The bullet was to be animated with +an initial velocity of 12,000 yards to the second. It was to be fired +off on the night of December 1st, at thirteen minutes and twenty seconds +before eleven o'clock, precisely. Four days afterwards it was to hit the +Moon, at the very moment that she reached her <i>perigee</i>, that is to say, +her nearest point to the Earth, about 228,000 miles distant.</p> + +<p>The leading members of the Club, namely President Barbican, Secretary +Marston, Major Elphinstone and General Morgan, forming the executive +committee, held several meetings to discuss the shape and material of +the bullet, the nature and position of the cannon, and the quantity and +quality of the powder. The decision soon arrived at was as follows: +1st—The bullet was to be a hollow aluminium shell, its diameter nine +feet, its walls a foot in thickness, and its weight 19,250 pounds; +2nd—The cannon was to be a columbiad 900 feet in length, a well of that +depth forming the vertical mould in which it was to be cast, and +3rd—The powder was to be 400 thousand pounds of gun cotton, which, by +developing more than 200 thousand millions of cubic feet of gas under +the projectile, would easily send it as far as our satellite.</p> + +<p>These questions settled, Barbican, aided by Murphy, the Chief Engineer +of the Cold Spring Iron Works, selected a spot in Florida, near the 27th +degree north latitude, called Stony Hill, where after the performance of +many wonderful feats in mining engineering, the Columbiad was +successfully cast.</p> + +<p>Things had reached this state when an incident occurred which excited +the general interest a hundred fold.</p> + +<p>A Frenchman from Paris, Michel Ardan by name, eccentric, but keen and +shrewd as well as daring, demanded, by the Atlantic telegraph, +permission to be enclosed in the bullet so that he might be carried to +the Moon, where he was curious to make certain investigations. Received +in America with great enthusiasm, Ardan held a great meeting, +triumphantly carried his point, reconciled Barbican to his mortal foe, a +certain Captain M'Nicholl, and even, by way of clinching the +reconciliation, induced both the newly made friends to join him in his +contemplated trip to the Moon.</p> + +<p>The bullet, so modified as to become a hollow conical cylinder with +plenty of room inside, was further provided with powerful water-springs +and readily-ruptured partitions below the floor, intended to deaden the +dreadful concussion sure to accompany the start. It was supplied with +provisions for a year, water for a few months, and gas for nearly two +weeks. A self-acting apparatus, of ingenious construction, kept the +confined atmosphere sweet and healthy by manufacturing pure oxygen and +absorbing carbonic acid. Finally, the Gun Club had constructed, at +enormous expense, a gigantic telescope, which, from the summit of Long's +Peak, could pursue the Projectile as it winged its way through the +regions of space. Everything at last was ready.</p> + +<p>On December 1st, at the appointed moment, in the midst of an immense +concourse of spectators, the departure took place, and, for the first +time in the world's history, three human beings quitted our terrestrial +globe with some possibility in their favor of finally reaching a point +of destination in the inter-planetary spaces. They expected to +accomplish their journey in 97 hours, 13 minutes and 20 seconds, +consequently reaching the Lunar surface precisely at midnight on +December 5-6, the exact moment when the Moon would be full.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, the instantaneous explosion of such a vast quantity of +gun-cotton, by giving rise to a violent commotion in the atmosphere, +generated so much vapor and mist as to render the Moon invisible for +several nights to the innumerable watchers in the Western Hemisphere, +who vainly tried to catch sight of her.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, J.T. Marston, the Secretary of the Gun Club, and a most +devoted friend of Barbican's, had started for Long's Peak, Colorado, on +the summit of which the immense telescope, already alluded to, had been +erected; it was of the reflecting kind, and possessed power sufficient +to bring the Moon within a distance of five miles. While Marston was +prosecuting his long journey with all possible speed, Professor +Belfast, who had charge of the telescope, was endeavoring to catch a +glimpse of the Projectile, but for a long time with no success. The +hazy, cloudy weather lasted for more than a week, to the great disgust +of the public at large. People even began to fear that further +observation would have to be deferred to the 3d of the following month, +January, as during the latter half of December the waning Moon could not +possibly give light enough to render the Projectile visible.</p> + +<p>At last, however, to the unbounded satisfaction of all, a violent +tempest suddenly cleared the sky, and on the 13th of December, shortly +after midnight, the Moon, verging towards her last quarter, revealed +herself sharp and bright on the dark background of the starry firmament.</p> + +<p>That same morning, a few hours before Marston's arrival at the summit of +Long's Peak, a very remarkable telegram had been dispatched by Professor +Belfast to the Smithsonian Institute, Washington. It announced:</p> + +<p>That on December 13th, at 2 o'clock in the morning, the Projectile shot +from Stony Hill had been perceived by Professor Belfast and his +assistants; that, deflected a little from its course by some unknown +cause, it had not reached its mark, though it had approached near enough +to be affected by the Lunar attraction; and that, its rectilineal motion +having become circular, it should henceforth continue to describe a +regular orbit around the Moon, of which in fact it had become the +Satellite. The dispatch went on further to state:</p> + +<p>That the <i>elements</i> of the new heavenly body had not yet been +calculated, as at least three different observations, taken at different +times, were necessary to determine them. The distance of the Projectile +from the Lunar surface, however, might be set down roughly at roughly +2833 miles.</p> + +<p>The dispatch concluded with the following hypotheses, positively +pronounced to be the only two possible: Either, 1, The Lunar attraction +would finally prevail, in which case the travellers would reach their +destination; or 2, The Projectile, kept whirling forever in an immutable +orbit, would go on revolving around the Moon till time should be no +more.</p> + +<p>In either alternative, what should be the lot of the daring adventurers? +They had, it is true, abundant provisions to last them for some time, +but even supposing that they did reach the Moon and thereby completely +establish the practicability of their daring enterprise, how were they +ever to get back? <i>Could</i> they ever get back? or ever even be heard +from? Questions of this nature, freely discussed by the ablest pens of +the day, kept the public mind in a very restless and excited condition.</p> + +<p>We must be pardoned here for making a little remark which, however, +astronomers and other scientific men of sanguine temperament would do +well to ponder over. An observer cannot be too cautious in announcing to +the public his discovery when it is of a nature purely speculative. +Nobody is obliged to discover a planet, or a comet, or even a satellite, +but, before announcing to the world that you have made such a discovery, +first make sure that such is really the fact. Because, you know, should +it afterwards come out that you have done nothing of the kind, you make +yourself a butt for the stupid jokes of the lowest newspaper scribblers. +Belfast had never thought of this. Impelled by his irrepressible rage +for discovery—the <i>furor inveniendi</i> ascribed to all astronomers by +Aurelius Priscus—he had therefore been guilty of an indiscretion highly +un-scientific when his famous telegram, launched to the world at large +from the summit of the Rocky Mountains, pronounced so dogmatically on +the only possible issues of the great enterprise.</p> + +<p>The truth was that his telegram contained <i>two</i> very important errors: +1. Error of <i>observation</i>, as facts afterwards proved; the Projectile +<i>was</i> not seen on the 13th and <i>could</i> not have been on that day, so +that the little black spot which Belfast professed to have seen was most +certainly not the Projectile; 2. Error of <i>theory</i> regarding the final +fate of the Projectile, since to make it become the Moon's satellite was +flying in the face of one of the great fundamental laws of Theoretical +Mechanics.</p> + +<p>Only one, therefore, the first, of the hypotheses so positively +announced, was capable of realization. The travellers—that is to say if +they still lived—might so combine and unite their own efforts with +those of the Lunar attraction as actually to succeed at last in reaching +the Moon's surface.</p> + +<p>Now the travellers, those daring but cool-headed men who knew very well +what they were about, <i>did</i> still live, they <i>had</i> survived the +frightful concussion of the start, and it is to the faithful record of +their wonderful trip in the bullet-car, with all its singular and +dramatic details, that the present volume is devoted. The story may +destroy many illusions, prejudices and conjectures; but it will at least +give correct ideas of the strange incidents to which such an enterprise +is exposed, and it will certainly bring out in strong colors the effects +of Barbican's scientific conceptions, M'Nicholl's mechanical resources, +and Ardan's daring, eccentric, but brilliant and effective combinations.</p> + +<p>Besides, it will show that J.T. Marston, their faithful friend and a man +every way worthy of the friendship of such men, was only losing his time +while mirroring the Moon in the speculum of the gigantic telescope on +that lofty peak of the mountains.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>FROM 10 P.M. TO 10 46' 40''.</h3> + + +<p>The moment that the great clock belonging to the works at Stony Hill had +struck ten, Barbican, Ardan and M'Nicholl began to take their last +farewells of the numerous friends surrounding them. The two dogs +intended to accompany them had been already deposited in the Projectile. +The three travellers approached the mouth of the enormous cannon, seated +themselves in the flying car, and once more took leave for the last time +of the vast throng standing in silence around them. The windlass +creaked, the car started, and the three daring men disappeared in the +yawning gulf.</p> + +<p>The trap-hole giving them ready access to the interior of the +Projectile, the car soon came back empty; the great windlass was +presently rolled away; the tackle and scaffolding were removed, and in a +short space of time the great mouth of the Columbiad was completely rid +of all obstructions.</p> + +<p>M'Nicholl took upon himself to fasten the door of the trap on the inside +by means of a powerful combination of screws and bolts of his own +invention. He also covered up very carefully the glass lights with +strong iron plates of extreme solidity and tightly fitting joints.</p> + +<p>Ardan's first care was to turn on the gas, which he found burning rather +low; but he lit no more than one burner, being desirous to economize as +much as possible their store of light and heat, which, as he well knew, +could not at the very utmost last them longer than a few weeks.</p> + +<p>Under the cheerful blaze, the interior of the Projectile looked like a +comfortable little chamber, with its circular sofa, nicely padded walls, +and dome shaped ceiling.</p> + +<p>All the articles that it contained, arms, instruments, utensils, etc., +were solidly fastened to the projections of the wadding, so as to +sustain the least injury possible from the first terrible shock. In +fact, all precautions possible, humanly speaking, had been taken to +counteract this, the first, and possibly one of the very greatest +dangers to which the courageous adventurers would be exposed.</p> + +<p>Ardan expressed himself to be quite pleased with the appearance of +things in general.</p> + +<p>"It's a prison, to be sure," said he "but not one of your ordinary +prisons that always keep in the one spot. For my part, as long as I can +have the privilege of looking out of the window, I am willing to lease +it for a hundred years. Ah! Barbican, that brings out one of your stony +smiles. You think our lease may last longer than that! Our tenement may +become our coffin, eh? Be it so. I prefer it anyway to Mahomet's; it may +indeed float in the air, but it won't be motionless as a milestone!"</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image01" name="image01"> + <img src="images/03.jpg" + alt="TURN ON THE GAS." + title="TURN ON THE GAS." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">TURN ON THE GAS.</span> +</div> + +<p>Barbican, having made sure by personal inspection that everything was in +perfect order, consulted his chronometer, which he had carefully set a +short time before with Chief Engineer Murphy's, who had been charged to +fire off the Projectile.</p> + +<p>"Friends," he said, "it is now twenty minutes past ten. At 10 46' 40'', +precisely, Murphy will send the electric current into the gun-cotton. We +have, therefore, twenty-six minutes more to remain on earth."</p> + +<p>"Twenty-six minutes and twenty seconds," observed Captain M'Nicholl, who +always aimed at mathematical precision.</p> + +<p>"Twenty-six minutes!" cried Ardan, gaily. "An age, a cycle, according to +the use you make of them. In twenty-six minutes how much can be done! +The weightiest questions of warfare, politics, morality, can be +discussed, even decided, in twenty-six minutes. Twenty-six minutes well +spent are infinitely more valuable than twenty-six lifetimes wasted! A +few seconds even, employed by a Pascal, or a Newton, or a Barbican, or +any other profoundly intellectual being</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Whose thoughts wander through eternity—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"As mad as Marston! Every bit!" muttered the Captain, half audibly.</p> + +<p>"What do you conclude from this rigmarole of yours?" interrupted +Barbican.</p> + +<p>"I conclude that we have twenty-six good minutes still left—"</p> + +<p>"Only twenty-four minutes, ten seconds," interrupted the Captain, watch +in hand.</p> + +<p>"Well, twenty-four minutes, Captain," Ardan went on; "now even in +twenty-four minutes, I maintain—"</p> + +<p>"Ardan," interrupted Barbican, "after a very little while we shall have +plenty of time for philosophical disputations. Just now let us think of +something far more pressing."</p> + +<p>"More pressing! what do you mean? are we not fully prepared?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, fully prepared, as far at least as we have been able to foresee. +But we may still, I think, possibly increase the number of precautions +to be taken against the terrible shock that we are so soon to +experience."</p> + +<p>"What? Have you any doubts whatever of the effectiveness of your +brilliant and extremely original idea? Don't you think that the layers +of water, regularly disposed in easily-ruptured partitions beneath this +floor, will afford us sufficient protection by their elasticity?"</p> + +<p>"I hope so, indeed, my dear friend, but I am by no means confident."</p> + +<p>"He hopes! He is by no means confident! Listen to that, Mac! Pretty time +to tell us so! Let me out of here!"</p> + +<p>"Too late!" observed the Captain quietly. "The trap-hole alone would +take ten or fifteen minutes to open."</p> + +<p>"Oh then I suppose I must make the best of it," said Ardan, laughing. +"All aboard, gentlemen! The train starts in twenty minutes!"</p> + +<p>"In nineteen minutes and eighteen seconds," said the Captain, who never +took his eye off the chronometer.</p> + +<p>The three travellers looked at each other for a little while, during +which even Ardan appeared to become serious. After another careful +glance at the several objects lying around them, Barbican said, quietly:</p> + +<p>"Everything is in its place, except ourselves. What we have now to do is +to decide on the position we must take in order to neutralize the shock +as much as possible. We must be particularly careful to guard against a +rush of blood to the head."</p> + +<p>"Correct!" said the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Suppose we stood on our heads, like the circus tumblers!" cried Ardan, +ready to suit the action to the word.</p> + +<p>"Better than that," said Barbican; "we can lie on our side. Keep clearly +in mind, dear friends, that at the instant of departure it makes very +little difference to us whether we are inside the bullet or in front of +it. There is, no doubt, <i>some</i> difference," he added, seeing the great +eyes made by his friends, "but it is exceedingly little."</p> + +<p>"Thank heaven for the <i>some</i>!" interrupted Ardan, fervently.</p> + +<p>"Don't you approve of my suggestion, Captain?" asked Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," was the hasty reply. "That is to say, absolutely. +Seventeen minutes twenty-seven seconds!"</p> + +<p>"Mac isn't a human being at all!" cried Ardan, admiringly. "He is a +repeating chronometer, horizontal escapement, London-made lever, capped, +jewelled,—"</p> + +<p>His companions let him run on while they busied themselves in making +their last arrangements, with the greatest coolness and most systematic +method. In fact, I don't think of anything just now to compare them to +except a couple of old travellers who, having to pass the night in the +train, are trying to make themselves as comfortable as possible for +their long journey. In your profound astonishment, you may naturally ask +me of what strange material can the hearts of these Americans be made, +who can view without the slightest semblance of a flutter the approach +of the most appalling dangers? In your curiosity I fully participate, +but, I'm sorry to say, I can't gratify it. It is one of those things +that I could never find out.</p> + +<p>Three mattresses, thick and well wadded, spread on the disc forming the +false bottom of the Projectile, were arranged in lines whose parallelism +was simply perfect. But Ardan would never think of occupying his until +the very last moment. Walking up and down, with the restless nervousness +of a wild beast in a cage, he kept up a continuous fire of talk; at one +moment with his friends, at another with the dogs, addressing the latter +by the euphonious and suggestive names of Diana and Satellite.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image02" name="image02"> + <img src="images/04.jpg" + alt="DIANA AND SATELLITE." + title="DIANA AND SATELLITE." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">DIANA AND SATELLITE.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Ho, pets!" he would exclaim as he patted them gently, "you must not +forget the noble part you are to play up there. You must be models of +canine deportment. The eyes of the whole Selenitic world will be upon +you. You are the standard bearers of your race. From you they will +receive their first impression regarding its merits. Let it be a +favorable one. Compel those Selenites to acknowledge, in spite of +themselves, that the terrestrial race of canines is far superior to that +of the very best Moon dog among them!"</p> + +<p>"Dogs in the Moon!" sneered M'Nicholl, "I like that!"</p> + +<p>"Plenty of dogs!" cried Ardan, "and horses too, and cows, and sheep, and +no end of chickens!"</p> + +<p>"A hundred dollars to one there isn't a single chicken within the whole +Lunar realm, not excluding even the invisible side!" cried the Captain, +in an authoritative tone, but never taking his eye off the chronometer.</p> + +<p>"I take that bet, my son," coolly replied Ardan, shaking the Captain's +hand by way of ratifying the wager; "and this reminds me, by the way, +Mac, that you have lost three bets already, to the pretty little tune of +six thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"And paid them, too!" cried the captain, monotonously; "ten, thirty-six, +six!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and in a quarter of an hour you will have to pay nine thousand +dollars more; four thousand because the Columbiad will not burst, and +five thousand because the Projectile will rise more than six miles from +the Earth."</p> + +<p>"I have the money ready," answered the Captain, touching his breeches +pocket. "When I lose I pay. Not sooner. Ten, thirty-eight, ten!"</p> + +<p>"Captain, you're a man of method, if there ever was one. I think, +however, that you made a mistake in your wagers."</p> + +<p>"How so?" asked the Captain listlessly, his eye still on the dial.</p> + +<p>"Because, by Jove, if you win there will be no more of you left to take +the money than there will be of Barbican to pay it!"</p> + +<p>"Friend Ardan," quietly observed Barbican, "my stakes are deposited in +the <i>Wall Street Bank</i>, of New York, with orders to pay them over to the +Captain's heirs, in case the Captain himself should fail to put in an +appearance at the proper time."</p> + +<p>"Oh! you rhinoceroses, you pachyderms, you granite men!" cried Ardan, +gasping with surprise; "you machines with iron heads, and iron hearts! I +may admire you, but I'm blessed if I understand you!"</p> + +<p>"Ten, forty-two, ten!" repeated M'Nicholl, as mechanically as if it was +the chronometer itself that spoke.</p> + +<p>"Four minutes and a half more," said Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Oh! four and a half little minutes!" went on Ardan. "Only think of it! +We are shut up in a bullet that lies in the chamber of a cannon nine +hundred feet long. Underneath this bullet is piled a charge of 400 +thousand pounds of gun-cotton, equivalent to 1600 thousand pounds of +ordinary gunpowder! And at this very instant our friend Murphy, +chronometer in hand, eye on dial, finger on discharger, is counting the +last seconds and getting ready to launch us into the limitless regions +of planetary—"</p> + +<p>"Ardan, dear friend," interrupted Barbican, in a grave tone, "a serious +moment is now at hand. Let us meet it with some interior recollection. +Give me your hands, my dear friends."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," said Ardan, with tears in his voice, and already at the +other extreme of his apparent levity.</p> + +<p>The three brave men united in one last, silent, but warm and impulsively +affectionate pressure.</p> + +<p>"And now, great God, our Creator, protect us! In Thee we trust!" prayed +Barbican, the others joining him with folded hands and bowed heads.</p> + +<p>"Ten, forty-six!" whispered the Captain, as he and Ardan quietly took +their places on the mattresses.</p> + +<p>Only forty seconds more!</p> + +<p>Barbican rapidly extinguishes the gas and lies down beside his +companions.</p> + +<p>The deathlike silence now reigning in the Projectile is interrupted only +by the sharp ticking of the chronometer as it beats the seconds.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, a dreadful shock is felt, and the Projectile, shot up by the +instantaneous development of 200,000 millions of cubic feet of gas, is +flying into space with inconceivable rapidity!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>THE FIRST HALF HOUR.</h3> + + +<p>What had taken place within the Projectile? What effect had been +produced by the frightful concussion? Had Barbican's ingenuity been +attended with a fortunate result? Had the shock been sufficiently +deadened by the springs, the buffers, the water layers, and the +partitions so readily ruptured? Had their combined effect succeeded in +counteracting the tremendous violence of a velocity of 12,000 yards a +second, actually sufficient to carry them from London to New York in six +minutes? These, and a hundred other questions of a similar nature were +asked that night by the millions who had been watching the explosion +from the base of Stony Hill. Themselves they forgot altogether for the +moment; they forgot everything in their absorbing anxiety regarding the +fate of the daring travellers. Had one among them, our friend Marston, +for instance, been favored with a glimpse at the interior of the +projectile, what would he have seen?</p> + +<p>Nothing at all at first, on account of the darkness; except that the +walls had solidly resisted the frightful shock. Not a crack, nor a bend, +nor a dent could be perceived; not even the slightest injury had the +admirably constructed piece of mechanical workmanship endured. It had +not yielded an inch to the enormous pressure, and, far from melting and +falling back to earth, as had been so seriously apprehended, in showers +of blazing aluminium, it was still as strong in every respect as it had +been on the very day that it left the Cold Spring Iron Works, glittering +like a silver dollar.</p> + +<p>Of real damage there was actually none, and even the disorder into which +things had been thrown in the interior by the violent shock was +comparatively slight. A few small objects lying around loose had been +furiously hurled against the ceiling, but the others appeared not to +have suffered the slightest injury. The straps that fastened them up +were unfrayed, and the fixtures that held them down were uncracked.</p> + +<p>The partitions beneath the disc having been ruptured, and the water +having escaped, the false floor had been dashed with tremendous violence +against the bottom of the Projectile, and on this disc at this moment +three human bodies could be seen lying perfectly still and motionless.</p> + +<p>Were they three corpses? Had the Projectile suddenly become a great +metallic coffin bearing its ghastly contents through the air with the +rapidity of a lightning flash?</p> + +<p>In a very few minutes after the shock, one of the bodies stirred a +little, the arms moved, the eyes opened, the head rose and tried to look +around; finally, with some difficulty, the body managed to get on its +knees. It was the Frenchman! He held his head tightly squeezed between +his hands for some time as if to keep it from splitting. Then he felt +himself rapidly all over, cleared his throat with a vigorous "hem!" +listened to the sound critically for an instant, and then said to +himself in a relieved tone, but in his native tongue:</p> + +<p>"One man all right! Call the roll for the others!"</p> + +<p>He tried to rise, but the effort was too great for his strength. He fell +back again, his brain swimming, his eyes bursting, his head splitting. +His state very much resembled that of a young man waking up in the +morning after his first tremendous "spree."</p> + +<p>"Br—rr!" he muttered to himself, still talking French; "this reminds me +of one of my wild nights long ago in the <i>Quartier Latin</i>, only +decidedly more so!"</p> + +<p>Lying quietly on his back for a while, he could soon feel that the +circulation of his blood, so suddenly and violently arrested by the +terrific shock, was gradually recovering its regular flow; his heart +grew more normal in its action; his head became clearer, and the pain +less distracting.</p> + +<p>"Time to call that roll," he at last exclaimed in a voice with some +pretensions to firmness; "Barbican! MacNicholl!"</p> + +<p>He listens anxiously for a reply. None comes. A snow-wrapt grave at +midnight is not more silent. In vain does he try to catch even the +faintest sound of breathing, though he listens intently enough to hear +the beating of their hearts; but he hears only his own.</p> + +<p>"Call that roll again!" he mutters in a voice far less assured than +before; "Barbican! MacNicholl!"</p> + +<p>The same fearful unearthly stillness.</p> + +<p>"The thing is getting decidedly monotonous!" he exclaimed, still +speaking French. Then rapidly recovering his consciousness as the full +horror of the situation began to break on his mind, he went on muttering +audibly: "Have they really hopped the twig? Bah! Fudge! what has not +been able to knock the life out of one little Frenchman can't have +killed two Americans! They're all right! But first and foremost, let us +enlighten the situation!"</p> + +<p>So saying, he contrived without much difficulty to get on his feet. +Balancing himself then for a moment, he began groping about for the gas. +But he stopped suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Hold on a minute!" he cried; "before lighting this match, let us see if +the gas has been escaping. Setting fire to a mixture of air and hydrogen +would make a pretty how-do-you-do! Such an explosion would infallibly +burst the Projectile, which so far seems all right, though I'm blest if +I can tell whether we're moving or not."</p> + +<p>He began sniffing and smelling to discover if possible the odor of +escaped gas. He could not detect the slightest sign of anything of the +kind. This gave him great courage. He knew of course that his senses +were not yet in good order, still he thought he might trust them so far +as to be certain that the gas had not escaped and that consequently all +the other receptacles were uninjured.</p> + +<p>At the touch of the match, the gas burst into light and burned with a +steady flame. Ardan immediately bent anxiously over the prostrate bodies +of his friends. They lay on each other like inert masses, M'Nicholl +stretched across Barbican.</p> + +<p>Ardan first lifted up the Captain, laid him on the sofa, opened his +clenched hands, rubbed them, and slapped the palms vigorously. Then he +went all over the body carefully, kneading it, rubbing it, and gently +patting it. In such intelligent efforts to restore suspended +circulation, he seemed perfectly at home, and after a few minutes his +patience was rewarded by seeing the Captain's pallid face gradually +recover its natural color, and by feeling his heart gradually beat with +a firm pulsation.</p> + +<p>At last M'Nicholl opened his eyes, stared at Ardan for an instant, +pressed his hand, looked around searchingly and anxiously, and at last +whispered in a faint voice:</p> + +<p>"How's Barbican?"</p> + +<p>"Barbican is all right, Captain," answered Ardan quietly, but still +speaking French. "I'll attend to him in a jiffy. He had to wait for his +turn. I began with you because you were the top man. We'll see in a +minute what we can do for dear old Barby (<i>ce cher Barbican</i>)!"</p> + +<p>In less than thirty seconds more, the Captain not only was able to sit +up himself, but he even insisted on helping Ardan to lift Barbican, +and deposit him gently on the sofa.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image03" name="image03"> + <img src="images/05.jpg" + alt="HELPED ARDAN TO LIFT BARBICAN." + title="HELPED ARDAN TO LIFT BARBICAN." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">HELPED ARDAN TO LIFT BARBICAN.</span> +</div> + +<p>The poor President had evidently suffered more from the concussion than +either of his companions. As they took off his coat they were at first +terribly shocked at the sight of a great patch of blood staining his +shirt bosom, but they were inexpressibly relieved at finding that it +proceeded from a slight contusion of the shoulder, little more than skin +deep.</p> + +<p>Every approved operation that Ardan had performed for the Captain, both +now repeated for Barbican, but for a long time with nothing like a +favorable result.</p> + +<p>Ardan at first tried to encourage the Captain by whispers of a lively +and hopeful nature, but not yet understanding why M'Nicholl did not +deign to make a single reply, he grew reserved by degrees and at last +would not speak a single word. He worked at Barbican, however, just as +before.</p> + +<p>M'Nicholl interrupted himself every moment to lay his ear on the breast +of the unconscious man. At first he had shaken his head quite +despondingly, but by degrees he found himself more and more encouraged +to persist.</p> + +<p>"He breathes!" he whispered at last.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he has been breathing for some time," replied Ardan, quietly, +still unconsciously speaking French. "A little more rubbing and pulling +and pounding will make him as spry as a young grasshopper."</p> + +<p>They worked at him, in fact, so vigorously, intelligently and +perseveringly, that, after what they considered a long hour's labor, +they had the delight of seeing the pale face assume a healthy hue, the +inert limbs give signs of returning animation, and the breathing become +strong and regular.</p> + +<p>At last, Barbican suddenly opened his eyes, started into an upright +position on the sofa, took his friends by the hands, and, in a voice +showing complete consciousness, demanded eagerly:</p> + +<p>"Ardan, M'Nicholl, are we moving?"</p> + +<p>His friends looked at each other, a little amused, but more perplexed. +In their anxiety regarding their own and their friend's recovery, they +had never thought of asking such a question. His words recalled them at +once to a full sense of their situation.</p> + +<p>"Moving? Blessed if I can tell!" said Ardan, still speaking French.</p> + +<p>"We may be lying fifty feet deep in a Florida marsh, for all I know," +observed M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Or, likely as not, in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico," suggested +Ardan, still in French.</p> + +<p>"Suppose we find out," observed Barbican, jumping up to try, his voice +as clear and his step as firm as ever.</p> + +<p>But trying is one thing, and finding out another. Having no means of +comparing themselves with external objects, they could not possibly tell +whether they were moving, or at an absolute stand-still. Though our +Earth is whirling us continually around the Sun at the tremendous speed +of 500 miles a minute, its inhabitants are totally unconscious of the +slightest motion. It was the same with our travellers. Through their own +personal consciousness they could tell absolutely nothing. Were they +shooting through space like a meteor? They could not tell. Had they +fallen back and buried themselves deep in the sandy soil of Florida, or, +still more likely, hundreds of fathoms deep beneath the waters of the +Gulf of Mexico? They could not form the slightest idea.</p> + +<p>Listening evidently could do no good. The profound silence proved +nothing. The padded walls of the Projectile were too thick to admit any +sound whether of wind, water, or human beings. Barbican, however, was +soon struck forcibly by one circumstance. He felt himself to be very +uncomfortably warm, and his friend's faces looked very hot and flushed. +Hastily removing the cover that protected the thermometer, he closely +inspected it, and in an instant uttered a joyous exclamation.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" he cried. "We're moving! There's no mistake about it. The +thermometer marks 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Such a stifling heat could not +come from the gas. It comes from the exterior walls of our projectile, +which atmospheric friction must have made almost red hot. But this heat +must soon diminish, because we are already far beyond the regions of the +atmosphere, so that instead of smothering we shall be shortly in danger +of freezing."</p> + +<p>"What?" asked Ardan, much bewildered. "We are already far beyond the +limits of the terrestrial atmosphere! Why do you think so?"</p> + +<p>M'Nicholl was still too much flustered to venture a word.</p> + +<p>"If you want me to answer your question satisfactorily, my dear Ardan," +replied Barbican, with a quiet smile, "you will have the kindness to put +your questions in English."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, Barbican!" asked Ardan, hardly believing his ears.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl, in the tone of a man who has suddenly made a +welcome but most unexpected discovery.</p> + +<p>"I don't know exactly how it is with the Captain," continued Barbican, +with the utmost tranquillity, "but for my part the study of the +languages never was my strong point, and though I always admired the +French, and even understood it pretty well, I never could converse in it +without giving myself more trouble than I always find it convenient to +assume."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say that I have been talking French to you all this +time!" cried Ardan, horror-stricken.</p> + +<p>"The most elegant French I ever heard, backed by the purest Parisian +accent," replied Barbican, highly amused; "Don't you think so, Captain?" +he added, turning to M'Nicholl, whose countenance still showed the most +comical traces of bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"Well, I swan to man!" cried the Captain, who always swore a little +when his feelings got beyond his control; "Ardan, the Boss has got the +rig on both of us this time, but rough as it is on you it is a darned +sight more so on me. Be hanged if I did not think you were talking +English the whole time, and I put the whole blame for not understanding +you on the disordered state of my brain!"</p> + +<p>Ardan only stared, and scratched his head, but Barbican actually—no, +not <i>laughed</i>, that serene nature could not <i>laugh</i>. His cast-iron +features puckered into a smile of the richest drollery, and his eyes +twinkled with the wickedest fun; but no undignified giggle escaped the +portal of those majestic lips.</p> + +<p>"It <i>sounds</i> like French, I'd say to myself," continued the Captain, +"but I <i>know</i> it's English, and by and by, when this whirring goes out +of my head, I shall easily understand it."</p> + +<p>Ardan now looked as if he was beginning to see the joke.</p> + +<p>"The most puzzling part of the thing to me," went on M'Nicholl, giving +his experience with the utmost gravity, "was why English sounded so like +<i>French</i>. If it was simple incomprehensible gibberish, I could readily +blame the state of my ears for it. But the idea that my bothered ears +could turn a mere confused, muzzled, buzzing reverberation into a sweet, +harmonious, articulate, though unintelligible, human language, made me +sure that I was fast becoming crazy, if I was not so already."</p> + +<p>"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Ardan, laughing till the tears came. "Now I +understand why the poor Captain made me no reply all the time, and +looked at me with such a hapless woe-begone expression of countenance. +The fact is, Barbican, that shock was too much both for M'Nicholl and +myself. You are the only man among us whose head is fire-proof, +blast-proof, and powder-proof. I really believe a burglar would have +greater difficulty in blowing your head-piece open than in bursting one +of those famous American safes your papers make such a fuss about. A +wonderful head, the Boss's, isn't it M'Nicholl?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the Captain, as slowly as if every word were a gem of the +profoundest thought, "the Boss has a fearful and a wonderful head!"</p> + +<p>"But now to business!" cried the versatile Ardan, "Why do you think, +Barbican, that we are at present beyond the limits of the terrestrial +atmosphere?"</p> + +<p>"For a very simple reason," said Barbican, pointing to the chronometer; +"it is now more than seven minutes after 11. We must, therefore, have +been in motion more than twenty minutes. Consequently, unless our +initial velocity has been very much diminished by the friction, we must +have long before this completely cleared the fifty miles of atmosphere +enveloping the earth."</p> + +<p>"Correct," said the Captain, cool as a cucumber, because once more in +complete possession of all his senses; "but how much do you think the +initial velocity to have been diminished by the friction?"</p> + +<p>"By a third, according to my calculations," replied Barbican, "which I +think are right. Supposing our initial velocity, therefore, to have been +12,000 yards per second, by the time we quitted the atmosphere it must +have been reduced to 8,000 yards per second. At that rate, we must have +gone by this time—"</p> + +<p>"Then, Mac, my boy, you've lost your two bets!" interrupted Ardan. "The +Columbiad has not burst, four thousand dollars; the Projectile has risen +at least six miles, five thousand dollars; come, Captain, bleed!"</p> + +<p>"Let me first be sure we're right," said the Captain, quietly. "I don't +deny, you see, that friend Barbican's arguments are quite right, and, +therefore, that I have lost my nine thousand dollars. But there is +another view of the case possible, which might annul the bet."</p> + +<p>"What other view?" asked Barbican, quickly.</p> + +<p>"Suppose," said the Captain, very drily, "that the powder had not +caught, and that we were still lying quietly at the bottom of the +Columbiad!"</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" laughed Ardan, "there's an idea truly worthy of my own +nondescript brain! We must surely have changed heads during that +concussion! No matter, there is some sense left in us yet. Come now, +Captain, consider a little, if you can. Weren't we both half-killed by +the shock? Didn't I rescue you from certain death with these two hands? +Don't you see Barbican's shoulder still bleeding by the violence of the +shock?"</p> + +<p>"Correct, friend Michael, correct in every particular," replied the +Captain, "But one little question."</p> + +<p>"Out with it!"</p> + +<p>"Friend Michael, you say we're moving?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"In consequence of the explosion?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly!"</p> + +<p>"Which must have been attended with a tremendous report?"</p> + +<p>"Of course!"</p> + +<p>"Did you hear that report, friend Michael?"</p> + +<p>"N—o," replied Ardan, a little disconcerted at the question. "Well, no; +I can't say that I did hear any report."</p> + +<p>"Did you, friend Barbican?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Barbican, promptly. "I heard no report whatever."</p> + +<p>His answer was ready, but his look was quite as disconcerted as Ardan's.</p> + +<p>"Well, friend Barbican and friend Michael," said the Captain, very drily +as he leered wickedly at both, "put that and that together and tell me +what you make of it."</p> + +<p>"It's a fact!" exclaimed Barbican, puzzled, but not bewildered. "Why did +we not hear that report?"</p> + +<p>"Too hard for me," said Ardan. "Give it up!"</p> + +<p>The three friends gazed at each other for a while with countenances +expressive of much perplexity. Barbican appeared to be the least +self-possessed of the party. It was a complete turning of the tables +from the state of things a few moments ago. The problem was certainly +simple enough, but for that very reason the more inexplicable. If they +were moving the explosion must have taken place; but if the explosion +had taken place, why had they not heard the report?</p> + +<p>Barbican's decision soon put an end to speculation.</p> + +<p>"Conjecture being useless," said he, "let us have recourse to facts. +First, let us see where we are. Drop the deadlights!"</p> + +<p>This operation, simple enough in itself and being immediately undertaken +by the whole three, was easily accomplished. The screws fastening the +bolts by which the external plates of the deadlights were solidly +pinned, readily yielded to the pressure of a powerful wrench. The bolts +were then driven outwards, and the holes which had contained them were +immediately filled with solid plugs of India rubber. The bolts once +driven out, the external plates dropped by their own weight, turning on +a hinge, like portholes, and the strong plate-glass forming the light +immediately showed itself. A second light exactly similar, could be +cleared away on the opposite side of the Projectile; a third, on the +summit of the dome, and a fourth, in the centre of the bottom. The +travellers could thus take observations in four different directions, +having an opportunity of gazing at the firmament through the side +lights, and at the Earth and the Moon through the lower and the upper +lights of the Projectile.</p> + +<p>Ardan and the Captain had commenced examining the floor, previous to +operating on the bottom light. But Barbican was the first to get through +his work at one of the side lights, and M'Nicholl and Ardan soon heard +him shouting:</p> + +<p>"No, my friends!" he exclaimed, in tones of decided emotion; "we have +<i>not</i> fallen back to Earth; nor are we lying in the bottom of the Gulf +of Mexico. No! We are driving through space! Look at the stars +glittering all around! Brighter, but smaller than we have ever seen them +before! We have left the Earth and the Earth's atmosphere far behind +us!"</p> + +<p>"Hurrah! Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl and Ardan, feeling as if electric +shocks were coursing through them, though they could see nothing, +looking down from the side light, but the blackest and profoundest +obscurity.</p> + +<p>Barbican soon convinced them that this pitchy blackness proved that they +were not, and could not be, reposing on the surface of the Earth, where +at that moment, everything was illuminated by the bright moonlight; also +that they had passed the different layers of the atmosphere, where the +diffused and refracted rays would be also sure to reveal themselves +through the lights of the Projectile. They were, therefore, certainly +moving. No doubt was longer possible.</p> + +<p>"It's a fact!" observed the Captain, now quite convinced. "Then I've +lost!"</p> + +<p>"Let me congratulate you!" cried Ardan, shaking his hand.</p> + +<p>"Here is your nine thousand dollars, friend Barbican," said the Captain, +taking a roll of greenbacks of high denomination out of his +porte-monnaie.</p> + +<p>"You want a receipt, don't you, Captain?" asked Barbican, counting the +money.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I should prefer one, if it is not too much trouble," answered +M'Nicholl; "it saves dispute."</p> + +<p>Coolly and mechanically, as if seated at his desk, in his office, +Barbican opened his memorandum book, wrote a receipt on a blank page, +dated, signed and sealed it, and then handed it to the Captain, who put +it away carefully among the other papers of his portfolio.</p> + +<p>Ardan, taking off his hat, made a profound bow to both of his +companions, without saying a word. Such formality, under such +extraordinary circumstances, actually paralysed his tongue for the +moment. No wonder that he could not understand those Americans. Even +Indians would have surprised him by an exhibition of such stoicism. +After indulging in silent wonder for a minute or two, he joined his +companions who were now busy looking out at the starry sky.</p> + +<p>"Where is the Moon?" he asked. "How is it that we cannot see her?"</p> + +<p>"The fact of our not seeing her," answered Barbican, "gives me very +great satisfaction in one respect; it shows that our Projectile was shot +so rapidly out of the Columbiad that it had not time to be impressed +with the slightest revolving motion—for us a most fortunate matter. As +for the rest—see, there is <i>Cassiopeia</i>, a little to the left is +<i>Andromeda</i>, further down is the great square of <i>Pegasus</i>, and to the +southwest <i>Fomalhaut</i> can be easily seen swallowing the <i>Cascade</i>. All +this shows we are looking west and consequently cannot see the Moon, +which is approaching the zenith from the east. Open the other light—But +hold on! Look here! What can this be?"</p> + +<p>The three travellers, looking westwardly in the direction of <i>Alpherat</i>, +saw a brilliant object rapidly approaching them. At a distance, it +looked like a dusky moon, but the side turned towards the Earth blazed +with a bright light, which every moment became more intense. It came +towards them with prodigious velocity and, what was worse, its path lay +so directly in the course of the Projectile that a collision seemed +inevitable. As it moved onward, from west to east, they could easily see +that it rotated on its axis, like all heavenly bodies; in fact, it +somewhat resembled a Moon on a small scale, describing its regular orbit +around the Earth.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mille tonerres!</i>" cried Ardan, greatly excited; "what is that? Can it +be another projectile?" M'Nicholl, wiping his spectacles, looked again, +but made no reply. Barbican looked puzzled and uneasy. A collision was +quite possible, and the results, even if not frightful in the highest +degree, must be extremely deplorable. The Projectile, if not absolutely +dashed to pieces, would be diverted from its own course and dragged +along in a new one in obedience to the irresistible attraction of this +furious asteroid.</p> + +<p>Barbican fully realized that either alternative involved the complete +failure of their enterprise. He kept perfectly still, but, never losing +his presence of mind, he curiously looked on the approaching object with +a gladiatorial eye, as if seeking to detect some unguarded point in his +terrible adversary. The Captain was equally silent; he looked like a man +who had fully made up his mind to regard every possible contingency with +the most stoical indifference. But Ardan's tongue, more fluent than +ever, rattled away incessantly.</p> + +<p>"Look! Look!" he exclaimed, in tones so perfectly expressive of his +rapidly alternating feelings as to render the medium of words totally +unnecessary. "How rapidly the cursed thing is nearing us! Plague take +your ugly phiz, the more I know you, the less I like you! Every second +she doubles in size! Come, Madame Projectile! Stir your stumps a little +livelier, old lady! He's making for you as straight as an arrow! We're +going right in his way, or he's coming in ours, I can't say which. It's +taking a mean advantage of us either way. As for ourselves—what can +<i>we</i> do! Before such a monster as that we are as helpless as three men +in a little skiff shooting down the rapids to the brink of Niagara! Now +for it!"</p> + +<p>Nearer and nearer it came, but without noise, without sparks, without a +trail, though its lower part was brighter than ever. Its path lying +little above them, the nearer it came the more the collision seemed +inevitable. Imagine yourself caught on a narrow railroad bridge at +midnight with an express train approaching at full speed, its reflector +already dazzling you with its light, the roar of the cars rattling in +your ears, and you may conceive the feelings of the travellers. At last +it was so near that the travellers started back in affright, with eyes +shut, hair on end, and fully believing their last hour had come. Even +then Ardan had his <i>mot</i>.</p> + +<p>"We can neither switch off, down brakes, nor clap on more steam! Hard +luck!"</p> + +<p>In an instant all was over. The velocity of the Projectile was +fortunately great enough to carry it barely above the dangerous point; +and in a flash the terrible bolide disappeared rapidly several hundred +yards beneath the affrighted travellers.</p> + +<p>"Good bye! And may you never come back!" cried Ardan, hardly able to +breathe. "It's perfectly outrageous! Not room enough in infinite space +to let an unpretending bullet like ours move about a little without +incurring the risk of being run over by such a monster as that! What is +it anyhow? Do you know, Barbican?"</p> + +<p>"I do," was the reply.</p> + +<p>"Of course, you do! What is it that he don't know? Eh, Captain?"</p> + +<p>"It is a simple bolide, but one of such enormous dimensions that the +Earth's attraction has made it a satellite."</p> + +<p>"What!" cried Ardan, "another satellite besides the Moon? I hope there +are no more of them!"</p> + +<p>"They are pretty numerous," replied Barbican; "but they are so small and +they move with such enormous velocity that they are very seldom seen. +Petit, the Director of the Observatory of Toulouse, who these last years +has devoted much time and care to the observation of bolides, has +calculated that the very one we have just encountered moves with such +astonishing swiftness that it accomplishes its revolution around the +Earth in about 3 hours and 20 minutes!"</p> + +<p>"Whew!" whistled Ardan, "where should we be now if it had struck us!"</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say, Barbican," observed M'Nicholl, "that Petit has +seen this very one?"</p> + +<p>"So it appears," replied Barbican.</p> + +<p>"And do all astronomers admit its existence?" asked the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Well, some of them have their doubts," replied Barbican—</p> + +<p>"If the unbelievers had been here a minute or two ago," interrupted +Ardan, "they would never express a doubt again."</p> + +<p>"If Petit's calculation is right," continued Barbican, "I can even form +a very good idea as to our distance from the Earth."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me Barbican can do what he pleases here or elsewhere," +observed Ardan to the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Let us see, Barbican," asked M'Nicholl; "where has Petit's calculation +placed us?"</p> + +<p>"The bolide's distance being known," replied Barbican, "at the moment we +met it we were a little more than 5 thousand miles from the Earth's +surface."</p> + +<p>"Five thousand miles already!" cried Ardan, "why we have only just +started!"</p> + +<p>"Let us see about that," quietly observed the Captain, looking at his +chronometer, and calculating with his pencil. "It is now 10 minutes past +eleven; we have therefore been 23 minutes on the road. Supposing our +initial velocity of 10,000 yards or nearly seven miles a second, to have +been kept up, we should by this time be about 9,000 miles from the +Earth; but by allowing for friction and gravity, we can hardly be more +than 5,500 miles. Yes, friend Barbican, Petit does not seem to be very +wrong in his calculations."</p> + +<p>But Barbican hardly heard the observation. He had not yet answered the +puzzling question that had already presented itself to them for +solution; and until he had done so he could not attend to anything else.</p> + +<p>"That's all very well and good, Captain," he replied in an absorbed +manner, "but we have not yet been able to account for a very strange +phenomenon. Why didn't we hear the report?"</p> + +<p>No one replying, the conversation came to a stand-still, and Barbican, +still absorbed in his reflections, began clearing the second light of +its external shutter. In a few minutes the plate dropped, and the Moon +beams, flowing in, filled the interior of the Projectile with her +brilliant light. The Captain immediately put out the gas, from motives +of economy as well as because its glare somewhat interfered with the +observation of the interplanetary regions.</p> + +<p>The Lunar disc struck the travellers as glittering with a splendor and +purity of light that they had never witnessed before. The beams, no +longer strained through the misty atmosphere of the Earth, streamed +copiously in through the glass and coated the interior walls of the +Projectile with a brilliant silvery plating. The intense blackness of +the sky enhanced the dazzling radiance of the Moon. Even the stars +blazed with a new and unequalled splendor, and, in the absence of a +refracting atmosphere, they flamed as bright in the close proximity of +the Moon as in any other part of the sky.</p> + +<p>You can easily conceive the interest with which these bold travellers +gazed on the Starry Queen, the final object of their daring journey. She +was now insensibly approaching the zenith, the mathematical point which +she was to reach four days later. They presented their telescopes, but +her mountains, plains, craters and general characteristics hardly came +out a particle more sharply than if they had been viewed from the Earth. +Still, her light, unobstructed by air or vapor, shimmered with a lustre +actually transplendent. Her disc shone like a mirror of polished +platins. The travellers remained for some time absorbed in the silent +contemplation of the glorious scene.</p> + +<p>"How they're gazing at her this very moment from Stony Hill!" said the +Captain at last to break the silence.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" cried Ardan; "It's true! Captain you're right. We were near +forgetting our dear old Mother, the Earth. What ungrateful children! Let +me feast my eyes once more on the blessed old creature!"</p> + +<p>Barbican, to satisfy his companion's desire, immediately commenced to +clear away the disc which covered the floor of the Projectile and +prevented them from getting at the lower light. This disc, though it had +been dashed to the bottom of the Projectile with great violence, was +still as strong as ever, and, being made in compartments fastened by +screws, to dismount it was no easy matter. Barbican, however, with the +help of the others, soon had it all taken apart, and put away the pieces +carefully, to serve again in case of need. A round hole about a foot and +a half in diameter appeared, bored through the floor of the Projectile. +It was closed by a circular pane of plate-glass, which was about six +inches thick, fastened by a ring of copper. Below, on the outside, the +glass was protected by an aluminium plate, kept in its place by strong +bolts and nuts. The latter being unscrewed, the bolts slipped out by +their own weight, the shutter fell, and a new communication was +established between the interior and the exterior.</p> + +<p>Ardan knelt down, applied his eye to the light, and tried to look out. +At first everything was quite dark and gloomy.</p> + +<p>"I see no Earth!" he exclaimed at last.</p> + +<p>"Don't you see a fine ribbon of light?" asked Barbican, "right beneath +us? A thin, pale, silvery crescent?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do. Can that be the Earth?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Terra Mater</i> herself, friend Ardan. That fine fillet of light, now +hardly visible on her eastern border, will disappear altogether as soon +as the Moon is full. Then, lying as she will be between the Sun and the +Moon, her illuminated face will be turned away from us altogether, and +for several days she will be involved in impenetrable darkness."</p> + +<p>"And that's the Earth!" repeated Ardan, hardly able to believe his eyes, +as he continued to gaze on the slight thread of silvery white light, +somewhat resembling the appearance of the "Young May Moon" a few hours +after sunset.</p> + +<p>Barbican's explanation was quite correct. The Earth, in reference to the +Moon or the Projectile, was in her last phase, or octant as it is +called, and showed a sharp-horned, attenuated, but brilliant crescent +strongly relieved by the black background of the sky. Its light, +rendered a little bluish by the density of the atmospheric envelopes, +was not quite as brilliant as the Moon's. But the Earth's crescent, +compared to the Lunar, was of dimensions much greater, being fully 4 +times larger. You would have called it a vast, beautiful, but very thin +bow extending over the sky. A few points, brighter than the rest, +particularly in its concave part, revealed the presence of lofty +mountains, probably the Himalayahs. But they disappeared every now and +then under thick vapory spots, which are never seen on the Lunar disc. +They were the thin concentric cloud rings that surround the terrestrial +sphere.</p> + +<p>However, the travellers' eyes were soon able to trace the rest of the +Earth's surface not only with facility, but even to follow its outline +with absolute delight. This was in consequence of two different +phenomena, one of which they could easily account for; but the other +they could not explain without Barbican's assistance. No wonder. Never +before had mortal eye beheld such a sight. Let us take each in its turn.</p> + +<p>We all know that the ashy light by means of which we perceive what is +called the <i>Old Moon in the Young Moon's arms</i> is due to the +Earth-shine, or the reflection of the solar rays from the Earth to the +Moon. By a phenomenon exactly identical, the travellers could now see +that portion of the Earth's surface which was unillumined by the Sun; +only, as, in consequence of the different areas of the respective +surfaces, the <i>Earthlight</i> is thirteen times more intense than the +<i>Moonlight</i>, the dark portion of the Earth's disc appeared considerably +more adumbrated than the <i>Old Moon</i>.</p> + +<p>But the other phenomenon had burst on them so suddenly that they +uttered a cry loud enough to wake up Barbican from his problem. They had +discovered a true starry ring! Around the Earth's outline, a ring, of +internally well defined thickness, but somewhat hazy on the outside, +could easily be traced by its surpassing brilliancy. Neither the +<i>Pleiades</i>, the <i>Northern Crown</i>, the <i>Magellanic Clouds</i> nor the great +nebulas of <i>Orion</i>, or of <i>Argo</i>, no sparkling cluster, no corona, no +group of glittering star-dust that the travellers had ever gazed at, +presented such attractions as the diamond ring they now saw encompassing +the Earth, just as the brass meridian encompasses a terrestrial globe. +The resplendency of its light enchanted them, its pure softness +delighted them, its perfect regularity astonished them. What was it? +they asked Barbican. In a few words he explained it. The beautiful +luminous ring was simply an optical illusion, produced by the refraction +of the terrestrial atmosphere. All the stars in the neighborhood of the +Earth, and many actually behind it, had their rays refracted, diffused, +radiated, and finally converged to a focus by the atmosphere, as if by a +double convex lens of gigantic power.</p> + +<p>Whilst the travellers were profoundly absorbed in the contemplation of +this wondrous sight, a sparkling shower of shooting stars suddenly +flashed over the Earth's dark surface, making it for a moment as bright +as the external ring. Hundreds of bolides, catching fire from contact +with the atmosphere, streaked the darkness with their luminous trails, +overspreading it occasionally with sheets of electric flame. The Earth +was just then in her perihelion, and we all know that the months of +November and December are so highly favorable to the appearance of these +meteoric showers that at the famous display of November, 1866, +astronomers counted as many as 8,000 between midnight and four o'clock.</p> + +<p>Barbican explained the whole matter in a few words. The Earth, when +nearest to the sun, occasionally plunges into a group of countless +meteors travelling like comets, in eccentric orbits around the grand +centre of our solar system. The atmosphere strikes the rapidly moving +bodies with such violence as to set them on fire and render them visible +to us in beautiful star showers. But to this simple explanation of the +famous November meteors Ardan would not listen. He preferred believing +that Mother Earth, feeling that her three daring children were still +looking at her, though five thousand miles away, shot off her best +rocket-signals to show that she still thought of them and would never +let them out of her watchful eye.</p> + +<p>For hours they continued to gaze with indescribable interest on the +faintly luminous mass so easily distinguishable among the other heavenly +bodies. Jupiter blazed on their right, Mars flashed his ruddy light on +their left, Saturn with his rings looked like a round white spot on a +black wall; even Venus they could see almost directly under them, easily +recognizing her by her soft, sweetly scintillant light. But no planet or +constellation possessed any attraction for the travellers, as long as +their eyes could trace that shadowy, crescent-edged, diamond-girdled, +meteor-furrowed spheroid, the theatre of their existence, the home of so +many undying desires, the mysterious cradle of their race!</p> + +<p>Meantime the Projectile cleaved its way upwards, rapidly, unswervingly, +though with a gradually retarding velocity. As the Earth sensibly grew +darker, and the travellers' eyes grew dimmer, an irresistible somnolency +slowly stole over their weary frames. The extraordinary excitement they +had gone through during the last four or five hours, was naturally +followed by a profound reaction.</p> + +<p>"Captain, you're nodding," said Ardan at last, after a longer silence +than usual; "the fact is, Barbican is the only wake man of the party, +because he is puzzling over his problem. <i>Dum vivimus vivamus</i>! As we +are asleep let us be asleep!"</p> + +<p>So saying he threw himself on the mattress, and his companions +immediately followed the example.</p> + +<p>They had been lying hardly a quarter of an hour, when Barbican started +up with a cry so loud and sudden as instantly to awaken his companions.</p> + +<p>The bright moonlight showed them the President sitting up in his bed, +his eye blazing, his arms waving, as he shouted in a tone reminding them +of the day they had found him in St. Helena wood.</p> + +<p>"<i>Eureka!</i> I've got it! I know it!"</p> + +<p>"What have you got?" cried Ardan, bouncing up and seizing him by the +right hand.</p> + +<p>"What do you know?" cried the Captain, stretching over and seizing him +by the left.</p> + +<p>"The reason why we did not hear the report!"</p> + +<p>"Well, why did not we hear it!" asked both rapidly in the same breath.</p> + +<p>"Because we were shot up 30 times faster than sound can travel!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>THEY MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME AND FEEL QUITE COMFORTABLE.</h3> + + +<p>This curious explanation given, and its soundness immediately +recognized, the three friends were soon fast wrapped in the arms of +Morpheus. Where in fact could they have found a spot more favorable for +undisturbed repose? On land, where the dwellings, whether in populous +city or lonely country, continually experience every shock that thrills +the Earth's crust? At sea, where between waves or winds or paddles or +screws or machinery, everything is tremor, quiver or jar? In the air, +where the balloon is incessantly twirling, oscillating, on account of +the ever varying strata of different densities, and even occasionally +threatening to spill you out? The Projectile alone, floating grandly +through the absolute void, in the midst of the profoundest silence, +could offer to its inmates the possibility of enjoying slumber the most +complete, repose the most profound.</p> + +<p>There is no telling how long our three daring travellers would have +continued to enjoy their sleep, if it had not been suddenly terminated +by an unexpected noise about seven o'clock in the morning of December +2nd, eight hours after their departure.</p> + +<p>This noise was most decidedly of barking.</p> + +<p>"The dogs! It's the dogs!" cried Ardan, springing up at a bound.</p> + +<p>"They must be hungry!" observed the Captain.</p> + +<p>"We have forgotten the poor creatures!" cried Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Where can they have gone to?" asked Ardan, looking for them in all +directions.</p> + +<p>At last they found one of them hiding under the sofa. Thunderstruck and +perfectly bewildered by the terrible shock, the poor animal had kept +close in its hiding place, never daring to utter a sound, until at last +the pangs of hunger had proved too strong even for its fright.</p> + +<p>They readily recognized the amiable Diana, but they could not allure the +shivering, whining animal from her retreat without a good deal of +coaxing. Ardan talked to her in his most honeyed and seductive accents, +while trying to pull her out by the neck.</p> + +<p>"Come out to your friends, charming Diana," he went on, "come out, my +beauty, destined for a lofty niche in the temple of canine glory! Come +out, worthy scion of a race deemed worthy by the Egyptians to be a +companion of the great god, Anubis, by the Christians, to be a friend of +the good Saint Roch! Come out and partake of a glory before which the +stars of Montargis and of St. Bernard shall henceforward pale their +ineffectual fire! Come out, my lady, and let me think o'er the countless +multiplication of thy species, so that, while sailing through the +interplanetary spaces, we may indulge in endless flights of fancy on +the number and variety of thy descendants who will ere long render the +Selenitic atmosphere vocal with canine ululation!"</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image04" name="image04"> + <img src="images/06.jpg" + alt="MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER." + title="MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER.</span> +</div> + +<p>Diana, whether flattered or not, allowed herself to be dragged out, +still uttering short, plaintive whines. A hasty examination satisfying +her friends that she was more frightened than hurt and more hungry than +either, they continued their search for her companion.</p> + +<p>"Satellite! Satellite! Step this way, sir!" cried Ardan. But no +Satellite appeared and, what was worse, not the slightest sound indicated +his presence. At last he was discovered on a ledge in the upper portion +of the Projectile, whither he had been shot by the terrible concussion. +Less fortunate than his female companion, the poor fellow had received a +frightful shock and his life was evidently in great danger.</p> + +<p>"The acclimatization project looks shaky!" cried Ardan, handing the +animal very carefully and tenderly to the others. Poor Satellite's head +had been crushed against the roof, but, though recovery seemed hopeless, +they laid the body on a soft cushion, and soon had the satisfaction of +hearing it give vent to a slight sigh.</p> + +<p>"Good!" said Ardan, "while there's life there's hope. You must not die +yet, old boy. We shall nurse you. We know our duty and shall not shirk +the responsibility. I should rather lose the right arm off my body than +be the cause of your death, poor Satellite! Try a little water?"</p> + +<p>The suffering creature swallowed the cool draught with evident avidity, +then sunk into a deep slumber.</p> + +<p>The friends, sitting around and having nothing more to do, looked out of +the window and began once more to watch the Earth and the Moon with +great attention. The glittering crescent of the Earth was evidently +narrower than it had been the preceding evening, but its volume was +still enormous when compared to the Lunar crescent, which was now +rapidly assuming the proportions of a perfect circle.</p> + +<p>"By Jove," suddenly exclaimed Ardan, "why didn't we start at the moment +of Full Earth?—that is when our globe and the Sun were in opposition?"</p> + +<p>"Why <i>should</i> we!" growled M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Because in that case we should be now looking at the great continents +and the great seas in a new light—the former glittering under the solar +rays, the latter darker and somewhat shaded, as we see them on certain +maps. How I should like to get a glimpse at those poles of the Earth, on +which the eye of man has never yet lighted!"</p> + +<p>"True," replied Barbican, "but if the Earth had been Full, the Moon +would have been New, that is to say, invisible to us on account of solar +irradiation. Of the two it is much preferable to be able to keep the +point of arrival in view rather than the point of departure."</p> + +<p>"You're right, Barbican," observed the Captain; "besides, once we're in +the Moon, the long Lunar night will give us plenty of time to gaze our +full at yonder great celestial body, our former home, and still +swarming with our fellow beings."</p> + +<p>"Our fellow beings no longer, dear boy!" cried Ardan. "We inhabit a new +world peopled by ourselves alone, the Projectile! Ardan is Barbican's +fellow being, and Barbican M'Nicholl's. Beyond us, outside us, humanity +ends, and we are now the only inhabitants of this microcosm, and so we +shall continue till the moment when we become Selenites pure and +simple."</p> + +<p>"Which shall be in about eighty-eight hours from now," replied the +Captain.</p> + +<p>"Which is as much as to say—?" asked Ardan.</p> + +<p>"That it is half past eight," replied M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"My regular hour for breakfast," exclaimed Ardan, "and I don't see the +shadow of a reason for changing it now."</p> + +<p>The proposition was most acceptable, especially to the Captain, who +frequently boasted that, whether on land or water, on mountain summits +or in the depths of mines, he had never missed a meal in all his life. +In escaping from the Earth, our travellers felt that they had by no +means escaped from the laws of humanity, and their stomachs now called +on them lustily to fill the aching void. Ardan, as a Frenchman, claimed +the post of chief cook, an important office, but his companions yielded +it with alacrity. The gas furnished the requisite heat, and the +provision chest supplied the materials for their first repast. They +commenced with three plates of excellent soup, extracted from <i>Liebig's</i> +precious tablets, prepared from the best beef that ever roamed over the +Pampas.</p> + +<p>To this succeeded several tenderloin beefsteaks, which, though reduced +to a small bulk by the hydraulic engines of the <i>American Dessicating +Company</i>, were pronounced to be fully as tender, juicy and savory as if +they had just left the gridiron of a London Club House. Ardan even swore +that they were "bleeding," and the others were too busy to contradict +him.</p> + +<p>Preserved vegetables of various kinds, "fresher than nature," according +to Ardan, gave an agreeable variety to the entertainment, and these were +followed by several cups of magnificent tea, unanimously allowed to be +the best they had ever tasted. It was an odoriferous young hyson +gathered that very year, and presented to the Emperor of Russia by the +famous rebel chief Yakub Kushbegi, and of which Alexander had expressed +himself as very happy in being able to send a few boxes to his friend, +the distinguished President of the Baltimore Gun Club. To crown the +meal, Ardan unearthed an exquisite bottle of <i>Chambertin</i>, and, in +glasses sparkling with the richest juice of the <i>Cote d'or,</i> the +travellers drank to the speedy union of the Earth and her satellite.</p> + +<p>And, as if his work among the generous vineyards of Burgundy had not +been enough to show his interest in the matter, even the Sun wished to +join the party. Precisely at this moment, the Projectile beginning to +leave the conical shadow cast by the Earth, the rays of the glorious +King of Day struck its lower surface, not obliquely, but +perpendicularly, on account of the slight obliquity of the Moon's orbit +with that of the Earth.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image05" name="image05"> + <img src="images/07.jpg" + alt="TO THE UNION OF THE EARTH AND HER SATELLITE." + title="TO THE UNION OF THE EARTH AND HER SATELLITE." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">TO THE UNION OF THE EARTH AND HER SATELLITE.</span> +</div> + +<p>"The Sun," cried Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Barbican, looking at his watch, "he's exactly up to +time."</p> + +<p>"How is it that we see him only through the bottom light of our +Projectile?" asked Ardan.</p> + +<p>"A moment's reflection must tell you," replied Barbican, "that when we +started last night, the Sun was almost directly below us; therefore, as +we continue to move in a straight line, he must still be in our rear."</p> + +<p>"That's clear enough," said the Captain, "but another consideration, I'm +free to say, rather perplexes me. Since our Earth lies between us and +the Sun, why don't we see the sunlight forming a great ring around the +globe, in other words, instead of the full Sun that we plainly see there +below, why do we not witness an annular eclipse?"</p> + +<p>"Your cool, clear head has not yet quite recovered from the shock, my +dear Captain;" replied Barbican, with a smile. "For two reasons we can't +see the ring eclipse: on account of the angle the Moon's orbit makes +with the Earth, the three bodies are not at present in a direct line; +we, therefore, see the Sun a little to the west of the earth; secondly, +even if they were exactly in a straight line, we should still be far +from the point whence an annular eclipse would be visible."</p> + +<p>"That's true," said Ardan; "the cone of the Earth's shadow must extend +far beyond the Moon."</p> + +<p>"Nearly four times as far," said Barbican; "still, as the Moon's orbit +and the Earth's do not lie in exactly the same plane, a Lunar eclipse +can occur only when the nodes coincide with the period of the Full Moon, +which is generally twice, never more than three times in a year. If we +had started about four days before the occurrence of a Lunar eclipse, we +should travel all the time in the dark. This would have been obnoxious +for many reasons."</p> + +<p>"One, for instance?"</p> + +<p>"An evident one is that, though at the present moment we are moving +through a vacuum, our Projectile, steeped in the solar rays, revels in +their light and heat. Hence great saving in gas, an important point in +our household economy."</p> + +<p>In effect, the solar rays, tempered by no genial medium like our +atmosphere, soon began to glare and glow with such intensity, that the +Projectile under their influence, felt like suddenly passing from winter +to summer. Between the Moon overhead and the Sun beneath it was actually +inundated with fiery rays.</p> + +<p>"One feels good here," cried the Captain, rubbing his hands.</p> + +<p>"A little too good," cried Ardan. "It's already like a hot-house. With a +little garden clay, I could raise you a splendid crop of peas in +twenty-four hours. I hope in heaven the walls of our Projectile won't +melt like wax!"</p> + +<p>"Don't be alarmed, dear friend," observed Barbican, quietly. "The +Projectile has seen the worst as far as heat is concerned; when tearing +through the atmosphere, she endured a temperature with which what she is +liable to at present stands no comparison. In fact, I should not be +astonished if, in the eyes of our friends at Stony Hill, it had +resembled for a moment or two a red-hot meteor."</p> + +<p>"Poor Marston must have looked on us as roasted alive!" observed Ardan.</p> + +<p>"What could have saved us I'm sure I can't tell," replied Barbican. "I +must acknowledge that against such a danger, I had made no provision +whatever."</p> + +<p>"I knew all about it," said the Captain, "and on the strength of it, I +had laid my fifth wager."</p> + +<p>"Probably," laughed Ardan, "there was not time enough to get grilled in: +I have heard of men who dipped their fingers into molten iron with +impunity."</p> + +<p>Whilst Ardan and the Captain were arguing the point, Barbican began +busying himself in making everything as comfortable as if, instead of a +four days' journey, one of four years was contemplated. The reader, no +doubt, remembers that the floor of the Projectile contained about 50 +square feet; that the chamber was nine feet high; that space was +economized as much as possible, nothing but the most absolute +necessities being admitted, of which each was kept strictly in its own +place; therefore, the travellers had room enough to move around in with +a certain liberty. The thick glass window in the floor was quite as +solid as any other part of it; but the Sun, streaming in from below, +lit up the Projectile strangely, producing some very singular and +startling effects of light appearing to come in by the wrong way.</p> + +<p>The first thing now to be done was to see after the water cask and the +provision chest. They were not injured in the slightest respect, thanks +to the means taken to counteract the shock. The provisions were in good +condition, and abundant enough to supply the travellers for a whole +year—Barbican having taken care to be on the safe side, in case the +Projectile might land in a deserted region of the Moon. As for the water +and the other liquors, the travellers had enough only for two months. +Relying on the latest observations of astronomers, they had convinced +themselves that the Moon's atmosphere, being heavy, dense and thick in +the deep valleys, springs and streams of water could hardly fail to show +themselves there. During the journey, therefore, and for the first year +of their installation on the Lunar continent, the daring travellers +would be pretty safe from all danger of hunger or thirst.</p> + +<p>The air supply proved also to be quite satisfactory. The <i>Reiset</i> and +<i>Regnault</i> apparatus for producing oxygen contained a supply of chlorate +of potash sufficient for two months. As the productive material had to +be maintained at a temperature of between 7 and 8 hundred degrees Fahr., +a steady consumption of gas was required; but here too the supply far +exceeded the demand. The whole arrangement worked charmingly, requiring +only an odd glance now and then. The high temperature changing the +chlorate into a chloride, the oxygen was disengaged gradually but +abundantly, every eighteen pounds of chlorate of potash, furnishing the +seven pounds of oxygen necessary for the daily consumption of the +inmates of the Projectile.</p> + +<p>Still—as the reader need hardly be reminded—it was not sufficient to +renew the exhausted oxygen; the complete purification of the air +required the absorption of the carbonic acid, exhaled from the lungs. +For nearly 12 hours the atmosphere had been gradually becoming more and +more charged with this deleterious gas, produced from the combustion of +the blood by the inspired oxygen. The Captain soon saw this, by noticing +with what difficulty Diana was panting. She even appeared to be +smothering, for the carbonic acid—as in the famous <i>Grotto del Cane</i> on +the banks of Lake Agnano, near Naples—was collecting like water on the +floor of the Projectile, on account of its great specific gravity. It +already threatened the poor dog's life, though not yet endangering that +of her masters. The Captain, seeing this state of things, hastily laid +on the floor one or two cups containing caustic potash and water, and +stirred the mixture gently: this substance, having a powerful affinity +for carbonic acid, greedily absorbed it, and after a few moments the air +was completely purified.</p> + +<p>The others had begun by this time to check off the state of the +instruments. The thermometer and the barometer were all right, except +one self-recorder of which the glass had got broken. An excellent +aneroid barometer, taken safe and sound out of its wadded box, was +carefully hung on a hook in the wall. It marked not only the pressure of +the air in the Projectile, but also the quantity of the watery vapor +that it contained. The needle, oscillating a little beyond thirty, +pointed pretty steadily at "<i>Fair</i>."</p> + +<p>The mariner's compasses were also found to be quite free from injury. It +is, of course, hardly necessary to say that the needles pointed in no +particular direction, the magnetic pole of the Earth being unable at +such a distance to exercise any appreciable influence on them. But when +brought to the Moon, it was expected that these compasses, once more +subjected to the influence of the current, would attest certain +phenomena. In any case, it would be interesting to verify if the Earth +and her satellite were similarly affected by the magnetic forces.</p> + +<p>A hypsometer, or instrument for ascertaining the heights of the Lunar +mountains by the barometric pressure under which water boils, a sextant +to measure the altitude of the Sun, a theodolite for taking horizontal +or vertical angles, telescopes, of indispensable necessity when the +travellers should approach the Moon,—all these instruments, carefully +examined, were found to be still in perfect working order, +notwithstanding the violence of the terrible shock at the start.</p> + +<p>As to the picks, spades, and other tools that had been carefully +selected by the Captain; also the bags of various kinds of grain and +the bundles of various kinds of shrubs, which Ardan expected to +transplant to the Lunar plains—they were all still safe in their places +around the upper corners of the Projectile.</p> + +<p>Some other articles were also up there which evidently possessed great +interest for the Frenchman. What they were nobody else seemed to know, +and he seemed to be in no hurry to tell. Every now and then, he would +climb up, by means of iron pins fixed in the wall, to inspect his +treasures; whatever they were, he arranged them and rearranged them with +evident pleasure, and as he rapidly passed a careful hand through +certain mysterious boxes, he joyfully sang in the falsest possible of +false voices the lively piece from <i>Nicolo</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Le temps est beau, la route est belle,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>La promenade est un plaisir</i>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div style="margin-left: 4em;"> +<table summary="poem"> + <tr> + <td> + <div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/01.png" + alt="brace" + title="brace" /> + </div> + </td> + <td>The day is bright, our hearts are light.<br />How sweet to rove through wood and dell.</td> + <td> + <div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/02.png" + alt="brace" + title="brace" /> + </div> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>or the well known air in <i>Mignon</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Legères hirondelles,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Oiseaux bénis de Dieu,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Ouvrez-ouvrez vos ailes,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Envolez-vous! adieu!</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em;"> +<table summary="poem"> + <tr> + <td> + <div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/03.png" + alt="brace" + title="brace" /> + </div> + </td> + <td>Farewell, happy Swallows, farewell!<br />With summer for ever to dwell<br />Ye leave our northern strand<br />For the genial southern land<br />Balmy with breezes bland.<br />Return? Ah, who can tell?<br />Farewell, happy Swallows, farewell!</td> + <td> + <div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/04.png" + alt="brace" + title="brace" /> + </div> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Barbican was much gratified to find that his rockets and other fireworks +had not received the least injury. He relied upon them for the +performance of a very important service as soon as the Projectile, +having passed the point of neutral attraction between the Earth and the +Moon, would begin to fall with accelerated velocity towards the Lunar +surface. This descent, though—thanks to the respective volumes of the +attracting bodies—six times less rapid than it would have been on the +surface of the Earth, would still be violent enough to dash the +Projectile into a thousand pieces. But Barbican confidently expected by +means of his powerful rockets to offer very considerable obstruction to +the violence of this fall, if not to counteract its terrible effects +altogether.</p> + +<p>The inspection having thus given general satisfaction, the travellers +once more set themselves to watching external space through the lights +in the sides and the floor of the Projectile.</p> + +<p>Everything still appeared to be in the same state as before. Nothing was +changed. The vast arch of the celestial dome glittered with stars, and +constellations blazed with a light clear and pure enough to throw an +astronomer into an ecstasy of admiration. Below them shone the Sun, like +the mouth of a white-hot furnace, his dazzling disc defined sharply on +the pitch-black back-ground of the sky. Above them the Moon, reflecting +back his rays from her glowing surface, appeared to stand motionless in +the midst of the starry host.</p> + +<p>A little to the east of the Sun, they could see a pretty large dark +spot, like a hole in the sky, the broad silver fringe on one edge fading +off into a faint glimmering mist on the other—it was the Earth. Here +and there in all directions, nebulous masses gleamed like large flakes +of star dust, in which, from nadir to zenith, the eye could trace +without a break that vast ring of impalpable star powder, the famous +<i>Milky Way</i>, through the midst of which the beams of our glorious Sun +struggle with the dusky pallor of a star of only the fourth magnitude.</p> + +<p>Our observers were never weary of gazing on this magnificent and novel +spectacle, of the grandeur of which, it is hardly necessary to say, no +description can give an adequate idea. What profound reflections it +suggested to their understandings! What vivid emotions it enkindled in +their imaginations! Barbican, desirous of commenting the story of the +journey while still influenced by these inspiring impressions, noted +carefully hour by hour every fact that signalized the beginning of his +enterprise. He wrote out his notes very carefully and systematically, +his round full hand, as business-like as ever, never betraying the +slightest emotion.</p> + +<p>The Captain was quite as busy, but in a different way. Pulling out his +tablets, he reviewed his calculations regarding the motion of +projectiles, their velocities, ranges and paths, their retardations and +their accelerations, jotting down the figures with a rapidity wonderful +to behold. Ardan neither wrote nor calculated, but kept up an incessant +fire of small talk, now with Barbican, who hardly ever answered him, +now with M'Nicholl, who never heard him, occasionally with Diana, who +never understood him, but oftenest with himself, because, as he said, he +liked not only to talk to a sensible man but also to hear what a +sensible man had to say. He never stood still for a moment, but kept +"bobbing around" with the effervescent briskness of a bee, at one time +roosting at the top of the ladder, at another peering through the floor +light, now to the right, then to the left, always humming scraps from +the <i>Opera Bouffe</i>, but never changing the air. In the small space which +was then a whole world to the travellers, he represented to the life the +animation and loquacity of the French, and I need hardly say he played +his part to perfection.</p> + +<p>The eventful day, or, to speak more correctly, the space of twelve hours +which with us forms a day, ended for our travellers with an abundant +supper, exquisitely cooked. It was highly enjoyed.</p> + +<p>No incident had yet occurred of a nature calculated to shake their +confidence. Apprehending none therefore, full of hope rather and already +certain of success, they were soon lost in a peaceful slumber, whilst +the Projectile, moving rapidly, though with a velocity uniformly +retarding, still cleaved its way through the pathless regions of the +empyrean.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>A CHAPTER FOR THE CORNELL GIRLS.</h3> + + +<p>No incident worth recording occurred during the night, if night indeed +it could be called. In reality there was now no night or even day in the +Projectile, or rather, strictly speaking, it was always <i>night</i> on the +upper end of the bullet, and always <i>day</i> on the lower. Whenever, +therefore, the words <i>night</i> and <i>day</i> occur in our story, the reader +will readily understand them as referring to those spaces of time that +are so called in our Earthly almanacs, and were so measured by the +travellers' chronometers.</p> + +<p>The repose of our friends must indeed have been undisturbed, if absolute +freedom from sound or jar of any kind could secure tranquillity. In +spite of its immense velocity, the Projectile still seemed to be +perfectly motionless. Not the slightest sign of movement could be +detected. Change of locality, though ever so rapid, can never reveal +itself to our senses when it takes place in a vacuum, or when the +enveloping atmosphere travels at the same rate as the moving body. +Though we are incessantly whirled around the Sun at the rate of about +seventy thousand miles an hour, which of us is conscious of the +slightest motion? In such a case, as far as sensation is concerned, +motion and repose are absolutely identical. Neither has any effect one +way or another on a material body. Is such a body in motion? It remains +in motion until some obstacle stops it. Is it at rest? It remains at +rest until some superior force compels it to change its position. This +indifference of bodies to motion or rest is what physicists call +<i>inertia</i>.</p> + +<p>Barbican and his companions, therefore, shut up in the Projectile, could +readily imagine themselves to be completely motionless. Had they been +outside, the effect would have been precisely the same. No rush of air, +no jarring sensation would betray the slightest movement. But for the +sight of the Moon gradually growing larger above them, and of the Earth +gradually growing smaller beneath them, they could safely swear that +they were fast anchored in an ocean of deathlike immobility.</p> + +<p>Towards the morning of next day (December 3), they were awakened by a +joyful, but quite unexpected sound.</p> + +<p>"Cock-a-doodle! doo!" accompanied by a decided flapping of wings.</p> + +<p>The Frenchman, on his feet in one instant and on the top of the ladder +in another, attempted to shut the lid of a half open box, speaking in an +angry but suppressed voice:</p> + +<p>"Stop this hullabaloo, won't you? Do you want me to fail in my great +combination!"</p> + +<p>"Hello?" cried Barbican and M'Nicholl, starting up and rubbing their +eyes.</p> + +<p>"What noise was that?" asked Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Seems to me I heard the crowing of a cock," observed the Captain.</p> + +<p>"I never thought your ears could be so easily deceived, Captain," cried +Ardan, quickly, "Let us try it again," and, flapping his ribs with his +arms, he gave vent to a crow so loud and natural that the lustiest +chanticleer that ever saluted the orb of day might be proud of it.</p> + +<p>The Captain roared right out, and even Barbican snickered, but as they +saw that their companion evidently wanted to conceal something, they +immediately assumed straight faces and pretended to think no more about +the matter.</p> + +<p>"Barbican," said Ardan, coming down the ladder and evidently anxious to +change the conversation, "have you any idea of what I was thinking about +all night?"</p> + +<p>"Not the slightest."</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of the promptness of the reply you received last year +from the authorities of Cambridge University, when you asked them about +the feasibility of sending a bullet to the Moon. You know very well by +this time what a perfect ignoramus I am in Mathematics. I own I have +been often puzzled when thinking on what grounds they could form such a +positive opinion, in a case where I am certain that the calculation must +be an exceedingly delicate matter."</p> + +<p>"The feasibility, you mean to say," replied Barbican, "not exactly of +sending a bullet to the Moon, but of sending it to the neutral point +between the Earth and the Moon, which lies at about nine-tenths of the +journey, where the two attractions counteract each other. Because that +point once passed, the Projectile would reach the Moon's surface by +virtue of its own weight."</p> + +<p>"Well, reaching that neutral point be it;" replied Ardan, "but, once +more, I should like to know how they have been able to come at the +necessary initial velocity of 12,000 yards a second?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing simpler," answered Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Could you have done it yourself?" asked the Frenchman.</p> + +<p>"Without the slightest difficulty. The Captain and myself could have +readily solved the problem, only the reply from the University saved us +the trouble."</p> + +<p>"Well, Barbican, dear boy," observed Ardan, "all I've got to say is, you +might chop the head off my body, beginning with my feet, before you +could make me go through such a calculation."</p> + +<p>"Simply because you don't understand Algebra," replied Barbican, +quietly.</p> + +<p>"Oh! that's all very well!" cried Ardan, with an ironical smile. "You +great <i>x+y</i> men think you settle everything by uttering the word +<i>Algebra</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Ardan," asked Barbican, "do you think people could beat iron without a +hammer, or turn up furrows without a plough?"</p> + +<p>"Hardly."</p> + +<p>"Well, Algebra is an instrument or utensil just as much as a hammer or a +plough, and a very good instrument too if you know how to make use of +it."</p> + +<p>"You're in earnest?"</p> + +<p>"Quite so."</p> + +<p>"And you can handle the instrument right before my eyes?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, if it interests you so much."</p> + +<p>"You can show me how they got at the initial velocity of our +Projectile?"</p> + +<p>"With the greatest pleasure. By taking into proper consideration all the +elements of the problem, viz.: (1) the distance between the centres of +the Earth and the Moon, (2) the Earth's radius, (3) its volume, and (4) +the Moon's volume, I can easily calculate what must be the initial +velocity, and that too by a very simple formula."</p> + +<p>"Let us have the formula."</p> + +<p>"In one moment; only I can't give you the curve really described by the +Projectile as it moves between the Earth and the Moon; this is to be +obtained by allowing for their combined movement around the Sun. I will +consider the Earth and the Sun to be motionless, that being sufficient +for our present purpose."</p> + +<p>"Why so?"</p> + +<p>"Because to give you that exact curve would be to solve a point in the +'Problem of the Three Bodies,' which Integral Calculus has not yet +reached."</p> + +<p>"What!" cried Ardan, in a mocking tone, "is there really anything that +Mathematics can't do?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Barbican, "there is still a great deal that Mathematics +can't even attempt."</p> + +<p>"So far, so good;" resumed Ardan. "Now then what is this Integral +Calculus of yours?"</p> + +<p>"It is a branch of Mathematics that has for its object the summation of +a certain infinite series of indefinitely small terms: but for the +solution of which, we must generally know the function of which a given +function is the differential coefficient. In other words," continued +Barbican, "in it we return from the differential coefficient, to the +function from which it was deduced."</p> + +<p>"Clear as mud!" cried Ardan, with a hearty laugh.</p> + +<p>"Now then, let me have a bit of paper and a pencil," added Barbican, +"and in half an hour you shall have your formula; meantime you can +easily find something interesting to do."</p> + +<p>In a few seconds Barbican was profoundly absorbed in his problem, while +M'Nicholl was watching out of the window, and Ardan was busily employed +in preparing breakfast.</p> + +<p>The morning meal was not quite ready, when Barbican, raising his head, +showed Ardan a page covered with algebraic signs at the end of which +stood the following formula:—</p> + +<p> + <img src="images/05.png" + alt="TeX source: \frac{1}{2}\left(v'^2-v^2\right)=gr\left\{\frac{r}{x}-1+\frac{m'}{m}\left(\frac{r}{d-x}-\frac{r}{d-r}\right)\right\}" + title="TeX source: \frac{1}{2}\left(v'^2-v^2\right)=gr\left\{\frac{r}{x}-1+\frac{m'}{m}\left(\frac{r}{d-x}-\frac{r}{d-r}\right)\right\}" /> +</p> + +<p>"Which means?" asked Ardan.</p> + +<p>"It means," said the Captain, now taking part in the discussion, "that +the half of <i>v</i> prime squared minus <i>v</i> squared equals <i>gr</i> multiplied +by <i>r</i> over <i>x</i> minus one plus <i>m</i> prime over <i>m</i> multiplied by <i>r</i> over +<i>d</i> minus <i>x</i> minus <i>r</i> over <i>d</i> minus <i>r</i> ... that is—"</p> + +<p>"That is," interrupted Ardan, in a roar of laughter, "<i>x</i> stradlegs on +<i>y</i>, making for <i>z</i> and jumping over <i>p</i>! Do <i>you</i> mean to say you +understand the terrible jargon, Captain?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing is clearer, Ardan."</p> + +<p>"You too, Captain! Then of course I must give in gracefully, and declare +that the sun at noon-day is not more palpably evident than the sense of +Barbican's formula."</p> + +<p>"You asked for Algebra, you know," observed Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Rock crystal is nothing to it!"</p> + +<p>"The fact is, Barbican," said the Captain, who had been looking over the +paper, "you have worked the thing out very well. You have the integral +equation of the living forces, and I have no doubt it will give us the +result sought for."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I should like to understand it, you know," cried Ardan: "I +would give ten years of the Captain's life to understand it!"</p> + +<p>"Listen then," said Barbican. "Half of <i>v</i> prime squared less <i>v</i> +squared, is the formula giving us the half variation of the living +force."</p> + +<p>"Mac pretends he understands all that!"</p> + +<p>"You need not be a <i>Solomon</i> to do it," said the Captain. "All these +signs that you appear to consider so cabalistic form a language the +clearest, the shortest, and the most logical, for all those who can read +it."</p> + +<p>"You pretend, Captain, that, by means of these hieroglyphics, far more +incomprehensible than the sacred Ibis of the Egyptians, you can +discover the velocity at which the Projectile should start?"</p> + +<p>"Most undoubtedly," replied the Captain, "and, by the same formula I can +even tell you the rate of our velocity at any particular point of our +journey."</p> + +<p>"You can?"</p> + +<p>"I can."</p> + +<p>"Then you're just as deep a one as our President."</p> + +<p>"No, Ardan; not at all. The really difficult part of the question +Barbican has done. That is, to make out such an equation as takes into +account all the conditions of the problem. After that, it's a simple +affair of Arithmetic, requiring only a knowledge of the four rules to +work it out."</p> + +<p>"Very simple," observed Ardan, who always got muddled at any kind of a +difficult sum in addition.</p> + +<p>"Captain," said Barbican, "<i>you</i> could have found the formulas too, if +you tried."</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that," was the Captain's reply, "but I do know that +this formula is wonderfully come at."</p> + +<p>"Now, Ardan, listen a moment," said Barbican, "and you will see what +sense there is in all these letters."</p> + +<p>"I listen," sighed Ardan with the resignation of a martyr.</p> + +<p>"<i>d</i> is the distance from the centre of the Earth to the centre of the +Moon, for it is from the centres that we must calculate the +attractions."</p> + +<p>"That I comprehend."</p> + +<p>"<i>r</i> is the radius of the Earth."</p> + +<p>"That I comprehend."</p> + +<p>"<i>m</i> is the mass or volume of the Earth; <i>m</i> prime that of the Moon. We +must take the mass of the two attracting bodies into consideration, +since attraction is in direct proportion to their masses."</p> + +<p>"That I comprehend."</p> + +<p>"<i>g</i> is the gravity or the velocity acquired at the end of a second by a +body falling towards the centre of the Earth. Clear?"</p> + +<p>"That I comprehend."</p> + +<p>"Now I represent by <i>x</i> the varying distance that separates the +Projectile from the centre of the Earth, and by <i>v</i> prime its velocity +at that distance."</p> + +<p>"That I comprehend."</p> + +<p>"Finally, <i>v</i> is its velocity when quitting our atmosphere."</p> + +<p>"Yes," chimed in the Captain, "it is for this point, you see, that the +velocity had to be calculated, because we know already that the initial +velocity is exactly the three halves of the velocity when the Projectile +quits the atmosphere."</p> + +<p>"That I don't comprehend," cried the Frenchman, energetically.</p> + +<p>"It's simple enough, however," said Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Not so simple as a simpleton," replied the Frenchman.</p> + +<p>"The Captain merely means," said Barbican, "that at the instant the +Projectile quitted the terrestrial atmosphere it had already lost a +third of its initial velocity."</p> + +<p>"So much as a third?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, by friction against the atmospheric layers: the quicker its +motion, the greater resistance it encountered."</p> + +<p>"That of course I admit, but your <i>v</i> squared and your <i>v</i> prime squared +rattle in my head like nails in a box!"</p> + +<p>"The usual effect of Algebra on one who is a stranger to it; to finish +you, our next step is to express numerically the value of these several +symbols. Now some of them are already known, and some are to be +calculated."</p> + +<p>"Hand the latter over to me," said the Captain.</p> + +<p>"First," continued Barbican: "<i>r</i>, the Earth's radius is, in the +latitude of Florida, about 3,921 miles. <i>d</i>, the distance from the +centre of the Earth to the centre of the Moon is 56 terrestrial radii, +which the Captain calculates to be...?"</p> + +<p>"To be," cried M'Nicholl working rapidly with his pencil, "219,572 +miles, the moment the Moon is in her <i>perigee</i>, or nearest point to the +Earth."</p> + +<p>"Very well," continued Barbican. "Now <i>m</i> prime over <i>m</i>, that is the +ratio of the Moon's mass to that of the Earth is about the 1/81. <i>g</i> +gravity being at Florida about 32-1/4 feet, of course <i>g</i> x <i>r</i> must +be—how much, Captain?"</p> + +<p>"38,465 miles," replied M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Now then?" asked Ardan.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image06" name="image06"> + <img src="images/08.jpg" + alt="MY HEAD IS SPLITTING WITH IT." + title="MY HEAD IS SPLITTING WITH IT." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">MY HEAD IS SPLITTING WITH IT.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Now then," replied Barbican, "the expression having numerical values, I +am trying to find <i>v</i>, that is to say, the initial velocity which the +Projectile must possess in order to reach the point where the two +attractions neutralize each other. Here the velocity being null, <i>v</i> +prime becomes zero, and <i>x</i> the required distance of this neutral point +must be represented by the nine-tenths of <i>d</i>, the distance between the +two centres."</p> + +<p>"I have a vague kind of idea that it must be so," said Ardan.</p> + +<p>"I shall, therefore, have the following result;" continued Barbican, +figuring up; "<i>x</i> being nine-tenths of <i>d</i>, and <i>v</i> prime being zero, my +formula becomes:—</p> + +<p> + <img src="images/06.png" + alt="TeX source: v^2=gr\left\{1-\frac{10r}{d}-\frac{1}{81}\left(\frac{10r}{d}-\frac{r}{d-r}\right)\right\}" + title="TeX source: v^2=gr\left\{1-\frac{10r}{d}-\frac{1}{81}\left(\frac{10r}{d}-\frac{r}{d-r}\right)\right\}" /> +</p> + +<p>The Captain read it off rapidly.</p> + +<p>"Right! that's correct!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"You think so?" asked Barbican.</p> + +<p>"As true as Euclid!" exclaimed M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Wonderful fellows," murmured the Frenchman, smiling with admiration.</p> + +<p>"You understand now, Ardan, don't you?" asked Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Don't I though?" exclaimed Ardan, "why my head is splitting with it!"</p> + +<p>"Therefore," continued Barbican,</p> + +<p> +<img src="images/07.png" + alt="TeX source: 2v^2=2gr\left\{1-\frac{10r}{d}-\frac{1}{81}\left(\frac{10r}{d}-\frac{r}{d-r}\right)\right\}" + title="TeX source: 2v^2=2gr\left\{1-\frac{10r}{d}-\frac{1}{81}\left(\frac{10r}{d}-\frac{r}{d-r}\right)\right\}" /> +</p> + +<p>"And now," exclaimed M'Nicholl, sharpening his pencil; "in order to +obtain the velocity of the Projectile when leaving the atmosphere, we +have only to make a slight calculation."</p> + +<p>The Captain, who before clerking on a Mississippi steamboat had been +professor of Mathematics in an Indiana university, felt quite at home at +the work. He rained figures from his pencil with a velocity that would +have made Marston stare. Page after page was filled with his +multiplications and divisions, while Barbican looked quietly on, and +Ardan impatiently stroked his head and ears to keep down a rising +head-ache.</p> + +<p>"Well?" at last asked Barbican, seeing the Captain stop and throw a +somewhat hasty glance over his work.</p> + +<p>"Well," answered M'Nicholl slowly but confidently, "the calculation is +made, I think correctly; and <i>v</i>, that is, the velocity of the +Projectile when quitting the atmosphere, sufficient to carry it to the +neutral point, should be at least ..."</p> + +<p>"How much?" asked Barbican, eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Should be at least 11,972 yards the first second."</p> + +<p>"What!" cried Barbican, jumping off his seat. "How much did you say?"</p> + +<p>"11,972 yards the first second it quits the atmosphere."</p> + +<p>"Oh, malediction!" cried Barbican, with a gesture of terrible despair.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" asked Ardan, very much surprised.</p> + +<p>"Enough is the matter!" answered Barbican excitedly. "This velocity +having been diminished by a third, our initial velocity should have been +at least ..."</p> + +<p>"17,958 yards the first second!" cried M'Nicholl, rapidly flourishing +his pencil.</p> + +<p>"But the Cambridge Observatory having declared that 12,000 yards the +first second were sufficient, our Projectile started with no greater +velocity!"</p> + +<p>"Well?" asked M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Well, such a velocity will never do!"</p> + +<table summary="speech"> + <tr> + <td>"How??"<br />"How!!"</td> + <td> + <img src="images/02.png" + alt="brace" + title="brace" /> + </td> + <td>cried the Captain and Ardan in one voice.</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>"We can never reach the neutral point!"</p> + +<p>"Thunder and lightning"</p> + +<p>"Fire and Fury!"</p> + +<p>"We can't get even halfway!"</p> + +<p>"Heaven and Earth!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Mille noms d'un boulet!</i>" cried Ardan, wildly gesticulating.</p> + +<p>"And we shall fall back to the Earth!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p> + +<p>They could say no more. This fearful revelation took them like a stroke +of apoplexy.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>THE COLDS OF SPACE.</h3> + + +<p>How could they imagine that the Observatory men had committed such a +blunder? Barbican would not believe it possible. He made the Captain go +over his calculation again and again; but no flaw was to be found in it. +He himself carefully examined it, figure after figure, but he could find +nothing wrong. They both took up the formula and subjected it to the +strongest tests; but it was invulnerable. There was no denying the fact. +The Cambridge professors had undoubtedly blundered in saying that an +initial velocity of 12,000 yards a second would be enough to carry them +to the neutral point. A velocity of nearly 18,000 yards would be the +very lowest required for such a purpose. They had simply forgotten to +allow a third for friction.</p> + +<p>The three friends kept profound silence for some time. Breakfast now was +the last thing thought of. Barbican, with teeth grating, fingers +clutching, and eye-brows closely contracting, gazed grimly through the +window. The Captain, as a last resource, once more examined his +calculations, earnestly hoping to find a figure wrong. Ardan could +neither sit, stand nor lie still for a second, though he tried all +three. His silence, of course, did not last long.</p> + +<p>"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed bitterly. "Precious scientific men! Villainous +old hombogues! The whole set not worth a straw! I hope to gracious, +since we must fall, that we shall drop down plumb on Cambridge +Observatory, and not leave a single one of the miserable old women, +called professors, alive in the premises!"</p> + +<p>A certain expression in Ardan's angry exclamation had struck the Captain +like a shot, and set his temples throbbing violently.</p> + +<p>"<i>Must</i> fall!" he exclaimed, starting up suddenly. "Let us see about +that! It is now seven o'clock in the morning. We must have, therefore, +been at least thirty-two hours on the road, and more than half of our +passage is already made. If we are going to fall at all, we must be +falling now! I'm certain we're not, but, Barbican, you have to find it +out!"</p> + +<p>Barbican caught the idea like lightning, and, seizing a compass, he +began through the floor window to measure the visual angle of the +distant Earth. The apparent immobility of the Projectile allowed him to +do this with great exactness. Then laying aside the instrument, and +wiping off the thick drops of sweat that bedewed his forehead, he began +jotting down some figures on a piece of paper. The Captain looked on +with keen interest; he knew very well that Barbican was calculating +their distance from the Earth by the apparent measure of the terrestrial +diameter, and he eyed him anxiously.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon his friends saw a color stealing into Barbican's pale face, +and a triumphant light glittering in his eye.</p> + +<p>"No, my brave boys!" he exclaimed at last throwing down his pencil, +"we're not falling! Far from it, we are at present more than 150 +thousand miles from the Earth!"</p> + +<table summary="speech"> + <tr> + <td>"Hurrah!"<br />"Bravo!"</td> + <td> + <img src="images/02.png" + alt="brace" + title="brace" /> + </td> + <td>cried M'Nicholl and Ardan, in a breath.</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>"We have passed the point where we should have stopped if we had had no +more initial velocity than the Cambridge men allowed us!"</p> + +<p>"Hurrah! hurrah!"</p> + +<p>"Bravo, Bravissimo!"</p> + +<p>"And we're still going up!"</p> + +<p>"Glory, glory, hallelujah!" sang M'Nicholl, in the highest excitement.</p> + +<p>"<i>Vive ce cher Barbican!</i>" cried Ardan, bursting into French as usual +whenever his feelings had the better of him.</p> + +<p>"Of course we're marching on!" continued M'Nicholl, "and I know the +reason why, too. Those 400,000 pounds of gun-cotton gave us greater +initial velocity than we had expected!"</p> + +<p>"You're right, Captain!" added Barbican; "besides, you must not forget +that, by getting rid of the water, the Projectile was relieved of +considerable weight!"</p> + +<p>"Correct again!" cried the Captain. "I had not thought of that!"</p> + +<p>"Therefore, my brave boys," continued Barbican, with some excitement; +"away with melancholy! We're all right!"</p> + +<p>"Yes; everything is lovely and the goose hangs high!" cried the Captain, +who on grand occasions was not above a little slang.</p> + +<p>"Talking of goose reminds me of breakfast," cried Ardan; "I assure you, +my fright has not taken away my appetite!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," continued Barbican. "Captain, you're quite right. Our initial +velocity very fortunately was much greater than what our Cambridge +friends had calculated for us!"</p> + +<p>"Hang our Cambridge friends and their calculations!" cried Ardan, with +some asperity; "as usual with your scientific men they've more brass +than brains! If we're not now bed-fellows with the oysters in the Gulf +of Mexico, no thanks to our kind Cambridge friends. But talking of +oysters, let me remind you again that breakfast is ready."</p> + +<p>The meal was a most joyous one. They ate much, they talked more, but +they laughed most. The little incident of Algebra had certainly very +much enlivened the situation.</p> + +<p>"Now, my boys," Ardan went on, "all things thus turning out quite +comfortable, I would just ask you why we should not succeed? We are +fairly started. No breakers ahead that I can see. No rock on our road. +It is freer than the ships on the raging ocean, aye, freer than the +balloons in the blustering air. But the ship arrives at her destination; +the balloon, borne on the wings of the wind, rises to as high an +altitude as can be endured; why then should not our Projectile reach the +Moon?"</p> + +<p>"It <i>will</i> reach the Moon!" nodded Barbican.</p> + +<p>"We shall reach the Moon or know for what!" cried M'Nicholl, +enthusiastically.</p> + +<p>"The great American nation must not be disappointed!" continued Ardan. +"They are the only people on Earth capable of originating such an +enterprise! They are the only people capable of producing a Barbican!"</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"That point settled," continued the Frenchman, "another question comes +up to which I have not yet called your attention. When we get to the +Moon, what shall we do there? How are we going to amuse ourselves? I'm +afraid our life there will be awfully slow!"</p> + +<p>His companions emphatically disclaimed the possibility of such a thing.</p> + +<p>"You may deny it, but I know better, and knowing better, I have laid in +my stores accordingly. You have but to choose. I possess a varied +assortment. Chess, draughts, cards, dominoes—everything in fact, but a +billiard table?"</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed Barbican; "cumbered yourself with such gimcracks?"</p> + +<p>"Such gimcracks are not only good to amuse ourselves with, but are +eminently calculated also to win us the friendship of the Selenites."</p> + +<p>"Friend Michael," said Barbican, "if the Moon is inhabited at all, her +inhabitants must have appeared several thousand years before the advent +of Man on our Earth, for there seems to be very little doubt that Luna +is considerably older than Terra in her present state. Therefore, +Selenites, if their brain is organized like our own, must have by this +time invented all that we are possessed of, and even much which we are +still to invent in the course of ages. The probability is that, instead +of their learning from us, we shall have much to learn from them."</p> + +<p>"What!" asked Ardan, "you think they have artists like Phidias, Michael +Angelo and Raphael?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"And poets like Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakspeare, Göthe and Hugo?"</p> + +<p>"Not a doubt of it."</p> + +<p>"And philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Bacon, Kant?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"And scientists like Euclid, Archimedes, Copernicus, Newton, Pascal?"</p> + +<p>"I should think so."</p> + +<p>"And famous actors, and singers, and composers, and—and photographers?"</p> + +<p>"I could almost swear to it."</p> + +<p>"Then, dear boy, since they have gone ahead as far as we and even +farther, why have not those great Selenites tried to start a +communication with the Earth? Why have they not fired a projectile from +the regions lunar to the regions terrestrial?"</p> + +<p>"Who says they have not done so?" asked Barbican, coolly.</p> + +<p>"Attempting such a communication," observed the Captain, "would +certainly be much easier for them than for us, principally for two +reasons. First, attraction on the Moon's surface being six times less +than on the Earth's, a projectile could be sent off more rapidly; +second, because, as this projectile need be sent only 24 instead of 240 +thousand miles, they could do it with a quantity of powder ten times +less than what we should require for the same purpose."</p> + +<p>"Then I ask again," said the Frenchman; "why haven't they made such an +attempt?"</p> + +<p>"And I reply again," answered Barbican. "How do you know that they have +not made such an attempt?"</p> + +<p>"Made it? When?"</p> + +<p>"Thousands of years ago, before the invention of writing, before even +the appearance of Man on the Earth."</p> + +<p>"But the bullet?" asked Ardan, triumphantly; "Where's the bullet? +Produce the bullet!"</p> + +<p>"Friend Michael," answered Barbican, with a quiet smile, "you appear to +forget that the 5/6 of the surface of our Earth is water. 5 to 1, +therefore, that the bullet is more likely to be lying this moment at the +bottom of the Atlantic or the Pacific than anywhere else on the surface +of our globe. Besides, it may have sunk into some weak point of the +surface, at the early epoch when the crust of the Earth had not acquired +sufficient solidity."</p> + +<p>"Captain," said Ardan, turning with a smile to M'Nicholl; "no use in +trying to catch Barby; slippery as an eel, he has an answer for +everything. Still I have a theory on the subject myself, which I think +it no harm to ventilate. It is this: The Selenites have never sent us +any projectile at all, simply because they had no gunpowder: being older +and wiser than we, they were never such fools as to invent any.—But, +what's that? Diana howling for her breakfast! Good! Like genuine +scientific men, while squabbling over nonsense, we let the poor animals +die of hunger. Excuse us, Diana; it is not the first time the little +suffer from the senseless disputes of the great."</p> + +<p>So saying he laid before the animal a very toothsome pie, and +contemplated with evident pleasure her very successful efforts towards +its hasty and complete disappearance.</p> + +<p>"Looking at Diana," he went on, "makes me almost wish we had made a +Noah's Ark of our Projectile by introducing into it a pair of all the +domestic animals!"</p> + +<p>"Not room enough," observed Barbican.</p> + +<p>"No doubt," remarked the Captain, "the ox, the cow, the horse, the goat, +all the ruminating animals would be very useful in the Lunar continent. +But we couldn't turn our Projectile into a stable, you know."</p> + +<p>"Still, we might have made room for a pair of poor little donkeys!" +observed Ardan; "how I love the poor beasts. Fellow feeling, you will +say. No doubt, but there really is no animal I pity more. They are the +most ill-treated brutes in all creation. They are not only banged during +life; they are banged worse after death!"</p> + +<p>"Hey! How do you make that out?" asked his companions, surprised.</p> + +<p>"Because we make their skins into drum heads!" replied Ardan, with an +air, as if answering a conundrum.</p> + +<p>Barbican and M'Nicholl could hardly help laughing at the absurd reply of +their lively companion, but their hilarity was soon stopped by the +expression his face assumed as he bent over Satellite's body, where it +lay stretched on the sofa.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter now?" asked Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Satellite's attack is over," replied Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Good!" said M'Nicholl, misunderstanding him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose it is good for the poor fellow," observed Ardan, in +melancholy accents. "Life with one's skull broken is hardly an enviable +possession. Our grand acclimatization project is knocked sky high, in +more senses than one!"</p> + +<p>There was no doubt of the poor dog's death. The expression of Ardan's +countenance, as he looked at his friends, was of a very rueful order.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the practical Barbican, "there's no help for that now; the +next thing to be done is to get rid of the body. We can't keep it here +with us forty-eight hours longer."</p> + +<p>"Of course not," replied the Captain, "nor need we; our lights, being +provided with hinges, can be lifted back. What is to prevent us from +opening one of them, and flinging the body out through it!"</p> + +<p>The President of the Gun Club reflected a few minutes; then he spoke:</p> + +<p>"Yes, it can be done; but we must take the most careful precautions."</p> + +<p>"Why so?" asked Ardan.</p> + +<p>"For two simple reasons;" replied Barbican; "the first refers to the air +enclosed in the Projectile, and of which we must be very careful to lose +only the least possible quantity."</p> + +<p>"But as we manufacture air ourselves!" objected Ardan.</p> + +<p>"We manufacture air only partly, friend Michael," replied Barbican. "We +manufacture only oxygen; we can't supply nitrogen—By the bye, Ardan, +won't you watch the apparatus carefully every now and then to see that +the oxygen is not generated too freely. Very serious consequences would +attend an immoderate supply of oxygen—No, we can't manufacture +nitrogen, which is so absolutely necessary for our air and which might +escape readily through the open windows."</p> + +<p>"What! the few seconds we should require for flinging out poor +Satellite?"</p> + +<p>"A very few seconds indeed they should be," said Barbican, very gravely.</p> + +<p>"Your second reason?" asked Ardan.</p> + +<p>"The second reason is, that we must not allow the external cold, which +must be exceedingly great, to penetrate into our Projectile and freeze +us alive."</p> + +<p>"But the Sun, you know—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the Sun heats our Projectile, but it does not heat the vacuum +through which we are now floating. Where there is no air there can +neither be heat nor light; just as wherever the rays of the Sun do not +arrive directly, it must be both cold and dark. The temperature around +us, if there be anything that can be called temperature, is produced +solely by stellar radiation. I need not say how low that is in the +scale, or that it would be the temperature to which our Earth should +fall, if the Sun were suddenly extinguished."</p> + +<p>"Little fear of that for a few more million years," said M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Who can tell?" asked Ardan. "Besides, even admitting that the Sun will +not soon be extinguished, what is to prevent the Earth from shooting +away from him?"</p> + +<p>"Let friend Michael speak," said Barbican, with a smile, to the Captain; +"we may learn something."</p> + +<p>"Certainly you may," continued the Frenchman, "if you have room for +anything new. Were we not struck by a comet's tail in 1861?"</p> + +<p>"So it was said, anyhow," observed the Captain. "I well remember what +nonsense there was in the papers about the 'phosphorescent auroral +glare.'"</p> + +<p>"Well," continued the Frenchman, "suppose the comet of 1861 influenced +the Earth by an attraction superior to the Sun's. What would be the +consequence? Would not the Earth follow the attracting body, become its +satellite, and thus at last be dragged off to such a distance that the +Sun's rays could no longer excite heat on her surface?"</p> + +<p>"Well, that might possibly occur," said Barbican slowly, "but even then +I question if the consequences would be so terrible as you seem to +apprehend."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because the cold and the heat might still manage to be nearly equalized +on our globe. It has been calculated that, had the Earth been carried +off by the comet of '61, when arrived at her greatest distance, she +would have experienced a temperature hardly sixteen times greater than +the heat we receive from the Moon, which, as everybody knows, produces +no appreciable effect, even when concentrated to a focus by the most +powerful lenses."</p> + +<p>"Well then," exclaimed Ardan, "at such a temperature—"</p> + +<p>"Wait a moment," replied Barbican. "Have you never heard of the +principle of compensation? Listen to another calculation. Had the Earth +been dragged along with the comet, it has been calculated that at her +perihelion, or nearest point to the Sun, she would have to endure a heat +28,000 times greater than our mean summer temperature. But this heat, +fully capable of turning the rocks into glass and the oceans into vapor, +before proceeding to such extremity, must have first formed a thick +interposing ring of clouds, and thus considerably modified the excessive +temperature. Therefore, between the extreme cold of the aphelion and the +excessive heat of the perihelion, by the great law of compensation, it +is probable that the mean temperature would be tolerably endurable."</p> + +<p>"At how many degrees is the temperature of the interplanetary space +estimated?" asked M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Some time ago," replied Barbican, "this temperature was considered to +be very low indeed—millions and millions of degrees below zero. But +Fourrier of Auxerre, a distinguished member of the <i>Académie des +Sciences</i>, whose <i>Mémoires</i> on the temperature of the Planetary spaces +appeared about 1827, reduced these figures to considerably diminished +proportions. According to his careful estimation, the temperature of +space is not much lower than 70 or 80 degrees Fahr. below zero."</p> + +<p>"No more?" asked Ardan.</p> + +<p>"No more," answered Barbican, "though I must acknowledge we have only +his word for it, as the <i>Mémoire</i> in which he had recorded all the +elements of that important determination, has been lost somewhere, and +is no longer to be found."</p> + +<p>"I don't attach the slightest importance to his, or to any man's words, +unless they are sustained by reliable evidence," exclaimed M'Nicholl. +"Besides, if I'm not very much mistaken, Pouillet—another countryman of +yours, Ardan, and an Academician as well as Fourrier—esteems the +temperature of interplanetary spaces to be at least 256° Fahr. below +zero. This we can easily verify for ourselves this moment by actual +experiment."</p> + +<p>"Not just now exactly," observed Barbican, "for the solar rays, +striking our Projectile directly, would give us a very elevated instead +of a very low temperature. But once arrived at the Moon, during those +nights fifteen days long, which each of her faces experiences +alternately, we shall have plenty of time to make an experiment with +every condition in our favor. To be sure, our Satellite is at present +moving in a vacuum."</p> + +<p>"A vacuum?" asked Ardan; "a perfect vacuum?"</p> + +<p>"Well, a perfect vacuum as far as air is concerned."</p> + +<p>"But is the air replaced by nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," replied Barbican. "By ether."</p> + +<p>"Ah, ether! and what, pray, is ether?"</p> + +<p>"Ether, friend Michael, is an elastic gas consisting of imponderable +atoms, which, as we are told by works on molecular physics, are, in +proportion to their size, as far apart as the celestial bodies are from +each other in space. This distance is less than the 1/3000000 x 1/1000', +or the one trillionth of a foot. The vibrations of the molecules of this +ether produce the sensations of light and heat, by making 430 trillions +of undulations per second, each undulation being hardly more than the +one ten-millionth of an inch in width."</p> + +<p>"Trillions per second! ten-millionths of an inch in width!" cried Ardan. +"These oscillations have been very neatly counted and ticketed, and +checked off! Ah, friend Barbican," continued the Frenchman, shaking his +head, "these numbers are just tremendous guesses, frightening the ear +but revealing nothing to the intelligence."</p> + +<p>"To get ideas, however, we must calculate—"</p> + +<p>"No, no!" interrupted Ardan: "not calculate, but compare. A trillion +tells you nothing—Comparison, everything. For instance, you say, the +volume of <i>Uranus</i> is 76 times greater than the Earth's; <i>Saturn's</i> 900 +times greater; <i>Jupiter's</i> 1300 times greater; the Sun's 1300 thousand +times greater—You may tell me all that till I'm tired hearing it, and I +shall still be almost as ignorant as ever. For my part I prefer to be +told one of those simple comparisons that I find in the old almanacs: +The Sun is a globe two feet in diameter; <i>Jupiter</i>, a good sized orange; +<i>Saturn</i>, a smaller orange; <i>Neptune</i>, a plum; <i>Uranus</i>, a good sized +cherry; the Earth, a pea; <i>Venus</i>, also a pea but somewhat smaller; +<i>Mars</i>, a large pin's head; <i>Mercury</i>, a mustard seed; <i>Juno</i>, +<i>Ceres</i>, <i>Vesta</i>, <i>Pallas</i>, and the other asteroids so many grains +of sand. Be told something like that, and you have got at least the tail +of an idea!"</p> + +<p>This learned burst of Ardan's had the natural effect of making his +hearers forget what they had been arguing about, and they therefore +proceeded at once to dispose of Satellite's body. It was a simple matter +enough—no more than to fling it out of the Projectile into space, just +as the sailors get rid of a dead body by throwing it into the sea. Only +in this operation they had to act, as Barbican recommended, with the +utmost care and dispatch, so as to lose as little as possible of the +internal air, which, by its great elasticity, would violently strive to +escape. The bolts of the floor-light, which was more than a foot in +diameter, were carefully unscrewed, while Ardan, a good deal affected, +prepared to launch his dog's body into space. The glass, worked by a +powerful lever which enabled it to overcome the pressure of the enclosed +air, turned quickly on its hinges, and poor Satellite was dropped out. +The whole operation was so well managed that very little air escaped, +and ever afterwards Barbican employed the same means to rid the +Projectile of all the litter and other useless matter by which it was +occasionally encumbered.</p> + +<p>The evening of this third of December wore away without further +incident. As soon as Barbican had announced that the Projectile was +still winging its way, though with retarded velocity, towards the lunar +disc, the travellers quietly retired to rest.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image07" name="image07"> + <img src="images/09.jpg" + alt="POOR SATELLITE WAS DROPPED OUT." + title="POOR SATELLITE WAS DROPPED OUT." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">POOR SATELLITE WAS DROPPED OUT.</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>INSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATION.</h3> + + +<p>On the fourth of December, the Projectile chronometers marked five +o'clock in the morning, just as the travellers woke up from a pleasant +slumber. They had now been 54 hours on their journey. As to lapse of +<i>time</i>, they had passed not much more than half of the number of hours +during which their trip was to last; but, as to lapse of <i>space</i>, they +had already accomplished very nearly the seven-tenths of their passage. +This difference between time and distance was due to the regular +retardation of their velocity.</p> + +<p>They looked at the earth through the floor-light, but it was little more +than visible—a black spot drowned in the solar rays. No longer any sign +of a crescent, no longer any sign of ashy light. Next day, towards +midnight, the Earth was to be <i>new</i>, at the precise moment when the Moon +was to be <i>full</i>. Overhead, they could see the Queen of Night coming +nearer and nearer to the line followed by the Projectile, and evidently +approaching the point where both should meet at the appointed moment. +All around, the black vault of heaven was dotted with luminous points +which seemed to move somewhat, though, of course, in their extreme +distance their relative size underwent no change. The Sun and the stars +looked exactly as they had appeared when observed from the Earth. The +Moon indeed had become considerably enlarged in size, but the +travellers' telescopes were still too weak to enable them to make any +important observation regarding the nature of her surface, or that might +determine her topographical or geological features.</p> + +<p>Naturally, therefore, the time slipped away in endless conversation. The +Moon, of course, was the chief topic. Each one contributed his share of +peculiar information, or peculiar ignorance, as the case might be. +Barbican and M'Nicholl always treated the subject gravely, as became +learned scientists, but Ardan preferred to look on things with the eye +of fancy. The Projectile, its situation, its direction, the incidents +possible to occur, the precautions necessary to take in order to break +the fall on the Moon's surface—these and many other subjects furnished +endless food for constant debate and inexhaustible conjectures.</p> + +<p>For instance, at breakfast that morning, a question of Ardan's regarding +the Projectile drew from Barbican an answer curious enough to be +reported.</p> + +<p>"Suppose, on the night that we were shot up from Stony Hill," said +Ardan, "suppose the Projectile had encountered some obstacle powerful +enough to stop it—what would be the consequence of the sudden halt?"</p> + +<p>"But," replied Barbican, "I don't understand what obstacle it could have +met powerful enough to stop it."</p> + +<p>"Suppose some obstacle, for the sake of argument," said Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Suppose what can't be supposed," replied the matter-of-fact Barbican, +"what cannot possibly be supposed, unless indeed the original impulse +proved too weak. In that case, the velocity would have decreased by +degrees, but the Projectile itself would not have suddenly stopped."</p> + +<p>"Suppose it had struck against some body in space."</p> + +<p>"What body, for instance?"</p> + +<p>"Well, that enormous bolide which we met."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" hastily observed the Captain, "the Projectile would have been +dashed into a thousand pieces and we along with it."</p> + +<p>"Better than that," observed Barbican; "we should have been burned +alive."</p> + +<p>"Burned alive!" laughed Ardan. "What a pity we missed so interesting an +experiment! How I should have liked to find out how it felt!"</p> + +<p>"You would not have much time to record your observations, friend +Michael, I assure you," observed Barbican. "The case is plain enough. +Heat and motion are convertible terms. What do we mean by heating water? +Simply giving increased, in fact, violent motion to its molecules."</p> + +<p>"Well!" exclaimed the Frenchman, "that's an ingenious theory any how!"</p> + +<p>"Not only ingenious but correct, my dear friend, for it completely +explains all the phenomena of caloric. Heat is nothing but molecular +movement, the violent oscillation of the particles of a body. When you +apply the brakes to the train, the train stops. But what has become of +its motion? It turns into heat and makes the brakes hot. Why do people +grease the axles? To hinder them from getting too hot, which they +assuredly would become if friction was allowed to obstruct the motion. +You understand, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Don't I though?" replied Ardan, apparently in earnest. "Let me show you +how thoroughly. When I have been running hard and long, I feel myself +perspiring like a bull and hot as a furnace. Why am I then forced to +stop? Simply because my motion has been transformed into heat! Of +course, I understand all about it!"</p> + +<p>Barbican smiled a moment at this comical illustration of his theory and +then went on:</p> + +<p>"Accordingly, in case of a collision it would have been all over +instantly with our Projectile. You have seen what becomes of the bullet +that strikes the iron target. It is flattened out of all shape; +sometimes it is even melted into a thin film. Its motion has been turned +into heat. Therefore, I maintain that if our Projectile had struck that +bolide, its velocity, suddenly checked, would have given rise to a heat +capable of completely volatilizing it in less than a second."</p> + +<p>"Not a doubt of it!" said the Captain. "President," he added after a +moment, "haven't they calculated what would be the result, if the Earth +were suddenly brought to a stand-still in her journey, through her +orbit?"</p> + +<p>"It has been calculated," answered Barbican, "that in such a case so +much heat would be developed as would instantly reduce her to vapor."</p> + +<p>"Hm!" exclaimed Ardan; "a remarkably simple way for putting an end to +the world!"</p> + +<p>"And supposing the Earth to fall into the Sun?" asked the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Such a fall," answered Barbican, "according to the calculations of +Tyndall and Thomson, would develop an amount of heat equal to that +produced by sixteen hundred globes of burning coal, each globe equal in +size to the earth itself. Furthermore such a fall would supply the Sun +with at least as much heat as he expends in a hundred years!"</p> + +<p>"A hundred years! Good! Nothing like accuracy!" cried Ardan. "Such +infallible calculators as Messrs. Tyndall and Thomson I can easily +excuse for any airs they may give themselves. They must be of an order +much higher than that of ordinary mortals like us!"</p> + +<p>"I would not answer myself for the accuracy of such intricate problems," +quietly observed Barbican; "but there is no doubt whatever regarding one +fact: motion suddenly interrupted always develops heat. And this has +given rise to another theory regarding the maintenance of the Sun's +temperature at a constant point. An incessant rain of bolides falling on +his surface compensates sufficiently for the heat that he is +continually giving forth. It has been calculated—"</p> + +<p>"Good Lord deliver us!" cried Ardan, putting his hands to his ears: +"here comes Tyndall and Thomson again!"</p> + +<p>—"It has been calculated," continued Barbican, not heeding the +interruption, "that the shock of every bolide drawn to the Sun's surface +by gravity, must produce there an amount of heat equal to that of the +combustion of four thousand blocks of coal, each the same size as the +falling bolide."</p> + +<p>"I'll wager another cent that our bold savants calculated the heat of +the Sun himself," cried Ardan, with an incredulous laugh.</p> + +<p>"That is precisely what they have done," answered Barbican referring to +his memorandum book; "the heat emitted by the Sun," he continued, "is +exactly that which would be produced by the combustion of a layer of +coal enveloping the Sun's surface, like an atmosphere, 17 miles in +thickness."</p> + +<p>"Well done! and such heat would be capable of—?"</p> + +<p>"Of melting in an hour a stratum of ice 2400 feet thick, or, according +to another calculation, of raising a globe of ice-cold water, 3 times +the size of our Earth, to the boiling point in an hour."</p> + +<p>"Why not calculate the exact fraction of a second it would take to cook +a couple of eggs?" laughed Ardan. "I should as soon believe in one +calculation as in the other.—But—by the by—why does not such extreme +heat cook us all up like so many beefsteaks?"</p> + +<p>"For two very good and sufficient reasons," answered Barbican. "In the +first place, the terrestrial atmosphere absorbs the 4/10 of the solar +heat. In the second, the quantity of solar heat intercepted by the Earth +is only about the two billionth part of all that is radiated."</p> + +<p>"How fortunate to have such a handy thing as an atmosphere around us," +cried the Frenchman; "it not only enables us to breathe, but it actually +keeps us from sizzling up like griskins."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the Captain, "but unfortunately we can't say so much for the +Moon."</p> + +<p>"Oh pshaw!" cried Ardan, always full of confidence. "It's all right +there too! The Moon is either inhabited or she is not. If she is, the +inhabitants must breathe. If she is not, there must be oxygen enough +left for we, us and co., even if we should have to go after it to the +bottom of the ravines, where, by its gravity, it must have accumulated! +So much the better! we shall not have to climb those thundering +mountains!"</p> + +<p>So saying, he jumped up and began to gaze with considerable interest on +the lunar disc, which just then was glittering with dazzling brightness.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he exclaimed at length; "it must be pretty hot up there!"</p> + +<p>"I should think so," observed the Captain; "especially when you remember +that the day up there lasts 360 hours!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," observed Barbican, "but remember on the other hand that the +nights are just as long, and, as the heat escapes by radiation, the mean +temperature cannot be much greater than that of interplanetary space."</p> + +<p>"A high old place for living in!" cried Ardan. "No matter! I wish we +were there now! Wouldn't it be jolly, dear boys, to have old Mother +Earth for our Moon, to see her always on our sky, never rising, never +setting, never undergoing any change except from New Earth to Last +Quarter! Would not it be fun to trace the shape of our great Oceans and +Continents, and to say: 'there is the Mediterranean! there is China! +there is the gulf of Mexico! there is the white line of the Rocky +Mountains where old Marston is watching for us with his big telescope!' +Then we should see every line, and brightness, and shadow fade away by +degrees, as she came nearer and nearer to the Sun, until at last she sat +completely lost in his dazzling rays! But—by the way—Barbican, are +there any eclipses in the Moon?"</p> + +<p>"O yes; solar eclipses" replied Barbican, "must always occur whenever +the centres of the three heavenly bodies are in the same line, the Earth +occupying the middle place. However, such eclipses must always be +annular, as the Earth, projected like a screen on the solar disc, allows +more than half of the Sun to be still visible."</p> + +<p>"How is that?" asked M'Nicholl, "no total eclipses in the Moon? Surely +the cone of the Earth's shadow must extend far enough to envelop her +surface?"</p> + +<p>"It does reach her, in one sense," replied Barbican, "but it does not in +another. Remember the great refraction of the solar rays that must be +produced by the Earth's atmosphere. It is easy to show that this +refraction prevents the Sun from ever being totally invisible. See +here!" he continued, pulling out his tablets, "Let <i>a</i> represent the +horizontal parallax, and <i>b</i> the half of the Sun's apparent diameter—"</p> + +<p>"Ouch!" cried the Frenchman, making a wry face, "here comes Mr. <i>x</i> +square riding to the mischief on a pair of double zeros again! Talk +English, or Yankee, or Dutch, or Greek, and I'm your man! Even a little +Arabic I can digest! But hang me, if I can endure your Algebra!"</p> + +<p>"Well then, talking Yankee," replied Barbican with a smile, "the mean +distance of the Moon from the Earth being sixty terrestrial radii, the +length of the conic shadow, in consequence of atmospheric refraction, is +reduced to less than forty-two radii. Consequently, at the moment of an +eclipse, the Moon is far beyond the reach of the real shadow, so that +she can see not only the border rays of the Sun, but even those +proceeding from his very centre."</p> + +<p>"Oh then," cried Ardan with a loud laugh, "we have an eclipse of the Sun +at the moment when the Sun is quite visible! Isn't that very like a +bull, Mr. Philosopher Barbican?"</p> + +<p>"Yet it is perfectly true notwithstanding," answered Barbican. "At such +a moment the Sun is not eclipsed, because we can see him: and then again +he is eclipsed because we see him only by means of a few of his rays, +and even these have lost nearly all their brightness in their passage +through the terrestrial atmosphere!"</p> + +<p>"Barbican is right, friend Michael," observed the Captain slowly: "the +same phenomenon occurs on earth every morning at sunrise, when +refraction shows us</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">'<i>the Sun new ris'n</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Looking through the horizontal misty air,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Shorn of his beams.</i>'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"He must be right," said Ardan, who, to do him justice, though quick at +seeing a reason, was quicker to acknowledge its justice: "yes, he must +be right, because I begin to understand at last very clearly what he +really meant. However, we can judge for ourselves when we get +there.—But, apropos of nothing, tell me, Barbican, what do you think of +the Moon being an ancient comet, which had come so far within the sphere +of the Earth's attraction as to be kept there and turned into a +satellite?"</p> + +<p>"Well, that <i>is</i> an original idea!" said Barbican with a smile.</p> + +<p>"My ideas generally are of that category," observed Ardan with an +affectation of dry pomposity.</p> + +<p>"Not this time, however, friend Michael," observed M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I'm a plagiarist, am I?" asked the Frenchman, pretending to be +irritated.</p> + +<p>"Well, something very like it," observed M'Nicholl quietly. "Apollonius +Rhodius, as I read one evening in the Philadelphia Library, speaks of +the Arcadians of Greece having a tradition that their ancestors were so +ancient that they inhabited the Earth long before the Moon had ever +become our satellite. They therefore called them Προσεληνοι +or <i>Ante-lunarians</i>. Now starting with some such wild notion as this, +certain scientists have looked on the Moon as an ancient comet brought +close enough to the Earth to be retained in its orbit by terrestrial +attraction."</p> + +<p>"Why may not there be something plausible in such a hypothesis?" asked +Ardan with some curiosity.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing whatever in it," replied Barbican decidedly: "a simple +proof is the fact that the Moon does not retain the slightest trace of +the vaporous envelope by which comets are always surrounded."</p> + +<p>"Lost her tail you mean," said Ardan. "Pooh! Easy to account for that! +It might have got cut off by coming too close to the Sun!"</p> + +<p>"It might, friend Michael, but an amputation by such means is not very +likely."</p> + +<p>"No? Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because—because—By Jove, I can't say, because I don't know," cried +Barbican with a quiet smile on his countenance.</p> + +<p>"Oh what a lot of volumes," cried Ardan, "could be made out of what we +don't know!"</p> + +<p>"At present, for instance," observed M'Nicholl, "I don't know what +o'clock it is."</p> + +<p>"Three o'clock!" said Barbican, glancing at his chronometer.</p> + +<p>"No!" cried Ardan in surprise. "Bless us! How rapidly the time passes +when we are engaged in scientific conversation! Ouf! I'm getting +decidedly too learned! I feel as if I had swallowed a library!"</p> + +<p>"I feel," observed M'Nicholl, "as if I had been listening to a lecture +on Astronomy in the <i>Star</i> course."</p> + +<p>"Better stir around a little more," said the Frenchman; "fatigue of body +is the best antidote to such severe mental labor as ours. I'll run up +the ladder a bit." So saying, he paid another visit to the upper portion +of the Projectile and remained there awhile whistling <i>Malbrouk</i>, whilst +his companions amused themselves in looking through the floor window.</p> + +<p>Ardan was coming down the ladder, when his whistling was cut short by a +sudden exclamation of surprise.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" asked Barbican quickly, as he looked up and saw the +Frenchman pointing to something outside the Projectile.</p> + +<p>Approaching the window, Barbican saw with much surprise a sort of +flattened bag floating in space and only a few yards off. It seemed +perfectly motionless, and, consequently, the travellers knew that it +must be animated by the same ascensional movement as themselves.</p> + +<p>"What on earth can such a consarn be, Barbican?" asked Ardan, who every +now and then liked to ventilate his stock of American slang. "Is it one +of those particles of meteoric matter you were speaking of just now, +caught within the sphere of our Projectile's attraction and accompanying +us to the Moon?"</p> + +<p>"What I am surprised at," observed the Captain, "is that though the +specific gravity of that body is far inferior to that of our Projectile, +it moves with exactly the same velocity."</p> + +<p>"Captain," said Barbican, after a moment's reflection, "I know no more +what that object is than you do, but I can understand very well why it +keeps abreast with the Projectile."</p> + +<p>"Very well then, why?"</p> + +<p>"Because, my dear Captain, we are moving through a vacuum, and because +all bodies fall or move—the same thing—with equal velocity through a +vacuum, no matter what may be their shape or their specific gravity. It +is the air alone that makes a difference of weight. Produce an +artificial vacuum in a glass tube and you will see that all objects +whatever falling through, whether bits of feather or grains of shot, +move with precisely the same rapidity. Up here, in space, like cause and +like effect."</p> + +<p>"Correct," assented M'Nicholl. "Everything therefore that we shall throw +out of the Projectile is bound to accompany us to the Moon."</p> + +<p>"Well, we <i>were</i> smart!" cried Ardan suddenly.</p> + +<p>"How so, friend Michael?" asked Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Why not have packed the Projectile with ever so many useful objects, +books, instruments, tools, et cetera, and fling them out into space once +we were fairly started! They would have all followed us safely! Nothing +would have been lost! And—now I think on it—why not fling ourselves +out through the window? Shouldn't we be as safe out there as that +bolide? What fun it would be to feel ourselves sustained and upborne in +the ether, more highly favored even than the birds, who must keep on +flapping their wings continually to prevent themselves from falling!"</p> + +<p>"Very true, my dear boy," observed Barbican; "but how could we breathe?"</p> + +<p>"It's a fact," exclaimed the Frenchman. "Hang the air for spoiling our +fun! So we must remain shut up in our Projectile?"</p> + +<p>"Not a doubt of it!"</p> + +<p>—"Oh Thunder!" roared Ardan, suddenly striking his forehead.</p> + +<p>"What ails you?" asked the Captain, somewhat surprised.</p> + +<p>"Now I know what that bolide of ours is! Why didn't we think of it +before? It is no asteroid! It is no particle of meteoric matter! Nor is +it a piece of a shattered planet!"</p> + +<p>"What is it then?" asked both of his companions in one voice.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image08" name="image08"> + <img src="images/10.jpg" + alt="SATELLITE'S BODY FLYING THROUGH SPACE." + title="SATELLITE'S BODY FLYING THROUGH SPACE." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">SATELLITE'S BODY FLYING THROUGH SPACE.</span> +</div> + +<p>"It is nothing more or less than the body of the dog that we threw out +yesterday!"</p> + +<p>So in fact it was. That shapeless, unrecognizable mass, melted, +expunged, flat as a bladder under an unexhausted receiver, drained of +its air, was poor Satellite's body, flying like a rocket through space, +and rising higher and higher in close company with the rapidly ascending +Projectile!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>A HIGH OLD TIME.</h3> + + +<p>A new phenomenon, therefore, strange but logical, startling but +admitting of easy explanation, was now presented to their view, +affording a fresh subject for lively discussion. Not that they disputed +much about it. They soon agreed on a principle from which they readily +deducted the following general law: <i>Every object thrown out of the +Projectile should partake of the Projectile's motion: it should +therefore follow the same path, and never cease to move until the +Projectile itself came to a stand-still.</i></p> + +<p>But, in sober truth, they were at anything but a loss of subjects of +warm discussion. As the end of their journey began to approach, their +senses became keener and their sensations vivider. Steeled against +surprise, they looked for the unexpected, the strange, the startling; +and the only thing at which they would have wondered would be to be five +minutes without having something new to wonder at. Their excited +imaginations flew far ahead of the Projectile, whose velocity, by the +way, began to be retarded very decidedly by this time, though, of +course, the travellers had as yet no means to become aware of it. The +Moon's size on the sky was meantime getting larger and larger; her +apparent distance was growing shorter and shorter, until at last they +could almost imagine that by putting their hands out they could nearly +touch her.</p> + +<p>Next morning, December 5th, all were up and dressed at a very early +hour. This was to be the last day of their journey, if all calculations +were correct. That very night, at 12 o'clock, within nineteen hours at +furthest, at the very moment of Full Moon, they were to reach her +resplendent surface. At that hour was to be completed the most +extraordinary journey ever undertaken by man in ancient or modern times. +Naturally enough, therefore, they found themselves unable to sleep after +four o'clock in the morning; peering upwards through the windows now +visibly glittering under the rays of the Moon, they spent some very +exciting hours in gazing at her slowly enlarging disc, and shouting at +her with confident and joyful hurrahs.</p> + +<p>The majestic Queen of the Stars had now risen so high in the spangled +heavens that she could hardly rise higher. In a few degrees more she +would reach the exact point of space where her junction with the +Projectile was to be effected. According to his own observations, +Barbican calculated that they should strike her in the northern +hemisphere, where her plains, or <i>seas</i> as they are called, are immense, +and her mountains are comparatively rare. This, of course, would be so +much the more favorable, if, as was to be apprehended, the lunar +atmosphere was confined exclusively to the low lands.</p> + +<p>"Besides," as Ardan observed, "a plain is a more suitable landing place +than a mountain. A Selenite deposited on the top of Mount Everest or +even on Mont Blanc, could hardly be considered, in strict language, to +have arrived on Earth."</p> + +<p>"Not to talk," added M'Nicholl, "of the comfort of the thing! When you +land on a plain, there you are. When you land on a peak or on a steep +mountain side, where are you? Tumbling over an embankment with the train +going forty miles an hour, would be nothing to it."</p> + +<p>"Therefore, Captain Barbican," cried the Frenchman, "as we should like +to appear before the Selenites in full skins, please land us in the snug +though unromantic North. We shall have time enough to break our necks in +the South."</p> + +<p>Barbican made no reply to his companions, because a new reflection had +begun to trouble him, to talk about which would have done no good. There +was certainly something wrong. The Projectile was evidently heading +towards the northern hemisphere of the Moon. What did this prove? +Clearly, a deviation resulting from some cause. The bullet, lodged, +aimed, and fired with the most careful mathematical precision, had been +calculated to reach the very centre of the Moon's disc. Clearly it was +not going to the centre now. What could have produced the deviation? +This Barbican could not tell; nor could he even determine its extent, +having no points of sight by which to make his observations. For the +present he tried to console himself with the hope that the deviation of +the Projectile would be followed by no worse consequence than carrying +them towards the northern border of the Moon, where for several reasons +it would be comparatively easier to alight. Carefully avoiding, +therefore, the use of any expression which might needlessly alarm his +companions, he continued to observe the Moon as carefully as he could, +hoping every moment to find some grounds for believing that the +deviation from the centre was only a slight one. He almost shuddered at +the thought of what would be their situation, if the bullet, missing its +aim, should pass the Moon, and plunge into the interplanetary space +beyond it.</p> + +<p>As he continued to gaze, the Moon, instead of presenting the usual +flatness of her disc, began decidedly to show a surface somewhat convex. +Had the Sun been shining on her obliquely, the shadows would have +certainly thrown the great mountains into strong relief. The eye could +then bury itself deep in the yawning chasms of the craters, and easily +follow the cracks, streaks, and ridges which stripe, flecker, and bar +the immensity of her plains. But for the present all relief was lost in +the dazzling glare. The Captain could hardly distinguish even those dark +spots that impart to the full Moon some resemblance to the human face.</p> + +<p>"Face!" cried Ardan: "well, a very fanciful eye may detect a face, +though, for the sake of Apollo's beauteous sister, I regret to say, a +terribly pockmarked one!"</p> + +<p>The travellers, now evidently approaching the end of their journey, +observed the rapidly increasing world above them with newer and greater +curiosity every moment. Their fancies enkindled at the sight of the new +and strange scenes dimly presented to their view. In imagination they +climbed to the summit of this lofty peak. They let themselves down to +the abyss of that yawning crater. Here they imagined they saw vast seas +hardly kept in their basins by a rarefied atmosphere; there they thought +they could trace mighty rivers bearing to vast oceans the tribute of the +snowy mountains. In the first promptings of their eager curiosity, they +peered greedily into her cavernous depths, and almost expected, amidst +the deathlike hush of inaudible nature, to surprise some sound from the +mystic orb floating up there in eternal silence through a boundless +ocean of never ending vacuum.</p> + +<p>This last day of their journey left their memories stored with thrilling +recollections. They took careful note of the slightest details. As they +neared their destination, they felt themselves invaded by a vague, +undefined restlessness. But this restlessness would have given way to +decided uneasiness, if they had known at what a slow rate they were +travelling. They would have surely concluded that their present velocity +would never be able to take them as far as the neutral point, not to +talk of passing it. The reason of such considerable retardation was, +that by this time the Projectile had reached such a great distance from +the Earth that it had hardly any weight. But even this weight, such as +it was, was to be diminished still further, and finally, to vanish +altogether as soon as the bullet reached the neutral point, where the +two attractions, terrestrial and lunar, should counteract each other +with new and surprising effects.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the absorbing nature of his observations, Ardan never +forgot to prepare breakfast with his usual punctuality. It was eaten +readily and relished heartily. Nothing could be more exquisite than his +calf's foot jelly liquefied and prepared by gas heat, except perhaps his +meat biscuits of preserved Texas beef and Southdown mutton. A bottle of +Château Yquem and another of Clos de Vougeot, both of superlative +excellence in quality and flavor, crowned the repast. Their vicinity to +the Moon and their incessant glancing at her surface did not prevent the +travellers from touching each other's glasses merrily and often. Ardan +took occasion to remark that the lunar vineyards—if any existed—must +be magnificent, considering the intense solar heat they continually +experienced. Not that he counted on them too confidently, for he told +his friends that to provide for the worst he had supplied himself with a +few cases of the best vintages of Médoc and the Côte d'Or, of which the +bottles, then under discussion, might be taken as very favorable +specimens.</p> + +<p>The Reiset and Regnault apparatus for purifying the air worked +splendidly, and maintained the atmosphere in a perfectly sanitary +condition. Not an atom of carbonic acid could resist the caustic potash; +and as for the oxygen, according to M'Nicholl's expression, "it was A +prime number one!"</p> + +<p>The small quantity of watery vapor enclosed in the Projectile did no +more harm than serving to temper the dryness of the air: many a splendid +<i>salon</i> in New York, London, or Paris, and many an auditorium, even of +theatre, opera house or Academy of Music, could be considered its +inferior in what concerned its hygienic condition.</p> + +<p>To keep it in perfect working order, the apparatus should be carefully +attended to. This, Ardan looked on as his own peculiar occupation. He +was never tired regulating the tubes, trying the taps, and testing the +heat of the gas by the pyrometer. So far everything had worked +satisfactorily, and the travellers, following the example of their +friend Marston on a previous occasion, began to get so stout that their +own mothers would not know them in another month, should their +imprisonment last so long. Ardan said they all looked so sleek and +thriving that he was reminded forcibly of a nice lot of pigs fattening +in a pen for a country fair. But how long was this good fortune of +theirs going to last?</p> + +<p>Whenever they took their eyes off the Moon, they could not help noticing +that they were still attended outside by the spectre of Satellite's +corpse and by the other refuse of the Projectile. An occasional +melancholy howl also attested Diana's recognition of her companion's +unhappy fate. The travellers saw with surprise that these waifs still +seemed perfectly motionless in space, and kept their respective +distances apart as mathematically as if they had been fastened with +nails to a stone wall.</p> + +<p>"I tell you what, dear boys;" observed Ardan, commenting on this curious +phenomenon; "if the concussion had been a little too violent for one of +us that night, his survivors would have been seriously embarrassed in +trying to get rid of his remains. With no earth to cover him up, no sea +to plunge him into, his corpse would never disappear from view, but +would pursue us day and night, grim and ghastly like an avenging ghost!"</p> + +<p>"Ugh!" said the Captain, shuddering at the idea.</p> + +<p>"But, by the bye, Barbican!" cried the Frenchman, dropping the subject +with his usual abruptness; "you have forgotten something else! Why +didn't you bring a scaphander and an air pump? I could then venture out +of the Projectile as readily and as safely as the diver leaves his boat +and walks about on the bottom of the river! What fun to float in the +midst of that mysterious ether! to steep myself, aye, actually to revel +in the pure rays of the glorious sun! I should have ventured out on the +very point of the Projectile, and there I should have danced and +postured and kicked and bobbed and capered in a style that Taglioni +never dreamed of!"</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't I like to see you!" cried the Captain grimly, smiling at the +idea.</p> + +<p>"You would not see him long!" observed Barbican quietly. "The air +confined in his body, freed from external pressure, would burst him like +a shell, or like a balloon that suddenly rises to too great a height in +the air! A scaphander would have been a fatal gift. Don't regret its +absence, friend Michael; never forget this axiom: <i>As long as we are +floating in empty space, the only spot where safety is possible is +inside the Projectile!</i>"</p> + +<p>The words "possible" and "impossible" always grated on Ardan's ears. If +he had been a lexicographer, he would have rigidly excluded them from +his dictionary, both as meaningless and useless. He was preparing an +answer for Barbican, when he was cut out by a sudden observation from +M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"See here, friends!" cried the Captain; "this going to the Moon is all +very well, but how shall we get back?"</p> + +<p>His listeners looked at each other with a surprised and perplexed air. +The question, though a very natural one, now appeared to have presented +itself to their consideration absolutely for the first time.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by such a question, Captain?" asked Barbican in a +grave judicial tone.</p> + +<p>"Mac, my boy," said Ardan seriously, "don't it strike you as a little +out of order to ask how you are to return when you have not got there +yet?"</p> + +<p>"I don't ask the question with any idea of backing out," observed the +Captain quietly; "as a matter of purely scientific inquiry, I repeat my +question: how are we to return?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," replied Barbican promptly.</p> + +<p>"For my part," said Ardan; "if I had known how to get back, I should +have never come at all!"</p> + +<p>"Well! of all the answers!" said the Captain, lifting his hands and +shaking his head.</p> + +<p>"The best under the circumstances;" observed Barbican; "and I shall +further observe that such a question as yours at present is both useless +and uncalled for. On some future occasion, when we shall consider it +advisable to return, the question will be in order, and we shall discuss +it with all the attention it deserves. Though the Columbiad is at Stony +Hill, the Projectile will still be in the Moon."</p> + +<p>"Much we shall gain by that! A bullet without a gun!"</p> + +<p>"The gun we can make and the powder too!" replied Barbican confidently. +"Metal and sulphur and charcoal and saltpetre are likely enough to be +present in sufficient quantities beneath the Moon's surface. Besides, to +return is a problem of comparatively easy solution: we should have to +overcome the lunar attraction only—a slight matter—the rest of the +business would be readily done by gravity."</p> + +<p>"Enough said on the subject!" exclaimed Ardan curtly; "how to get back +is indefinitely postponed! How to communicate with our friends on the +Earth, is another matter, and, as it seems to me, an extremely easy +one."</p> + +<p>"Let us hear the very easy means by which you propose to communicate +with our friends on Earth," asked the Captain, with a sneer, for he was +by this time a little out of humor.</p> + +<p>"By means of bolides ejected from the lunar volcanoes," replied the +Frenchman without an instant's hesitation.</p> + +<p>"Well said, friend Ardan," exclaimed Barbican. "I am quite disposed to +acknowledge the feasibility of your plan. Laplace has calculated that a +force five times greater than that of an ordinary cannon would be +sufficient to send a bolide from the Moon to the Earth. Now there is no +cannon that can vie in force with even the smallest volcano."</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" cried Ardan, delighted at his success; "just imagine the +pleasure of sending our letters postage free! But—oh! what a splendid +idea!—Dolts that we were for not thinking of it sooner!"</p> + +<p>"Let us have the splendid idea!" cried the Captain, with some of his old +acrimony.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't we fasten a wire to the Projectile?" asked Ardan, +triumphantly, "It would have enabled us to exchange telegrams with the +Earth!"</p> + +<p>"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the Captain, rapidly recovering his good humor; +"decidedly the best joke of the season! Ha! ha! ha! Of course you have +calculated the weight of a wire 240 thousand miles long?"</p> + +<p>"No matter about its weight!" cried the Frenchman impetuously; "we +should have laughed at its weight! We could have tripled the charge of +the Columbiad; we could have quadrupled it!—aye, quintupled it, if +necessary!" he added in tones evidently increasing in loudness and +violence.</p> + +<p>"Yes, friend Michael," observed Barbican; "but there is a slight and +unfortunately a fatal defect in your project. The Earth, by its +rotation, would have wrapped our wire around herself, like thread around +a spool, and dragged us back almost with the speed of lightning!"</p> + +<p>"By the Nine gods of Porsena!" cried Ardan, "something is wrong with my +head to-day! My brain is out of joint, and I am making as nice a mess of +things as my friend Marston was ever capable of! By the bye—talking of +Marston—if we never return to the Earth, what is to prevent him from +following us to the Moon?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing!" replied Barbican; "he is a faithful friend and a reliable +comrade. Besides, what is easier? Is not the Columbiad still at Stony +Hill? Cannot gun-cotton be readily manufactured on any occasion? Will +not the Moon again pass through the zenith of Florida? Eighteen years +from now, will she not occupy exactly the same spot that she does +to-day?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly!" cried Ardan, with increasing enthusiasm, "Marston will +come! and Elphinstone of the torpedo! and the gallant Bloomsbury, and +Billsby the brave, and all our friends of the Baltimore Gun Club! And we +shall receive them with all the honors! And then we shall establish +projectile trains between the Earth and the Moon! Hurrah for J.T. +Marston!"</p> + +<p>"Hurrah for Secretary Marston!" cried the Captain, with an enthusiasm +almost equal to Ardan's.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah for my dear friend Marston!" cried Barbican, hardly less +excited than his comrades.</p> + +<p>Our old acquaintance, Marston, of course could not have heard the joyous +acclamations that welcomed his name, but at that moment he certainly +must have felt his ears most unaccountably tingling. What was he doing +at the time? He was rattling along the banks of the Kansas River, as +fast as an express train could take him, on the road to Long's Peak, +where, by means of the great Telescope, he expected to find some traces +of the Projectile that contained his friends. He never forgot them for a +moment, but of course he little dreamed that his name at that very time +was exciting their vividest recollections and their warmest applause.</p> + +<p>In fact, their recollections were rather too vivid, and their applause +decidedly too warm. Was not the animation that prevailed among the +guests of the Projectile of a very unusual character, and was it not +becoming more and more violent every moment? Could the wine have caused +it? No; though not teetotallers, they never drank to excess. Could the +Moon's proximity, shedding her subtle, mysterious influence over their +nervous systems, have stimulated them to a degree that was threatening +to border on frenzy? Their faces were as red as if they were standing +before a hot fire; their breathing was loud, and their lungs heaved like +a smith's bellows; their eyes blazed like burning coals; their voices +sounded as loud and harsh as that of a stump speaker trying to make +himself heard by an inattentive or hostile crowd; their words popped +from their lips like corks from Champagne bottles; their gesticulating +became wilder and in fact more alarming—considering the little room +left in the Projectile for muscular displays of any kind.</p> + +<p>But the most extraordinary part of the whole phenomenon was that neither +of them, not even Barbican, had the slightest consciousness of any +strange or unusual ebullition of spirits either on his own part or on +that of the others.</p> + +<p>"See here, gentlemen!" said the Captain in a quick imperious manner—the +roughness of his old life on the Mississippi would still break out—"See +here, gentlemen! It seems I'm not to know if we are to return from the +Moon. Well!—Pass that for the present! But there is one thing I <i>must</i> +know!"</p> + +<p>"Hear! hear the Captain!" cried Barbican, stamping with his foot, like +an excited fencing master. "There is one thing he <i>must</i> know!"</p> + +<p>"I want to know what we're going to do when we get there!"</p> + +<p>"He wants to know what we're going to do when we get there! A sensible +question! Answer it, Ardan!"</p> + +<p>"Answer it yourself, Barbican! You know more about the Moon than I do! +You know more about it than all the Nasmyths that ever lived!"</p> + +<p>"I'm blessed if I know anything at all about it!" cried Barbican, with a +joyous laugh. "Ha, ha, ha! The first eastern shore Marylander or any +other simpleton you meet in Baltimore, knows as much about the Moon as +I do! Why we're going there, I can't tell! What we're going to do when +we get there, can't tell either! Ardan knows all about it! He can tell! +He's taking us there!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly I can tell! should I have offered to take you there without a +good object in view?" cried Ardan, husky with continual roaring. "Answer +me that!"</p> + +<p>"No conundrums!" cried the Captain, in a voice sourer and rougher than +ever; "tell us if you can in plain English, what the demon we have come +here for!"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you if I feel like it," cried Ardan, folding his arms with an +aspect of great dignity; "and I'll not tell you if I don't feel like +it!"</p> + +<p>"What's that?" cried Barbican. "You'll not give us an answer when we ask +you a reasonable question?"</p> + +<p>"Never!" cried Ardan, with great determination. "I'll never answer a +question reasonable or unreasonable, unless it is asked in a proper +manner!"</p> + +<p>"None of your French airs here!" exclaimed M'Nicholl, by this time +almost completely out of himself between anger and excitement. "I don't +know where I am; I don't know where I'm going; I don't know why I'm +going; <i>you</i> know all about it, Ardan, or at least you think you do! +Well then, give me a plain answer to a plain question, or by the +Thirty-eight States of our glorious Union, I shall know what for!"</p> + +<p>"Listen, Ardan!" cried Barbican, grappling with the Frenchman, and with +some difficulty restraining him from flying at M'Nicholl's throat; "You +ought to tell him! It is only your duty! One day you found us both in +St. Helena woods, where we had no more idea of going to the Moon than of +sailing to the South Pole! There you twisted us both around your finger, +and induced us to follow you blindly on the most formidable journey ever +undertaken by man! And now you refuse to tell us what it was all for!"</p> + +<p>"I don't refuse, dear old Barbican! To you, at least, I can't refuse +anything!" cried Ardan, seizing his friend's hands and wringing them +violently. Then letting them go and suddenly starting back, "you wish to +know," he continued in resounding tones, "why we have followed out the +grandest idea that ever set a human brain on fire! Why we have +undertaken a journey that for length, danger, and novelty, for +fascinating, soul-stirring and delirious sensations, for all that can +attract man's burning heart, and satisfy the intensest cravings of his +intellect, far surpasses the vividest realities of Dante's passionate +dream! Well, I will tell you! It is to annex another World to the New +One! It is to take possession of the Moon in the name of the United +States of America! It is to add a thirty-ninth State to the glorious +Union! It is to colonize the lunar regions, to cultivate them, to people +them, to transport to them some of our wonders of art, science, and +industry! It is to civilize the Selenites, unless they are more +civilized already than we are ourselves! It is to make them all good +Republicans, if they are not so already!"</p> + +<p>"Provided, of course, that there are Selenites in existence!" sneered +the Captain, now sourer than ever, and in his unaccountable excitement +doubly irritating.</p> + +<p>"Who says there are no Selenites?" cried Ardan fiercely, with fists +clenched and brows contracted.</p> + +<p>"I do!" cried M'Nicholl stoutly; "I deny the existence of anything of +the kind, and I denounce every one that maintains any such whim as a +visionary, if not a fool!"</p> + +<p>Ardan's reply to this taunt was a desperate facer, which, however, +Barbican managed to stop while on its way towards the Captain's nose. +M'Nicholl, seeing himself struck at, immediately assumed such a posture +of defence as showed him to be no novice at the business. A battle +seemed unavoidable; but even at this trying moment Barbican showed +himself equal to the emergency.</p> + +<p>"Stop, you crazy fellows! you ninnyhammers! you overgrown babies!" he +exclaimed, seizing his companions by the collar, and violently swinging +them around with his vast strength until they stood back to back; "what +are you going to fight about? Suppose there are Lunarians in the Moon! +Is that a reason why there should be Lunatics in the Projectile! But, +Ardan, why do you insist on Lunarians? Are we so shiftless that we can't +do without them when we get to the Moon?"</p> + +<p>"I don't insist on them!" cried Ardan, who submitted to Barbican like a +child. "Hang the Lunarians! Certainly, we can do without them! What do I +care for them? Down with them!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, down with the Lunarians!" cried M'Nicholl as spitefully as if he +had even the slightest belief in their existence.</p> + +<p>"We shall take possession of the Moon ourselves!" cried Ardan. +"Lunarians or no Lunarians!"</p> + +<p>"We three shall constitute a Republic!" cried M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"I shall be the House!" cried Ardan.</p> + +<p>"And I the Senate!" answered the Captain.</p> + +<p>"And Barbican our first President!" shrieked the Frenchman.</p> + +<p>"Our first and last!" roared M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"No objections to a third term!" yelled Ardan.</p> + +<p>"He's welcome to any number of terms he pleases!" vociferated M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah for President Barbican of the Lunatic—I mean of the Lunar +Republic!" screamed Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Long may he wave, and may his shadow never grow less!" shouted Captain +M'Nicholl, his eyes almost out of their sockets.</p> + +<p>Then with voices reminding you of sand fiercely blown against the window +panes, the <i>President</i> and the <i>Senate</i> chanted the immortal <i>Yankee +Doodle</i>, whilst the <i>House</i> delivered itself of the <i>Marseillaise</i>, in a +style which even the wildest Jacobins in Robespierre's day could hardly +have surpassed.</p> + +<p>But long before either song was ended, all three broke out into a +dance, wild, insensate, furious, delirious, paroxysmatical. No Orphic +festivals on Mount Cithaeron ever raged more wildly. No Bacchic revels +on Mount Parnassus were ever more corybantic. Diana, demented by the +maddening example, joined in the orgie, howling and barking frantically +in her turn, and wildly jumping as high as the ceiling of the +Projectile. Then came new accessions to the infernal din. Wings suddenly +began to flutter, cocks to crow, hens to cluck; and five or six +chickens, managing to escape out of their coop, flew backwards and +forwards blindly, with frightened screams, dashing against each other +and against the walls of the Projectile, and altogether getting up as +demoniacal a hullabaloo as could be made by ten thousand bats that you +suddenly disturbed in a cavern where they had slept through the winter.</p> + +<p>Then the three companions, no longer able to withstand the overpowering +influence of the mysterious force that mastered them, intoxicated, more +than drunk, burned by the air that scorched their organs of respiration, +dropped at last, and lay flat, motionless, senseless as dabs of clay, on +the floor of the Projectile.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image09" name="image09"> + <img src="images/11.jpg" + alt="A DEMONIACAL HULLABALOO." + title="A DEMONIACAL HULLABALOO." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">A DEMONIACAL HULLABALOO.</span> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>THE NEUTRAL POINT.</h3> + + +<p>What had taken place? Whence proceeded this strange intoxication whose +consequences might have proved so disastrous? A little forgetfulness on +Ardan's part had done the whole mischief, but fortunately M'Nicholl was +able to remedy it in time.</p> + +<p>After a regular fainting spell several minutes long, the Captain was the +first man to return to consciousness and the full recovery of his +intellectual faculties. His first feelings were far from pleasant. His +stomach gnawed him as if he had not eaten for a week, though he had +taken breakfast only a few hours before; his eyes were dim, his brain +throbbing, and his limbs shaking. In short, he presented every symptom +usually seen in a man dying of starvation. Picking himself up with much +care and difficulty, he roared out to Ardan for something to eat. Seeing +that the Frenchman was unable or unwilling to respond, he concluded to +help himself, by beginning first of all to prepare a little tea. To do +this, fire was necessary; so, to light his lamp, he struck a match.</p> + +<p>But what was his surprise at seeing the sulphur tip of the match blazing +with a light so bright and dazzling that his eyes could hardly bear it! +Touching it to the gas burner, a stream of light flashed forth equal in +its intensity to the flame of an electric lamp. Then he understood it +all in an instant. The dazzling glare, his maddened brain, his gnawing +stomach—all were now clear as the noon-day Sun.</p> + +<p>"The oxygen!" he cried, and, suddenly stooping down and examining the +tap of the air apparatus, he saw that it had been only half turned off. +Consequently the air was gradually getting more and more impregnated +with this powerful gas, colorless, odorless, tasteless, infinitely +precious, but, unless when strongly diluted with nitrogen, capable of +producing fatal disorders in the human system. Ardan, startled by +M'Nicholl's question about the means of returning from the Moon, had +turned the cock only half off.</p> + +<p>The Captain instantly stopped the escape of the oxygen, but not one +moment too soon. It had completely saturated the atmosphere. A few +minutes more and it would have killed the travellers, not like carbonic +acid, by smothering them, but by burning them up, as a strong draught +burns up the coals in a stove.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image10" name="image10"> + <img src="images/12.jpg" + alt="THE OXYGEN! HE CRIED." + title="THE OXYGEN! HE CRIED." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">"THE OXYGEN!" HE CRIED.</span> +</div> + +<p>It took nearly an hour for the air to become pure enough to allow the +lungs their natural play. Slowly and by degrees, the travellers +recovered from their intoxication; they had actually to sleep off the +fumes of the oxygen as a drunkard has to sleep off the effects of his +brandy. When Ardan learned that he was responsible for the whole +trouble, do you think the information disconcerted him? Not a bit of it. +On the contrary, he was rather proud of having done something +startling, to break the monotony of the journey; and to put a little +life, as he said, into old Barbican and the grim Captain, so as to get a +little fun out of such grave philosophers.</p> + +<p>After laughing heartily at the comical figure cut by his two friends +capering like crazy students at the <i>Closerie des Lilas</i>, he went on +moralizing on the incident:</p> + +<p>"For my part, I'm not a bit sorry for having partaken of this fuddling +gas. It gives me an idea, dear boys. Would it not be worth some +enterprising fellow's while to establish a sanatorium provided with +oxygen chambers, where people of a debilitated state of health could +enjoy a few hours of intensely active existence! There's money in it, as +you Americans say. Just suppose balls or parties given in halls where +the air would be provided with an extra supply of this enrapturing gas! +Or, theatres where the atmosphere would be maintained in a highly +oxygenated condition. What passion, what fire in the actors! What +enthusiasm in the spectators! And, carrying the idea a little further, +if, instead of an assembly or an audience, we should oxygenize towns, +cities, a whole country—what activity would be infused into the whole +people! What new life would electrify a stagnant community! Out of an +old used-up nation we could perhaps make a bran-new one, and, for my +part, I know more than one state in old Europe where this oxygen +experiment might be attended with a decided advantage, or where, at all +events, it could do no harm!"</p> + +<p>The Frenchman spoke so glibly and gesticulated so earnestly that +M'Nicholl once more gravely examined the stop-cock; but Barbican damped +his enthusiasm by a single observation.</p> + +<p>"Friend Michael," said he, "your new and interesting idea we shall +discuss at a more favorable opportunity. At present we want to know +where all these cocks and hens have come from."</p> + +<p>"These cocks and hens?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Ardan threw a glance of comical bewilderment on half a dozen or so of +splendid barn-yard fowls that were now beginning to recover from the +effects of the oxygen. For an instant he could not utter a word; then, +shrugging his shoulders, he muttered in a low voice:</p> + +<p>"Catastrophe prematurely exploded!"</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with these chickens?" persisted Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Acclimatize them in the Moon, by Jove! what else?" was the ready reply.</p> + +<p>"Why conceal them then?"</p> + +<p>"A hoax, a poor hoax, dear President, which proves a miserable failure! +I intended to let them loose on the Lunar Continent at the first +favorable opportunity. I often had a good laugh to myself, thinking of +your astonishment and the Captain's at seeing a lot of American poultry +scratching for worms on a Lunar dunghill!"</p> + +<p>"Ah! wag, jester, incorrigible <i>farceur</i>!" cried Barbican with a smile; +"you want no nitrous oxide to put a bee in your bonnet! He is always as +bad as you and I were for a short time, M'Nicholl, under the laughing +gas! He's never had a sensible moment in his life!"</p> + +<p>"I can't say the same of you," replied Ardan; "you had at least one +sensible moment in all your lives, and that was about an hour ago!"</p> + +<p>Their incessant chattering did not prevent the friends from at once +repairing the disorder of the interior of the Projectile. Cocks and hens +were put back in their cages. But while doing so, the friends were +astonished to find that the birds, though good sized creatures, and now +pretty fat and plump, hardly felt heavier in their hands than if they +had been so many sparrows. This drew their interested attention to a new +phenomenon.</p> + +<p>From the moment they had left the Earth, their own weight, and that of +the Projectile and the objects therein contained, had been undergoing a +progressive diminution. They might never be able to ascertain this fact +with regard to the Projectile, but the moment was now rapidly +approaching when the loss of weight would become perfectly sensible, +both regarding themselves and the tools and instruments surrounding +them. Of course, it is quite clear, that this decrease could not be +indicated by an ordinary scales, as the weight to balance the object +would have lost precisely as much as the object itself. But a spring +balance, for instance, in which the tension of the coil is independent +of attraction, would have readily given the exact equivalent of the +loss.</p> + +<p>Attraction or weight, according to Newton's well known law, acting in +direct proportion to the mass of the attracting body and in inverse +proportion to the square of the distance, this consequence clearly +follows: Had the Earth been alone in space, or had the other heavenly +bodies been suddenly annihilated, the further from the Earth the +Projectile would be, the less weight it would have. However, it would +never <i>entirely</i> lose its weight, as the terrestrial attraction would +have always made itself felt at no matter what distance. But as the +Earth is not the only celestial body possessing attraction, it is +evident that there may be a point in space where the respective +attractions may be entirely annihilated by mutual counteraction. Of this +phenomenon the present instance was a case in point. In a short time, +the Projectile and its contents would for a few moments be absolutely +and completely deprived of all weight whatsoever.</p> + +<p>The path described by the Projectile was evidently a line from the Earth +to the Moon averaging somewhat less than 240,000 miles in length. +According as the distance between the Projectile and the Earth was +increasing, the terrestrial attraction was diminishing in the ratio of +the square of the distance, and the lunar attraction was augmenting in +the same proportion.</p> + +<p>As before observed, the point was not now far off where, the two +attractions counteracting each other, the bullet would actually weigh +nothing at all. If the masses of the Earth and the Moon had been equal, +this should evidently be found half way between the two bodies. But by +making allowance for the difference of the respective masses, it was +easy to calculate that this point would be situated at the 9/10 of the +total distance, or, in round numbers, at something less than 216,000 +miles from the Earth.</p> + +<p>At this point, a body that possessed no energy or principle of movement +within itself, would remain forever, relatively motionless, suspended +like Mahomet's coffin, being equally attracted by the two orbs and +nothing impelling it in one direction rather than in the other.</p> + +<p>Now the Projectile at this moment was nearing this point; if it reached +it, what would be the consequence?</p> + +<p>To this question three answers presented themselves, all possible under +the circumstances, but very different in their results.</p> + +<p>1. Suppose the Projectile to possess velocity enough to pass the neutral +point. In such case, it would undoubtedly proceed onward to the Moon, +being drawn thither by Lunar attraction.</p> + +<p>2. Suppose it lacked the requisite velocity for reaching the neutral +point. In such a case it would just as certainly fall back to the Earth, +in obedience to the law of Terrestrial attraction.</p> + +<p>3. Suppose it to be animated by just sufficient velocity to reach the +neutral point, but not to pass it. In that case, the Projectile would +remain forever in the same spot, perfectly motionless as far as regards +the Earth and the Moon, though of course following them both in their +annual orbits round the Sun.</p> + +<p>Such was now the state of things, which Barbican tried to explain to his +friends, who, it need hardly be said, listened to his remarks with the +most intense interest. How were they to know, they asked him, the +precise instant at which the Projectile would reach the neutral point? +That would be an easy matter, he assured them. It would be at the very +moment when both themselves and all the other objects contained in the +Projectile would be completely free from every operation of the law of +gravity; in other words, when everything would cease to have weight.</p> + +<p>This gradual diminution of the action of gravity, the travellers had +been for some time noticing, but they had not yet witnessed its total +cessation. But that very morning, about an hour before noon, as the +Captain was making some little experiment in Chemistry, he happened by +accident to overturn a glass full of water. What was his surprise at +seeing that neither the glass nor the water fell to the floor! Both +remained suspended in the air almost completely motionless.</p> + +<p>"The prettiest experiment I ever saw!" cried Ardan; "let us have more of +it!"</p> + +<p>And seizing the bottles, the arms, and the other objects in the +Projectile, he arranged them around each other in the air with some +regard to symmetry and proportion. The different articles, keeping +strictly each in its own place, formed a very attractive group wonderful +to behold. Diana, placed in the apex of the pyramid, would remind you of +those marvellous suspensions in the air performed by Houdin, Herman, and +a few other first class wizards. Only being kept in her place without +being hampered by invisible strings, the animal rather seemed to enjoy +the exhibition, though in all probability she was hardly conscious of +any thing unusual in her appearance.</p> + +<p>Our travellers had been fully prepared for such a phenomenon, yet it +struck them with as much surprise as if they had never uttered a +scientific reason to account for it. They saw that, no longer subject to +the ordinary laws of nature, they were now entering the realms of the +marvellous. They felt that their bodies were absolutely without weight. +Their arms, fully extended, no longer sought their sides. Their heads +oscillated unsteadily on their shoulders. Their feet no longer rested on +the floor. In their efforts to hold themselves straight, they looked +like drunken men trying to maintain the perpendicular. We have all read +stories of some men deprived of the power of reflecting light and of +others who could not cast a shadow. But here reality, no fantastic +story, showed you men who, through the counteraction of attractive +forces, could tell no difference between light substances and heavy +substances, and who absolutely had no weight whatever themselves!</p> + +<p>"Let us take graceful attitudes!" cried Ardan, "and imagine we are +playing <i>tableaux</i>! Let us, for instance, form a grand historical group +of the three great goddesses of the nineteenth century. Barbican will +represent Minerva or <i>Science</i>; the Captain, Bellona or <i>War</i>; while I, +as Madre Natura, the newly born goddess of <i>Progress</i>, floating +gracefully over you both, extend my hands so, fondly patronizing the +one, but grandly ordering off the other, to the regions of eternal +night! More on your toe, Captain! Your right foot a little higher! Look +at Barbican's admirable pose! Now then, prepare to receive orders for a +new tableau! Form group <i>à la Jardin Mabille!</i> Presto! Change!"</p> + +<p>In an instant, our travellers, changing attitudes, formed the new group +with tolerable success. Even Barbican, who had been to Paris in his +youth, yielding for a moment to the humor of the thing, acted the <i>naif +Anglais</i> to the life. The Captain was frisky enough to remind you of a +middle-aged Frenchman from the provinces, on a hasty visit to the +capital for a few days' fun. Ardan was in raptures.</p> + +<p>"Oh! if Raphael could only see us!" he exclaimed in a kind of ecstasy. +"He would paint such a picture as would throw all his other masterpieces +in the shade!"</p> + +<p>"Knock spots out of the best of them by fifty per cent!" cried the +Captain, gesticulating well enough <i>à l'étudiant</i>, but rather mixing his +metaphors.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image11" name="image11"> + <img src="images/13.jpg" + alt="A GROUP A LA JARDIN MABILLE." + title="A GROUP A LA JARDIN MABILLE." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">A GROUP <i>A LA JARDIN MABILLE</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p>"He should be pretty quick in getting through the job," observed +Barbican, the first as usual to recover tranquillity. "As soon as the +Projectile will have passed the neutral point—in half an hour at +longest—lunar attraction will draw us to the Moon."</p> + +<p>"We shall have to crawl on the ceiling then like flies," said Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Not at all," said the Captain; "the Projectile, having its centre of +gravity very low, will turn upside down by degrees."</p> + +<p>"Upside down!" cried Ardan. "That will be a nice mess! everything +higgledy-piggledy!"</p> + +<p>"No danger, friend Michael," said M'Nicholl; "there shall be no disorder +whatever; nothing will quit its place; the movement of the Projectile +will be effected by such slow degrees as to be imperceptible."</p> + +<p>"Yes," added Barbican, "as soon as we shall have passed the neutral +point, the base of the Projectile, its heaviest part, will swing around +gradually until it faces the Moon. Before this phenomenon, however, can +take place, we must of course cross the line."</p> + +<p>"Cross the line!" cried the Frenchman; "then let us imitate the sailors +when they do the same thing in the Atlantic Ocean! Splice the main +brace!"</p> + +<p>A slight effort carried him sailing over to the side of the Projectile. +Opening a cupboard and taking out a bottle and a few glasses, he placed +them on a tray. Then setting the tray itself in the air as on a table in +front of his companions, he filled the glasses, passed them around, and, +in a lively speech interrupted with many a joyous hurrah, congratulated +his companions on their glorious achievement in being the first that +ever crossed the lunar line.</p> + +<p>This counteracting influence of the attractions lasted nearly an hour. +By that time the travellers could keep themselves on the floor without +much effort. Barbican also made his companions remark that the conical +point of the Projectile diverged a little from the direct line to the +Moon, while by an inverse movement, as they could notice through the +window of the floor, the base was gradually turning away from the Earth. +The Lunar attraction was evidently getting the better of the +Terrestrial. The fall towards the Moon, though still almost insensible, +was certainly beginning.</p> + +<p>It could not be more than the eightieth part of an inch in the first +second. But by degrees, as the attractive force would increase, the fall +would be more decided, and the Projectile, overbalanced by its base, and +presenting its cone to the Earth, would descend with accelerated +velocity to the Lunar surface. The object of their daring attempt would +then be successfully attained. No further obstacle, therefore, being +likely to stand in the way of the complete success of the enterprise, +the Captain and the Frenchman cordially shook hands with Barbican, all +kept congratulating each other on their good fortune as long as the +bottle lasted.</p> + +<p>They could not talk enough about the wonderful phenomenon lately +witnessed; the chief point, the neutralization of the law of gravity, +particularly, supplied them with an inexhaustible subject. The +Frenchman, as usual, as enthusiastic in his fancy, as he was fanciful in +his enthusiasm, got off some characteristic remarks.</p> + +<p>"What a fine thing it would be, my boys," he exclaimed, "if on Earth we +could be so fortunate as we have been here, and get rid of that weight +that keeps us down like lead, that rivets us to it like an adamantine +chain! Then should we prisoners become free! Adieu forever to all +weariness of arms or feet! At present, in order to fly over the surface +of the Earth by the simple exertion of our muscles or even to sustain +ourselves in the air, we require a muscular force fifty times greater +than we possess; but if attraction did not exist, the simplest act of +the will, our slightest whim even, would be sufficient to transport us +to whatever part of space we wished to visit."</p> + +<p>"Ardan, you had better invent something to kill attraction," observed +M'Nicholl drily; "you can do it if you try. Jackson and Morton have +killed pain by sulphuric ether. Suppose you try your hand on +attraction!"</p> + +<p>"It would be worth a trial!" cried Ardan, so full of his subject as not +to notice the Captain's jeering tone; "attraction once destroyed, there +is an end forever to all loads, packs and burdens! How the poor omnibus +horses would rejoice! Adieu forever to all cranes, derricks, capstans, +jack-screws, and even hotel-elevators! We could dispense with all +ladders, door steps, and even stair-cases!"</p> + +<p>"And with all houses too," interrupted Barbican; "or, at least, we +<i>should</i> dispense with them because we could not have them. If there was +no weight, you could neither make a wall of bricks nor cover your house +with a roof. Even your hat would not stay on your head. The cars would +not stay on the railway nor the boats on the water. What do I say? We +could not have any water. Even the Ocean would leave its bed and float +away into space. Nay, the atmosphere itself would leave us, being +detained in its place by terrestrial attraction and by nothing else."</p> + +<p>"Too true, Mr. President," replied Ardan after a pause. "It's a fact. I +acknowledge the corn, as Marston says. But how you positive fellows do +knock holes into our pretty little creations of fancy!"</p> + +<p>"Don't feel so bad about it, Ardan;" observed M'Nicholl; "though there +may be no orb from which gravity is excluded altogether, we shall soon +land in one, where it is much less powerful than on the Earth."</p> + +<p>"You mean the Moon!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the Moon. Her mass being 1/89 of the Earth's, her attractive power +should be in the same proportion; that is, a boy 10 years old, whose +weight on Earth is about 90 lbs., would weigh on the Moon only about 1 +pound, if nothing else were to be taken into consideration. But when +standing on the surface of the Moon, he is relatively 4 times nearer to +the centre than when he is standing on the surface of the Earth. His +weight, therefore, having to be increased by the square of the distance, +must be sixteen times greater. Now 16 times 1/89 being less than 1/5, it +is clear that my weight of 150 pounds will be cut down to nearly 30 as +soon as we reach the Moon's surface."</p> + +<p>"And mine?" asked Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Yours will hardly reach 25 pounds, I should think," was the reply.</p> + +<p>"Shall my muscular strength diminish in the same proportion?" was the +next question.</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, it will be relatively so much the more increased that +you can take a stride 15 feet in width as easily as you can now take one +of ordinary length."</p> + +<p>"We shall be all Samsons, then, in the Moon!" cried Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Especially," replied M'Nicholl, "if the stature of the Selenites is in +proportion to the mass of their globe."</p> + +<p>"If so, what should be their height?"</p> + +<p>"A tall man would hardly be twelve inches in his boots!"</p> + +<p>"They must be veritable Lilliputians then!" cried Ardan; "and we are all +to be Gullivers! The old myth of the Giants realized! Perhaps the Titans +that played such famous parts in the prehistoric period of our Earth, +were adventurers like ourselves, casually arrived from some great +planet!"</p> + +<p>"Not from such planets as <i>Mercury</i>, <i>Venus</i> or <i>Mars</i> anyhow, friend +Michael," observed Barbican. "But the inhabitants of <i>Jupiter</i>, +<i>Saturn</i>, <i>Uranus,</i> or <i>Neptune</i>, if they bear the same proportion to +their planet that we do ours, must certainly be regular Brobdignagians."</p> + +<p>"Let us keep severely away from all planets of the latter class then," +said Ardan. "I never liked to play the part of Lilliputian myself. But +how about the Sun, Barbican? I always had a hankering after the Sun!"</p> + +<p>"The Sun's volume is about 1-1/3 million times greater than that of the +Earth, but his density being only about 1/4, the attraction on his +surface is hardly 30 times greater than that of our globe. Still, every +proportion observed, the inhabitants of the Sun can't be much less than +150 or 160 feet in height."</p> + +<p>"<i>Mille tonnerres!</i>" cried Ardan, "I should be there like Ulysses among +the Cyclops! I'll tell you what it is, Barbican; if we ever decide on +going to the Sun, we must provide ourselves before hand with a few of +your Rodman's Columbiads to frighten off the Solarians!"</p> + +<p>"Your Columbiads would not do great execution there," observed +M'Nicholl; "your bullet would be hardly out of the barrel when it would +drop to the surface like a heavy stone pushed off the wall of a house."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I like that!" laughed the incredulous Ardan.</p> + +<p>"A little calculation, however, shows the Captain's remark to be +perfectly just," said Barbican. "Rodman's ordinary 15 inch Columbiad +requires a charge of 100 pounds of mammoth powder to throw a ball of +500 pounds weight. What could such a charge do with a ball weighing 30 +times as much or 15,000 pounds? Reflect on the enormous weight +everything must have on the surface of the Sun! Your hat, for instance, +would weigh 20 or 30 pounds. Your cigar nearly a pound. In short, your +own weight on the Sun's surface would be so great, more than two tons, +that if you ever fell you should never be able to pick yourself up +again!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," added the Captain, "and whenever you wanted to eat or drink you +should rig up a set of powerful machinery to hoist the eatables and +drinkables into your mouth."</p> + +<p>"Enough of the Sun to-day, boys!" cried Ardan, shrugging his shoulders; +"I don't contemplate going there at present. Let us be satisfied with +the Moon! There, at least, we shall be of some account!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3>A LITTLE OFF THE TRACK.</h3> + + +<p>Barbican's mind was now completely at rest at least on one subject. The +original force of the discharge had been great enough to send the +Projectile beyond the neutral line. Therefore, there was no longer any +danger of its falling back to the Earth. Therefore, there was no longer +any danger of its resting eternally motionless on the point of the +counteracting attractions. The next subject to engage his attention was +the question: would the Projectile, under the influence of lunar +attraction, succeed in reaching its destination?</p> + +<p>The only way in which it <i>could</i> succeed was by falling through a space +of nearly 24,000 miles and then striking the Moon's surface. A most +terrific fall! Even taking the lunar attraction to be only the one-sixth +of the Earth's, such a fall was simply bewildering to think of. The +greatest height to which a balloon ever ascended was seven miles +(Glaisher, 1862). Imagine a fall from even that distance! Then imagine a +fall from a height of four thousand miles!</p> + +<p>Yet it was for a fall of this appalling kind on the surface of the Moon +that the travellers had now to prepare themselves. Instead of avoiding +it, however, they eagerly desired it and would be very much +disappointed if they missed it. They had taken the best precautions they +could devise to guard against the terrific shock. These were mainly of +two kinds: one was intended to counteract as much as possible the +fearful results to be expected the instant the Projectile touched the +lunar surface; the other, to retard the velocity of the fall itself, and +thereby to render it less violent.</p> + +<p>The best arrangement of the first kind was certainly Barbican's +water-contrivance for counteracting the shock at starting, which has +been so fully described in our former volume. (See <i>Baltimore Gun Club</i>, +page 353.) But unfortunately it could be no longer employed. Even if the +partitions were in working order, the water—two thousand pounds in +weight had been required—was no longer to be had. The little still left +in the tanks was of no account for such a purpose. Besides, they had not +a single drop of the precious liquid to spare, for they were as yet +anything but sanguine regarding the facility of finding water on the +Moon's surface.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, however, as the gentle reader may remember, Barbican, +besides using water to break the concussion, had provided the movable +disc with stout pillars containing a strong buffing apparatus, intended +to protect it from striking the bottom too violently after the +destruction of the different partitions. These buffers were still good, +and, gravity being as yet almost imperceptible, to put them once more in +order and adjust them to the disc was not a difficult task.</p> + +<p>The travellers set to work at once and soon accomplished it. The +different pieces were put together readily—a mere matter of bolts and +screws, with plenty of tools to manage them. In a short time the +repaired disc rested on its steel buffers, like a table on its legs, or +rather like a sofa seat on its springs. The new arrangement was attended +with at least one disadvantage. The bottom light being covered up, a +convenient view of the Moon's surface could not be had as soon as they +should begin to fall in a perpendicular descent. This, however, was only +a slight matter, as the side lights would permit the adventurers to +enjoy quite as favorable a view of the vast regions of the Moon as is +afforded to balloon travellers when looking down on the Earth over the +sides of their car.</p> + +<p>The disc arrangement was completed in about an hour, but it was not till +past twelve o'clock before things were restored to their usual order. +Barbican then tried to make fresh observations regarding the inclination +of the Projectile; but to his very decided chagrin he found that it had +not yet turned over sufficiently to commence the perpendicular fall: on +the contrary, it even seemed to be following a curve rather parallel +with that of the lunar disc. The Queen of the Stars now glittered with a +light more dazzling than ever, whilst from an opposite part of the sky +the glorious King of Day flooded her with his fires.</p> + +<p>The situation began to look a little serious.</p> + +<p>"Shall we ever get there!" asked the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Let us be prepared for getting there, any how," was Barbican's dubious +reply.</p> + +<p>"You're a pretty pair of suspenders," said Ardan cheerily (he meant of +course doubting hesitators, but his fluent command of English sometimes +led him into such solecisms). "Certainly we shall get there—and perhaps +a little sooner than will be good for us."</p> + +<p>This reply sharply recalled Barbican to the task he had undertaken, and +he now went to work seriously, trying to combine arrangements to break +the fall. The reader may perhaps remember Ardan's reply to the Captain +on the day of the famous meeting in Tampa.</p> + +<p>"Your fall would be violent enough," the Captain had urged, "to splinter +you like glass into a thousand fragments."</p> + +<p>"And what shall prevent me," had been Ardan's ready reply, "from +breaking my fall by means of counteracting rockets suitably disposed, +and let off at the proper time?"</p> + +<p>The practical utility of this idea had at once impressed Barbican. It +could hardly be doubted that powerful rockets, fastened on the outside +to the bottom of the Projectile, could, when discharged, considerably +retard the velocity of the fall by their sturdy recoil. They could burn +in a vacuum by means of oxygen furnished by themselves, as powder burns +in the chamber of a gun, or as the volcanoes of the Moon continue their +action regardless of the absence of a lunar atmosphere.</p> + +<p>Barbican had therefore provided himself with rockets enclosed in strong +steel gun barrels, grooved on the outside so that they could be screwed +into corresponding holes already made with much care in the bottom of +the Projectile. They were just long enough, when flush with the floor +inside, to project outside by about six inches. They were twenty in +number, and formed two concentric circles around the dead light. Small +holes in the disc gave admission to the wires by which each of the +rockets was to be discharged externally by electricity. The whole effect +was therefore to be confined to the outside. The mixtures having been +already carefully deposited in each barrel, nothing further need be done +than to take away the metallic plugs which had been screwed into the +bottom of the Projectile, and replace them by the rockets, every one of +which was found to fit its grooved chamber with rigid exactness.</p> + +<p>This evidently should have been all done before the disc had been +finally laid on its springs. But as this had to be lifted up again in +order to reach the bottom of the Projectile, more work was to be done +than was strictly necessary. Though the labor was not very hard, +considering that gravity had as yet scarcely made itself felt, M'Nicholl +and Ardan were not sorry to have their little joke at Barbican's +expense. The Frenchman began humming</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Aliquandoque bonus dormitat Homerus,</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>to a tune from <i>Orphée aux Enfers</i>, and the Captain said something +about the Philadelphia Highway Commissioners who pave a street one day, +and tear it up the next to lay the gas pipes. But his friends' humor was +all lost on Barbican, who was so wrapped up in his work that he probably +never heard a word they said.</p> + +<p>Towards three o'clock every preparation was made, every possible +precaution taken, and now our bold adventurers had nothing more to do +than watch and wait.</p> + +<p>The Projectile was certainly approaching the Moon. It had by this time +turned over considerably under the influence of attraction, but its own +original motion still followed a decidedly oblique direction. The +consequence of these two forces might possibly be a tangent, line +approaching the edge of the Moon's disc. One thing was certain: the +Projectile had not yet commenced to fall directly towards her surface; +its base, in which its centre of gravity lay, was still turned away +considerably from the perpendicular.</p> + +<p>Barbican's countenance soon showed perplexity and even alarm. His +Projectile was proving intractable to the laws of gravitation. The +<i>unknown</i> was opening out dimly before him, the great boundless unknown +of the starry plains. In his pride and confidence as a scientist, he had +flattered himself with having sounded the consequence of every possible +hypothesis regarding the Projectile's ultimate fate: the return to the +Earth; the arrival at the Moon; and the motionless dead stop at the +neutral point. But here, a new and incomprehensible fourth hypothesis, +big with the terrors of the mystic infinite, rose up before his +disturbed mind, like a grim and hollow ghost. After a few seconds, +however, he looked at it straight in the face without wincing. His +companions showed themselves just as firm. Whether it was science that +emboldened Barbican, his phlegmatic stoicism that propped up the +Captain, or his enthusiastic vivacity that cheered the irrepressible +Ardan, I cannot exactly say. But certainly they were all soon talking +over the matter as calmly as you or I would discuss the advisability of +taking a sail on the lake some beautiful evening in July.</p> + +<p>Their first remarks were decidedly peculiar and quite characteristic. +Other men would have asked themselves where the Projectile was taking +them to. Do you think such a question ever occurred to them? Not a bit +of it. They simply began asking each other what could have been the +cause of this new and strange state of things.</p> + +<p>"Off the track, it appears," observed Ardan. "How's that?"</p> + +<p>"My opinion is," answered the Captain, "that the Projectile was not +aimed true. Every possible precaution had been taken, I am well aware, +but we all know that an inch, a line, even the tenth part of a hair's +breadth wrong at the start would have sent us thousands of miles off our +course by this time."</p> + +<p>"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked Ardan.</p> + +<p>"I don't think there was any error at the start," was the confident +reply; "not even so much as a line! We took too many tests proving the +absolute perpendicularity of the Columbiad, to entertain the slightest +doubt on that subject. Its direction towards the zenith being +incontestable, I don't see why we should not reach the Moon when she +comes to the zenith."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps we're behind time," suggested Ardan.</p> + +<p>"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked the Captain. "You know +the Cambridge men said the journey had to be done in 97 hours 13 minutes +and 20 seconds. That's as much as to say that if we're not up to time we +shall miss the Moon."</p> + +<p>"Correct," said Barbican. "But we <i>can't</i> be behind time. We started, +you know, on December 1st, at 13 minutes and 20 seconds before 11 +o'clock, and we were to arrive four days later at midnight precisely. +To-day is December 5th Gentlemen, please examine your watches. It is now +half past three in the afternoon. Eight hours and a half are sufficient +to take us to our journey's end. Why should we not arrive there?"</p> + +<p>"How about being ahead of time?" asked the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Just so!" said Ardan. "You know we have discovered the initial velocity +to have been greater than was expected."</p> + +<p>"Not at all! not at all!" cried Barbican "A slight excess of velocity +would have done no harm whatever had the direction of the Projectile +been perfectly true. No. There must have been a digression. We must have +been switched off!"</p> + +<p>"Switched off? By what?" asked both his listeners in one breath.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell," said Barbican curtly.</p> + +<p>"Well!" said Ardan; "if Barbican can't tell, there is an end to all +further talk on the subject. We're switched off—that's enough for me. +What has done it? I don't care. Where are we going to? I don't care. +What is the use of pestering our brains about it? We shall soon find +out. We are floating around in space, and we shall end by hauling up +somewhere or other."</p> + +<p>But in this indifference Barbican was far from participating. Not that +he was not prepared to meet the future with a bold and manly heart. It +was his inability to answer his own question that rendered him uneasy. +What <i>had</i> switched them off? He would have given worlds for an answer, +but his brain sorely puzzled sought one in vain.</p> + +<p>In the mean time, the Projectile continued to turn its side rather than +its base towards the Moon; that is, to assume a lateral rather than a +direct movement, and this movement was fully participated in by the +multitude of the objects that had been thrown outside. Barbican could +even convince himself by sighting several points on the lunar surface, +by this time hardly more than fifteen or eighteen thousand miles +distant, that the velocity of the Projectile instead of accelerating was +becoming more and more uniform. This was another proof that there was +no perpendicular fall. However, though the original impulsive force was +still superior to the Moon's attraction, the travellers were evidently +approaching the lunar disc, and there was every reason to hope that they +would at last reach a point where, the lunar attraction at last having +the best of it, a decided fall should be the result.</p> + +<p>The three friends, it need hardly be said, continued to make their +observations with redoubled interest, if redoubled interest were +possible. But with all their care they could as yet determine nothing +regarding the topographical details of our radiant satellite. Her +surface still reflected the solar rays too dazzlingly to show the relief +necessary for satisfactory observation.</p> + +<p>Our travellers kept steadily on the watch looking out of the side +lights, till eight o'clock in the evening, by which time the Moon had +grown so large in their eyes that she covered up fully half the sky. At +this time the Projectile itself must have looked like a streak of light, +reflecting, as it did, the Sun's brilliancy on the one side and the +Moon's splendor on the other.</p> + +<p>Barbican now took a careful observation and calculated that they could +not be much more than 2,000 miles from the object of their journey. The +velocity of the Projectile he calculated to be about 650 feet per second +or 450 miles an hour. They had therefore still plenty of time to reach +the Moon in about four hours. But though the bottom of the Projectile +continued to turn towards the lunar surface in obedience to the law of +centripetal force, the centrifugal force was still evidently strong +enough to change the path which it followed into some kind of curve, the +exact nature of which would be exceedingly difficult to calculate.</p> + +<p>The careful observations that Barbican continued to take did not however +prevent him from endeavoring to solve his difficult problem. What <i>had</i> +switched them off? The hours passed on, but brought no result. That the +adventurers were approaching the Moon was evident, but it was just as +evident that they should never reach her. The nearest point the +Projectile could ever possibly attain would only be the result of two +opposite forces, the attractive and the repulsive, which, as was now +clear, influenced its motion. Therefore, to land in the Moon was an +utter impossibility, and any such idea was to be given up at once and +for ever.</p> + +<p>"<i>Quand même</i>! What of it!" cried Ardan; after some moments' silence. +"We're not to land in the Moon! Well! let us do the next best +thing—pass close enough to discover her secrets!"</p> + +<p>But M'Nicholl could not accept the situation so coolly. On the contrary, +he decidedly lost his temper, as is occasionally the case with even +phlegmatic men. He muttered an oath or two, but in a voice hardly loud +enough to reach Barbican's ear. At last, impatient of further restraint, +he burst out:</p> + +<p>"Who the deuce cares for her secrets? To the hangman with her secrets! +We started to land in the Moon! That's what's got to be done! That I +want or nothing! Confound the darned thing, I say, whatever it was, +whether on the Earth or off it, that shoved us off the track!"</p> + +<p>"On the Earth or off it!" cried Barbican, striking his head suddenly; +"now I see it! You're right, Captain! Confound the bolide that we met +the first night of our journey!"</p> + +<p>"Hey?" cried Ardan.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" asked M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"I mean," replied Barbican, with a voice now perfectly calm, and in a +tone of quiet conviction, "that our deviation is due altogether to that +wandering meteor."</p> + +<p>"Why, it did not even graze us!" cried Ardan.</p> + +<p>"No matter for that," replied Barbican. "Its mass, compared to ours, was +enormous, and its attraction was undoubtedly sufficiently great to +influence our deviation."</p> + +<p>"Hardly enough to be appreciable," urged M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Right again, Captain," observed Barbican. "But just remember an +observation of your own made this very afternoon: an inch, a line, even +the tenth part of a hair's breadth wrong at the beginning, in a journey +of 240 thousand miles, would be sufficient to make us miss the Moon!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3>THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON.</h3> + + +<p>Barbican's happy conjecture had probably hit the nail on the head. The +divergency even of a second may amount to millions of miles if you only +have your lines long enough. The Projectile had certainly gone off its +direct course; whatever the cause, the fact was undoubted. It was a +great pity. The daring attempt must end in a failure due altogether to a +fortuitous accident, against which no human foresight could have +possibly taken precaution. Unless in case of the occurrence of some +other most improbable accident, reaching the Moon was evidently now +impossible. To failure, therefore, our travellers had to make up their +minds.</p> + +<p>But was nothing to be gained by the trip? Though missing actual contact +with the Moon, might they not pass near enough to solve several problems +in physics and geology over which scientists had been for a long time +puzzling their brains in vain? Even this would be some compensation for +all their trouble, courage, and intelligence. As to what was to be their +own fate, to what doom were themselves to be reserved—they never +appeared to think of such a thing. They knew very well that in the midst +of those infinite solitudes they should soon find themselves without +air. The slight supply that kept them from smothering could not +possibly last more than five or six days longer. Five or six days! What +of that? <i>Quand même</i>! as Ardan often exclaimed. Five or six days were +centuries to our bold adventurers! At present every second was a year in +events, and infinitely too precious to be squandered away in mere +preparations for possible contingencies. The Moon could never be +reached, but was it not possible that her surface could be carefully +observed? This they set themselves at once to find out.</p> + +<p>The distance now separating them from our Satellite they estimated at +about 400 miles. Therefore relatively to their power of discovering the +details of her disc, they were still farther off from the Moon than some +of our modern astronomers are to-day, when provided with their powerful +telescopes.</p> + +<p>We know, for example, that Lord Rosse's great telescope at Parsonstown, +possessing a power of magnifying 6000 times, brings the Moon to within +40 miles of us; not to speak of Barbican's great telescope on the summit +of Long's Peak, by which the Moon, magnified 48,000 times, was brought +within 5 miles of the Earth, where it therefore could reveal with +sufficient distinctness every object above 40 feet in diameter.</p> + +<p>Therefore our adventurers, though at such a comparatively small +distance, could not make out the topographical details of the Moon with +any satisfaction by their unaided vision. The eye indeed could easily +enough catch the rugged outline of these vast depressions improperly +called "Seas," but it could do very little more. Its powers of +adjustability seemed to fail before the strange and bewildering scene. +The prominence of the mountains vanished, not only through the +foreshortening, but also in the dazzling radiation produced by the +direct reflection of the solar rays. After a short time therefore, +completely foiled by the blinding glare, the eye turned itself +unwillingly away, as if from a furnace of molten silver.</p> + +<p>The spherical surface, however, had long since begun to reveal its +convexity. The Moon was gradually assuming the appearance of a gigantic +egg with the smaller end turned towards the Earth. In the earlier days +of her formation, while still in a state of mobility, she had been +probably a perfect sphere in shape, but, under the influence of +terrestrial gravity operating for uncounted ages, she was drawn at last +so much towards the centre of attraction as to resemble somewhat a +prolate spheriod. By becoming a satellite, she had lost the native +perfect regularity of her outline; her centre of gravity had shifted +from her real centre; and as a result of this arrangement, some +scientists have drawn the conclusion that the Moon's air and water have +been attracted to that portion of her surface which is always invisible +to the inhabitants of the Earth.</p> + +<p>The convexity of her outline, this bulging prominence of her surface, +however, did not last long. The travellers were getting too near to +notice it. They were beginning to survey the Moon as balloonists survey +the Earth. The Projectile was now moving with great rapidity—with +nothing like its initial velocity, but still eight or nine times faster +than an express train. Its line of movement, however, being oblique +instead of direct, was so deceptive as to induce Ardan to flatter +himself that they might still reach the lunar surface. He could never +persuade himself to believe that they should get so near their aim and +still miss it. No; nothing might, could, would or should induce him to +believe it, he repeated again and again. But Barbican's pitiless logic +left him no reply.</p> + +<p>"No, dear friend, no. We can reach the Moon only by a fall, and we don't +fall. Centripetal force keeps us at least for a while under the lunar +influence, but centrifugal force drives us away irresistibly."</p> + +<p>These words were uttered in a tone that killed Ardan's last and fondest +hope.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The portion of the Moon they were now approaching was her northern +hemisphere, found usually in the lower part of lunar maps. The lens of a +telescope, as is well known, gives only the inverted image of the +object; therefore, when an upright image is required, an additional +glass must be used. But as every additional glass is an additional +obstruction to the light, the object glass of a Lunar telescope is +employed without a corrector; light is thereby saved, and in viewing the +Moon, as in viewing a map, it evidently makes very little difference +whether we see her inverted or not. Maps of the Moon therefore, being +drawn from the image formed by the telescope, show the north in the +lower part, and <i>vice versa</i>. Of this kind was the <i>Mappa +Selenographica</i>, by Beer and Maedler, so often previously alluded to and +now carefully consulted by Barbican. The northern hemisphere, towards +which they were now rapidly approaching, presented a strong contrast +with the southern, by its vast plains and great depressions, checkered +here and there by very remarkable isolated mountains.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p> + +<p>At midnight the Moon was full. This was the precise moment at which the +travellers would have landed had not that unlucky bolide drawn them off +the track. The Moon was therefore strictly up to time, arriving at the +instant rigidly determined by the Cambridge Observatory. She occupied +the exact point, to a mathematical nicety, where our 28th parallel +crossed the perigee. An observer posted in the bottom of the Columbiad +at Stony Hill, would have found himself at this moment precisely under +the Moon. The axis of the enormous gun, continued upwards vertically, +would have struck the orb of night exactly in her centre.</p> + +<p>It is hardly necessary to tell our readers that, during this memorable +night of the 5th and 6th of December, the travellers had no desire to +close their eyes. Could they do so, even if they had desired? No! All +their faculties, thoughts, and desires, were concentrated in one single +word: "Look!" Representatives of the Earth, and of all humanity past and +present, they felt that it was with their eyes that the race of man +contemplated the lunar regions and penetrated the secrets of our +satellite! A certain indescribable emotion therefore, combined with an +undefined sense of responsibility, held possession of their hearts, as +they moved silently from window to window.</p> + +<p>Their observations, recorded by Barbican, were vigorously remade, +revised, and re-determined, by the others. To make them, they had +telescopes which they now began to employ with great advantage. To +regulate and investigate them, they had the best maps of the day.</p> + +<p>Whilst occupied in this silent work, they could not help throwing a +short retrospective glance on the former Observers of the Moon.</p> + +<p>The first of these was Galileo. His slight telescope magnified only +thirty times, still, in the spots flecking the lunar surface, like the +eyes checkering a peacock's tail, he was the first to discover mountains +and even to measure their heights. These, considering the difficulties +under which he labored, were wonderfully accurate, but unfortunately he +made no map embodying his observations.</p> + +<p>A few years afterwards, Hevel of Dantzic, (1611-1688) a Polish +astronomer—more generally known as Hevelius, his works being all +written in Latin—undertook to correct Galileo's measurements. But as +his method could be strictly accurate only twice a month—the periods of +the first and second quadratures—his rectifications could be hardly +called successful.</p> + +<p>Still it is to the labors of this eminent astronomer, carried on +uninterruptedly for fifty years in his own observatory, that we owe the +first map of the Moon. It was published in 1647 under the name of +<i>Selenographia</i>. He represented the circular mountains by open spots +somewhat round in shape, and by shaded figures he indicated the vast +plains, or, as he called them, the <i>seas</i>, that occupied so much of her +surface. These he designated by names taken from our Earth. His map +shows you a <i>Mount Sinai</i> the midst of an <i>Arabia</i>, an <i>Ætna</i> in the +centre of a <i>Sicily</i>, <i>Alps</i>, <i>Apennines</i>, <i>Carpathians</i>, a +<i>Mediterranean</i>, a <i>Palus Mæolis</i>, a <i>Pontus Euxinus</i>, and a <i>Caspian +Sea</i>. But these names seem to have been given capriciously and at +random, for they never recall any resemblance existing between +themselves and their namesakes on our globe. In the wide open spot, for +instance, connected on the south with vast continents and terminating in +a point, it would be no easy matter to recognize the reversed image of +the <i>Indian Peninsula</i>, the <i>Bay of Bengal</i>, and <i>Cochin China</i>. +Naturally, therefore, these names were nearly all soon dropped; but +another system of nomenclature, proposed by an astronomer better +acquainted with the human heart, met with a success that has lasted to +the present day.</p> + +<p>This was Father Riccioli, a Jesuit, and (1598-1671) a contemporary of +Hevelius. In his <i>Astronomia Reformata</i>, (1665), he published a rough +and incorrect map of the Moon, compiled from observations made by +Grimaldi of Ferrara; but in designating the mountains, he named them +after eminent astronomers, and this idea of his has been carefully +carried out by map makers of later times.</p> + +<p>A third map of the Moon was published at Rome in 1666 by Dominico +Cassini of Nice (1625-1712), the famous discoverer of Saturn's +satellites. Though somewhat incorrect regarding measurements, it was +superior to Riccioli's in execution, and for a long time it was +considered a standard work. Copies of this map are still to be found, +but Cassini's original copper-plate, preserved for a long time at the +<i>Imprimerie Royale</i> in Paris, was at last sold to a brazier, by no less +a personage than the Director of the establishment himself, who, +according to Arago, wanted to get rid of what he considered useless +lumber!</p> + +<p>La Hire (1640-1718), professor of astronomy in the <i>Collège de France</i>, +and an accomplished draughtsman, drew a map of the Moon which was +thirteen feet in diameter. This map could be seen long afterwards in the +library of St. Genevieve, Paris, but it was never engraved.</p> + +<p>About 1760, Mayer, a famous German astronomer and the director of the +observatory of Göttingen, began the publication of a magnificent map of +the Moon, drawn after lunar measurements all rigorously verified by +himself. Unfortunately his death in 1762 interrupted a work which would +have surpassed in accuracy every previous effort of the kind.</p> + +<p>Next appears Schroeter of Erfurt (1745-1816), a fine observer (he first +discovered the Lunar <i>Rills</i>), but a poor draughtsman: his maps are +therefore of little value. Lohrman of Dresden published in 1838 an +excellent map of the Moon, 15 inches in diameter, accompanied by +descriptive text and several charts of particular portions on a larger +scale.</p> + +<p>But this and all other maps were thrown completely into the shade by +Beer and Maedler's famous <i>Mappa Selenographica</i>, so often alluded to in +the course of this work. This map, projected orthographically—that is, +one in which all the rays proceeding from the surface to the eye are +supposed to be parallel to each other—gives a reproduction of the lunar +disc exactly as it appears. The representation of the mountains and +plains is therefore correct only in the central portion; elsewhere, +north, south, east, or west, the features, being foreshortened, are +crowded together, and cannot be compared in measurement with those in +the centre. It is more than three feet square; for convenient reference +it is divided into four parts, each having a very full index; in short, +this map is in all respects a master piece of lunar cartography.<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a></p> + +<p>After Beer and Maedler, we should allude to Julius Schmitt's (of Athens) +excellent selenographic reliefs: to Doctor Draper's, and to Father +Secchi's successful application of photography to lunar representation; +to De La Rue's (of London) magnificent stereographs of the Moon, to be +had at every optician's; to the clear and correct map prepared by +Lecouturier and Chapuis in 1860; to the many beautiful pictures of the +Moon in various phases of illumination obtained by the Messrs. Bond of +Harvard University; to Rutherford's (of New York) unparalleled lunar +photographs; and finally to Nasmyth and Carpenter's wonderful work on +the Moon, illustrated by photographs of her surface in detail, prepared +from models at which they had been laboring for more than a quarter of +the century.</p> + +<p>Of all these maps, pictures, and projections, Barbican had provided +himself with only two—Beer and Maedler's in German, and Lecouturier and +Chapuis' in French. These he considered quite sufficient for all +purposes, and certainly they considerably simplified his labors as an +observer.</p> + +<p>His best optical instruments were several excellent marine telescopes, +manufactured especially under his direction. Magnifying the object a +hundred times, on the surface of the Earth they would have brought the +Moon to within a distance of somewhat less than 2400 miles. But at the +point to which our travellers had arrived towards three o'clock in the +morning, and which could hardly be more than 12 or 1300 miles from the +Moon, these telescopes, ranging through a medium disturbed by no +atmosphere, easily brought the lunar surface to within less than 13 +miles' distance from the eyes of our adventurers.</p> + +<p>Therefore they should now see objects in the Moon as clearly as people +can see the opposite bank of a river that is about 12 miles wide.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3>FACT AND FANCY.</h3> + + +<p>"Have you ever seen the Moon?" said a teacher ironically one day in +class to one of his pupils.</p> + +<p>"No, sir;" was the pert reply; "but I think I can safely say I've heard +it spoken about."</p> + +<p>Though saying what he considered a smart thing, the pupil was probably +perfectly right. Like the immense majority of his fellow beings, he had +looked at the Moon, heard her talked of, written poetry about her, but, +in the strict sense of the term, he had probably never seen her—that +is—scanned her, examined her, surveyed her, inspected her, reconnoitred +her—even with an opera glass! Not one in a thousand, not one in ten +thousand, has ever examined even the map of our only Satellite. To guard +our beloved and intelligent reader against this reproach, we have +prepared an excellent reduction of Beer and Maedler's <i>Mappa</i>, on which, +for the better understanding of what is to follow, we hope he will +occasionally cast a gracious eye.</p> + +<p>When you look at any map of the Moon, you are struck first of all with +one peculiarity. Contrary to the arrangement prevailing in Mars and on +our Earth, the continents occupy principally the southern hemisphere of +the lunar orb. Then these continents are far from presenting such sharp +and regular outlines as distinguish the Indian Peninsula, Africa, and +South America. On the contrary, their coasts, angular, jagged, and +deeply indented, abound in bays and peninsulas. They remind you of the +coast of Norway, or of the islands in the Sound, where the land seems to +be cut up into endless divisions. If navigation ever existed on the +Moon's surface, it must have been of a singularly difficult and +dangerous nature, and we can scarcely say which of the two should be +more pitied—the sailors who had to steer through these dangerous and +complicated passes, or the map-makers who had to designate them on their +charts.</p> + +<p>You will also remark that the southern pole of the Moon is much more +<i>continental</i> than the northern. Around the latter, there exists only a +slight fringe of lands separated from the other continents by vast +"seas." This word "seas"—a term employed by the first lunar map +constructors—is still retained to designate those vast depressions on +the Moon's surface, once perhaps covered with water, though they are now +only enormous plains. In the south, the continents cover nearly the +whole hemisphere. It is therefore possible that the Selenites have +planted their flag on at least one of their poles, whereas the Parrys +and Franklins of England, the Kanes and the Wilkeses of America, the +Dumont d'Urvilles and the Lamberts of France, have so far met with +obstacles completely insurmountable, while in search of those unknown +points of our terrestrial globe.</p> + +<p>The islands—the next feature on the Moon's surface—are exceedingly +numerous. Generally oblong or circular in shape and almost as regular in +outline as if drawn with a compass, they form vast archipelagoes like +the famous group lying between Greece and Asia Minor, which mythology +has made the scene of her earliest and most charming legends. As we gaze +at them, the names of Naxos, Tenedos, Milo, and Carpathos rise up before +our mind's eye, and we begin looking around for the Trojan fleet and +Jason's Argo. This, at least, was Ardan's idea, and at first his eyes +would see nothing on the map but a Grecian archipelago. But his +companions, sound practical men, and therefore totally devoid of +sentiment, were reminded by these rugged coasts of the beetling cliffs +of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; so that, where the Frenchman saw the +tracks of ancient heroes, the Americans saw only commodious shipping +points and favorable sites for trading posts—all, of course, in the +purest interest of lunar commerce and industry.</p> + +<p>To end our hasty sketch of the continental portion of the Moon, we must +say a few words regarding her orthography or mountain systems. With a +fair telescope you can distinguish very readily her mountain chains, her +isolated mountains, her circuses or ring formations, and her rills, +cracks and radiating streaks. The character of the whole lunar relief is +comprised in these divisions. It is a surface prodigiously reticulated, +upheaved and depressed, apparently without the slightest order or +system. It is a vast Switzerland, an enormous Norway, where everything +is the result of direct plutonic action. This surface, so rugged, craggy +and wrinkled, seems to be the result of successive contractions of the +crust, at an early period of the planet's existence. The examination of +the lunar disc is therefore highly favorable for the study of the great +geological phenomena of our own globe. As certain astronomers have +remarked, the Moon's surface, though older than the Earth's, has +remained younger. That is, it has undergone less change. No water has +broken through its rugged elevations, filled up its scowling cavities, +and by incessant action tended continuously to the production of a +general level. No atmosphere, by its disintegrating, decomposing +influence has softened off the rugged features of the plutonic +mountains. Volcanic action alone, unaffected by either aqueous or +atmospheric forces, can here be seen in all its glory. In other words +the Moon looks now as our Earth did endless ages ago, when "she was void +and empty and when darkness sat upon the face of the deep;" eons of ages +ago, long before the tides of the ocean and the winds of the atmosphere +had begun to strew her rough surface with sand and clay, rock and coal, +forest and meadow, gradually preparing it, according to the laws of our +beneficent Creator, to be at last the pleasant though the temporary +abode of Man!</p> + +<p>Having wandered over vast continents, your eye is attracted by the +"seas" of dimensions still vaster. Not only their shape, situation, and +look, remind us of our own oceans, but, again like them, they occupy +the greater part of the Moon's surface. The "seas," or, more correctly, +plains, excited our travellers' curiosity to a very high degree, and +they set themselves at once to examine their nature.</p> + +<p>The astronomer who first gave names to those "seas" in all probability +was a Frenchman. Hevelius, however, respected them, even Riccioli did +not disturb them, and so they have come down to us. Ardan laughed +heartily at the fancies which they called up, and said the whole thing +reminded him of one of those "maps of matrimony" that he had once seen +or read of in the works of Scudéry or Cyrano de Bergerac.</p> + +<p>"However," he added, "I must say that this map has much more reality in +it than could be found in the sentimental maps of the 17th century. In +fact, I have no difficulty whatever in calling it the <i>Map of Life!</i> +very neatly divided into two parts, the east and the west, the masculine +and the feminine. The women on the right, and the men on the left!"</p> + +<p>At such observations, Ardan's companions only shrugged their shoulders. +A map of the Moon in their eyes was a map of the Moon, no more, no less; +their romantic friend might view it as he pleased. Nevertheless, their +romantic friend was not altogether wrong. Judge a little for yourselves.</p> + +<p>What is the first "sea" you find in the hemisphere on the left? The +<i>Mare Imbrium</i> or the Rainy Sea, a fit emblem of our human life, beaten +by many a pitiless storm. In a corresponding part of the southern +hemisphere you see <i>Mare Nubium</i>, the Cloudy Sea, in which our poor +human reason so often gets befogged. Close to this lies <i>Mare Humorum</i>, +the Sea of Humors, where we sail about, the sport of each fitful breeze, +"everything by starts and nothing long." Around all, embracing all, lies +<i>Oceanus Procellarum</i>, the Ocean of Tempests, where, engaged in one +continuous struggle with the gusty whirlwinds, excited by our own +passions or those of others, so few of us escape shipwreck. And, when +disgusted by the difficulties of life, its deceptions, its treacheries +and all the other miseries "that flesh is heir to," where do we too +often fly to avoid them? To the <i>Sinus Iridium</i> or the <i>Sinus Roris</i>, +that is Rainbow Gulf and Dewy Gulf whose glittering lights, alas! give +forth no real illumination to guide our stumbling feet, whose sun-tipped +pinnacles have less substance than a dream, whose enchanting waters all +evaporate before we can lift a cup-full to our parched lips! Showers, +storms, fogs, rainbows—is not the whole mortal life of man comprised in +these four words?</p> + +<p>Now turn to the hemisphere on the right, the women's side, and you also +discover "seas," more numerous indeed, but of smaller dimensions and +with gentler names, as more befitting the feminine temperament. First +comes <i>Mare Serenitatis</i>, the Sea of Serenity, so expressive of the +calm, tranquil soul of an innocent maiden. Near it is <i>Lacus Somniorum</i>, +the Lake of Dreams, in which she loves to gaze at her gilded and rosy +future. In the southern division is seen <i>Mare Nectaris</i>, the Sea of +Nectar, over whose soft heaving billows she is gently wafted by Love's +caressing winds, "Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm." Not far +off is <i>Mare Fecunditatis</i>, the Sea of Fertility, in which she becomes +the happy mother of rejoicing children. A little north is <i>Mare +Crisium</i>, the Sea of Crises where her life and happiness are sometimes +exposed to sudden, and unexpected dangers which fortunately, however, +seldom end fatally. Far to the left, near the men's side, is <i>Mare +Vaporum</i>, the Sea of Vapors, into which, though it is rather small, and +full of sunken rocks, she sometimes allows herself to wander, moody, and +pouting, and not exactly knowing where she wants to go or what she wants +to do. Between the two last expands the great <i>Mare Tranquillitatis</i>, +the Sea of Tranquillity, into whose quiet depths are at last absorbed +all her simulated passions, all her futile aspirations, all her +unglutted desires, and whose unruffled waters are gliding on forever in +noiseless current towards <i>Lacus Mortis</i>, the Lake of Death, whose misty +shores</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"In ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods are girt."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>So at least Ardan mused as he stooped over Beer and Maedler's map. Did +not these strange successive names somewhat justify his flights of +fancy? Surely they had a wonderful variety of meaning. Was it by +accident or by forethought deep that the two hemispheres of the Moon had +been thus so strangely divided, yet, as man to woman, though divided +still united, and thus forming even in the cold regions of space a +perfect image of our terrestrial existence? Who can say that our +romantic French friend was altogether wrong in thus explaining the +astute fancies of the old astronomers?</p> + +<p>His companions, however, it need hardly be said, never saw the "seas" in +that light. They looked on them not with sentimental but with +geographical eyes. They studied this new world and tried to get it by +heart, working at it like a school boy at his lessons. They began by +measuring its angles and diameters.</p> + +<p>To their practical, common sense vision <i>Mare Nubium</i>, the Cloudy Sea, +was an immense depression of the surface, sprinkled here and there with +a few circular mountains. Covering a great portion of that part of the +southern hemisphere which lies east of the centre, it occupied a space +of about 270 thousand square miles, its central point lying in 15° south +latitude and 20° east longitude. Northeast from this lay <i>Oceanus +Procellarum</i>, the Ocean of Tempests, the most extensive of all the +plains on the lunar disc, embracing a surface of about half a million of +square miles, its centre being in 10° north and 45° east. From its bosom +those wonderful mountains <i>Kepler</i> and <i>Aristarchus</i> lifted their vast +ramparts glittering with innumerable streaks radiating in all +directions.</p> + +<p>To the north, in the direction of <i>Mare Frigoris</i>, extends <i>Mare +Imbrium</i>, the Sea of Rains, its central point in 35° north and 20° +east. It is somewhat circular in shape, and it covers a space of about +300 thousand square miles. South of <i>Oceanus Procellarum</i> and separated +from <i>Mare Nubium</i> by a goodly number of ring mountains, lies the little +basin of <i>Mare Humorum</i>, the Sea of Humors, containing only about 66 +thousand square miles, its central point having a latitude of 25° south +and a longitude of 40° east.</p> + +<p>On the shores of these great seas three "Gulfs" are easily found: <i>Sinus +Aestuum</i>, the Gulf of the Tides, northeast of the centre; <i>Sinus +Iridium</i>, the Gulf of the Rainbows, northeast of the <i>Mare Imbrium</i>; and +<i>Sinus Roris</i>, the Dewy Gulf, a little further northeast. All seem to be +small plains enclosed between chains of lofty mountains.</p> + +<p>The western hemisphere, dedicated to the ladies, according to Ardan, and +therefore naturally more capricious, was remarkable for "seas" of +smaller dimensions, but much more numerous. These were principally: +<i>Mare Serenitatis</i>, the Sea of Serenity, 25° north and 20° west, +comprising a surface of about 130 thousand square miles; <i>Mare Crisium</i>, +the Sea of Crises, a round, well defined, dark depression towards the +northwestern edge, 17° north 55° west, embracing a surface of 60 +thousand square miles, a regular Caspian Sea in fact, only that the +plateau in which it lies buried is surrounded by a girdle of much higher +mountains. Then towards the equator, with a latitude of 5° north and a +longitude of 25° west, appears <i>Mare Tranquillitatis</i>, the Sea of +Tranquillity, occupying about 180 thousand square miles. This +communicates on the south with <i>Mare Nectaris</i>, the Sea of Nectar, +embracing an extent of about 42 thousand square miles, with a mean +latitude of 15° south and a longitude of 35° west. Southwest from <i>Mare +Tranquillitatis</i>, lies <i>Mare Fecunditatis</i>, the Sea of Fertility, the +greatest in this hemisphere, as it occupies an extent of more than 300 +thousand square miles, its latitude being 3° south and its longitude 50° +west. For away to the north, on the borders of the <i>Mare Frigoris</i>, or +Icy Sea, is seen the small <i>Mare Humboldtianum</i>, or Humboldt Sea, with a +surface of about 10 thousand square miles. Corresponding to this in the +southern hemisphere lies the <i>Mare Australe</i>, or South Sea, whose +surface, as it extends along the western rim, is rather difficult to +calculate. Finally, right in the centre of the lunar disc, where the +equator intersects the first meridian, can be seen <i>Sinus Medii</i>, the +Central Gulf, the common property therefore of all the hemispheres, the +northern and southern, as well as of the eastern and western.</p> + +<p>Into these great divisions the surface of our satellite resolved itself +before the eyes of Barbican and M'Nicholl. Adding up the various +measurements, they found that the surface of her visible hemisphere was +about 7-1/2 millions of square miles, of which about the two thirds +comprised the volcanoes, the mountain chains, the rings, the islands—in +short, the land portion of the lunar surface; the other third comprised +the "seas," the "lakes," the "marshes," the "bays" or "gulfs," and the +other divisions usually assigned to water.</p> + +<p>To all this deeply interesting information, though the fruit of +observation the closest, aided and confirmed by calculation the +profoundest, Ardan listened with the utmost indifference. In fact, even +his French politeness could not suppress two or three decided yawns, +which of course the mathematicians were too absorbed to notice.</p> + +<p>In their enthusiasm they tried to make him understand that though the +Moon is 13-1/2 times smaller than our Earth, she can show more than 50 +thousand craters, which astronomers have already counted and designated +by specific names.</p> + +<p>"To conclude this portion of our investigation therefore," cried +Barbican, clearing his throat, and occupying Aldan's right ear,—"the +Moon's surface is a honey combed, perforated, punctured—"</p> + +<p>"A fistulous, a rugose, salebrous,—" cut in the Captain, close on the +left.</p> + +<p>—"And highly cribriform superficies—" cried Barbican.</p> + +<p>—"A sieve, a riddle, a colander—" shouted the Captain.</p> + +<p>—"A skimming dish, a buckwheat cake, a lump of green cheese—" went on +Barbican—.</p> + +<p>—In fact, there is no knowing how far they would have proceeded with +their designations, comparisons, and scientific expressions, had not +Ardan, driven to extremities by Barbican's last profanity, suddenly +jumped up, broken away from his companions, and clapped a forcible +extinguisher on their eloquence by putting his hands on their lips and +keeping them there awhile. Then striking a grand attitude, he looked +towards the Moon and burst out in accents of thrilling indignation:</p> + +<p>"Pardon, O beautiful Diana of the Ephesians! Pardon, O Phoebe, thou +pearl-faced goddess of night beloved of Greece! O Isis, thou sympathetic +queen of Nile-washed cities! O Astarte, thou favorite deity of the +Syrian hills! O Artemis, thou symbolical daughter of Jupiter and Latona, +that is of light and darkness! O brilliant sister of the radiant Apollo! +enshrined in the enchanting strains of Virgil and Homer, which I only +half learned at college, and therefore unfortunately forget just now! +Otherwise what pleasure I should have had in hurling them at the heads +of Barbican, M'Nicholl, and every other barbarous iconoclast of the +nineteenth century!—"</p> + +<p>Here he stopped short, for two reasons: first he was out of breath; +secondly, he saw that the irrepressible scientists had been too busy +making observations of their own to hear a single word of what he had +uttered, and were probably totally unconscious that he had spoken at +all. In a few seconds his breath came back in full blast, but the idea +of talking when only deaf men were listening was so disconcerting as to +leave him actually unable to get off another syllable.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3>A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE LUNAR MOUNTAINS.</h3> + + +<p>I am rather inclined to believe myself that not one word of Ardan's +rhapsody had been ever heard by Barbican or M'Nicholl. Long before he +had spoken his last words, they had once more become mute as statues, +and now were both eagerly watching, pencil in hand, spyglass to eye, the +northern lunar hemisphere towards which they were rapidly but indirectly +approaching. They had fully made up their minds by this time that they +were leaving far behind them the central point which they would have +probably reached half an hour ago if they had not been shunted off their +course by that inopportune bolide.</p> + +<p>About half past twelve o'clock, Barbican broke the dead silence by +saying that after a careful calculation they were now only about 875 +miles from the Moon's surface, a distance two hundred miles less in +length than the lunar radius, and which was still to be diminished as +they advanced further north. They were at that moment ten degrees north +of the equator, almost directly over the ridge lying between the <i>Mare +Serenitatis</i> and the <i>Mare Tranquillitatis</i>. From this latitude all the +way up to the north pole the travellers enjoyed a most satisfactory view +of the Moon in all directions and under the most favorable conditions. +By means of their spyglasses, magnifying a hundred times, they cut down +this distance of 875 miles to about 9. The great telescope of the Rocky +Mountains, by its enormous magnifying power of 48,000, brought the Moon, +it is true, within a distance of 5 miles, or nearly twice as near; but +this advantage of nearness was considerably more than counterbalanced by +a want of clearness, resulting from the haziness and refractiveness of +the terrestrial atmosphere, not to mention those fatal defects in the +reflector that the art of man has not yet succeeded in remedying. +Accordingly, our travellers, armed with excellent telescopes—of just +power enough to be no injury to clearness,—and posted on unequalled +vantage ground, began already to distinguish certain details that had +probably never been noticed before by terrestrial observers. Even Ardan, +by this time quite recovered from his fit of sentiment and probably +infected a little by the scientific enthusiasm of his companions, began +to observe and note and observe and note, alternately, with all the +<i>sangfroid</i> of a veteran astronomer.</p> + +<p>"Friends," said Barbican, again interrupting a silence that had lasted +perhaps ten minutes, "whither we are going I can't say; if we shall ever +revisit the Earth, I can't tell. Still, it is our duty so to act in all +respects as if these labors of ours were one day to be of service to our +fellow-creatures. Let us keep our souls free from every distraction. We +are now astronomers. We see now what no mortal eye has ever gazed on +before. This Projectile is simply a work room of the great Cambridge +Observatory lifted into space. Let us take observations!"</p> + +<p>With these words, he set to work with a renewed ardor, in which his +companions fully participated. The consequence was that they soon had +several of the outline maps covered with the best sketches they could +make of the Moon's various aspects thus presented under such favorable +circumstances. They could now remark not only that they were passing the +tenth degree of north latitude, but that the Projectile followed almost +directly the twentieth degree of east longitude.</p> + +<p>"One thing always puzzled me when examining maps of the Moon," observed +Ardan, "and I can't say that I see it yet as clearly as if I had thought +over the matter. It is this. I could understand, when looking through a +lens at an object, why we get only its reversed image—a simple law of +optics explains <i>that</i>. Therefore, in a map of the Moon, as the bottom +means the north and the top the south, why does not the right mean the +west and the left the east? I suppose I could have made this out by a +little thought, but thinking, that is reflection, not being my forte, it +is the last thing I ever care to do. Barbican, throw me a word or two on +the subject."</p> + +<p>"I can see what troubles you," answered Barbican, "but I can also see +that one moment's reflection would have put an end to your perplexity. +On ordinary maps of the Earth's surface when the north is the top, the +right hand must be the east, the left hand the west, and so on. That is +simply because we look <i>down</i> from <i>above</i>. And such a map seen through +a lens will appear reversed in all respects. But in looking at the Moon, +that is <i>up</i> from <i>down</i>, we change our position so far that our right +hand points west and our left east. Consequently, in our reversed map, +though the north becomes south, the right remains east, and—"</p> + +<p>"Enough said! I see it at a glance! Thank you, Barbican. Why did not +they make you a professor of astronomy? Your hint will save me a world +of trouble."<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a></p> + +<p>Aided by the <i>Mappa Selenographica</i>, the travellers could easily +recognize the different portions of the Moon over which they were now +moving. An occasional glance at our reduction of this map, given as a +frontispiece, will enable the gentle reader to follow the travellers on +the line in which they moved and to understand the remarks and +observations in which they occasionally indulged.</p> + +<p>"Where are we now?" asked Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Over the northern shores of the <i>Mare Nubium</i>," replied Barbican. "But +we are still too far off to see with any certainty what they are like. +What is the <i>Mare</i> itself? A sea, according to the early astronomers? a +plain of solid sand, according to later authority? or an immense forest, +according to De la Rue of London, so far the Moon's most successful +photographer? This gentleman's authority, Ardan, would have given you +decided support in your famous dispute with the Captain at the meeting +near Tampa, for he says very decidedly that the Moon has an atmosphere, +very low to be sure but very dense. This, however, we must find out for +ourselves; and in the meantime let us affirm nothing until we have good +grounds for positive assertion."</p> + +<p><i>Mare Nubium</i>, though not very clearly outlined on the maps, is easily +recognized by lying directly east of the regions about the centre. It +would appear as if this vast plain were sprinkled with immense lava +blocks shot forth from the great volcanoes on the right, <i>Ptolemaeus</i>, +<i>Alphonse</i>, <i>Alpetragius</i> and <i>Arzachel</i>. But the Projectile advanced so +rapidly that these mountains soon disappeared, and the travellers were +not long before they could distinguish the great peaks that closed the +"Sea" on its northern boundary. Here a radiating mountain showed a +summit so dazzling with the reflection of the solar rays that Ardan +could not help crying out:</p> + +<p>"It looks like one of the carbon points of an electric light projected +on a screen! What do you call it, Barbican?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Copernicus</i>," replied the President. "Let us examine old +<i>Copernicus</i>!"</p> + +<p>This grand crater is deservedly considered one of the greatest of the +lunar wonders. It lifts its giant ramparts to upwards of 12,000 feet +above the level of the lunar surface. Being quite visible from the Earth +and well situated for observation, it is a favorite object for +astronomical study; this is particularly the case during the phase +existing between Last Quarter and the New Moon, when its vast shadows, +projected boldly from the east towards the west, allow its prodigious +dimensions to be measured.</p> + +<p>After <i>Tycho</i>, which is situated in the southern hemisphere, +<i>Copernicus</i> forms the most important radiating mountain in the lunar +disc. It looms up, single and isolated, like a gigantic light-house, on +the peninsula separating <i>Mare Nubium</i> from <i>Oceanus Procellarum</i> on one +side and from <i>Mare Imbrium</i> on the other; thus illuminating with its +splendid radiation three "Seas" at a time. The wonderful complexity of +its bright streaks diverging on all sides from its centre presented a +scene alike splendid and unique. These streaks, the travellers thought, +could be traced further north than in any other direction: they fancied +they could detect them even in the <i>Mare Imbrium</i>, but this of course +might be owing to the point from which they made their observations. At +one o'clock in the morning, the Projectile, flying through space, was +exactly over this magnificent mountain.</p> + +<p>In spite of the brilliant sunlight that was blazing around them, the +travellers could easily recognize the peculiar features of <i>Copernicus</i>. +It belongs to those ring mountains of the first class called Circuses. +Like <i>Kepler</i> and <i>Aristarchus</i>, who rule over <i>Oceanus Procellarum</i>, +<i>Copernicus</i>, when viewed through our telescopes, sometimes glistens so +brightly through the ashy light of the Moon that it has been frequently +taken for a volcano in full activity. Whatever it may have been once, +however, it is certainly nothing more now than, like all the other +mountains on the visible side of the Moon, an extinct volcano, only with +a crater of such exceeding grandeur and sublimity as to throw utterly +into the shade everything like it on our Earth. The crater of Etna is at +most little more than a mile across. The crater of <i>Copernicus</i> has a +diameter of at least 50 miles. Within it, the travellers could easily +discover by their glasses an immense number of terraced ridges, probably +landslips, alternating with stratifications resulting from successive +eruptions. Here and there, but particularly in the southern side, they +caught glimpses of shadows of such intense blackness, projected across +the plateau and lying there like pitch spots, that they could not tell +them from yawning chasms of incalculable depth. Outside the crater the +shadows were almost as deep, whilst on the plains all around, +particularly in the west, so many small craters could be detected that +the eye in vain attempted to count them.</p> + +<p>"Many circular mountains of this kind," observed Barbican, "can be seen +on the lunar surface, but <i>Copernicus</i>, though not one of the greatest, +is one of the most remarkable on account of those diverging streaks of +bright light that you see radiating from its summit. By looking +steadily into its crater, you can see more cones than mortal eye ever +lit on before. They are so numerous as to render the interior plateau +quite rugged, and were formerly so many openings giving vent to fire and +volcanic matter. A curious and very common arrangement of this internal +plateau of lunar craters is its lying at a lower level than the external +plains, quite the contrary to a terrestrial crater, which generally has +its bottom much higher than the level of the surrounding country. It +follows therefore that the deep lying curve of the bottom of these ring +mountains would give a sphere with a diameter somewhat smaller than the +Moon's."</p> + +<p>"What can be the cause of this peculiarity?" asked M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell;" answered Barbican, "but, as a conjecture, I should say +that it is probably to the comparatively smaller area of the Moon and +the more violent character of her volcanic action that the extremely +rugged character of her surface is mainly due."</p> + +<p>"Why, it's the <i>Campi Phlegraei</i> or the Fire Fields of Naples over +again!" cried Ardan suddenly. "There's <i>Monte Barbaro</i>, there's the +<i>Solfatara</i>, there is the crater of <i>Astroni</i>, and there is the <i>Monte +Nuovo</i>, as plain as the hand on my body!"</p> + +<p>"The great resemblance between the region you speak of and the general +surface of the Moon has been often remarked;" observed Barbican, "but +it is even still more striking in the neighborhood of <i>Theophilus</i> on +the borders of <i>Mare Nectaris</i>."</p> + +<p>"That's <i>Mare Nectaris</i>, the gray spot over there on the southwest, +isn't it?" asked M'Nicholl; "is there any likelihood of our getting a +better view of it?"</p> + +<p>"Not the slightest," answered Barbican, "unless we go round the Moon and +return this way, like a satellite describing its orbit."</p> + +<p>By this time they had arrived at a point vertical to the mountain +centre. <i>Copernicus's</i> vast ramparts formed a perfect circle or rather a +pair of concentric circles. All around the mountain extended a dark +grayish plain of savage aspect, on which the peak shadows projected +themselves in sharp relief. In the gloomy bottom of the crater, whose +dimensions are vast enough to swallow Mont Blanc body and bones, could +be distinguished a magnificent group of cones, at least half a mile in +height and glittering like piles of crystal. Towards the north several +breaches could be seen in the ramparts, due probably to a caving in of +immense masses accumulated on the summit of the precipitous walls.</p> + +<p>As already observed, the surrounding plains were dotted with numberless +craters mostly of small dimensions, except <i>Gay Lussac</i> on the north, +whose crater was about 12 miles in diameter. Towards the southwest and +the immediate east, the plain appeared to be very flat, no protuberance, +no prominence of any kind lifting itself above the general dead level. +Towards the north, on the contrary, as far as where the peninsula +jutted on <i>Oceanus Procellarum</i>, the plain looked like a sea of lava +wildly lashed for a while by a furious hurricane and then, when its +waves and breakers and driving ridges were at their wildest, suddenly +frozen into solidity. Over this rugged, rumpled, wrinkled surface and in +all directions, ran the wonderful streaks whose radiating point appeared +to be the summit of <i>Copernicus</i>. Many of them appeared to be ten miles +wide and hundreds of miles in length.</p> + +<p>The travellers disputed for some time on the origin of these strange +radii, but could hardly be said to have arrived at any conclusion more +satisfactory than that already reached by some terrestrial observers.</p> + +<p>To M'Nicholl's question:</p> + +<p>"Why can't these streaks be simply prolonged mountain crests reflecting +the sun's rays more vividly by their superior altitude and comparative +smoothness?"</p> + +<p>Barbican readily replied:</p> + +<p>"These streaks <i>can't</i> be mountain crests, because, if they were, under +certain conditions of solar illumination they should project +<i>shadows</i>—a thing which they have never been known to do under any +circumstances whatever. In fact, it is only during the period of the +full Moon that these streaks are seen at all; as soon as the sun's rays +become oblique, they disappear altogether—a proof that their appearance +is due altogether to peculiar advantages in their surface for the +reflection of light."</p> + +<p>"Dear boys, will you allow me to give my little guess on the subject?" +asked Ardan.</p> + +<p>His companions were profuse in expressing their desire to hear it.</p> + +<p>"Well then," he resumed, "seeing that these bright streaks invariably +start from a certain point to radiate in all directions, why not suppose +them to be streams of lava issuing from the crater and flowing down the +mountain side until they cooled?"</p> + +<p>"Such a supposition or something like it has been put forth by +Herschel," replied Barbican; "but your own sense will convince you that +it is quite untenable when you consider that lava, however hot and +liquid it may be at the commencement of its journey, cannot flow on for +hundreds of miles, up hills, across ravines, and over plains, all the +time in streams of almost exactly equal width."</p> + +<p>"That theory of yours holds no more water than mine, Ardan," observed +M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Correct, Captain," replied the Frenchman; "Barbican has a trick of +knocking the bottom out of every weaker vessel. But let us hear what he +has to say on the subject himself. What is your theory. Barbican?"</p> + +<p>"My theory," said Barbican, "is pretty much the same as that lately +presented by an English astronomer, Nasmyth, who has devoted much study +and reflection to lunar matters. Of course, I only formulate my theory, +I don't affirm it. These streaks are cracks, made in the Moon's surface +by cooling or by shrinkage, through which volcanic matter has been +forced up by internal pressure. The sinking ice of a frozen lake, when +meeting with some sharp pointed rock, cracks in a radiating manner: +every one of its fissures then admits the water, which immediately +spreads laterally over the ice pretty much as the lava spreads itself +over the lunar surface. This theory accounts for the radiating nature of +the streaks, their great and nearly equal thickness, their immense +length, their inability to cast a shadow, and their invisibility at any +time except at or near the Full Moon. Still it is nothing but a theory, +and I don't deny that serious objections may be brought against it."</p> + +<p>"Do you know, dear boys," cried Ardan, led off as usual by the slightest +fancy, "do you know what I am thinking of when I look down on the great +rugged plains spread out beneath us?"</p> + +<p>"I can't say, I'm sure," replied Barbican, somewhat piqued at the little +attention he had secured for his theory.</p> + +<p>"Well, what are you thinking of?" asked M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Spillikins!" answered Ardan triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"Spillikins?" cried his companions, somewhat surprised.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Spillikins! These rocks, these blocks, these peaks, these streaks, +these cones, these cracks, these ramparts, these escarpments,—what are +they but a set of spillikins, though I acknowledge on a grand scale? I +wish I had a little hook to pull them one by one!"</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image12" name="image12"> + <img src="images/14.jpg" + alt="AN IMMENSE BATTLEFIELD." + title="AN IMMENSE BATTLEFIELD." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">AN IMMENSE BATTLEFIELD.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Oh, do be serious, Ardan!" cried Barbican, a little impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," replied Ardan. "Let us be serious, Captain, since +seriousness best befits the subject in hand. What do you think of +another comparison? Does not this plain look like an immense battle +field piled with the bleaching bones of myriads who had slaughtered each +other to a man at the bidding of some mighty Caesar? What do you think +of that lofty comparison, hey?"</p> + +<p>"It is quite on a par with the other," muttered Barbican.</p> + +<p>"He's hard to please, Captain," continued Ardan, "but let us try him +again! Does not this plain look like—?"</p> + +<p>"My worthy friend," interrupted Barbican, quietly, but in a tone to +discourage further discussion, "what you think the plain <i>looks like</i> is +of very slight import, as long as you know no more than a child what it +really <i>is</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Bravo, Barbican! well put!" cried the irrepressible Frenchman. "Shall I +ever realize the absurdity of my entering into an argument with a +scientist!"</p> + +<p>But this time the Projectile, though advancing northward with a pretty +uniform velocity, had neither gained nor lost in its nearness to the +lunar disc. Each moment altering the character of the fleeting landscape +beneath them, the travellers, as may well be imagined, never thought of +taking an instant's repose. At about half past one, looking to their +right on the west, they saw the summits of another mountain; Barbican, +consulting his map, recognized <i>Eratosthenes</i>.</p> + +<p>This was a ring mountain, about 33 miles in diameter, having, like +<i>Copernicus</i>, a crater of immense profundity containing central cones. +Whilst they were directing their glasses towards its gloomy depths, +Barbican mentioned to his friends Kepler's strange idea regarding the +formation of these ring mountains. "They must have been constructed," he +said, "by mortal hands."</p> + +<p>"With what object?" asked the Captain.</p> + +<p>"A very natural one," answered Barbican. "The Selenites must have +undertaken the immense labor of digging these enormous pits at places of +refuge in which they could protect themselves against the fierce solar +rays that beat against them for 15 days in succession!"</p> + +<p>"Not a bad idea, that of the Selenites!" exclaimed Ardan.</p> + +<p>"An absurd idea!" cried M'Nicholl. "But probably Kepler never knew the +real dimensions of these craters. Barbican knows the trouble and time +required to dig a well in Stony Hill only nine hundred feet deep. To dig +out a single lunar crater would take hundreds and hundreds of years, and +even then they should be giants who would attempt it!"</p> + +<p>"Why so?" asked Ardan. "In the Moon, where gravity is six times less +than on the Earth, the labor of the Selenites can't be compared with +that of men like us."</p> + +<p>"But suppose a Selenite to be six times smaller than a man like us!" +urged M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"And suppose a Selenite never had an existence at all!" interposed +Barbican with his usual success in putting an end to the argument. "But +never mind the Selenites now. Observe <i>Eratosthenes</i> as long as you have +the opportunity."</p> + +<p>"Which will not be very long," said M'Nicholl. "He is already sinking +out of view too far to the right to be carefully observed."</p> + +<p>"What are those peaks beyond him?" asked Ardan.</p> + +<p>"The <i>Apennines</i>," answered Barbican; "and those on the left are the +<i>Carpathians</i>."</p> + +<p>"I have seen very few mountain chains or ranges in the Moon," remarked +Ardan, after some minutes' observation.</p> + +<p>"Mountains chains are not numerous in the Moon," replied Barbican, "and +in that respect her oreographic system presents a decided contrast with +that of the Earth. With us the ranges are many, the craters few; in the +Moon the ranges are few and the craters innumerable."</p> + +<p>Barbican might have spoken of another curious feature regarding the +mountain ranges: namely, that they are chiefly confined to the northern +hemisphere, where the craters are fewest and the "seas" the most +extensive.</p> + +<p>For the benefit of those interested, and to be done at once with this +part of the subject, we give in the following little table a list of the +chief lunar mountain chains, with their latitude, and respective +heights in English feet.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + <tr> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'></td> + <td align='left'><i>Name</i></td> + <td align='center'><i>Degrees of Latitude</i></td> + <td align='center'><i>Height</i></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align='left'>Southern<br />Hemishpere.</td> + <td align='left'> + <div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/08.png" + alt="brace" + title="brace" /> + </div> + </td> + <td align='left'><i>Altai Mountains</i><br /><i>Cordilleras</i><br /><i>Pyrenees</i><br /><i>Riphean</i></td> + <td align='center'>17° to 28<br />10 to 20<br />8 to 18<br />5 to 10</td> + <td align='right'>13,000ft.<br />12,000 <br />12,000 <br />2,600 </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align='left'>Northern<br />Hemishpere.</td> + <td align='left'> + <div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/09.png" + alt="brace" + title="brace" /> + </div> + </td> + <td align='left'><i>Haemus</i><br /><i>Carpathian</i><br /><i>Apennines</i><br /><i>Taurus</i><br /><i>Hercynian</i><br /><i>Caucasus</i><br /><i>Alps</i></td> + <td align='center'>10 to 20<br />15 to 19<br />14 to 27<br />25 to 34<br />17 to 29<br />33 to 40<br />42 to 30</td> + <td align='right'>6,300 <br />6,000 <br />18,000 <br />8,500 <br />3,400 <br />17,000 <br />10,000 </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>Of these different chains, the most important is that of the +<i>Apennines</i>, about 450 miles long, a length, however, far inferior to +that of many of the great mountain ranges of our globe. They skirt the +western shores of the <i>Mare Imbrium</i>, over which they rise in immense +cliffs, 18 or 20 thousand feet in height, steep as a wall and casting +over the plain intensely black shadows at least 90 miles long. Of Mt. +<i>Huyghens</i>, the highest in the group, the travellers were just barely +able to distinguish the sharp angular summit in the far west. To the +east, however, the <i>Carpathians</i>, extending from the 18th to 30th +degrees of east longitude, lay directly under their eyes and could be +examined in all the peculiarities of their distribution.</p> + +<p>Barbican proposed a hypothesis regarding the formation of those +mountains, which his companions thought at least as good as any other. +Looking carefully over the <i>Carpathians</i> and catching occasional +glimpses of semi-circular formations and half domes, he concluded that +the chain must have formerly been a succession of vast craters. Then had +come some mighty internal discharge, or rather the subsidence to which +<i>Mare Imbrium</i> is due, for it immediately broke off or swallowed up one +half of those mountains, leaving the other half steep as a wall on one +side and sloping gently on the other to the level of the surrounding +plains. The <i>Carpathians</i> were therefore pretty nearly in the same +condition as the crater mountains <i>Ptolemy</i>, <i>Alpetragius</i> and +<i>Arzachel</i> would find themselves in, if some terrible cataclysm, by +tearing away their eastern ramparts, had turned them into a chain of +mountains whose towering cliffs would nod threateningly over the western +shores of <i>Mare Nubium</i>. The mean height of the <i>Carpathians</i> is about +6,000 feet, the altitude of certain points in the Pyrenees such as the +<i>Port of Pineda</i>, or <i>Roland's Breach</i>, in the shadow of <i>Mont Perdu</i>. +The northern slopes of the <i>Carpathians</i> sink rapidly towards the shores +of the vast <i>Mare Imbrium</i>.</p> + +<p>Towards two o'clock in the morning, Barbican calculated the Projectile +to be on the 20th northern parallel, and therefore almost immediately +over the little ring mountain called <i>Pytheas</i>, about 4600 feet in +height. The distance of the travellers from the Moon at this point +could not be more than about 750 miles, reduced to about 7 by means of +their excellent telescopes.</p> + +<p><i>Mare Imbrium</i>, the Sea of Rains here revealed itself in all its +vastness to the eyes of the travellers, though it must be acknowledged +that the immense depression so called, did not afford them a very clear +idea regarding its exact boundaries. Right ahead of them rose <i>Lambert</i> +about a mile in height; and further on, more to the left, in the +direction of <i>Oceanus Procellarum</i>, <i>Euler</i> revealed itself by its +glittering radiations. This mountain, of about the same height as +<i>Lambert</i>, had been the object of very interesting calculations on the +part of Schroeter of Erfurt. This keen observer, desirous of inquiring +into the probable origin of the lunar mountains, had proposed to himself +the following question: Does the volume of the crater appear to be equal +to that of the surrounding ramparts? His calculations showing him that +this was generally the case, he naturally concluded that these ramparts +must therefore have been the product of a single eruption, for +successive eruptions of volcanic matter would have disturbed this +correlation. <i>Euler</i> alone, he found, to be an exception to this general +law, as the volume of its crater appeared to be twice as great as that +of the mass surrounding it. It must therefore have been formed by +several eruptions in succession, but in that case what had become of the +ejected matter?</p> + +<p>Theories of this nature and all manner of scientific questions were, of +course, perfectly permissible to terrestrial astronomers laboring under +the disadvantage of imperfect instruments. But Barbican could not think +of wasting his time in any speculation of the kind, and now, seeing that +his Projectile perceptibly approached the lunar disc, though he +despaired of ever reaching it, he was more sanguine than ever of being +soon able to discover positively and unquestionably some of the secrets +of its formation.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3>LUNAR LANDSCAPES</h3> + + +<p>At half past two in the morning of December 6th, the travellers crossed +the 30th northern parallel, at a distance from the lunar surface of 625 +miles, reduced to about 6 by their spy-glasses. Barbican could not yet +see the least probability of their landing at any point of the disc. The +velocity of the Projectile was decidedly slow, but for that reason +extremely puzzling. Barbican could not account for it. At such a +proximity to the Moon, the velocity, one would think, should be very +great indeed to be able to counteract the lunar attraction. Why did it +not fall? Barbican could not tell; his companions were equally in the +dark. Ardan said he gave it up. Besides they had no time to spend in +investigating it. The lunar panorama was unrolling all its splendors +beneath them, and they could not bear to lose one of its slightest +details.</p> + +<p>The lunar disc being brought within a distance of about six miles by the +spy-glasses, it is a fair question to ask, what <i>could</i> an aeronaut at +such an elevation from our Earth discover on its surface? At present +that question can hardly be answered, the most remarkable balloon +ascensions never having passed an altitude of five miles under +circumstances favorable for observers. Here, however, is an account, +carefully transcribed from notes taken on the spot, of what Barbican and +his companions <i>did</i> see from their peculiar post of observation.</p> + +<p>Varieties of color, in the first place, appeared here and there upon the +disc. Selenographers are not quite agreed as to the nature of these +colors. Not that such colors are without variety or too faint to be +easily distinguished. Schmidt of Athens even says that if our oceans on +earth were all evaporated, an observer in the Moon would hardly find the +seas and continents of our globe even so well outlined as those of the +Moon are to the eye of a terrestrial observer. According to him, the +shade of color distinguishing those vast plains known as "seas" is a +dark gray dashed with green and brown,—a color presented also by a few +of the great craters.</p> + +<p>This opinion of Schmidt's, shared by Beer and Maedler, Barbican's +observations now convinced him to be far better founded than that of +certain astronomers who admit of no color at all being visible on the +Moon's surface but gray. In certain spots the greenish tint was quite +decided, particularly in <i>Mare Serenitatis</i> and <i>Mare Humorum,</i> the very +localities where Schmidt had most noticed it. Barbican also remarked +that several large craters, of the class that had no interior cones, +reflected a kind of bluish tinge, somewhat like that given forth by a +freshly polished steel plate. These tints, he now saw enough to convince +him, proceeded really from the lunar surface, and were not due, as +certain astronomers asserted, either to the imperfections of the +spy-glasses, or to the interference of the terrestrial atmosphere. His +singular opportunity for correct observation allowed him to entertain no +doubt whatever on the subject. Hampered by no atmosphere, he was free +from all liability to optical illusion. Satisfied therefore as to the +reality of these tints, he considered such knowledge a positive gain to +science. But that greenish tint—to what was it due? To a dense tropical +vegetation maintained by a low atmosphere, a mile or so in thickness? +Possibly. But this was another question that could not be answered at +present.</p> + +<p>Further on he could detect here and there traces of a decidedly ruddy +tint. Such a shade he knew had been already detected in the <i>Palus +Somnii</i>, near <i>Mare Crisium</i>, and in the circular area of <i>Lichtenberg</i>, +near the <i>Hercynian Mountains</i>, on the eastern edge of the Moon. To what +cause was this tint to be attributed? To the actual color of the surface +itself? Or to that of the lava covering it here and there? Or to the +color resulting from the mixture of other colors seen at a distance too +great to allow of their being distinguished separately? Impossible to +tell.</p> + +<p>Barbican and his companions succeeded no better at a new problem that +soon engaged their undivided attention. It deserves some detail.</p> + +<p>Having passed <i>Lambert</i>, being just over <i>Timocharis</i>, all were +attentively gazing at the magnificent crater of <i>Archimedes</i> with a +diameter of 52 miles across and ramparts more than 5000 feet in height, +when Ardan startled his companions by suddenly exclaiming:</p> + +<p>"Hello! Cultivated fields as I am a living man!"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by your cultivated fields?" asked M'Nicholl sourly, +wiping his glasses and shrugging his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Certainly cultivated fields!" replied Ardan. "Don't you see the +furrows? They're certainly plain enough. They are white too from +glistening in the sun, but they are quite different from the radiating +streaks of <i>Copernicus</i>. Why, their sides are perfectly parallel!"</p> + +<p>"Where are those furrows?" asked M'Nicholl, putting his glasses to his +eye and adjusting the focus.</p> + +<p>"You can see them in all directions," answered Ardan; "but two are +particularly visible: one running north from <i>Archimedes</i>, the other +south towards the <i>Apennines</i>."</p> + +<p>M'Nicholl's face, as he gazed, gradually assumed a grin which soon +developed into a snicker, if not a positive laugh, as he observed to +Ardan:</p> + +<p>"Your Selenites must be Brobdignagians, their oxen Leviathans, and their +ploughs bigger than Marston's famous cannon, if these are furrows!"</p> + +<p>"How's that, Barbican?" asked Ardan doubtfully, but unwilling to submit +to M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"They're not furrows, dear friend," said Barbican, "and can't be, +either, simply on account of their immense size. They are what the +German astronomers called <i>Rillen</i>; the French, <i>rainures</i>, and the +English, <i>grooves</i>, <i>canals</i>, <i>clefts</i>, <i>cracks</i>, <i>chasms</i>, or +<i>fissures</i>."</p> + +<p>"You have a good stock of names for them anyhow," observed Ardan, "if +that does any good."</p> + +<p>"The number of names given them," answered Barbican, "shows how little +is really known about them. They have been observed in all the level +portion of the Moon's surface. Small as they appear to us, a little +calculation must convince you that they are in some places hundreds of +miles in length, a mile in width and probably in many points several +miles in depth. Their width and depth, however, vary, though their +sides, so far as observed, are always rigorously parallel. Let us take a +good look at them."</p> + +<p>Putting the glass to his eye, Barbican examined the clefts for some time +with close attention. He saw that their banks were sharp edged and +extremely steep. In many places they were of such geometrical regularity +that he readily excused Gruithuysen's idea of deeming them to be +gigantic earthworks thrown up by the Selenite engineers. Some of them +were as straight as if laid out with a line, others were curved a little +here and there, though still maintaining the strict parallelism of their +sides. These crossed each other; those entered craters and came out at +the other side. Here, they furrowed annular plateaus, such as +<i>Posidonius</i> or <i>Petavius</i>. There, they wrinkled whole seas, for +instance, <i>Mare Serenitatis</i>.</p> + +<p>These curious peculiarities of the lunar surface had interested the +astronomic mind to a very high degree at their first discovery, and have +proved to be very perplexing problems ever since. The first observers do +not seem to have noticed them. Neither Hevelius, nor Cassini, nor La +Hire, nor Herschel, makes a single remark regarding their nature.</p> + +<p>It was Schroeter, in 1789, who called the attention of scientists to +them for the first time. He had only 11 to show, but Lohrmann soon +recorded 75 more. Pastorff, Gruithuysen, and particularly Beer and +Maedler were still more successful, but Julius Schmidt, the famous +astronomer of Athens, has raised their number up to 425, and has even +published their names in a catalogue. But counting them is one thing, +determining their nature is another. They are not fortifications, +certainly: and cannot be ancient beds of dried up rivers, for two very +good and sufficient reasons: first, water, even under the most favorable +circumstances on the Moon's surface, could have never ploughed up such +vast channels; secondly, these chasms often traverse lofty craters +through and through, like an immense railroad cutting.</p> + +<p>At these details, Ardan's imagination became unusually excited and of +course it was not without some result. It even happened that he hit on +an idea that had already suggested itself to Schmidt of Athens.</p> + +<p>"Why not consider them," he asked, "to be the simple phenomena of +vegetation?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" asked Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Rows of sugar cane?" suggested M'Nicholl with a snicker.</p> + +<p>"Not exactly, my worthy Captain," answered Ardan quietly, "though you +were perhaps nearer to the mark than you expected. I don't mean exactly +rows of sugar cane, but I do mean vast avenues of trees—poplars, for +instance—planted regularly on each side of a great high road."</p> + +<p>"Still harping on vegetation!" said the Captain. "Ardan, what a splendid +historian was spoiled in you! The less you know about your facts, the +readier you are to account for them."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ma foi</i>," said Ardan simply, "I do only what the greatest of your +scientific men do—that is, guess. There is this difference however +between us—I call my guesses, guesses, mere conjecture;—they dignify +theirs as profound theories or as astounding discoveries!"</p> + +<p>"Often the case, friend Ardan, too often the case," said Barbican.</p> + +<p>"In the question under consideration, however," continued the Frenchman, +"my conjecture has this advantage over some others: it explains why +these rills appear and seem to disappear at regular intervals."</p> + +<p>"Let us hear the explanation," said the Captain.</p> + +<p>"They become invisible when the trees lose their leaves, and they +reappear when they resume them."</p> + +<p>"His explanation is not without ingenuity," observed Barbican to +M'Nicholl, "but, my dear friend," turning to Ardan, "it is hardly +admissible."</p> + +<p>"Probably not," said Ardan, "but why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because as the Sun is nearly always vertical to the lunar equator, the +Moon can have no change of seasons worth mentioning; therefore her +vegetation can present none of the phenomena that you speak of."</p> + +<p>This was perfectly true. The slight obliquity of the Moon's axis, only +1-1/2°, keeps the Sun in the same altitude the whole year around. In the +equatorial regions he is always vertical, and in the polar he is never +higher than the horizon. Therefore, there can be no change of seasons; +according to the latitude, it is a perpetual winter, spring, summer, or +autumn the whole year round. This state of things is almost precisely +similar to that which prevails in Jupiter, who also stands nearly +upright in his orbit, the inclination of his axis being only about 3°.</p> + +<p>But how to account for the <i>grooves</i>? A very hard nut to crack. They +must certainly be a later formation than the craters and the rings, for +they are often found breaking right through the circular ramparts. +Probably the latest of all lunar features, the results of the last +geological epochs, they are due altogether to expansion or shrinkage +acting on a large scale and brought about by the great forces of nature, +operating after a manner altogether unknown on our earth. Such at least +was Barbican's idea.</p> + +<p>"My friends," he quietly observed, "without meaning to put forward any +pretentious claims to originality, but by simply turning to account some +advantages that have never before befallen contemplative mortal eye, why +not construct a little hypothesis of our own regarding the nature of +these grooves and the causes that gave them birth? Look at that great +chasm just below us, somewhat to the right. It is at least fifty or +sixty miles long and runs along the base of the <i>Apennines</i> in a line +almost perfectly straight. Does not its parallelism with the mountain +chain suggest a causative relation? See that other mighty <i>rill</i>, at +least a hundred and fifty miles long, starting directly north of it and +pursuing so true a course that it cleaves <i>Archimedes</i> almost cleanly +into two. The nearer it lies to the mountain, as you perceive, the +greater its width; as it recedes in either direction it grows narrower. +Does not everything point out to one great cause of their origin? They +are simple crevasses, like those so often noticed on Alpine glaciers, +only that these tremendous cracks in the surface are produced by the +shrinkage of the crust consequent on cooling. Can we point out some +analogies to this on the Earth? Certainly. The defile of the Jordan, +terminating in the awful depression of the Dead Sea, no doubt occurs to +you on the moment. But the <i>Yosemite Valley</i>, as I saw it ten years ago, +is an apter comparison. There I stood on the brink of a tremendous chasm +with perpendicular walls, a mile in width, a mile in depth and eight +miles in length. Judge if I was astounded! But how should we feel it, +when travelling on the lunar surface, we should suddenly find ourselves +on the brink of a yawning chasm two miles wide, fifty miles long, and so +fathomless in sheer vertical depth as to leave its black profundities +absolutely invisible in spite of the dazzling sunlight!"</p> + +<p>"I feel my flesh already crawling even in the anticipation!" cried +Ardan.</p> + +<p>"I shan't regret it much if we never get to the Moon," growled +M'Nicholl; "I never hankered after it anyhow!"</p> + +<p>By this time the Projectile had reached the fortieth degree of lunar +latitude, and could hardly be further than five hundred miles from the +surface, a distance reduced to about 5 miles by the travellers' glasses. +Away to their left appeared <i>Helicon</i>, a ring mountain about 1600 feet +high; and still further to the left the eye could catch a glimpse of the +cliffs enclosing a semi-elliptical portion of <i>Mare Imbrium</i>, called the +<i>Sinus Iridium</i>, or Bay of the Rainbows.</p> + +<p>In order to allow astronomers to make complete observations on the lunar +surface, the terrestrial atmosphere should possess a transparency +seventy times greater than its present power of transmission. But in the +void through which the Projectile was now floating, no fluid whatever +interposed between the eye of the observer and the object observed. +Besides, the travellers now found themselves at a distance that had +never before been reached by the most powerful telescopes, including +even Lord Rosse's and the great instrument on the Rocky Mountains. +Barbican was therefore in a condition singularly favorable to resolve +the great question concerning the Moon's inhabitableness. Nevertheless, +the solution still escaped him. He could discover nothing around him but +a dreary waste of immense plains, and towards the north, beneath him, +bare mountains of the aridest character.</p> + +<p>Not the slightest vestige of man's work could be detected over the vast +expanse. Not the slightest sign of a ruin spoke of his ever having been +there. Nothing betrayed the slightest trace of the development of animal +life, even in an inferior degree. No movement. Not the least glimpse of +vegetation. Of the three great kingdoms that hold dominion on the +surface of the globe, the mineral, the vegetable and the animal, one +alone was represented on the lunar sphere: the mineral, the whole +mineral, and nothing but the mineral.</p> + +<p>"Why!" exclaimed Ardan, with a disconcerted look, after a long and +searching examination, "I can't find anybody. Everything is as +motionless as a street in Pompeii at 4 o'clock in the morning!"</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image13" name="image13"> + <img src="images/15.jpg" + alt="THE SOLUTION STILL ESCAPED HIM." + title="THE SOLUTION STILL ESCAPED HIM." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">THE SOLUTION STILL ESCAPED HIM.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Good comparison, friend Ardan;" observed M'Nicholl. "Lava, slag, +volcanic eminences, vitreous matter glistening like ice, piles of +scoria, pitch black shadows, dazzling streaks, like rivers of light +breaking over jagged rocks—these are now beneath my eye—these alone I +can detect—not a man—not an animal—not a tree. The great American +Desert is a land of milk and honey in comparison with the joyless orb +over which we are now moving. However, even yet we can predicate +nothing positive. The atmosphere may have taken refuge in the depths of +the chasms, in the interior of the craters, or even on the opposite side +of the Moon, for all we know!"</p> + +<p>"Still we must remember," observed Barbican, "that even the sharpest eye +cannot detect a man at a distance greater than four miles and a-half, +and our glasses have not yet brought us nearer than five."</p> + +<p>"Which means to say," observed Ardan, "that though we can't see the +Selenites, they can see our Projectile!"</p> + +<p>But matters had not improved much when, towards four o'clock in the +morning, the travellers found themselves on the 50th parallel, and at a +distance of only about 375 miles from the lunar surface. Still no trace +of the least movement, or even of the lowest form of life.</p> + +<p>"What peaked mountain is that which we have just passed on our right?" +asked Ardan. "It is quite remarkable, standing as it does in almost +solitary grandeur in the barren plain."</p> + +<p>"That is <i>Pico</i>," answered Barbican. "It is at least 8000 feet high and +is well known to terrestrial astronomers as well by its peculiar shadow +as on account of its comparative isolation. See the collection of +perfectly formed little craters nestling around its base."</p> + +<p>"Barbican," asked M'Nicholl suddenly, "what peak is that which lies +almost directly south of <i>Pico</i>? I see it plainly, but I can't find it +on my map."</p> + +<p>"I have remarked that pyramidal peak myself," replied Barbican; "but I +can assure you that so far it has received no name as yet, although it +is likely enough to have been distinguished by the terrestrial +astronomers. It can't be less than 4000 feet in height."</p> + +<p>"I propose we called it <i>Barbican</i>!" cried Ardan enthusiastically.</p> + +<p>"Agreed!" answered M'Nicholl, "unless we can find a higher one."</p> + +<p>"We must be before-hand with Schmidt of Athens!" exclaimed Ardan. "He +will leave nothing unnamed that his telescope can catch a glimpse of."</p> + +<p>"Passed unanimously!" cried M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"And officially recorded!" added the Frenchman, making the proper entry +on his map.</p> + +<p>"<i>Salve, Mt. Barbican!</i>" then cried both gentlemen, rising and taking +off their hats respectfully to the distant peak.</p> + +<p>"Look to the west!" interrupted Barbican, watching, as usual, while his +companions were talking, and probably perfectly unconscious of what they +were saying; "directly to the west! Now tell me what you see!"</p> + +<p>"I see a vast valley!" answered M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Straight as an arrow!" added Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Running through lofty mountains!" cried M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Cut through with a pair of saws and scooped out with a chisel!" cried +Ardan.</p> + +<p>"See the shadows of those peaks!" cried M'Nicholl catching fire at the +sight. "Black, long, and sharp as if cast by cathedral spires!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! ye crags and peaks!" burst forth Ardan; "how I should like to catch +even a faint echo of the chorus you could chant, if a wild storm roared +over your beetling summits! The pine forests of Norwegian mountains +howling in midwinter would not be an accordeon in comparison!"</p> + +<p>"Wonderful instance of subsidence on a grand scale!" exclaimed the +Captain, hastily relapsing into science.</p> + +<p>"Not at all!" cried the Frenchman, still true to his colors; "no +subsidence there! A comet simply came too close and left its mark as it +flew past."</p> + +<p>"Fanciful exclamations, dear friends," observed Barbican; "but I'm not +surprised at your excitement. Yonder is the famous <i>Valley of the Alps</i>, +a standing enigma to all selenographers. How it could have been formed, +no one can tell. Even wilder guesses than yours, Ardan, have been +hazarded on the subject. All we can state positively at present +regarding this wonderful formation, is what I have just recorded in my +note-book: the <i>Valley of the Alps</i> is about 5 mile wide and 70 or 80 +long: it is remarkably flat and free from <i>debris</i>, though the mountains +on each side rise like walls to the height of at least 10,000 +feet.—Over the whole surface of our Earth I know of no natural +phenomenon that can be at all compared with it."</p> + +<p>"Another wonder almost in front of us!" cried Ardan. "I see a vast lake +black as pitch and round as a crater; it is surrounded by such lofty +mountains that their shadows reach clear across, rendering the interior +quite invisible!"</p> + +<p>"That's <i>Plato</i>;" said M'Nicholl; "I know it well; it's the darkest spot +on the Moon: many a night I gazed at it from my little observatory in +Broad Street, Philadelphia."</p> + +<p>"Right, Captain," said Barbican; "the crater <i>Plato</i>, is, indeed, +generally considered the blackest spot on the Moon, but I am inclined to +consider the spots <i>Grimaldi</i> and <i>Riccioli</i> on the extreme eastern edge +to be somewhat darker. If you take my glass, Ardan, which is of somewhat +greater power than yours, you will distinctly see the bottom of the +crater. The reflective power of its plateau probably proceeds from the +exceedingly great number of small craters that you can detect there."</p> + +<p>"I think I see something like them now," said Ardan. "But I am sorry the +Projectile's course will not give us a vertical view."</p> + +<p>"Can't be helped!" said Barbican; "we must go where it takes us. The day +may come when man can steer the projectile or the balloon in which he is +shut up, in any way he pleases, but that day has not come yet!"</p> + +<p>Towards five in the morning, the northern limit of <i>Mare Imbrium</i> was +finally passed, and <i>Mare Frigoris</i> spread its frost-colored plains +far to the right and left. On the east the travellers could easily see +the ring-mountain <i>Condamine</i>, about 4000 feet high, while a little +ahead on the right they could plainly distinguish <i>Fontenelle</i> with an +altitude nearly twice as great. <i>Mare Frigoris</i> was soon passed, and the +whole lunar surface beneath the travellers, as far as they could see in +all directions, now bristled with mountains, crags, and peaks. Indeed, +at the 70th parallel the "Seas" or plains seem to have come to an end. +The spy-glasses now brought the surface to within about three miles, a +distance less than that between the hotel at Chamouni and the summit of +Mont Blanc. To the left, they had no difficulty in distinguishing the +ramparts of <i>Philolaus</i>, about 12,000 feet high, but though the crater +had a diameter of nearly thirty miles, the black shadows prevented the +slightest sign of its interior from being seen. The Sun was now sinking +very low, and the illuminated surface of the Moon was reduced to a +narrow rim.</p> + +<p>By this time, too, the bird's eye view to which the observations had so +far principally confined, decidedly altered its character. They could +now look back at the lunar mountains that they had been just sailing +over—a view somewhat like that enjoyed by a tourist standing on the +summit of Mt. St. Gothard as he sees the sun setting behind the peaks of +the Bernese Oberland. The lunar landscapes however, though seen under +these new and ever varying conditions, "hardly gained much by the +change," according to Ardan's expression. On the contrary, they looked, +if possible, more dreary and inhospitable than before.</p> + +<p>The Moon having no atmosphere, the benefit of this gaseous envelope in +softening off and nicely shading the approaches of light and darkness, +heat and cold, is never felt on her surface. There, no twilight ever +softly ushers in the brilliant sun, or sweetly heralds the near approach +of night's dark shadow. Night follows day, and day night, with the +startling suddenness of a match struck or a lamp extinguished in a +cavern. Nor can it present any gradual transition from either extreme of +temperature. Hot jumps to cold, and cold jumps to hot. A moment after a +glacial midnight, it is a roasting noon. Without an instant's warning +the temperature falls from 212° Fahrenheit to the icy winter of +interstellar space. The surface is all dazzling glare, or pitchy gloom. +Wherever the direct rays of the sun do not fall, darkness reigns +supreme. What we call diffused light on Earth, the grateful result of +refraction, the luminous matter held in suspension by the air, the +mother of our dawns and our dusks, of our blushing mornings and our dewy +eyes, of our shades, our penumbras, our tints and all the other magical +effects of <i>chiaro-oscuro</i>—this diffused light has absolutely no +existence on the surface of the Moon. Nothing is there to break the +inexorable contrast between intense white and intense black. At mid-day, +let a Selenite shade his eyes and look at the sky: it will appear to him +as black as pitch, while the stars still sparkle before him as vividly +as they do to us on the coldest and darkest night in winter.</p> + +<p>From this you can judge of the impression made on our travellers by +those strange lunar landscapes. Even their decided novelty and very +strange character produced any thing but a pleasing effect on the organs +of sight. With all their enthusiasm, the travellers felt their eyes "get +out of gear," as Ardan said, like those of a man blind from his birth +and suddenly restored to sight. They could not adjust them so as to be +able to realize the different plains of vision. All things seemed in a +heap. Foreground and background were indistinguishably commingled. No +painter could ever transfer a lunar landscape to his canvas.</p> + +<p>"Landscape," Ardan said; "what do you mean by a landscape? Can you call +a bottle of ink intensely black, spilled over a sheet of paper intensely +white, a landscape?"</p> + +<p>At the eightieth degree, when the Projectile was hardly 100 miles +distant from the Moon, the aspect of things underwent no improvement. On +the contrary, the nearer the travellers approached the lunar surface, +the drearier, the more inhospitable, and the more <i>unearthly</i>, +everything seem to look. Still when five o'clock in the morning brought +our travellers to within 50 miles of <i>Mount Gioja</i>—which their +spy-glasses rendered as visible as if it was only about half a mile off, +Ardan could not control himself.</p> + +<p>"Why, we're there" he exclaimed; "we can touch her with our hands! Open +the windows and let me out! Don't mind letting me go by myself. It is +not very inviting quarters I admit. But as we are come to the jumping +off place, I want to see the whole thing through. Open the lower window +and let me out. I can take care of myself!"</p> + +<p>"That's what's more than any other man can do," said M'Nicholl drily, +"who wants to take a jump of 50 miles!"</p> + +<p>"Better not try it, friend Ardan," said Barbican grimly: "think of +Satellite! The Moon is no more attainable by your body than by our +Projectile. You are far more comfortable in here than when floating +about in empty space like a bolide."</p> + +<p>Ardan, unwilling to quarrel with his companions, appeared to give in; +but he secretly consoled himself by a hope which he had been +entertaining for some time, and which now looked like assuming the +appearance of a certainty. The Projectile had been lately approaching +the Moon's surface so rapidly that it at last seemed actually impossible +not to finally touch it somewhere in the neighborhood of the north pole, +whose dazzling ridges now presented themselves in sharp and strong +relief against the black sky. Therefore he kept silent, but quietly +bided his time.</p> + +<p>The Projectile moved on, evidently getting nearer and nearer to the +lunar surface. The Moon now appeared to the travellers as she does to us +towards the beginning of her Second Quarter, that is as a bright +crescent instead of a hemisphere. On one side, glaring dazzling light; +on the other, cavernous pitchy darkness. The line separating both was +broken into a thousand bits of protuberances and concavities, dented, +notched, and jagged.</p> + +<p>At six o'clock the travellers found themselves exactly over the north +pole. They were quietly gazing at the rapidly shifting features of the +wondrous view unrolling itself beneath them, and were silently wondering +what was to come next, when, suddenly, the Projectile passed the +dividing line. The Sun and Moon instantly vanished from view. The next +moment, without the slightest warning the travellers found themselves +plunged in an ocean of the most appalling darkness!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<h3>A NIGHT OF FIFTEEN DAYS.</h3> + + +<p>The Projectile being not quite 30 miles from the Moon's north pole when +the startling phenomenon, recorded in our last chapter, took place, a +few seconds were quite sufficient to launch it at once from the +brightest day into the unknown realms of night. The transition was so +abrupt, so unexpected, without the slightest shading off, from dazzling +effulgence to Cimmerian gloom, that the Moon seemed to have been +suddenly extinguished like a lamp when the gas is turned off.</p> + +<p>"Where's the Moon?" cried Ardan in amazement.</p> + +<p>"It appears as if she had been wiped out of creation!" cried M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>Barbican said nothing, but observed carefully. Not a particle, however, +could he see of the disc that had glittered so resplendently before his +eyes a few moments ago. Not a shadow, not a gleam, not the slightest +vestige could he trace of its existence. The darkness being profound, +the dazzling splendor of the stars only gave a deeper blackness to the +pitchy sky. No wonder. The travellers found themselves now in a night +that had plenty of time not only to become black itself, but to steep +everything connected with it in palpable blackness. This was the night +354-1/4 hours long, during which the invisible face of the Moon is +turned away from the Sun. In this black darkness the Projectile now +fully participated. Having plunged into the Moon's shadow, it was as +effectually cut off from the action of the solar rays as was every point +on the invisible lunar surface itself.</p> + +<p>The travellers being no longer able to see each other, it was proposed +to light the gas, though such an unexpected demand on a commodity at +once so scarce and so valuable was certainly disquieting. The gas, it +will be remembered, had been intended for heating alone, not +illumination, of which both Sun and Moon had promised a never ending +supply. But here both Sun and Moon, in a single instant vanished from +before their eyes and left them in Stygian darkness.</p> + +<p>"It's all the Sun's fault!" cried Ardan, angrily trying to throw the +blame on something, and, like every angry man in such circumstances, +bound to be rather nonsensical.</p> + +<p>"Put the saddle on the right horse, Ardan," said M'Nicholl +patronizingly, always delighted at an opportunity of counting a point +off the Frenchman. "You mean it's all the Moon's fault, don't you, in +setting herself like a screen between us and the Sun?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't!" cried Ardan, not at all soothed by his friend's +patronizing tone, and sticking like a man to his first assertion right +or wrong. "I know what I say! It will be all the Sun's fault if we use +up our gas!"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" said M'Nicholl. "It's the Moon, who by her interposition has +cut off the Sun's light."</p> + +<p>"The Sun had no business to allow it to be cut off," said Ardan, still +angry and therefore decidedly loose in his assertions.</p> + +<p>Before M'Nicholl could reply, Barbican interposed, and his even voice +was soon heard pouring balm on the troubled waters.</p> + +<p>"Dear friends," he observed, "a little reflection on either side would +convince you that our present situation is neither the Moon's fault nor +the Sun's fault. If anything is to be blamed for it, it is our +Projectile which, instead of rigidly following its allotted course, has +awkwardly contrived to deviate from it. However, strict justice must +acquit even the Projectile. It only obeyed a great law of nature in +shifting its course as soon as it came within the sphere of that +inopportune bolide's influence."</p> + +<p>"All right!" said Ardan, as usual in the best of humor after Barbican +had laid down the law. "I have no doubt it is exactly as you say; and, +now that all is settled, suppose we take breakfast. After such a hard +night spent in work, a little refreshment would not be out of place!"</p> + +<p>Such a proposition being too reasonable even for M'Nicholl to oppose, +Ardan turned on the gas, and had everything ready for the meal in a few +minutes. But, this time, breakfast was consumed in absolute silence. No +toasts were offered, no hurrahs were uttered. A painful uneasiness had +seized the hearts of the daring travellers. The darkness into which +they were so suddenly plunged, told decidedly on their spirits. They +felt almost as if they had been suddenly deprived of their sight. That +thick, dismal savage blackness, which Victor Hugo's pen is so fond of +occasionally revelling in, surrounded them on all sides and crushed them +like an iron shroud.</p> + +<p>It was felt worse than ever when, breakfast being over, Ardan carefully +turned off the gas, and everything within the Projectile was as dark as +without. However, though they could not see each other's faces, they +could hear each other's voices, and therefore they soon began to talk. +The most natural subject of conversation was this terrible night 354 +hours long, which the laws of nature have imposed on the Lunar +inhabitants. Barbican undertook to give his friends some explanation +regarding the cause of the startling phenomenon, and the consequences +resulting from it.</p> + +<p>"Yes, startling is the word for it," observed Barbican, replying to a +remark of Ardan's; "and still more so when we reflect that not only are +both lunar hemispheres deprived, by turns, of sun light for nearly 15 +days, but that also the particular hemisphere over which we are at this +moment floating is all that long night completely deprived of +earth-light. In other words, it is only one side of the Moon's disc that +ever receives any light from the Earth. From nearly every portion of one +side of the Moon, the Earth is always as completely absent as the Sun is +from us at midnight. Suppose an analogous case existed on the Earth; +suppose, for instance, that neither in Europe, Asia or North America +was the Moon ever visible—that, in fact, it was to be seen only at our +antipodes. With what astonishment should we contemplate her for the +first time on our arrival in Australia or New Zealand!"</p> + +<p>"Every man of us would pack off to Australia to see her!" cried Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said M'Nicholl sententiously; "for a visit to the South Sea a +Turk would willingly forego Mecca; and a Bostonian would prefer Sidney +even to Paris."</p> + +<p>"Well," resumed Barbican, "this interesting marvel is reserved for the +Selenite that inhabits the side of the Moon which is always turned away +from our globe."</p> + +<p>"And which," added the Captain, "we should have had the unspeakable +satisfaction of contemplating if we had only arrived at the period when +the Sun and the Earth are not at the same side of the Moon—that is, 15 +days sooner or later than now."</p> + +<p>"For my part, however," continued Barbican, not heeding these +interruptions, "I must confess that, notwithstanding the magnificent +splendor of the spectacle when viewed for the first time by the Selenite +who inhabits the dark side of the Moon, I should prefer to be a resident +on the illuminated side. The former, when his long, blazing, roasting, +dazzling day is over, has a night 354 hours long, whose darkness, like +that, just now surrounding us, is ever unrelieved save by the cold +cheerless rays of the stars. But the latter has hardly seen his fiery +sun sinking on one horizon when he beholds rising on the opposite one an +orb, milder, paler, and colder indeed than the Sun, but fully as large +as thirteen of our full Moons, and therefore shedding thirteen times as +much light. This would be our Earth. It would pass through all its +phases too, exactly like our Satellite. The Selenites would have their +New Earth, Full Earth, and Last Quarter. At midnight, grandly +illuminated, it would shine with the greatest glory. But that is almost +as much as can be said for it. Its futile heat would but poorly +compensate for its superior radiance. All the calorie accumulated in the +lunar soil during the 354 hours day would have by this time radiated +completely into space. An intensity of cold would prevail, in comparison +to which a Greenland winter is tropical. The temperature of interstellar +space, 250° below zero, would be reached. Our Selenite, heartily tired +of the cold pale Earth, would gladly see her sink towards the horizon, +waning as she sank, till at last she appeared no more than half full. +Then suddenly a faint rim of the solar orb reveals itself on the edge of +the opposite sky. Slowly, more than 14 times more slowly than with us, +does the Sun lift himself above the lunar horizon. In half an hour, only +half his disc is revealed, but that is more than enough to flood the +lunar landscape with a dazzling intensity of light, of which we have no +counterpart on Earth. No atmosphere refracts it, no hazy screen softens +it, no enveloping vapor absorbs it, no obstructing medium colors it. It +breaks on the eye, harsh, white, dazzling, blinding, like the electric +light seen a few yards off. As the hours wear away, the more blasting +becomes the glare; and the higher he rises in the black sky, but slowly, +slowly. It takes him seven of our days to reach the meridian. By that +time the heat has increased from an arctic temperature to double the +boiling water point, from 250° below zero to 500° above it, or the point +at which tin melts. Subjected to these extremes, the glassy rocks crack, +shiver and crumble away; enormous land slides occur; peaks topple over; +and tons of debris, crashing down the mountains, are swallowed up +forever in the yawing chasms of the bottomless craters."</p> + +<p>"Bravo!" cried Ardan, clapping his hands softly: "our President is +sublime! He reminds me of the overture of <i>Guillaume Tell</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Souvenir de Marston!" growled M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"These phenomena," continued Barbican, heedless of interruption and his +voice betraying a slight glow of excitement, "these phenomena going on +without interruption from month to month, from year to year, from age to +age, from <i>eon</i> to <i>eon</i>, have finally convinced me that—what?" he +asked his hearers, interrupting himself suddenly.</p> + +<p>—"That the existence at the present time—" answered M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>—"Of either animal or vegetable life—" interrupted Ardan.</p> + +<p>—"In the Moon is hardly possible!" cried both in one voice.</p> + +<p>"Besides?" asked Barbican: "even if there <i>is</i> any life—?"</p> + +<p>—"That to live on the dark side would be much more inconvenient than on +the light side!" cried M'Nicholl promptly.</p> + +<p>—"That there is no choice between them!" cried Ardan just as ready. +"For my part, I should think a residence on Mt. Erebus or in Grinnell +Land a terrestrial paradise in comparison to either. The <i>Earth shine</i> +might illuminate the light side of the Moon a little during the long +night, but for any practical advantage towards heat or life, it would be +perfectly useless!"</p> + +<p>"But there is another serious difference between the two sides," said +Barbican, "in addition to those enumerated. The dark side is actually +more troubled with excessive variations of temperature than the light +one."</p> + +<p>"That assertion of our worthy President," interrupted Ardan, "with all +possible respect for his superior knowledge, I am disposed to question."</p> + +<p>"It's as clear as day!" said Barbican.</p> + +<p>"As clear as mud, you mean, Mr. President;" interrupted Ardan, "the +temperature of the light side is excited by two objects at the same +time, the Earth and the Sun, whereas—"</p> + +<p>—"I beg your pardon, Ardan—" said Barbican.</p> + +<p>—"Granted, dear boy—granted with the utmost pleasure!" interrupted the +Frenchman.</p> + +<p>"I shall probably have to direct my observations altogether to you, +Captain," continued Barbican; "friend Michael interrupts me so often +that I'm afraid he can hardly understand my remarks."</p> + +<p>"I always admired your candor, Barbican," said Ardan; "it's a noble +quality, a grand quality!"</p> + +<p>"Don't mention it," replied Barbican, turning towards M'Nicholl, still +in the dark, and addressing him exclusively; "You see, my dear Captain, +the period at which the Moon's invisible side receives at once its light +and heat is exactly the period of her <i>conjunction</i>, that is to say, +when she is lying between the Earth and the Sun. In comparison therefore +with the place which she had occupied at her <i>opposition</i>, or when her +visible side was fully illuminated, she is nearer to the Sun by double +her distance from the Earth, or nearly 480 thousand miles. Therefore, my +dear Captain, you can see how when the invisible side of the Moon is +turned towards the Sun, she is nearly half a million of miles nearer to +him than she had been before. Therefore, her heat should be so much the +greater."</p> + +<p>"I see it at a glance," said the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Whereas—" continued Barbican.</p> + +<p>"One moment!" cried Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Another interruption!" exclaimed Barbican; "What is the meaning of it, +Sir?"</p> + +<p>"I ask my honorable friend the privilege of the floor for one moment," +cried Ardan.</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"To continue the explanation."</p> + +<p>"Why so?"</p> + +<p>"To show that I can understand as well as interrupt!"</p> + +<p>"You have the floor!" exclaimed Barbican, in a voice no longer showing +any traces of ill humor.</p> + +<p>"I expected no less from the honorable gentleman's well known courtesy," +replied Ardan. Then changing his manner and imitating to the life +Barbican's voice, articulation, and gestures, he continued: "Whereas, +you see, my dear Captain, the period at which the Moon's visible side +receives at once its light and heat, is exactly the period of her +<i>opposition</i>, that is to say, when she is lying on one side of the Earth +and the Sun at the other. In comparison therefore with the point which +she had occupied in <i>conjunction</i>, or when her invisible side was fully +illuminated, she is farther from the Sun by double her distance from the +Earth, or nearly 480,000 miles. Therefore, my dear Captain, you can +readily see how when the Moon's invisible side is turned <i>from</i> the Sun, +she is nearly half a million miles further from him than she had been +before. Therefore her heat should be so much the less."</p> + +<p>"Well done, friend Ardan!" cried Barbican, clapping his hands with +pleasure. "Yes, Captain, he understood it as well as either of us the +whole time. Intelligence, not indifference, caused him to interrupt. +Wonderful fellow!"</p> + +<p>"That's the kind of a man I am!" replied Ardan, not without some degree +of complacency. Then he added simply: "Barbican, my friend, if I +understand your explanations so readily, attribute it all to their +astonishing lucidity. If I have any faculity, it is that of being able +to scent common sense at the first glimmer. Your sentences are so +steeped in it that I catch their full meaning long before you end +them—hence my apparent inattention. But we're not yet done with the +visible face of the Moon: it seems to me you have not yet enumerated all +the advantages in which it surpasses the other side."</p> + +<p>"Another of these advantages," continued Barbican, "is that it is from +the visible side alone that eclipses of the Sun can be seen. This is +self-evident, the interposition of the Earth being possible only between +this visible face and the Sun. Furthermore, such eclipses of the Sun +would be of a far more imposing character than anything of the kind to +be witnessed from our Earth. This is chiefly for two reasons: first, +when we, terrestrians, see the Sun eclipsed, we notice that, the discs +of the two orbs being of about the same apparent size, one cannot hide +the other except for a short time; second, as the two bodies are moving +in opposite directions, the total duration of the eclipse, even under +the most favorable circumstances, can't last longer than 7 minutes. +Whereas to a Selenite who sees the Earth eclipse the Sun, not only does +the Earth's disc appear four times larger than the Sun's, but also, as +his day is 14 times longer than ours, the two heavenly bodies must +remain several hours in contact. Besides, notwithstanding the apparent +superiority of the Earth's disc, the refracting power of the atmosphere +will never allow the Sun to be eclipsed altogether. Even when completely +screened by the Earth, he would form a beautiful circle around her of +yellow, red, and crimson light, in which she would appear to float like +a vast sphere of jet in a glowing sea of gold, rubies, sparkling +carbuncles and garnets."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me," said M'Nicholl, "that, taking everything into +consideration, the invisible side has been rather shabbily treated."</p> + +<p>"I know I should not stay there very long," said Ardan; "the desire of +seeing such a splendid sight as that eclipse would be enough to bring me +to the visible side as soon as possible."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have no doubt of that, friend Michael," pursued Barbican; "but +to see the eclipse it would not be necessary to quit the dark hemisphere +altogether. You are, of course, aware that in consequence of her +librations, or noddings, or wobblings, the Moon presents to the eyes of +the Earth a little more than the exact half of her disc. She has two +motions, one on her path around the Earth, and the other a shifting +around on her own axis by which she endeavors to keep the same side +always turned towards our sphere. This she cannot always do, as while +one motion, the latter, is strictly uniform, the other being eccentric, +sometimes accelerating her and sometimes retarding, she has not time to +shift herself around completely and with perfect correspondence of +movement. At her perigee, for instance, she moves forward quicker than +she can shift, so that we detect a portion of her western border before +she has time to conceal it. Similarly, at her apogee, when her rate of +motion is comparatively slow, she shifts a little too quickly for her +velocity, and therefore cannot help revealing a certain portion of her +eastern border. She shows altogether about 8 degrees of the dark side, +about 4 at the east and 4 at the west, so that, out of her 360 degrees, +about 188, in other words, a little more than 57 per cent., about 4/7 of +the entire surface, becomes visible to human eyes. Consequently a +Selenite could catch an occasional glimpse of our Earth, without +altogether quitting the dark side."</p> + +<p>"No matter for that!" cried Ardan; "if we ever become Selenites we must +inhabit the visible side. My weak point is light, and that I must have +when it can be got."</p> + +<p>"Unless, as perhaps in this case, you might be paying too dear for it," +observed M'Nicholl. "How would you like to pay for your light by the +loss of the atmosphere, which, according to some philosophers, is piled +away on the dark side?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! In that case I should consider a little before committing myself," +replied Ardan, "I should like to hear your opinion regarding such a +notion, Barbican. Hey! Do your hear? Have astronomers any valid reasons +for supposing the atmosphere to have fled to the dark side of the Moon?"</p> + +<p>"Defer that question till some other time, Ardan," whispered M'Nicholl; +"Barbican is just now thinking out something that interests him far more +deeply than any empty speculation of astronomers. If you are near the +window, look out through it towards the Moon. Can you see anything?"</p> + +<p>"I can feel the window with my hand; but for all I can see, I might as +well be over head and ears in a hogshead of ink."</p> + +<p>The two friends kept up a desultory conversation, but Barbican did not +hear them. One fact, in particular, troubled him, and he sought in vain +to account for it. Having come so near the Moon—about 30 miles—why had +not the Projectile gone all the way? Had its velocity been very great, +the tendency to fall could certainly be counteracted. But the velocity +being undeniably very moderate, how explain such a decided resistance to +Lunar attraction? Had the Projectile come within the sphere of some +strange unknown influence? Did the neighborhood of some mysterious body +retain it firmly imbedded in ether? That it would never reach the Moon, +was now beyond all doubt; but where was it going? Nearer to her or +further off? Or was it rushing resistlessly into infinity on the wings +of that pitchy night? Who could tell, know, calculate—who could even +guess, amid the horror of this gloomy blackness? Questions, like these, +left Barbican no rest; in vain he tried to grapple with them; he felt +like a child before them, baffled and almost despairing.</p> + +<p>In fact, what could be more tantalizing? Just outside their windows, +only a few leagues off, perhaps only a few miles, lay the radiant planet +of the night, but in every respect as far off from the eyes of himself +and his companions as if she was hiding at the other side of Jupiter! +And to their ears she was no nearer. Earthquakes of the old Titanic type +might at that very moment be upheaving her surface with resistless +force, crashing mountain against mountain as fiercely as wave meets wave +around the storm-lashed cliffs of Cape Horn. But not the faintest far +off murmur even of such a mighty tumult could break the dead brooding +silence that surrounded the travellers. Nay, the Moon, realizing the +weird fancy of the Arabian poet, who calls her a "giant stiffening into +granite, but struggling madly against his doom," might shriek, in a +spasm of agony, loudly enough to be heard in Sirius. But our travellers +could not hear it. Their ears no sound could now reach. They could no +more detect the rending of a continent than the falling of a feather. +Air, the propagator and transmitter of sound, was absent from her +surface. Her cries, her struggles, her groans, were all smothered +beneath the impenetrable tomb of eternal silence!</p> + +<p>These were some of the fanciful ideas by which Ardan tried to amuse his +companions in the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. His efforts, +however well meant, were not successful. M'Nicholl's growls were more +savage than usual, and even Barbican's patience was decidedly giving +way. The loss of the other face they could have easily borne—with most +of its details they had been already familiar. But, no, it must be the +dark face that now escaped their observation! The very one that for +numberless reasons they were actually dying to see! They looked out of +the windows once more at the black Moon beneath them.</p> + +<p>There it lay below them, a round black spot, hiding the sweet faces of +the stars, but otherwise no more distinguishable by the travellers than +if they were lying in the depths of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. And +just think. Only fifteen days before, that dark face had been splendidly +illuminated by the solar beams, every crater lustrous, every peak +sparkling, every streak glistening under the vertical ray. In fifteen +days later, a day light the most brilliant would have replaced a +midnight the most Cimmerian. But in fifteen days later, where would the +Projectile be? In what direction would it have been drawn by the forces +innumerable of attractions incalculable? To such a question as this, +even Ardan would reply only by an ominous shake of the head.</p> + +<p>We know already that our travellers, as well as astronomers generally, +judging from that portion of the dark side occasionally revealed by the +Moon's librations, were <i>pretty certain</i> that there is no great +difference between her two sides, as far as regards their physical +constitutions. This portion, about the seventh part, shows plains and +mountains, circles and craters, all of precisely the same nature as +those already laid down on the chart. Judging therefore from analogy, +the other three-sevenths are, in all probability a world in every +respect exactly like the visible face—that is, arid, desert, dead. But +our travellers also knew that <i>pretty certain</i> is far from <i>quite +certain</i>, and that arguing merely from analogy may enable you to give a +good guess, but can never lead you to an undoubted conclusion. What if +the atmosphere had really withdrawn to this dark face? And if air, why +not water? Would not this be enough to infuse life into the whole +continent? Why should not vegetation flourish on its plains, fish in its +seas, animals in its forests, and man in every one of its zones that +were capable of sustaining life? To these interesting questions, what a +satisfaction it would be to be able to answer positively one way or +another! For thousands of difficult problems a mere glimpse at this +hemisphere would be enough to furnish a satisfactory reply. How glorious +it would be to contemplate a realm on which the eye of man has never yet +rested!</p> + +<p>Great, therefore, as you may readily conceive, was the depression of our +travellers' spirits, as they pursued their way, enveloped in a veil of +darkness the most profound. Still even then Ardan, as usual, formed +somewhat of an exception. Finding it impossible to see a particle of the +Lunar surface, he gave it up for good, and tried to console himself by +gazing at the stars, which now fairly blazed in the spangled heavens. +And certainly never before had astronomer enjoyed an opportunity for +gazing at the heavenly bodies under such peculiar advantages. How Fraye +of Paris, Chacornac of Lyons, and Father Secchi of Rome would have +envied him!</p> + +<p>For, candidly and truly speaking, never before had mortal eye revelled +on such a scene of starry splendor. The black sky sparkled with lustrous +fires, like the ceiling of a vast hall of ebony encrusted with flashing +diamonds. Ardan's eye could take in the whole extent in an easy sweep +from the <i>Southern Cross</i> to the <i>Little Bear</i>, thus embracing within +one glance not only the two polar stars of the present day, but also +<i>Campus</i> and <i>Vega</i>, which, by reason of the <i>precession of the +Equinoxes</i>, are to be our polar stars 12,000 years hence. His +imagination, as if intoxicated, reeled wildly through these sublime +infinitudes and got lost in them. He forgot all about himself and all +about his companions. He forgot even the strangeness of the fate that +had sent them wandering through these forbidden regions, like a +bewildered comet that had lost its way. With what a soft sweet light +every star glowed! No matter what its magnitude, the stream that flowed +from it looked calm and holy. No twinkling, no scintillation, no +nictitation, disturbed their pure and lambent gleam. No atmosphere here +interposed its layers of humidity or of unequal density to interrupt the +stately majesty of their effulgence. The longer he gazed upon them, the +more absorbing became their attraction. He felt that they were great +kindly eyes looking down even yet with benevolence and protection on +himself and his companions now driving wildly through space, and lost +in the pathless depths of the black ocean of infinity!</p> + +<p>He soon became aware that his friends, following his example, had +interested themselves in gazing at the stars, and were now just as +absorbed as himself in the contemplation of the transcendent spectacle. +For a long time all three continued to feast their eyes on all the +glories of the starry firmament; but, strange to say, the part that +seemed to possess the strangest and weirdest fascination for their +wandering glances was the spot where the vast disc of the Moon showed +like an enormous round hole, black and soundless, and apparently deep +enough to permit a glance into the darkest mysteries of the infinite.</p> + +<p>A disagreeable sensation, however, against which they had been for some +time struggling, at last put an end to their contemplations, and +compelled them to think of themselves. This was nothing less than a +pretty sharp cold, at first somewhat endurable, but which soon covered +the inside surface of the window panes with a thick coating of ice. The +fact was that, the Sun's direct rays having no longer an opportunity of +warming up the Projectile, the latter began to lose rapidly by radiation +whatever heat it had stored away within its walls. The consequence was a +very decided falling of the thermometer, and so thick a condensation of +the internal moisture on the window glasses as to soon render all +external observations extremely difficult, if not actually impossible.</p> + +<p>The Captain, as the oldest man in the party, claimed the privilege of +saying he could stand it no longer. Striking a light, he consulted the +thermometer and cried out:</p> + +<p>"Seventeen degrees below zero, centigrade! that is certainly low enough +to make an old fellow like me feel rather chilly!"</p> + +<p>"Just one degree and a half above zero, Fahrenheit!" observed Barbican; +"I really had no idea that it was so cold."</p> + +<p>His teeth actually chattered so much that he could hardly articulate; +still he, as well as the others, disliked to entrench on their short +supply of gas.</p> + +<p>"One feature of our journey that I particularly admire," said Ardan, +trying to laugh with freezing lips, "is that we can't complain of +monotony. At one time we are frying with the heat and blinded with the +light, like Indians caught on a burning prairie; at another, we are +freezing in the pitchy darkness of a hyperborean winter, like Sir John +Franklin's merry men in the Bay of Boothia. <i>Madame La Nature</i>, you +don't forget your devotees; on the contrary, you overwhelm us with your +attentions!"</p> + +<p>"Our external temperature may be reckoned at how much?" asked the +Captain, making a desperate effort to keep up the conversation.</p> + +<p>"The temperature outside our Projectile must be precisely the same as +that of interstellar space in general," answered Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Is not this precisely the moment then," interposed Ardan, quickly, +"for making an experiment which we could never have made as long as we +were in the sunshine?"</p> + +<p>"That's so!" exclaimed Barbican; "now or never! I'm glad you thought of +it, Ardan. We are just now in the position to find out the temperature +of space by actual experiment, and so see whose calculations are right, +Fourier's or Pouillet's."</p> + +<p>"Let's see," asked Ardan, "who was Fourier, and who was Pouillet?"</p> + +<p>"Baron Fourier, of the French Academy, wrote a famous treatise on +<i>Heat</i>, which I remember reading twenty years ago in Penington's book +store," promptly responded the Captain; "Pouillet was an eminent +professor of Physics at the Sorbonne, where he died, last year, I +think."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Captain," said Ardan; "the cold does not injure your memory, +though it is decidedly on the advance. See how thick the ice is already +on the window panes! Let it only keep on and we shall soon have our +breaths falling around us in flakes of snow."</p> + +<p>"Let us prepare a thermometer," said Barbican, who had already set +himself to work in a business-like manner.</p> + +<p>A thermometer of the usual kind, as may be readily supposed, would be of +no use whatever in the experiment that was now about to be made. In an +ordinary thermometer Mercury freezes hard when exposed to a temperature +of 40° below zero. But Barbican had provided himself with a <i>Minimum</i>, +<i>self-recording</i> thermometer, of a peculiar nature, invented by +Wolferdin, a friend of Arago's, which could correctly register +exceedingly low degrees of temperature. Before beginning the experiment, +this instrument was tested by comparison with one of the usual kind, and +then Barbican hesitated a few moments regarding the best means of +employing it.</p> + +<p>"How shall we start this experiment?" asked the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Nothing simpler," answered Ardan, always ready to reply; "you just open +your windows, and fling out your thermometer. It follows your +Projectile, as a calf follows her mother. In a quarter of an hour you +put out your hand—"</p> + +<p>"Put out your hand!" interrupted Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Put out your hand—" continued Ardan, quietly.</p> + +<p>"You do nothing of the kind," again interrupted Barbican; "that is, +unless you prefer, instead of a hand, to pull back a frozen stump, +shapeless, colorless and lifeless!"</p> + +<p>"I prefer a hand," said Ardan, surprised and interested.</p> + +<p>"Yes," continued Barbican, "the instant your hand left the Projectile, +it would experience the same terrible sensations as is produced by +cauterizing it with an iron bar white hot. For heat, whether rushing +rapidly out of our bodies or rapidly entering them, is identically the +same force and does the same amount of damage. Besides I am by no means +certain that we are still followed by the objects that we flung out of +the Projectile."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" asked M'Nicholl; "we saw them all outside not long ago."</p> + +<p>"But we can't see them outside now," answered Barbican; "that may be +accounted for, I know, by the darkness, but it may be also by the fact +of their not being there at all. In a case like this, we can't rely on +uncertainties. Therefore, to make sure of not losing our thermometer, we +shall fasten it with a string and easily pull it in whenever we like."</p> + +<p>This advice being adopted, the window was opened quickly, and the +instrument was thrown out at once by M'Nicholl, who held it fastened by +a short stout cord so that it could be pulled in immediately. The window +had hardly been open for longer than a second, yet that second had been +enough to admit a terrible icy chill into the interior of the +Projectile.</p> + +<p>"Ten thousand ice-bergs!" cried Ardan, shivering all over; "it's cold +enough to freeze a white bear!"</p> + +<p>Barbican waited quietly for half an hour; that time he considered quite +long enough to enable the instrument to acquire the temperature of the +interstellar space. Then he gave the signal, and it was instantly pulled +in.</p> + +<p>It took him a few moments to calculate the quantity of mercury that had +escaped into the little diaphragm attached to the lower part of the +instrument; then he said:</p> + +<p>"A hundred and forty degrees, centigrade, below zero!"</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image14" name="image14"> + <img src="images/16.jpg" + alt="IT'S COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE A WHITE BEAR." + title="IT'S COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE A WHITE BEAR." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">IT'S COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE A WHITE BEAR.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Two hundred and twenty degrees, Fahrenheit, below zero!" cried +M'Nicholl; "no wonder that we should feel a little chilly!"</p> + +<p>"Pouillet is right, then," said Barbican, "and Fourier wrong."</p> + +<p>"Another victory for Sorbonne over the Academy!" cried Ardan. "<i>Vive la +Sorbonne!</i> Not that I'm a bit proud of finding myself in the midst of a +temperature so very <i>distingué</i>—though it is more than three times +colder than Hayes ever felt it at Humboldt Glacier or Nevenoff at +Yakoutsk. If Madame the Moon becomes as cold as this every time that her +surface is withdrawn from the sunlight for fourteen days, I don't think, +boys, that her hospitality is much to hanker after!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<h3>GLIMPSES AT THE INVISIBLE.</h3> + + +<p>In spite of the dreadful condition in which the three friends now found +themselves, and the still more dreadful future that awaited them, it +must be acknowledged that Ardan bravely kept up his spirits. And his +companions were just as cheerful. Their philosophy was quite simple and +perfectly intelligible. What they could bear, they bore without +murmuring. When it became unbearable, they only complained, if +complaining would do any good. Imprisoned in an iron shroud, flying +through profound darkness into the infinite abysses of space, nearly a +quarter million of miles distant from all human aid, freezing with the +icy cold, their little stock not only of gas but of <i>air</i> rapidly +running lower and lower, a near future of the most impenetrable +obscurity looming up before them, they never once thought of wasting +time in asking such useless questions as where they were going, or what +fate was about to befall them. Knowing that no good could possibly +result from inaction or despair, they carefully kept their wits about +them, making their experiments and recording their observations as +calmly and as deliberately as if they were working at home in the quiet +retirement of their own cabinets.</p> + +<p>Any other course of action, however, would have been perfectly absurd +on their part, and this no one knew better than themselves. Even if +desirous to act otherwise, what could they have done? As powerless over +the Projectile as a baby over a locomotive, they could neither clap +brakes to its movement nor switch off its direction. A sailor can turn +his ship's head at pleasure; an aeronaut has little trouble, by means of +his ballast and his throttle-valve, in giving a vertical movement to his +balloon. But nothing of this kind could our travellers attempt. No helm, +or ballast, or throttle-valve could avail them now. Nothing in the world +could be done to prevent things from following their own course to the +bitter end.</p> + +<p>If these three men would permit themselves to hazard an expression at +all on the subject, which they didn't, each could have done it by his +own favorite motto, so admirably expressive of his individual nature. +"<i>Donnez tête baissée!</i>" (Go it baldheaded!) showed Ardan's +uncalculating impetuosity and his Celtic blood. "<i>Fata quocunque +vocant!</i>" (To its logical consequence!) revealed Barbican's +imperturbable stoicism, culture hardening rather than loosening the +original British phlegm. Whilst M'Nicholl's "Screw down the valve and +let her rip!" betrayed at once his unconquerable Yankee coolness and his +old experiences as a Western steamboat captain.</p> + +<p>Where were they now, at eight o'clock in the morning of the day called +in America the sixth of December? Near the Moon, very certainly; near +enough, in fact, for them to perceive easily in the dark the great round +screen which she formed between themselves and the Projectile on one +side, and the Earth, Sun, and stars on the other. But as to the exact +distance at which she lay from them—they had no possible means of +calculating it. The Projectile, impelled and maintained by forces +inexplicable and even incomprehensible, had come within less than thirty +miles from the Moon's north pole. But during those two hours of +immersion in the dark shadow, had this distance been increased or +diminished? There was evidently no stand-point whereby to estimate +either the Projectile's direction or its velocity. Perhaps, moving +rapidly away from the Moon, it would be soon out of her shadow +altogether. Perhaps, on the contrary, gradually approaching her surface, +it might come into contact at any moment with some sharp invisible peak +of the Lunar mountains—a catastrophe sure to put a sudden end to the +trip, and the travellers too.</p> + +<p>An excited discussion on this subject soon sprang up, in which all +naturally took part. Ardan's imagination as usual getting the better of +his reason, he maintained very warmly that the Projectile, caught and +retained by the Moon's attraction, could not help falling on her +surface, just as an aerolite cannot help falling on our Earth.</p> + +<p>"Softly, dear boy, softly," replied Barbican; "aerolites <i>can</i> help +falling on the Earth, and the proof is, that few of them <i>do</i> fall—most +of them don't. Therefore, even granting that we had already assumed the +nature of an aerolite, it does not necessarily follow that we should +fall on the Moon."</p> + +<p>"But," objected Ardan, "if we approach only near enough, I don't see how +we can help—"</p> + +<p>"You don't see, it may be," said Barbican, "but you can see, if you only +reflect a moment. Have you not often seen the November meteors, for +instance, streaking the skies, thousands at a time?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; on several occasions I was so fortunate."</p> + +<p>"Well, did you ever see any of them strike the Earth's surface?" asked +Barbican.</p> + +<p>"I can't say I ever did," was the candid reply, "but—"</p> + +<p>"Well, these shooting stars," continued Barbican, "or rather these +wandering particles of matter, shine only from being inflamed by the +friction of the atmosphere. Therefore they can never be at a greater +distance from the Earth than 30 or 40 miles at furthest, and yet they +seldom fall on it. So with our Projectile. It may go very close to the +Moon without falling into it."</p> + +<p>"But our roving Projectile must pull up somewhere in the long run," +replied Ardan, "and I should like to know where that somewhere can be, +if not in the Moon."</p> + +<p>"Softly again, dear boy," said Barbican; "how do you know that our +Projectile must pull up somewhere?"</p> + +<p>"It's self-evident," replied Ardan; "it can't keep moving for ever."</p> + +<p>"Whether it can or it can't depends altogether on which one of two +mathematical curves it has followed in describing its course. According +to the velocity with which it was endowed at a certain moment, it must +follow either the one or the other; but this velocity I do not consider +myself just now able to calculate."</p> + +<p>"Exactly so," chimed in M'Nicholl; "it must describe and keep on +describing either a parabola or a hyperbola."</p> + +<p>"Precisely," said Barbican; "at a certain velocity it would take a +parabolic curve; with a velocity considerably greater it should describe +a hyperbolic curve."</p> + +<p>"I always did like nice corpulent words," said Ardan, trying to laugh; +"bloated and unwieldy, they express in a neat handy way exactly what you +mean. Of course, I know all about the high—high—those high curves, and +those low curves. No matter. Explain them to me all the same. Consider +me most deplorably ignorant on the nature of these curves."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the Captain, a little bumptiously, "a parabola is a curve +of the second order, formed by the intersection of a cone by a plane +parallel to one of its sides."</p> + +<p>"You don't say so!" cried Ardan, with mouth agape. "Do tell!"</p> + +<p>"It is pretty nearly the path taken by a shell shot from a mortar."</p> + +<p>"Well now!" observed Ardan, apparently much surprised; "who'd have +thought it? Now for the high—high—bully old curve!"</p> + +<p>"The hyperbola," continued the Captain, not minding Ardan's antics, "the +hyperbola is a curve of the second order, formed from the intersection +of a cone by a plane parallel to its axis, or rather parallel to its two +<i>generatrices</i>, constituting two separate branches, extending +indefinitely in both directions."</p> + +<p>"Oh, what an accomplished scientist I'm going to turn out, if only left +long enough at your feet, illustrious <i>maestro</i>!" cried Ardan, with +effusion. "Only figure it to yourselves, boys; before the Captain's +lucid explanations, I fully expected to hear something about the high +curves and the low curves in the back of an Ancient Thomas! Oh, Michael, +Michael, why didn't you know the Captain earlier?"</p> + +<p>But the Captain was now too deeply interested in a hot discussion with +Barbican to notice that the Frenchman was only funning him. Which of the +two curves had been the one most probably taken by the Projectile? +Barbican maintained it was the parabolic; M'Nicholl insisted that it was +the hyperbolic. Their tempers were not improved by the severe cold, and +both became rather excited in the dispute. They drew so many lines on +the table, and crossed them so often with others, that nothing was left +at last but a great blot. They covered bits of paper with <i>x</i>'s and +<i>y</i>'s, which they read out like so many classic passages, shouting them, +declaiming them, drawing attention to the strong points by gesticulation +so forcible and voice so loud that neither of the disputants could hear +a word that the other said. Possibly the very great difference in +temperature between the external air in contact with their skin and the +blood coursing through their veins, had given rise to magnetic currents +as potential in their effects as a superabundant supply of oxygen. At +all events, the language they soon began to employ in the enforcement of +their arguments fairly made the Frenchman's hair stand on end.</p> + +<p>"You probably forget the important difference between a <i>directrix</i> and +an <i>axis</i>," hotly observed Barbican.</p> + +<p>"I know what an <i>abscissa</i> is, any how!" cried the Captain. "Can you say +as much?"</p> + +<p>"Did you ever understand what is meant by a <i>double ordinate</i>?" asked +Barbican, trying to keep cool.</p> + +<p>"More than you ever did about a <i>transverse</i> and a <i>conjugate!</i>" replied +the Captain, with much asperity.</p> + +<p>"Any one not convinced at a glance that this <i>eccentricity</i> is equal to +<i>unity</i>, must be blind as a bat!" exclaimed Barbican, fast losing his +ordinary urbanity.</p> + +<p>"<i>Less</i> than <i>unity</i>, you mean! If you want spectacles, here are mine!" +shouted the Captain, angrily tearing them off and offering them to his +adversary.</p> + +<p>"Dear boys!" interposed Ardan—</p> + +<p>—"The <i>eccentricity</i> is <i>equal</i> to <i>unity</i>!" cried Barbican.</p> + +<p>—"The <i>eccentricity</i> is <i>less</i> than <i>unity</i>!" screamed M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Talking of eccentricity—" put in Ardan.</p> + +<p>—"Therefore it's a <i>parabola</i>, and must be!" cried Barbican, +triumphantly.</p> + +<p>—"Therefore it's <i>hyperbola</i> and nothing shorter!" was the Captain's +quite as confident reply.</p> + +<p>"For gracious sake!—" resumed Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Then produce your <i>asymptote</i>!" exclaimed Barbican, with an angry +sneer.</p> + +<p>"Let us see the <i>symmetrical point</i>!" roared the Captain, quite +savagely.</p> + +<p>"Dear boys! old fellows!—" cried Ardan, as loud as his lungs would let +him.</p> + +<p>"It's useless to argue with a Mississippi steamboat Captain," ejaculated +Barbican; "he never gives in till he blows up!"</p> + +<p>"Never try to convince a Yankee schoolmaster," replied M'Nicholl; "he +has one book by heart and don't believe in any other!"</p> + +<p>"Here, friend Michael, get me a cord, won't you? It's the only way to +convince him!" cried Barbican, hastily turning to the Frenchman.</p> + +<p>"Hand me over that ruler, Ardan!" yelled the Captain. "The heavy one! +It's the only way now left to bring him to reason!"</p> + +<p>"Look here, Barbican and M'Nicholl!" cried Ardan, at last making himself +heard, and keeping a tight hold both on the cord and the ruler. "This +thing has gone far enough! Come. Stop your talk, and answer me a few +questions. What do you want of this cord, Barbican?"</p> + +<p>"To describe a parabolic curve!"</p> + +<p>"And what are you going to do with the ruler, M'Nicholl!"</p> + +<p>"To help draw a true hyperbola!"</p> + +<p>"Promise me, Barbican, that you're not going to lasso the Captain!"</p> + +<p>"Lasso the Captain! Ha! ha! ha!"</p> + +<p>"You promise, M'Nicholl, that you're not going to brain the President!"</p> + +<p>"I brain the President! Ho! ho! ho!"</p> + +<p>"I want merely to convince him that it is a parabola!"</p> + +<p>"I only want to make it clear as day that it is hyperbola!"</p> + +<p>"Does it make any real difference whether it is one or the other?" +yelled Ardan.</p> + +<p>"The greatest possible difference—in the Eye of Science."</p> + +<p>"A radical and incontrovertible difference—in the Eye of Science!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Hang the Eye of Science—will either curve take us to the Moon?"</p> + +<p>"No!"</p> + +<p>"Will either take us back to the Earth?"</p> + +<p>"No!"</p> + +<p>"Will either take us anywhere that you know of?"</p> + +<p>"No!"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because they are both <i>open</i> curves, and therefore can never end!"</p> + +<p>"Is it of the slightest possible importance which of the two curves +controls the Projectile?"</p> + +<p>"Not the slightest—except in the Eye of Science!"</p> + +<p>"Then let the Eye of Science and her parabolas and hyperbolas, and +conjugates, and asymptotes, and the rest of the confounded nonsensical +farrago, all go to pot! What's the use of bothering your heads about +them here! Have you not enough to trouble you otherwise? A nice pair of +scientists you are? 'Stanislow' scientists, probably. Do <i>real</i> +scientists lose their tempers for a trifle? Am I ever to see my ideal of +a true scientific man in the flesh? Barbican came very near realizing my +idea perfectly; but I see that Science just has as little effect as +Culture in driving the Old Adam out of us! The idea of the only +simpleton in the lot having to lecture the others on propriety of +deportment! I thought they were going to tear each other's eyes out! Ha! +Ha! Ha! It's <i>impayable</i>! Give me that cord, Michael! Hand me the heavy +ruler, Ardan! It's the only way to bring him to reason! Ho! Ho! Ho! It's +too good! I shall never get over it!" and he laughed till his sides +ached and his cheeks streamed.</p> + +<p>His laughter was so contagious, and his merriment so genuine, that there +was really no resisting it, and the next few minutes witnessed nothing +but laughing, and handshaking and rib-punching in the Projectile—though +Heaven knows there was very little for the poor fellows to be merry +about. As they could neither reach the Moon nor return to the Earth, +what <i>was</i> to befall them? The immediate outlook was the very reverse of +exhilarating. If they did not die of hunger, if they did not die of +thirst, the reason would simply be that, in a few days, as soon as their +gas was exhausted, they would die for want of air, unless indeed the icy +cold had killed them beforehand!</p> + +<p>By this time, in fact, the temperature had become so exceedingly cold +that a further encroachment on their little stock of gas could be put +off no longer. The light, of course, they could manage to do without; +but a little heat was absolutely necessary to prevent them from freezing +to death. Fortunately, however, the caloric developed by the Reiset and +Regnault process for purifying the air, raised the internal temperature +of the Projectile a little, so that, with an expenditure of gas much +less than they had expected, our travellers were able to maintain it at +a degree capable of sustaining human life.</p> + +<p>By this time, also, all observations through the windows had become +exceedingly difficult. The internal moisture condensed so thick and +congealed so hard on the glass that nothing short of continued friction +could keep up its transparency. But this friction, however laborious +they might regard it at other times, they thought very little of just +now, when observation had become far more interesting and important than +ever.</p> + +<p>If the Moon had any atmosphere, our travellers were near enough now to +strike any meteor that might be rushing through it. If the Projectile +itself were floating in it, as was possible, would not such a good +conductor of sound convey to their ears the reflexion of some lunar +echo, the roar of some storm raging among the mountains, the rattling of +some plunging avalanche, or the detonations of some eructating volcano? +And suppose some lunar Etna or Vesuvius was flashing out its fires, was +it not even possible that their eye could catch a glimpse of the lurid +gleam? One or two facts of this kind, well attested, would singularly +elucidate the vexatious question of a lunar atmosphere, which is still +so far from being decided. Full of such thoughts and intensely +interested in them, Barbican, M'Nicholl and Ardan, patient as +astronomers at a transit of Venus, watched steadily at their windows, +and allowed nothing worth noticing to escape their searching gaze.</p> + +<p>Ardan's patience first gave out. He showed it by an observation natural +enough, for that matter, to a mind unaccustomed to long stretches of +careful thought:</p> + +<p>"This darkness is absolutely killing! If we ever take this trip again, +it must be about the time of the New Moon!"</p> + +<p>"There I agree with you, Ardan," observed the Captain. "That would be +just the time to start. The Moon herself, I grant, would be lost in the +solar rays and therefore invisible all the time of our trip, but in +compensation, we should have the Full Earth in full view. Besides—and +this is your chief point, no doubt, Ardan—if we should happen to be +drawn round the Moon, just as we are at the present moment, we should +enjoy the inestimable advantage of beholding her invisible side +magnificently illuminated!"</p> + +<p>"My idea exactly, Captain," said Ardan. "What is your opinion on this +point, Barbican?"</p> + +<p>"My opinion is as follows:" answered Barbican, gravely. "If we ever +repeat this journey, we shall start precisely at the same time and under +precisely the same circumstances. You forget that our only object is to +reach the Moon. Now suppose we had really landed there, as we expected +to do yesterday, would it not have been much more agreeable to behold +the lunar continents enjoying the full light of day than to find them +plunged in the dismal obscurity of night? Would not our first +installation of discovery have been under circumstances decidedly +extremely favorable? Your silence shows that you agree with me. As to +the invisible side, once landed, we should have the power to visit it +when we pleased, and therefore we could always choose whatever time +would best suit our purpose. Therefore, if we wanted to land in the +Moon, the period of the Full Moon was the best period to select. The +period was well chosen, the time was well calculated, the force was well +applied, the Projectile was well aimed, but missing our way spoiled +everything."</p> + +<p>"That's sound logic, no doubt," said Ardan; "still I can't help thinking +that all for want of a little light we are losing, probably forever, a +splendid opportunity of seeing the Moon's invisible side. How about the +other planets, Barbican? Do you think that their inhabitants are as +ignorant regarding their satellites as we are regarding ours?"</p> + +<p>"On that subject," observed M'Nicholl, "I could venture an answer +myself, though, of course, without pretending to speak dogmatically on +any such open question. The satellites of the other planets, by their +comparative proximity, must be much easier to study than our Moon. The +Saturnians, the Uranians, the Jovians, cannot have had very serious +difficulty in effecting some communication with their satellites. +Jupiter's four moons, for instance, though on an average actually 2-1/2 +times farther from their planet's centre than the Moon is from us, are +comparatively four times nearer to him on account of his radius being +eleven times greater than the Earth's. With Saturn's eight moons, the +case is almost precisely similar. Their average distance is nearly three +times greater than that of our Moon; but as Saturn's diameter is about 9 +times greater than the Earth's, his bodyguards are really between 3 and +4 times nearer to their principal than ours is to us. As to Uranus, his +first satellite, <i>Ariel</i>, half as far from him as our Moon is from the +Earth, is comparatively, though not actually, eight times nearer."</p> + +<p>"Therefore," said Barbican, now taking up the subject, "an experiment +analogous to ours, starting from either of these three planets, would +have encountered fewer difficulties. But the whole question resolves +itself into this. <i>If</i> the Jovians and the rest have been able to quit +their planets, they have probably succeeded in discovering the invisible +sides of their satellites. But if they have <i>not</i> been able to do so, +why, they're not a bit wiser than ourselves—But what's the matter with +the Projectile? It's certainly shifting!"</p> + +<p>Shifting it certainly was. While the path it described as it swung +blindly through the darkness, could not be laid down by any chart for +want of a starting point, Barbican and his companions soon became aware +of a decided modification of its relative position with regard to the +Moon's surface. Instead of its side, as heretofore, it now presented its +base to the Moon's disc, and its axis had become rigidly vertical to the +lunar horizon. Of this new feature in their journey, Barbican had +assured himself by the most undoubted proof towards four o'clock in the +morning. What was the cause? Gravity, of course. The heavier portion of +the Projectile gravitated towards the Moon's centre exactly as if they +were falling towards her surface.</p> + +<p>But <i>were</i> they falling? Were they at last, contrary to all +expectations, about to reach the goal that they had been so ardently +wishing for? No! A sight-point, just discovered by M'Nicholl, very soon +convinced Barbican that the Projectile was as far as ever from +approaching the Moon, but was moving around it in a curve pretty near +concentric.</p> + +<p>M'Nicholl's discovery, a luminous gleam flickering on the distant verge +of the black disc, at once engrossed the complete attention of our +travellers and set them to divining its course. It could not possibly be +confounded with a star. Its glare was reddish, like that of a distant +furnace on a dark night; it kept steadily increasing in size and +brightness, thus showing beyond a doubt how the Projectile was +moving—in the direction of the luminous point, and <i>not</i> vertically +falling towards the Moon's surface.</p> + +<p>"It's a volcano!" cried the Captain, in great excitement; "a volcano in +full blast! An outlet of the Moon's internal fires! Therefore she can't +be a burnt out cinder!"</p> + +<p>"It certainly looks like a volcano," replied Barbican, carefully +investigating this new and puzzling phenomenon with his night-glass. "If +it is not one, in fact, what can it be?"</p> + +<p>"To maintain combustion," commenced Ardan syllogistically and +sententiously, "air is necessary. An undoubted case of combustion lies +before us. Therefore, this part of the Moon <i>must</i> have an atmosphere!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps so," observed Barbican, "but not necessarily so. The volcano, +by decomposing certain substances, gunpowder for instance, may be able +to furnish its own oxygen, and thus explode in a vacuum. That blaze, in +fact, seems to me to possess the intensity and the blinding glare of +objects burning in pure oxygen. Let us therefore be not over hasty in +jumping at the conclusion of the existence of a lunar atmosphere."</p> + +<p>This fire mountain was situated, according to the most plausible +conjecture, somewhere in the neighborhood of the 45th degree, south +latitude, of the Moon's invisible side. For a little while the +travellers indulged the fond hope that they were directly approaching +it, but, to their great disappointment, the path described by the +Projectile lay in a different direction. Its nature therefore they had +no opportunity of ascertaining. It began to disappear behind the dark +horizon within less than half an hour after the time that M'Nicholl had +signalled it. Still, the fact of the uncontested existence of such a +phenomenon was a grand one, and of considerable importance in +selenographic investigations. It proved that heat had not altogether +disappeared from the lunar world; and the existence of heat once +settled, who can say positively that the vegetable kingdom and even the +animal kingdom have not likewise resisted so far every influence tending +to destroy them? If terrestrial astronomers could only be convinced, by +undoubted evidence, of the existence of this active volcano on the +Moon's surface, they would certainly admit of very considerable +modifications in the present doubts regarding her inhabitability.</p> + +<p>Thoughts of this kind continued to occupy the minds of our travellers +even for some time after the little spark of light had been extinguished +in the black gloom. But they said very little; even Ardan was silent, +and continued to look out of the window. Barbican surrendered himself up +to a reverie regarding the mysterious destinies of the lunar world. Was +its present condition a foreshadowing of what our Earth is to become? +M'Nicholl, too, was lost in speculation. Was the Moon older or younger +than the Earth in the order of Creation? Had she ever been a beautiful +world of life, and color, and magnificent variety? If so, had her +inhabitants—</p> + +<p>Great Mercy, what a cry from Ardan! It sounded human, so seldom do we +hear a shriek so expressive at once of surprise and horror and even +terror! It brought back his startled companions to their senses in a +second. Nor did they ask him for the cause of his alarm. It was only too +clear. Right in their very path, a blazing ball of fire had suddenly +risen up before their eyes, the pitchy darkness all round it rendering +its glare still more blinding. Its phosphoric coruscation filled the +Projectile with white streams of lurid light, tinging the contents with +a pallor indescribably ghastly. The travellers' faces in particular, +gleamed with that peculiar livid and cadaverous tinge, blue and yellow, +which magicians so readily produce by burning table salt in alcohol.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sacré!</i>" cried Ardan who always spoke his own language when much +excited. "What a pair of beauties you are! Say, Barbican! What +thundering thing is coming at us now?"</p> + +<p>"Another bolide," answered Barbican, his eye as calm as ever, though a +faint tremor was quite perceptible in his voice.</p> + +<p>"A bolide? Burning <i>in vacuo</i>? You are joking!"</p> + +<p>"I was never more in earnest," was the President's quiet reply, as he +looked through his closed fingers.</p> + +<p>He knew exactly what he was saying. The dazzling glitter did not deceive +<i>him</i>. Such a meteor seen from the Earth could not appear much brighter +than the Full Moon, but here in the midst of the black ether and +unsoftened by the veil of the atmosphere, it was absolutely blinding. +These wandering bodies carry in themselves the principle of their +incandescence. Oxygen is by no means necessary for their combustion. +Some of them indeed often take fire as they rush through the layers of +our atmosphere, and generally burn out before they strike the Earth. But +others, on the contrary, and the greater number too, follow a track +through space far more distant from the Earth than the fifty miles +supposed to limit our atmosphere. In October, 1844, one of these meteors +had appeared in the sky at an altitude calculated to be at least 320 +miles; and in August, 1841, another had vanished when it had reached the +height of 450 miles. A few even of those seen from the Earth must have +been several miles in diameter. The velocity with which some of them +have been calculated to move, from east to west, in a direction contrary +to that of the Earth, is astounding enough to exceed belief—about fifty +miles in a second. Our Earth does not move quite 20 miles in a second, +though it goes a thousand times quicker than the fastest locomotive.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image15" name="image15"> + <img src="images/17.jpg" + alt="THEY COULD UTTER NO WORD." + title="THEY COULD UTTER NO WORD." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">THEY COULD UTTER NO WORD.</span> +</div> + +<p>Barbican calculated like lightning that the present object of their +alarm was only about 250 miles distant from them, and could not be +less than a mile and a quarter in diameter. It was coming on at the rate +of more than a mile a second or about 75 miles a minute. It lay right in +the path of the Projectile, and in a very few seconds indeed a terrible +collision was inevitable. The enormous rate at which it grew in size, +showed the terrible velocity at which it was approaching.</p> + +<p>You can hardly imagine the situation of our poor travellers at the sight +of this frightful apparition. I shall certainly not attempt to describe +it. In spite of their singular courage, wonderful coolness, +extraordinary fortitude, they were now breathless, motionless, almost +helpless; their muscles were tightened to their utmost tension; their +eyes stared out of their sockets; their faces were petrified with +horror. No wonder. Their Projectile, whose course they were powerless as +children to guide, was making straight for this fiery mass, whose glare +in a few seconds had become more blinding than the open vent of a +reverberating furnace. Their own Projectile was carrying them headlong +into a bottomless abyss of fire!</p> + +<p>Still, even in this moment of horror, their presence of mind, or at +least their consciousness, never abandoned them. Barbican had grasped +each of his friends by the hand, and all three tried as well as they +could to watch through half-closed eyelids the white-hot asteroid's +rapid approach. They could utter no word, they could breathe no prayer. +They gave themselves up for lost—in the agony of terror that partially +interrupted the ordinary functions of their brains, this was absolutely +all they could do! Hardly three minutes had elapsed since Ardan had +caught the first glimpse of it—three ages of agony! Now it was on them! +In a second—in less than a second, the terrible fireball had burst like +a shell! Thousands of glittering fragments were flying around them in +all directions—but with no more noise than is made by so many light +flakes of thistle-down floating about some warm afternoon in summer. The +blinding, blasting steely white glare of the explosion almost bereft the +travellers of the use of their eyesight forever, but no more report +reached their ears than if it had taken place at the bottom of the Gulf +of Mexico. In an atmosphere like ours, such a crash would have burst the +ear-membranes of ten thousand elephants!</p> + +<p>In the middle of the commotion another loud cry was suddenly heard. It +was the Captain who called this time. His companions rushed to his +window and all looked out together in the same direction.</p> + +<p>What a sight met their eyes! What pen can describe it? What pencil can +reproduce the magnificence of its coloring? It was a Vesuvius at his +best and wildest, at the moment just after the old cone has fallen in. +Millions of luminous fragments streaked the sky with their blazing +fires. All sizes and shapes of light, all colors and shades of colors, +were inextricably mingled together. Irradiations in gold, scintillations +in crimson, splendors in emerald, lucidities in ultramarine—a dazzling +girandola of every tint and of every hue. Of the enormous fireball, an +instant ago such an object of dread, nothing now remained but these +glittering pieces, shooting about in all directions, each one an +asteroid in its turn. Some flew out straight and gleaming like a steel +sword; others rushed here and there irregularly like chips struck off a +red-hot rock; and others left long trails of glittering cosmical dust +behind them like the nebulous tail of Donati's comet.</p> + +<p>These incandescent blocks crossed each other, struck each other, crushed +each other into still smaller fragments, one of which, grazing the +Projectile, jarred it so violently that the very window at which the +travellers were standing, was cracked by the shock. Our friends felt, in +fact, as if they were the objective point at which endless volleys of +blazing shells were aimed, any of them powerful enough, if it only hit +them fair, to make as short work of the Projectile as you could of an +egg-shell. They had many hairbreadth escapes, but fortunately the +cracking of the glass proved to be the only serious damage of which they +could complain.</p> + +<p>This extraordinary illumination lasted altogether only a few seconds; +every one of its details was of a most singular and exciting nature—but +one of its greatest wonders was yet to come. The ether, saturated with +luminous matter, developed an intensity of blazing brightness unequalled +by the lime light, the magnesium light, the electric light, or any other +dazzling source of illumination with which we are acquainted on earth. +It flashed out of these asteroids in all directions, and downwards, of +course, as well as elsewhere. At one particular instant, it was so very +vivid that Ardan, who happened to be looking downwards, cried out, as if +in transport:</p> + +<p>"Oh!! The Moon! Visible at last!"</p> + +<p>And the three companions, thrilling with indescribable emotion, shot a +hasty glance through the openings of the coruscating field beneath them. +Did they really catch a glimpse of the mysterious invisible disc that +the eye of man had never before lit upon? For a second or so they gazed +with enraptured fascination at all they could see. What did they see, +what could they see at a distance so uncertain that Barbican has never +been able even to guess at it? Not much. Ardan was reminded of the night +he had stood on the battlements of Dover Castle, a few years before, +when the fitful flashes of a thunder storm gave him occasional and very +uncertain glimpses of the French coast at the opposite side of the +strait. Misty strips long and narrow, extending over one portion of the +disc—probably cloud-scuds sustained by a highly rarefied +atmosphere—permitted only a very dreamy idea of lofty mountains +stretching beneath them in shapeless proportions, of smaller reliefs, +circuses, yawning craters, and the other capricious, sponge-like +formations so common on the visible side. Elsewhere the watchers became +aware for an instant of immense spaces, certainly not arid plains, but +seas, real oceans, vast and calm, reflecting from their placid depths +the dazzling fireworks of the weird and wildly flashing meteors. +Farther on, but very darkly as if behind a screen, shadowy continents +revealed themselves, their surfaces flecked with black cloudy masses, +probably great forests, with here and there a—</p> + +<p>Nothing more! In less than a second the illumination had come to an end, +involving everything in the Moon's direction once more in pitchy +darkness.</p> + +<p>But had the impression made on the travellers' eyes been a mere vision +or the result of a reality? an optical delusion or the shadow of a solid +fact? Could an observation so rapid, so fleeting, so superficial, be +really regarded as a genuine scientific affirmation? Could such a feeble +glimmer of the invisible disc justify them in pronouncing a decided +opinion on the inhabitability of the Moon? To such questions as these, +rising spontaneously and simultaneously in the minds of our travellers, +they could not reply at the moment; they could not reply to them long +afterwards; even to this day they can give them no satisfactory answer. +All they could do at the moment, they did. To every sight and sound they +kept their eyes and ears open, and, by observing the most perfect +silence, they sought to render their impressions too vivid to admit of +deception.</p> + +<p>There was now, however, nothing to be heard, and very little more to be +seen. The few coruscations that flashed over the sky, gradually became +fewer and dimmer; the asteroids sought paths further and further apart, +and finally disappeared altogether. The ether resumed its original +blackness. The stars, eclipsed for a moment, blazed out again on the +firmament, and the invisible disc, that had flashed into view for an +instant, once more relapsed forever into the impenetrable depths of +night.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<h3>THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.</h3> + + +<p>Exceedingly narrow and exceedingly fortunate had been the escape of the +Projectile. And from a danger too the most unlikely and the most +unexpected. Who would have ever dreamed of even the possibility of such +an encounter? And was all danger over? The sight of one of these erratic +bolides certainly justified the gravest apprehensions of our travellers +regarding the existence of others. Worse than the sunken reefs of the +Southern Seas or the snags of the Mississippi, how could the Projectile +be expected to avoid them? Drifting along blindly through the boundless +ethereal ocean, <i>her</i> inmates, even if they saw the danger, were totally +powerless to turn her aside. Like a ship without a rudder, like a +runaway horse, like a collapsed balloon, like an iceberg in an Atlantic +storm, like a boat in the Niagara rapids, she moved on sullenly, +recklessly, mechanically, mayhap into the very jaws of the most +frightful danger, the bright intelligences within no more able to modify +her motions even by a finger's breadth than they were able to affect +Mercury's movements around the Sun.</p> + +<p>But did our friends complain of the new perils now looming up before +them? They never thought of such a thing. On the contrary, they only +considered themselves (after the lapse of a few minutes to calm their +nerves) extremely lucky in having witnessed this fresh glory of +exuberant nature, this transcendent display of fireworks which not only +cast into absolute insignificance anything of the kind they had ever +seen on Earth, but had actually enabled them by its dazzling +illumination to gaze for a second or two at the Moon's mysterious +invisible disc. This glorious momentary glance, worth a whole lifetime +of ordinary existence, had revealed to mortal ken her continents, her +oceans, her forests. But did it also convince them of the existence of +an atmosphere on her surface whose vivifying molecules would render +<i>life</i> possible? This question they had again to leave unanswered—it +will hardly ever be answered in a way quite satisfactory to human +curiosity. Still, infinite was their satisfaction at having hovered even +for an instant on the very verge of such a great problem's solution.</p> + +<p>It was now half-past three in the afternoon. The Projectile still +pursued its curving but otherwise unknown path over the Moon's invisible +face. Had this path been disturbed by that dangerous meteor? There was +every reason to fear so—though, disturbance or no disturbance, the +curve it described should still be one strictly in accordance with the +laws of Mechanical Philosophy. Whether it was a parabola or a hyperbola, +however, or whether it was disturbed or not, made very little difference +as, in any case, the Projectile was bound to quit pretty soon the cone +of the shadow, at a point directly opposite to where it had entered it. +This cone could not possibly be of very great extent, considering the +very slight ratio borne by the Moon's diameter when compared with the +Sun's. Still, to all appearances, the Projectile seemed to be quite as +deeply immersed in the shadow as ever, and there was apparently not the +slightest sign of such a state of things coming soon to an end. At what +rate was the Projectile now moving? Hard to say, but certainly not +slowly, certainly rapidly enough to be out of the shadow by this time, +if describing a curve rigidly parabolic. Was the curve therefore <i>not</i> +parabolic? Another puzzling problem and sadly bewildering to poor +Barbican, who had now almost lost his reason by attempting to clear up +questions that were proving altogether too profound for his overworked +brains.</p> + +<p>Not that he ever thought of taking rest. Not that his companions thought +of taking rest. Far from it. With senses as high-strung as ever, they +still watched carefully for every new fact, every unexpected incident +that might throw some light on the sidereal investigations. Even their +dinner, or what was called so, consisted of only a few bits of bread and +meat, distributed by Ardan at five o'clock, and swallowed mechanically. +They did not even turn on the gas full head to see what they were +eating; each man stood solidly at his window, the glass of which they +had enough to do in keeping free from the rapidly condensing moisture.</p> + +<p>At about half-past five, however, M'Nicholl, who had been gazing for +some time with his telescope in a particular direction, called the +attention of his companions to some bright specks of light barely +discernible in that part of the horizon towards which the Projectile was +evidently moving. His words were hardly uttered when his companions +announced the same discovery. They could soon all see the glittering +specks not only becoming more and more numerous, but also gradually +assuming the shape of an extremely slender, but extremely brilliant +crescent. Rapidly more brilliant and more decided in shape the profile +gradually grew, till it soon resembled the first faint sketch of the New +Moon that we catch of evenings in the western sky, or rather the first +glimpse we get of her limb as it slowly moves out of eclipse. But it was +inconceivably brighter than either, and was furthermore strangely +relieved by the pitchy blackness both of sky and Moon. In fact, it soon +became so brilliant as to dispel in a moment all doubt as to its +particular nature. No meteor could present such a perfect shape; no +volcano, such dazzling splendor.</p> + +<p>"The Sun!" cried Barbican.</p> + +<p>"The Sun?" asked M'Nicholl and Ardan in some astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear friends; it is the Sun himself that you now see; these +summits that you behold him gilding are the mountains that lie on the +Moon's southern rim. We are rapidly nearing her south pole."</p> + +<p>"After doubling her north pole!" cried Ardan; "why, we must be +circumnavigating her!"</p> + +<p>"Exactly; sailing all around her."</p> + +<p>"Hurrah! Then we're all right at last! There's nothing more to fear from +your hyperbolas or parabolas or any other of your open curves!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing more, certainly, from an open curve, but every thing from a +closed one."</p> + +<p>"A closed curve! What is it called? And what is the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"An eclipse it is called; and the trouble is that, instead of flying off +into the boundless regions of space, our Projectile will probably +describe an elliptical orbit around the Moon—"</p> + +<p>—"What!" cried M'Nicholl, in amazement, "and be her satellite for +ever!"</p> + +<p>"All right and proper," said Ardan; "why shouldn't she have one of her +own?"</p> + +<p>"Only, my dear friend," said Barbican to Ardan, "this change of curve +involves no change in the doom of the Projectile. We are as infallibly +lost by an ellipse as by a parabola."</p> + +<p>"Well, there was one thing I never could reconcile myself to in the +whole arrangement," replied Ardan cheerfully; "and that was destruction +by an open curve. Safe from that, I could say, 'Fate, do your worst!' +Besides, I don't believe in the infallibility of your ellipsic. It may +prove just as unreliable as the hyperbola. And it is no harm to hope +that it may!"</p> + +<p>From present appearances there was very little to justify Ardan's hope. +Barbican's theory of the elliptic orbit was unfortunately too well +grounded to allow a single reasonable doubt to be expressed regarding +the Projectile's fate. It was to gravitate for ever around the Moon—a +sub-satellite. It was a new born individual in the astral universe, a +microcosm, a little world in itself, containing, however, only three +inhabitants and even these destined to perish pretty soon for want of +air. Our travellers, therefore, had no particular reason for rejoicing +over the new destiny reserved for the Projectile in obedience to the +inexorable laws of the centripetal and centrifugal forces. They were +soon, it is true, to have the opportunity of beholding once more the +illuminated face of the Moon. They might even live long enough to catch +a last glimpse of the distant Earth bathed in the glory of the solar +rays. They might even have strength enough left to be able to chant one +solemn final eternal adieu to their dear old Mother World, upon whose +features their mortal eyes should never again rest in love and longing! +Then, what was their Projectile to become? An inert, lifeless, extinct +mass, not a particle better than the most defunct asteroid that wanders +blindly through the fields of ether. A gloomy fate to look forward to. +Yet, instead of grieving over the inevitable, our bold travellers +actually felt thrilled with delight at the prospect of even a momentary +deliverance from those gloomy depths of darkness and of once more +finding themselves, even if only for a few hours, in the cheerful +precincts illuminated by the genial light of the blessed Sun!</p> + +<p>The ring of light, in the meantime, becoming brighter and brighter, +Barbican was not long in discovering and pointing out to his companions +the different mountains that lay around the Moon's south pole.</p> + +<p>"There is <i>Leibnitz</i> on your right," said he, "and on your left you can +easily see the peaks of <i>Doerfel</i>. Belonging rather to the Moon's dark +side than to her Earth side, they are visible to terrestrial astronomers +only when she is in her highest northern latitudes. Those faint peaks +beyond them that you can catch with such difficulty must be those of +<i>Newton</i> and <i>Curtius</i>."</p> + +<p>"How in the world can you tell?" asked Ardan.</p> + +<p>"They are the highest mountains in the circumpolar regions," replied +Barbican. "They have been measured with the greatest care; <i>Newton</i> is +23,000 feet high."</p> + +<p>"More or less!" laughed Ardan. "What Delphic oracle says so?"</p> + +<p>"Dear friend," replied Barbican quietly, "the visible mountains of the +Moon have been measured so carefully and so accurately that I should +hardly hesitate in affirming their altitude to be as well known as that +of Mont Blanc, or, at least, as those of the chief peaks in the +Himalayahs or the Rocky Mountain Range."</p> + +<p>"I should like to know how people set about it," observed Ardan +incredulously.</p> + +<p>"There are several well known methods of approaching this problem," +replied Barbican; "and as these methods, though founded on different +principles, bring us constantly to the same result, we may pretty +safely conclude that our calculations are right. We have no time, just +now to draw diagrams, but, if I express myself clearly, you will no +doubt easily catch the general principle."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead!" answered Ardan. "Anything but Algebra."</p> + +<p>"We want no Algebra now," said Barbican, "It can't enable us to find +principles, though it certainly enables us to apply them. Well. The Sun +at a certain altitude shines on one side of a mountain and flings a +shadow on the other. The length of this shadow is easily found by means +of a telescope, whose object glass is provided with a micrometer. This +consists simply of two parallel spider threads, one of which is +stationary and the other movable. The Moon's real diameter being known +and occupying a certain space on the object glass, the exact space +occupied by the shadow can be easily ascertained by means of the movable +thread. This space, compared with the Moon's space, will give us the +length of the shadow. Now, as under the same circumstances a certain +height can cast only a certain shadow, of course a knowledge of the one +must give you that of the other, and <i>vice versa</i>. This method, stated +roughly, was that followed by Galileo, and, in our own day, by Beer and +Maedler, with extraordinary success."</p> + +<p>"I certainly see some sense in this method," said Ardan, "if they took +extraordinary pains to observe correctly. The least carelessness would +set them wrong, not only by feet but by miles. We have time enough, +however, to listen to another method before we get into the full blaze +of the glorious old Sol."</p> + +<p>"The other method," interrupted M'Nicholl laying down his telescope to +rest his eyes, and now joining in the conversation to give himself +something to do, "is called that of the <i>tangent rays</i>. A solar ray, +barely passing the edge of the Moon's surface, is caught on the peak of +a mountain the rest of which lies in shadow. The distance between this +starry peak and the line separating the light from the darkness, we +measure carefully by means of our telescope. Then—"</p> + +<p>"I see it at a glance!" interrupted Ardan with lighting eye; "the ray, +being a tangent, of course makes right angles with the radius, which is +known: consequently we have two sides and one angle—quite enough to +find the other parts of the triangle. Very ingenious—but now, that I +think of it—is not this method absolutely impracticable for every +mountain except those in the immediate neighborhood of the light and +shadow line?"</p> + +<p>"That's a defect easily remedied by patience," explained Barbican—the +Captain, who did not like being interrupted, having withdrawn to his +telescope—"As this line is continually changing, in course of time all +the mountains must come near it. A third method—to measure the mountain +profile directly by means of the micrometer—is evidently applicable +only to altitudes lying exactly on the lunar rim."</p> + +<p>"That is clear enough," said Ardan, "and another point is also very +clear. In Full Moon no measurement is possible. When no shadows are +made, none can be measured. Measurements, right or wrong, are possible +only when the solar rays strike the Moon's surface obliquely with regard +to the observer. Am I right, Signor Barbicani, maestro illustrissimo?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly right," replied Barbican. "You are an apt pupil."</p> + +<p>"Say that again," said Ardan. "I want Mac to hear it."</p> + +<p>Barbican humored him by repeating the observation, but M'Nicholl would +only notice it by a grunt of doubtful meaning.</p> + +<p>"Was Galileo tolerably successful in his calculations?" asked Ardan, +resuming the conversation.</p> + +<p>Before answering this question, Barbican unrolled the map of the Moon, +which a faint light like that of day-break now enabled him to examine. +He then went on: "Galileo was wonderfully successful—considering that +the telescope which he employed was a poor instrument of his own +construction, magnifying only thirty times. He gave the lunar mountains +a height of about 26,000 feet—an altitude cut down by Hevelius, but +almost doubled by Riccioli. Herschel was the first to come pretty close +to the truth, but Beer and Maedler, whose <i>Mappa Selenographica</i> now +lies before us, have left really nothing more to be done for lunar +astronomy—except, of course, to pay a personal visit to the +Moon—which we have tried to do, but I fear with a very poor prospect of +success."</p> + +<p>"Cheer up! cheer up!" cried Ardan. "It's not all over yet by long odds. +Who can say what is still in store for us? Another bolide may shunt us +off our ellipse and even send us to the Moon's surface."</p> + +<p>Then seeing Barbican shake his head ominously and his countenance become +more and more depressed, this true friend tried to brighten him up a bit +by feigning to take deep interest in a subject that to him was +absolutely the driest in the world.</p> + +<p>"Meer and Baedler—I mean Beer and Maedler," he went on, "must have +measured at least forty or fifty mountains to their satisfaction."</p> + +<p>"Forty or fifty!" exclaimed Barbican. "They measured no fewer than a +thousand and ninety-five lunar mountains and crater summits with a +perfect success. Six of these reach an altitude of upwards of 18,000 +feet, and twenty-two are more than 15,000 feet high."</p> + +<p>"Which is the highest in the lot?" asked Ardan, keenly relishing +Barbican's earnestness.</p> + +<p>"<i>Doerfel</i> in the southern hemisphere, the peak of which I have just +pointed out, is the highest of the lunar mountains so far measured," +replied Barbican. "It is nearly 25,000 feet high."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! Five thousand feet lower than Mount Everest—still for a lunar +mountain, it is quite a respectable altitude."</p> + +<p>"Respectable! Why it's an enormous altitude, my dear friend, if you +compare it with the Moon's diameter. The Earth's diameter being more +than 3-1/2 times greater than the Moon's, if the Earth's mountains bore +the same ratio to those of the Moon, Everest should be more than sixteen +miles high, whereas it is not quite six."</p> + +<p>"How do the general heights of the Himalayahs compare with those of the +highest lunar mountains?" asked Ardan, wondering what would be his next +question.</p> + +<p>"Fifteen peaks in the eastern or higher division of the Himalayahs, are +higher than the loftiest lunar peaks," replied Barbican. "Even in the +western, or lower section of the Himalayahs, some of the peaks exceed +<i>Doerfel</i>."</p> + +<p>"Which are the chief lunar mountains that exceed Mont Blanc in +altitude?" asked Ardan, bravely suppressing a yawn.</p> + +<p>"The following dozen, ranged, if my memory does not fail me, in the +exact order of their respective heights;" replied Barbican, never +wearied in answering such questions: "<i>Newton</i>, <i>Curtius</i>, <i>Casatus</i>, +<i>Rheita</i>, <i>Short</i>, <i>Huyghens</i>, <i>Biancanus</i>, <i>Tycho</i>, <i>Kircher</i>, +<i>Clavius</i>, <i>Endymion</i>, and <i>Catharina</i>."</p> + +<p>"Now those not quite up to Mont Blanc?" asked Ardan, hardly knowing what +to say.</p> + +<p>"Here they are, about half a dozen of them: <i>Moretus</i>, <i>Theophilus</i>, +<i>Harpalus</i>, <i>Eratosthenes</i>, <i>Werner</i>, and <i>Piccolomini</i>," answered +Barbican as ready as a schoolboy reciting his lesson, and pointing them +out on the map as quickly as a compositor distributing his type.</p> + +<p>"The next in rank?" asked Ardan, astounded at his friend's wonderful +memory.</p> + +<p>"The next in rank," replied Barbican promptly, "are those about the size +of the Matterhorn, that is to say about 2-3/4 miles in height. They are +<i>Macrobius</i>, <i>Delambre</i>, and <i>Conon</i>. Come," he added, seeing Ardan +hesitating and at a loss what other question to ask, "don't you want to +know what lunar mountains are about the same height as the Peak of +Teneriffe? or as Ætna? or as Mount Washington? You need not be afraid of +puzzling me. I studied up the subject thoroughly, and therefore know all +about it."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I could listen to you with delight all day long!" cried Ardan, +enthusiastically, though with some embarrassment, for he felt a twinge +of conscience in acting so falsely towards his beloved friend. "The fact +is," he went on, "such a rational conversation as the present, on such +an absorbing subject, with such a perfect master—"</p> + +<p>"The Sun!" cried M'Nicholl starting up and cheering. "He's cleared the +disc completely, and he's now himself again! Long life to him! Hurrah!"</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" cried the others quite as enthusiastically (Ardan did not seem +a bit desirous to finish his sentence).</p> + +<p>They tossed their maps aside and hastened to the window.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<h3>TYCHO.</h3> + + +<p>It was now exactly six o'clock in the evening. The Sun, completely clear +of all contact with the lunar disc, steeped the whole Projectile in his +golden rays. The travellers, vertically over the Moon's south pole, +were, as Barbican soon ascertained, about 30 miles distant from it, the +exact distance they had been from the north pole—a proof that the +elliptic curve still maintained itself with mathematical rigor.</p> + +<p>For some time, the travellers' whole attention was concentrated on the +glorious Sun. His light was inexpressibly cheering; and his heat, soon +penetrating the walls of the Projectile, infused a new and sweet life +into their chilled and exhausted frames. The ice rapidly disappeared, +and the windows soon resumed their former perfect transparency.</p> + +<p>"Oh! how good the pleasant sunlight is!" cried the Captain, sinking on a +seat in a quiet ecstasy of enjoyment. "How I pity Ardan's poor friends +the Selenites during that night so long and so icy! How impatient they +must be to see the Sun back again!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Ardan, also sitting down the better to bask in the vivifying +rays, "his light no doubt brings them to life and keeps them alive. +Without light or heat during all that dreary winter, they must freeze +stiff like the frogs or become torpid like the bears. I can't imagine +how they could get through it otherwise."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad <i>we're</i> through it anyhow," observed M'Nicholl. "I may at once +acknowledge that I felt perfectly miserable as long as it lasted. I can +now easily understand how the combined cold and darkness killed Doctor +Kane's Esquimaux dogs. It was near killing me. I was so miserable that +at last I could neither talk myself nor bear to hear others talk."</p> + +<p>"My own case exactly," said Barbican—"that is," he added hastily, +correcting himself, "I tried to talk because I found Ardan so +interested, but in spite of all we said, and saw, and had to think of, +Byron's terrible dream would continually rise up before me:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The bright Sun was extinguished, and the Stars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wandered all darkling in the eternal space,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rayless and pathless, and the icy Earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swung blind and blackening in the Moonless air.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Morn came and went, and came and brought no day!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And men forgot their passions in the dread<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of this their desolation, and all hearts<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were chilled into a selfish prayer for <i>light</i>!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>As he pronounced these words in accents at once monotonous and +melancholy, Ardan, fully appreciative, quietly gesticulated in perfect +cadence with the rhythm. Then the three men remained completely silent +for several minutes. Buried in recollection, or lost in thought, or +magnetized by the bright Sun, they seemed to be half asleep while +steeping their limbs in his vitalizing beams.</p> + +<p>Barbican was the first to dissolve the reverie by jumping up. His sharp +eye had noticed that the base of the Projectile, instead of keeping +rigidly perpendicular to the lunar surface, turned away a little, so as +to render the elliptical orbit somewhat elongated. This he made his +companions immediately observe, and also called their attention to the +fact that from this point they could easily have seen the Earth had it +been Full, but that now, drowned in the Sun's beams, it was quite +invisible. A more attractive spectacle, however, soon engaged their +undivided attention—that of the Moon's southern regions, now brought +within about the third of a mile by their telescopes. Immediately +resuming their posts by the windows, they carefully noted every feature +presented by the fantastic panorama that stretched itself out in endless +lengths beneath their wondering eyes.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image16" name="image16"> + <img src="images/18.jpg" + alt="THEY SEEMED HALF ASLEEP." + title="THEY SEEMED HALF ASLEEP." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">THEY SEEMED HALF ASLEEP.</span> +</div> + +<p>Mount <i>Leibnitz</i> and Mount <i>Doerfel</i> form two separate groups developed +in the regions of the extreme south. The first extends westwardly from +the pole to the 84th parallel; the second, on the southeastern border, +starting from the pole, reaches the neighborhood of the 65th. In the +entangled valleys of their clustered peaks, appeared the dazzling sheets +of white, noted by Father Secchi, but their peculiar nature Barbican +could now examine with a greater prospect of certainty than the +illustrious Roman astronomer had ever enjoyed.</p> + +<p>"They're beds of snow," he said at last in a decided tone.</p> + +<p>"Snow!" exclaimed M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Yes, snow, or rather glaciers heavily coated with glittering ice. See +how vividly they reflect the Sun's rays. Consolidated beds of lava could +never shine with such dazzling uniformity. Therefore there must be both +water and air on the Moon's surface. Not much—perhaps very little if +you insist on it—but the fact that there is some can now no longer be +questioned."</p> + +<p>This assertion of Barbican's, made so positively by a man who never +decided unless when thoroughly convinced, was a great triumph for Ardan, +who, as the gracious reader doubtless remembers, had had a famous +dispute with M'Nicholl on that very subject at Tampa.<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> His eyes +brightened and a smile of pleasure played around his lips, but, with a +great effort at self-restraint, he kept perfectly silent and would not +permit himself even to look in the direction of the Captain. As for +M'Nicholl, he was apparently too much absorbed in <i>Doerfel</i> and +<i>Leibnitz</i> to mind anything else.</p> + +<p>These mountains rose from plains of moderate extent, bounded by an +indefinite succession of walled hollows and ring ramparts. They are the +only chains met in this region of ridge-brimmed craters and circles; +distinguished by no particular feature, they project a few pointed peaks +here and there, some of which exceed four miles and a half in height. +This altitude, however, foreshortened as it was by the vertical position +of the Projectile, could not be noticed just then, even if correct +observation had been permitted by the dazzling surface.</p> + +<p>Once more again before the travellers' eyes the Moon's disc revealed +itself in all the old familiar features so characteristic of lunar +landscapes—no blending of tones, no softening of colors, no graduation +of shadows, every line glaring in white or black by reason of the total +absence of refracted light. And yet the wonderfully peculiar character +of this desolate world imparted to it a weird attraction as strangely +fascinating as ever.</p> + +<p>Over this chaotic region the travellers were now sweeping, as if borne +on the wings of a storm; the peaks defiled beneath them; the yawning +chasms revealed their ruin-strewn floors; the fissured cracks untwisted +themselves; the ramparts showed all their sides; the mysterious holes +presented their impenetrable depths; the clustered mountain summits and +rings rapidly decomposed themselves: but in a moment again all had +become more inextricably entangled than ever. Everything appeared to be +the finished handiwork of volcanic agency, in the utmost purity and +highest perfection. None of the mollifying effects of air or water could +here be noticed. No smooth-capped mountains, no gently winding river +channels, no vast prairie-lands of deposited sediment, no traces of +vegetation, no signs of agriculture, no vestiges of a great city. +Nothing but vast beds of glistering lava, now rough like immense piles +of scoriae and clinker, now smooth like crystal mirrors, and reflecting +the Sun's rays with the same intolerable glare. Not the faintest speck +of life. A world absolutely and completely dead, fixed, still, +motionless—save when a gigantic land-slide, breaking off the vertical +wall of a crater, plunged down into the soundless depths, with all the +fury too of a crashing avalanche, with all the speed of a Niagara, but, +in the total absence of atmosphere, noiseless as a feather, as a snow +flake, as a grain of impalpable dust.</p> + +<p>Careful observations, taken by Barbican and repeated by his companions, +soon satisfied them that the ridgy outline of the mountains on the +Moon's border, though perhaps due to different forces from those acting +in the centre, still presented a character generally uniform. The same +bulwark-surrounded hollows, the same abrupt projections of surface. Yet +a different arrangement, as Barbican pointed out to his companions, +might be naturally expected. In the central portion of the disc, the +Moon's crust, before solidification, must have been subjected to two +attractions—that of the Moon herself and that of the Earth—acting, +however, in contrary directions and therefore, in a certain sense, +serving to neutralize each other. Towards the border of her disc, on the +contrary, the terrestrial attraction, having acted in a direction +perpendicular to that of the lunar, should have exerted greater power, +and therefore given a different shape to the general contour. But no +remarkable difference had so far been perceived by terrestrial +observers; and none could now be detected by our travellers. Therefore +the Moon must have found in herself alone the principle of her shape and +of her superficial development—that is, she owed nothing to external +influences. "Arago was perfectly right, therefore," concluded Barbican, +"in the remarkable opinion to which he gave expression thirty years ago:</p> + +<p>'No external action whatever has contributed to the formation of the +Moon's diversified surface.'"</p> + +<p>"But don't you think, Barbican," asked the Captain, "that every force, +internal or external, that might modify the Moon's shape, has ceased +long ago?"</p> + +<p>"I am rather inclined to that opinion," said Barbican; "it is not, +however, a new one. Descartes maintained that as the Earth is an extinct +Sun, so is the Moon an extinct Earth. My own opinion at present is that +the Moon is now the image of death, but I can't say if she has ever been +the abode of life."</p> + +<p>"The abode of life!" cried Ardan, who had great repugnance in accepting +the idea that the Moon was no better than a heap of cinders and ashes; +"why, look there! If those are not as neat a set of the ruins of an +abandoned city as ever I saw, I should like to know what they are!"</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image17" name="image17"> + <img src="images/19.jpg" + alt="ONCE MORE THE PIPES OF AN AQUEDUCT." + title="ONCE MORE THE PIPES OF AN AQUEDUCT." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">ONCE MORE THE PIPES OF AN AQUEDUCT.</span> +</div> + +<p>He pointed to some very remarkable rocky formations in the +neighborhood of <i>Short</i>, a ring mountain rising to an altitude +considerably higher than that of Mont Blanc. Even Barbican and M'Nicholl +could detect some regularity and semblance of order in the arrangement +of these rocks, but this, of course, they looked on as a mere freak of +nature, like the Lurlei Rock, the Giant's Causeway, or the Old Man of +the Franconia Mountains. Ardan, however, would not accept such an easy +mode of getting rid of a difficulty.</p> + +<p>"See the ruins on that bluff," he exclaimed; "those steep sides must +have been washed by a great river in the prehistoric times. That was the +fortress. Farther down lay the city. There are the dismantled ramparts; +why, there's the very coping of a portico still intact! Don't you see +three broken pillars lying beside their pedestals? There! a little to +the left of those arches that evidently once bore the pipes of an +aqueduct! You don't see them? Well, look a little to the right, and +there is something that you can see! As I'm a living man I have no +difficulty in discerning the gigantic butments of a great bridge that +formerly spanned that immense river!"</p> + +<p>Did he really see all this? To this day he affirms stoutly that he did, +and even greater wonders besides. His companions, however, without +denying that he had good grounds for his assertion on this subject or +questioning the general accuracy of his observations, content themselves +with saying that the reason why they had failed to discover the +wonderful city, was that Ardan's telescope was of a strange and +peculiar construction. Being somewhat short-sighted, he had had it +manufactured expressly for his own use, but it was of such singular +power that his companions could not use it without hurting their eyes.</p> + +<p>But, whether the ruins were real or not, the moments were evidently too +precious to be lost in idle discussion. The great city of the Selenites +soon disappeared on the remote horizon, and, what was of far greater +importance, the distance of the Projectile from the Moon's disc began to +increase so sensibly that the smaller details of the surface were soon +lost in a confused mass, and it was only the lofty heights, the wide +craters, the great ring mountains, and the vast plains that still +continued to give sharp, distinctive outlines.</p> + +<p>A little to their left, the travellers could now plainly distinguish one +of the most remarkable of the Moon's craters, <i>Newton</i>, so well known to +all lunar astronomers. Its ramparts, forming a perfect circle, rise to +such a height, at least 22,000 feet, as to seem insurmountable.</p> + +<p>"You can, no doubt, notice for yourselves," said Barbican, "that the +external height of this mountain is far from being equal to the depth of +its crater. The enormous pit, in fact, seems to be a soundless sea of +pitchy black, the bottom of which the Sun's rays have never reached. +There, as Humboldt says, reigns eternal darkness, so absolute that +Earth-shine or even Sunlight is never able to dispel it. Had Michael's +friends the old mythologists ever known anything about it, they would +doubtless have made it the entrance to the infernal regions. On the +whole surface of our Earth, there is no mountain even remotely +resembling it. It is a perfect type of the lunar crater. Like most of +them, it shows that the peculiar formation of the Moon's surface is due, +first, to the cooling of the lunar crust; secondly, to the cracking from +internal pressure; and, thirdly, to the violent volcanic action in +consequence. This must have been of a far fiercer nature than it has +ever been with us. The matter was ejected to a vast height till great +mountains were formed; and still the action went on, until at last the +floor of the crater sank to a depth far lower than the level of the +external plain."</p> + +<p>"You may be right," said Ardan by way of reply; "as for me, I'm looking +out for another city. But I'm sorry to say that our Projectile is +increasing its distance so fast that, even if one lay at my feet at this +moment, I doubt very much if I could see it a bit better than either you +or the Captain."</p> + +<p><i>Newton</i> was soon passed, and the Projectile followed a course that took +it directly over the ring mountain <i>Moretus</i>. A little to the west the +travellers could easily distinguish the summits of <i>Blancanus</i>, 7,000 +feet high, and, towards seven o'clock in the evening, they were +approaching the neighborhood of <i>Clavius</i>.</p> + +<p>This walled-plain, one of the most remarkable on the Moon, lies 55° S. +by 15° E. Its height is estimated at 16,000 feet, but it is considered +to be about a hundred and fifty miles in diameter. Of this vast crater, +the travellers now at a distance of 250 miles, reduced to 2-1/2 by their +telescopes, had a magnificent bird's-eye view.</p> + +<p>"Our terrestrial volcanoes," said Barbican, "as you can now readily +judge for yourselves, are no more than molehills when compared with +those of the Moon. Measure the old craters formed by the early eruptions +of Vesuvius and Ætna, and you will find them little more than three +miles in diameter. The crater of Cantal in central France is only about +six miles in width; the famous valley in Ceylon, called the <i>Crater</i>, +though not at all due to volcanic action, is 44 miles across and is +considered to be the greatest in the world. But even this is very little +in comparison to the diameter of <i>Clavius</i> lying beneath us at the +present moment."</p> + +<p>"How much is its diameter?" asked the Captain.</p> + +<p>"At least one hundred and forty-two miles," replied Barbican; "it is +probably the greatest in the Moon, but many others measure more than a +hundred miles across."</p> + +<p>"Dear boys," said Ardan, half to himself, half to the others, "only +imagine the delicious state of things on the surface of the gentle Moon +when these craters, brimming over with hissing lava, were vomiting +forth, all at the same time, showers of melted stones, clouds of +blinding smoke, and sheets of blasting flame! What an intensely +overpowering spectacle was here presented once, but now, how are the +mighty fallen! Our Moon, as at present beheld, seems to be nothing more +than the skinny spectre left after a brilliant display of fireworks, +when the spluttering crackers, the glittering wheels, the hissing +serpents, the revolving suns, and the dazzling stars, are all 'played +out', and nothing remains to tell of the gorgeous spectacle but a few +blackened sticks and half a dozen half burned bits of pasteboard. I +should like to hear one of you trying to explain the cause, the reason, +the principle, the philosophy of such tremendous cataclysms!"</p> + +<p>Barbican's only reply was a series of nods, for in truth he had not +heard a single word of Ardan's philosophic explosion. His ears were with +his eyes, and these were obstinately bent on the gigantic ramparts of +<i>Clavius</i>, formed of concentric mountain ridges, which were actually +leagues in depth. On the floor of the vast cavity, could be seen +hundreds of smaller craters, mottling it like a skimming dish, and +pierced here and there by sharp peaks, one of which could hardly be less +than 15,000 feet high.</p> + +<p>All around, the plain was desolate in the extreme. You could not +conceive how anything could be barrener than these serrated outlines, or +gloomier than these shattered mountains—until you looked at the plain +that encircled them. Ardan hardly exaggerated when he called it the +scene of a battle fought thousands of years ago but still white with the +hideous bones of overthrown peaks, slaughtered mountains and mutilated +precipices!</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Hills amid the air encountered hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hurled to and fro in jaculation dire,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>murmured M'Nicholl, who could quote you Milton quite as readily as the +Bible.</p> + +<p>"This must have been the spot," muttered Barbican to himself, "where the +brittle shell of the cooling sphere, being thicker than usual, offered +greater resistance to an eruption of the red-hot nucleus. Hence these +piled up buttresses, and these orderless heaps of consolidated lava and +ejected scoriæ."</p> + +<p>The Projectile advanced, but the scene of desolation seemed to remain +unchanged. Craters, ring mountains, pitted plateaus dotted with +shapeless wrecks, succeeded each other without interruption. For level +plain, for dark "sea," for smooth plateau, the eye here sought in vain. +It was a Swiss Greenland, an Icelandic Norway, a Sahara of shattered +crust studded with countless hills of glassy lava.</p> + +<p>At last, in the very centre of this blistered region, right too at its +very culmination, the travellers came on the brightest and most +remarkable mountain of the Moon. In the dazzling <i>Tycho</i> they found it +an easy matter to recognize the famous lunar point, which the world will +for ever designate by the name of the distinguished astronomer of +Denmark.</p> + +<p>This brilliant luminosity of the southern hemisphere, no one that ever +gazes at the Full Moon in a cloudless sky, can help noticing. Ardan, who +had always particularly admired it, now hailed it as an old friend, and +almost exhausted breath, imagination and vocabulary in the epithets with +which he greeted this cynosure of the lunar mountains.</p> + +<p>"Hail!" he cried, "thou blazing focus of glittering streaks, thou +coruscating nucleus of irradiation, thou starting point of rays +divergent, thou egress of meteoric flashes! Hub of the silver wheel that +ever rolls in silent majesty over the starry plains of Night! Paragon of +jewels enchased in a carcanet of dazzling brilliants! Eye of the +universe, beaming with heavenly resplendescence!</p> + +<p>"Who shall say what thou art? Diana's nimbus? The golden clasp of her +floating robes? The blazing head of the great bolt that rivets the lunar +hemispheres in union inseverable? Or cans't thou have been some errant +bolide, which missing its way, butted blindly against the lunar face, +and there stuck fast, like a Minie ball mashed against a cast-iron +target? Alas! nobody knows. Not even Barbican is able to penetrate thy +mystery. But one thing <i>I</i> know. Thy dazzling glare so sore my eyes hath +made that longer on thy light to gaze I do not dare. Captain, have you +any smoked glass?"</p> + +<p>In spite of this anti-climax, Ardan's companions could hardly consider +his utterings either as ridiculous or over enthusiastic. They could +easily excuse his excitement on the subject. And so could we, if we only +remember that <i>Tycho</i>, though nearly a quarter of a million miles +distant, is such a luminous point on the lunar disc, that almost any +moonlit night it can be easily perceived by the unaided terrestrial eye. +What then must have been its splendor in the eyes of our travellers +whose telescopes brought it actually four thousand times nearer! No +wonder that with smoked glasses, they endeavored to soften off its +effulgent glare! Then in hushed silence, or at most uttering at +intervals a few interjections expressive of their intense admiration, +they remained for some time completely engrossed in the overwhelming +spectacle. For the time being, every sentiment, impression, thought, +feeling on their part, was concentrated in the eye, just as at other +times under violent excitement every throb of our life is concentrated +in the heart.</p> + +<p><i>Tycho</i> belongs to the system of lunar craters that is called +<i>radiating</i>, like <i>Aristarchus</i> or <i>Copernicus</i>, which had been already +seen and highly admired by our travellers at their first approach to the +Moon. But it is decidedly the most remarkable and conspicuous of them +all. It occupies the great focus of disruption, whence it sends out +great streaks thousands of miles in length; and it gives the most +unmistakable evidence of the terribly eruptive nature of those forces +that once shattered the Moon's solidified shell in this portion of the +lunar surface.</p> + +<p>Situated in the southern latitude of 43° by an eastern longitude of 12°, +<i>Tycho's</i> crater, somewhat elliptical in shape, is 54 miles in diameter +and upwards of 16,000 feet in depth. Its lofty ramparts are buttressed +by other mountains, Mont Blancs in size, all grouped around it, and all +streaked with the great divergent fissures that radiate from it as a +centre.</p> + +<p>Of what this incomparable mountain really is, with all these lines of +projections converging towards it and with all these prominent points +of relief protruding within its crater, photography has, so far, been +able to give us only a very unsatisfactory idea. The reason too is very +simple: it is only at Full Moon that <i>Tycho</i> reveals himself in all his +splendor. The shadows therefore vanishing, the perspective +foreshortenings disappear and the views become little better than a dead +blank. This is the more to be regretted as this wonderful region is well +worthy of being represented with the greatest possible photographic +accuracy. It is a vast agglomeration of holes, craters, ring formations, +a complicated intersection of crests—in short, a distracting volcanic +network flung over the blistered soil. The ebullitions of the central +eruption still evidently preserve their original form. As they first +appeared, so they lie. Crystallizing as they cooled, they have +stereotyped in imperishable characters the aspect formerly presented by +the whole Moon's surface under the influences of recent plutonic +upheaval.</p> + +<p>Our travellers were far more fortunate than the photographers. The +distance separating them from the peaks of <i>Tycho's</i> concentric terraces +was not so considerable as to conceal the principal details from a very +satisfactory view. They could easily distinguish the annular ramparts of +the external circumvallation, the mountains buttressing the gigantic +walls internally as well as externally, the vast esplanades descending +irregularly and abruptly to the sunken plains all around. They could +even detect a difference of a few hundred feet in altitude in favor of +the western or right hand side over the eastern. They could also see +that these dividing ridges were actually inaccessible and completely +unsurmountable, at least by ordinary terrestrian efforts. No system of +castrametation ever devised by Polybius or Vauban could bear the +slightest comparison with such vast fortifications, A city built on the +floor of the circular cavity could be no more reached by the outside +Lunarians than if it had been built in the planet Mars.</p> + +<p>This idea set Ardan off again. "Yes," said he, "such a city would be at +once completely inaccessible, and still not inconveniently situated in a +plateau full of aspects decidedly picturesque. Even in the depths of +this immense crater, Nature, as you can see, has left no flat and empty +void. You can easily trace its special oreography, its various mountain +systems which turn it into a regular world on a small scale. Notice its +cones, its central hills, its valleys, its substructures already cut and +dry and therefore quietly prepared to receive the masterpieces of +Selenite architecture. Down there to the left is a lovely spot for a +Saint Peter's; to the right, a magnificent site for a Forum; here a +Louvre could be built capable of entrancing Michael Angelo himself; +there a citadel could be raised to which even Gibraltar would be a +molehill! In the middle rises a sharp peak which can hardly be less than +a mile in height—a grand pedestal for the statue of some Selenite +Vincent de Paul or George Washington. And around them all is a mighty +mountain-ring at least 3 miles high, but which, to an eye looking from +the centre of our vast city, could not appear to be more than five or +six hundred feet. Enormous circus, where mighty Rome herself in her +palmiest days, though increased tenfold, would have no reason to +complain for want of room!"</p> + +<p>He stopped for a few seconds, perhaps to take breath, and then resumed:</p> + +<p>"Oh what an abode of serene happiness could be constructed within this +shadow-fringed ring of the mighty mountains! O blessed refuge, +unassailable by aught of human ills! What a calm unruffled life could be +enjoyed within thy hallowed precincts, even by those cynics, those +haters of humanity, those disgusted reconstructors of society, those +misanthropes and misogynists old and young, who are continually writing +whining verses in odd corners of the newspapers!"</p> + +<p>"Right at last, Ardan, my boy!" cried M'Nicholl, quietly rubbing the +glass of his spectacles; "I should like to see the whole lot of them +carted in there without a moment's delay!"</p> + +<p>"It couldn't hold the half of them!" observed Barbican drily.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<h3>PUZZLING QUESTIONS.</h3> + + +<p>It was not until the Projectile had passed a little beyond <i>Tycho's</i> +immense concavity that Barbican and his friends had a good opportunity +for observing the brilliant streaks sent so wonderfully flying in all +directions from this celebrated mountain as a common centre. They +examined them for some time with the closest attention.</p> + +<p>What could be the nature of this radiating aureola? By what geological +phenomena could this blazing coma have been possibly produced? Such +questions were the most natural things in the world for Barbican and his +companions to propound to themselves, as indeed they have been to every +astronomer from the beginning of time, and probably will be to the end.</p> + +<p>What <i>did</i> they see? What you can see, what anybody can see on a clear +night when the Moon is full—only our friends had all the advantages of +a closer view. From <i>Tycho</i>, as a focus, radiated in all directions, as +from the head of a peeled orange, more than a hundred luminous streaks +or channels, edges raised, middle depressed—or perhaps <i>vice versa</i>, +owing to an optical illusion—some at least twelve miles wide, some +fully thirty. In certain directions they ran for a distance of at least +six hundred miles, and seemed—especially towards the west, northwest, +and north—to cover half the southern hemisphere. One of these flashes +extended as far as <i>Neander</i> on the 40th meridian; another, curving +around so as to furrow the <i>Mare Nectaris</i>, came to an end on the chain +of the <i>Pyrenees</i>, after a course of perhaps a little more than seven +hundred miles. On the east, some of them barred with luminous network +the <i>Mare Nubium</i> and even the <i>Mare Humorum</i>.</p> + +<p>The most puzzling feature of these glittering streaks was that they ran +their course directly onward, apparently neither obstructed by valley, +crater, or mountain ridge however high. They all started, as said +before, from one common focus, <i>Tycho's</i> crater. From this they +certainly all seemed to emanate. Could they be rivers of lava once +vomited from that centre by resistless volcanic agency and afterwards +crystallized into glassy rock? This idea of Herschel's, Barbican had no +hesitation in qualifying as exceedingly absurd. Rivers running in +perfectly straight lines, across plains, and <i>up</i> as well as <i>down</i> +mountains!</p> + +<p>"Other astronomers," he continued, "have looked on these streaks as a +peculiar kind of <i>moraines</i>, that is, long lines of erratic blocks +belched forth with mighty power at the period of <i>Tycho's</i> own +upheaval."</p> + +<p>"How do you like that theory, Barbican," asked the Captain.</p> + +<p>"It's not a particle better than Herschel's," was the reply; "no +volcanic action could project rocks to a distance of six or seven +hundred miles, not to talk of laying them down so regularly that we +can't detect a break in them."</p> + +<p>"Happy thought!" cried Ardan suddenly; "it seems to me that I can tell +the cause of these radiating streaks!"</p> + +<p>"Let us hear it," said Barbican.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," was Ardan's reply; "these streaks are all only the parts of +what we call a 'star,' as made by a stone striking ice; or by a ball, a +pane of glass."</p> + +<p>"Not bad," smiled Barbican approvingly; "only where is the hand that +flung the stone or threw the ball?"</p> + +<p>"The hand is hardly necessary," replied Ardan, by no means disconcerted; +"but as for the ball, what do you say to a comet?"</p> + +<p>Here M'Nicholl laughed so loud that Ardan was seriously irritated. +However, before he could say anything cutting enough to make the Captain +mind his manners, Barbican had quickly resumed:</p> + +<p>"Dear friend, let the comets alone, I beg of you; the old astronomers +fled to them on all occasions and made them explain every difficulty—"</p> + +<p>—"The comets were all used up long ago—" interrupted M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>—"Yes," went on Barbican, as serenely as a judge, "comets, they said, +had fallen on the surface in meteoric showers and crushed in the crater +cavities; comets had dried up the water; comets had whisked off the +atmosphere; comets had done everything. All pure assumption! In your +case, however, friend Michael, no comet whatever is necessary. The shock +that gave rise to your great 'star' may have come from the interior +rather than the exterior. A violent contraction of the lunar crust in +the process of cooling may have given birth to your gigantic 'star' +formation."</p> + +<p>"I accept the amendment," said Ardan, now in the best of humor and +looking triumphantly at M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"An English scientist," continued Barbican, "Nasmyth by name, is +decidedly of your opinion, especially ever since a little experiment of +his own has confirmed him in it. He filled a glass globe with water, +hermetically sealed it, and then plunged it into a hot bath. The +enclosed water, expanding at a greater rate than the glass, burst the +latter, but, in doing so, it made a vast number of cracks all diverging +in every direction from the focus of disruption. Something like this he +conceives to have taken place around <i>Tycho</i>. As the crust cooled, it +cracked. The lava from the interior, oozing out, spread itself on both +sides of the cracks. This certainly explains pretty satisfactorily why +those flat glistening streaks are of much greater width than the +fissures through which the lava had at first made its way to the +surface."</p> + +<p>"Well done for an Englishman!" cried Ardan in great spirits.</p> + +<p>"He's no Englishman," said M'Nicholl, glad to have an opportunity of +coming off with some credit. "He is the famous Scotch engineer who +invented the steam hammer, the steam ram, and discovered the 'willow +leaves' in the Sun's disc."</p> + +<p>"Better and better," said Ardan—"but, powers of Vulcan! What makes it +so hot? I'm actually roasting!"</p> + +<p>This observation was hardly necessary to make his companions conscious +that by this time they felt extremely uncomfortable. The heat had become +quite oppressive. Between the natural caloric of the Sun and the +reflected caloric of the Moon, the Projectile was fast turning into a +regular bake oven. This transition from intense cold to intense heat was +already about quite as much as they could bear.</p> + +<p>"What shall we do, Barbican?" asked Ardan, seeing that for some time no +one else appeared inclined to say a word.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, at least yet awhile, friend Ardan," replied Barbican, "I have +been watching the thermometer carefully for the last few minutes, and, +though we are at present at 38° centigrade, or 100° Fahrenheit, I have +noticed that the mercury is slowly falling. You can also easily remark +for yourself that the floor of the Projectile is turning away more and +more from the lunar surface. From this I conclude quite confidently, and +I see that the Captain agrees with me, that all danger of death from +intense heat, though decidedly alarming ten minutes ago, is over for the +present and, for some time at least, it may be dismissed from further +consideration."</p> + +<p>"I'm not very sorry for it," said Ardan cheerfully; "neither to be +baked like a pie in an oven nor roasted like a fat goose before a fire +is the kind of death I should like to die of."</p> + +<p>"Yet from such a death you would suffer no more than your friends the +Selenites are exposed to every day of their lives," said the Captain, +evidently determined on getting up an argument.</p> + +<p>"I understand the full bearing of your allusion, my dear Captain," +replied Ardan quickly, but not at all in a tone showing that he was +disposed to second M'Nicholl's expectations.</p> + +<p>He was, in fact, fast losing all his old habits of positivism. Latterly +he had seen much, but he had reflected more. The deeper he had +reflected, the more inclined he had become to accept the conclusion that +the less he knew. Hence he had decided that if M'Nicholl wanted an +argument it should not be with him. All speculative disputes he should +henceforth avoid; he would listen with pleasure to all that could be +urged on each side; he might even skirmish a little here and there as +the spirit moved him; but a regular pitched battle on a subject purely +speculative he was fully determined never again to enter into.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear Captain," he continued, "that pointed arrow of yours has by +no means missed its mark, but I can't deny that my faith is beginning to +be what you call a little 'shaky' in the existence of my friends the +Selenites. However, I should like to have your square opinion on the +matter. Barbican's also. We have witnessed many strange lunar phenomena +lately, closer and clearer than mortal eye ever rested on them before. +Has what we have seen confirmed any theory of yours or confounded any +hypothesis? Have you seen enough to induce you to adopt decided +conclusions? I will put the question formally. Do you, or do you not, +think that the Moon resembles the Earth in being the abode of animals +and intelligent beings? Come, answer, <i>messieurs</i>. Yes, or no?"</p> + +<p>"I think we can answer your question categorically," replied Barbican, +"if you modify its form a little."</p> + +<p>"Put the question any way you please," said Ardan; "only you answer it! +I'm not particular about the form."</p> + +<p>"Good," said Barbican; "the question, being a double one, demands a +double answer. First: <i>Is the Moon inhabitable?</i> Second: <i>Has the Moon +ever been inhabited?</i>"</p> + +<p>"That's the way to go about it," said the Captain. "Now then, Ardan, +what do <i>you</i> say to the first question? Yes, or no?"</p> + +<p>"I really can't say anything," replied Ardan. "In the presence of such +distinguished scientists, I'm only a listener, a 'mere looker on in +Vienna' as the Divine Williams has it. However, for the sake of +argument, suppose I reply in the affirmative, and say that <i>the Moon is +inhabitable</i>."</p> + +<p>"If you do, I shall most unhesitatingly contradict you," said Barbican, +feeling just then in splendid humor for carrying on an argument, not, of +course, for the sake of contradicting or conquering or crushing or +showing off or for any other vulgar weakness of lower minds, but for the +noble and indeed the only motive that should impel a philosopher—that +of <i>enlightening</i> and <i>convincing</i>, "In taking the negative side, +however, or saying that the Moon is not inhabitable, I shall not be +satisfied with merely negative arguments. Many words, however, are not +required. Look at her present condition: her atmosphere dwindled away to +the lowest ebb; her 'seas' dried up or very nearly so; her waters +reduced to next to nothing; her vegetation, if existing at all, existing +only on the scantiest scale; her transitions from intense heat to +intense cold, as we ourselves can testify, sudden in the extreme; her +nights and her days each nearly 360 hours long. With all this positively +against her and nothing at all that we know of positively for her, I +have very little hesitation in saying that the Moon appears to me to be +absolutely uninhabitable. She seems to me not only unpropitious to the +development of the animal kingdom but actually incapable of sustaining +life at all—that is, in the sense that we usually attach to such a +term."</p> + +<p>"That saving clause is well introduced, friend Barbican," said +M'Nicholl, who, seeing no chance of demolishing Ardan, had not yet made +up his mind as to having another little bout with the President. "For +surely you would not venture to assert that the Moon is uninhabitable by +a race of beings having an organization different from ours?"</p> + +<p>"That question too, Captain," replied Barbican, "though a much more +difficult one, I shall try to answer. First, however, let us see, +Captain, if we agree on some fundamental points. How do we detect the +existence of life? Is it not by <i>movement</i>? Is not <i>motion</i> its result, +no matter what may be its organization?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said the Captain in a drawling way, "I guess we may grant that."</p> + +<p>"Then, dear friends," resumed Barbican, "I must remind you that, though +we have had the privilege of observing the lunar continents at a +distance of not more than one-third of a mile, we have never yet caught +sight of the first thing moving on her surface. The presence of +humanity, even of the lowest type, would have revealed itself in some +form or other, by boundaries, by buildings, even by ruins. Now what +<i>have</i> we seen? Everywhere and always, the geological works of <i>nature</i>; +nowhere and never, the orderly labors of <i>man</i>. Therefore, if any +representatives of animal life exist in the Moon, they must have taken +refuge in those bottomless abysses where our eyes were unable to track +them. And even this I can't admit. They could not always remain in these +cavities. If there is any atmosphere at all in the Moon, it must be +found in her immense low-lying plains. Over those plains her inhabitants +must have often passed, and on those plains they must in some way or +other have left some mark, some trace, some vestige of their existence, +were it even only a road. But you both know well that nowhere are any +such traces visible: therefore, they don't exist; therefore, no lunar +inhabitants exist—except, of course, such a race of beings, if we can +imagine any such, as could exist without revealing their existence by +<i>movement</i>."</p> + +<p>"That is to say," broke in Ardan, to give what he conceived a sharper +point to Barbican's cogent arguments, "such a race of beings as could +exist without existing!"</p> + +<p>"Precisely," said Barbican: "Life without movement, and no life at all, +are equivalent expressions."</p> + +<p>"Captain," said Ardan, with all the gravity he could assume, "have you +anything more to say before the Moderator of our little Debating Society +gives his opinion on the arguments regarding the question before the +house?"</p> + +<p>"No more at present," said the Captain, biding his time.</p> + +<p>"Then," resumed Ardan, rising with much dignity, "the Committee on Lunar +Explorations, appointed by the Honorable Baltimore Gun Club, solemnly +assembled in the Projectile belonging to the aforesaid learned and +respectable Society, having carefully weighed all the arguments advanced +on each side of the question, and having also carefully considered all +the new facts bearing on the case that have lately come under the +personal notice of said Committee, unanimously decides negatively on the +question now before the chair for investigation—namely, 'Is the Moon +inhabitable?' Barbican, as chairman of the Committee, I empower you to +duly record our solemn decision—<i>No, the Moon is not inhabitable</i>."</p> + +<p>Barbican, opening his note-book, made the proper entry among the minutes +of the meeting of December 6th.</p> + +<p>"Now then, gentlemen," continued Ardan, "if you are ready for the second +question, the necessary complement of the first, we may as well approach +it at once. I propound it for discussion in the following form: <i>Has the +Moon ever been inhabited?</i> Captain, the Committee would be delighted to +hear your remarks on the subject."</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," began the Captain in reply, "I had formed my opinion +regarding the ancient inhabitability of our Satellite long before I ever +dreamed of testing my theory by anything like our present journey. I +will now add that all our observations, so far made, have only served to +confirm me in my opinion. I now venture to assert, not only with every +kind of probability in my favor but also on what I consider most +excellent arguments, that the Moon was once inhabited by a race of +beings possessing an organization similar to our own, that she once +produced animals anatomically resembling our terrestrial animals, and +that all these living organizations, human and animal, have had their +day, that that day vanished ages and ages ago, and that, consequently, +<i>Life</i>, extinguished forever, can never again reveal its existence there +under any form."</p> + +<p>"Is the Chair," asked Ardan, "to infer from the honorable gentleman's +observations that he considers the Moon to be a world much older than +the Earth?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly that," replied the Captain without hesitation; "I rather +mean to say that the Moon is a world that grew old more rapidly than the +Earth; that it came to maturity earlier; that it ripened quicker, and +was stricken with old age sooner. Owing to the difference of the volumes +of the two worlds, the organizing forces of matter must have been +comparatively much more violent in the interior of the Moon than in the +interior of the Earth. The present condition of its surface, as we see +it lying there beneath us at this moment, places this assertion beyond +all possibility of doubt. Wrinkled, pitted, knotted, furrowed, scarred, +nothing that we can show on Earth resembles it. Moon and Earth were +called into existence by the Creator probably at the same period of +time. In the first stages of their existence, they do not seem to have +been anything better than masses of gas. Acted upon by various forces +and various influences, all of course directed by an omnipotent +intelligence, these gases by degrees became liquid, and the liquids grew +condensed into solids until solidity could retain its shape. But the two +heavenly bodies, though starting at the same time, developed at a very +different ratio. Most undoubtedly, our globe was still gaseous or at +most only liquid, at the period when the Moon, already hardened by +cooling, began to become inhabitable."</p> + +<p>"<i>Most undoubtedly</i> is good!" observed Ardan admiringly.</p> + +<p>"At this period," continued the learned Captain, "an atmosphere +surrounded her. The waters, shut in by this gaseous envelope, could no +longer evaporate. Under the combined influences of air, water, light, +and solar heat as well as internal heat, vegetation began to overspread +the continents by this time ready to receive it, and most undoubtedly—I +mean—a—incontestably—it was at this epoch that <i>life</i> manifested +itself on the lunar surface. I say <i>incontestably</i> advisedly, for Nature +never exhausts herself in producing useless things, and therefore a +world, so wonderfully inhabitable, <i>must</i> of necessity have had +inhabitants."</p> + +<p>"I like <i>of necessity</i> too," said Ardan, who could never keep still; "I +always did, when I felt my arguments to be what you call a little +shaky."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear Captain," here observed Barbican, "have you taken into +consideration some of the peculiarities of our Satellite which are +decidedly opposed to the development of vegetable and animal existence? +Those nights and days, for instance, 354 hours long?"</p> + +<p>"I have considered them all," answered the brave Captain. "Days and +nights of such an enormous length would at the present time, I grant, +give rise to variations in temperature altogether intolerable to any +ordinary organization. But things were quite different in the era +alluded to. At that time, the atmosphere enveloped the Moon in a gaseous +mantle, and the vapors took the shape of clouds. By the screen thus +formed by the hand of nature, the heat of the solar rays was tempered +and the nocturnal radiation retarded. Light too, as well as heat, could +be modified, tempered, and <i>genialized</i> if I may use the expression, by +the air. This produced a healthy counterpoise of forces, which, now that +the atmosphere has completely disappeared, of course exists no longer. +Besides—friend Ardan, you will excuse me for telling you something new, +something that will surprise you—"</p> + +<p>—"Surprise me, my dear boy, fire away surprising me!" cried Ardan. "I +like dearly to be surprised. All I regret is that you scientists have +surprised me so much already that I shall never have a good, hearty, +genuine surprise again!"</p> + +<p>—"I am most firmly convinced," continued the Captain, hardly waiting +for Ardan to finish, "that, at the period of the Moon's occupancy by +living creatures, her days and nights were by no means 354 hours long."</p> + +<p>"Well! if anything could surprise me," said Ardan quickly, "such an +assertion as that most certainly would. On what does the honorable +gentleman base his <i>most firm conviction</i>?"</p> + +<p>"We know," replied the Captain, "that the reason of the Moon's present +long day and night is the exact equality of the periods of her rotation +on her axis and of her revolution around the Earth. When she has turned +once around the Earth, she has turned once around herself. Consequently, +her back is turned to the Sun during one-half of the month; and her face +during the other half. Now, I don't believe that this state of things +existed at the period referred to."</p> + +<p>"The gentleman does not believe!" exclaimed Ardan. "The Chair must be +excused for reminding the honorable gentleman that it can not accept his +incredulity as a sound and valid argument. These two movements have +certainly equal periods now; why not always?"</p> + +<p>"For the simple reason that this equality of periods is due altogether +to the influence of terrestrial attraction," replied the ready Captain. +"This attraction at present, I grant, is so great that it actually +disables the Moon from revolving on herself; consequently she must +always keep the same face turned towards the Earth. But who can assert +that this attraction was powerful enough to exert the same influence at +the epoch when the Earth herself was only a fluid substance? In fact, +who can even assert that the Moon has always been the Earth's +satellite?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, who indeed?" exclaimed Ardan. "And who can assert that the Moon did +not exist long before the Earth was called into being at all? In fact, +who can assert that the Earth itself is not a great piece broken off the +Moon? Nothing like asking absurd questions! I've often found them +passing for the best kind of arguments!"</p> + +<p>"Friend Ardan," interposed Barbican, who noticed that the Captain was a +little too disconcerted to give a ready reply; "Friend Ardan, I must say +you are not quite wrong in showing how certain methods of reasoning, +legitimate enough in themselves, may be easily abused by being carried +too far. I think, however, that the Captain might maintain his position +without having recourse to speculations altogether too gigantic for +ordinary intellect. By simply admitting the insufficiency of the +primordeal attraction to preserve a perfect balance between the +movements of the lunar rotation and revolution, we can easily see how +the nights and days could once succeed each other on the Moon exactly as +they do at present on the Earth."</p> + +<p>"Nothing can be clearer!" resumed the brave Captain, once more rushing +to the charge. "Besides, even without this alternation of days and +nights, life on the lunar surface was quite possible."</p> + +<p>"Of course it was possible," said Ardan; "everything is possible except +what contradicts itself. It is possible too that every possibility is a +fact; therefore, it <i>is</i> a fact. However," he added, not wishing to +press the Captain's weak points too closely, "let all these logical +niceties pass for the present. Now that you have established the +existence of your humanity in the Moon, the Chair would respectfully ask +how it has all so completely disappeared?"</p> + +<p>"It disappeared completely thousands, perhaps millions, of years ago," +replied the unabashed Captain. "It perished from the physical +impossibility of living any longer in a world where the atmosphere had +become by degrees too rare to be able to perform its functions as the +great resuscitating medium of dependent existences. What took place on +the Moon is only what is to take place some day or other on the Earth, +when it is sufficiently cooled off."</p> + +<p>"Cooled off?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied the Captain as confidently and with as little hesitation +as if he was explaining some of the details of his great machine-shop in +Philadelphia; "You see, according as the internal fire near the surface +was extinguished or was withdrawn towards the centre, the lunar shell +naturally cooled off. The logical consequences, of course, then +gradually took place: extinction of organized beings; and then +extinction of vegetation. The atmosphere, in the meantime, became +thinner and thinner—partly drawn off with the water evaporated by the +terrestrial attraction, and partly sinking with the solid water into the +crust-cracks caused by cooling. With the disappearance of air capable of +respiration, and of water capable of motion, the Moon, of course, became +uninhabitable. From that day it became the abode of death, as completely +as it is at the present moment."</p> + +<p>"That is the fate in store for our Earth?"</p> + +<p>"In all probability."</p> + +<p>"And when is it to befall us?"</p> + +<p>"Just as soon as the crust becomes cold enough to be uninhabitable."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps your philosophership has taken the trouble to calculate how +many years it will take our unfortunate <i>Terra Mater</i> to cool off?"</p> + +<p>"Well; I have."</p> + +<p>"And you can rely on your figures?"</p> + +<p>"Implicitly."</p> + +<p>"Why not tell it at once then to a fellow that's dying of impatience to +know all about it? Captain, the Chair considers you one of the most +tantalizing creatures in existence!"</p> + +<p>"If you only listen, you will hear," replied M'Nicholl quietly. "By +careful observations, extended through a series of many years, men have +been able to discover the average loss of temperature endured by the +Earth in a century. Taking this as the ground work of their +calculations, they have ascertained that our Earth shall become an +uninhabitable planet in about—"</p> + +<p>"Don't cut her life too short! Be merciful!" cried Ardan in a pleading +tone half in earnest. "Come, a good long day, your Honor! A good long +day!"</p> + +<p>"The planet that we call the Earth," continued the Captain, as grave as +a judge, "will become uninhabitable to human beings, after a lapse of +400 thousand years from the present time."</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" cried Ardan, much relieved. "<i>Vive la Science!</i> Henceforward, +what miscreant will persist in saying that the Savants are good for +nothing? Proudly pointing to this calculation, can't they exclaim to all +defamers: 'Silence, croakers! Our services are invaluable! Haven't we +insured the Earth for 400 thousand years?' Again I say <i>vive la +Science!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Ardan," began the Captain with some asperity, "the foundations on +which Science has raised—"</p> + +<p>"I'm half converted already," interrupted Ardan in a cheery tone; "I do +really believe that Science is not altogether unmitigated homebogue! +<i>Vive</i>—"</p> + +<p>—"But what has all this to do with the question under discussion?" +interrupted Barbican, desirous to keep his friends from losing their +tempers in idle disputation.</p> + +<p>"True!" said Ardan. "The Chair, thankful for being called to order, +would respectfully remind the house that the question before it is: <i>Has +the Moon been inhabited?</i> Affirmative has been heard. Negative is called +on to reply. Mr. Barbican has the <i>parole</i>."</p> + +<p>But Mr. Barbican was unwilling just then to enter too deeply into such +an exceedingly difficult subject. "The probabilities," he contented +himself with saying, "would appear to be in favor of the Captain's +speculations. But we must never forget that they <i>are</i> +speculations—nothing more. Not the slightest evidence has yet been +produced that the Moon is anything else than 'a dead and useless waste +of extinct volcanoes.' No signs of cities, no signs of buildings, not +even of ruins, none of anything that could be reasonably ascribed to the +labors of intelligent creatures. No sign of change of any kind has been +established. As for the agreement between the Moon's rotation and her +revolution, which compels her to keep the same face constantly turned +towards the Earth, we don't know that it has not existed from the +beginning. As for what is called the effect of volcanic agency upon her +surface, we don't know that her peculiar blistered appearance may not +have been brought about altogether by the bubbling and spitting that +blisters molten iron when cooling and contracting. Some close observers +have even ventured to account for her craters by saying they were due to +pelting showers of meteoric rain. Then again as to her atmosphere—why +should she have lost her atmosphere? Why should it sink into craters? +Atmosphere is gas, great in volume, small in matter; where would there +be room for it? Solidified by the intense cold? Possibly in the night +time. But would not the heat of the long day be great enough to thaw it +back again? The same trouble attends the alleged disappearance of the +water. Swallowed up in the cavernous cracks, it is said. But why are +there cracks? Cooling is not always attended by cracking. Water cools +without cracking; cannon balls cool without cracking. Too much stress +has been laid on the great difference between the <i>nucleus</i> and the +<i>crust</i>: it is really impossible to say where one ends and the other +begins. In fact, no theory explains satisfactorily anything regarding +the present state of the Moon's surface. In fact, from the day that +Galileo compared her clustering craters to 'eyes on a peacock's tail' to +the present time, we must acknowledge that we know nothing more than we +can actually see, not one particle more of the Moon's history than our +telescopes reveal to our corporal eyes!"</p> + +<p>"In the lucid opinion of the honorable and learned gentleman who spoke +last," said Ardan, "the Chair is compelled to concur. Therefore, as to +the second question before the house for deliberation, <i>Has the Moon +been ever inhabited?</i> the Chair gets out of its difficulty, as a Scotch +jury does when it has not evidence enough either way, by returning a +solemn verdict of <i>Not Proven!</i>"</p> + +<p>"And with this conclusion," said Barbican, hastily rising, "of a subject +on which, to tell the truth, we are unable as yet to throw any light +worth speaking of, let us be satisfied for the present. Another question +of greater moment to us just now is: where are we? It seems to me that +we are increasing our distance from the Moon very decidedly and very +rapidly."</p> + +<p>It was easy to see that he was quite right in this observation. The +Projectile, still following a northerly course and therefore approaching +the lunar equator, was certainly getting farther and farther from the +Moon. Even at 30° S., only ten degrees farther north than the latitude +of <i>Tycho</i>, the travellers had considerable difficulty, comparatively, +in observing the details of <i>Pitatus</i>, a walled mountain on the south +shores of the <i>Mare Nubium</i>. In the "sea" itself, over which they now +floated, they could see very little, but far to the left, on the 20th +parallel, they could discern the vast crater of <i>Bullialdus</i>, 9,000 +feet deep. On the right, they had just caught a glimpse of <i>Purbach</i>, a +depressed valley almost square in shape with a round crater in the +centre, when Ardan suddenly cried out:</p> + +<p>"A Railroad!"</p> + +<p>And, sure enough, right under them, a little northeast of <i>Purbach</i>, the +travellers easily distinguished a long line straight and black, really +not unlike a railroad cutting through a low hilly country.</p> + +<p>This, Barbican explained, was of course no railway, but a steep cliff, +at least 1,000 feet high, casting a very deep shadow, and probably the +result of the caving in of the surface on the eastern edge.</p> + +<p>Then they saw the immense crater of <i>Arzachel</i> and in its midst a cone +mountain shining with dazzling splendor. A little north of this, they +could detect the outlines of another crater, <i>Alphonse</i>, at least 70 +miles in diameter. Close to it they could easily distinguish the immense +crater or, as some observers call it, Ramparted Plain, <i>Ptolemy</i>, so +well known to lunar astronomers, occupying, as it does, such a favorable +position near the centre of the Moon, and having a diameter fully, in +one direction at least, 120 miles long.</p> + +<p>The travellers were now in about the same latitude as that at which they +had at first approached the Moon, and it was here that they began most +unquestionably to leave her. They looked and looked, readjusting their +glasses, but the details were becoming more and more difficult to catch. +The reliefs grew more and more blurred and the outlines dimmer and +dimmer. Even the great mountain profiles began to fade away, the +dazzling colors to grow duller, the jet black shadows greyer, and the +general effect mistier.</p> + +<p>At last, the distance had become so great that, of this lunar world so +wonderful, so fantastic, so weird, so mysterious, our travellers by +degrees lost even the consciousness, and their sensations, lately so +vivid, grew fainter and fainter, until finally they resembled those of a +man who is suddenly awakened from a peculiarly strange and impressive +dream.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<h3>IN EVERY FIGHT, THE IMPOSSIBLE WINS.</h3> + + +<p>No matter what we have been accustomed to, it is sad to bid it farewell +forever. The glimpse of the Moon's wondrous world imparted to Barbican +and his companions had been, like that of the Promised Land to Moses on +Mount Pisgah, only a distant and a dark one, yet it was with +inexpressibly mournful eyes that, silent and thoughtful, they now +watched her fading away slowly from their view, the conviction +impressing itself deeper and deeper in their souls that, slight as their +acquaintance had been, it was never to be renewed again. All doubt on +the subject was removed by the position gradually, but decidedly, +assumed by the Projectile. Its base was turning away slowly and steadily +from the Moon, and pointing surely and unmistakably towards the Earth.</p> + +<p>Barbican had been long carefully noticing this modification, but without +being able to explain it. That the Projectile should withdraw a long +distance from the Moon and still be her satellite, he could understand; +but, being her satellite, why not present towards her its heaviest +segment, as the Moon does towards the Earth? That was the point which he +could not readily clear up.</p> + +<p>By carefully noting its path, he thought he could see that the +Projectile, though now decidedly leaving the Moon, still followed a +curve exactly analogous to that by which it had approached her. It must +therefore be describing a very elongated ellipse, which might possibly +extend even to the neutral point where the lunar and terrestrial +attractions were mutually overcome.</p> + +<p>With this surmise of Barbican's, his companions appeared rather disposed +to agree, though, of course, it gave rise to new questions.</p> + +<p>"Suppose we reach this dead point," asked Ardan; "what then is to become +of us?"</p> + +<p>"Can't tell!" was Barbican's unsatisfactory reply.</p> + +<p>"But you can form a few hypotheses?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, two!"</p> + +<p>"Let us have them."</p> + +<p>"The velocity will be either sufficient to carry us past the dead point, +or it will not: sufficient, we shall keep on, just as we are now, +gravitating forever around the Moon—"</p> + +<p>—"Hypothesis number two will have at least one point in its favor," +interrupted as usual the incorrigible Ardan; "it can't be worse than +hypothesis number one!"</p> + +<p>—"Insufficient," continued Barbican, laying down the law, "we shall +rest forever motionless on the dead point of the mutually neutralizing +attractions."</p> + +<p>"A pleasant prospect!" observed Ardan: "from the worst possible to no +better! Isn't it, Barbican?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing to say," was Barbican's only reply.</p> + +<p>"Have you nothing to say either, Captain?" asked Ardan, beginning to be +a little vexed at the apparent apathy of his companions.</p> + +<p>"Nothing whatever," replied M'Nicholl, giving point to his words by a +despairing shake of his head.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean surely that we're going to sit here, like bumps on a +log, doing nothing until it will be too late to attempt anything?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing whatever can be done," said Barbican gloomily. "It is vain to +struggle against the impossible."</p> + +<p>"Impossible! Where did you get that word? I thought the American +schoolboys had cut it out of their dictionaries!"</p> + +<p>"That must have been since my time," said Barbican smiling grimly.</p> + +<p>"It still sticks in a few old copies anyhow," drawled M'Nicholl drily, +as he carefully wiped his glasses.</p> + +<p>"Well! it has no business <i>here</i>!" said Ardan. "What! A pair of live +Yankees and a Frenchman, of the nineteenth century too, recoil before an +old fashioned word that hardly scared our grandfathers!"</p> + +<p>"What can we do?"</p> + +<p>"Correct the movement that's now running away with us!"</p> + +<p>"Correct it?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, correct it! or modify it! or clap brakes on it! or take +some advantage of it that will be in our favor! What matters the exact +term so you comprehend me?"</p> + +<p>"Easy talking!"</p> + +<p>"As easy doing!"</p> + +<p>"Doing what? Doing how?"</p> + +<p>"The what, and the how, is your business, not mine! What kind of an +artillery man is he who can't master his bullets? The gunner who cannot +command his own gun should be rammed into it head foremost himself and +blown from its mouth! A nice pair of savants <i>you</i> are! There you sit as +helpless as a couple of babies, after having inveigled me—"</p> + +<p>"Inveigled!!" cried Barbican and M'Nicholl starting to their feet in an +instant; "WHAT!!!"</p> + +<p>"Come, come!" went on Ardan, not giving his indignant friends time to +utter a syllable; "I don't want any recrimination! I'm not the one to +complain! I'll even let up a little if you consider the expression too +strong! I'll even withdraw it altogether, and assert that the trip +delights me! that the Projectile is a thing after my own heart! that I +was never in better spirits than at the present moment! I don't +complain, I only appeal to your own good sense, and call upon you with +all my voice to do everything possible, so that we may go <i>somewhere</i>, +since it appears we can't get to the Moon!"</p> + +<p>"But that's exactly what we want to do ourselves, friend Ardan," said +Barbican, endeavoring to give an example of calmness to the impatient +M'Nicholl; "the only trouble is that we have not the means to do it."</p> + +<p>"Can't we modify the Projectile's movement?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Nor diminish its velocity?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Not even by lightening it, as a heavily laden ship is lightened, by +throwing cargo overboard?"</p> + +<p>"What can we throw overboard? We have no ballast like balloon-men."</p> + +<p>"I should like to know," interrupted M'Nicholl, "what would be the good +of throwing anything at all overboard. Any one with a particle of common +sense in his head, can see that the lightened Projectile should only +move the quicker!"</p> + +<p>"Slower, you mean," said Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Quicker, I mean," replied the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Neither quicker nor slower, dear friends," interposed Barbican, +desirous to stop a quarrel; "we are floating, you know, in an absolute +void, where specific gravity never counts."</p> + +<p>"Well then, my friends," said Ardan in a resigned tone that he evidently +endeavored to render calm, "since the worst is come to the worst, there +is but one thing left for us to do!"</p> + +<p>"What's that?" said the Captain, getting ready to combat some new piece +of nonsense.</p> + +<p>"To take our breakfast!" said the Frenchman curtly.</p> + +<p>It was a resource he had often fallen back on in difficult +conjunctures. Nor did it fail him now.</p> + +<p>Though it was not a project that claimed to affect either the velocity +or the direction of the Projectile, still, as it was eminently +practicable and not only unattended by no inconvenience on the one hand +but evidently fraught with many advantages on the other, it met with +decided and instantaneous success. It was rather an early hour for +breakfast, two o'clock in the morning, yet the meal was keenly relished. +Ardan served it up in charming style and crowned the dessert with a few +bottles of a wine especially selected for the occasion from his own +private stock. It was a <i>Tokay Imperial</i> of 1863, the genuine <i>Essenz</i>, +from Prince Esterhazy's own wine cellar, and the best brain stimulant +and brain clearer in the world, as every connoisseur knows.</p> + +<p>It was near four o'clock in the morning when our travellers, now well +fortified physically and morally, once more resumed their observations +with renewed courage and determination, and with a system of recording +really perfect in its arrangements.</p> + +<p>Around the Projectile, they could still see floating most of the objects +that had been dropped out of the window. This convinced them that, +during their revolution around the Moon, they had not passed through any +atmosphere; had anything of the kind been encountered, it would have +revealed its presence by its retarding effect on the different objects +that now followed close in the wake of the Projectile. One or two that +were missing had been probably struck and carried off by a fragment of +the exploded bolide.</p> + +<p>Of the Earth nothing as yet could be seen. She was only one day Old, +having been New the previous evening, and two days were still to elapse +before her crescent would be sufficiently cleared of the solar rays to +be capable of performing her ordinary duty of serving as a time-piece +for the Selenites. For, as the reflecting reader need hardly be +reminded, since she rotates with perfect regularity on her axis, she can +make such rotations visible to the Selenites by bringing some particular +point on her surface once every twenty-four hours directly over the same +lunar meridian.</p> + +<p>Towards the Moon, the view though far less distinct, was still almost as +dazzling as ever. The radiant Queen of Night still glittered in all her +splendor in the midst of the starry host, whose pure white light seemed +to borrow only additional purity and silvery whiteness from the gorgeous +contrast. On her disc, the "seas" were already beginning to assume the +ashy tint so well known to us on Earth, but the rest of her surface +sparkled with all its former radiation, <i>Tycho</i> glowing like a sun in +the midst of the general resplendescence.</p> + +<p>Barbican attempted in vain to obtain even a tolerable approximation of +the velocity at which the Projectile was now moving. He had to content +himself with the knowledge that it was diminishing at a uniform rate—of +which indeed a little reflection on a well known law of Dynamics readily +convinced him. He had not much difficulty even in explaining the matter +to his friends.</p> + +<p>"Once admitting," said he, "the Projectile to describe an orbit round +the Moon, that orbit must of necessity be an ellipse. Every moving body +circulating regularly around another, describes an ellipse. Science has +proved this incontestably. The satellites describe ellipses around the +planets, the planets around the Sun, the Sun himself describes an +ellipse around the unknown star that serves as a pivot for our whole +solar system. How can our Baltimore Gun Club Projectile then escape the +universal law?</p> + +<p>"Now what is the consequence of this law? If the orbit were a <i>circle</i>, +the satellite would always preserve the same distance from its primary, +and its velocity should therefore be constant. But the orbit being an +<i>ellipse</i>, and the attracting body always occupying one of the foci, the +satellite must evidently lie nearer to this focus in one part of its +orbit than in another. The Earth when nearest to the Sun, is in her +<i>perihelion</i>; when most distant, in her <i>aphelion</i>. The Moon, with +regard to the Earth, is similarly in her <i>perigee</i>, and her <i>apogee</i>. +Analogous expressions denoting the relations of the Projectile towards +the Moon, would be <i>periselene</i> and <i>aposelene</i>. At its <i>aposelene</i> the +Projectile's velocity would have reached its minimum; at +the <i>periselene</i>, its maximum. As it is to the former point that we are +now moving, clearly the velocity must keep on diminishing until that +point is reached. Then, <i>if it does not die out altogether</i>, it must +spring up again, and even accelerate as it reapproaches the Moon. Now +the great trouble is this: If the <i>Aposelenetic</i> point should coincide +with the point of lunar attraction, our velocity must certainly become +<i>nil</i>, and the Projectile must remain relatively motionless forever!"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by 'relatively motionless'?" asked M'Nicholl, who was +carefully studying the situation.</p> + +<p>"I mean, of course, not absolutely motionless," answered Barbican; +"absolute immobility is, as you are well aware, altogether impossible, +but motionless with regard to the Earth and the—"</p> + +<p>"By Mahomet's jackass!" interrupted Ardan hastily, "I must say we're a +precious set of <i>imbéciles</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I don't deny it, dear friend," said Barbican quietly, notwithstanding +the unceremonious interruption; "but why do you say so just now?"</p> + +<p>"Because though we are possessed of the power of retarding the velocity +that takes us from the Moon, we have never thought of employing it!"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Do you forget the rockets?"</p> + +<p>"It's a fact!" cried M'Nicholl. "How have we forgotten them?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I can't tell," answered Barbican, "unless, perhaps, because we +had too many other things to think about. Your thought, my dear friend, +is a most happy one, and, of course, we shall utilize it."</p> + +<p>"When? How soon?"</p> + +<p>"At the first favorable opportunity, not sooner. For you can see for +yourselves, dear friends," he went on explaining, "that with the present +obliquity of the Projectile with regard to the lunar disc, a discharge +of our rockets would be more likely to send us away from the Moon than +towards her. Of course, you are both still desirous of reaching the +Moon?"</p> + +<p>"Most emphatically so!"</p> + +<p>"Then by reserving our rockets for the last chance, we may possibly get +there after all. In consequence of some force, to me utterly +inexplicable, the Projectile still seems disposed to turn its base +towards the Earth. In fact, it is likely enough that at the neutral +point its cone will point vertically to the Moon. That being the moment +when its velocity will most probably be <i>nil</i>, it will also be the +moment for us to discharge our rockets, and the possibility is that we +may force a direct fall on the lunar disc."</p> + +<p>"Good!" cried Ardan, clapping hands.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't we execute this grand manoeuvre the first time we reached +the neutral point?" asked M'Nicholl a little crustily.</p> + +<p>"It would be useless," answered Barbican; "the Projectile's velocity at +that time, as you no doubt remember, not only did not need rockets, but +was actually too great to be affected by them."</p> + +<p>"True!" chimed in Ardan; "a wind of four miles an hour is very little +use to a steamer going ten."</p> + +<p>"That assertion," cried M'Nicholl, "I am rather dis—"</p> + +<p>—"Dear friends," interposed Barbican, his pale face beaming and his +clear voice ringing with the new excitement; "let us just now waste no +time in mere words. We have one more chance, perhaps a great one. Let us +not throw it away! We have been on the brink of despair—"</p> + +<p>—"Beyond it!" cried Ardan.</p> + +<p>—"But I now begin to see a possibility, nay, a very decided +probability, of our being able to attain the great end at last!"</p> + +<p>"Bravo!" cried Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl.</p> + +<p>"Yes! my brave boys!" cried Barbican as enthusiastically as his +companions; "all's not over yet by a long shot!"</p> + +<p>What had brought about this great revulsion in the spirits of our bold +adventurers? The breakfast? Prince Esterhazy's Tokay? The latter, most +probably. What had become of the resolutions they had discussed so ably +and passed so decidedly a few hours before? <i>Was the Moon inhabited? No! +Was the Moon habitable? No!</i> Yet in the face of all this—or rather as +coolly as if such subjects had never been alluded to—here were the +reckless scientists actually thinking of nothing but how to work heaven +and earth in order to get there!</p> + +<p>One question more remained to be answered before they played their last +trump, namely: "At what precise moment would the Projectile reach the +neutral point?"</p> + +<p>To this Barbican had very little trouble in finding an answer. The time +spent in proceeding from the south pole to the dead point being +evidently equal to the time previously spent in proceeding from the dead +point to the north pole—to ascertain the former, he had only to +calculate the latter. This was easily done. To refer to his notes, to +check off the different rates of velocity at which they had readied the +different parallels, and to turn these rates into time, required only a +very few minutes careful calculation. The Projectile then was to reach +the point of neutral attraction at one o'clock in the morning of +December 8th. At the present time, it was five o'clock in the morning of +the 7th; therefore, if nothing unforeseen should occur in the meantime, +their great and final effort was to be made about twenty hours later.</p> + +<p>The rockets, so often alluded to as an idea of Ardan's and already fully +described, had been originally provided to break the violence of the +Projectile's fall on the lunar surface; but now the dauntless travellers +were about to employ them for a purpose precisely the reverse. In any +case, having been put in proper order for immediate use, nothing more +now remained to be done till the moment should come for firing them off.</p> + +<p>"Now then, friends," said M'Nicholl, rubbing his eyes but hardly able to +keep them open, "I'm not over fond of talking, but this time I think I +may offer a slight proposition."</p> + +<p>"We shall be most happy to entertain it, my dear Captain," said +Barbican.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image18" name="image18"> + <img src="images/20.jpg" + alt="ARDAN GAZED ON THE PAIR." + title="ARDAN GAZED ON THE PAIR." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">ARDAN GAZED ON THE PAIR.</span> +</div> + +<p>"I propose we lie down and take a good nap."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" protested Ardan; "What next?"</p> + +<p>"We have not had a blessed wink for forty hours," continued the Captain; +"a little sleep would recuperate us wonderfully."</p> + +<p>"No sleep now!" exclaimed Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Every man to his taste!" said M'Nicholl; "mine at present is certainly +to turn in!" and suiting the action to the word, he coiled himself on +the sofa, and in a few minutes his deep regular breathing showed his +slumber to be as tranquil as an infant's.</p> + +<p>Barbican looked at him in a kindly way, but only for a very short time; +his eyes grew so filmy that he could not keep them open any longer. "The +Captain," he said, "may not be without his little faults, but for good +practical sense he is worth a ship-load like you and me, Ardan. By Jove, +I'm going to imitate him, and, friend Michael, you might do worse!"</p> + +<p>In a short time he was as unconscious as the Captain.</p> + +<p>Ardan gazed on the pair for a few minutes, and then began to feel quite +lonely. Even his animals were fast asleep. He tried to look out, but +observing without having anybody to listen to your observations, is dull +work. He looked again at the sleeping pair, and then he gave in.</p> + +<p>"It can't be denied," he muttered, slowly nodding his head, "that even +your practical men sometimes stumble on a good idea."</p> + +<p>Then curling up his long legs, and folding his arms under his head, his +restless brain was soon forming fantastic shapes for itself in the +mysterious land of dreams.</p> + +<p>But his slumbers were too much disturbed to last long. After an uneasy, +restless, unrefreshing attempt at repose, he sat up at about half-past +seven o'clock, and began stretching himself, when he found his +companions already awake and discussing the situation in whispers.</p> + +<p>The Projectile, they were remarking, was still pursuing its way from the +Moon, and turning its conical point more and more in her direction. This +latter phenomenon, though as puzzling as ever, Barbican regarded with +decided pleasure: the more directly the conical summit pointed to the +Moon at the exact moment, the more directly towards her surface would +the rockets communicate their reactionary motion.</p> + +<p>Nearly seventeen hours, however, were still to elapse before that +moment, that all important moment, would arrive.</p> + +<p>The time began to drag. The excitement produced by the Moon's vicinity +had died out. Our travellers, though as daring and as confident as ever, +could not help feeling a certain sinking of heart at the approach of the +moment for deciding either alternative of their doom in this +world—their fall to the Moon, or their eternal imprisonment in a +changeless orbit. Barbican and M'Nicholl tried to kill time by revising +their calculations and putting their notes in order; Ardan, by +feverishly walking back and forth from window to window, and stopping +for a second or two to throw a nervous glance at the cold, silent and +impassive Moon.</p> + +<p>Now and then reminiscences of our lower world would flit across their +brains. Visions of the famous Gun Club rose up before them the oftenest, +with their dear friend Marston always the central figure. What was his +bustling, honest, good-natured, impetuous heart at now? Most probably he +was standing bravely at his post on the Rocky Mountains, his eye glued +to the great Telescope, his whole soul peering through its tube. Had he +seen the Projectile before it vanished behind the Moon's north pole? +Could he have caught a glimpse of it at its reappearance? If so, could +he have concluded it to be the satellite of a satellite! Could Belfast +have announced to the world such a startling piece of intelligence? Was +that all the Earth was ever to know of their great enterprise? What were +the speculations of the Scientific World upon the subject? etc., etc.</p> + +<p>In listless questions and desultory conversation of this kind the day +slowly wore away, without the occurrence of any incident whatever to +relieve its weary monotony. Midnight arrived, December the seventh was +dead. As Ardan said: "<i>Le Sept Decembre est mort; vive le Huit!</i>" In one +hour more, the neutral point would be reached. At what velocity was the +Projectile now moving? Barbican could not exactly tell, but he felt +quite certain that no serious error had slipped into his calculations. +At one o'clock that night, <i>nil</i> the velocity was to be, and <i>nil</i> it +would be!</p> + +<p>Another phenomenon, in any case, was to mark the arrival of the exact +moment. At the dead point, the two attractions, terrestrial and lunar, +would again exactly counterbalance each other. For a few seconds, +objects would no longer possess the slightest weight. This curious +circumstance, which had so much surprised and amused the travellers at +its first occurrence, was now to appear again as soon as the conditions +should become identical. During these few seconds then would come the +moment for striking the decisive blow.</p> + +<p>They could soon notice the gradual approach of this important instant. +Objects began to weigh sensibly lighter. The conical point of the +Projectile had become almost directly under the centre of the lunar +surface. This gladdened the hearts of the bold adventurers. The recoil +of the rockets losing none of its power by oblique action, the chances +pronounced decidedly in their favor. Now, only supposing the +Projectile's velocity to be absolutely annihilated at the dead point, +the slightest force directing it towards the Moon would be <i>certain</i> to +cause it finally to fall on her surface.</p> + +<p>Supposing!—but supposing the contrary!</p> + +<p>—Even these brave adventurers had not the courage to suppose the +contrary!</p> + +<p>"Five minutes to one o'clock," said M'Nicholl, his eyes never quitting +his watch.</p> + +<p>"Ready?" asked Barbican of Ardan.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay, sir!" was Ardan's reply, as he made sure that the electric +apparatus to discharge the rockets was in perfect working order.</p> + +<p>"Wait till I give the word," said Barbican, pulling out his chronometer.</p> + +<p>The moment was now evidently close at hand. The objects lying around had +no weight. The travellers felt their bodies to be as buoyant as a +hydrogen balloon. Barbican let go his chronometer, but it kept its place +as firmly in empty space before his eyes as if it had been nailed to the +wall!</p> + +<p>"One o'clock!" cried Barbican in a solemn tone.</p> + +<p>Ardan instantly touched the discharging key of the little electric +battery. A dull, dead, distant report was immediately heard, +communicated probably by the vibration of the Projectile to the internal +air. But Ardan saw through the window a long thin flash, which vanished +in a second. At the same moment, the three friends became +instantaneously conscious of a slight shock experienced by the +Projectile.</p> + +<p>They looked at each other, speechless, breathless, for about as long as +it would take you to count five: the silence so intense that they could +easily hear the pulsation of their hearts. Ardan was the first to break +it.</p> + +<p>"Are we falling or are we not?" he asked in a loud whisper.</p> + +<p>"We're not!" answered M'Nicholl, also hardly speaking above his breath. +"The base of the Projectile is still turned away as far as ever from the +Moon!"</p> + +<p>Barbican, who had been looking out of the window, now turned hastily +towards his companions. His face frightened them. He was deadly pale; +his eyes stared, and his lips were painfully contracted.</p> + +<p>"We <i>are</i> falling!" he shrieked huskily.</p> + +<p>"Towards the Moon?" exclaimed his companions.</p> + +<p>"No!" was the terrible reply. "Towards the Earth!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Sacré!</i>" cried Ardan, as usually letting off his excitement in French.</p> + +<p>"Fire and fury!" cried M'Nicholl, completely startled out of his +habitual <i>sang froid</i>.</p> + +<p>"Thunder and lightning!" swore the usually serene Barbican, now +completely stunned by the blow. "I had never expected this!"</p> + +<p>Ardan was the first to recover from the deadening shock: his levity came +to his relief.</p> + +<p>"First impressions are always right," he muttered philosophically. "The +moment I set eyes on the confounded thing, it reminded me of the +Bastille; it is now proving its likeness to a worse place: easy enough +to get into, but no redemption out of it!"</p> + +<p>There was no longer any doubt possible on the subject. The terrible fall +had begun. The Projectile had retained velocity enough not only to carry +it beyond the dead point, but it was even able to completely overcome +the feeble resistance offered by the rockets. It was all clear now. The +same velocity that had carried the Projectile beyond the neutral point +on its way to the Moon, was still swaying it on its return to the Earth. +A well known law of motion required that, in the path which it was now +about to describe, <i>it should repass, on its return through all the +points through which it had already passed during its departure</i>.</p> + +<p>No wonder that our friends were struck almost senseless when the fearful +fall they were now about to encounter, flashed upon them in all its +horror. They were to fall a clear distance of nearly 200 thousand miles! +To lighten or counteract such a descent, the most powerful springs, +checks, rockets, screens, deadeners, even if the whole Earth were +engaged in their construction—would produce no more effect than so many +spiderwebs. According to a simple law in Ballistics, <i>the Projectile was +to strike the Earth with a velocity equal to that by which it had been +animated when issuing from the mouth of the Columbiad</i>—a velocity of at +least seven miles a second!</p> + +<p>To have even a faint idea of this enormous velocity, let us make a +little comparison. A body falling from the summit of a steeple a hundred +and fifty feet high, dashes against the pavement with a velocity of +fifty five miles an hour. Falling from the summit of St. Peter's, it +strikes the earth at the rate of 300 miles an hour, or five times +quicker than the rapidest express train. Falling from the neutral +point, the Projectile should strike the Earth with a velocity of more +than 25,000 miles an hour!</p> + +<p>"We are lost!" said M'Nicholl gloomily, his philosophy yielding to +despair.</p> + +<p>"One consolation, boys!" cried Ardan, genial to the last. "We shall die +together!"</p> + +<p>"If we die," said Barbican calmly, but with a kind of suppressed +enthusiasm, "it will be only to remove to a more extended sphere of our +investigations. In the other world, we can pursue our inquiries under +far more favorable auspices. There the wonders of our great Creator, +clothed in brighter light, shall be brought within a shorter range. We +shall require no machine, nor projectile, nor material contrivance of +any kind to be enabled to contemplate them in all their grandeur and to +appreciate them fully and intelligently. Our souls, enlightened by the +emanations of the Eternal Wisdom, shall revel forever in the blessed +rays of Eternal Knowledge!"</p> + +<p>"A grand view to take of it, dear friend Barbican;" replied Ardan, "and +a consoling one too. The privilege of roaming at will through God's +great universe should make ample amends for missing the Moon!"</p> + +<p>M'Nicholl fixed his eyes on Barbican admiringly, feebly muttering with +hardly moving lips:</p> + +<p>"Grit to the marrow! Grit to the marrow!"</p> + +<p>Barbican, head bowed in reverence, arms folded across his breast, meekly +and uncomplainingly uttered with sublime resignation:</p> + +<p>"Thy will be done!"</p> + +<p>"Amen!" answered his companions, in a loud and fervent whisper.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>They were soon falling through the boundless regions of space with +inconceivable rapidity!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<h3>OFF THE PACIFIC COAST.</h3> + + +<p>"Well, Lieutenant, how goes the sounding?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty lively, Captain; we're nearly through;" replied the Lieutenant. +"But it's a tremendous depth so near land. We can't be more than 250 +miles from the California coast."</p> + +<p>"The depression certainly is far deeper than I had expected," observed +Captain Bloomsbury. "We have probably lit on a submarine valley +channelled out by the Japanese Current."</p> + +<p>"The Japanese Current, Captain?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly; that branch of it which breaks on the western shores of +North America and then flows southeast towards the Isthmus of Panama."</p> + +<p>"That may account for it, Captain," replied young Brownson; "at least, I +hope it does, for then we may expect the valley to get shallower as we +leave the land. So far, there's no sign of a Telegraphic Plateau in this +quarter of the globe."</p> + +<p>"Probably not, Brownson. How is the line now?"</p> + +<p>"We have paid out 3500 fathoms already, Captain, but, judging from the +rate the reel goes at, we are still some distance from bottom."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he pointed to a tall derrick temporarily rigged up at the +stern of the vessel for the purpose of working the sounding apparatus, +and surrounded by a group of busy men. Through a block pulley strongly +lashed to the derrick, a stout cord of the best Italian hemp, wound off +a large reel placed amidships, was now running rapidly and with a slight +whirring noise.</p> + +<p>"I hope it's not the 'cup-lead' you are using, Brownson?" said the +Captain, after a few minutes observation.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, Captain, certainly not," replied the Lieutenant. "It's only +Brooke's apparatus that is of any use in such depths."</p> + +<p>"Clever fellow that Brooke," observed the Captain; "served with him +under Maury. His detachment of the weight is really the starting point +for every new improvement in sounding gear. The English, the French, and +even our own, are nothing but modifications of that fundamental +principle. Exceedingly clever fellow!"</p> + +<p>"Bottom!" sang out one of the men standing near the derrick and watching +the operations.</p> + +<p>The Captain and the Lieutenant immediately advanced to question him.</p> + +<p>"What's the depth, Coleman?" asked the Lieutenant.</p> + +<p>"21,762 feet," was the prompt reply, which Brownson immediately +inscribed in his note-book, handing a duplicate to the Captain.</p> + +<p>"All right, Lieutenant," observed the Captain, after a moment's +inspection of the figures. "While I enter it in the log, you haul the +line aboard. To do so, I need hardly remind you, is a task involving +care and patience. In spite of all our gallant little donkey engine can +do, it's a six hours job at least. Meanwhile, the Chief Engineer had +better give orders for firing up, so that we may be ready to start as +soon as you're through. It's now close on to four bells, and with your +permission I shall turn in. Let me be called at three. Good night!"</p> + +<p>"Goodnight, Captain!" replied Brownson, who spent the next two hours +pacing backward and forward on the quarter deck, watching the hauling in +of the sounding line, and occasionally casting a glance towards all +quarters of the sky.</p> + +<p>It was a glorious night. The innumerable stars glittered with the +brilliancy of the purest gems. The ship, hove to in order to take the +soundings, swung gently on the faintly heaving ocean breast. You felt +you were in a tropical clime, for, though no breath fanned your cheek, +your senses easily detected the delicious odor of a distant garden of +sweet roses. The sea sparkled with phosphorescence. Not a sound was +heard except the panting of the hard-worked little donkey-engine and the +whirr of the line as it came up taut and dripping from the ocean depths. +The lamp, hanging from the mast, threw a bright glare on deck, +presenting the strongest contrast with the black shadows, firm and +motionless as marble. The 11th day of December was now near its last +hour.</p> + +<p>The steamer was the <i>Susquehanna</i>, a screw, of the United States Navy, +4,000 in tonnage, and carrying 20 guns. She had been detached to take +soundings between the Pacific coast and the Sandwich Islands, the +initiatory movement towards laying down an Ocean Cable, which the +<i>Pacific Cable Company</i> contemplated finally extending to China. She lay +just now a few hundred miles directly south of San Diego, an old Spanish +town in southwestern California, and the point which is expected to be +the terminus of the great <i>Texas and Pacific Railroad</i>.</p> + +<p>The Captain, John Bloomsbury by name, but better known as 'High-Low +Jack' from his great love of that game—the only one he was ever known +to play—was a near relation of our old friend Colonel Bloomsbury of the +Baltimore Gun Club. Of a good Kentucky family, and educated at +Annapolis, he had passed his meridian without ever being heard of, when +suddenly the news that he had run the gauntlet in a little gunboat past +the terrible batteries of Island Number Ten, amidst a perfect storm of +shell, grape and canister discharged at less than a hundred yards +distance, burst on the American nation on the sixth of April, 1862, and +inscribed his name at once in deep characters on the list of the giants +of the Great War. But war had never been his vocation. With the return +of peace, he had sought and obtained employment on the Western Coast +Survey, where every thing he did he looked on as a labor of love. The +Sounding Expedition he had particularly coveted, and, once entered upon +it, he discharged his duties with characteristic energy.</p> + +<p>He could not have had more favorable weather than the present for a +successful performance of the nice and delicate investigations of +sounding. His vessel had even been fortunate enough to have lain +altogether out of the track of the terrible wind storm already alluded +to, which, starting from somewhere southwest of the Sierra Madre, had +swept away every vestige of mist from the summits of the Rocky Mountains +and, by revealing the Moon in all her splendor, had enabled Belfast to +send the famous despatch announcing that he had seen the Projectile. +Every feature of the expedition was, in fact, advancing so favorably +that the Captain expected to be able, in a month or two, to submit to +the <i>P.C. Company</i> a most satisfactory report of his labors.</p> + +<p>Cyrus W. Field, the life and soul of the whole enterprise, flushed with +honors still in full bloom (the Atlantic Telegraph Cable having been +just laid), could congratulate himself with good reason on having found +a treasure in the Captain. High-Low Jack was the congenial spirit by +whose active and intelligent aid he promised himself the pleasure of +seeing before long the whole Pacific Ocean covered with a vast +reticulation of electric cables. The practical part, therefore, being in +such safe hands, Mr. Field could remain with a quiet conscience in +Washington, New York or London, seeing after the financial part of the +grand undertaking, worthy of the Nineteenth Century, worthy of the Great +Republic, and eminently worthy of the illustrious CYRUS W. himself!</p> + +<p>As already mentioned, the <i>Susquehanna</i> lay a few hundred miles south +of San Diego, or, to be more accurate, in 27° 7' North Latitude and 118° +37' West Longitude (Greenwich).</p> + +<p>It was now a little past midnight. The Moon, in her last quarter, was +just beginning to peep over the eastern horizon. Lieutenant Brownson, +leaving the quarter deck, had gone to the forecastle, where he found a +crowd of officers talking together earnestly and directing their glasses +towards her disc. Even here, out on the ocean, the Queen of the night, +was as great an object of attraction as on the North American Continent +generally, where, that very night and that very hour, at least 40 +million pairs of eyes were anxiously gazing at her. Apparently forgetful +that even the very best of their glasses could no more see the +Projectile than angulate Sirius, the officers held them fast to their +eyes for five minutes at a time, and then took them away only to talk +with remarkable fluency on what they had not discovered.</p> + +<p>"Any sign of them yet, gentlemen?" asked Brownson gaily as he joined the +group. "It's now pretty near time for them to put in an appearance. +They're gone ten days I should think."</p> + +<p>"They're there, Lieutenant! not a doubt of it!" cried a young midshipman, +fresh from Annapolis, and of course "throughly posted" in the latest +revelations of Astronomy. "I feel as certain of their being there as I +am of our being here on the forecastle of the <i>Susquehanna</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I must agree with you of course, Mr. Midshipman," replied Brownson +with a slight smile; "I have no grounds whatever for contradicting you."</p> + +<p>"Neither have I," observed another officer, the surgeon of the vessel. +"The Projectile was to have reached the Moon when at her full, which was +at midnight on the 5th. To-day was the 11th. This gives them six days of +clear light—time enough in all conscience not only to land safely but +to install themselves quite comfortably in their new home. In fact, I +see them there already—"</p> + +<p>"In my mind's eye, Horatio!" laughed one of the group. "Though the Doc +wears glasses, he can see more than any ten men on board."</p> + +<p>—"Already"—pursued the Doctor, heedless of the interruption. "<i>Scene</i>, +a stony valley near a Selenite stream; the Projectile on the right, half +buried in volcanic <i>scoriae</i>, but apparently not much the worse for the +wear; ring mountains, craters, sharp peaks, etc. all around; old MAC +discovered taking observations with his levelling staff; BARBICAN +perched on the summit of a sharp pointed rock, writing up his note-book; +ARDAN, eye-glass on nose, hat under arm, legs apart, puffing at his +<i>Imperador</i>, like a—"</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image19" name="image19"> + <img src="images/21.jpg" + alt="MAC DISCOVERED TAKING OBSERVATIONS." + title="MAC DISCOVERED TAKING OBSERVATIONS." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">MAC DISCOVERED TAKING OBSERVATIONS.</span> +</div> + +<p>—"A locomotive!" interrupted the young Midshipman, his excitable +imagination so far getting the better of him as to make him forget his +manners. He had just finished Locke's famous MOON HOAX, and his brain +was still full of its pictures. "In the background," he went on, "can be +seen thousands of <i>Vespertiliones-Homines</i> or <i>Man-Bats</i>, in all the +various attitudes of curiosity, alarm, or consternation; some of them +peeping around the rocks, some fluttering from peak to peak, all +gibbering a language more or less resembling the notes of birds. <i>Enter</i> +LUNATICO, King of the Selenites—"</p> + +<p>"Excuse us, Mr. Midshipman," interrupted Brownson with an easy smile, +"Locke's authority may have great weight among the young Middies at +Annapolis, but it does not rank very high at present in the estimation +of practical scientists." This rebuff administered to the conceited +little Midshipman, a rebuff which the Doctor particularly relished, +Brownson continued: "Gentlemen, we certainly know nothing whatever +regarding our friends' fate; guessing gives no information. How we ever +are to hear from the Moon until we are connected with it by a lunar +cable, I can't even imagine. The probability is that we shall never—"</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, Lieutenant," interrupted the unrebuffed little Midshipman; +"Can't Barbican write?"</p> + +<p>A shout of derisive comments greeted this question.</p> + +<p>"Certainly he can write, and send his letter by the Pony Express!" cried +one.</p> + +<p>"A Postal Card would be cheaper!" cried another.</p> + +<p>"The <i>New York Herald</i> will send a reporter after it!" was the +exclamation of a third.</p> + +<p>"Keep cool, just keep cool, gentlemen," persisted the little Midshipman, +not in the least abashed by the uproarious hilarity excited by his +remarks. "I asked if Barbican couldn't write. In that question I see +nothing whatever to laugh at. Can't a man write without being obliged to +send his letters?"</p> + +<p>"This is all nonsense," said the Doctor. "What's the use of a man +writing to you if he can't send you what he writes?"</p> + +<p>"What's the use of his sending it to you if he can have it read without +that trouble?" answered the little Midshipman in a confident tone. "Is +there not a telescope at Long's Peak? Doesn't it bring the Moon within a +few miles of the Rocky Mountains, and enable us to see on her surface, +objects as small as nine feet in diameter? Well! What's to prevent +Barbican and his friends from constructing a gigantic alphabet? If they +write words of even a few hundred yards and sentences a mile or two +long, what is to prevent us from reading them? Catch the idea now, eh?"</p> + +<p>They did catch the idea, and heartily applauded the little Middy for his +smartness. Even the Doctor saw a certain kind of merit in it, and +Brownson acknowledged it to be quite feasible. In fact, expanding on it, +the Lieutenant assured his hearers that, by means of large parabolic +reflectors, luminous groups of rays could be dispatched from the Earth, +of sufficient brightness to establish direct communication even with +Venus or Mars, where these rays would be quite as visible as the planet +Neptune is from the Earth. He even added that those brilliant points of +light, which have been quite frequently observed in Mars and Venus, are +perhaps signals made to the Earth by the inhabitants of these planets. +He concluded, however, by observing that, though we might by these means +succeed in obtaining news from the Moon, we could not possibly send any +intelligence back in return, unless indeed the Selenites had at their +disposal optical instruments at least as good as ours.</p> + +<p>All agreed that this was very true, and, as is generally the case when +one keeps all the talk to himself, the conversation now assumed so +serious a turn that for some time it was hardly worth recording.</p> + +<p>At last the Chief Engineer, excited by some remark that had been made, +observed with much earnestness:</p> + +<p>"You may say what you please, gentlemen, but I would willingly give my +last dollar to know what has become of those brave men! Have they done +anything? Have they seen anything? I hope they have. But I should dearly +like to know. Ever so little success would warrant a repetition of the +great experiment. The Columbiad is still to the good in Florida, as it +will be for many a long day. There are millions of men to day as curious +as I am upon the subject. Therefore it will be only a question of mere +powder and bullets if a cargo of visitors is not sent to the Moon every +time she passes our zenith.</p> + +<p>"Marston would be one of the first of them," observed Brownson, lighting +his cigar.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he would have plenty of company!" cried the Midshipman. "I should +be delighted to go if he'd only take me."</p> + +<p>"No doubt you would, Mr. Midshipman," said Brownson, "the wise men, you +know, are not all dead yet."</p> + +<p>"Nor the fools either, Lieutenant," growled old Frisby, the fourth +officer, getting tired of the conversation.</p> + +<p>"There is no question at all about it," observed another; "every time a +Projectile started, it would take off as many as it could carry."</p> + +<p>"I wish it would only start often enough to improve the breed!" growled +old Frisby.</p> + +<p>"I have no doubt whatever," added the Chief Engineer, "that the thing +would get so fashionable at last that half the inhabitants of the Earth +would take a trip to the Moon."</p> + +<p>"I should limit that privilege strictly to some of our friends in +Washington," said old Frisby, whose temper had been soured probably by a +neglect to recognize his long services; "and most of them I should by +all means insist on sending to the Moon. Every month I would ram a whole +raft of them into the Columbiad, with a charge under them strong enough +to blow them all to the—But—Hey!—what in creation's that?"</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image20" name="image20"> + <img src="images/22.jpg" + alt="FOR A SECOND ONLY DID THEY CATCH ITS FLASH." + title="FOR A SECOND ONLY DID THEY CATCH ITS FLASH." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">FOR A SECOND ONLY DID THEY CATCH ITS FLASH.</span> +</div> + +<p>Whilst the officer was speaking, his companions had suddenly caught a +sound in the air which reminded them immediately of the whistling scream +of a Lancaster shell. At first they thought the steam was escaping +somewhere, but, looking upwards, they saw that the strange noise +proceeded from a ball of dazzling brightness, directly over their heads, +and evidently falling towards them with tremendous velocity. Too +frightened to say a word, they could only see that in its light the +whole ship blazed like fireworks, and the whole sea glittered like a +silver lake. Quicker than tongue can utter, or mind can conceive, it +flashed before their eyes for a second, an enormous bolide set on fire +by friction with the atmosphere, and gleaming in its white heat like a +stream of molten iron gushing straight from the furnace. For a second +only did they catch its flash before their eyes; then striking the +bowsprit of the vessel, which it shivered into a thousand pieces, it +vanished in the sea in an instant with a hiss, a scream, and a roar, all +equally indescribable. For some time the utmost confusion reigned on +deck. With eyes too dazzled to see, ears still ringing with the +frightful combination of unearthly sounds, faces splashed with floods of +sea water, and noses stifled with clouds of scalding steam, the crew of +the <i>Susquehanna</i> could hardly realize that their marvellous escape by a +few feet from instant and certain destruction was an accomplished fact, +not a frightful dream. They were still engaged in trying to open their +eyes and to get the hot water out of their ears, when they suddenly +heard the trumpet voice of Captain Bloomsbury crying, as he stood half +dressed on the head of the cabin stairs:</p> + +<p>"What's up, gentlemen? In heaven's name, what's up?"</p> + +<p>The little Midshipman had been knocked flat by the concussion and +stunned by the uproar. But before any body else could reply, his voice +was heard, clear and sharp, piercing the din like an arrow:</p> + +<p>"It's THEY, Captain! Didn't I tell you so?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<h3>NEWS FOR MARSTON!</h3> + + +<p>In a few minutes, consciousness had restored order on board the +<i>Susquehanna</i>, but the excitement was as great as ever. They had escaped +by a hairsbreadth the terrible fate of being both burned and drowned +without a moment's warning, without a single soul being left alive to +tell the fatal tale; but on this neither officer nor man appeared to +bestow the slightest thought. They were wholly engrossed with the +terrible catastrophe that had befallen the famous adventurers. What was +the loss of the <i>Susquehanna</i> and all it contained, in comparison to the +loss experienced by the world at large in the terrible tragic +<i>dénouement</i> just witnessed? The worst had now come to the worst. At +last the long agony was over forever. Those three gallant men, who had +not only conceived but had actually executed the grandest and most +daring enterprise of ancient or modern times, had paid by the most +fearful of deaths, for their sublime devotion to science and their +unselfish desire to extend the bounds of human knowledge! Before such a +reflection as this, all other considerations were at once reduced to +proportions of the most absolute insignificance.</p> + +<p>But was the death of the adventurers so very certain after all? Hope is +hard to kill. Consciousness had brought reflection, reflection doubt, +and doubt had resuscitated hope.</p> + +<p>"It's they!" had exclaimed the little Midshipman, and the cry had +thrilled every heart on board as with an electric shock. Everybody had +instantly understood it. Everybody had felt it to be true. Nothing could +be more certain than that the meteor which had just flashed before their +eyes was the famous projectile of the Baltimore Gun Club. Nothing could +be truer than that it contained the three world renowned men and that it +now lay in the black depths of the Pacific Ocean.</p> + +<p>But here opinions began to diverge. Some courageous breasts soon refused +to accept the prevalent idea.</p> + +<p>"They're killed by the shock!" cried the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Killed?" exclaimed the hopeful ones; "Not a bit of it! The water here +is deep enough to break a fall twice as great."</p> + +<p>"They're smothered for want of air!" exclaimed the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Their stock may not be run out yet!" was the ready reply. "Their air +apparatus is still on hand."</p> + +<p>"They're burned to a cinder!" shrieked the crowd.</p> + +<p>"They had not time to be burned!" answered the Band of Hope. "The +Projectile did not get hot till it reached the atmosphere, through which +it tore in a few seconds."</p> + +<p>"If they're neither burned nor smothered nor killed by the shock, +they're sure to be drowned!" persisted the crowd, with redoubled +lamentations.</p> + +<p>"Fish 'em up first!" cried the Hopeful Band. "Come! Let's lose no time! +Let's fish 'em up at once!"</p> + +<p>The cries of Hope prevailed. The unanimous opinion of a council of the +officers hastily summoned together by the Captain was to go to work and +fish up the Projectile with the least possible delay. But was such an +operation possible? asked a doubter. Yes! was the overwhelming reply; +difficult, no doubt, but still quite possible. Certainly, however, such +an attempt was not immediately possible as the <i>Susquehanna</i> had no +machinery strong enough or suitable enough for a piece of work involving +such a nicety of detailed operations, not to speak of its exceeding +difficulty. The next unanimous decision, therefore, was to start the +vessel at once for the nearest port, whence they could instantly +telegraph the Projectile's arrival to the Baltimore Gun Club.</p> + +<p>But what <i>was</i> the nearest port? A serious question, to answer which in +a satisfactory manner the Captain had to carefully examine his sailing +charts. The neighboring shores of the California Peninsula, low and +sandy, were absolutely destitute of good harbors. San Diego, about a +day's sail directly north, possessed an excellent harbor, but, not yet +having telegraphic communication with the rest of the Union, it was of +course not to be thought of. San Pedro Bay was too open to be approached +in winter. The Santa Barbara Channel was liable to the same objection, +not to mention the trouble often caused by kelp and wintry fogs. The bay +of San Luis Obispo was still worse in every respect; having no islands +to act as a breakwater, landing there in winter was often impossible. +The harbor of the picturesque old town of Monterey was safe enough, but +some uncertainty regarding sure telegraphic communications with San +Francisco, decided the council not to venture it. Half Moon Bay, a +little to the north, would be just as risky, and in moments like the +present when every minute was worth a day, no risk involving the +slightest loss of time could be ventured.</p> + +<p>Evidently, therefore, the most advisable plan was to sail directly for +the bay of San Francisco, the Golden Gate, the finest harbor on the +Pacific Coast and one of the safest in the world. Here telegraphic +communication with all parts of the Union was assured beyond a doubt. +San Francisco, about 750 miles distant, the <i>Susquehanna</i> could probably +make in three days; with a little increased pressure, possibly in two +days and a-half. The sooner then she started, the better.</p> + +<p>The fires were soon in full blast. The vessel could get under weigh at +once. In fact, nothing delayed immediate departure but the consideration +that two miles of sounding line were still to be hauled up from the +ocean depths. Rut the Captain, after a moment's thought, unwilling that +any more time should be lost, determined to cut it. Then marking its +position by fastening its end to a buoy, he could haul it up at his +leisure on his return.</p> + +<p>"Besides," said he, "the buoy will show us the precise spot where the +Projectile fell."</p> + +<p>"As for that, Captain," observed Brownson, "the exact spot has been +carefully recorded already: 27° 7' north latitude by 41° 37' west +longitude, reckoning from the meridian of Washington."</p> + +<p>"All right, Lieutenant," said the Captain curtly. "Cut the line!"</p> + +<p>A large cone-shaped metal buoy, strengthened still further by a couple +of stout spars to which it was securely lashed, was soon rigged up on +deck, whence, being hoisted overboard, the whole apparatus was carefully +lowered to the surface of the sea. By means of a ring in the small end +of the buoy, the latter was then solidly attached to the part of the +sounding line that still remained in the water, and all possible +precautions were taken to diminish the danger of friction, caused by the +contrary currents, tidal waves, and the ordinary heaving swells of +ocean.</p> + +<p>It was now a little after three o'clock in the morning. The Chief +Engineer announced everything to be in perfect readiness for starting. +The Captain gave the signal, directing the pilot to steer straight for +San Francisco, north-north by west. The waters under the stern began to +boil and foam; the ship very soon felt and yielded to the power that +animated her; and in a few minutes she was making at least twelve knots +an hour. Her sailing powers were somewhat higher than this, but it was +necessary to be careful in the neighborhood of such a dangerous coast as +that of California.</p> + +<p>Seven hundred and fifty miles of smooth waters presented no very +difficult task to a fast traveller like the <i>Susquehanna</i>, yet it was +not till two days and a-half afterwards that she sighted the Golden +Gate. As usual, the coast was foggy; neither Point Lobos nor Point +Boneta could be seen. But Captain Bloomsbury, well acquainted with every +portion of this coast, ran as close along the southern shore as he +dared, the fog-gun at Point Boneta safely directing his course. Here +expecting to be able to gain a few hours time by signalling to the outer +telegraph station on Point Lobos, he had caused to be painted on a sail +in large black letters: "THE MOONMEN ARE BACK!" but the officers in +attendance, though their fog-horn could be easily heard—the distance +not being quite two miles—were unfortunately not able to see it. +Perhaps they did see it, but feared a hoax.</p> + +<p>Giving the Fort Point a good wide berth, the <i>Susquehanna</i> found the fog +gradually clearing away, and by half-past three the passengers, looking +under it, enjoyed the glorious view of the Contra Costa mountains east +of San Francisco, which had obtained for this entrance the famous and +well deserved appellation of the Golden Gate. In another half hour, they +had doubled Black Point, and were lying safely at anchor between the +islands of Alcatraz and Yerba Buena. In less than five minutes +afterwards the Captain was quickly lowered into his gig, and eight stout +pairs of arms were pulling him rapidly to shore.</p> + +<p>The usual crowd of idlers had collected that evening on the summit of +Telegraph Hill to enjoy the magnificent view, which for variety, extent, +beauty and grandeur, is probably unsurpassed on earth. Of course, the +inevitable reporter, hot after an item, was not absent. The +<i>Susquehanna</i> had hardly crossed the bar, when they caught sight of her. +A government vessel entering the bay at full speed, is something to look +at even in San Francisco. Even during the war, it would be considered +rather unusual. But they soon remarked that her bowsprit was completely +broken off. <i>Very</i> unusual. Something decidedly is the matter. See! The +vessel is hardly anchored when the Captain leaves her and makes for +Megg's Wharf at North Point as hard as ever his men can pull! Something +<i>must</i> be the matter—and down the steep hill they all rush as fast as +ever their legs can carry them to the landing at Megg's Wharf.</p> + +<p>The Captain could hardly force his way through the dense throng, but he +made no attempt whatever to gratify their ill dissembled curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Carriage!" he cried, in a voice seldom heard outside the din of battle.</p> + +<p>In a moment seventeen able-bodied cabmen were trying to tear him limb +from limb.</p> + +<p>"To the telegraph office! Like lightning!" were his stifled mutterings, +as he struggled in the arms of the Irish giant who had at last +succeeded in securing him.</p> + +<p>"To the telegraph office!" cried most of the crowd, running after him +like fox hounds, but the more knowing ones immediately began questioning +the boatmen in the Captain's gig. These honest fellows, nothing loth to +tell all that they knew and more that they invented, soon had the +satisfaction of finding themselves the centrepoint of a wonder stricken +audience, greedily swallowing up every item of the extraordinary news +and still hungrily gaping for more.</p> + +<p>By this time, however, an important dispatch was flying east, bearing +four different addresses: To the Secretary of the U.S. Navy, Washington; +To Colonel Joseph Wilcox, Vice-President <i>pro tem.</i>, Baltimore Gun Club, +Md; To J.T. Marston, Esq. Long's Peak, Grand County, Colorado; and To +Professor Wenlock, Sub-Director of the Cambridge Observatory, Mass.</p> + +<p>This dispatch read as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In latitude twenty-seven degrees seven minutes north and longitude +forty-one degrees thirty-seven minutes west shortly after one +o'clock on the morning of twelfth instant Columbiad Projectile fell +in Pacific—send instructions—</p> + +<p>BLOOMSBURY,</p> + +<p><i>Captain</i>, SUSQUEHANNA."</p></div> + +<p>In five minutes more all San Francisco had the news. An hour later, the +newspaper boys were shrieking it through the great cities of the +States. Before bed-time every man, woman, and child in the country had +heard it and gone into ecstasies over it. Owing to the difference in +longitude, the people of Europe could not hear it till after midnight. +But next morning the astounding issue of the great American enterprise +fell on them like a thunder clap.</p> + +<p>We must, of course, decline all attempts at describing the effects of +this most unexpected intelligence on the world at large.</p> + +<p>The Secretary of the Navy immediately telegraphed directions to the +<i>Susquehanna</i> to keep a full head of steam up night and day so as to be +ready to give instant execution to orders received at any moment.</p> + +<p>The Observatory authorities at Cambridge held a special meeting that +very evening, where, with all the serene calmness so characteristic of +learned societies, they discussed the scientific points of the question +in all its bearings. But, before committing themselves to any decided +opinion, they unanimously resolved to wait for the development of +further details.</p> + +<p>At the rooms of the Gun Club in Baltimore there was a terrible time. The +kind reader no doubt remembers the nature of the dispatch sent one day +previously by Professor Belfast from the Long's Peak observatory, +announcing that the Projectile had been seen but that it had become the +Moon's satellite, destined to revolve around her forever and ever till +time should be no more. The reader is also kindly aware by this time +that such dispatch was not supported by the slightest foundations in +fact. The learned Professor, in a moment of temporary cerebral +excitation, to which even the greatest scientist is just as liable as +the rest of us, had taken some little meteor or, still more probably, +some little fly-speck in the telescope for the Projectile. The worst of +it was that he had not only boldly proclaimed his alleged discovery to +the world at large but he had even explained all about it with the well +known easy pomposity that "Science" sometimes ventures to assume. The +consequences of all this may be readily guessed. The Baltimore Gun Club +had split up immediately into two violently opposed parties. Those +gentlemen who regularly conned the scientific magazines, took every word +of the learned Professor's dispatch for gospel—or rather for something +of far higher value, and more strictly in accordance with the highly +advanced scientific developments of the day. But the others, who never +read anything but the daily papers and who could not bear the idea of +losing Barbican, laughed the whole thing to scorn. Belfast, they said, +had seen as much of the Projectile as he had of the "Open Polar Sea," +and the rest of the dispatch was mere twaddle, though asserted with all +the sternness of a religious dogma and enveloped in the usual scientific +slang.</p> + +<p>The meeting held in the Club House, 24 Monument Square, Baltimore, on +the evening of the 13th, had been therefore disorderly in the highest +degree. Long before the appointed hour, the great hall was densely +packed and the greatest uproar prevailed. Vice-President Wilcox took the +chair, and all was comparatively quiet until Colonel Bloomsbury, the +Honorary Secretary in Marston's absence, commenced to read Belfast's +dispatch. Then the scene, according to the account given in the next +day's <i>Sun</i>, from whose columns we condense our report, actually +"beggared description." Roars, yells, cheers, counter-cheers, clappings, +hissings, stampings, squallings, whistlings, barkings, mewings, cock +crowings, all of the most fearful and demoniacal character, turned the +immense hall into a regular pandemonium. In vain did President Wilcox +fire off his detonating bell, with a report on ordinary occasions as +loud as the roar of a small piece of ordnance. In the dreadful noise +then prevailing it was no more heard than the fizz of a lucifer match.</p> + +<p>Some cries, however, made themselves occasionally heard in the pauses of +the din. "Read! Read!" "Dry up!" "Sit down!" "Give him an egg!" "Fair +play!" "Hurrah for Barbican!" "Down with his enemies!" "Free Speech!" +"Belfast won't bite you!" "He'd like to bite Barbican, but his teeth +aren't sharp enough!" "Barbican's a martyr to science, let's hear his +fate!" "Martyr be hanged; the Old Man is to the good yet!" "Belfast is +the grandest name in Science!" "Groans for the grandest name!" (Awful +groans.) "Three cheers for Old Man Barbican!" (The exceptional strength +alone of the walls saved the building, from being blown out by an +explosion in which at least 5,000 pairs of lungs participated.)</p> + +<p>"Three cheers for M'Nicholl and the Frenchman!" This was followed by +another burst of cheering so hearty, vigorous and long continued that +the scientific party, or <i>Belfasters</i> as they were now called, seeing +that further prolongation of the meet was perfectly useless, moved to +adjourn. It was carried unanimously. President Wilcox left the chair, +the meeting broke up in the wildest disorder—the scientists rather +crest fallen, but the Barbican men quite jubilant for having been so +successful in preventing the reading of that detested dispatch.</p> + +<p>Little sleeping was done that night in Baltimore, and less business next +day. Even in the public schools so little work was done by the children +that S.T. Wallace, Esq., President of the Education Board, advised an +anticipation of the usual Christmas recess by a week. Every one talked +of the Projectile; nothing was heard at the corners but discussions +regarding its probable fate. All Baltimore was immediately rent into two +parties, the <i>Belfasters</i> and the <i>Barbicanites</i>. The latter was the +most enthusiastic and noisy, the former decidedly the most numerous and +influential.</p> + +<p>Science, or rather pseudo-science, always exerts a mysterious attraction +of an exceedingly powerful nature over the generality—that is, the more +ignorant portion of the human race. Assert the most absurd nonsense, +call it a scientific truth, and back it up with strange words which, +like <i>potentiality</i>, etc., sound as if they had a meaning but in +reality have none, and nine out of every ten men who read your book will +believe you. Acquire a remarkable name in one branch of human knowledge, +and presto! you are infallible in all. Who can contradict you, if you +only wrap up your assertions in specious phrases that not one man in a +million attempts to ascertain the real meaning of? We like so much to be +saved the trouble of thinking, that it is far easier and more +comfortable to be led than to contradict, to fall in quietly with the +great flock of sheep that jump blindly after their leader than to remain +apart, making one's self ridiculous by foolishly attempting to argue. +Real argument, in fact, is very difficult, for several reasons: first, +you must understand your subject <i>well</i>, which is hardly likely; +secondly, your opponent must also understand it well, which is even less +likely; thirdly, you must listen patiently to his arguments, which is +still less likely; and fourthly, he must listen to yours, the least +likely of all. If a quack advertises a panacea for all human ills at a +dollar a bottle, a hundred will buy the bottle, for one that will try +how many are killed by it. What would the investigator gain by charging +the quack with murder? Nobody would believe him, because nobody would +take the trouble to follow his arguments. His adversary, first in the +field, had gained the popular ear, and remained the unassailable master +of the situation. Our love of "Science" rests upon our admiration of +intellect, only unfortunately the intellect is too often that of other +people, not our own.</p> + +<p>The very sound of Belfast's phrases, for instance, "satellite," "lunar +attraction," "immutable path of its orbit," etc, convinced the greater +part of the "intelligent" community that he who used them so flippantly +must be an exceedingly great man. Therefore, he had completely proved +his case. Therefore, the great majority of the ladies and gentlemen that +regularly attend the scientific lectures of the Peabody Institute, +pronounced Barbican's fate and that of his companions to be sealed. Next +morning's newspapers contained lengthy obituary notices of the Great +Balloon-attics as the witty man of the <i>New York Herald</i> phrased it, +some of which might be considered quite complimentary. These, all +industriously copied into the evening papers, the people were carefully +reading over again, some with honest regret, some deriving a great moral +lesson from an attempt exceedingly reprehensible in every point of view, +but most, we are sorry to acknowledge, with a feeling of ill concealed +pleasure. Had not they always said how it was to end? Was there anything +more absurd ever conceived? Scientific men too! Hang such science! If +you want a real scientific man, no wind bag, no sham, take Belfast! <i>He</i> +knows what he's talking about! No taking <i>him</i> in! Didn't he by means of +the Monster Telescope, see the Projectile, as large as life, whirling +round and round the Moon? Anyway, what else could have happened? Wasn't +it what anybody's common sense expected? Don't you remember a +conversation we had with you one day? etc., etc.</p> + +<p>The <i>Barbicanites</i> were very doleful, but they never though of giving +in. They would die sooner. When pressed for a scientific reply to a +scientific argument, they denied that there was any argument to reply +to. What! Had not Belfast seen the Projectile? No! Was not the Great +Telescope then good for anything? Yes, but not for everything! Did not +Belfast know his business? No! Did they mean to say that he had seen +nothing at all? Well, not exactly that, but those scientific gentlemen +can seldom be trusted; in their rage for discovery, they make a mountain +out of a molehill, or, what is worse, they start a theory and then +distort facts to support it. Answers of this kind either led directly to +a fight, or the <i>Belfasters</i> moved away thoroughly disgusted with the +ignorance of their opponents, who could not see a chain of reasoning as +bright as the noonday sun.</p> + +<p>Things were in this feverish state on the evening of the 14th, when, all +at once, Bloomsbury's dispatch arrived in Baltimore. I need not say that +it dropped like a spark in a keg of gun powder. The first question all +asked was: Is it genuine or bogus? real or got up by the stockbrokers? +But a few flashes backwards and forwards over the wires soon settled +that point. The stunning effects of the new blow were hardly over when +the <i>Barbicanites</i> began to perceive that the wonderful intelligence was +decidedly in their favor. Was it not a distinct contradiction of the +whole story told by their opponents? If Barbican and his friends were +lying at the bottom of the Pacific, they were certainly not +circumgyrating around the Moon. If it was the Projectile that had broken +off the bowsprit of the <i>Susquehanna</i>, it could not certainly be the +Projectile that Belfast had seen only the day previous doing the duty +of a satellite. Did not the truth of one incident render the other an +absolute impossibility? If Bloomsbury was right, was not Belfast an ass? +Hurrah!</p> + +<p>The new revelation did not improve poor Barbican's fate a bit—no matter +for that! Did not the <i>party</i> gain by it? What would the <i>Belfasters</i> +say now? Would not they hold down their heads in confusion and disgrace?</p> + +<p>The <i>Belfasters</i>, with a versatility highly creditable to human nature, +did nothing of the kind. Rapidly adopting the very line of tactics they +had just been so severely censuring, they simply denied the whole thing. +What! the truth of the Bloomsbury dispatch? Yes, every word of it! Had +not Bloomsbury seen the Projectile? No! Were not his eyes good for +anything? Yes, but not for everything! Did not the Captain know his +business? No! Did they mean to say that the bowsprit of the +<i>Susquehanna</i> had not been broken off? Well, not exactly that, but those +naval gentlemen are not always to be trusted; after a pleasant little +supper, they often see the wrong light-house, or, what is worse, in +their desire to shield their negligence from censure, they dodge the +blame by trying to show that the accident was unavoidable. The +<i>Susquehanna's</i> bowsprit had been snapped off, in all probability, by +some sudden squall, or, what was still more likely, some little aerolite +had struck it and frightened the crew into fits. When answers of this +kind did not lead to blows, the case was an exceptional one indeed. The +contestants were so numerous and so excited that the police at last +began to think of letting them fight it out without any interference. +Marshal O'Kane, though ably assisted by his 12 officers and 500 +patrolmen, had a terrible time of it. The most respectable men in +Baltimore, with eyes blackened, noses bleeding, and collars torn, saw +the inside of a prison that night for the first time in all their lives. +Men that even the Great War had left the warmest of friends, now abused +each other like fishwomen. The prison could not hold the half of those +arrested. They were all, however, discharged next morning, for the +simple reason that the Mayor and the aldermen had been themselves +engaged in so many pugilistic combats during the night that they were +altogether disabled from attending to their magisterial duties next day.</p> + +<p>Our readers, however, may be quite assured that, even in the wildest +whirl of the tremendous excitement around them, all the members of the +Baltimore Gun Club did not lose their heads. In spite of the determined +opposition of the <i>Belfasters</i> who would not allow the Bloomsbury +dispatch to be read at the special meeting called that evening, a few +succeeded in adjourning to a committee-room, where Joseph Wilcox, Esq., +presiding, our old friends Colonel Bloomsbury, Major Elphinstone, Tom +Hunter, Billsby the brave, General Morgan, Chief Engineer John Murphy, +and about as many more as were sufficient to form a quorum, declared +themselves to be in regular session, and proceeded quietly to debate on +the nature of Captain Bloomsbury's dispatch.</p> + +<p>Was it of a nature to justify immediate action or not? Decided +unanimously in the affirmative. Why so? Because, whether actually true +or untrue, the incident it announced was not impossible. Had it indeed +announced the Projectile to have fallen in California or in South +America, there would have been good valid reasons to question its +accuracy. But by taking into consideration the Moon's distance, and the +time elapsed between the moment of the start and that of the presumed +fall (about 10 days), and also the Earth's revolution in the meantime, +it was soon calculated that the point at which the Projectile should +strike our globe, if it struck it at all, would be somewhere about 27° +north latitude, and 42° west longitude—the very identical spot given in +the Captain's dispatch! This certainly was a strong point in its favor, +especially as there was positively nothing valid whatever to urge +against it.</p> + +<p>A decided resolution was therefore immediately taken. Everything that +man could do was to be done at once, in order to fish up their brave +associates from the depths of the Pacific. That very night, in fact, +whilst the streets of Baltimore were still resounding with the yells of +contending <i>Belfasters</i> and <i>Barbicanites</i>, a committee of four, Morgan, +Hunter, Murphy, and Elphinstone, were speeding over the Alleghanies in a +special train, placed at their disposal by the <i>Baltimore and Ohio +Railroad Company</i>, and fast enough to land them in Chicago pretty early +on the following evening.</p> + +<p>Here a fresh locomotive and a Pullman car taking charge of them, they +were whirled off to Omaha, reaching that busy locality at about supper +time on the evening of December 16th. The Pacific Train, as it was +called though at that time running no further west than Julesburg, +instead of waiting for the regular hour of starting, fired up that very +night, and was soon pulling the famous Baltimore Club men up the slopes +of the Nebraska at the rate of forty miles an hour. They were awakened +before light next morning by the guard, who told them that Julesburg, +which they were just entering, was the last point so far reached by the +rails. But their regret at this circumstance was most unexpectedly and +joyfully interrupted by finding their hands warmly clasped and their +names cheerily cried out by their old and beloved friend, J.T. Marston, +the illustrious Secretary of the Baltimore Gun Club.</p> + +<p>At the close of the first volume of our entertaining and veracious +history, we left this most devoted friend and admirer of Barbican +established firmly at his post on the summit of Long's Peak, beside the +Great Telescope, watching the skies, night and day, for some traces of +his departed friends. There, as the gracious Reader will also remember, +he had come a little too late to catch that sight of the Projectile +which Belfast had at first reported so confidently, but of which the +Professor by degrees had begun to entertain the most serious doubts.</p> + +<p>In these doubts, however, Marston, strange to say, would not permit +himself for one moment to share. Belfast might shake his head as much as +he pleased; he, Marston, was no fickle reed to be shaken by every wind; +he firmly believed the Projectile to be there before him, actually in +sight, if he could only see it. All the long night of the 13th, and even +for several hours of the 14th, he never quitted the telescope for a +single instant. The midnight sky was in magnificent order; not a speck +dimmed its azure of an intensely dark tint. The stars blazed out like +fires; the Moon refused none of her secrets to the scientists who were +gazing at her so intently that night from the platform on the summit of +Long's Peak. But no black spot crawling over her resplendent surface +rewarded their eager gaze. Marston indeed would occasionally utter a +joyful cry announcing some discovery, but in a moment after he was +confessing with groans that it was all a false alarm. Towards morning, +Belfast gave up in despair and went to take a sleep; but no sleep for +Marston. Though he was now quite alone, the assistants having also +retired, he kept on talking incessantly to himself, expressing the most +unbounded confidence in the safety of his friends, and the absolute +certainty of their return. It was not until some hours after the Sun +had risen and the Moon had disappeared behind the snowy peaks of the +west, that he at last withdrew his weary eye from the glass through +which every image formed by the great reflector was to be viewed. The +countenance he turned on Belfast, who had now come back, was rueful in +the extreme. It was the image of grief and despair.</p> + +<p>"Did you see nothing whatever during the night, Professor?" he asked of +Belfast, though he knew very well the answer he was to get.</p> + +<p>"Nothing whatever."</p> + +<p>"But you saw them once, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Them! Who?"</p> + +<p>"Our friends."</p> + +<p>"Oh! the Projectile—well—I think I must have made some oversight."</p> + +<p>"Don't say that! Did not Mr. M'Connell see it also?"</p> + +<p>"No. He only wrote out what I dictated."</p> + +<p>"Why, you must have seen it! I have seen it myself!"</p> + +<p>"You shall never see it again! It's shot off into space."</p> + +<p>"You're as wrong now as you thought you were right yesterday."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to say I was wrong yesterday; but I have every reason to +believe I'm right to-day."</p> + +<p>"We shall see! Wait till to-night!"</p> + +<p>"To-night! Too late! As far as the Projectile is concerned, night is now +no better than day."</p> + +<p>The learned Professor was quite right, but in a way which he did not +exactly expect. That very evening, after a weary day, apparently a month +long, during which Marston sought in vain for a few hours' repose, just +as all hands, well wrapped up in warm furs, were getting ready to assume +their posts once more near the mouth of the gigantic Telescope, Mr. +M'Connell hastily presented himself with a dispatch for Belfast.</p> + +<p>The Professor was listlessly breaking the envelope, when he uttered a +sharp cry of surprise.</p> + +<p>"Hey!" cried Marston quickly. "What's up now?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!! The Pro—pro—projectile!!"</p> + +<p>"What of it? What? Oh what?? Speak!!"</p> + +<p>"IT'S BACK!!"</p> + +<p>Marston uttered a wild yell of mingled horror, surprise, and joy, jumped +a little into the air, and then fell flat and motionless on the +platform. Had Belfast shot him with a ten pound weight, right between +the two eyes, he could not have knocked him flatter or stiffer. Having +neither slept all night, nor eaten all day, the poor fellow's system had +become so weak that such unexpected news was really more than he could +bear. Besides, as one of the Cambridge men of the party, a young medical +student, remarked: the thin, cold air of these high mountains was +extremely enervating.</p> + +<p>The astronomers, all exceedingly alarmed, did what they could to recover +their friend from his fit, but it was nearly ten minutes before they had +the satisfaction of seeing his limbs moving with a slight quiver and +his breast beginning to heave. At last the color came back to his face +and his eyes opened. He stared around for a few seconds at his friends, +evidently unconscious, but his senses were not long in returning.</p> + +<p>"Say!" he uttered at last in a faint voice.</p> + +<p>"Well!" replied Belfast.</p> + +<p>"Where is that infernal Pro—pro—jectile?"</p> + +<p>"In the Pacific Ocean."</p> + +<p>"What??"</p> + +<p>He was on his feet in an instant.</p> + +<p>"Say that again!"</p> + +<p>"In the Pacific Ocean."</p> + +<p>"Hurrah! All right! Old Barbican's not made into mincemeat yet! No, +sirree! Let's start!"</p> + +<p>"Where for?"</p> + +<p>"San Francisco!"</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"This instant!"</p> + +<p>"In the dark?"</p> + +<p>"We shall soon have the light of the Moon! Curse her! it's the least she +can do after all the trouble she has given us!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<h3>ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND.</h3> + + +<p>Leaving M'Connell and a few other Cambridge men to take charge of the +Great Telescope, Marston and Belfast in little more than an hour after +the receipt of the exciting dispatch, were scudding down the slopes of +Long's Peak by the only possible route—the inclined railroad. This +mode of travelling, however, highly satisfactory as far as it went, +ceased altogether at the mountain foot, at the point where the Dale +River formed a junction with Cache la Poudre Creek. But Marston, having +already mapped out the whole journey with some care and forethought, was +ready for almost every emergency. Instinctively feeling that the first +act of the Baltimore Gun Club would be to send a Committee to San +Francisco to investigate matters, he had determined to meet this +deputation on the route, and his only trouble now was to determine at +what point he would be most likely to catch them. His great start, he +knew perfectly well, could not put him more than a day in advance of +them: they having the advantage of a railroad nearly all the way, whilst +himself and Belfast could not help losing much time in struggling +through ravines, canyons, mountain precipices, and densely tangled +forests, not to mention the possibility of a brush or two with prowling +Indians, before they could strike the line of the Pacific Railroad, +along which he knew the Club men to be approaching. After a few hours +rest at La Porte, a little settlement lately started in the valley, +early in the morning they took the stage that passed through from Denver +to Cheyenne, a town at that time hardly a year old but already +flourishing, with a busy population of several thousand inhabitants.</p> + +<p>Losing not a moment at Cheyenne, where they arrived much sooner than +they had anticipated, they took places in Wells, Fargo and Co.'s +<i>Overland Stage Mail</i> bound east, and were soon flying towards Julesburg +at the rate of twelve miles an hour. Here Marston was anxious to meet +the Club men, as at this point the Pacific Railroad divided into two +branches—one bearing north, the other south of the Great Salt Lake +—and he feared they might take the wrong one.</p> + +<p>But he arrived in Julesburg fully 10 hours before the Committee, so that +himself and Belfast had not only ample time to rest a little after their +rapid flight from Long's Peak, but also to make every possible +preparation for the terrible journey of more than fifteen hundred miles +that still lay before them.</p> + +<p>This journey, undertaken at a most unseasonable period of the year, and +over one of the most terrible deserts in the world, would require a +volume for itself. Constantly presenting the sharpest points of contrast +between the most savage features of wild barbaric nature on the one +hand, and the most touching traits of the sweetest humanity on the +other, the story of our Club men's adventures, if only well told, could +hardly fail to be highly interesting. But instead of a volume, we can +give it only a chapter, and that a short one.</p> + +<p>From Julesburg, the last station on the eastern end of the Pacific +Railroad, to Cisco, the last station on its western end, the distance is +probably about fifteen hundred miles, about as far as Constantinople is +from London, or Moscow from Paris. This enormous stretch of country had +to be travelled all the way by, at the best, a six horse stage tearing +along night and day at a uniform rate, road or no road, of ten miles an +hour. But this was the least of the trouble. Bands of hostile Indians +were a constant source of watchfulness and trouble, against which even a +most liberal stock of rifles and revolvers were not always a +reassurance. Whirlwinds of dust often overwhelmed the travellers so +completely that they could hardly tell day from night, whilst blasts of +icy chill, sweeping down from the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains, +often made them imagine themselves in the midst of the horrors of an +Arctic winter.</p> + +<p>The predominant scenery gave no pleasure to the eye or exhilaration to +the mind. It was of the dreariest description. Days and days passed with +hardly a house to be seen, or a tree or a blade of grass. I might even +add, or a mountain or a river, for the one was too often a heap of +agglomerated sand and clay cut into unsightly chasms by the rain, and +the other generally degenerated into a mere stagnant swamp, its +shallowness and dryness increasing regularly with its length. The only +houses were log ranches, called Relays, hardly visible in their sandy +surroundings, and separate from each other by a mean distance of ten +miles. The only trees were either stunted cedars, so far apart, as to be +often denominated Lone Trees; and, besides wormwood, the only plant was +the sage plant, about two feet high, gray, dry, crisp, and emitting a +sharp pungent odor by no means pleasant.</p> + +<p>In fact, Barbican and his companions had seen nothing drearier or +savager in the dreariest and savagest of lunar landscapes than the +scenes occasionally presented to Marston and his friends in their +headlong journey on the track of the great Pacific Railroad. Here, +bowlders, high, square, straight and plumb as an immense hotel, blocked +up your way; there, lay an endless level, flat as the palm of your hand, +over which your eye might roam in vain in search of something green like +a meadow, yellow like a cornfield, or black like ploughed ground—a mere +boundless waste of dirty white from the stunted wormwood, often rendered +misty with the clouds of smarting alkali dust.</p> + +<p>Occasionally, however, this savage scenery decidedly changed its +character. Now, a lovely glen would smile before our travellers, +traversed by tinkling streams, waving with sweet grasses, dotted with +little groves, alive with hares, antelopes, and even elks, but +apparently never yet trodden by the foot of man. Now, our Club men felt +like travelling on clouds, as they careered along the great plateau +west of the Black Hills, fully 8,000 feet above the level of the sea, +though even there the grass was as green and fresh as if it grew in some +sequestered valley of Pennsylvania. Again,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"In this untravelled world whose margin fades<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For ever and for ever as they moved,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>they would find themselves in an immense, tawny, treeless plain, +outlined by mountains so distant as to resemble fantastic cloud piles. +Here for days they would have to skirt the coasts of a Lake, vast, +unruffled, unrippled, apparently of metallic consistency, from whose +sapphire depths rose pyramidal islands to a height of fully three +thousand feet above the surface.</p> + +<p>In a few days all would change. No more sand wastes, salt water flats, +or clouds of blinding alkali dust. The travellers' road, at the foot of +black precipitous cliffs, would wind along the brink of a roaring +torrent, whose devious course would lead them into the heart of the +Sierras, where misty peaks solemnly sentinelled the nestling vales still +smiling in genial summer verdure. Across these they were often whirled +through immense forests of varied character, here dense enough to +obscure the track, there swaying in the sweet sunlight and vocal with +joyous birds of bright and gorgeous plumage. Then tropical vegetation +would completely hide the trail, crystal lakes would obstruct it, +cascades shooting down from perpendicular rocks would obliterate it, +mountain passes barricaded by basaltic columns would render it +uncertain, and on one occasion it was completely covered up by a fall of +snow to a depth of more than twenty feet.</p> + +<p>But nothing could oppose serious delay to our travellers. Their motto +was ever "onward!" and what they lost in one hour by some mishap they +endeavored to recover on the next by redoubled speed. They felt that +they would be no friends of Barbican's if they were discouraged by +impossibilities. Besides, what would have been real impossibilities at +another time, several concurrent circumstances now rendered +comparatively easy.</p> + +<p>The surveys, the gradings, the cuttings, and the other preliminary +labors in the great Pacific Railroad, gave them incalculable aid. +Horses, help, carriages, provisions were always in abundance. Their +object being well known, they had the best wishes of every hand on the +road. People remained up for them all hours of the night, no matter at +what station they were expected. The warmest and most comfortable of +meals were always ready for them, for which no charge would be taken on +any account. In Utah, a deputation of Mormons galloped alongside them +for forty miles to help them over some points of the road that had been +often found difficult. The season was the finest known for many years. +In short, as an old Californian said as he saw them shooting over the +rickety bridge that crossed the Bear River at Corinne: "they had +everything in their favor—<i>luck</i> as well as <i>pluck</i>!"</p> + +<p>The rate at which they performed this terrible ride across the +Continent and the progress they made each day, some readers may consider +worthy of a few more items for the sake of future reference. Discarding +the ordinary overland mail stage as altogether too slow for their +purpose, they hired at Julesburg a strong, well built carriage, large +enough to hold them all comfortably; but this they had to replace twice +before they came to their journey's end. Their team always consisted of +the best six horses that could be found, and their driver was the famous +Hank Monk of California, who, happening to be in Julesburg about that +time, volunteered to see them safely landed in Cisco on the summit of +the Sierra Nevada. They were enabled to change horses as near as +possible every hour, by telegraphing ahead in the morning, during the +day, and often far into the hours of night.</p> + +<p>Starting from Julesburg early in the morning of the 17th, their first +resting place for a few hours at night was Granite Canyon, twenty miles +west of Cheyenne, and just at the foot of the pass over the Black Hills. +On the 18th, night-fall found them entering St. Mary's, at the further +end of the pass between Rattle Snake Hills and Elk Mountain. It was +after 5 o'clock and already dark on the 19th, when the travellers, +hurrying with all speed through the gloomy gorge of slate formation +leading to the banks of the Green River, found the ford too deep to be +ventured before morning. The 20th was a clear cold day very favorable +for brisk locomotion, and the bright sun had not quite disappeared +behind the Wahsatch Mountains when the Club men, having crossed the +Bear River, began to leave the lofty plateau of the Rocky Mountains by +the great inclined plane marked by the lines of the Echo and the Weber +Rivers on their way to the valley of the Great American Desert.</p> + +<p>Quitting Castle Rock early on the morning of the 21st, they soon came in +sight of the Great Salt Lake, along the northern shores of which they +sped all day, taking shelter after night-fall at Terrace, in a miserable +log cabin surrounded by piles of drifting sand. The 22d was a terrible +day. The sand was blinding, the alkali dust choking, the ride for five +or six hours was up considerable grade; still they had accomplished +their 150 miles before resting for the night at Elko, even at this +period a flourishing little village on the banks of the Humboldt. After +another smothering ride on the 23d, they rested, at Winnemucca, another +flourishing village, situated at the precise point in the desert where +the Little Humboldt joins Humboldt River, without, however, making the +channel fuller or wider. The 24th was decidedly the hardest day, their +course lying through the worst part of the terrible Nevada desert. But a +glimpse of the Sierras looming in the western horizon gave them courage +and strength enough to reach Wadsworth, at their foot, a little before +midnight. Our travellers had now but one day's journey more to make +before reaching the railroad at Cisco, but, this being a very steep +ascent nearly all the way up, each mile cost almost twice as much time +and exertion.</p> + +<p>At last, late in the evening of Christmas Day, amidst the most +enthusiastic cheers of all the inhabitants of Cisco, who welcomed them +with a splendid pine brand procession, Marston and his friends, +thoroughly used up, feet swelled, limbs bruised, bones aching, stomachs +seasick, eyes bleared, ears ringing, and brains on fire for want of +rest, took their places in the State Car waiting for them, and started +without a moment's delay for Sacramento, about a hundred miles distant. +How delicious was the change to our poor travellers! Washed, refreshed, +and lying at full length on luxurious sofas, their sensations, as the +locomotive spun them down the ringing grooves of the steep Sierras, can +be more easily imagined than described. They were all fast asleep when +the train entered Sacramento, but the Mayor and the other city +authorities who had waited up to receive them, had them carried +carefully, so as not to disturb their slumbers, on board the <i>Yo +Semite</i>, a fine steamer belonging to the California Navigation Company, +which landed them safely at San Francisco about noon on the 26th, after +accomplishing the extraordinary winter journey of 1500 miles over land +in little more than nine days, only about 200 miles being done by steam.</p> + +<p>Half-past two P.M. found our travellers bathed, dressed, shaved, dined, +and ready to receive company in the grand parlor of the <i>Occidental +Hotel</i>. Captain Bloomsbury was the first to call.</p> + +<p>Marston hobbled eagerly towards him and asked:</p> + +<p>"What have you done towards fishing them up, Captain?"</p> + +<p>"A good deal, Mr. Marston; indeed almost everything is ready."</p> + +<p>"Is that really the case, Captain?" asked all, very agreeably surprised.</p> + +<p>"Yes, gentlemen, I am most happy to state that I am quite in earnest."</p> + +<p>"Can we start to-morrow?" asked General Morgan. "We have not a moment to +spare, you know."</p> + +<p>"We can start at noon to-morrow at latest," replied the Captain, "if the +foundry men do a little extra work to-night."</p> + +<p>"We must start this very day, Captain Bloomsbury," cried Marston +resolutely; "Barbican has been lying two weeks and thirteen hours in the +depths of the Pacific! If he is still alive, no thanks to Marston! He +must by this time have given me up! The grappling irons must be got on +board at once, Captain, and let us start this evening!"</p> + +<p>At half-past four that very evening, a shot from the Fort and a lowering +of the Stars and Stripes from its flagstaff saluted the <i>Susquehanna</i>, +as she steamed proudly out of the Golden Gate at the lively rate of +fifteen knots an hour.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<h3>THE CLUB MEN GO A FISHING.</h3> + + +<p>Captain Bloomsbury was perfectly right when he said that almost +everything was ready for the commencement of the great work which the +Club men had to accomplish. Considering how much was required, this was +certainly saying a great deal; but here also, as on many other +occasions, fortune had singularly favored the Club men.</p> + +<p>San Francisco Bay, as everybody knows, though one of the finest and +safest harbors in the world, is not without some danger from hidden +rocks. One of these in particular, the Anita Rock as it was called, +lying right in mid channel, had become so notorious for the wrecks of +which it was the cause, that, after much time spent in the consideration +of the subject, the authorities had at last determined to blow it up. +This undertaking having been very satisfactorily accomplished by means +of <i>dynamite</i> or giant powder, another improvement in the harbor had +been also undertaken with great success. The wrecks of many vessels lay +scattered here and there pretty numerously, some, like that of the +<i>Flying Dragon</i>, in spots so shallow that they could be easily seen at +low water, but others sunk at least twenty fathoms deep, like that of +the <i>Caroline</i>, which had gone down in 1851, not far from Blossom Rock, +with a treasure on board of 20,000 ounces of gold. The attempt to clear +away these wrecks had also turned out very well; even sufficient +treasure had been recovered to repay all the expense, though the +preparations for the purpose by the contractors, M'Gowan and Co. had +been made on the most extensive scale, and in accordance with the latest +improvements in the apparatus for submarine operations.</p> + +<p>Buoys, made of huge canvas sacks, coated with India rubber, and guarded +by a net work of strong cordage, had been manufactured and provided by +the <i>New York Submarine Company</i>. These buoys, when inflated and working +in pairs, had a lifting capacity of 30 tons a pair. Reservoirs of air, +provided with powerful compression pumps, always accompanied the buoys. +To attach the latter, in a collapsed condition, with strong chains to +the sides of the vessels which were to be lifted, a diving apparatus was +necessary. This also the <i>New York Company</i> had provided, and it was so +perfect in its way that, by means of peculiar appliances of easy +management, the diver could walk about on the bottom, take his own +bearings, ascend to the surface at pleasure, and open his helmet without +assistance. A few sets likewise of Rouquayrol and Denayrouze's famous +submarine armor had been provided. These would prove of invaluable +advantage in all operations performed at great sea depths, as its +distinctive feature, "the regulator," could maintain, what is not done +by any other diving armor, a constant equality of pressure on the lungs +between the external and the internal air.</p> + +<p>But perhaps the most useful article of all was a new form of diving bell +called the <i>Nautilus</i>, a kind of submarine boat, capable of lateral as +well as vertical movement at the will of its occupants. Constructed with +double sides, the intervening chambers could be filled either with water +or air according as descent or ascent was required. A proper supply of +water enabled the machine to descend to depths impossible to be reached +otherwise; this water could then be expelled by an ingenious +contrivance, which, replacing it with air, enabled the diver to rise +towards the surface as fast as he pleased.</p> + +<p>All these and many other portions of the submarine apparatus which had +been employed that very year for clearing the channel, lifting the +wrecks and recovering the treasure, lay now at San Francisco, unused +fortunately on account of the season of the year, and therefore they +could be readily obtained for the asking. They had even been generously +offered to Captain Bloomsbury, who, in obedience to a telegram from +Washington, had kept his crew busily employed for nearly two weeks +night and day in transferring them all safely on board the +<i>Susquehanna</i>.</p> + +<p>Marston was the first to make a careful inspection of every article +intended for the operation.</p> + +<p>"Do you consider these buoys powerful enough to lift the Projectile, +Captain?" he asked next morning, as the vessel was briskly heading +southward, at a distance of ten or twelve miles from the coast on their +left.</p> + +<p>"You can easily calculate that problem yourself, Mr. Marston," replied +the Captain. "It presents no difficulty. The Projectile weighs about 20 +thousand pounds, or 10 tons?"</p> + +<p>"Correct!"</p> + +<p>"Well, a pair of these buoys when inflated can raise a weight of 30 +tons."</p> + +<p>"So far so good. But how do you propose attaching them to the +Projectile?"</p> + +<p>"We simply let them descend in a state of collapse; the diver, going +down with them, will have no difficulty in making a fast connection. As +soon as they are inflated the Projectile will come up like a cork."</p> + +<p>"Can the divers readily reach such depths?"</p> + +<p>"That remains to be seen Mr. Marston."</p> + +<p>"Captain," said Morgan, now joining the party, "you are a worthy member +of our Gun Club. You have done wonders. Heaven grant it may not be all +in vain! Who knows if our poor friends are still alive?"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" cried Marston quickly. "Have more sense than to ask such +questions. Is Barbican alive! Am <i>I</i> alive? They're all alive, I tell +you, only we must be quick about reaching them before the air gives out. +That's what's the matter! Air! Provisions, water—abundance! But +air—oh! that's their weak point! Quick, Captain, quick—They're +throwing the reel—I must see her rate!" So saying, he hurried off to +the stern, followed by General Morgan. Chief Engineer Murphy and the +Captain of the <i>Susquehanna</i> were thus left for awhile together.</p> + +<p>These two men had a long talk on the object of their journey and the +likelihood of anything satisfactory being accomplished. The man of the +sea candidly acknowledged his apprehensions. He had done everything in +his power towards collecting suitable machinery for fishing up the +Projectile, but he had done it all, he said, more as a matter of duty +than because he believed that any good could result from it; in fact, he +never expected to see the bold adventurers again either living or dead. +Murphy, who well understood not only what machinery was capable of +effecting, but also what it would surely fail in, at first expressed the +greatest confidence in the prosperous issue of the undertaking. But when +he learned, as he now did for the first time, that the ocean bed on +which the Projectile was lying could be hardly less than 20,000 feet +below the surface, he assumed a countenance as grave as the Captain's, +and at once confessed that, unless their usual luck stood by them, his +poor friends had not the slightest possible chance of ever being fished +up from the depths of the Pacific.</p> + +<p>The conversation maintained among the officers and the others on board +the <i>Susquehanna</i>, was pretty much of the same nature. It is almost +needless to say that all heads—except Belfast's, whose scientific mind +rejected the Projectile theory with the most serene contempt—were +filled with the same idea, all hearts throbbed with the same emotion. +Wouldn't it be glorious to fish them up alive and well? What were they +doing just now? Doing? <i>Doing!</i> Their bodies most probably were lying in +a shapeless pile on the floor of the Projectile, like a heap of clothes, +the uppermost man being the last smothered; or perhaps floating about in +the water inside the Projectile, like dead gold fish in an aquarium; or +perhaps burned to a cinder, like papers in a "champion" safe after a +great fire; or, who knows? perhaps at that very moment the poor fellows +were making their last and almost superhuman struggles to burst their +watery prison and ascend once more into the cheerful regions of light +and air! Alas! How vain must such puny efforts prove! Plunged into ocean +depths of three or four miles beneath the surface, subjected to an +inconceivable pressure of millions and millions of tons of sea water, +their metallic shroud was utterly unassailable from within, and utterly +unapproachable from without!</p> + +<p>Early on the morning of December 29th, the Captain calculating from his +log that they must now be very near the spot where they had witnessed +the extraordinary phenomenon, the <i>Susquehanna</i> hove to. Having to wait +till noon to find his exact position, he ordered the steamer to take a +short circular course of a few hours' duration, in hope of sighting the +buoy. But though at least a hundred telescopes scanned the calm ocean +breast for many miles in all directions, it was nowhere to be seen.</p> + +<p>Precisely at noon, aided by his officers and in the presence of +Marston, Belfast, and the Gun Club Committee, the Captain took his +observations. After a moment or two of the most profound interest, it +was a great gratification to all to learn that the <i>Susquehanna</i> was on +the right parallel, and only about 15 miles west of the precise spot +where the Projectile had disappeared beneath the waves. The steamer +started at once in the direction indicated, and a minute or two before +one o'clock the Captain said they were "there." No sign of the buoy +could yet be seen in any direction; it had probably been drifted +southward by the Mexican coast current which slowly glides along these +shores from December to April.</p> + +<p>"At last!" cried Marston, with a sigh of great relief.</p> + +<p>"Shall we commence at once?" asked the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Without losing the twenty thousandth part of a second!" answered +Marston; "life or death depends upon our dispatch!"</p> + +<p>The <i>Susquehanna</i> again hove to, and this time all possible precautions +were taken to keep her in a state of perfect immobility—an operation +easily accomplished in these pacific latitudes, where cloud and wind and +water are often as motionless as if all life had died out of the world. +In fact, as the boats were quietly lowered, preparatory for beginning +the operations, the mirror like calmness of sea, sky, and ship so +impressed the Doctor, who was of a poetical turn of mind, that he could +not help exclaiming to the little Midshipman, who was standing nearest:</p> + +<p>"Coleridge realized, with variations:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The breeze drops down, the sail drops down,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All's still as still can be;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If we speak, it is only to break<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The silence of the sea.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still are the clouds, still are the shrouds,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No life, no breath, no motion;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Idle are all as a painted ship<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Upon a painted ocean!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Chief Engineer Murphy now took command. Before letting down the buoys, +the first thing evidently to be done was to find out, if possible, the +precise point where the Projectile lay. For this purpose, the Nautilus +was clearly the only part of the machinery that could be employed with +advantage. Its chambers were accordingly soon filled with water, its air +reservoirs were also soon completely charged, and the Nautilus itself, +suspended by chains from the end of a yard, lay quietly on the ocean +surface, its manhole on the top remaining open for the reception of +those who were willing to encounter the dangers that awaited it in the +fearful depths of the Pacific. Every one looking on was well aware that, +after a few hundred feet below the surface, the pressure would grow more +and more enormous, until at last it became quite doubtful if any line +could bear the tremendous strain. It was even possible that at a certain +depth the walls of the Nautilus might be crushed in like an eggshell, +and the whole machine made as flat as two leaves of paper pasted +together.</p> + +<p>Perfectly conscious of the nature of the tremendous risk they were about +to run, Marston, Morgan, and Murphy quietly bade their friends a short +farewell and were lowered into the manhole. The Nautilus having room +enough for four, Belfast had been expected to be of the party but, +feeling a little sea sick, the Professor backed out at the last moment, +to the great joy of Mr. Watkins, the famous reporter of the <i>N.Y. +Herald</i>, who was immediately allowed to take his place.</p> + +<p>Every provision against immediate danger had been made. By means of +preconcerted signals, the inmates could have themselves drawn up, let +down, or carried laterally in whatever direction they pleased. By +barometers and other instruments they could readily ascertain the +pressure of the air and water, also how far they had descended and at +what rate they were moving. The Captain, from his bridge, carefully +superintended every detail of the operation. All signals he insisted on +attending to himself personally, transmitting them instantly by his bell +to the engineer below. The whole power of the steam engine had been +brought to bear on the windlass; the chains could withstand an enormous +strain. The wheels had been carefully oiled and tested beforehand; the +signalling apparatus had been subjected to the rigidest examination; and +every portion of the machinery had been proved to be in admirable +working order.</p> + +<p>The chances of immediate and unforeseen danger, it is true, had been +somewhat diminished by all these precautions. The risk, nevertheless, +was fearful. The slightest accident or even carelessness might easily +lead to the most disastrous consequence.</p> + +<p>Five minutes after two o'clock, the manhole being closed, the lamps lit, +and everything pronounced all right, the signal for the descent was +given, and the Nautilus immediately disappeared beneath the waters. A +double anxiety now possessed all on board the <i>Susquehanna</i>: the +prisoners in the Nautilus were in danger as well as the prisoners in the +Projectile. Marston and his friends, however, were anything but +disquieted on their own account, and, pencil in hand and noses flattened +on the glass plates, they examined carefully everything they could see +in the liquid masses through which they were descending.</p> + +<p>For the first five hundred feet, the descent was accomplished with +little trouble. The Nautilus sank rather slowly, at a uniform rate of a +foot to the second. It had not been two minutes under water when the +light of day completely disappeared. But for this the occupants were +fully prepared, having provided themselves with powerful lamps, whose +brilliant light, radiating from polished reflectors, gave them an +opportunity of seeing clearly around it for a distance of eight or ten +feet in all directions. Owing to the superlatively excellent +construction of the Nautilus, also on account of the <i>scaphanders</i>, or +suits of diving armor, with which Marston and his friends had clothed +themselves, the disagreeable sensations to which divers are ordinarily +exposed, were hardly felt at all in the beginning of the descent.</p> + +<p>Marston was about to congratulate his companions on the favorable +auspices inaugurating their trip, when Murphy, consulting the +instrument, discovered to his great surprise that the Nautilus was not +making its time. In reply to their signal "faster!" the downward +movement increased a little, but it soon relaxed again. Instead of less +than two minutes, as at the beginning, it now took twelve minutes to +make a hundred feet. They had gone only seven hundred feet in +thirty-seven minutes. In spite of repeated signalling, their progress +during the next hour was even still more alarming, one hundred feet +taking exactly 59 minutes. To shorten detail, it required two hours more +to make another hundred feet; and then the Nautilus, after taking ten +minutes to crawl an inch further, came to a perfect stand still. The +pressure of the water had evidently now become too enormous to allow +further descent.</p> + +<p>The Clubmen's distress was very great; Marston's, in particular, was +indescribable. In vain, catching at straws, he signalled "eastwards!" +"westwards!" "northwards!" or "southwards!" the Nautilus moved readily +every way but downwards.</p> + +<p>"Oh! what shall we do?" he cried in despair; "Barbican, must we really +give you up though separated from us by the short distance of only a few +miles?"</p> + +<p>At last, nothing better being to be done, the unwilling signal "heave +upwards!" was given, and the hauling up commenced. It was done very +slowly, and with the greatest care. A sudden jerk might snap the chains; +an incautious twist might put a kink on the air tube; besides, it was +well known that the sudden removal of heavy pressure resulting from +rapid ascent, is attended by very disagreeable sensations, which have +sometimes even proved fatal.</p> + +<p>It was near midnight when the Clubmen were lifted out of the manhole. +Their faces were pale, their eyes bloodshot, their figures stooped. Even +the <i>Herald</i> Reporter seemed to have got enough of exploring. But +Marston was as confident as ever, and tried to be as brisk.</p> + +<p>He had hardly swallowed the refreshment so positively enjoined in the +circumstances, when he abruptly addressed the Captain:</p> + +<p>"What's the weight of your heaviest cannon balls?"</p> + +<p>"Thirty pounds, Mr. Marston."</p> + +<p>"Can't you attach thirty of them to the Nautilus and sink us again?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Mr. Marston, if you wish it. It shall be the first thing +done to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"To-night, Captain! At once! Barbican has not an instant to lose."</p> + +<p>"At once then be it, Mr. Marston. Just as you say."</p> + +<p>The new sinkers were soon attached to the Nautilus, which disappeared +once more with all its former occupants inside, except the <i>Herald</i> +Reporter, who had fallen asleep over his notes, or at least seemed to +be. He had probably made up his mind as to the likelihood of the +Nautilus ever getting back again.</p> + +<p>The second descent was quicker than the first, but just as futile. At +1152 feet, the Nautilus positively refused to go a single inch further. +Marston looked like a man in a stupor. He made no objection to the +signal given by the others to return; he even helped to cut the ropes by +which the cannon balls had been attached. Not a single word was spoken +by the party, as they slowly rose to the surface. Marston seemed to be +struggling against despair. For the first time, the impossibility of the +great enterprise seemed to dawn upon him. He and his friends had +undertaken a great fight with the mighty Ocean, which now played with +them as a giant with a pigmy. To reach the bottom was evidently +completely out of their power; and what was infinitely worse, there was +nothing to be gained by reaching it. The Projectile was not on the +bottom; it could not even have got to the bottom. Marston said it all in +a few words to the Captain, as the Clubmen stepped on deck a few hours +later:</p> + +<p>"Barbican is floating midway in the depths of the Pacific, like Mahomet +in his coffin!"</p> + +<p>Blindly yielding, however, to the melancholy hope that is born of +despair, Marston and his friends renewed the search next day, the 30th, +but they were all too worn out with watching and excitement to be able +to continue it longer than a few hours. After a night's rest, it was +renewed the day following, the 31st, with some vigor, and a good part of +the ocean lying between Guadalupe and Benito islands was carefully +investigated to a depth of seven or eight hundred feet. No traces +whatever of the Projectile. Several California steamers, plying between +San Francisco and Panama, passed the <i>Susquehanna</i> within hailing +distance. But to every question, the invariable reply one melancholy +burden bore:</p> + +<p>"No luck!"</p> + +<p>All hands were now in despair. Marston could neither eat nor drink. He +never even spoke the whole day, except on two occasions. Once, when +somebody heard him muttering:</p> + +<p>"He's now seventeen days in the ocean!"</p> + +<p>The second time he spoke, the words seemed to be forced out of him. +Belfast admitted, for the sake of argument, that the Projectile had +fallen into the ocean, but he strongly denounced the absurd idea of its +occupants being still alive. "Under such circumstances," went on the +learned Professor, "further prolongation of vital energy would be simply +impossible. Want of air, want of food, want of courage—"</p> + +<p>"No, sir!" interrupted Marston quite savagely. "Want of air, of meat, of +drink, as much as you like! But when you speak of Barbican's want of +courage, you don't know what you are talking about! No holy martyr ever +died at the stake with a loftier courage than my noble friend +Barbican!"</p> + +<p>That night he asked the Captain if he would not sail down as far as Cape +San Lucas. Bloomsbury saw that further search was all labor lost, but he +respected such heroic grief too highly to give a positive refusal. He +consented to devote the following day, New Year's, to an exploring +expedition as far as Magdalena Bay, making the most diligent inquiries +in all directions.</p> + +<p>But New Year's was just as barren of results as any of its predecessors, +and, a little before sunset, Captain Bloomsbury, regardless of further +entreaties and unwilling to risk further delay, gave orders to 'bout +ship and return to San Francisco.</p> + +<p>The <i>Susquehanna</i> was slowly turning around in obedience to her wheel, +as if reluctant to abandon forever a search in which humanity at large +was interested, when the look-out man, stationed in the forecastle, +suddenly sang out:</p> + +<p>"A buoy to the nor'east, not far from shore!"</p> + +<p>All telescopes were instantly turned in the direction indicated. The +buoy, or whatever object it was, could be readily distinguished. It +certainly did look like one of those buoys used to mark out the channel +that ships follow when entering a harbor. But as the vessel slowly +approached it, a small flag, flapping in the dying wind—a strange +feature in a buoy—was seen to surmount its cone, which a nearer +approach showed to be emerging four or five feet from the water. And for +a buoy too it was exceedingly bright and shiny, reflecting the red rays +of the setting sun as strongly as if its surface was crystal or polished +metal!</p> + +<p>"Call Mr. Marston on deck at once!" cried the Captain, his voice +betraying unwonted excitement as he put the glass again to his eye.</p> + +<p>Marston, thoroughly worn out by his incessant anxiety during the day, +had been just carried below by his friends, and they were now trying to +make him take a little refreshment and repose. But the Captain's order +brought them all on deck like a flash.</p> + +<p>They found the whole crew gazing in one direction, and, though speaking +in little more than whispers, evidently in a state of extraordinary +excitement.</p> + +<p>What could all this mean? Was there any ground for hope? The thought +sent a pang of delight through Marston's wildly beating heart that +almost choked him.</p> + +<p>The Captain beckoned to the Club men to take a place on the bridge +beside himself. They instantly obeyed, all quietly yielding them a +passage.</p> + +<p>The vessel was now only about a quarter of a mile distant from the +object and therefore near enough to allow it to be distinguished without +the aid of a glass.</p> + +<p>What! The flag bore the well known Stars and Stripes!</p> + +<p>An electric shudder of glad surprise shot through the assembled crowd. +They still spoke, however, in whispers, hardly daring to utter their +thoughts aloud.</p> + +<p>The silence was suddenly startled by a howl of mingled ecstasy and rage +from Marston.</p> + +<p>He would have fallen off the bridge, had not the others held him firmly. +Then he burst into a laugh loud and long, and quite as formidable as his +howl.</p> + +<p>Then he tore away from his friends, and began beating himself over the +head.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" he cried in accents between a yell and a groan, "what chuckleheads +we are! What numskulls! What jackasses! What double-treble-barrelled +gibbering idiots!" Then he fell to beating himself over the head again.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Marston, for heaven's sake!" cried his friends, +vainly trying to hold him.</p> + +<p>"Speak for yourself!" cried others, Belfast among the number.</p> + +<p>"No exception, Belfast! You're as bad as the rest of us! We're all a set +of unmitigated, demoralized, dog-goned old lunatics! Ha! Ha! Ha!"</p> + +<p>"Speak plainly, Marston! Tell us what you mean!"</p> + +<p>"I mean," roared the terrible Secretary, "that we are no better than a +lot of cabbage heads, dead beats, and frauds, calling ourselves +scientists! O Barbican, how you must blush for us! If we were +schoolboys, we should all be skinned alive for our ignorance! Do you +forget, you herd of ignoramuses, that the Projectile weighs only ten +tons?"</p> + +<p>"We don't forget it! We know it well! What of it?"</p> + +<p>"This of it: it can't sink in water without displacing its own volume +in water; its own volume in water weighs thirty tons! Consequently, it +can't sink; more consequently, it hasn't sunk; and, most consequently, +there it is before us, bobbing up and down all the time under our very +noses! O Barbican, how can we ever venture to look at you straight in +the face again!"</p> + +<p>Marston's extravagant manner of showing it did not prevent him from +being perfectly right. With all their knowledge of physics, not a single +one of those scientific gentlemen had remembered the great fundamental +law that governs sinking or floating bodies. Thanks to its slight +specific gravity, the Projectile, after reaching unknown depths of ocean +through the terrific momentum of its fall, had been at last arrested in +its course and even obliged to return to the surface.</p> + +<p>By this time, all the passengers of the <i>Susquehanna</i> could easily +recognize the object of such weary longings and desperate searches, +floating quietly a short distance before them in the last rays of the +declining day!</p> + +<p>The boats were out in an instant. Marston and his friends took the +Captain's gig. The rowers pulled with a will towards the rapidly nearing +Projectile. What did it contain? The living or the dead? The living +certainly! as Marston whispered to those around him; otherwise how could +they have ever run up that flag?</p> + +<p>The boats approached in perfect silence, all hearts throbbing with the +intensity of newly awakened hope, all eyes eagerly watching for some +sign to confirm it. No part of the windows appeared over the water, but +the trap hole had been thrown open, and through it came the pole that +bore the American flag. Marston made for the trap hole and, as it was +only a few feet above the surface, he had no difficulty in looking in.</p> + +<p>At that moment, a joyful shout of triumph rose from the interior, and +the whole boat's crew heard a dry drawling voice with a nasal twang +exclaiming:</p> + +<p>"Queen! How is that for high?"</p> + +<p>It was instantly answered by another voice, shriller, louder, quicker, +more joyous and triumphant in tone, but slightly tinged with a foreign +accent:</p> + +<p>"King! My brave Mac! How is that for high?"</p> + +<p>The deep, clear, calm voice that spoke next thrilled the listeners +outside with an emotion that we shall not attempt to portray. Except +that their ears could detect in it the faintest possible emotion of +triumph, it was in all respects as cool, resolute, and self-possessed as +ever:</p> + +<p>"Ace! Dear friends, how is that for high?"</p> + +<p>They were quietly enjoying a little game of High-Low-Jack!</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image21" name="image21"> + <img src="images/23.jpg" + alt="HOW IS THAT FOR HIGH?" + title="HOW IS THAT FOR HIGH?" /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">HOW IS THAT FOR HIGH?</span> +</div> + +<p>How they must have been startled by the wild cheers that suddenly rang +around their ocean-prison! How madly were these cheers re-echoed from +the decks of the <i>Susquehanna</i>! Who can describe the welcome that +greeted these long lost, long beloved, long despaired of Sons of Earth, +now so suddenly and unexpectedly rescued from destruction, and +restored once more to the wonderstricken eyes of admiring humanity? Who +can describe the scenes of joy and exuberant happiness, and deep felt +gratitude, and roaring rollicking merriment, that were witnessed on +board the steamer that night and during the next three days!</p> + +<p>As for Marston, it need hardly be said that he was simply ecstatic, but +it may interest both the psychologist and the philologist to learn that +the expression <i>How is that for high?</i> struck him at once as with a kind +of frenzy. It became immediately such a favorite tongue morsel of his +that ever since he has been employing it on all occasions, appropriate +or otherwise. Thanks to his exertions in its behalf all over the +country, the phrase is now the most popular of the day, well known and +relished in every part of the Union. If we can judge from its present +hold on the popular ear it will continue to live and flourish for many a +long day to come; it may even be accepted as the popular expression of +triumph in those dim, distant, future years when the memory not only of +the wonderful occasion of its formation but also of the illustrious men +themselves who originated it, has been consigned forever to the dark +tomb of oblivion!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<h3>FAREWELL TO THE BALTIMORE GUN CLUB.</h3> + + +<p>The intense interest of our extraordinary but most veracious history +having reached its culmination at the end of the last chapter, our +absorbing chronicle might with every propriety have been then and there +concluded; but we can't part from our gracious and most indulgent reader +before giving him a few more details which may be instructive perhaps, +if not amusing.</p> + +<p>No doubt he kindly remembers the world-wide sympathy with which our +three famous travellers had started on their memorable trip to the Moon. +If so, he may be able to form some idea of the enthusiasm universally +excited by the news of their safe return. Would not the millions of +spectators that had thronged Florida to witness their departure, now +rush to the other extremity of the Union to welcome them back? Could +those innumerable Europeans, Africans and Asiatics, who had visited the +United States simply to have a look at M'Nicholl, Ardan and Barbican, +ever think of quitting the country without having seen those wonderful +men again? Certainly not! Nay, more—the reception and the welcome that +those heroes would everywhere be greeted with, should be on a scale +fully commensurate with the grandeur of their own gigantic enterprise. +The Sons of Earth who had fearlessly quitted this terrestrial globe and +who had succeeded in returning after accomplishing a journey +inconceivably wonderful, well deserved to be received with every +extremity of pride, pomp and glorious circumstance that the world is +capable of displaying.</p> + +<p>To catch a glimpse of these demi-gods, to hear the sound of their +voices, perhaps even to touch their hands—these were the only emotions +with which the great heart of the country at large was now throbbing.</p> + +<p>To gratify this natural yearning of humanity, to afford not only to +every foreigner but to every native in the land an opportunity of +beholding the three heroes who had reflected such indelible glory on the +American name, and to do it all in a manner eminently worthy of the +great American Nation, instantly became the desire of the American +People.</p> + +<p>To desire a thing, and to have it, are synonymous terms with the great +people of the American Republic.</p> + +<p>A little thinking simplified the matter considerably: as all the people +could not go to the heroes, the heroes should go to all the people.</p> + +<p>So decided, so done.</p> + +<p>It was nearly two months before Barbican and his friends could get back +to Baltimore. The winter travelling over the Rocky Mountains had been +very difficult on account of the heavy snows, and, even when they found +themselves in the level country, though they tried to travel as +privately as possible, and for the present positively declined all +public receptions, they were compelled to spend some time in the houses +of the warm friends near whom they passed in the course of their long +journey.</p> + +<p>The rough notes of their Moon adventures—the only ones that they could +furnish just then—circulating like wild fire and devoured with +universal avidity, only imparted a keener whet to the public desire to +feast their eyes on such men. These notes were telegraphed free to every +newspaper in the country, but the longest and best account of the +"<i>Journey to the Moon</i>" appeared in the columns of the <i>New York +Herald</i>, owing to the fact that Watkins the reporter had had the +adventurers all to himself during the whole of the three days' trip of +the <i>Susquehanna</i> back to San Francisco. In a week after their return, +every man, woman, and child in the United States knew by heart some of +the main facts and incidents in the famous journey; but, of course, it +is needless to say that they knew nothing at all about the finer points +and the highly interesting minor details of the astounding story. These +are now all laid before the highly favored reader for the first time. I +presume it is unnecessary to add that they are worthy of his most +implicit confidence, having been industriously and conscientiously +compiled from the daily journals of the three travellers, revised, +corrected, and digested very carefully by Barbican himself.</p> + +<p>It was, of course, too early at this period for the critics to pass a +decided opinion on the nature of the information furnished by our +travellers. Besides, the Moon is an exceedingly difficult subject. Very +few newspaper men in the country are capable of offering a single +opinion regarding her that is worth reading. This is probably also the +reason why half-scientists talk so much dogmatic nonsense about her.</p> + +<p>Enough, however, had appeared in the notes to warrant the general +opinion that Barbican's explorations had set at rest forever several pet +theories lately started regarding the nature of our satellite. He and +his friends had seen her with their own eyes, and under such favorable +circumstances as to be altogether exceptional. Regarding her formation, +her origin, her inhabitability, they could easily tell what system +<i>should</i> be rejected and what <i>might</i> be admitted. Her past, her +present, and her future, had been alike laid bare before their eyes. How +can you object to the positive assertion of a conscientious man who has +passed within a few hundred miles of <i>Tycho</i>, the culminating point in +the strangest of all the strange systems of lunar oreography? What reply +can you make to a man who has sounded the dark abysses of the <i>Plato</i> +crater? How can you dare to contradict those men whom the vicissitudes +of their daring journey had swept over the dark, Invisible Face of the +Moon, never before revealed to human eye? It was now confessedly the +privilege and the right of these men to set limits to that selenographic +science which had till now been making itself so very busy in +reconstructing the lunar world. They could now say, authoritatively, +like Cuvier lecturing over a fossil skeleton: "Once the Moon was this, a +habitable world, and inhabitable long before our Earth! And now the Moon +is that, an uninhabitable world, and uninhabitable ages and ages ago!"</p> + +<p>We must not even dream of undertaking a description of the grand <i>fête</i> +by which the return of the illustrious members of the Gun Club was to be +adequately celebrated, and the natural curiosity of their countrymen to +see them was to be reasonably gratified. It was one worthy in every way +of its recipients, worthy of the Gun Club, worthy of the Great Republic, +and, best of all, every man, woman, and child in the United States could +take part in it. It required at least three months to prepare it: but +this was not to be regretted as its leading idea could not be properly +carried out during the severe colds of winter.</p> + +<p>All the great railroads of the Union had been closely united by +temporary rails, a uniform gauge had been everywhere adopted, and every +other necessary arrangement had been made to enable a splendid palace +car, expressly manufactured for the occasion by Pullman himself, to +visit every chief point in the United States without ever breaking +connection. Through the principal street in each city, or streets if one +was not large enough, rails had been laid so as to admit the passage of +the triumphal car. In many cities, as a precaution against unfavorable +weather, these streets had been arched over with glass, thus becoming +grand arcades, many of which have been allowed to remain so to the +present day. The houses lining these streets, hung with tapestry, +decorated with flowers, waving with banners, were all to be illuminated +at night time in a style at once both the most brilliant and the most +tasteful. On the sidewalks, tables had been laid, often miles and miles +long, at the public expense; these were to be covered with every kind of +eatables, exquisitely cooked, in the greatest profusion, and free to +everyone for twelve hours before the arrival of the illustrious guests +and also for twelve hours after their departure. The idea mainly aimed +at was that, at the grand national banquet about to take place, every +inhabitant of the United States, without exception, could consider +Barbican and his companions as his own particular guests for the time +being, thus giving them a welcome the heartiest and most unanimous that +the world has ever yet witnessed.</p> + +<p>Evergreens were to deck the lamp-posts; triumphal arches to span the +streets; fountains, squirting <i>eau de cologne</i>, to perfume and cool the +air; bands, stationed at proper intervals, to play the most inspiring +music; and boys and girls from public and private schools, dressed in +picturesque attire, to sing songs of joy and glory. The people, seated +at the banquetting tables, were to rise and cheer and toast the heroes +as they passed; the military companies, in splendid uniforms, were to +salute them with presented arms; while the bells pealed from the church +towers, the great guns roared from the armories, <i>feux de joie</i> +resounded from the ships in the harbor, until the day's wildest whirl of +excitement was continued far into the night by a general illumination +and a surpassing display of fireworks. Right in the very heart of the +city, the slowly moving triumphal car was always to halt long enough to +allow the Club men to join the cheering citizens at their meal, which +was to be breakfast, dinner or supper according to that part of the day +at which the halt was made.</p> + +<p>The number of champagne bottles drunk on these occasions, or of the +speeches made, or of the jokes told, or of the toasts offered, or of the +hands shaken, of course, I cannot now weary my kind reader by detailing, +though I have the whole account lying before me in black and white, +written out day by day in Barbican's own bold hand. Yet I should like to +give a few extracts from this wonderful journal. It is a perfect model +of accuracy and system. Whether detailing his own doings or those of the +innumerable people he met, Caesar himself never wrote anything more +lucid or more pointed. But nothing sets the extraordinary nature of this +great man in a better light than the firm, commanding, masterly +character of the handwriting in which these records are made. The +elegant penmanship all through might easily pass for copper plate +engraving—except on one page, dated "<i>Boston, after dinner</i>," where, +candor compels me to acknowledge, the "Solid Men" appear to have +succeeded in rendering his iron nerves the least bit wabbly.</p> + +<p>The palace car had been so constructed that, by turning a few cranks and +pulling out a few bolts, it was transformed at once into a highly +decorated and extremely comfortable open barouche. Marston took the seat +usually occupied by the driver: Ardan and M'Nicholl sat immediately +under him, face to face with Barbican, who, in order that everyone might +be able to distinguish him, was to keep all the back seat for himself, +the post of honor.</p> + +<p>On Monday morning, the fifth of May, a month generally the pleasantest +in the United States, the grand national banquet commenced in Baltimore, +and lasted twenty-four hours. The Gun Club insisted on paying all the +expenses of the day, and the city compromised by being allowed to +celebrate in whatever way it pleased the reception of the Club men on +their return.</p> + +<p>They started on their trip that same day in the midst of one of the +grandest ovations possible to conceive. They stopped for a little while +at Wilmington, but they took dinner in Philadelphia, where the splendor +of Broad Street (at present the finest boulevard in the world, being 113 +feet wide and five miles long) can be more easily alluded to than even +partially described.</p> + +<p>The house fronts glittered with flowers, flags, pictures, tapestries, +and other decorations; the chimneys and roofs swarmed with men and boys +cheerfully risking their necks every moment to get one glance at the +"Moon men"; every window was a brilliant bouquet of beautiful ladies +waving their scented handkerchiefs and showering their sweetest smiles; +the elevated tables on the sidewalks, groaning with an abundance of +excellent and varied food, were lined with men, women, and children, +who, however occupied in eating and drinking, never forgot to salute the +heroes, cheering them lustily as they slowly moved along; the spacious +street itself, just paved from end to end with smooth Belgian blocks, +was a living moving panorama of soldiers, temperance men, free masons, +and other societies, radiant in gorgeous uniforms, brilliant in flashing +banners, and simply perfect in the rhythmic cadence of their tread, +wings of delicious music seeming to bear them onward in their proud and +stately march.</p> + +<p>A vast awning, spanning the street from ridge to ridge, had been so +prepared and arranged that, in case of rain or too strong a glare from +the summer sun, it could be opened out wholly or partially in the space +of a very few minutes. There was not, however, the slightest occasion +for using it, the weather being exceedingly fine, almost paradisiacal, +as Marston loved to phrase it.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="image22" name="image22"> + <img src="images/24.jpg" + alt="THEIR ARRIVAL WAS WELCOMED WITH EQUAL FURORE." + title="THEIR ARRIVAL WAS WELCOMED WITH EQUAL FURORE." /></a><br /> + <span class="caption">THEIR ARRIVAL WAS WELCOMED WITH EQUAL <i>FURORE</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p>The "Moon men" supped and spent the night in New York, where they were +received with even greater enthusiasm than at Philadelphia. But no +detailed description can be given of their majestic progress from city +to city through all portions of the mighty Republic. It is enough to say +that they visited every important town from Portland to San Francisco, +from Salt Lake City to New Orleans, from Mobile to Charleston, and from +Saint Louis to Baltimore; that, in every section of the great country, +preparations for their reception were equally as enthusiastic, their +arrival was welcomed with equal <i>furore</i>, and their departure +accompanied with an equal amount of affectionate and touching sympathy.</p> + +<p>The <i>New York Herald</i> reporter, Mr. Watkins, followed them closely +everywhere in a palace car of his own, and kept the public fully +enlightened regarding every incident worth regarding along the route, +almost as soon as it happened. He was enabled to do this by means of a +portable telegraphic machine of new and most ingenious construction. +Though its motive power was electricity, it could dispense with the +ordinary instruments and even with wires altogether, yet it managed to +transmit messages to most parts of the world with an accuracy that, +considering how seldom it failed, is almost miraculous. The principle +actuating it, though guessed at by many shrewd scientists, is still a +profound secret and will probably remain so for some time longer, the +<i>Herald</i> having purchased the right to its sole and exclusive use for +fifteen years, at an enormous cost.</p> + +<p>Who shall say that the apotheosis of our three heroes was not worthy of +them, or that, had they lived in the old prehistoric times, they would +not have taken the loftiest places among the demi-gods?</p> + +<p>As the tremendous whirl of excitement began slowly to die away, the +more thoughtful heads of the Great Republic began asking each other a +few questions:</p> + +<p>Can this wonderful journey, unprecedented in the annals of wonderful +journeys, ever lead to any practical result?</p> + +<p>Shall we ever live to see direct communication established with the +Moon?</p> + +<p>Will any Air Line of space navigation ever undertake to start a system +of locomotion between the different members of the solar system?</p> + +<p>Have we any reasonable grounds for ever expecting to see trains running +between planet and planet, as from Mars to Jupiter and, possibly +afterwards, from star to star, as from Polaris to Sirius?</p> + +<p>Even to-day these are exceedingly puzzling questions, and, with all our +much vaunted scientific progress, such as "no fellow can make out." But +if we only reflect a moment on the audacious go-a-headiveness of the +Yankee branch of the Anglo Saxon race, we shall easily conclude that the +American people will never rest quietly until they have pushed to its +last result and to every logical consequence the astounding step so +daringly conceived and so wonderfully carried out by their great +countryman Barbican.</p> + +<p>In fact, within a very few months after the return of the Club men from +the Continental Banquet, as it was called in the papers, the country was +flooded by a number of little books, like Insurance pamphlets, thrust +into every letter box and pushed under every door, announcing the +formation of a new company called <i>The Grand Interstellar Communication +Society</i>. The Capital was to be 100 million dollars, at a thousand +dollars a share: J.P. BARBICAN, ESQ., P.G.C. was to be President; +Colonel JOSHUA D. M'NICHOLL, Vice-President; Hon. J.T. MARSTON, +Secretary; Chevalier MICHAEL ARDAN, General Manager; JOHN MURPHY, ESQ., +Chief Engineer; H. PHILLIPS COLEMAN, ESQ. (Philadelphia lawyer), Legal +Adviser; and the Astrological Adviser was to be Professor HENRY of +Washington. (Belfast's blunder had injured him so much in public +estimation, his former partisans having become his most merciless +revilers, that it was considered advisable to omit his name altogether +even in the list of the Directors.)</p> + +<p>From the very beginning, the moneyed public looked on the G.I.C.S, with +decided favor, and its shares were bought up pretty freely. Conducted on +strictly honorable principles, keeping carefully aloof from all such +damaging connection as the <i>Credit Mobilier</i>, and having its books +always thrown open for public inspection, its reputation even to-day is +excellent and continually improving in the popular estimation. Holding +out no utopian inducements to catch the unwary, and making no wheedling +promises to blind the guileless, it states its great objects with all +their great advantages, without at the same time suppressing its +enormous and perhaps insuperable difficulties. People know exactly what +to think of it, and, whether it ever meets with perfect success or +proves a complete failure, no one in the country will ever think of +casting a slur on the bright name of its peerless President, J.P. +Barbican.</p> + +<p>For a few years this great man devoted every faculty of his mind to the +furthering of the Company's objects. But in the midst of his labors, the +rapid approach of the CENTENNIAL surprised him. After a long and careful +consultation on the subject, the Directors and Stockholders of the +G.I.C.S. advised him to suspend all further labors in their behalf for a +few years, in order that he might be freer to devote the full energies +of his giant intellect towards celebrating the first hundredth +anniversary of his country's Independence—as all true Americans would +wish to see it celebrated—in a manner every way worthy of the GREAT +REPUBLIC OF THE WEST!</p> + +<p>Obeying orders instantly and with the single-idea'd, unselfish +enthusiasm of his nature, he threw himself at once heart and soul into +the great enterprise. Though possessing no official prominence—this he +absolutely insists upon—he is well known to be the great fountain head +whence emanate all the life, order, dispatch, simplicity, economy, and +wonderful harmony which, so far, have so eminently characterized the +magnificent project. With all operations for raising the necessary +funds—further than by giving some sound practical advice—he positively +refused to connect himself (this may be the reason why subscriptions to +the Centennial stock are so slow in coming in), but in the proper +apportionment of expenses and the strict surveillance of the mechanical, +engineering, and architectural departments, his services have proved +invaluable. His experience in the vast operations at Stony Hill has +given him great skill in the difficult art of managing men. His voice is +seldom heard at the meetings, but when it is, people seem to take a +pleasure in readily submitting to its dictates.</p> + +<p>In wet weather or dry, in hot weather or cold, he may still be seen +every day at Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, leisurely strolling from +building to building, picking his steps quietly through the bustling +crowds of busy workmen, never speaking a word, not even to Marston his +faithful shadow, often pencilling something in his pocket book, stopping +occasionally to look apparently nowhere, but never, you may be sure, +allowing a single detail in the restless panorama around him to escape +the piercing shaft of his eagle glance.</p> + +<p>He is evidently determined on rendering the great CENTENNIAL of his +country a still greater and more wonderful success than even his own +world-famous and never to be forgotten JOURNEY through the boundless +fields of ether, and ALL AROUND THE MOON!</p> + +<h5>END.</h5> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> In our Map of the Moon, prepared expressly for this work, +we have so far improved on Beer and Maedler as to give her surface as it +appears to the naked eye: that is, the north is in the north; only we +must always remember that the west is and must be on the <i>right hand</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> In our Map the <i>Mappa Selenographica</i> is copied as closely +and as fully as is necessary for understanding the details of the story. +For further information the reader is referred to Nasmyth's late +magnificent work: the MOON.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> We must again remind our readers that, in our map, though +every thing is set down as it appears to the eye not as it is reversed +by the telescope, still, for the reason made so clear by Barbican, the +right hand side must be the west and the left the east.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> BALTIMORE GUN CLUB, pp. 295 <i>et seq.</i></p></div> + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of All Around the Moon, by Jules Verne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL AROUND THE MOON *** + +***** This file should be named 16457-h.htm or 16457-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/4/5/16457/ + +Produced by Afra Ullah, Taavi Kalju and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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b/16457-h/images/24.jpg diff --git a/16457.txt b/16457.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..44fc5dd --- /dev/null +++ b/16457.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11886 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of All Around the Moon, by Jules Verne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: All Around the Moon + +Author: Jules Verne + +Translator: Edward Roth + +Release Date: August 6, 2005 [EBook #16457] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL AROUND THE MOON *** + + + + +Produced by Afra Ullah, Taavi Kalju and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +ALL + +AROUND THE MOON + +FROM THE FRENCH OF + +JULES VERNE + +AUTHOR OF "FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON", "TO THE SUN!" AND "OFF ON A +COMET!" + +BY + +EDWARD ROTH + +ILLUSTRATED + +PHILADELPHIA +DAVID MCKAY, PUBLISHER +23 SOUTH NINTH STREET + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PRELIMINARY + + I. FROM 10 P.M. TO 10. 46' 40'' + + II. THE FIRST HALF HOUR + + III. THEY MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME AND FEEL QUITE COMFORTABLE + + IV. FOR THE CORNELL GIRLS + + V. THE COLDS OF SPACE + + VI. INSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATION + + VII. A HIGH OLD TIME + + VIII. THE NEUTRAL POINT + + IX. A LITTLE OFF THE TRACK + + X. THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON + + XI. FACT AND FANCY + + XII. A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE LUNAR MOUNTAINS + + XIII. LUNAR LANDSCAPES + + XIV. A NIGHT OF FIFTEEN DAYS + + XV. GLIMPSES AT THE INVISIBLE + + XVI. THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE + + XVII. TYCHO + +XVIII. PUZZLING QUESTIONS + + XIX. IN EVERY FIGHT, THE IMPOSSIBLE WINS + + XX. OFF THE PACIFIC COAST + + XXI. NEWS FOR MARSTON! + + XXII. ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND + +XXIII. THE CLUB MEN GO A FISHING + + XXIV. FAREWELL TO THE BALTIMORE GUN CLUB + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + 1. HIS FIRST CARE WAS TO TURN ON THE GAS + + 2. DIANA AND SATELLITE + + 3. HE HELPED ARDAN TO LIFT BARBICAN + + 4. MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER + + 5. THEY DRANK TO THE SPEEDY UNION OF THE EARTH AND HER SATELLITE + + 6. DON'T I THOUGH? MY HEAD IS SPLITTING WITH IT! + + 7. POOR SATELLITE WAS DROPPED OUT + + 8. THE BODY OF THE DOG THROWN OUT YESTERDAY + + 9. A DEMONIACAL HULLABALOO + +10. THE OXYGEN! HE CRIED + +11. A GROUP _a la Jardin Mabille_ + +12. AN IMMENSE BATTLE-FIELD PILED WITH BLEACHING BONES + +13. NEVERTHELESS THE SOLUTION ESCAPED HIM + +14. IT'S COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE A WHITE BEAR + +15. THEY COULD UTTER NO WORD, THEY COULD BREATHE NO PRAYER + +16. THEY SEEMED HALF ASLEEP IN HIS VITALIZING BEAMS + +17. THESE ARCHES EVIDENTLY ONCE BORE THE PIPES OF AN AQUEDUCT + +18. ARDAN GAZED AT THE PAIR FOR A FEW MINUTES + +19. OLD MAC DISCOVERED TAKING OBSERVATIONS + +20. FOR A SECOND ONLY DID THEY CATCH ITS FLASH + +21. HOW IS THAT FOR HIGH? + +22. EVERYWHERE THEIR DEPARTURE WAS ACCOMPANIED WITH THE MOST TOUCHING + SYMPATHY + + + + +PRELIMINARY CHAPTER, + +RESUMING THE FIRST PART OF THE WORK AND SERVING AS AN INTRODUCTION TO +THE SECOND. + + +A few years ago the world was suddenly astounded by hearing of an +experiment of a most novel and daring nature, altogether unprecedented +in the annals of science. The BALTIMORE GUN CLUB, a society of +artillerymen started in America during the great Civil War, had +conceived the idea of nothing less than establishing direct +communication with the Moon by means of a projectile! President +Barbican, the originator of the enterprise, was strongly encouraged in +its feasibility by the astronomers of Cambridge Observatory, and took +upon himself to provide all the means necessary to secure its success. +Having realized by means of a public subscription the sum of nearly five +and a half millions of dollars, he immediately set himself to work at +the necessary gigantic labors. + +In accordance with the Cambridge men's note, the cannon intended to +discharge the projectile was to be planted in some country not further +than 28 deg. north or south from the equator, so that it might be aimed +vertically at the Moon in the zenith. The bullet was to be animated with +an initial velocity of 12,000 yards to the second. It was to be fired +off on the night of December 1st, at thirteen minutes and twenty seconds +before eleven o'clock, precisely. Four days afterwards it was to hit the +Moon, at the very moment that she reached her _perigee_, that is to say, +her nearest point to the Earth, about 228,000 miles distant. + +The leading members of the Club, namely President Barbican, Secretary +Marston, Major Elphinstone and General Morgan, forming the executive +committee, held several meetings to discuss the shape and material of +the bullet, the nature and position of the cannon, and the quantity and +quality of the powder. The decision soon arrived at was as follows: +1st--The bullet was to be a hollow aluminium shell, its diameter nine +feet, its walls a foot in thickness, and its weight 19,250 pounds; +2nd--The cannon was to be a columbiad 900 feet in length, a well of that +depth forming the vertical mould in which it was to be cast, and +3rd--The powder was to be 400 thousand pounds of gun cotton, which, by +developing more than 200 thousand millions of cubic feet of gas under +the projectile, would easily send it as far as our satellite. + +These questions settled, Barbican, aided by Murphy, the Chief Engineer +of the Cold Spring Iron Works, selected a spot in Florida, near the 27th +degree north latitude, called Stony Hill, where after the performance of +many wonderful feats in mining engineering, the Columbiad was +successfully cast. + +Things had reached this state when an incident occurred which excited +the general interest a hundred fold. + +A Frenchman from Paris, Michel Ardan by name, eccentric, but keen and +shrewd as well as daring, demanded, by the Atlantic telegraph, +permission to be enclosed in the bullet so that he might be carried to +the Moon, where he was curious to make certain investigations. Received +in America with great enthusiasm, Ardan held a great meeting, +triumphantly carried his point, reconciled Barbican to his mortal foe, a +certain Captain M'Nicholl, and even, by way of clinching the +reconciliation, induced both the newly made friends to join him in his +contemplated trip to the Moon. + +The bullet, so modified as to become a hollow conical cylinder with +plenty of room inside, was further provided with powerful water-springs +and readily-ruptured partitions below the floor, intended to deaden the +dreadful concussion sure to accompany the start. It was supplied with +provisions for a year, water for a few months, and gas for nearly two +weeks. A self-acting apparatus, of ingenious construction, kept the +confined atmosphere sweet and healthy by manufacturing pure oxygen and +absorbing carbonic acid. Finally, the Gun Club had constructed, at +enormous expense, a gigantic telescope, which, from the summit of Long's +Peak, could pursue the Projectile as it winged its way through the +regions of space. Everything at last was ready. + +On December 1st, at the appointed moment, in the midst of an immense +concourse of spectators, the departure took place, and, for the first +time in the world's history, three human beings quitted our terrestrial +globe with some possibility in their favor of finally reaching a point +of destination in the inter-planetary spaces. They expected to +accomplish their journey in 97 hours, 13 minutes and 20 seconds, +consequently reaching the Lunar surface precisely at midnight on +December 5-6, the exact moment when the Moon would be full. + +Unfortunately, the instantaneous explosion of such a vast quantity of +gun-cotton, by giving rise to a violent commotion in the atmosphere, +generated so much vapor and mist as to render the Moon invisible for +several nights to the innumerable watchers in the Western Hemisphere, +who vainly tried to catch sight of her. + +In the meantime, J.T. Marston, the Secretary of the Gun Club, and a most +devoted friend of Barbican's, had started for Long's Peak, Colorado, on +the summit of which the immense telescope, already alluded to, had been +erected; it was of the reflecting kind, and possessed power sufficient +to bring the Moon within a distance of five miles. While Marston was +prosecuting his long journey with all possible speed, Professor +Belfast, who had charge of the telescope, was endeavoring to catch a +glimpse of the Projectile, but for a long time with no success. The +hazy, cloudy weather lasted for more than a week, to the great disgust +of the public at large. People even began to fear that further +observation would have to be deferred to the 3d of the following month, +January, as during the latter half of December the waning Moon could not +possibly give light enough to render the Projectile visible. + +At last, however, to the unbounded satisfaction of all, a violent +tempest suddenly cleared the sky, and on the 13th of December, shortly +after midnight, the Moon, verging towards her last quarter, revealed +herself sharp and bright on the dark background of the starry firmament. + +That same morning, a few hours before Marston's arrival at the summit of +Long's Peak, a very remarkable telegram had been dispatched by Professor +Belfast to the Smithsonian Institute, Washington. It announced: + +That on December 13th, at 2 o'clock in the morning, the Projectile shot +from Stony Hill had been perceived by Professor Belfast and his +assistants; that, deflected a little from its course by some unknown +cause, it had not reached its mark, though it had approached near enough +to be affected by the Lunar attraction; and that, its rectilineal motion +having become circular, it should henceforth continue to describe a +regular orbit around the Moon, of which in fact it had become the +Satellite. The dispatch went on further to state: + +That the _elements_ of the new heavenly body had not yet been +calculated, as at least three different observations, taken at different +times, were necessary to determine them. The distance of the Projectile +from the Lunar surface, however, might be set down roughly at roughly +2833 miles. + +The dispatch concluded with the following hypotheses, positively +pronounced to be the only two possible: Either, 1, The Lunar attraction +would finally prevail, in which case the travellers would reach their +destination; or 2, The Projectile, kept whirling forever in an immutable +orbit, would go on revolving around the Moon till time should be no +more. + +In either alternative, what should be the lot of the daring adventurers? +They had, it is true, abundant provisions to last them for some time, +but even supposing that they did reach the Moon and thereby completely +establish the practicability of their daring enterprise, how were they +ever to get back? _Could_ they ever get back? or ever even be heard +from? Questions of this nature, freely discussed by the ablest pens of +the day, kept the public mind in a very restless and excited condition. + +We must be pardoned here for making a little remark which, however, +astronomers and other scientific men of sanguine temperament would do +well to ponder over. An observer cannot be too cautious in announcing to +the public his discovery when it is of a nature purely speculative. +Nobody is obliged to discover a planet, or a comet, or even a satellite, +but, before announcing to the world that you have made such a discovery, +first make sure that such is really the fact. Because, you know, should +it afterwards come out that you have done nothing of the kind, you make +yourself a butt for the stupid jokes of the lowest newspaper scribblers. +Belfast had never thought of this. Impelled by his irrepressible rage +for discovery--the _furor inveniendi_ ascribed to all astronomers by +Aurelius Priscus--he had therefore been guilty of an indiscretion highly +un-scientific when his famous telegram, launched to the world at large +from the summit of the Rocky Mountains, pronounced so dogmatically on +the only possible issues of the great enterprise. + +The truth was that his telegram contained _two_ very important errors: +1. Error of _observation_, as facts afterwards proved; the Projectile +_was_ not seen on the 13th and _could_ not have been on that day, so +that the little black spot which Belfast professed to have seen was most +certainly not the Projectile; 2. Error of _theory_ regarding the final +fate of the Projectile, since to make it become the Moon's satellite was +flying in the face of one of the great fundamental laws of Theoretical +Mechanics. + +Only one, therefore, the first, of the hypotheses so positively +announced, was capable of realization. The travellers--that is to say if +they still lived--might so combine and unite their own efforts with +those of the Lunar attraction as actually to succeed at last in reaching +the Moon's surface. + +Now the travellers, those daring but cool-headed men who knew very well +what they were about, _did_ still live, they _had_ survived the +frightful concussion of the start, and it is to the faithful record of +their wonderful trip in the bullet-car, with all its singular and +dramatic details, that the present volume is devoted. The story may +destroy many illusions, prejudices and conjectures; but it will at least +give correct ideas of the strange incidents to which such an enterprise +is exposed, and it will certainly bring out in strong colors the effects +of Barbican's scientific conceptions, M'Nicholl's mechanical resources, +and Ardan's daring, eccentric, but brilliant and effective combinations. + +Besides, it will show that J.T. Marston, their faithful friend and a man +every way worthy of the friendship of such men, was only losing his time +while mirroring the Moon in the speculum of the gigantic telescope on +that lofty peak of the mountains. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +FROM 10 P.M. TO 10 46' 40''. + + +The moment that the great clock belonging to the works at Stony Hill had +struck ten, Barbican, Ardan and M'Nicholl began to take their last +farewells of the numerous friends surrounding them. The two dogs +intended to accompany them had been already deposited in the Projectile. +The three travellers approached the mouth of the enormous cannon, seated +themselves in the flying car, and once more took leave for the last time +of the vast throng standing in silence around them. The windlass +creaked, the car started, and the three daring men disappeared in the +yawning gulf. + +The trap-hole giving them ready access to the interior of the +Projectile, the car soon came back empty; the great windlass was +presently rolled away; the tackle and scaffolding were removed, and in a +short space of time the great mouth of the Columbiad was completely rid +of all obstructions. + +M'Nicholl took upon himself to fasten the door of the trap on the inside +by means of a powerful combination of screws and bolts of his own +invention. He also covered up very carefully the glass lights with +strong iron plates of extreme solidity and tightly fitting joints. + +Ardan's first care was to turn on the gas, which he found burning rather +low; but he lit no more than one burner, being desirous to economize as +much as possible their store of light and heat, which, as he well knew, +could not at the very utmost last them longer than a few weeks. + +Under the cheerful blaze, the interior of the Projectile looked like a +comfortable little chamber, with its circular sofa, nicely padded walls, +and dome shaped ceiling. + +All the articles that it contained, arms, instruments, utensils, etc., +were solidly fastened to the projections of the wadding, so as to +sustain the least injury possible from the first terrible shock. In +fact, all precautions possible, humanly speaking, had been taken to +counteract this, the first, and possibly one of the very greatest +dangers to which the courageous adventurers would be exposed. + +Ardan expressed himself to be quite pleased with the appearance of +things in general. + +"It's a prison, to be sure," said he "but not one of your ordinary +prisons that always keep in the one spot. For my part, as long as I can +have the privilege of looking out of the window, I am willing to lease +it for a hundred years. Ah! Barbican, that brings out one of your stony +smiles. You think our lease may last longer than that! Our tenement may +become our coffin, eh? Be it so. I prefer it anyway to Mahomet's; it may +indeed float in the air, but it won't be motionless as a milestone!" + +[Illustration: TURN ON THE GAS.] + +Barbican, having made sure by personal inspection that everything was in +perfect order, consulted his chronometer, which he had carefully set a +short time before with Chief Engineer Murphy's, who had been charged to +fire off the Projectile. + +"Friends," he said, "it is now twenty minutes past ten. At 10 46' 40'', +precisely, Murphy will send the electric current into the gun-cotton. We +have, therefore, twenty-six minutes more to remain on earth." + +"Twenty-six minutes and twenty seconds," observed Captain M'Nicholl, who +always aimed at mathematical precision. + +"Twenty-six minutes!" cried Ardan, gaily. "An age, a cycle, according to +the use you make of them. In twenty-six minutes how much can be done! +The weightiest questions of warfare, politics, morality, can be +discussed, even decided, in twenty-six minutes. Twenty-six minutes well +spent are infinitely more valuable than twenty-six lifetimes wasted! A +few seconds even, employed by a Pascal, or a Newton, or a Barbican, or +any other profoundly intellectual being + + Whose thoughts wander through eternity--" + +"As mad as Marston! Every bit!" muttered the Captain, half audibly. + +"What do you conclude from this rigmarole of yours?" interrupted +Barbican. + +"I conclude that we have twenty-six good minutes still left--" + +"Only twenty-four minutes, ten seconds," interrupted the Captain, watch +in hand. + +"Well, twenty-four minutes, Captain," Ardan went on; "now even in +twenty-four minutes, I maintain--" + +"Ardan," interrupted Barbican, "after a very little while we shall have +plenty of time for philosophical disputations. Just now let us think of +something far more pressing." + +"More pressing! what do you mean? are we not fully prepared?" + +"Yes, fully prepared, as far at least as we have been able to foresee. +But we may still, I think, possibly increase the number of precautions +to be taken against the terrible shock that we are so soon to +experience." + +"What? Have you any doubts whatever of the effectiveness of your +brilliant and extremely original idea? Don't you think that the layers +of water, regularly disposed in easily-ruptured partitions beneath this +floor, will afford us sufficient protection by their elasticity?" + +"I hope so, indeed, my dear friend, but I am by no means confident." + +"He hopes! He is by no means confident! Listen to that, Mac! Pretty time +to tell us so! Let me out of here!" + +"Too late!" observed the Captain quietly. "The trap-hole alone would +take ten or fifteen minutes to open." + +"Oh then I suppose I must make the best of it," said Ardan, laughing. +"All aboard, gentlemen! The train starts in twenty minutes!" + +"In nineteen minutes and eighteen seconds," said the Captain, who never +took his eye off the chronometer. + +The three travellers looked at each other for a little while, during +which even Ardan appeared to become serious. After another careful +glance at the several objects lying around them, Barbican said, quietly: + +"Everything is in its place, except ourselves. What we have now to do is +to decide on the position we must take in order to neutralize the shock +as much as possible. We must be particularly careful to guard against a +rush of blood to the head." + +"Correct!" said the Captain. + +"Suppose we stood on our heads, like the circus tumblers!" cried Ardan, +ready to suit the action to the word. + +"Better than that," said Barbican; "we can lie on our side. Keep clearly +in mind, dear friends, that at the instant of departure it makes very +little difference to us whether we are inside the bullet or in front of +it. There is, no doubt, _some_ difference," he added, seeing the great +eyes made by his friends, "but it is exceedingly little." + +"Thank heaven for the _some_!" interrupted Ardan, fervently. + +"Don't you approve of my suggestion, Captain?" asked Barbican. + +"Certainly," was the hasty reply. "That is to say, absolutely. +Seventeen minutes twenty-seven seconds!" + +"Mac isn't a human being at all!" cried Ardan, admiringly. "He is a +repeating chronometer, horizontal escapement, London-made lever, capped, +jewelled,--" + +His companions let him run on while they busied themselves in making +their last arrangements, with the greatest coolness and most systematic +method. In fact, I don't think of anything just now to compare them to +except a couple of old travellers who, having to pass the night in the +train, are trying to make themselves as comfortable as possible for +their long journey. In your profound astonishment, you may naturally ask +me of what strange material can the hearts of these Americans be made, +who can view without the slightest semblance of a flutter the approach +of the most appalling dangers? In your curiosity I fully participate, +but, I'm sorry to say, I can't gratify it. It is one of those things +that I could never find out. + +Three mattresses, thick and well wadded, spread on the disc forming the +false bottom of the Projectile, were arranged in lines whose parallelism +was simply perfect. But Ardan would never think of occupying his until +the very last moment. Walking up and down, with the restless nervousness +of a wild beast in a cage, he kept up a continuous fire of talk; at one +moment with his friends, at another with the dogs, addressing the latter +by the euphonious and suggestive names of Diana and Satellite. + +[Illustration: DIANA AND SATELLITE.] + +"Ho, pets!" he would exclaim as he patted them gently, "you must not +forget the noble part you are to play up there. You must be models of +canine deportment. The eyes of the whole Selenitic world will be upon +you. You are the standard bearers of your race. From you they will +receive their first impression regarding its merits. Let it be a +favorable one. Compel those Selenites to acknowledge, in spite of +themselves, that the terrestrial race of canines is far superior to that +of the very best Moon dog among them!" + +"Dogs in the Moon!" sneered M'Nicholl, "I like that!" + +"Plenty of dogs!" cried Ardan, "and horses too, and cows, and sheep, and +no end of chickens!" + +"A hundred dollars to one there isn't a single chicken within the whole +Lunar realm, not excluding even the invisible side!" cried the Captain, +in an authoritative tone, but never taking his eye off the chronometer. + +"I take that bet, my son," coolly replied Ardan, shaking the Captain's +hand by way of ratifying the wager; "and this reminds me, by the way, +Mac, that you have lost three bets already, to the pretty little tune of +six thousand dollars." + +"And paid them, too!" cried the captain, monotonously; "ten, thirty-six, +six!" + +"Yes, and in a quarter of an hour you will have to pay nine thousand +dollars more; four thousand because the Columbiad will not burst, and +five thousand because the Projectile will rise more than six miles from +the Earth." + +"I have the money ready," answered the Captain, touching his breeches +pocket. "When I lose I pay. Not sooner. Ten, thirty-eight, ten!" + +"Captain, you're a man of method, if there ever was one. I think, +however, that you made a mistake in your wagers." + +"How so?" asked the Captain listlessly, his eye still on the dial. + +"Because, by Jove, if you win there will be no more of you left to take +the money than there will be of Barbican to pay it!" + +"Friend Ardan," quietly observed Barbican, "my stakes are deposited in +the _Wall Street Bank_, of New York, with orders to pay them over to the +Captain's heirs, in case the Captain himself should fail to put in an +appearance at the proper time." + +"Oh! you rhinoceroses, you pachyderms, you granite men!" cried Ardan, +gasping with surprise; "you machines with iron heads, and iron hearts! I +may admire you, but I'm blessed if I understand you!" + +"Ten, forty-two, ten!" repeated M'Nicholl, as mechanically as if it was +the chronometer itself that spoke. + +"Four minutes and a half more," said Barbican. + +"Oh! four and a half little minutes!" went on Ardan. "Only think of it! +We are shut up in a bullet that lies in the chamber of a cannon nine +hundred feet long. Underneath this bullet is piled a charge of 400 +thousand pounds of gun-cotton, equivalent to 1600 thousand pounds of +ordinary gunpowder! And at this very instant our friend Murphy, +chronometer in hand, eye on dial, finger on discharger, is counting the +last seconds and getting ready to launch us into the limitless regions +of planetary--" + +"Ardan, dear friend," interrupted Barbican, in a grave tone, "a serious +moment is now at hand. Let us meet it with some interior recollection. +Give me your hands, my dear friends." + +"Certainly," said Ardan, with tears in his voice, and already at the +other extreme of his apparent levity. + +The three brave men united in one last, silent, but warm and impulsively +affectionate pressure. + +"And now, great God, our Creator, protect us! In Thee we trust!" prayed +Barbican, the others joining him with folded hands and bowed heads. + +"Ten, forty-six!" whispered the Captain, as he and Ardan quietly took +their places on the mattresses. + +Only forty seconds more! + +Barbican rapidly extinguishes the gas and lies down beside his +companions. + +The deathlike silence now reigning in the Projectile is interrupted only +by the sharp ticking of the chronometer as it beats the seconds. + +Suddenly, a dreadful shock is felt, and the Projectile, shot up by the +instantaneous development of 200,000 millions of cubic feet of gas, is +flying into space with inconceivable rapidity! + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE FIRST HALF HOUR. + + +What had taken place within the Projectile? What effect had been +produced by the frightful concussion? Had Barbican's ingenuity been +attended with a fortunate result? Had the shock been sufficiently +deadened by the springs, the buffers, the water layers, and the +partitions so readily ruptured? Had their combined effect succeeded in +counteracting the tremendous violence of a velocity of 12,000 yards a +second, actually sufficient to carry them from London to New York in six +minutes? These, and a hundred other questions of a similar nature were +asked that night by the millions who had been watching the explosion +from the base of Stony Hill. Themselves they forgot altogether for the +moment; they forgot everything in their absorbing anxiety regarding the +fate of the daring travellers. Had one among them, our friend Marston, +for instance, been favored with a glimpse at the interior of the +projectile, what would he have seen? + +Nothing at all at first, on account of the darkness; except that the +walls had solidly resisted the frightful shock. Not a crack, nor a bend, +nor a dent could be perceived; not even the slightest injury had the +admirably constructed piece of mechanical workmanship endured. It had +not yielded an inch to the enormous pressure, and, far from melting and +falling back to earth, as had been so seriously apprehended, in showers +of blazing aluminium, it was still as strong in every respect as it had +been on the very day that it left the Cold Spring Iron Works, glittering +like a silver dollar. + +Of real damage there was actually none, and even the disorder into which +things had been thrown in the interior by the violent shock was +comparatively slight. A few small objects lying around loose had been +furiously hurled against the ceiling, but the others appeared not to +have suffered the slightest injury. The straps that fastened them up +were unfrayed, and the fixtures that held them down were uncracked. + +The partitions beneath the disc having been ruptured, and the water +having escaped, the false floor had been dashed with tremendous violence +against the bottom of the Projectile, and on this disc at this moment +three human bodies could be seen lying perfectly still and motionless. + +Were they three corpses? Had the Projectile suddenly become a great +metallic coffin bearing its ghastly contents through the air with the +rapidity of a lightning flash? + +In a very few minutes after the shock, one of the bodies stirred a +little, the arms moved, the eyes opened, the head rose and tried to look +around; finally, with some difficulty, the body managed to get on its +knees. It was the Frenchman! He held his head tightly squeezed between +his hands for some time as if to keep it from splitting. Then he felt +himself rapidly all over, cleared his throat with a vigorous "hem!" +listened to the sound critically for an instant, and then said to +himself in a relieved tone, but in his native tongue: + +"One man all right! Call the roll for the others!" + +He tried to rise, but the effort was too great for his strength. He fell +back again, his brain swimming, his eyes bursting, his head splitting. +His state very much resembled that of a young man waking up in the +morning after his first tremendous "spree." + +"Br--rr!" he muttered to himself, still talking French; "this reminds me +of one of my wild nights long ago in the _Quartier Latin_, only +decidedly more so!" + +Lying quietly on his back for a while, he could soon feel that the +circulation of his blood, so suddenly and violently arrested by the +terrific shock, was gradually recovering its regular flow; his heart +grew more normal in its action; his head became clearer, and the pain +less distracting. + +"Time to call that roll," he at last exclaimed in a voice with some +pretensions to firmness; "Barbican! MacNicholl!" + +He listens anxiously for a reply. None comes. A snow-wrapt grave at +midnight is not more silent. In vain does he try to catch even the +faintest sound of breathing, though he listens intently enough to hear +the beating of their hearts; but he hears only his own. + +"Call that roll again!" he mutters in a voice far less assured than +before; "Barbican! MacNicholl!" + +The same fearful unearthly stillness. + +"The thing is getting decidedly monotonous!" he exclaimed, still +speaking French. Then rapidly recovering his consciousness as the full +horror of the situation began to break on his mind, he went on muttering +audibly: "Have they really hopped the twig? Bah! Fudge! what has not +been able to knock the life out of one little Frenchman can't have +killed two Americans! They're all right! But first and foremost, let us +enlighten the situation!" + +So saying, he contrived without much difficulty to get on his feet. +Balancing himself then for a moment, he began groping about for the gas. +But he stopped suddenly. + +"Hold on a minute!" he cried; "before lighting this match, let us see if +the gas has been escaping. Setting fire to a mixture of air and hydrogen +would make a pretty how-do-you-do! Such an explosion would infallibly +burst the Projectile, which so far seems all right, though I'm blest if +I can tell whether we're moving or not." + +He began sniffing and smelling to discover if possible the odor of +escaped gas. He could not detect the slightest sign of anything of the +kind. This gave him great courage. He knew of course that his senses +were not yet in good order, still he thought he might trust them so far +as to be certain that the gas had not escaped and that consequently all +the other receptacles were uninjured. + +At the touch of the match, the gas burst into light and burned with a +steady flame. Ardan immediately bent anxiously over the prostrate bodies +of his friends. They lay on each other like inert masses, M'Nicholl +stretched across Barbican. + +Ardan first lifted up the Captain, laid him on the sofa, opened his +clenched hands, rubbed them, and slapped the palms vigorously. Then he +went all over the body carefully, kneading it, rubbing it, and gently +patting it. In such intelligent efforts to restore suspended +circulation, he seemed perfectly at home, and after a few minutes his +patience was rewarded by seeing the Captain's pallid face gradually +recover its natural color, and by feeling his heart gradually beat with +a firm pulsation. + +At last M'Nicholl opened his eyes, stared at Ardan for an instant, +pressed his hand, looked around searchingly and anxiously, and at last +whispered in a faint voice: + +"How's Barbican?" + +"Barbican is all right, Captain," answered Ardan quietly, but still +speaking French. "I'll attend to him in a jiffy. He had to wait for his +turn. I began with you because you were the top man. We'll see in a +minute what we can do for dear old Barby (_ce cher Barbican_)!" + +In less than thirty seconds more, the Captain not only was able to sit +up himself, but he even insisted on helping Ardan to lift Barbican, +and deposit him gently on the sofa. + +[Illustration: HELPED ARDAN TO LIFT BARBICAN.] + +The poor President had evidently suffered more from the concussion than +either of his companions. As they took off his coat they were at first +terribly shocked at the sight of a great patch of blood staining his +shirt bosom, but they were inexpressibly relieved at finding that it +proceeded from a slight contusion of the shoulder, little more than skin +deep. + +Every approved operation that Ardan had performed for the Captain, both +now repeated for Barbican, but for a long time with nothing like a +favorable result. + +Ardan at first tried to encourage the Captain by whispers of a lively +and hopeful nature, but not yet understanding why M'Nicholl did not +deign to make a single reply, he grew reserved by degrees and at last +would not speak a single word. He worked at Barbican, however, just as +before. + +M'Nicholl interrupted himself every moment to lay his ear on the breast +of the unconscious man. At first he had shaken his head quite +despondingly, but by degrees he found himself more and more encouraged +to persist. + +"He breathes!" he whispered at last. + +"Yes, he has been breathing for some time," replied Ardan, quietly, +still unconsciously speaking French. "A little more rubbing and pulling +and pounding will make him as spry as a young grasshopper." + +They worked at him, in fact, so vigorously, intelligently and +perseveringly, that, after what they considered a long hour's labor, +they had the delight of seeing the pale face assume a healthy hue, the +inert limbs give signs of returning animation, and the breathing become +strong and regular. + +At last, Barbican suddenly opened his eyes, started into an upright +position on the sofa, took his friends by the hands, and, in a voice +showing complete consciousness, demanded eagerly: + +"Ardan, M'Nicholl, are we moving?" + +His friends looked at each other, a little amused, but more perplexed. +In their anxiety regarding their own and their friend's recovery, they +had never thought of asking such a question. His words recalled them at +once to a full sense of their situation. + +"Moving? Blessed if I can tell!" said Ardan, still speaking French. + +"We may be lying fifty feet deep in a Florida marsh, for all I know," +observed M'Nicholl. + +"Or, likely as not, in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico," suggested +Ardan, still in French. + +"Suppose we find out," observed Barbican, jumping up to try, his voice +as clear and his step as firm as ever. + +But trying is one thing, and finding out another. Having no means of +comparing themselves with external objects, they could not possibly tell +whether they were moving, or at an absolute stand-still. Though our +Earth is whirling us continually around the Sun at the tremendous speed +of 500 miles a minute, its inhabitants are totally unconscious of the +slightest motion. It was the same with our travellers. Through their own +personal consciousness they could tell absolutely nothing. Were they +shooting through space like a meteor? They could not tell. Had they +fallen back and buried themselves deep in the sandy soil of Florida, or, +still more likely, hundreds of fathoms deep beneath the waters of the +Gulf of Mexico? They could not form the slightest idea. + +Listening evidently could do no good. The profound silence proved +nothing. The padded walls of the Projectile were too thick to admit any +sound whether of wind, water, or human beings. Barbican, however, was +soon struck forcibly by one circumstance. He felt himself to be very +uncomfortably warm, and his friend's faces looked very hot and flushed. +Hastily removing the cover that protected the thermometer, he closely +inspected it, and in an instant uttered a joyous exclamation. + +"Hurrah!" he cried. "We're moving! There's no mistake about it. The +thermometer marks 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Such a stifling heat could not +come from the gas. It comes from the exterior walls of our projectile, +which atmospheric friction must have made almost red hot. But this heat +must soon diminish, because we are already far beyond the regions of the +atmosphere, so that instead of smothering we shall be shortly in danger +of freezing." + +"What?" asked Ardan, much bewildered. "We are already far beyond the +limits of the terrestrial atmosphere! Why do you think so?" + +M'Nicholl was still too much flustered to venture a word. + +"If you want me to answer your question satisfactorily, my dear Ardan," +replied Barbican, with a quiet smile, "you will have the kindness to put +your questions in English." + +"What do you mean, Barbican!" asked Ardan, hardly believing his ears. + +"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl, in the tone of a man who has suddenly made a +welcome but most unexpected discovery. + +"I don't know exactly how it is with the Captain," continued Barbican, +with the utmost tranquillity, "but for my part the study of the +languages never was my strong point, and though I always admired the +French, and even understood it pretty well, I never could converse in it +without giving myself more trouble than I always find it convenient to +assume." + +"You don't mean to say that I have been talking French to you all this +time!" cried Ardan, horror-stricken. + +"The most elegant French I ever heard, backed by the purest Parisian +accent," replied Barbican, highly amused; "Don't you think so, Captain?" +he added, turning to M'Nicholl, whose countenance still showed the most +comical traces of bewilderment. + +"Well, I swan to man!" cried the Captain, who always swore a little +when his feelings got beyond his control; "Ardan, the Boss has got the +rig on both of us this time, but rough as it is on you it is a darned +sight more so on me. Be hanged if I did not think you were talking +English the whole time, and I put the whole blame for not understanding +you on the disordered state of my brain!" + +Ardan only stared, and scratched his head, but Barbican actually--no, +not _laughed_, that serene nature could not _laugh_. His cast-iron +features puckered into a smile of the richest drollery, and his eyes +twinkled with the wickedest fun; but no undignified giggle escaped the +portal of those majestic lips. + +"It _sounds_ like French, I'd say to myself," continued the Captain, +"but I _know_ it's English, and by and by, when this whirring goes out +of my head, I shall easily understand it." + +Ardan now looked as if he was beginning to see the joke. + +"The most puzzling part of the thing to me," went on M'Nicholl, giving +his experience with the utmost gravity, "was why English sounded so like +_French_. If it was simple incomprehensible gibberish, I could readily +blame the state of my ears for it. But the idea that my bothered ears +could turn a mere confused, muzzled, buzzing reverberation into a sweet, +harmonious, articulate, though unintelligible, human language, made me +sure that I was fast becoming crazy, if I was not so already." + +"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Ardan, laughing till the tears came. "Now I +understand why the poor Captain made me no reply all the time, and +looked at me with such a hapless woe-begone expression of countenance. +The fact is, Barbican, that shock was too much both for M'Nicholl and +myself. You are the only man among us whose head is fire-proof, +blast-proof, and powder-proof. I really believe a burglar would have +greater difficulty in blowing your head-piece open than in bursting one +of those famous American safes your papers make such a fuss about. A +wonderful head, the Boss's, isn't it M'Nicholl?" + +"Yes," said the Captain, as slowly as if every word were a gem of the +profoundest thought, "the Boss has a fearful and a wonderful head!" + +"But now to business!" cried the versatile Ardan, "Why do you think, +Barbican, that we are at present beyond the limits of the terrestrial +atmosphere?" + +"For a very simple reason," said Barbican, pointing to the chronometer; +"it is now more than seven minutes after 11. We must, therefore, have +been in motion more than twenty minutes. Consequently, unless our +initial velocity has been very much diminished by the friction, we must +have long before this completely cleared the fifty miles of atmosphere +enveloping the earth." + +"Correct," said the Captain, cool as a cucumber, because once more in +complete possession of all his senses; "but how much do you think the +initial velocity to have been diminished by the friction?" + +"By a third, according to my calculations," replied Barbican, "which I +think are right. Supposing our initial velocity, therefore, to have been +12,000 yards per second, by the time we quitted the atmosphere it must +have been reduced to 8,000 yards per second. At that rate, we must have +gone by this time--" + +"Then, Mac, my boy, you've lost your two bets!" interrupted Ardan. "The +Columbiad has not burst, four thousand dollars; the Projectile has risen +at least six miles, five thousand dollars; come, Captain, bleed!" + +"Let me first be sure we're right," said the Captain, quietly. "I don't +deny, you see, that friend Barbican's arguments are quite right, and, +therefore, that I have lost my nine thousand dollars. But there is +another view of the case possible, which might annul the bet." + +"What other view?" asked Barbican, quickly. + +"Suppose," said the Captain, very drily, "that the powder had not +caught, and that we were still lying quietly at the bottom of the +Columbiad!" + +"By Jove!" laughed Ardan, "there's an idea truly worthy of my own +nondescript brain! We must surely have changed heads during that +concussion! No matter, there is some sense left in us yet. Come now, +Captain, consider a little, if you can. Weren't we both half-killed by +the shock? Didn't I rescue you from certain death with these two hands? +Don't you see Barbican's shoulder still bleeding by the violence of the +shock?" + +"Correct, friend Michael, correct in every particular," replied the +Captain, "But one little question." + +"Out with it!" + +"Friend Michael, you say we're moving?" + +"Yes." + +"In consequence of the explosion?" + +"Certainly!" + +"Which must have been attended with a tremendous report?" + +"Of course!" + +"Did you hear that report, friend Michael?" + +"N--o," replied Ardan, a little disconcerted at the question. "Well, no; +I can't say that I did hear any report." + +"Did you, friend Barbican?" + +"No," replied Barbican, promptly. "I heard no report whatever." + +His answer was ready, but his look was quite as disconcerted as Ardan's. + +"Well, friend Barbican and friend Michael," said the Captain, very drily +as he leered wickedly at both, "put that and that together and tell me +what you make of it." + +"It's a fact!" exclaimed Barbican, puzzled, but not bewildered. "Why did +we not hear that report?" + +"Too hard for me," said Ardan. "Give it up!" + +The three friends gazed at each other for a while with countenances +expressive of much perplexity. Barbican appeared to be the least +self-possessed of the party. It was a complete turning of the tables +from the state of things a few moments ago. The problem was certainly +simple enough, but for that very reason the more inexplicable. If they +were moving the explosion must have taken place; but if the explosion +had taken place, why had they not heard the report? + +Barbican's decision soon put an end to speculation. + +"Conjecture being useless," said he, "let us have recourse to facts. +First, let us see where we are. Drop the deadlights!" + +This operation, simple enough in itself and being immediately undertaken +by the whole three, was easily accomplished. The screws fastening the +bolts by which the external plates of the deadlights were solidly +pinned, readily yielded to the pressure of a powerful wrench. The bolts +were then driven outwards, and the holes which had contained them were +immediately filled with solid plugs of India rubber. The bolts once +driven out, the external plates dropped by their own weight, turning on +a hinge, like portholes, and the strong plate-glass forming the light +immediately showed itself. A second light exactly similar, could be +cleared away on the opposite side of the Projectile; a third, on the +summit of the dome, and a fourth, in the centre of the bottom. The +travellers could thus take observations in four different directions, +having an opportunity of gazing at the firmament through the side +lights, and at the Earth and the Moon through the lower and the upper +lights of the Projectile. + +Ardan and the Captain had commenced examining the floor, previous to +operating on the bottom light. But Barbican was the first to get through +his work at one of the side lights, and M'Nicholl and Ardan soon heard +him shouting: + +"No, my friends!" he exclaimed, in tones of decided emotion; "we have +_not_ fallen back to Earth; nor are we lying in the bottom of the Gulf +of Mexico. No! We are driving through space! Look at the stars +glittering all around! Brighter, but smaller than we have ever seen them +before! We have left the Earth and the Earth's atmosphere far behind +us!" + +"Hurrah! Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl and Ardan, feeling as if electric +shocks were coursing through them, though they could see nothing, +looking down from the side light, but the blackest and profoundest +obscurity. + +Barbican soon convinced them that this pitchy blackness proved that they +were not, and could not be, reposing on the surface of the Earth, where +at that moment, everything was illuminated by the bright moonlight; also +that they had passed the different layers of the atmosphere, where the +diffused and refracted rays would be also sure to reveal themselves +through the lights of the Projectile. They were, therefore, certainly +moving. No doubt was longer possible. + +"It's a fact!" observed the Captain, now quite convinced. "Then I've +lost!" + +"Let me congratulate you!" cried Ardan, shaking his hand. + +"Here is your nine thousand dollars, friend Barbican," said the Captain, +taking a roll of greenbacks of high denomination out of his +porte-monnaie. + +"You want a receipt, don't you, Captain?" asked Barbican, counting the +money. + +"Yes, I should prefer one, if it is not too much trouble," answered +M'Nicholl; "it saves dispute." + +Coolly and mechanically, as if seated at his desk, in his office, +Barbican opened his memorandum book, wrote a receipt on a blank page, +dated, signed and sealed it, and then handed it to the Captain, who put +it away carefully among the other papers of his portfolio. + +Ardan, taking off his hat, made a profound bow to both of his +companions, without saying a word. Such formality, under such +extraordinary circumstances, actually paralysed his tongue for the +moment. No wonder that he could not understand those Americans. Even +Indians would have surprised him by an exhibition of such stoicism. +After indulging in silent wonder for a minute or two, he joined his +companions who were now busy looking out at the starry sky. + +"Where is the Moon?" he asked. "How is it that we cannot see her?" + +"The fact of our not seeing her," answered Barbican, "gives me very +great satisfaction in one respect; it shows that our Projectile was shot +so rapidly out of the Columbiad that it had not time to be impressed +with the slightest revolving motion--for us a most fortunate matter. As +for the rest--see, there is _Cassiopeia_, a little to the left is +_Andromeda_, further down is the great square of _Pegasus_, and to the +southwest _Fomalhaut_ can be easily seen swallowing the _Cascade_. All +this shows we are looking west and consequently cannot see the Moon, +which is approaching the zenith from the east. Open the other light--But +hold on! Look here! What can this be?" + +The three travellers, looking westwardly in the direction of _Alpherat_, +saw a brilliant object rapidly approaching them. At a distance, it +looked like a dusky moon, but the side turned towards the Earth blazed +with a bright light, which every moment became more intense. It came +towards them with prodigious velocity and, what was worse, its path lay +so directly in the course of the Projectile that a collision seemed +inevitable. As it moved onward, from west to east, they could easily see +that it rotated on its axis, like all heavenly bodies; in fact, it +somewhat resembled a Moon on a small scale, describing its regular orbit +around the Earth. + +"_Mille tonerres!_" cried Ardan, greatly excited; "what is that? Can it +be another projectile?" M'Nicholl, wiping his spectacles, looked again, +but made no reply. Barbican looked puzzled and uneasy. A collision was +quite possible, and the results, even if not frightful in the highest +degree, must be extremely deplorable. The Projectile, if not absolutely +dashed to pieces, would be diverted from its own course and dragged +along in a new one in obedience to the irresistible attraction of this +furious asteroid. + +Barbican fully realized that either alternative involved the complete +failure of their enterprise. He kept perfectly still, but, never losing +his presence of mind, he curiously looked on the approaching object with +a gladiatorial eye, as if seeking to detect some unguarded point in his +terrible adversary. The Captain was equally silent; he looked like a man +who had fully made up his mind to regard every possible contingency with +the most stoical indifference. But Ardan's tongue, more fluent than +ever, rattled away incessantly. + +"Look! Look!" he exclaimed, in tones so perfectly expressive of his +rapidly alternating feelings as to render the medium of words totally +unnecessary. "How rapidly the cursed thing is nearing us! Plague take +your ugly phiz, the more I know you, the less I like you! Every second +she doubles in size! Come, Madame Projectile! Stir your stumps a little +livelier, old lady! He's making for you as straight as an arrow! We're +going right in his way, or he's coming in ours, I can't say which. It's +taking a mean advantage of us either way. As for ourselves--what can +_we_ do! Before such a monster as that we are as helpless as three men +in a little skiff shooting down the rapids to the brink of Niagara! Now +for it!" + +Nearer and nearer it came, but without noise, without sparks, without a +trail, though its lower part was brighter than ever. Its path lying +little above them, the nearer it came the more the collision seemed +inevitable. Imagine yourself caught on a narrow railroad bridge at +midnight with an express train approaching at full speed, its reflector +already dazzling you with its light, the roar of the cars rattling in +your ears, and you may conceive the feelings of the travellers. At last +it was so near that the travellers started back in affright, with eyes +shut, hair on end, and fully believing their last hour had come. Even +then Ardan had his _mot_. + +"We can neither switch off, down brakes, nor clap on more steam! Hard +luck!" + +In an instant all was over. The velocity of the Projectile was +fortunately great enough to carry it barely above the dangerous point; +and in a flash the terrible bolide disappeared rapidly several hundred +yards beneath the affrighted travellers. + +"Good bye! And may you never come back!" cried Ardan, hardly able to +breathe. "It's perfectly outrageous! Not room enough in infinite space +to let an unpretending bullet like ours move about a little without +incurring the risk of being run over by such a monster as that! What is +it anyhow? Do you know, Barbican?" + +"I do," was the reply. + +"Of course, you do! What is it that he don't know? Eh, Captain?" + +"It is a simple bolide, but one of such enormous dimensions that the +Earth's attraction has made it a satellite." + +"What!" cried Ardan, "another satellite besides the Moon? I hope there +are no more of them!" + +"They are pretty numerous," replied Barbican; "but they are so small and +they move with such enormous velocity that they are very seldom seen. +Petit, the Director of the Observatory of Toulouse, who these last years +has devoted much time and care to the observation of bolides, has +calculated that the very one we have just encountered moves with such +astonishing swiftness that it accomplishes its revolution around the +Earth in about 3 hours and 20 minutes!" + +"Whew!" whistled Ardan, "where should we be now if it had struck us!" + +"You don't mean to say, Barbican," observed M'Nicholl, "that Petit has +seen this very one?" + +"So it appears," replied Barbican. + +"And do all astronomers admit its existence?" asked the Captain. + +"Well, some of them have their doubts," replied Barbican-- + +"If the unbelievers had been here a minute or two ago," interrupted +Ardan, "they would never express a doubt again." + +"If Petit's calculation is right," continued Barbican, "I can even form +a very good idea as to our distance from the Earth." + +"It seems to me Barbican can do what he pleases here or elsewhere," +observed Ardan to the Captain. + +"Let us see, Barbican," asked M'Nicholl; "where has Petit's calculation +placed us?" + +"The bolide's distance being known," replied Barbican, "at the moment we +met it we were a little more than 5 thousand miles from the Earth's +surface." + +"Five thousand miles already!" cried Ardan, "why we have only just +started!" + +"Let us see about that," quietly observed the Captain, looking at his +chronometer, and calculating with his pencil. "It is now 10 minutes past +eleven; we have therefore been 23 minutes on the road. Supposing our +initial velocity of 10,000 yards or nearly seven miles a second, to have +been kept up, we should by this time be about 9,000 miles from the +Earth; but by allowing for friction and gravity, we can hardly be more +than 5,500 miles. Yes, friend Barbican, Petit does not seem to be very +wrong in his calculations." + +But Barbican hardly heard the observation. He had not yet answered the +puzzling question that had already presented itself to them for +solution; and until he had done so he could not attend to anything else. + +"That's all very well and good, Captain," he replied in an absorbed +manner, "but we have not yet been able to account for a very strange +phenomenon. Why didn't we hear the report?" + +No one replying, the conversation came to a stand-still, and Barbican, +still absorbed in his reflections, began clearing the second light of +its external shutter. In a few minutes the plate dropped, and the Moon +beams, flowing in, filled the interior of the Projectile with her +brilliant light. The Captain immediately put out the gas, from motives +of economy as well as because its glare somewhat interfered with the +observation of the interplanetary regions. + +The Lunar disc struck the travellers as glittering with a splendor and +purity of light that they had never witnessed before. The beams, no +longer strained through the misty atmosphere of the Earth, streamed +copiously in through the glass and coated the interior walls of the +Projectile with a brilliant silvery plating. The intense blackness of +the sky enhanced the dazzling radiance of the Moon. Even the stars +blazed with a new and unequalled splendor, and, in the absence of a +refracting atmosphere, they flamed as bright in the close proximity of +the Moon as in any other part of the sky. + +You can easily conceive the interest with which these bold travellers +gazed on the Starry Queen, the final object of their daring journey. She +was now insensibly approaching the zenith, the mathematical point which +she was to reach four days later. They presented their telescopes, but +her mountains, plains, craters and general characteristics hardly came +out a particle more sharply than if they had been viewed from the Earth. +Still, her light, unobstructed by air or vapor, shimmered with a lustre +actually transplendent. Her disc shone like a mirror of polished +platins. The travellers remained for some time absorbed in the silent +contemplation of the glorious scene. + +"How they're gazing at her this very moment from Stony Hill!" said the +Captain at last to break the silence. + +"By Jove!" cried Ardan; "It's true! Captain you're right. We were near +forgetting our dear old Mother, the Earth. What ungrateful children! Let +me feast my eyes once more on the blessed old creature!" + +Barbican, to satisfy his companion's desire, immediately commenced to +clear away the disc which covered the floor of the Projectile and +prevented them from getting at the lower light. This disc, though it had +been dashed to the bottom of the Projectile with great violence, was +still as strong as ever, and, being made in compartments fastened by +screws, to dismount it was no easy matter. Barbican, however, with the +help of the others, soon had it all taken apart, and put away the pieces +carefully, to serve again in case of need. A round hole about a foot and +a half in diameter appeared, bored through the floor of the Projectile. +It was closed by a circular pane of plate-glass, which was about six +inches thick, fastened by a ring of copper. Below, on the outside, the +glass was protected by an aluminium plate, kept in its place by strong +bolts and nuts. The latter being unscrewed, the bolts slipped out by +their own weight, the shutter fell, and a new communication was +established between the interior and the exterior. + +Ardan knelt down, applied his eye to the light, and tried to look out. +At first everything was quite dark and gloomy. + +"I see no Earth!" he exclaimed at last. + +"Don't you see a fine ribbon of light?" asked Barbican, "right beneath +us? A thin, pale, silvery crescent?" + +"Of course I do. Can that be the Earth?" + +"_Terra Mater_ herself, friend Ardan. That fine fillet of light, now +hardly visible on her eastern border, will disappear altogether as soon +as the Moon is full. Then, lying as she will be between the Sun and the +Moon, her illuminated face will be turned away from us altogether, and +for several days she will be involved in impenetrable darkness." + +"And that's the Earth!" repeated Ardan, hardly able to believe his eyes, +as he continued to gaze on the slight thread of silvery white light, +somewhat resembling the appearance of the "Young May Moon" a few hours +after sunset. + +Barbican's explanation was quite correct. The Earth, in reference to the +Moon or the Projectile, was in her last phase, or octant as it is +called, and showed a sharp-horned, attenuated, but brilliant crescent +strongly relieved by the black background of the sky. Its light, +rendered a little bluish by the density of the atmospheric envelopes, +was not quite as brilliant as the Moon's. But the Earth's crescent, +compared to the Lunar, was of dimensions much greater, being fully 4 +times larger. You would have called it a vast, beautiful, but very thin +bow extending over the sky. A few points, brighter than the rest, +particularly in its concave part, revealed the presence of lofty +mountains, probably the Himalayahs. But they disappeared every now and +then under thick vapory spots, which are never seen on the Lunar disc. +They were the thin concentric cloud rings that surround the terrestrial +sphere. + +However, the travellers' eyes were soon able to trace the rest of the +Earth's surface not only with facility, but even to follow its outline +with absolute delight. This was in consequence of two different +phenomena, one of which they could easily account for; but the other +they could not explain without Barbican's assistance. No wonder. Never +before had mortal eye beheld such a sight. Let us take each in its turn. + +We all know that the ashy light by means of which we perceive what is +called the _Old Moon in the Young Moon's arms_ is due to the +Earth-shine, or the reflection of the solar rays from the Earth to the +Moon. By a phenomenon exactly identical, the travellers could now see +that portion of the Earth's surface which was unillumined by the Sun; +only, as, in consequence of the different areas of the respective +surfaces, the _Earthlight_ is thirteen times more intense than the +_Moonlight_, the dark portion of the Earth's disc appeared considerably +more adumbrated than the _Old Moon_. + +But the other phenomenon had burst on them so suddenly that they +uttered a cry loud enough to wake up Barbican from his problem. They had +discovered a true starry ring! Around the Earth's outline, a ring, of +internally well defined thickness, but somewhat hazy on the outside, +could easily be traced by its surpassing brilliancy. Neither the +_Pleiades_, the _Northern Crown_, the _Magellanic Clouds_ nor the great +nebulas of _Orion_, or of _Argo_, no sparkling cluster, no corona, no +group of glittering star-dust that the travellers had ever gazed at, +presented such attractions as the diamond ring they now saw encompassing +the Earth, just as the brass meridian encompasses a terrestrial globe. +The resplendency of its light enchanted them, its pure softness +delighted them, its perfect regularity astonished them. What was it? +they asked Barbican. In a few words he explained it. The beautiful +luminous ring was simply an optical illusion, produced by the refraction +of the terrestrial atmosphere. All the stars in the neighborhood of the +Earth, and many actually behind it, had their rays refracted, diffused, +radiated, and finally converged to a focus by the atmosphere, as if by a +double convex lens of gigantic power. + +Whilst the travellers were profoundly absorbed in the contemplation of +this wondrous sight, a sparkling shower of shooting stars suddenly +flashed over the Earth's dark surface, making it for a moment as bright +as the external ring. Hundreds of bolides, catching fire from contact +with the atmosphere, streaked the darkness with their luminous trails, +overspreading it occasionally with sheets of electric flame. The Earth +was just then in her perihelion, and we all know that the months of +November and December are so highly favorable to the appearance of these +meteoric showers that at the famous display of November, 1866, +astronomers counted as many as 8,000 between midnight and four o'clock. + +Barbican explained the whole matter in a few words. The Earth, when +nearest to the sun, occasionally plunges into a group of countless +meteors travelling like comets, in eccentric orbits around the grand +centre of our solar system. The atmosphere strikes the rapidly moving +bodies with such violence as to set them on fire and render them visible +to us in beautiful star showers. But to this simple explanation of the +famous November meteors Ardan would not listen. He preferred believing +that Mother Earth, feeling that her three daring children were still +looking at her, though five thousand miles away, shot off her best +rocket-signals to show that she still thought of them and would never +let them out of her watchful eye. + +For hours they continued to gaze with indescribable interest on the +faintly luminous mass so easily distinguishable among the other heavenly +bodies. Jupiter blazed on their right, Mars flashed his ruddy light on +their left, Saturn with his rings looked like a round white spot on a +black wall; even Venus they could see almost directly under them, easily +recognizing her by her soft, sweetly scintillant light. But no planet or +constellation possessed any attraction for the travellers, as long as +their eyes could trace that shadowy, crescent-edged, diamond-girdled, +meteor-furrowed spheroid, the theatre of their existence, the home of so +many undying desires, the mysterious cradle of their race! + +Meantime the Projectile cleaved its way upwards, rapidly, unswervingly, +though with a gradually retarding velocity. As the Earth sensibly grew +darker, and the travellers' eyes grew dimmer, an irresistible somnolency +slowly stole over their weary frames. The extraordinary excitement they +had gone through during the last four or five hours, was naturally +followed by a profound reaction. + +"Captain, you're nodding," said Ardan at last, after a longer silence +than usual; "the fact is, Barbican is the only wake man of the party, +because he is puzzling over his problem. _Dum vivimus vivamus_! As we +are asleep let us be asleep!" + +So saying he threw himself on the mattress, and his companions +immediately followed the example. + +They had been lying hardly a quarter of an hour, when Barbican started +up with a cry so loud and sudden as instantly to awaken his companions. + +The bright moonlight showed them the President sitting up in his bed, +his eye blazing, his arms waving, as he shouted in a tone reminding them +of the day they had found him in St. Helena wood. + +"_Eureka!_ I've got it! I know it!" + +"What have you got?" cried Ardan, bouncing up and seizing him by the +right hand. + +"What do you know?" cried the Captain, stretching over and seizing him +by the left. + +"The reason why we did not hear the report!" + +"Well, why did not we hear it!" asked both rapidly in the same breath. + +"Because we were shot up 30 times faster than sound can travel!" + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THEY MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME AND FEEL QUITE COMFORTABLE. + + +This curious explanation given, and its soundness immediately +recognized, the three friends were soon fast wrapped in the arms of +Morpheus. Where in fact could they have found a spot more favorable for +undisturbed repose? On land, where the dwellings, whether in populous +city or lonely country, continually experience every shock that thrills +the Earth's crust? At sea, where between waves or winds or paddles or +screws or machinery, everything is tremor, quiver or jar? In the air, +where the balloon is incessantly twirling, oscillating, on account of +the ever varying strata of different densities, and even occasionally +threatening to spill you out? The Projectile alone, floating grandly +through the absolute void, in the midst of the profoundest silence, +could offer to its inmates the possibility of enjoying slumber the most +complete, repose the most profound. + +There is no telling how long our three daring travellers would have +continued to enjoy their sleep, if it had not been suddenly terminated +by an unexpected noise about seven o'clock in the morning of December +2nd, eight hours after their departure. + +This noise was most decidedly of barking. + +"The dogs! It's the dogs!" cried Ardan, springing up at a bound. + +"They must be hungry!" observed the Captain. + +"We have forgotten the poor creatures!" cried Barbican. + +"Where can they have gone to?" asked Ardan, looking for them in all +directions. + +At last they found one of them hiding under the sofa. Thunderstruck and +perfectly bewildered by the terrible shock, the poor animal had kept +close in its hiding place, never daring to utter a sound, until at last +the pangs of hunger had proved too strong even for its fright. + +They readily recognized the amiable Diana, but they could not allure the +shivering, whining animal from her retreat without a good deal of +coaxing. Ardan talked to her in his most honeyed and seductive accents, +while trying to pull her out by the neck. + +"Come out to your friends, charming Diana," he went on, "come out, my +beauty, destined for a lofty niche in the temple of canine glory! Come +out, worthy scion of a race deemed worthy by the Egyptians to be a +companion of the great god, Anubis, by the Christians, to be a friend of +the good Saint Roch! Come out and partake of a glory before which the +stars of Montargis and of St. Bernard shall henceforward pale their +ineffectual fire! Come out, my lady, and let me think o'er the countless +multiplication of thy species, so that, while sailing through the +interplanetary spaces, we may indulge in endless flights of fancy on +the number and variety of thy descendants who will ere long render the +Selenitic atmosphere vocal with canine ululation!" + +[Illustration: MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER.] + +Diana, whether flattered or not, allowed herself to be dragged out, +still uttering short, plaintive whines. A hasty examination satisfying +her friends that she was more frightened than hurt and more hungry than +either, they continued their search for her companion. + +"Satellite! Satellite! Step this way, sir!" cried Ardan. But no +Satellite appeared and, what was worse, not the slightest sound indicated +his presence. At last he was discovered on a ledge in the upper portion +of the Projectile, whither he had been shot by the terrible concussion. +Less fortunate than his female companion, the poor fellow had received a +frightful shock and his life was evidently in great danger. + +"The acclimatization project looks shaky!" cried Ardan, handing the +animal very carefully and tenderly to the others. Poor Satellite's head +had been crushed against the roof, but, though recovery seemed hopeless, +they laid the body on a soft cushion, and soon had the satisfaction of +hearing it give vent to a slight sigh. + +"Good!" said Ardan, "while there's life there's hope. You must not die +yet, old boy. We shall nurse you. We know our duty and shall not shirk +the responsibility. I should rather lose the right arm off my body than +be the cause of your death, poor Satellite! Try a little water?" + +The suffering creature swallowed the cool draught with evident avidity, +then sunk into a deep slumber. + +The friends, sitting around and having nothing more to do, looked out of +the window and began once more to watch the Earth and the Moon with +great attention. The glittering crescent of the Earth was evidently +narrower than it had been the preceding evening, but its volume was +still enormous when compared to the Lunar crescent, which was now +rapidly assuming the proportions of a perfect circle. + +"By Jove," suddenly exclaimed Ardan, "why didn't we start at the moment +of Full Earth?--that is when our globe and the Sun were in opposition?" + +"Why _should_ we!" growled M'Nicholl. + +"Because in that case we should be now looking at the great continents +and the great seas in a new light--the former glittering under the solar +rays, the latter darker and somewhat shaded, as we see them on certain +maps. How I should like to get a glimpse at those poles of the Earth, on +which the eye of man has never yet lighted!" + +"True," replied Barbican, "but if the Earth had been Full, the Moon +would have been New, that is to say, invisible to us on account of solar +irradiation. Of the two it is much preferable to be able to keep the +point of arrival in view rather than the point of departure." + +"You're right, Barbican," observed the Captain; "besides, once we're in +the Moon, the long Lunar night will give us plenty of time to gaze our +full at yonder great celestial body, our former home, and still +swarming with our fellow beings." + +"Our fellow beings no longer, dear boy!" cried Ardan. "We inhabit a new +world peopled by ourselves alone, the Projectile! Ardan is Barbican's +fellow being, and Barbican M'Nicholl's. Beyond us, outside us, humanity +ends, and we are now the only inhabitants of this microcosm, and so we +shall continue till the moment when we become Selenites pure and +simple." + +"Which shall be in about eighty-eight hours from now," replied the +Captain. + +"Which is as much as to say--?" asked Ardan. + +"That it is half past eight," replied M'Nicholl. + +"My regular hour for breakfast," exclaimed Ardan, "and I don't see the +shadow of a reason for changing it now." + +The proposition was most acceptable, especially to the Captain, who +frequently boasted that, whether on land or water, on mountain summits +or in the depths of mines, he had never missed a meal in all his life. +In escaping from the Earth, our travellers felt that they had by no +means escaped from the laws of humanity, and their stomachs now called +on them lustily to fill the aching void. Ardan, as a Frenchman, claimed +the post of chief cook, an important office, but his companions yielded +it with alacrity. The gas furnished the requisite heat, and the +provision chest supplied the materials for their first repast. They +commenced with three plates of excellent soup, extracted from _Liebig's_ +precious tablets, prepared from the best beef that ever roamed over the +Pampas. + +To this succeeded several tenderloin beefsteaks, which, though reduced +to a small bulk by the hydraulic engines of the _American Dessicating +Company_, were pronounced to be fully as tender, juicy and savory as if +they had just left the gridiron of a London Club House. Ardan even swore +that they were "bleeding," and the others were too busy to contradict +him. + +Preserved vegetables of various kinds, "fresher than nature," according +to Ardan, gave an agreeable variety to the entertainment, and these were +followed by several cups of magnificent tea, unanimously allowed to be +the best they had ever tasted. It was an odoriferous young hyson +gathered that very year, and presented to the Emperor of Russia by the +famous rebel chief Yakub Kushbegi, and of which Alexander had expressed +himself as very happy in being able to send a few boxes to his friend, +the distinguished President of the Baltimore Gun Club. To crown the +meal, Ardan unearthed an exquisite bottle of _Chambertin_, and, in +glasses sparkling with the richest juice of the _Cote d'or,_ the +travellers drank to the speedy union of the Earth and her satellite. + +And, as if his work among the generous vineyards of Burgundy had not +been enough to show his interest in the matter, even the Sun wished to +join the party. Precisely at this moment, the Projectile beginning to +leave the conical shadow cast by the Earth, the rays of the glorious +King of Day struck its lower surface, not obliquely, but +perpendicularly, on account of the slight obliquity of the Moon's orbit +with that of the Earth. + +[Illustration: TO THE UNION OF THE EARTH AND HER SATELLITE.] + +"The Sun," cried Ardan. + +"Of course," said Barbican, looking at his watch, "he's exactly up to +time." + +"How is it that we see him only through the bottom light of our +Projectile?" asked Ardan. + +"A moment's reflection must tell you," replied Barbican, "that when we +started last night, the Sun was almost directly below us; therefore, as +we continue to move in a straight line, he must still be in our rear." + +"That's clear enough," said the Captain, "but another consideration, I'm +free to say, rather perplexes me. Since our Earth lies between us and +the Sun, why don't we see the sunlight forming a great ring around the +globe, in other words, instead of the full Sun that we plainly see there +below, why do we not witness an annular eclipse?" + +"Your cool, clear head has not yet quite recovered from the shock, my +dear Captain;" replied Barbican, with a smile. "For two reasons we can't +see the ring eclipse: on account of the angle the Moon's orbit makes +with the Earth, the three bodies are not at present in a direct line; +we, therefore, see the Sun a little to the west of the earth; secondly, +even if they were exactly in a straight line, we should still be far +from the point whence an annular eclipse would be visible." + +"That's true," said Ardan; "the cone of the Earth's shadow must extend +far beyond the Moon." + +"Nearly four times as far," said Barbican; "still, as the Moon's orbit +and the Earth's do not lie in exactly the same plane, a Lunar eclipse +can occur only when the nodes coincide with the period of the Full Moon, +which is generally twice, never more than three times in a year. If we +had started about four days before the occurrence of a Lunar eclipse, we +should travel all the time in the dark. This would have been obnoxious +for many reasons." + +"One, for instance?" + +"An evident one is that, though at the present moment we are moving +through a vacuum, our Projectile, steeped in the solar rays, revels in +their light and heat. Hence great saving in gas, an important point in +our household economy." + +In effect, the solar rays, tempered by no genial medium like our +atmosphere, soon began to glare and glow with such intensity, that the +Projectile under their influence, felt like suddenly passing from winter +to summer. Between the Moon overhead and the Sun beneath it was actually +inundated with fiery rays. + +"One feels good here," cried the Captain, rubbing his hands. + +"A little too good," cried Ardan. "It's already like a hot-house. With a +little garden clay, I could raise you a splendid crop of peas in +twenty-four hours. I hope in heaven the walls of our Projectile won't +melt like wax!" + +"Don't be alarmed, dear friend," observed Barbican, quietly. "The +Projectile has seen the worst as far as heat is concerned; when tearing +through the atmosphere, she endured a temperature with which what she is +liable to at present stands no comparison. In fact, I should not be +astonished if, in the eyes of our friends at Stony Hill, it had +resembled for a moment or two a red-hot meteor." + +"Poor Marston must have looked on us as roasted alive!" observed Ardan. + +"What could have saved us I'm sure I can't tell," replied Barbican. "I +must acknowledge that against such a danger, I had made no provision +whatever." + +"I knew all about it," said the Captain, "and on the strength of it, I +had laid my fifth wager." + +"Probably," laughed Ardan, "there was not time enough to get grilled in: +I have heard of men who dipped their fingers into molten iron with +impunity." + +Whilst Ardan and the Captain were arguing the point, Barbican began +busying himself in making everything as comfortable as if, instead of a +four days' journey, one of four years was contemplated. The reader, no +doubt, remembers that the floor of the Projectile contained about 50 +square feet; that the chamber was nine feet high; that space was +economized as much as possible, nothing but the most absolute +necessities being admitted, of which each was kept strictly in its own +place; therefore, the travellers had room enough to move around in with +a certain liberty. The thick glass window in the floor was quite as +solid as any other part of it; but the Sun, streaming in from below, +lit up the Projectile strangely, producing some very singular and +startling effects of light appearing to come in by the wrong way. + +The first thing now to be done was to see after the water cask and the +provision chest. They were not injured in the slightest respect, thanks +to the means taken to counteract the shock. The provisions were in good +condition, and abundant enough to supply the travellers for a whole +year--Barbican having taken care to be on the safe side, in case the +Projectile might land in a deserted region of the Moon. As for the water +and the other liquors, the travellers had enough only for two months. +Relying on the latest observations of astronomers, they had convinced +themselves that the Moon's atmosphere, being heavy, dense and thick in +the deep valleys, springs and streams of water could hardly fail to show +themselves there. During the journey, therefore, and for the first year +of their installation on the Lunar continent, the daring travellers +would be pretty safe from all danger of hunger or thirst. + +The air supply proved also to be quite satisfactory. The _Reiset_ and +_Regnault_ apparatus for producing oxygen contained a supply of chlorate +of potash sufficient for two months. As the productive material had to +be maintained at a temperature of between 7 and 8 hundred degrees Fahr., +a steady consumption of gas was required; but here too the supply far +exceeded the demand. The whole arrangement worked charmingly, requiring +only an odd glance now and then. The high temperature changing the +chlorate into a chloride, the oxygen was disengaged gradually but +abundantly, every eighteen pounds of chlorate of potash, furnishing the +seven pounds of oxygen necessary for the daily consumption of the +inmates of the Projectile. + +Still--as the reader need hardly be reminded--it was not sufficient to +renew the exhausted oxygen; the complete purification of the air +required the absorption of the carbonic acid, exhaled from the lungs. +For nearly 12 hours the atmosphere had been gradually becoming more and +more charged with this deleterious gas, produced from the combustion of +the blood by the inspired oxygen. The Captain soon saw this, by noticing +with what difficulty Diana was panting. She even appeared to be +smothering, for the carbonic acid--as in the famous _Grotto del Cane_ on +the banks of Lake Agnano, near Naples--was collecting like water on the +floor of the Projectile, on account of its great specific gravity. It +already threatened the poor dog's life, though not yet endangering that +of her masters. The Captain, seeing this state of things, hastily laid +on the floor one or two cups containing caustic potash and water, and +stirred the mixture gently: this substance, having a powerful affinity +for carbonic acid, greedily absorbed it, and after a few moments the air +was completely purified. + +The others had begun by this time to check off the state of the +instruments. The thermometer and the barometer were all right, except +one self-recorder of which the glass had got broken. An excellent +aneroid barometer, taken safe and sound out of its wadded box, was +carefully hung on a hook in the wall. It marked not only the pressure of +the air in the Projectile, but also the quantity of the watery vapor +that it contained. The needle, oscillating a little beyond thirty, +pointed pretty steadily at "_Fair_." + +The mariner's compasses were also found to be quite free from injury. It +is, of course, hardly necessary to say that the needles pointed in no +particular direction, the magnetic pole of the Earth being unable at +such a distance to exercise any appreciable influence on them. But when +brought to the Moon, it was expected that these compasses, once more +subjected to the influence of the current, would attest certain +phenomena. In any case, it would be interesting to verify if the Earth +and her satellite were similarly affected by the magnetic forces. + +A hypsometer, or instrument for ascertaining the heights of the Lunar +mountains by the barometric pressure under which water boils, a sextant +to measure the altitude of the Sun, a theodolite for taking horizontal +or vertical angles, telescopes, of indispensable necessity when the +travellers should approach the Moon,--all these instruments, carefully +examined, were found to be still in perfect working order, +notwithstanding the violence of the terrible shock at the start. + +As to the picks, spades, and other tools that had been carefully +selected by the Captain; also the bags of various kinds of grain and +the bundles of various kinds of shrubs, which Ardan expected to +transplant to the Lunar plains--they were all still safe in their places +around the upper corners of the Projectile. + +Some other articles were also up there which evidently possessed great +interest for the Frenchman. What they were nobody else seemed to know, +and he seemed to be in no hurry to tell. Every now and then, he would +climb up, by means of iron pins fixed in the wall, to inspect his +treasures; whatever they were, he arranged them and rearranged them with +evident pleasure, and as he rapidly passed a careful hand through +certain mysterious boxes, he joyfully sang in the falsest possible of +false voices the lively piece from _Nicolo_: + + _Le temps est beau, la route est belle, + La promenade est un plaisir_. + + {The day is bright, our hearts are light.} + {How sweet to rove through wood and dell.} + +or the well known air in _Mignon_: + + _Legeres hirondelles, + Oiseaux benis de Dieu, + Ouvrez-ouvrez vos ailes, + Envolez-vous! adieu!_ + + {Farewell, happy Swallows, farewell!} + {With summer for ever to dwell} + {Ye leave our northern strand} + {For the genial southern land} + {Balmy with breezes bland.} + {Return? Ah, who can tell?} + {Farewell, happy Swallows, farewell!} + +Barbican was much gratified to find that his rockets and other fireworks +had not received the least injury. He relied upon them for the +performance of a very important service as soon as the Projectile, +having passed the point of neutral attraction between the Earth and the +Moon, would begin to fall with accelerated velocity towards the Lunar +surface. This descent, though--thanks to the respective volumes of the +attracting bodies--six times less rapid than it would have been on the +surface of the Earth, would still be violent enough to dash the +Projectile into a thousand pieces. But Barbican confidently expected by +means of his powerful rockets to offer very considerable obstruction to +the violence of this fall, if not to counteract its terrible effects +altogether. + +The inspection having thus given general satisfaction, the travellers +once more set themselves to watching external space through the lights +in the sides and the floor of the Projectile. + +Everything still appeared to be in the same state as before. Nothing was +changed. The vast arch of the celestial dome glittered with stars, and +constellations blazed with a light clear and pure enough to throw an +astronomer into an ecstasy of admiration. Below them shone the Sun, like +the mouth of a white-hot furnace, his dazzling disc defined sharply on +the pitch-black back-ground of the sky. Above them the Moon, reflecting +back his rays from her glowing surface, appeared to stand motionless in +the midst of the starry host. + +A little to the east of the Sun, they could see a pretty large dark +spot, like a hole in the sky, the broad silver fringe on one edge fading +off into a faint glimmering mist on the other--it was the Earth. Here +and there in all directions, nebulous masses gleamed like large flakes +of star dust, in which, from nadir to zenith, the eye could trace +without a break that vast ring of impalpable star powder, the famous +_Milky Way_, through the midst of which the beams of our glorious Sun +struggle with the dusky pallor of a star of only the fourth magnitude. + +Our observers were never weary of gazing on this magnificent and novel +spectacle, of the grandeur of which, it is hardly necessary to say, no +description can give an adequate idea. What profound reflections it +suggested to their understandings! What vivid emotions it enkindled in +their imaginations! Barbican, desirous of commenting the story of the +journey while still influenced by these inspiring impressions, noted +carefully hour by hour every fact that signalized the beginning of his +enterprise. He wrote out his notes very carefully and systematically, +his round full hand, as business-like as ever, never betraying the +slightest emotion. + +The Captain was quite as busy, but in a different way. Pulling out his +tablets, he reviewed his calculations regarding the motion of +projectiles, their velocities, ranges and paths, their retardations and +their accelerations, jotting down the figures with a rapidity wonderful +to behold. Ardan neither wrote nor calculated, but kept up an incessant +fire of small talk, now with Barbican, who hardly ever answered him, +now with M'Nicholl, who never heard him, occasionally with Diana, who +never understood him, but oftenest with himself, because, as he said, he +liked not only to talk to a sensible man but also to hear what a +sensible man had to say. He never stood still for a moment, but kept +"bobbing around" with the effervescent briskness of a bee, at one time +roosting at the top of the ladder, at another peering through the floor +light, now to the right, then to the left, always humming scraps from +the _Opera Bouffe_, but never changing the air. In the small space which +was then a whole world to the travellers, he represented to the life the +animation and loquacity of the French, and I need hardly say he played +his part to perfection. + +The eventful day, or, to speak more correctly, the space of twelve hours +which with us forms a day, ended for our travellers with an abundant +supper, exquisitely cooked. It was highly enjoyed. + +No incident had yet occurred of a nature calculated to shake their +confidence. Apprehending none therefore, full of hope rather and already +certain of success, they were soon lost in a peaceful slumber, whilst +the Projectile, moving rapidly, though with a velocity uniformly +retarding, still cleaved its way through the pathless regions of the +empyrean. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A CHAPTER FOR THE CORNELL GIRLS. + + +No incident worth recording occurred during the night, if night indeed +it could be called. In reality there was now no night or even day in the +Projectile, or rather, strictly speaking, it was always _night_ on the +upper end of the bullet, and always _day_ on the lower. Whenever, +therefore, the words _night_ and _day_ occur in our story, the reader +will readily understand them as referring to those spaces of time that +are so called in our Earthly almanacs, and were so measured by the +travellers' chronometers. + +The repose of our friends must indeed have been undisturbed, if absolute +freedom from sound or jar of any kind could secure tranquillity. In +spite of its immense velocity, the Projectile still seemed to be +perfectly motionless. Not the slightest sign of movement could be +detected. Change of locality, though ever so rapid, can never reveal +itself to our senses when it takes place in a vacuum, or when the +enveloping atmosphere travels at the same rate as the moving body. +Though we are incessantly whirled around the Sun at the rate of about +seventy thousand miles an hour, which of us is conscious of the +slightest motion? In such a case, as far as sensation is concerned, +motion and repose are absolutely identical. Neither has any effect one +way or another on a material body. Is such a body in motion? It remains +in motion until some obstacle stops it. Is it at rest? It remains at +rest until some superior force compels it to change its position. This +indifference of bodies to motion or rest is what physicists call +_inertia_. + +Barbican and his companions, therefore, shut up in the Projectile, could +readily imagine themselves to be completely motionless. Had they been +outside, the effect would have been precisely the same. No rush of air, +no jarring sensation would betray the slightest movement. But for the +sight of the Moon gradually growing larger above them, and of the Earth +gradually growing smaller beneath them, they could safely swear that +they were fast anchored in an ocean of deathlike immobility. + +Towards the morning of next day (December 3), they were awakened by a +joyful, but quite unexpected sound. + +"Cock-a-doodle! doo!" accompanied by a decided flapping of wings. + +The Frenchman, on his feet in one instant and on the top of the ladder +in another, attempted to shut the lid of a half open box, speaking in an +angry but suppressed voice: + +"Stop this hullabaloo, won't you? Do you want me to fail in my great +combination!" + +"Hello?" cried Barbican and M'Nicholl, starting up and rubbing their +eyes. + +"What noise was that?" asked Barbican. + +"Seems to me I heard the crowing of a cock," observed the Captain. + +"I never thought your ears could be so easily deceived, Captain," cried +Ardan, quickly, "Let us try it again," and, flapping his ribs with his +arms, he gave vent to a crow so loud and natural that the lustiest +chanticleer that ever saluted the orb of day might be proud of it. + +The Captain roared right out, and even Barbican snickered, but as they +saw that their companion evidently wanted to conceal something, they +immediately assumed straight faces and pretended to think no more about +the matter. + +"Barbican," said Ardan, coming down the ladder and evidently anxious to +change the conversation, "have you any idea of what I was thinking about +all night?" + +"Not the slightest." + +"I was thinking of the promptness of the reply you received last year +from the authorities of Cambridge University, when you asked them about +the feasibility of sending a bullet to the Moon. You know very well by +this time what a perfect ignoramus I am in Mathematics. I own I have +been often puzzled when thinking on what grounds they could form such a +positive opinion, in a case where I am certain that the calculation must +be an exceedingly delicate matter." + +"The feasibility, you mean to say," replied Barbican, "not exactly of +sending a bullet to the Moon, but of sending it to the neutral point +between the Earth and the Moon, which lies at about nine-tenths of the +journey, where the two attractions counteract each other. Because that +point once passed, the Projectile would reach the Moon's surface by +virtue of its own weight." + +"Well, reaching that neutral point be it;" replied Ardan, "but, once +more, I should like to know how they have been able to come at the +necessary initial velocity of 12,000 yards a second?" + +"Nothing simpler," answered Barbican. + +"Could you have done it yourself?" asked the Frenchman. + +"Without the slightest difficulty. The Captain and myself could have +readily solved the problem, only the reply from the University saved us +the trouble." + +"Well, Barbican, dear boy," observed Ardan, "all I've got to say is, you +might chop the head off my body, beginning with my feet, before you +could make me go through such a calculation." + +"Simply because you don't understand Algebra," replied Barbican, +quietly. + +"Oh! that's all very well!" cried Ardan, with an ironical smile. "You +great _x+y_ men think you settle everything by uttering the word +_Algebra_!" + +"Ardan," asked Barbican, "do you think people could beat iron without a +hammer, or turn up furrows without a plough?" + +"Hardly." + +"Well, Algebra is an instrument or utensil just as much as a hammer or a +plough, and a very good instrument too if you know how to make use of +it." + +"You're in earnest?" + +"Quite so." + +"And you can handle the instrument right before my eyes?" + +"Certainly, if it interests you so much." + +"You can show me how they got at the initial velocity of our +Projectile?" + +"With the greatest pleasure. By taking into proper consideration all the +elements of the problem, viz.: (1) the distance between the centres of +the Earth and the Moon, (2) the Earth's radius, (3) its volume, and (4) +the Moon's volume, I can easily calculate what must be the initial +velocity, and that too by a very simple formula." + +"Let us have the formula." + +"In one moment; only I can't give you the curve really described by the +Projectile as it moves between the Earth and the Moon; this is to be +obtained by allowing for their combined movement around the Sun. I will +consider the Earth and the Sun to be motionless, that being sufficient +for our present purpose." + +"Why so?" + +"Because to give you that exact curve would be to solve a point in the +'Problem of the Three Bodies,' which Integral Calculus has not yet +reached." + +"What!" cried Ardan, in a mocking tone, "is there really anything that +Mathematics can't do?" + +"Yes," said Barbican, "there is still a great deal that Mathematics +can't even attempt." + +"So far, so good;" resumed Ardan. "Now then what is this Integral +Calculus of yours?" + +"It is a branch of Mathematics that has for its object the summation of +a certain infinite series of indefinitely small terms: but for the +solution of which, we must generally know the function of which a given +function is the differential coefficient. In other words," continued +Barbican, "in it we return from the differential coefficient, to the +function from which it was deduced." + +"Clear as mud!" cried Ardan, with a hearty laugh. + +"Now then, let me have a bit of paper and a pencil," added Barbican, +"and in half an hour you shall have your formula; meantime you can +easily find something interesting to do." + +In a few seconds Barbican was profoundly absorbed in his problem, while +M'Nicholl was watching out of the window, and Ardan was busily employed +in preparing breakfast. + +The morning meal was not quite ready, when Barbican, raising his head, +showed Ardan a page covered with algebraic signs at the end of which +stood the following formula:-- + + 1 2 2 r m' r r +--- (v' - v ) = gr {--- - 1 + --- (----- - -----) } + 2 x m d - x d - r + +"Which means?" asked Ardan. + +"It means," said the Captain, now taking part in the discussion, "that +the half of _v_ prime squared minus _v_ squared equals _gr_ multiplied +by _r_ over _x_ minus one plus _m_ prime over _m_ multiplied by _r_ over +_d_ minus _x_ minus _r_ over _d_ minus _r_ ... that is--" + +"That is," interrupted Ardan, in a roar of laughter, "_x_ stradlegs on +_y_, making for _z_ and jumping over _p_! Do _you_ mean to say you +understand the terrible jargon, Captain?" + +"Nothing is clearer, Ardan." + +"You too, Captain! Then of course I must give in gracefully, and declare +that the sun at noon-day is not more palpably evident than the sense of +Barbican's formula." + +"You asked for Algebra, you know," observed Barbican. + +"Rock crystal is nothing to it!" + +"The fact is, Barbican," said the Captain, who had been looking over the +paper, "you have worked the thing out very well. You have the integral +equation of the living forces, and I have no doubt it will give us the +result sought for." + +"Yes, but I should like to understand it, you know," cried Ardan: "I +would give ten years of the Captain's life to understand it!" + +"Listen then," said Barbican. "Half of _v_ prime squared less _v_ +squared, is the formula giving us the half variation of the living +force." + +"Mac pretends he understands all that!" + +"You need not be a _Solomon_ to do it," said the Captain. "All these +signs that you appear to consider so cabalistic form a language the +clearest, the shortest, and the most logical, for all those who can read +it." + +"You pretend, Captain, that, by means of these hieroglyphics, far more +incomprehensible than the sacred Ibis of the Egyptians, you can +discover the velocity at which the Projectile should start?" + +"Most undoubtedly," replied the Captain, "and, by the same formula I can +even tell you the rate of our velocity at any particular point of our +journey." + +"You can?" + +"I can." + +"Then you're just as deep a one as our President." + +"No, Ardan; not at all. The really difficult part of the question +Barbican has done. That is, to make out such an equation as takes into +account all the conditions of the problem. After that, it's a simple +affair of Arithmetic, requiring only a knowledge of the four rules to +work it out." + +"Very simple," observed Ardan, who always got muddled at any kind of a +difficult sum in addition. + +"Captain," said Barbican, "_you_ could have found the formulas too, if +you tried." + +"I don't know about that," was the Captain's reply, "but I do know that +this formula is wonderfully come at." + +"Now, Ardan, listen a moment," said Barbican, "and you will see what +sense there is in all these letters." + +"I listen," sighed Ardan with the resignation of a martyr. + +"_d_ is the distance from the centre of the Earth to the centre of the +Moon, for it is from the centres that we must calculate the +attractions." + +"That I comprehend." + +"_r_ is the radius of the Earth." + +"That I comprehend." + +"_m_ is the mass or volume of the Earth; _m_ prime that of the Moon. We +must take the mass of the two attracting bodies into consideration, +since attraction is in direct proportion to their masses." + +"That I comprehend." + +"_g_ is the gravity or the velocity acquired at the end of a second by a +body falling towards the centre of the Earth. Clear?" + +"That I comprehend." + +"Now I represent by _x_ the varying distance that separates the +Projectile from the centre of the Earth, and by _v_ prime its velocity +at that distance." + +"That I comprehend." + +"Finally, _v_ is its velocity when quitting our atmosphere." + +"Yes," chimed in the Captain, "it is for this point, you see, that the +velocity had to be calculated, because we know already that the initial +velocity is exactly the three halves of the velocity when the Projectile +quits the atmosphere." + +"That I don't comprehend," cried the Frenchman, energetically. + +"It's simple enough, however," said Barbican. + +"Not so simple as a simpleton," replied the Frenchman. + +"The Captain merely means," said Barbican, "that at the instant the +Projectile quitted the terrestrial atmosphere it had already lost a +third of its initial velocity." + +"So much as a third?" + +"Yes, by friction against the atmospheric layers: the quicker its +motion, the greater resistance it encountered." + +"That of course I admit, but your _v_ squared and your _v_ prime squared +rattle in my head like nails in a box!" + +"The usual effect of Algebra on one who is a stranger to it; to finish +you, our next step is to express numerically the value of these several +symbols. Now some of them are already known, and some are to be +calculated." + +"Hand the latter over to me," said the Captain. + +"First," continued Barbican: "_r_, the Earth's radius is, in the +latitude of Florida, about 3,921 miles. _d_, the distance from the +centre of the Earth to the centre of the Moon is 56 terrestrial radii, +which the Captain calculates to be...?" + +"To be," cried M'Nicholl working rapidly with his pencil, "219,572 +miles, the moment the Moon is in her _perigee_, or nearest point to the +Earth." + +"Very well," continued Barbican. "Now _m_ prime over _m_, that is the +ratio of the Moon's mass to that of the Earth is about the 1/81. _g_ +gravity being at Florida about 32-1/4 feet, of course _g_ x _r_ must +be--how much, Captain?" + +"38,465 miles," replied M'Nicholl. + +"Now then?" asked Ardan. + +[Illustration: MY HEAD IS SPLITTING WITH IT.] + +"Now then," replied Barbican, "the expression having numerical values, I +am trying to find _v_, that is to say, the initial velocity which the +Projectile must possess in order to reach the point where the two +attractions neutralize each other. Here the velocity being null, _v_ +prime becomes zero, and _x_ the required distance of this neutral point +must be represented by the nine-tenths of _d_, the distance between the +two centres." + +"I have a vague kind of idea that it must be so," said Ardan. + +"I shall, therefore, have the following result;" continued Barbican, +figuring up; "_x_ being nine-tenths of _d_, and _v_ prime being zero, my +formula becomes:-- + + 2 10 r 1 10 r r +v = gr {1 - ----- - ---- (----- - -----) } + d 81 d d - r " + +The Captain read it off rapidly. + +"Right! that's correct!" he cried. + +"You think so?" asked Barbican. + +"As true as Euclid!" exclaimed M'Nicholl. + +"Wonderful fellows," murmured the Frenchman, smiling with admiration. + +"You understand now, Ardan, don't you?" asked Barbican. + +"Don't I though?" exclaimed Ardan, "why my head is splitting with it!" + +"Therefore," continued Barbican, + +" 2 10 r 1 10 r r +2v = 2gr {1 - ----- - ---- (----- - -----) } + d 81 d d - r " + +"And now," exclaimed M'Nicholl, sharpening his pencil; "in order to +obtain the velocity of the Projectile when leaving the atmosphere, we +have only to make a slight calculation." + +The Captain, who before clerking on a Mississippi steamboat had been +professor of Mathematics in an Indiana university, felt quite at home at +the work. He rained figures from his pencil with a velocity that would +have made Marston stare. Page after page was filled with his +multiplications and divisions, while Barbican looked quietly on, and +Ardan impatiently stroked his head and ears to keep down a rising +head-ache. + +"Well?" at last asked Barbican, seeing the Captain stop and throw a +somewhat hasty glance over his work. + +"Well," answered M'Nicholl slowly but confidently, "the calculation is +made, I think correctly; and _v_, that is, the velocity of the +Projectile when quitting the atmosphere, sufficient to carry it to the +neutral point, should be at least ..." + +"How much?" asked Barbican, eagerly. + +"Should be at least 11,972 yards the first second." + +"What!" cried Barbican, jumping off his seat. "How much did you say?" + +"11,972 yards the first second it quits the atmosphere." + +"Oh, malediction!" cried Barbican, with a gesture of terrible despair. + +"What's the matter?" asked Ardan, very much surprised. + +"Enough is the matter!" answered Barbican excitedly. "This velocity +having been diminished by a third, our initial velocity should have been +at least ..." + +"17,958 yards the first second!" cried M'Nicholl, rapidly flourishing +his pencil. + +"But the Cambridge Observatory having declared that 12,000 yards the +first second were sufficient, our Projectile started with no greater +velocity!" + +"Well?" asked M'Nicholl. + +"Well, such a velocity will never do!" + +"How??" } +"How!!" } cried the Captain and Ardan in one voice. + +"We can never reach the neutral point!" + +"Thunder and lightning" + +"Fire and Fury!" + +"We can't get even halfway!" + +"Heaven and Earth!" + +"_Mille noms d'un boulet!_" cried Ardan, wildly gesticulating. + +"And we shall fall back to the Earth!" + +"Oh!" + +"Ah!" + +They could say no more. This fearful revelation took them like a stroke +of apoplexy. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE COLDS OF SPACE. + + +How could they imagine that the Observatory men had committed such a +blunder? Barbican would not believe it possible. He made the Captain go +over his calculation again and again; but no flaw was to be found in it. +He himself carefully examined it, figure after figure, but he could find +nothing wrong. They both took up the formula and subjected it to the +strongest tests; but it was invulnerable. There was no denying the fact. +The Cambridge professors had undoubtedly blundered in saying that an +initial velocity of 12,000 yards a second would be enough to carry them +to the neutral point. A velocity of nearly 18,000 yards would be the +very lowest required for such a purpose. They had simply forgotten to +allow a third for friction. + +The three friends kept profound silence for some time. Breakfast now was +the last thing thought of. Barbican, with teeth grating, fingers +clutching, and eye-brows closely contracting, gazed grimly through the +window. The Captain, as a last resource, once more examined his +calculations, earnestly hoping to find a figure wrong. Ardan could +neither sit, stand nor lie still for a second, though he tried all +three. His silence, of course, did not last long. + +"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed bitterly. "Precious scientific men! Villainous +old hombogues! The whole set not worth a straw! I hope to gracious, +since we must fall, that we shall drop down plumb on Cambridge +Observatory, and not leave a single one of the miserable old women, +called professors, alive in the premises!" + +A certain expression in Ardan's angry exclamation had struck the Captain +like a shot, and set his temples throbbing violently. + +"_Must_ fall!" he exclaimed, starting up suddenly. "Let us see about +that! It is now seven o'clock in the morning. We must have, therefore, +been at least thirty-two hours on the road, and more than half of our +passage is already made. If we are going to fall at all, we must be +falling now! I'm certain we're not, but, Barbican, you have to find it +out!" + +Barbican caught the idea like lightning, and, seizing a compass, he +began through the floor window to measure the visual angle of the +distant Earth. The apparent immobility of the Projectile allowed him to +do this with great exactness. Then laying aside the instrument, and +wiping off the thick drops of sweat that bedewed his forehead, he began +jotting down some figures on a piece of paper. The Captain looked on +with keen interest; he knew very well that Barbican was calculating +their distance from the Earth by the apparent measure of the terrestrial +diameter, and he eyed him anxiously. + +Pretty soon his friends saw a color stealing into Barbican's pale face, +and a triumphant light glittering in his eye. + +"No, my brave boys!" he exclaimed at last throwing down his pencil, +"we're not falling! Far from it, we are at present more than 150 +thousand miles from the Earth!" + +"Hurrah!" } +"Bravo!" } cried M'Nicholl and Ardan, in a breath. + +"We have passed the point where we should have stopped if we had had no +more initial velocity than the Cambridge men allowed us!" + +"Hurrah! hurrah!" + +"Bravo, Bravissimo!" + +"And we're still going up!" + +"Glory, glory, hallelujah!" sang M'Nicholl, in the highest excitement. + +"_Vive ce cher Barbican!_" cried Ardan, bursting into French as usual +whenever his feelings had the better of him. + +"Of course we're marching on!" continued M'Nicholl, "and I know the +reason why, too. Those 400,000 pounds of gun-cotton gave us greater +initial velocity than we had expected!" + +"You're right, Captain!" added Barbican; "besides, you must not forget +that, by getting rid of the water, the Projectile was relieved of +considerable weight!" + +"Correct again!" cried the Captain. "I had not thought of that!" + +"Therefore, my brave boys," continued Barbican, with some excitement; +"away with melancholy! We're all right!" + +"Yes; everything is lovely and the goose hangs high!" cried the Captain, +who on grand occasions was not above a little slang. + +"Talking of goose reminds me of breakfast," cried Ardan; "I assure you, +my fright has not taken away my appetite!" + +"Yes," continued Barbican. "Captain, you're quite right. Our initial +velocity very fortunately was much greater than what our Cambridge +friends had calculated for us!" + +"Hang our Cambridge friends and their calculations!" cried Ardan, with +some asperity; "as usual with your scientific men they've more brass +than brains! If we're not now bed-fellows with the oysters in the Gulf +of Mexico, no thanks to our kind Cambridge friends. But talking of +oysters, let me remind you again that breakfast is ready." + +The meal was a most joyous one. They ate much, they talked more, but +they laughed most. The little incident of Algebra had certainly very +much enlivened the situation. + +"Now, my boys," Ardan went on, "all things thus turning out quite +comfortable, I would just ask you why we should not succeed? We are +fairly started. No breakers ahead that I can see. No rock on our road. +It is freer than the ships on the raging ocean, aye, freer than the +balloons in the blustering air. But the ship arrives at her destination; +the balloon, borne on the wings of the wind, rises to as high an +altitude as can be endured; why then should not our Projectile reach the +Moon?" + +"It _will_ reach the Moon!" nodded Barbican. + +"We shall reach the Moon or know for what!" cried M'Nicholl, +enthusiastically. + +"The great American nation must not be disappointed!" continued Ardan. +"They are the only people on Earth capable of originating such an +enterprise! They are the only people capable of producing a Barbican!" + +"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl. + +"That point settled," continued the Frenchman, "another question comes +up to which I have not yet called your attention. When we get to the +Moon, what shall we do there? How are we going to amuse ourselves? I'm +afraid our life there will be awfully slow!" + +His companions emphatically disclaimed the possibility of such a thing. + +"You may deny it, but I know better, and knowing better, I have laid in +my stores accordingly. You have but to choose. I possess a varied +assortment. Chess, draughts, cards, dominoes--everything in fact, but a +billiard table?" + +"What!" exclaimed Barbican; "cumbered yourself with such gimcracks?" + +"Such gimcracks are not only good to amuse ourselves with, but are +eminently calculated also to win us the friendship of the Selenites." + +"Friend Michael," said Barbican, "if the Moon is inhabited at all, her +inhabitants must have appeared several thousand years before the advent +of Man on our Earth, for there seems to be very little doubt that Luna +is considerably older than Terra in her present state. Therefore, +Selenites, if their brain is organized like our own, must have by this +time invented all that we are possessed of, and even much which we are +still to invent in the course of ages. The probability is that, instead +of their learning from us, we shall have much to learn from them." + +"What!" asked Ardan, "you think they have artists like Phidias, Michael +Angelo and Raphael?" + +"Certainly." + +"And poets like Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakspeare, Goethe and Hugo?" + +"Not a doubt of it." + +"And philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Bacon, Kant?" + +"Why not?" + +"And scientists like Euclid, Archimedes, Copernicus, Newton, Pascal?" + +"I should think so." + +"And famous actors, and singers, and composers, and--and photographers?" + +"I could almost swear to it." + +"Then, dear boy, since they have gone ahead as far as we and even +farther, why have not those great Selenites tried to start a +communication with the Earth? Why have they not fired a projectile from +the regions lunar to the regions terrestrial?" + +"Who says they have not done so?" asked Barbican, coolly. + +"Attempting such a communication," observed the Captain, "would +certainly be much easier for them than for us, principally for two +reasons. First, attraction on the Moon's surface being six times less +than on the Earth's, a projectile could be sent off more rapidly; +second, because, as this projectile need be sent only 24 instead of 240 +thousand miles, they could do it with a quantity of powder ten times +less than what we should require for the same purpose." + +"Then I ask again," said the Frenchman; "why haven't they made such an +attempt?" + +"And I reply again," answered Barbican. "How do you know that they have +not made such an attempt?" + +"Made it? When?" + +"Thousands of years ago, before the invention of writing, before even +the appearance of Man on the Earth." + +"But the bullet?" asked Ardan, triumphantly; "Where's the bullet? +Produce the bullet!" + +"Friend Michael," answered Barbican, with a quiet smile, "you appear to +forget that the 5/6 of the surface of our Earth is water. 5 to 1, +therefore, that the bullet is more likely to be lying this moment at the +bottom of the Atlantic or the Pacific than anywhere else on the surface +of our globe. Besides, it may have sunk into some weak point of the +surface, at the early epoch when the crust of the Earth had not acquired +sufficient solidity." + +"Captain," said Ardan, turning with a smile to M'Nicholl; "no use in +trying to catch Barby; slippery as an eel, he has an answer for +everything. Still I have a theory on the subject myself, which I think +it no harm to ventilate. It is this: The Selenites have never sent us +any projectile at all, simply because they had no gunpowder: being older +and wiser than we, they were never such fools as to invent any.--But, +what's that? Diana howling for her breakfast! Good! Like genuine +scientific men, while squabbling over nonsense, we let the poor animals +die of hunger. Excuse us, Diana; it is not the first time the little +suffer from the senseless disputes of the great." + +So saying he laid before the animal a very toothsome pie, and +contemplated with evident pleasure her very successful efforts towards +its hasty and complete disappearance. + +"Looking at Diana," he went on, "makes me almost wish we had made a +Noah's Ark of our Projectile by introducing into it a pair of all the +domestic animals!" + +"Not room enough," observed Barbican. + +"No doubt," remarked the Captain, "the ox, the cow, the horse, the goat, +all the ruminating animals would be very useful in the Lunar continent. +But we couldn't turn our Projectile into a stable, you know." + +"Still, we might have made room for a pair of poor little donkeys!" +observed Ardan; "how I love the poor beasts. Fellow feeling, you will +say. No doubt, but there really is no animal I pity more. They are the +most ill-treated brutes in all creation. They are not only banged during +life; they are banged worse after death!" + +"Hey! How do you make that out?" asked his companions, surprised. + +"Because we make their skins into drum heads!" replied Ardan, with an +air, as if answering a conundrum. + +Barbican and M'Nicholl could hardly help laughing at the absurd reply of +their lively companion, but their hilarity was soon stopped by the +expression his face assumed as he bent over Satellite's body, where it +lay stretched on the sofa. + +"What's the matter now?" asked Barbican. + +"Satellite's attack is over," replied Ardan. + +"Good!" said M'Nicholl, misunderstanding him. + +"Yes, I suppose it is good for the poor fellow," observed Ardan, in +melancholy accents. "Life with one's skull broken is hardly an enviable +possession. Our grand acclimatization project is knocked sky high, in +more senses than one!" + +There was no doubt of the poor dog's death. The expression of Ardan's +countenance, as he looked at his friends, was of a very rueful order. + +"Well," said the practical Barbican, "there's no help for that now; the +next thing to be done is to get rid of the body. We can't keep it here +with us forty-eight hours longer." + +"Of course not," replied the Captain, "nor need we; our lights, being +provided with hinges, can be lifted back. What is to prevent us from +opening one of them, and flinging the body out through it!" + +The President of the Gun Club reflected a few minutes; then he spoke: + +"Yes, it can be done; but we must take the most careful precautions." + +"Why so?" asked Ardan. + +"For two simple reasons;" replied Barbican; "the first refers to the air +enclosed in the Projectile, and of which we must be very careful to lose +only the least possible quantity." + +"But as we manufacture air ourselves!" objected Ardan. + +"We manufacture air only partly, friend Michael," replied Barbican. "We +manufacture only oxygen; we can't supply nitrogen--By the bye, Ardan, +won't you watch the apparatus carefully every now and then to see that +the oxygen is not generated too freely. Very serious consequences would +attend an immoderate supply of oxygen--No, we can't manufacture +nitrogen, which is so absolutely necessary for our air and which might +escape readily through the open windows." + +"What! the few seconds we should require for flinging out poor +Satellite?" + +"A very few seconds indeed they should be," said Barbican, very gravely. + +"Your second reason?" asked Ardan. + +"The second reason is, that we must not allow the external cold, which +must be exceedingly great, to penetrate into our Projectile and freeze +us alive." + +"But the Sun, you know--" + +"Yes, the Sun heats our Projectile, but it does not heat the vacuum +through which we are now floating. Where there is no air there can +neither be heat nor light; just as wherever the rays of the Sun do not +arrive directly, it must be both cold and dark. The temperature around +us, if there be anything that can be called temperature, is produced +solely by stellar radiation. I need not say how low that is in the +scale, or that it would be the temperature to which our Earth should +fall, if the Sun were suddenly extinguished." + +"Little fear of that for a few more million years," said M'Nicholl. + +"Who can tell?" asked Ardan. "Besides, even admitting that the Sun will +not soon be extinguished, what is to prevent the Earth from shooting +away from him?" + +"Let friend Michael speak," said Barbican, with a smile, to the Captain; +"we may learn something." + +"Certainly you may," continued the Frenchman, "if you have room for +anything new. Were we not struck by a comet's tail in 1861?" + +"So it was said, anyhow," observed the Captain. "I well remember what +nonsense there was in the papers about the 'phosphorescent auroral +glare.'" + +"Well," continued the Frenchman, "suppose the comet of 1861 influenced +the Earth by an attraction superior to the Sun's. What would be the +consequence? Would not the Earth follow the attracting body, become its +satellite, and thus at last be dragged off to such a distance that the +Sun's rays could no longer excite heat on her surface?" + +"Well, that might possibly occur," said Barbican slowly, "but even then +I question if the consequences would be so terrible as you seem to +apprehend." + +"Why not?" + +"Because the cold and the heat might still manage to be nearly equalized +on our globe. It has been calculated that, had the Earth been carried +off by the comet of '61, when arrived at her greatest distance, she +would have experienced a temperature hardly sixteen times greater than +the heat we receive from the Moon, which, as everybody knows, produces +no appreciable effect, even when concentrated to a focus by the most +powerful lenses." + +"Well then," exclaimed Ardan, "at such a temperature--" + +"Wait a moment," replied Barbican. "Have you never heard of the +principle of compensation? Listen to another calculation. Had the Earth +been dragged along with the comet, it has been calculated that at her +perihelion, or nearest point to the Sun, she would have to endure a heat +28,000 times greater than our mean summer temperature. But this heat, +fully capable of turning the rocks into glass and the oceans into vapor, +before proceeding to such extremity, must have first formed a thick +interposing ring of clouds, and thus considerably modified the excessive +temperature. Therefore, between the extreme cold of the aphelion and the +excessive heat of the perihelion, by the great law of compensation, it +is probable that the mean temperature would be tolerably endurable." + +"At how many degrees is the temperature of the interplanetary space +estimated?" asked M'Nicholl. + +"Some time ago," replied Barbican, "this temperature was considered to +be very low indeed--millions and millions of degrees below zero. But +Fourrier of Auxerre, a distinguished member of the _Academie des +Sciences_, whose _Memoires_ on the temperature of the Planetary spaces +appeared about 1827, reduced these figures to considerably diminished +proportions. According to his careful estimation, the temperature of +space is not much lower than 70 or 80 degrees Fahr. below zero." + +"No more?" asked Ardan. + +"No more," answered Barbican, "though I must acknowledge we have only +his word for it, as the _Memoire_ in which he had recorded all the +elements of that important determination, has been lost somewhere, and +is no longer to be found." + +"I don't attach the slightest importance to his, or to any man's words, +unless they are sustained by reliable evidence," exclaimed M'Nicholl. +"Besides, if I'm not very much mistaken, Pouillet--another countryman of +yours, Ardan, and an Academician as well as Fourrier--esteems the +temperature of interplanetary spaces to be at least 256 deg. Fahr. below +zero. This we can easily verify for ourselves this moment by actual +experiment." + +"Not just now exactly," observed Barbican, "for the solar rays, +striking our Projectile directly, would give us a very elevated instead +of a very low temperature. But once arrived at the Moon, during those +nights fifteen days long, which each of her faces experiences +alternately, we shall have plenty of time to make an experiment with +every condition in our favor. To be sure, our Satellite is at present +moving in a vacuum." + +"A vacuum?" asked Ardan; "a perfect vacuum?" + +"Well, a perfect vacuum as far as air is concerned." + +"But is the air replaced by nothing?" + +"Oh yes," replied Barbican. "By ether." + +"Ah, ether! and what, pray, is ether?" + +"Ether, friend Michael, is an elastic gas consisting of imponderable +atoms, which, as we are told by works on molecular physics, are, in +proportion to their size, as far apart as the celestial bodies are from +each other in space. This distance is less than the 1/3000000 x 1/1000', +or the one trillionth of a foot. The vibrations of the molecules of this +ether produce the sensations of light and heat, by making 430 trillions +of undulations per second, each undulation being hardly more than the +one ten-millionth of an inch in width." + +"Trillions per second! ten-millionths of an inch in width!" cried Ardan. +"These oscillations have been very neatly counted and ticketed, and +checked off! Ah, friend Barbican," continued the Frenchman, shaking his +head, "these numbers are just tremendous guesses, frightening the ear +but revealing nothing to the intelligence." + +"To get ideas, however, we must calculate--" + +"No, no!" interrupted Ardan: "not calculate, but compare. A trillion +tells you nothing--Comparison, everything. For instance, you say, the +volume of _Uranus_ is 76 times greater than the Earth's; _Saturn's_ 900 +times greater; _Jupiter's_ 1300 times greater; the Sun's 1300 thousand +times greater--You may tell me all that till I'm tired hearing it, and I +shall still be almost as ignorant as ever. For my part I prefer to be +told one of those simple comparisons that I find in the old almanacs: +The Sun is a globe two feet in diameter; _Jupiter_, a good sized orange; +_Saturn_, a smaller orange; _Neptune_, a plum; _Uranus_, a good sized +cherry; the Earth, a pea; _Venus_, also a pea but somewhat smaller; +_Mars_, a large pin's head; _Mercury_, a mustard seed; _Juno_, +_Ceres_, _Vesta_, _Pallas_, and the other asteroids so many grains +of sand. Be told something like that, and you have got at least the tail +of an idea!" + +This learned burst of Ardan's had the natural effect of making his +hearers forget what they had been arguing about, and they therefore +proceeded at once to dispose of Satellite's body. It was a simple matter +enough--no more than to fling it out of the Projectile into space, just +as the sailors get rid of a dead body by throwing it into the sea. Only +in this operation they had to act, as Barbican recommended, with the +utmost care and dispatch, so as to lose as little as possible of the +internal air, which, by its great elasticity, would violently strive to +escape. The bolts of the floor-light, which was more than a foot in +diameter, were carefully unscrewed, while Ardan, a good deal affected, +prepared to launch his dog's body into space. The glass, worked by a +powerful lever which enabled it to overcome the pressure of the enclosed +air, turned quickly on its hinges, and poor Satellite was dropped out. +The whole operation was so well managed that very little air escaped, +and ever afterwards Barbican employed the same means to rid the +Projectile of all the litter and other useless matter by which it was +occasionally encumbered. + +The evening of this third of December wore away without further +incident. As soon as Barbican had announced that the Projectile was +still winging its way, though with retarded velocity, towards the lunar +disc, the travellers quietly retired to rest. + +[Illustration: POOR SATELLITE WAS DROPPED OUT.] + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +INSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATION. + + +On the fourth of December, the Projectile chronometers marked five +o'clock in the morning, just as the travellers woke up from a pleasant +slumber. They had now been 54 hours on their journey. As to lapse of +_time_, they had passed not much more than half of the number of hours +during which their trip was to last; but, as to lapse of _space_, they +had already accomplished very nearly the seven-tenths of their passage. +This difference between time and distance was due to the regular +retardation of their velocity. + +They looked at the earth through the floor-light, but it was little more +than visible--a black spot drowned in the solar rays. No longer any sign +of a crescent, no longer any sign of ashy light. Next day, towards +midnight, the Earth was to be _new_, at the precise moment when the Moon +was to be _full_. Overhead, they could see the Queen of Night coming +nearer and nearer to the line followed by the Projectile, and evidently +approaching the point where both should meet at the appointed moment. +All around, the black vault of heaven was dotted with luminous points +which seemed to move somewhat, though, of course, in their extreme +distance their relative size underwent no change. The Sun and the stars +looked exactly as they had appeared when observed from the Earth. The +Moon indeed had become considerably enlarged in size, but the +travellers' telescopes were still too weak to enable them to make any +important observation regarding the nature of her surface, or that might +determine her topographical or geological features. + +Naturally, therefore, the time slipped away in endless conversation. The +Moon, of course, was the chief topic. Each one contributed his share of +peculiar information, or peculiar ignorance, as the case might be. +Barbican and M'Nicholl always treated the subject gravely, as became +learned scientists, but Ardan preferred to look on things with the eye +of fancy. The Projectile, its situation, its direction, the incidents +possible to occur, the precautions necessary to take in order to break +the fall on the Moon's surface--these and many other subjects furnished +endless food for constant debate and inexhaustible conjectures. + +For instance, at breakfast that morning, a question of Ardan's regarding +the Projectile drew from Barbican an answer curious enough to be +reported. + +"Suppose, on the night that we were shot up from Stony Hill," said +Ardan, "suppose the Projectile had encountered some obstacle powerful +enough to stop it--what would be the consequence of the sudden halt?" + +"But," replied Barbican, "I don't understand what obstacle it could have +met powerful enough to stop it." + +"Suppose some obstacle, for the sake of argument," said Ardan. + +"Suppose what can't be supposed," replied the matter-of-fact Barbican, +"what cannot possibly be supposed, unless indeed the original impulse +proved too weak. In that case, the velocity would have decreased by +degrees, but the Projectile itself would not have suddenly stopped." + +"Suppose it had struck against some body in space." + +"What body, for instance?" + +"Well, that enormous bolide which we met." + +"Oh!" hastily observed the Captain, "the Projectile would have been +dashed into a thousand pieces and we along with it." + +"Better than that," observed Barbican; "we should have been burned +alive." + +"Burned alive!" laughed Ardan. "What a pity we missed so interesting an +experiment! How I should have liked to find out how it felt!" + +"You would not have much time to record your observations, friend +Michael, I assure you," observed Barbican. "The case is plain enough. +Heat and motion are convertible terms. What do we mean by heating water? +Simply giving increased, in fact, violent motion to its molecules." + +"Well!" exclaimed the Frenchman, "that's an ingenious theory any how!" + +"Not only ingenious but correct, my dear friend, for it completely +explains all the phenomena of caloric. Heat is nothing but molecular +movement, the violent oscillation of the particles of a body. When you +apply the brakes to the train, the train stops. But what has become of +its motion? It turns into heat and makes the brakes hot. Why do people +grease the axles? To hinder them from getting too hot, which they +assuredly would become if friction was allowed to obstruct the motion. +You understand, don't you?" + +"Don't I though?" replied Ardan, apparently in earnest. "Let me show you +how thoroughly. When I have been running hard and long, I feel myself +perspiring like a bull and hot as a furnace. Why am I then forced to +stop? Simply because my motion has been transformed into heat! Of +course, I understand all about it!" + +Barbican smiled a moment at this comical illustration of his theory and +then went on: + +"Accordingly, in case of a collision it would have been all over +instantly with our Projectile. You have seen what becomes of the bullet +that strikes the iron target. It is flattened out of all shape; +sometimes it is even melted into a thin film. Its motion has been turned +into heat. Therefore, I maintain that if our Projectile had struck that +bolide, its velocity, suddenly checked, would have given rise to a heat +capable of completely volatilizing it in less than a second." + +"Not a doubt of it!" said the Captain. "President," he added after a +moment, "haven't they calculated what would be the result, if the Earth +were suddenly brought to a stand-still in her journey, through her +orbit?" + +"It has been calculated," answered Barbican, "that in such a case so +much heat would be developed as would instantly reduce her to vapor." + +"Hm!" exclaimed Ardan; "a remarkably simple way for putting an end to +the world!" + +"And supposing the Earth to fall into the Sun?" asked the Captain. + +"Such a fall," answered Barbican, "according to the calculations of +Tyndall and Thomson, would develop an amount of heat equal to that +produced by sixteen hundred globes of burning coal, each globe equal in +size to the earth itself. Furthermore such a fall would supply the Sun +with at least as much heat as he expends in a hundred years!" + +"A hundred years! Good! Nothing like accuracy!" cried Ardan. "Such +infallible calculators as Messrs. Tyndall and Thomson I can easily +excuse for any airs they may give themselves. They must be of an order +much higher than that of ordinary mortals like us!" + +"I would not answer myself for the accuracy of such intricate problems," +quietly observed Barbican; "but there is no doubt whatever regarding one +fact: motion suddenly interrupted always develops heat. And this has +given rise to another theory regarding the maintenance of the Sun's +temperature at a constant point. An incessant rain of bolides falling on +his surface compensates sufficiently for the heat that he is +continually giving forth. It has been calculated--" + +"Good Lord deliver us!" cried Ardan, putting his hands to his ears: +"here comes Tyndall and Thomson again!" + +--"It has been calculated," continued Barbican, not heeding the +interruption, "that the shock of every bolide drawn to the Sun's surface +by gravity, must produce there an amount of heat equal to that of the +combustion of four thousand blocks of coal, each the same size as the +falling bolide." + +"I'll wager another cent that our bold savants calculated the heat of +the Sun himself," cried Ardan, with an incredulous laugh. + +"That is precisely what they have done," answered Barbican referring to +his memorandum book; "the heat emitted by the Sun," he continued, "is +exactly that which would be produced by the combustion of a layer of +coal enveloping the Sun's surface, like an atmosphere, 17 miles in +thickness." + +"Well done! and such heat would be capable of--?" + +"Of melting in an hour a stratum of ice 2400 feet thick, or, according +to another calculation, of raising a globe of ice-cold water, 3 times +the size of our Earth, to the boiling point in an hour." + +"Why not calculate the exact fraction of a second it would take to cook +a couple of eggs?" laughed Ardan. "I should as soon believe in one +calculation as in the other.--But--by the by--why does not such extreme +heat cook us all up like so many beefsteaks?" + +"For two very good and sufficient reasons," answered Barbican. "In the +first place, the terrestrial atmosphere absorbs the 4/10 of the solar +heat. In the second, the quantity of solar heat intercepted by the Earth +is only about the two billionth part of all that is radiated." + +"How fortunate to have such a handy thing as an atmosphere around us," +cried the Frenchman; "it not only enables us to breathe, but it actually +keeps us from sizzling up like griskins." + +"Yes," said the Captain, "but unfortunately we can't say so much for the +Moon." + +"Oh pshaw!" cried Ardan, always full of confidence. "It's all right +there too! The Moon is either inhabited or she is not. If she is, the +inhabitants must breathe. If she is not, there must be oxygen enough +left for we, us and co., even if we should have to go after it to the +bottom of the ravines, where, by its gravity, it must have accumulated! +So much the better! we shall not have to climb those thundering +mountains!" + +So saying, he jumped up and began to gaze with considerable interest on +the lunar disc, which just then was glittering with dazzling brightness. + +"By Jove!" he exclaimed at length; "it must be pretty hot up there!" + +"I should think so," observed the Captain; "especially when you remember +that the day up there lasts 360 hours!" + +"Yes," observed Barbican, "but remember on the other hand that the +nights are just as long, and, as the heat escapes by radiation, the mean +temperature cannot be much greater than that of interplanetary space." + +"A high old place for living in!" cried Ardan. "No matter! I wish we +were there now! Wouldn't it be jolly, dear boys, to have old Mother +Earth for our Moon, to see her always on our sky, never rising, never +setting, never undergoing any change except from New Earth to Last +Quarter! Would not it be fun to trace the shape of our great Oceans and +Continents, and to say: 'there is the Mediterranean! there is China! +there is the gulf of Mexico! there is the white line of the Rocky +Mountains where old Marston is watching for us with his big telescope!' +Then we should see every line, and brightness, and shadow fade away by +degrees, as she came nearer and nearer to the Sun, until at last she sat +completely lost in his dazzling rays! But--by the way--Barbican, are +there any eclipses in the Moon?" + +"O yes; solar eclipses" replied Barbican, "must always occur whenever +the centres of the three heavenly bodies are in the same line, the Earth +occupying the middle place. However, such eclipses must always be +annular, as the Earth, projected like a screen on the solar disc, allows +more than half of the Sun to be still visible." + +"How is that?" asked M'Nicholl, "no total eclipses in the Moon? Surely +the cone of the Earth's shadow must extend far enough to envelop her +surface?" + +"It does reach her, in one sense," replied Barbican, "but it does not in +another. Remember the great refraction of the solar rays that must be +produced by the Earth's atmosphere. It is easy to show that this +refraction prevents the Sun from ever being totally invisible. See +here!" he continued, pulling out his tablets, "Let _a_ represent the +horizontal parallax, and _b_ the half of the Sun's apparent diameter--" + +"Ouch!" cried the Frenchman, making a wry face, "here comes Mr. _x_ +square riding to the mischief on a pair of double zeros again! Talk +English, or Yankee, or Dutch, or Greek, and I'm your man! Even a little +Arabic I can digest! But hang me, if I can endure your Algebra!" + +"Well then, talking Yankee," replied Barbican with a smile, "the mean +distance of the Moon from the Earth being sixty terrestrial radii, the +length of the conic shadow, in consequence of atmospheric refraction, is +reduced to less than forty-two radii. Consequently, at the moment of an +eclipse, the Moon is far beyond the reach of the real shadow, so that +she can see not only the border rays of the Sun, but even those +proceeding from his very centre." + +"Oh then," cried Ardan with a loud laugh, "we have an eclipse of the Sun +at the moment when the Sun is quite visible! Isn't that very like a +bull, Mr. Philosopher Barbican?" + +"Yet it is perfectly true notwithstanding," answered Barbican. "At such +a moment the Sun is not eclipsed, because we can see him: and then again +he is eclipsed because we see him only by means of a few of his rays, +and even these have lost nearly all their brightness in their passage +through the terrestrial atmosphere!" + +"Barbican is right, friend Michael," observed the Captain slowly: "the +same phenomenon occurs on earth every morning at sunrise, when +refraction shows us + + '_the Sun new ris'n + Looking through the horizontal misty air, + Shorn of his beams._'" + +"He must be right," said Ardan, who, to do him justice, though quick at +seeing a reason, was quicker to acknowledge its justice: "yes, he must +be right, because I begin to understand at last very clearly what he +really meant. However, we can judge for ourselves when we get +there.--But, apropos of nothing, tell me, Barbican, what do you think of +the Moon being an ancient comet, which had come so far within the sphere +of the Earth's attraction as to be kept there and turned into a +satellite?" + +"Well, that _is_ an original idea!" said Barbican with a smile. + +"My ideas generally are of that category," observed Ardan with an +affectation of dry pomposity. + +"Not this time, however, friend Michael," observed M'Nicholl. + +"Oh! I'm a plagiarist, am I?" asked the Frenchman, pretending to be +irritated. + +"Well, something very like it," observed M'Nicholl quietly. "Apollonius +Rhodius, as I read one evening in the Philadelphia Library, speaks of +the Arcadians of Greece having a tradition that their ancestors were so +ancient that they inhabited the Earth long before the Moon had ever +become our satellite. They therefore called them [Greek: _Proselenoi_] +or _Ante-lunarians_. Now starting with some such wild notion as this, +certain scientists have looked on the Moon as an ancient comet brought +close enough to the Earth to be retained in its orbit by terrestrial +attraction." + +"Why may not there be something plausible in such a hypothesis?" asked +Ardan with some curiosity. + +"There is nothing whatever in it," replied Barbican decidedly: "a simple +proof is the fact that the Moon does not retain the slightest trace of +the vaporous envelope by which comets are always surrounded." + +"Lost her tail you mean," said Ardan. "Pooh! Easy to account for that! +It might have got cut off by coming too close to the Sun!" + +"It might, friend Michael, but an amputation by such means is not very +likely." + +"No? Why not?" + +"Because--because--By Jove, I can't say, because I don't know," cried +Barbican with a quiet smile on his countenance. + +"Oh what a lot of volumes," cried Ardan, "could be made out of what we +don't know!" + +"At present, for instance," observed M'Nicholl, "I don't know what +o'clock it is." + +"Three o'clock!" said Barbican, glancing at his chronometer. + +"No!" cried Ardan in surprise. "Bless us! How rapidly the time passes +when we are engaged in scientific conversation! Ouf! I'm getting +decidedly too learned! I feel as if I had swallowed a library!" + +"I feel," observed M'Nicholl, "as if I had been listening to a lecture +on Astronomy in the _Star_ course." + +"Better stir around a little more," said the Frenchman; "fatigue of body +is the best antidote to such severe mental labor as ours. I'll run up +the ladder a bit." So saying, he paid another visit to the upper portion +of the Projectile and remained there awhile whistling _Malbrouk_, whilst +his companions amused themselves in looking through the floor window. + +Ardan was coming down the ladder, when his whistling was cut short by a +sudden exclamation of surprise. + +"What's the matter?" asked Barbican quickly, as he looked up and saw the +Frenchman pointing to something outside the Projectile. + +Approaching the window, Barbican saw with much surprise a sort of +flattened bag floating in space and only a few yards off. It seemed +perfectly motionless, and, consequently, the travellers knew that it +must be animated by the same ascensional movement as themselves. + +"What on earth can such a consarn be, Barbican?" asked Ardan, who every +now and then liked to ventilate his stock of American slang. "Is it one +of those particles of meteoric matter you were speaking of just now, +caught within the sphere of our Projectile's attraction and accompanying +us to the Moon?" + +"What I am surprised at," observed the Captain, "is that though the +specific gravity of that body is far inferior to that of our Projectile, +it moves with exactly the same velocity." + +"Captain," said Barbican, after a moment's reflection, "I know no more +what that object is than you do, but I can understand very well why it +keeps abreast with the Projectile." + +"Very well then, why?" + +"Because, my dear Captain, we are moving through a vacuum, and because +all bodies fall or move--the same thing--with equal velocity through a +vacuum, no matter what may be their shape or their specific gravity. It +is the air alone that makes a difference of weight. Produce an +artificial vacuum in a glass tube and you will see that all objects +whatever falling through, whether bits of feather or grains of shot, +move with precisely the same rapidity. Up here, in space, like cause and +like effect." + +"Correct," assented M'Nicholl. "Everything therefore that we shall throw +out of the Projectile is bound to accompany us to the Moon." + +"Well, we _were_ smart!" cried Ardan suddenly. + +"How so, friend Michael?" asked Barbican. + +"Why not have packed the Projectile with ever so many useful objects, +books, instruments, tools, et cetera, and fling them out into space once +we were fairly started! They would have all followed us safely! Nothing +would have been lost! And--now I think on it--why not fling ourselves +out through the window? Shouldn't we be as safe out there as that +bolide? What fun it would be to feel ourselves sustained and upborne in +the ether, more highly favored even than the birds, who must keep on +flapping their wings continually to prevent themselves from falling!" + +"Very true, my dear boy," observed Barbican; "but how could we breathe?" + +"It's a fact," exclaimed the Frenchman. "Hang the air for spoiling our +fun! So we must remain shut up in our Projectile?" + +"Not a doubt of it!" + +--"Oh Thunder!" roared Ardan, suddenly striking his forehead. + +"What ails you?" asked the Captain, somewhat surprised. + +"Now I know what that bolide of ours is! Why didn't we think of it +before? It is no asteroid! It is no particle of meteoric matter! Nor is +it a piece of a shattered planet!" + +"What is it then?" asked both of his companions in one voice. + +[Illustration: SATELLITE'S BODY FLYING THROUGH SPACE.] + +"It is nothing more or less than the body of the dog that we threw out +yesterday!" + +So in fact it was. That shapeless, unrecognizable mass, melted, +expunged, flat as a bladder under an unexhausted receiver, drained of +its air, was poor Satellite's body, flying like a rocket through space, +and rising higher and higher in close company with the rapidly ascending +Projectile! + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +A HIGH OLD TIME. + + +A new phenomenon, therefore, strange but logical, startling but +admitting of easy explanation, was now presented to their view, +affording a fresh subject for lively discussion. Not that they disputed +much about it. They soon agreed on a principle from which they readily +deducted the following general law: _Every object thrown out of the +Projectile should partake of the Projectile's motion: it should +therefore follow the same path, and never cease to move until the +Projectile itself came to a stand-still._ + +But, in sober truth, they were at anything but a loss of subjects of +warm discussion. As the end of their journey began to approach, their +senses became keener and their sensations vivider. Steeled against +surprise, they looked for the unexpected, the strange, the startling; +and the only thing at which they would have wondered would be to be five +minutes without having something new to wonder at. Their excited +imaginations flew far ahead of the Projectile, whose velocity, by the +way, began to be retarded very decidedly by this time, though, of +course, the travellers had as yet no means to become aware of it. The +Moon's size on the sky was meantime getting larger and larger; her +apparent distance was growing shorter and shorter, until at last they +could almost imagine that by putting their hands out they could nearly +touch her. + +Next morning, December 5th, all were up and dressed at a very early +hour. This was to be the last day of their journey, if all calculations +were correct. That very night, at 12 o'clock, within nineteen hours at +furthest, at the very moment of Full Moon, they were to reach her +resplendent surface. At that hour was to be completed the most +extraordinary journey ever undertaken by man in ancient or modern times. +Naturally enough, therefore, they found themselves unable to sleep after +four o'clock in the morning; peering upwards through the windows now +visibly glittering under the rays of the Moon, they spent some very +exciting hours in gazing at her slowly enlarging disc, and shouting at +her with confident and joyful hurrahs. + +The majestic Queen of the Stars had now risen so high in the spangled +heavens that she could hardly rise higher. In a few degrees more she +would reach the exact point of space where her junction with the +Projectile was to be effected. According to his own observations, +Barbican calculated that they should strike her in the northern +hemisphere, where her plains, or _seas_ as they are called, are immense, +and her mountains are comparatively rare. This, of course, would be so +much the more favorable, if, as was to be apprehended, the lunar +atmosphere was confined exclusively to the low lands. + +"Besides," as Ardan observed, "a plain is a more suitable landing place +than a mountain. A Selenite deposited on the top of Mount Everest or +even on Mont Blanc, could hardly be considered, in strict language, to +have arrived on Earth." + +"Not to talk," added M'Nicholl, "of the comfort of the thing! When you +land on a plain, there you are. When you land on a peak or on a steep +mountain side, where are you? Tumbling over an embankment with the train +going forty miles an hour, would be nothing to it." + +"Therefore, Captain Barbican," cried the Frenchman, "as we should like +to appear before the Selenites in full skins, please land us in the snug +though unromantic North. We shall have time enough to break our necks in +the South." + +Barbican made no reply to his companions, because a new reflection had +begun to trouble him, to talk about which would have done no good. There +was certainly something wrong. The Projectile was evidently heading +towards the northern hemisphere of the Moon. What did this prove? +Clearly, a deviation resulting from some cause. The bullet, lodged, +aimed, and fired with the most careful mathematical precision, had been +calculated to reach the very centre of the Moon's disc. Clearly it was +not going to the centre now. What could have produced the deviation? +This Barbican could not tell; nor could he even determine its extent, +having no points of sight by which to make his observations. For the +present he tried to console himself with the hope that the deviation of +the Projectile would be followed by no worse consequence than carrying +them towards the northern border of the Moon, where for several reasons +it would be comparatively easier to alight. Carefully avoiding, +therefore, the use of any expression which might needlessly alarm his +companions, he continued to observe the Moon as carefully as he could, +hoping every moment to find some grounds for believing that the +deviation from the centre was only a slight one. He almost shuddered at +the thought of what would be their situation, if the bullet, missing its +aim, should pass the Moon, and plunge into the interplanetary space +beyond it. + +As he continued to gaze, the Moon, instead of presenting the usual +flatness of her disc, began decidedly to show a surface somewhat convex. +Had the Sun been shining on her obliquely, the shadows would have +certainly thrown the great mountains into strong relief. The eye could +then bury itself deep in the yawning chasms of the craters, and easily +follow the cracks, streaks, and ridges which stripe, flecker, and bar +the immensity of her plains. But for the present all relief was lost in +the dazzling glare. The Captain could hardly distinguish even those dark +spots that impart to the full Moon some resemblance to the human face. + +"Face!" cried Ardan: "well, a very fanciful eye may detect a face, +though, for the sake of Apollo's beauteous sister, I regret to say, a +terribly pockmarked one!" + +The travellers, now evidently approaching the end of their journey, +observed the rapidly increasing world above them with newer and greater +curiosity every moment. Their fancies enkindled at the sight of the new +and strange scenes dimly presented to their view. In imagination they +climbed to the summit of this lofty peak. They let themselves down to +the abyss of that yawning crater. Here they imagined they saw vast seas +hardly kept in their basins by a rarefied atmosphere; there they thought +they could trace mighty rivers bearing to vast oceans the tribute of the +snowy mountains. In the first promptings of their eager curiosity, they +peered greedily into her cavernous depths, and almost expected, amidst +the deathlike hush of inaudible nature, to surprise some sound from the +mystic orb floating up there in eternal silence through a boundless +ocean of never ending vacuum. + +This last day of their journey left their memories stored with thrilling +recollections. They took careful note of the slightest details. As they +neared their destination, they felt themselves invaded by a vague, +undefined restlessness. But this restlessness would have given way to +decided uneasiness, if they had known at what a slow rate they were +travelling. They would have surely concluded that their present velocity +would never be able to take them as far as the neutral point, not to +talk of passing it. The reason of such considerable retardation was, +that by this time the Projectile had reached such a great distance from +the Earth that it had hardly any weight. But even this weight, such as +it was, was to be diminished still further, and finally, to vanish +altogether as soon as the bullet reached the neutral point, where the +two attractions, terrestrial and lunar, should counteract each other +with new and surprising effects. + +Notwithstanding the absorbing nature of his observations, Ardan never +forgot to prepare breakfast with his usual punctuality. It was eaten +readily and relished heartily. Nothing could be more exquisite than his +calf's foot jelly liquefied and prepared by gas heat, except perhaps his +meat biscuits of preserved Texas beef and Southdown mutton. A bottle of +Chateau Yquem and another of Clos de Vougeot, both of superlative +excellence in quality and flavor, crowned the repast. Their vicinity to +the Moon and their incessant glancing at her surface did not prevent the +travellers from touching each other's glasses merrily and often. Ardan +took occasion to remark that the lunar vineyards--if any existed--must +be magnificent, considering the intense solar heat they continually +experienced. Not that he counted on them too confidently, for he told +his friends that to provide for the worst he had supplied himself with a +few cases of the best vintages of Medoc and the Cote d'Or, of which the +bottles, then under discussion, might be taken as very favorable +specimens. + +The Reiset and Regnault apparatus for purifying the air worked +splendidly, and maintained the atmosphere in a perfectly sanitary +condition. Not an atom of carbonic acid could resist the caustic potash; +and as for the oxygen, according to M'Nicholl's expression, "it was A +prime number one!" + +The small quantity of watery vapor enclosed in the Projectile did no +more harm than serving to temper the dryness of the air: many a splendid +_salon_ in New York, London, or Paris, and many an auditorium, even of +theatre, opera house or Academy of Music, could be considered its +inferior in what concerned its hygienic condition. + +To keep it in perfect working order, the apparatus should be carefully +attended to. This, Ardan looked on as his own peculiar occupation. He +was never tired regulating the tubes, trying the taps, and testing the +heat of the gas by the pyrometer. So far everything had worked +satisfactorily, and the travellers, following the example of their +friend Marston on a previous occasion, began to get so stout that their +own mothers would not know them in another month, should their +imprisonment last so long. Ardan said they all looked so sleek and +thriving that he was reminded forcibly of a nice lot of pigs fattening +in a pen for a country fair. But how long was this good fortune of +theirs going to last? + +Whenever they took their eyes off the Moon, they could not help noticing +that they were still attended outside by the spectre of Satellite's +corpse and by the other refuse of the Projectile. An occasional +melancholy howl also attested Diana's recognition of her companion's +unhappy fate. The travellers saw with surprise that these waifs still +seemed perfectly motionless in space, and kept their respective +distances apart as mathematically as if they had been fastened with +nails to a stone wall. + +"I tell you what, dear boys;" observed Ardan, commenting on this curious +phenomenon; "if the concussion had been a little too violent for one of +us that night, his survivors would have been seriously embarrassed in +trying to get rid of his remains. With no earth to cover him up, no sea +to plunge him into, his corpse would never disappear from view, but +would pursue us day and night, grim and ghastly like an avenging ghost!" + +"Ugh!" said the Captain, shuddering at the idea. + +"But, by the bye, Barbican!" cried the Frenchman, dropping the subject +with his usual abruptness; "you have forgotten something else! Why +didn't you bring a scaphander and an air pump? I could then venture out +of the Projectile as readily and as safely as the diver leaves his boat +and walks about on the bottom of the river! What fun to float in the +midst of that mysterious ether! to steep myself, aye, actually to revel +in the pure rays of the glorious sun! I should have ventured out on the +very point of the Projectile, and there I should have danced and +postured and kicked and bobbed and capered in a style that Taglioni +never dreamed of!" + +"Shouldn't I like to see you!" cried the Captain grimly, smiling at the +idea. + +"You would not see him long!" observed Barbican quietly. "The air +confined in his body, freed from external pressure, would burst him like +a shell, or like a balloon that suddenly rises to too great a height in +the air! A scaphander would have been a fatal gift. Don't regret its +absence, friend Michael; never forget this axiom: _As long as we are +floating in empty space, the only spot where safety is possible is +inside the Projectile!_" + +The words "possible" and "impossible" always grated on Ardan's ears. If +he had been a lexicographer, he would have rigidly excluded them from +his dictionary, both as meaningless and useless. He was preparing an +answer for Barbican, when he was cut out by a sudden observation from +M'Nicholl. + +"See here, friends!" cried the Captain; "this going to the Moon is all +very well, but how shall we get back?" + +His listeners looked at each other with a surprised and perplexed air. +The question, though a very natural one, now appeared to have presented +itself to their consideration absolutely for the first time. + +"What do you mean by such a question, Captain?" asked Barbican in a +grave judicial tone. + +"Mac, my boy," said Ardan seriously, "don't it strike you as a little +out of order to ask how you are to return when you have not got there +yet?" + +"I don't ask the question with any idea of backing out," observed the +Captain quietly; "as a matter of purely scientific inquiry, I repeat my +question: how are we to return?" + +"I don't know," replied Barbican promptly. + +"For my part," said Ardan; "if I had known how to get back, I should +have never come at all!" + +"Well! of all the answers!" said the Captain, lifting his hands and +shaking his head. + +"The best under the circumstances;" observed Barbican; "and I shall +further observe that such a question as yours at present is both useless +and uncalled for. On some future occasion, when we shall consider it +advisable to return, the question will be in order, and we shall discuss +it with all the attention it deserves. Though the Columbiad is at Stony +Hill, the Projectile will still be in the Moon." + +"Much we shall gain by that! A bullet without a gun!" + +"The gun we can make and the powder too!" replied Barbican confidently. +"Metal and sulphur and charcoal and saltpetre are likely enough to be +present in sufficient quantities beneath the Moon's surface. Besides, to +return is a problem of comparatively easy solution: we should have to +overcome the lunar attraction only--a slight matter--the rest of the +business would be readily done by gravity." + +"Enough said on the subject!" exclaimed Ardan curtly; "how to get back +is indefinitely postponed! How to communicate with our friends on the +Earth, is another matter, and, as it seems to me, an extremely easy +one." + +"Let us hear the very easy means by which you propose to communicate +with our friends on Earth," asked the Captain, with a sneer, for he was +by this time a little out of humor. + +"By means of bolides ejected from the lunar volcanoes," replied the +Frenchman without an instant's hesitation. + +"Well said, friend Ardan," exclaimed Barbican. "I am quite disposed to +acknowledge the feasibility of your plan. Laplace has calculated that a +force five times greater than that of an ordinary cannon would be +sufficient to send a bolide from the Moon to the Earth. Now there is no +cannon that can vie in force with even the smallest volcano." + +"Hurrah!" cried Ardan, delighted at his success; "just imagine the +pleasure of sending our letters postage free! But--oh! what a splendid +idea!--Dolts that we were for not thinking of it sooner!" + +"Let us have the splendid idea!" cried the Captain, with some of his old +acrimony. + +"Why didn't we fasten a wire to the Projectile?" asked Ardan, +triumphantly, "It would have enabled us to exchange telegrams with the +Earth!" + +"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the Captain, rapidly recovering his good humor; +"decidedly the best joke of the season! Ha! ha! ha! Of course you have +calculated the weight of a wire 240 thousand miles long?" + +"No matter about its weight!" cried the Frenchman impetuously; "we +should have laughed at its weight! We could have tripled the charge of +the Columbiad; we could have quadrupled it!--aye, quintupled it, if +necessary!" he added in tones evidently increasing in loudness and +violence. + +"Yes, friend Michael," observed Barbican; "but there is a slight and +unfortunately a fatal defect in your project. The Earth, by its +rotation, would have wrapped our wire around herself, like thread around +a spool, and dragged us back almost with the speed of lightning!" + +"By the Nine gods of Porsena!" cried Ardan, "something is wrong with my +head to-day! My brain is out of joint, and I am making as nice a mess of +things as my friend Marston was ever capable of! By the bye--talking of +Marston--if we never return to the Earth, what is to prevent him from +following us to the Moon?" + +"Nothing!" replied Barbican; "he is a faithful friend and a reliable +comrade. Besides, what is easier? Is not the Columbiad still at Stony +Hill? Cannot gun-cotton be readily manufactured on any occasion? Will +not the Moon again pass through the zenith of Florida? Eighteen years +from now, will she not occupy exactly the same spot that she does +to-day?" + +"Certainly!" cried Ardan, with increasing enthusiasm, "Marston will +come! and Elphinstone of the torpedo! and the gallant Bloomsbury, and +Billsby the brave, and all our friends of the Baltimore Gun Club! And we +shall receive them with all the honors! And then we shall establish +projectile trains between the Earth and the Moon! Hurrah for J.T. +Marston!" + +"Hurrah for Secretary Marston!" cried the Captain, with an enthusiasm +almost equal to Ardan's. + +"Hurrah for my dear friend Marston!" cried Barbican, hardly less +excited than his comrades. + +Our old acquaintance, Marston, of course could not have heard the joyous +acclamations that welcomed his name, but at that moment he certainly +must have felt his ears most unaccountably tingling. What was he doing +at the time? He was rattling along the banks of the Kansas River, as +fast as an express train could take him, on the road to Long's Peak, +where, by means of the great Telescope, he expected to find some traces +of the Projectile that contained his friends. He never forgot them for a +moment, but of course he little dreamed that his name at that very time +was exciting their vividest recollections and their warmest applause. + +In fact, their recollections were rather too vivid, and their applause +decidedly too warm. Was not the animation that prevailed among the +guests of the Projectile of a very unusual character, and was it not +becoming more and more violent every moment? Could the wine have caused +it? No; though not teetotallers, they never drank to excess. Could the +Moon's proximity, shedding her subtle, mysterious influence over their +nervous systems, have stimulated them to a degree that was threatening +to border on frenzy? Their faces were as red as if they were standing +before a hot fire; their breathing was loud, and their lungs heaved like +a smith's bellows; their eyes blazed like burning coals; their voices +sounded as loud and harsh as that of a stump speaker trying to make +himself heard by an inattentive or hostile crowd; their words popped +from their lips like corks from Champagne bottles; their gesticulating +became wilder and in fact more alarming--considering the little room +left in the Projectile for muscular displays of any kind. + +But the most extraordinary part of the whole phenomenon was that neither +of them, not even Barbican, had the slightest consciousness of any +strange or unusual ebullition of spirits either on his own part or on +that of the others. + +"See here, gentlemen!" said the Captain in a quick imperious manner--the +roughness of his old life on the Mississippi would still break out--"See +here, gentlemen! It seems I'm not to know if we are to return from the +Moon. Well!--Pass that for the present! But there is one thing I _must_ +know!" + +"Hear! hear the Captain!" cried Barbican, stamping with his foot, like +an excited fencing master. "There is one thing he _must_ know!" + +"I want to know what we're going to do when we get there!" + +"He wants to know what we're going to do when we get there! A sensible +question! Answer it, Ardan!" + +"Answer it yourself, Barbican! You know more about the Moon than I do! +You know more about it than all the Nasmyths that ever lived!" + +"I'm blessed if I know anything at all about it!" cried Barbican, with a +joyous laugh. "Ha, ha, ha! The first eastern shore Marylander or any +other simpleton you meet in Baltimore, knows as much about the Moon as +I do! Why we're going there, I can't tell! What we're going to do when +we get there, can't tell either! Ardan knows all about it! He can tell! +He's taking us there!" + +"Certainly I can tell! should I have offered to take you there without a +good object in view?" cried Ardan, husky with continual roaring. "Answer +me that!" + +"No conundrums!" cried the Captain, in a voice sourer and rougher than +ever; "tell us if you can in plain English, what the demon we have come +here for!" + +"I'll tell you if I feel like it," cried Ardan, folding his arms with an +aspect of great dignity; "and I'll not tell you if I don't feel like +it!" + +"What's that?" cried Barbican. "You'll not give us an answer when we ask +you a reasonable question?" + +"Never!" cried Ardan, with great determination. "I'll never answer a +question reasonable or unreasonable, unless it is asked in a proper +manner!" + +"None of your French airs here!" exclaimed M'Nicholl, by this time +almost completely out of himself between anger and excitement. "I don't +know where I am; I don't know where I'm going; I don't know why I'm +going; _you_ know all about it, Ardan, or at least you think you do! +Well then, give me a plain answer to a plain question, or by the +Thirty-eight States of our glorious Union, I shall know what for!" + +"Listen, Ardan!" cried Barbican, grappling with the Frenchman, and with +some difficulty restraining him from flying at M'Nicholl's throat; "You +ought to tell him! It is only your duty! One day you found us both in +St. Helena woods, where we had no more idea of going to the Moon than of +sailing to the South Pole! There you twisted us both around your finger, +and induced us to follow you blindly on the most formidable journey ever +undertaken by man! And now you refuse to tell us what it was all for!" + +"I don't refuse, dear old Barbican! To you, at least, I can't refuse +anything!" cried Ardan, seizing his friend's hands and wringing them +violently. Then letting them go and suddenly starting back, "you wish to +know," he continued in resounding tones, "why we have followed out the +grandest idea that ever set a human brain on fire! Why we have +undertaken a journey that for length, danger, and novelty, for +fascinating, soul-stirring and delirious sensations, for all that can +attract man's burning heart, and satisfy the intensest cravings of his +intellect, far surpasses the vividest realities of Dante's passionate +dream! Well, I will tell you! It is to annex another World to the New +One! It is to take possession of the Moon in the name of the United +States of America! It is to add a thirty-ninth State to the glorious +Union! It is to colonize the lunar regions, to cultivate them, to people +them, to transport to them some of our wonders of art, science, and +industry! It is to civilize the Selenites, unless they are more +civilized already than we are ourselves! It is to make them all good +Republicans, if they are not so already!" + +"Provided, of course, that there are Selenites in existence!" sneered +the Captain, now sourer than ever, and in his unaccountable excitement +doubly irritating. + +"Who says there are no Selenites?" cried Ardan fiercely, with fists +clenched and brows contracted. + +"I do!" cried M'Nicholl stoutly; "I deny the existence of anything of +the kind, and I denounce every one that maintains any such whim as a +visionary, if not a fool!" + +Ardan's reply to this taunt was a desperate facer, which, however, +Barbican managed to stop while on its way towards the Captain's nose. +M'Nicholl, seeing himself struck at, immediately assumed such a posture +of defence as showed him to be no novice at the business. A battle +seemed unavoidable; but even at this trying moment Barbican showed +himself equal to the emergency. + +"Stop, you crazy fellows! you ninnyhammers! you overgrown babies!" he +exclaimed, seizing his companions by the collar, and violently swinging +them around with his vast strength until they stood back to back; "what +are you going to fight about? Suppose there are Lunarians in the Moon! +Is that a reason why there should be Lunatics in the Projectile! But, +Ardan, why do you insist on Lunarians? Are we so shiftless that we can't +do without them when we get to the Moon?" + +"I don't insist on them!" cried Ardan, who submitted to Barbican like a +child. "Hang the Lunarians! Certainly, we can do without them! What do I +care for them? Down with them!" + +"Yes, down with the Lunarians!" cried M'Nicholl as spitefully as if he +had even the slightest belief in their existence. + +"We shall take possession of the Moon ourselves!" cried Ardan. +"Lunarians or no Lunarians!" + +"We three shall constitute a Republic!" cried M'Nicholl. + +"I shall be the House!" cried Ardan. + +"And I the Senate!" answered the Captain. + +"And Barbican our first President!" shrieked the Frenchman. + +"Our first and last!" roared M'Nicholl. + +"No objections to a third term!" yelled Ardan. + +"He's welcome to any number of terms he pleases!" vociferated M'Nicholl. + +"Hurrah for President Barbican of the Lunatic--I mean of the Lunar +Republic!" screamed Ardan. + +"Long may he wave, and may his shadow never grow less!" shouted Captain +M'Nicholl, his eyes almost out of their sockets. + +Then with voices reminding you of sand fiercely blown against the window +panes, the _President_ and the _Senate_ chanted the immortal _Yankee +Doodle_, whilst the _House_ delivered itself of the _Marseillaise_, in a +style which even the wildest Jacobins in Robespierre's day could hardly +have surpassed. + +But long before either song was ended, all three broke out into a +dance, wild, insensate, furious, delirious, paroxysmatical. No Orphic +festivals on Mount Cithaeron ever raged more wildly. No Bacchic revels +on Mount Parnassus were ever more corybantic. Diana, demented by the +maddening example, joined in the orgie, howling and barking frantically +in her turn, and wildly jumping as high as the ceiling of the +Projectile. Then came new accessions to the infernal din. Wings suddenly +began to flutter, cocks to crow, hens to cluck; and five or six +chickens, managing to escape out of their coop, flew backwards and +forwards blindly, with frightened screams, dashing against each other +and against the walls of the Projectile, and altogether getting up as +demoniacal a hullabaloo as could be made by ten thousand bats that you +suddenly disturbed in a cavern where they had slept through the winter. + +Then the three companions, no longer able to withstand the overpowering +influence of the mysterious force that mastered them, intoxicated, more +than drunk, burned by the air that scorched their organs of respiration, +dropped at last, and lay flat, motionless, senseless as dabs of clay, on +the floor of the Projectile. + +[Illustration: A DEMONIACAL HULLABALOO.] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE NEUTRAL POINT. + + +What had taken place? Whence proceeded this strange intoxication whose +consequences might have proved so disastrous? A little forgetfulness on +Ardan's part had done the whole mischief, but fortunately M'Nicholl was +able to remedy it in time. + +After a regular fainting spell several minutes long, the Captain was the +first man to return to consciousness and the full recovery of his +intellectual faculties. His first feelings were far from pleasant. His +stomach gnawed him as if he had not eaten for a week, though he had +taken breakfast only a few hours before; his eyes were dim, his brain +throbbing, and his limbs shaking. In short, he presented every symptom +usually seen in a man dying of starvation. Picking himself up with much +care and difficulty, he roared out to Ardan for something to eat. Seeing +that the Frenchman was unable or unwilling to respond, he concluded to +help himself, by beginning first of all to prepare a little tea. To do +this, fire was necessary; so, to light his lamp, he struck a match. + +But what was his surprise at seeing the sulphur tip of the match blazing +with a light so bright and dazzling that his eyes could hardly bear it! +Touching it to the gas burner, a stream of light flashed forth equal in +its intensity to the flame of an electric lamp. Then he understood it +all in an instant. The dazzling glare, his maddened brain, his gnawing +stomach--all were now clear as the noon-day Sun. + +"The oxygen!" he cried, and, suddenly stooping down and examining the +tap of the air apparatus, he saw that it had been only half turned off. +Consequently the air was gradually getting more and more impregnated +with this powerful gas, colorless, odorless, tasteless, infinitely +precious, but, unless when strongly diluted with nitrogen, capable of +producing fatal disorders in the human system. Ardan, startled by +M'Nicholl's question about the means of returning from the Moon, had +turned the cock only half off. + +The Captain instantly stopped the escape of the oxygen, but not one +moment too soon. It had completely saturated the atmosphere. A few +minutes more and it would have killed the travellers, not like carbonic +acid, by smothering them, but by burning them up, as a strong draught +burns up the coals in a stove. + +[Illustration: "THE OXYGEN!" HE CRIED.] + +It took nearly an hour for the air to become pure enough to allow the +lungs their natural play. Slowly and by degrees, the travellers +recovered from their intoxication; they had actually to sleep off the +fumes of the oxygen as a drunkard has to sleep off the effects of his +brandy. When Ardan learned that he was responsible for the whole +trouble, do you think the information disconcerted him? Not a bit of it. +On the contrary, he was rather proud of having done something +startling, to break the monotony of the journey; and to put a little +life, as he said, into old Barbican and the grim Captain, so as to get a +little fun out of such grave philosophers. + +After laughing heartily at the comical figure cut by his two friends +capering like crazy students at the _Closerie des Lilas_, he went on +moralizing on the incident: + +"For my part, I'm not a bit sorry for having partaken of this fuddling +gas. It gives me an idea, dear boys. Would it not be worth some +enterprising fellow's while to establish a sanatorium provided with +oxygen chambers, where people of a debilitated state of health could +enjoy a few hours of intensely active existence! There's money in it, as +you Americans say. Just suppose balls or parties given in halls where +the air would be provided with an extra supply of this enrapturing gas! +Or, theatres where the atmosphere would be maintained in a highly +oxygenated condition. What passion, what fire in the actors! What +enthusiasm in the spectators! And, carrying the idea a little further, +if, instead of an assembly or an audience, we should oxygenize towns, +cities, a whole country--what activity would be infused into the whole +people! What new life would electrify a stagnant community! Out of an +old used-up nation we could perhaps make a bran-new one, and, for my +part, I know more than one state in old Europe where this oxygen +experiment might be attended with a decided advantage, or where, at all +events, it could do no harm!" + +The Frenchman spoke so glibly and gesticulated so earnestly that +M'Nicholl once more gravely examined the stop-cock; but Barbican damped +his enthusiasm by a single observation. + +"Friend Michael," said he, "your new and interesting idea we shall +discuss at a more favorable opportunity. At present we want to know +where all these cocks and hens have come from." + +"These cocks and hens?" + +"Yes." + +Ardan threw a glance of comical bewilderment on half a dozen or so of +splendid barn-yard fowls that were now beginning to recover from the +effects of the oxygen. For an instant he could not utter a word; then, +shrugging his shoulders, he muttered in a low voice: + +"Catastrophe prematurely exploded!" + +"What are you going to do with these chickens?" persisted Barbican. + +"Acclimatize them in the Moon, by Jove! what else?" was the ready reply. + +"Why conceal them then?" + +"A hoax, a poor hoax, dear President, which proves a miserable failure! +I intended to let them loose on the Lunar Continent at the first +favorable opportunity. I often had a good laugh to myself, thinking of +your astonishment and the Captain's at seeing a lot of American poultry +scratching for worms on a Lunar dunghill!" + +"Ah! wag, jester, incorrigible _farceur_!" cried Barbican with a smile; +"you want no nitrous oxide to put a bee in your bonnet! He is always as +bad as you and I were for a short time, M'Nicholl, under the laughing +gas! He's never had a sensible moment in his life!" + +"I can't say the same of you," replied Ardan; "you had at least one +sensible moment in all your lives, and that was about an hour ago!" + +Their incessant chattering did not prevent the friends from at once +repairing the disorder of the interior of the Projectile. Cocks and hens +were put back in their cages. But while doing so, the friends were +astonished to find that the birds, though good sized creatures, and now +pretty fat and plump, hardly felt heavier in their hands than if they +had been so many sparrows. This drew their interested attention to a new +phenomenon. + +From the moment they had left the Earth, their own weight, and that of +the Projectile and the objects therein contained, had been undergoing a +progressive diminution. They might never be able to ascertain this fact +with regard to the Projectile, but the moment was now rapidly +approaching when the loss of weight would become perfectly sensible, +both regarding themselves and the tools and instruments surrounding +them. Of course, it is quite clear, that this decrease could not be +indicated by an ordinary scales, as the weight to balance the object +would have lost precisely as much as the object itself. But a spring +balance, for instance, in which the tension of the coil is independent +of attraction, would have readily given the exact equivalent of the +loss. + +Attraction or weight, according to Newton's well known law, acting in +direct proportion to the mass of the attracting body and in inverse +proportion to the square of the distance, this consequence clearly +follows: Had the Earth been alone in space, or had the other heavenly +bodies been suddenly annihilated, the further from the Earth the +Projectile would be, the less weight it would have. However, it would +never _entirely_ lose its weight, as the terrestrial attraction would +have always made itself felt at no matter what distance. But as the +Earth is not the only celestial body possessing attraction, it is +evident that there may be a point in space where the respective +attractions may be entirely annihilated by mutual counteraction. Of this +phenomenon the present instance was a case in point. In a short time, +the Projectile and its contents would for a few moments be absolutely +and completely deprived of all weight whatsoever. + +The path described by the Projectile was evidently a line from the Earth +to the Moon averaging somewhat less than 240,000 miles in length. +According as the distance between the Projectile and the Earth was +increasing, the terrestrial attraction was diminishing in the ratio of +the square of the distance, and the lunar attraction was augmenting in +the same proportion. + +As before observed, the point was not now far off where, the two +attractions counteracting each other, the bullet would actually weigh +nothing at all. If the masses of the Earth and the Moon had been equal, +this should evidently be found half way between the two bodies. But by +making allowance for the difference of the respective masses, it was +easy to calculate that this point would be situated at the 9/10 of the +total distance, or, in round numbers, at something less than 216,000 +miles from the Earth. + +At this point, a body that possessed no energy or principle of movement +within itself, would remain forever, relatively motionless, suspended +like Mahomet's coffin, being equally attracted by the two orbs and +nothing impelling it in one direction rather than in the other. + +Now the Projectile at this moment was nearing this point; if it reached +it, what would be the consequence? + +To this question three answers presented themselves, all possible under +the circumstances, but very different in their results. + +1. Suppose the Projectile to possess velocity enough to pass the neutral +point. In such case, it would undoubtedly proceed onward to the Moon, +being drawn thither by Lunar attraction. + +2. Suppose it lacked the requisite velocity for reaching the neutral +point. In such a case it would just as certainly fall back to the Earth, +in obedience to the law of Terrestrial attraction. + +3. Suppose it to be animated by just sufficient velocity to reach the +neutral point, but not to pass it. In that case, the Projectile would +remain forever in the same spot, perfectly motionless as far as regards +the Earth and the Moon, though of course following them both in their +annual orbits round the Sun. + +Such was now the state of things, which Barbican tried to explain to his +friends, who, it need hardly be said, listened to his remarks with the +most intense interest. How were they to know, they asked him, the +precise instant at which the Projectile would reach the neutral point? +That would be an easy matter, he assured them. It would be at the very +moment when both themselves and all the other objects contained in the +Projectile would be completely free from every operation of the law of +gravity; in other words, when everything would cease to have weight. + +This gradual diminution of the action of gravity, the travellers had +been for some time noticing, but they had not yet witnessed its total +cessation. But that very morning, about an hour before noon, as the +Captain was making some little experiment in Chemistry, he happened by +accident to overturn a glass full of water. What was his surprise at +seeing that neither the glass nor the water fell to the floor! Both +remained suspended in the air almost completely motionless. + +"The prettiest experiment I ever saw!" cried Ardan; "let us have more of +it!" + +And seizing the bottles, the arms, and the other objects in the +Projectile, he arranged them around each other in the air with some +regard to symmetry and proportion. The different articles, keeping +strictly each in its own place, formed a very attractive group wonderful +to behold. Diana, placed in the apex of the pyramid, would remind you of +those marvellous suspensions in the air performed by Houdin, Herman, and +a few other first class wizards. Only being kept in her place without +being hampered by invisible strings, the animal rather seemed to enjoy +the exhibition, though in all probability she was hardly conscious of +any thing unusual in her appearance. + +Our travellers had been fully prepared for such a phenomenon, yet it +struck them with as much surprise as if they had never uttered a +scientific reason to account for it. They saw that, no longer subject to +the ordinary laws of nature, they were now entering the realms of the +marvellous. They felt that their bodies were absolutely without weight. +Their arms, fully extended, no longer sought their sides. Their heads +oscillated unsteadily on their shoulders. Their feet no longer rested on +the floor. In their efforts to hold themselves straight, they looked +like drunken men trying to maintain the perpendicular. We have all read +stories of some men deprived of the power of reflecting light and of +others who could not cast a shadow. But here reality, no fantastic +story, showed you men who, through the counteraction of attractive +forces, could tell no difference between light substances and heavy +substances, and who absolutely had no weight whatever themselves! + +"Let us take graceful attitudes!" cried Ardan, "and imagine we are +playing _tableaux_! Let us, for instance, form a grand historical group +of the three great goddesses of the nineteenth century. Barbican will +represent Minerva or _Science_; the Captain, Bellona or _War_; while I, +as Madre Natura, the newly born goddess of _Progress_, floating +gracefully over you both, extend my hands so, fondly patronizing the +one, but grandly ordering off the other, to the regions of eternal +night! More on your toe, Captain! Your right foot a little higher! Look +at Barbican's admirable pose! Now then, prepare to receive orders for a +new tableau! Form group _a la Jardin Mabille!_ Presto! Change!" + +In an instant, our travellers, changing attitudes, formed the new group +with tolerable success. Even Barbican, who had been to Paris in his +youth, yielding for a moment to the humor of the thing, acted the _naif +Anglais_ to the life. The Captain was frisky enough to remind you of a +middle-aged Frenchman from the provinces, on a hasty visit to the +capital for a few days' fun. Ardan was in raptures. + +"Oh! if Raphael could only see us!" he exclaimed in a kind of ecstasy. +"He would paint such a picture as would throw all his other masterpieces +in the shade!" + +"Knock spots out of the best of them by fifty per cent!" cried the +Captain, gesticulating well enough _a l'etudiant_, but rather mixing his +metaphors. + +[Illustration: A GROUP _A LA JARDIN MABILLE_.] + +"He should be pretty quick in getting through the job," observed +Barbican, the first as usual to recover tranquillity. "As soon as the +Projectile will have passed the neutral point--in half an hour at +longest--lunar attraction will draw us to the Moon." + +"We shall have to crawl on the ceiling then like flies," said Ardan. + +"Not at all," said the Captain; "the Projectile, having its centre of +gravity very low, will turn upside down by degrees." + +"Upside down!" cried Ardan. "That will be a nice mess! everything +higgledy-piggledy!" + +"No danger, friend Michael," said M'Nicholl; "there shall be no disorder +whatever; nothing will quit its place; the movement of the Projectile +will be effected by such slow degrees as to be imperceptible." + +"Yes," added Barbican, "as soon as we shall have passed the neutral +point, the base of the Projectile, its heaviest part, will swing around +gradually until it faces the Moon. Before this phenomenon, however, can +take place, we must of course cross the line." + +"Cross the line!" cried the Frenchman; "then let us imitate the sailors +when they do the same thing in the Atlantic Ocean! Splice the main +brace!" + +A slight effort carried him sailing over to the side of the Projectile. +Opening a cupboard and taking out a bottle and a few glasses, he placed +them on a tray. Then setting the tray itself in the air as on a table in +front of his companions, he filled the glasses, passed them around, and, +in a lively speech interrupted with many a joyous hurrah, congratulated +his companions on their glorious achievement in being the first that +ever crossed the lunar line. + +This counteracting influence of the attractions lasted nearly an hour. +By that time the travellers could keep themselves on the floor without +much effort. Barbican also made his companions remark that the conical +point of the Projectile diverged a little from the direct line to the +Moon, while by an inverse movement, as they could notice through the +window of the floor, the base was gradually turning away from the Earth. +The Lunar attraction was evidently getting the better of the +Terrestrial. The fall towards the Moon, though still almost insensible, +was certainly beginning. + +It could not be more than the eightieth part of an inch in the first +second. But by degrees, as the attractive force would increase, the fall +would be more decided, and the Projectile, overbalanced by its base, and +presenting its cone to the Earth, would descend with accelerated +velocity to the Lunar surface. The object of their daring attempt would +then be successfully attained. No further obstacle, therefore, being +likely to stand in the way of the complete success of the enterprise, +the Captain and the Frenchman cordially shook hands with Barbican, all +kept congratulating each other on their good fortune as long as the +bottle lasted. + +They could not talk enough about the wonderful phenomenon lately +witnessed; the chief point, the neutralization of the law of gravity, +particularly, supplied them with an inexhaustible subject. The +Frenchman, as usual, as enthusiastic in his fancy, as he was fanciful in +his enthusiasm, got off some characteristic remarks. + +"What a fine thing it would be, my boys," he exclaimed, "if on Earth we +could be so fortunate as we have been here, and get rid of that weight +that keeps us down like lead, that rivets us to it like an adamantine +chain! Then should we prisoners become free! Adieu forever to all +weariness of arms or feet! At present, in order to fly over the surface +of the Earth by the simple exertion of our muscles or even to sustain +ourselves in the air, we require a muscular force fifty times greater +than we possess; but if attraction did not exist, the simplest act of +the will, our slightest whim even, would be sufficient to transport us +to whatever part of space we wished to visit." + +"Ardan, you had better invent something to kill attraction," observed +M'Nicholl drily; "you can do it if you try. Jackson and Morton have +killed pain by sulphuric ether. Suppose you try your hand on +attraction!" + +"It would be worth a trial!" cried Ardan, so full of his subject as not +to notice the Captain's jeering tone; "attraction once destroyed, there +is an end forever to all loads, packs and burdens! How the poor omnibus +horses would rejoice! Adieu forever to all cranes, derricks, capstans, +jack-screws, and even hotel-elevators! We could dispense with all +ladders, door steps, and even stair-cases!" + +"And with all houses too," interrupted Barbican; "or, at least, we +_should_ dispense with them because we could not have them. If there was +no weight, you could neither make a wall of bricks nor cover your house +with a roof. Even your hat would not stay on your head. The cars would +not stay on the railway nor the boats on the water. What do I say? We +could not have any water. Even the Ocean would leave its bed and float +away into space. Nay, the atmosphere itself would leave us, being +detained in its place by terrestrial attraction and by nothing else." + +"Too true, Mr. President," replied Ardan after a pause. "It's a fact. I +acknowledge the corn, as Marston says. But how you positive fellows do +knock holes into our pretty little creations of fancy!" + +"Don't feel so bad about it, Ardan;" observed M'Nicholl; "though there +may be no orb from which gravity is excluded altogether, we shall soon +land in one, where it is much less powerful than on the Earth." + +"You mean the Moon!" + +"Yes, the Moon. Her mass being 1/89 of the Earth's, her attractive power +should be in the same proportion; that is, a boy 10 years old, whose +weight on Earth is about 90 lbs., would weigh on the Moon only about 1 +pound, if nothing else were to be taken into consideration. But when +standing on the surface of the Moon, he is relatively 4 times nearer to +the centre than when he is standing on the surface of the Earth. His +weight, therefore, having to be increased by the square of the distance, +must be sixteen times greater. Now 16 times 1/89 being less than 1/5, it +is clear that my weight of 150 pounds will be cut down to nearly 30 as +soon as we reach the Moon's surface." + +"And mine?" asked Ardan. + +"Yours will hardly reach 25 pounds, I should think," was the reply. + +"Shall my muscular strength diminish in the same proportion?" was the +next question. + +"On the contrary, it will be relatively so much the more increased that +you can take a stride 15 feet in width as easily as you can now take one +of ordinary length." + +"We shall be all Samsons, then, in the Moon!" cried Ardan. + +"Especially," replied M'Nicholl, "if the stature of the Selenites is in +proportion to the mass of their globe." + +"If so, what should be their height?" + +"A tall man would hardly be twelve inches in his boots!" + +"They must be veritable Lilliputians then!" cried Ardan; "and we are all +to be Gullivers! The old myth of the Giants realized! Perhaps the Titans +that played such famous parts in the prehistoric period of our Earth, +were adventurers like ourselves, casually arrived from some great +planet!" + +"Not from such planets as _Mercury_, _Venus_ or _Mars_ anyhow, friend +Michael," observed Barbican. "But the inhabitants of _Jupiter_, +_Saturn_, _Uranus,_ or _Neptune_, if they bear the same proportion to +their planet that we do ours, must certainly be regular Brobdignagians." + +"Let us keep severely away from all planets of the latter class then," +said Ardan. "I never liked to play the part of Lilliputian myself. But +how about the Sun, Barbican? I always had a hankering after the Sun!" + +"The Sun's volume is about 1-1/3 million times greater than that of the +Earth, but his density being only about 1/4, the attraction on his +surface is hardly 30 times greater than that of our globe. Still, every +proportion observed, the inhabitants of the Sun can't be much less than +150 or 160 feet in height." + +"_Mille tonnerres!_" cried Ardan, "I should be there like Ulysses among +the Cyclops! I'll tell you what it is, Barbican; if we ever decide on +going to the Sun, we must provide ourselves before hand with a few of +your Rodman's Columbiads to frighten off the Solarians!" + +"Your Columbiads would not do great execution there," observed +M'Nicholl; "your bullet would be hardly out of the barrel when it would +drop to the surface like a heavy stone pushed off the wall of a house." + +"Oh! I like that!" laughed the incredulous Ardan. + +"A little calculation, however, shows the Captain's remark to be +perfectly just," said Barbican. "Rodman's ordinary 15 inch Columbiad +requires a charge of 100 pounds of mammoth powder to throw a ball of +500 pounds weight. What could such a charge do with a ball weighing 30 +times as much or 15,000 pounds? Reflect on the enormous weight +everything must have on the surface of the Sun! Your hat, for instance, +would weigh 20 or 30 pounds. Your cigar nearly a pound. In short, your +own weight on the Sun's surface would be so great, more than two tons, +that if you ever fell you should never be able to pick yourself up +again!" + +"Yes," added the Captain, "and whenever you wanted to eat or drink you +should rig up a set of powerful machinery to hoist the eatables and +drinkables into your mouth." + +"Enough of the Sun to-day, boys!" cried Ardan, shrugging his shoulders; +"I don't contemplate going there at present. Let us be satisfied with +the Moon! There, at least, we shall be of some account!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A LITTLE OFF THE TRACK. + + +Barbican's mind was now completely at rest at least on one subject. The +original force of the discharge had been great enough to send the +Projectile beyond the neutral line. Therefore, there was no longer any +danger of its falling back to the Earth. Therefore, there was no longer +any danger of its resting eternally motionless on the point of the +counteracting attractions. The next subject to engage his attention was +the question: would the Projectile, under the influence of lunar +attraction, succeed in reaching its destination? + +The only way in which it _could_ succeed was by falling through a space +of nearly 24,000 miles and then striking the Moon's surface. A most +terrific fall! Even taking the lunar attraction to be only the one-sixth +of the Earth's, such a fall was simply bewildering to think of. The +greatest height to which a balloon ever ascended was seven miles +(Glaisher, 1862). Imagine a fall from even that distance! Then imagine a +fall from a height of four thousand miles! + +Yet it was for a fall of this appalling kind on the surface of the Moon +that the travellers had now to prepare themselves. Instead of avoiding +it, however, they eagerly desired it and would be very much +disappointed if they missed it. They had taken the best precautions they +could devise to guard against the terrific shock. These were mainly of +two kinds: one was intended to counteract as much as possible the +fearful results to be expected the instant the Projectile touched the +lunar surface; the other, to retard the velocity of the fall itself, and +thereby to render it less violent. + +The best arrangement of the first kind was certainly Barbican's +water-contrivance for counteracting the shock at starting, which has +been so fully described in our former volume. (See _Baltimore Gun Club_, +page 353.) But unfortunately it could be no longer employed. Even if the +partitions were in working order, the water--two thousand pounds in +weight had been required--was no longer to be had. The little still left +in the tanks was of no account for such a purpose. Besides, they had not +a single drop of the precious liquid to spare, for they were as yet +anything but sanguine regarding the facility of finding water on the +Moon's surface. + +Fortunately, however, as the gentle reader may remember, Barbican, +besides using water to break the concussion, had provided the movable +disc with stout pillars containing a strong buffing apparatus, intended +to protect it from striking the bottom too violently after the +destruction of the different partitions. These buffers were still good, +and, gravity being as yet almost imperceptible, to put them once more in +order and adjust them to the disc was not a difficult task. + +The travellers set to work at once and soon accomplished it. The +different pieces were put together readily--a mere matter of bolts and +screws, with plenty of tools to manage them. In a short time the +repaired disc rested on its steel buffers, like a table on its legs, or +rather like a sofa seat on its springs. The new arrangement was attended +with at least one disadvantage. The bottom light being covered up, a +convenient view of the Moon's surface could not be had as soon as they +should begin to fall in a perpendicular descent. This, however, was only +a slight matter, as the side lights would permit the adventurers to +enjoy quite as favorable a view of the vast regions of the Moon as is +afforded to balloon travellers when looking down on the Earth over the +sides of their car. + +The disc arrangement was completed in about an hour, but it was not till +past twelve o'clock before things were restored to their usual order. +Barbican then tried to make fresh observations regarding the inclination +of the Projectile; but to his very decided chagrin he found that it had +not yet turned over sufficiently to commence the perpendicular fall: on +the contrary, it even seemed to be following a curve rather parallel +with that of the lunar disc. The Queen of the Stars now glittered with a +light more dazzling than ever, whilst from an opposite part of the sky +the glorious King of Day flooded her with his fires. + +The situation began to look a little serious. + +"Shall we ever get there!" asked the Captain. + +"Let us be prepared for getting there, any how," was Barbican's dubious +reply. + +"You're a pretty pair of suspenders," said Ardan cheerily (he meant of +course doubting hesitators, but his fluent command of English sometimes +led him into such solecisms). "Certainly we shall get there--and perhaps +a little sooner than will be good for us." + +This reply sharply recalled Barbican to the task he had undertaken, and +he now went to work seriously, trying to combine arrangements to break +the fall. The reader may perhaps remember Ardan's reply to the Captain +on the day of the famous meeting in Tampa. + +"Your fall would be violent enough," the Captain had urged, "to splinter +you like glass into a thousand fragments." + +"And what shall prevent me," had been Ardan's ready reply, "from +breaking my fall by means of counteracting rockets suitably disposed, +and let off at the proper time?" + +The practical utility of this idea had at once impressed Barbican. It +could hardly be doubted that powerful rockets, fastened on the outside +to the bottom of the Projectile, could, when discharged, considerably +retard the velocity of the fall by their sturdy recoil. They could burn +in a vacuum by means of oxygen furnished by themselves, as powder burns +in the chamber of a gun, or as the volcanoes of the Moon continue their +action regardless of the absence of a lunar atmosphere. + +Barbican had therefore provided himself with rockets enclosed in strong +steel gun barrels, grooved on the outside so that they could be screwed +into corresponding holes already made with much care in the bottom of +the Projectile. They were just long enough, when flush with the floor +inside, to project outside by about six inches. They were twenty in +number, and formed two concentric circles around the dead light. Small +holes in the disc gave admission to the wires by which each of the +rockets was to be discharged externally by electricity. The whole effect +was therefore to be confined to the outside. The mixtures having been +already carefully deposited in each barrel, nothing further need be done +than to take away the metallic plugs which had been screwed into the +bottom of the Projectile, and replace them by the rockets, every one of +which was found to fit its grooved chamber with rigid exactness. + +This evidently should have been all done before the disc had been +finally laid on its springs. But as this had to be lifted up again in +order to reach the bottom of the Projectile, more work was to be done +than was strictly necessary. Though the labor was not very hard, +considering that gravity had as yet scarcely made itself felt, M'Nicholl +and Ardan were not sorry to have their little joke at Barbican's +expense. The Frenchman began humming + + "_Aliquandoque bonus dormitat Homerus,_" + +to a tune from _Orphee aux Enfers_, and the Captain said something +about the Philadelphia Highway Commissioners who pave a street one day, +and tear it up the next to lay the gas pipes. But his friends' humor was +all lost on Barbican, who was so wrapped up in his work that he probably +never heard a word they said. + +Towards three o'clock every preparation was made, every possible +precaution taken, and now our bold adventurers had nothing more to do +than watch and wait. + +The Projectile was certainly approaching the Moon. It had by this time +turned over considerably under the influence of attraction, but its own +original motion still followed a decidedly oblique direction. The +consequence of these two forces might possibly be a tangent, line +approaching the edge of the Moon's disc. One thing was certain: the +Projectile had not yet commenced to fall directly towards her surface; +its base, in which its centre of gravity lay, was still turned away +considerably from the perpendicular. + +Barbican's countenance soon showed perplexity and even alarm. His +Projectile was proving intractable to the laws of gravitation. The +_unknown_ was opening out dimly before him, the great boundless unknown +of the starry plains. In his pride and confidence as a scientist, he had +flattered himself with having sounded the consequence of every possible +hypothesis regarding the Projectile's ultimate fate: the return to the +Earth; the arrival at the Moon; and the motionless dead stop at the +neutral point. But here, a new and incomprehensible fourth hypothesis, +big with the terrors of the mystic infinite, rose up before his +disturbed mind, like a grim and hollow ghost. After a few seconds, +however, he looked at it straight in the face without wincing. His +companions showed themselves just as firm. Whether it was science that +emboldened Barbican, his phlegmatic stoicism that propped up the +Captain, or his enthusiastic vivacity that cheered the irrepressible +Ardan, I cannot exactly say. But certainly they were all soon talking +over the matter as calmly as you or I would discuss the advisability of +taking a sail on the lake some beautiful evening in July. + +Their first remarks were decidedly peculiar and quite characteristic. +Other men would have asked themselves where the Projectile was taking +them to. Do you think such a question ever occurred to them? Not a bit +of it. They simply began asking each other what could have been the +cause of this new and strange state of things. + +"Off the track, it appears," observed Ardan. "How's that?" + +"My opinion is," answered the Captain, "that the Projectile was not +aimed true. Every possible precaution had been taken, I am well aware, +but we all know that an inch, a line, even the tenth part of a hair's +breadth wrong at the start would have sent us thousands of miles off our +course by this time." + +"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked Ardan. + +"I don't think there was any error at the start," was the confident +reply; "not even so much as a line! We took too many tests proving the +absolute perpendicularity of the Columbiad, to entertain the slightest +doubt on that subject. Its direction towards the zenith being +incontestable, I don't see why we should not reach the Moon when she +comes to the zenith." + +"Perhaps we're behind time," suggested Ardan. + +"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked the Captain. "You know +the Cambridge men said the journey had to be done in 97 hours 13 minutes +and 20 seconds. That's as much as to say that if we're not up to time we +shall miss the Moon." + +"Correct," said Barbican. "But we _can't_ be behind time. We started, +you know, on December 1st, at 13 minutes and 20 seconds before 11 +o'clock, and we were to arrive four days later at midnight precisely. +To-day is December 5th Gentlemen, please examine your watches. It is now +half past three in the afternoon. Eight hours and a half are sufficient +to take us to our journey's end. Why should we not arrive there?" + +"How about being ahead of time?" asked the Captain. + +"Just so!" said Ardan. "You know we have discovered the initial velocity +to have been greater than was expected." + +"Not at all! not at all!" cried Barbican "A slight excess of velocity +would have done no harm whatever had the direction of the Projectile +been perfectly true. No. There must have been a digression. We must have +been switched off!" + +"Switched off? By what?" asked both his listeners in one breath. + +"I can't tell," said Barbican curtly. + +"Well!" said Ardan; "if Barbican can't tell, there is an end to all +further talk on the subject. We're switched off--that's enough for me. +What has done it? I don't care. Where are we going to? I don't care. +What is the use of pestering our brains about it? We shall soon find +out. We are floating around in space, and we shall end by hauling up +somewhere or other." + +But in this indifference Barbican was far from participating. Not that +he was not prepared to meet the future with a bold and manly heart. It +was his inability to answer his own question that rendered him uneasy. +What _had_ switched them off? He would have given worlds for an answer, +but his brain sorely puzzled sought one in vain. + +In the mean time, the Projectile continued to turn its side rather than +its base towards the Moon; that is, to assume a lateral rather than a +direct movement, and this movement was fully participated in by the +multitude of the objects that had been thrown outside. Barbican could +even convince himself by sighting several points on the lunar surface, +by this time hardly more than fifteen or eighteen thousand miles +distant, that the velocity of the Projectile instead of accelerating was +becoming more and more uniform. This was another proof that there was +no perpendicular fall. However, though the original impulsive force was +still superior to the Moon's attraction, the travellers were evidently +approaching the lunar disc, and there was every reason to hope that they +would at last reach a point where, the lunar attraction at last having +the best of it, a decided fall should be the result. + +The three friends, it need hardly be said, continued to make their +observations with redoubled interest, if redoubled interest were +possible. But with all their care they could as yet determine nothing +regarding the topographical details of our radiant satellite. Her +surface still reflected the solar rays too dazzlingly to show the relief +necessary for satisfactory observation. + +Our travellers kept steadily on the watch looking out of the side +lights, till eight o'clock in the evening, by which time the Moon had +grown so large in their eyes that she covered up fully half the sky. At +this time the Projectile itself must have looked like a streak of light, +reflecting, as it did, the Sun's brilliancy on the one side and the +Moon's splendor on the other. + +Barbican now took a careful observation and calculated that they could +not be much more than 2,000 miles from the object of their journey. The +velocity of the Projectile he calculated to be about 650 feet per second +or 450 miles an hour. They had therefore still plenty of time to reach +the Moon in about four hours. But though the bottom of the Projectile +continued to turn towards the lunar surface in obedience to the law of +centripetal force, the centrifugal force was still evidently strong +enough to change the path which it followed into some kind of curve, the +exact nature of which would be exceedingly difficult to calculate. + +The careful observations that Barbican continued to take did not however +prevent him from endeavoring to solve his difficult problem. What _had_ +switched them off? The hours passed on, but brought no result. That the +adventurers were approaching the Moon was evident, but it was just as +evident that they should never reach her. The nearest point the +Projectile could ever possibly attain would only be the result of two +opposite forces, the attractive and the repulsive, which, as was now +clear, influenced its motion. Therefore, to land in the Moon was an +utter impossibility, and any such idea was to be given up at once and +for ever. + +"_Quand meme_! What of it!" cried Ardan; after some moments' silence. +"We're not to land in the Moon! Well! let us do the next best +thing--pass close enough to discover her secrets!" + +But M'Nicholl could not accept the situation so coolly. On the contrary, +he decidedly lost his temper, as is occasionally the case with even +phlegmatic men. He muttered an oath or two, but in a voice hardly loud +enough to reach Barbican's ear. At last, impatient of further restraint, +he burst out: + +"Who the deuce cares for her secrets? To the hangman with her secrets! +We started to land in the Moon! That's what's got to be done! That I +want or nothing! Confound the darned thing, I say, whatever it was, +whether on the Earth or off it, that shoved us off the track!" + +"On the Earth or off it!" cried Barbican, striking his head suddenly; +"now I see it! You're right, Captain! Confound the bolide that we met +the first night of our journey!" + +"Hey?" cried Ardan. + +"What do you mean?" asked M'Nicholl. + +"I mean," replied Barbican, with a voice now perfectly calm, and in a +tone of quiet conviction, "that our deviation is due altogether to that +wandering meteor." + +"Why, it did not even graze us!" cried Ardan. + +"No matter for that," replied Barbican. "Its mass, compared to ours, was +enormous, and its attraction was undoubtedly sufficiently great to +influence our deviation." + +"Hardly enough to be appreciable," urged M'Nicholl. + +"Right again, Captain," observed Barbican. "But just remember an +observation of your own made this very afternoon: an inch, a line, even +the tenth part of a hair's breadth wrong at the beginning, in a journey +of 240 thousand miles, would be sufficient to make us miss the Moon!" + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON. + + +Barbican's happy conjecture had probably hit the nail on the head. The +divergency even of a second may amount to millions of miles if you only +have your lines long enough. The Projectile had certainly gone off its +direct course; whatever the cause, the fact was undoubted. It was a +great pity. The daring attempt must end in a failure due altogether to a +fortuitous accident, against which no human foresight could have +possibly taken precaution. Unless in case of the occurrence of some +other most improbable accident, reaching the Moon was evidently now +impossible. To failure, therefore, our travellers had to make up their +minds. + +But was nothing to be gained by the trip? Though missing actual contact +with the Moon, might they not pass near enough to solve several problems +in physics and geology over which scientists had been for a long time +puzzling their brains in vain? Even this would be some compensation for +all their trouble, courage, and intelligence. As to what was to be their +own fate, to what doom were themselves to be reserved--they never +appeared to think of such a thing. They knew very well that in the midst +of those infinite solitudes they should soon find themselves without +air. The slight supply that kept them from smothering could not +possibly last more than five or six days longer. Five or six days! What +of that? _Quand meme_! as Ardan often exclaimed. Five or six days were +centuries to our bold adventurers! At present every second was a year in +events, and infinitely too precious to be squandered away in mere +preparations for possible contingencies. The Moon could never be +reached, but was it not possible that her surface could be carefully +observed? This they set themselves at once to find out. + +The distance now separating them from our Satellite they estimated at +about 400 miles. Therefore relatively to their power of discovering the +details of her disc, they were still farther off from the Moon than some +of our modern astronomers are to-day, when provided with their powerful +telescopes. + +We know, for example, that Lord Rosse's great telescope at Parsonstown, +possessing a power of magnifying 6000 times, brings the Moon to within +40 miles of us; not to speak of Barbican's great telescope on the summit +of Long's Peak, by which the Moon, magnified 48,000 times, was brought +within 5 miles of the Earth, where it therefore could reveal with +sufficient distinctness every object above 40 feet in diameter. + +Therefore our adventurers, though at such a comparatively small +distance, could not make out the topographical details of the Moon with +any satisfaction by their unaided vision. The eye indeed could easily +enough catch the rugged outline of these vast depressions improperly +called "Seas," but it could do very little more. Its powers of +adjustability seemed to fail before the strange and bewildering scene. +The prominence of the mountains vanished, not only through the +foreshortening, but also in the dazzling radiation produced by the +direct reflection of the solar rays. After a short time therefore, +completely foiled by the blinding glare, the eye turned itself +unwillingly away, as if from a furnace of molten silver. + +The spherical surface, however, had long since begun to reveal its +convexity. The Moon was gradually assuming the appearance of a gigantic +egg with the smaller end turned towards the Earth. In the earlier days +of her formation, while still in a state of mobility, she had been +probably a perfect sphere in shape, but, under the influence of +terrestrial gravity operating for uncounted ages, she was drawn at last +so much towards the centre of attraction as to resemble somewhat a +prolate spheriod. By becoming a satellite, she had lost the native +perfect regularity of her outline; her centre of gravity had shifted +from her real centre; and as a result of this arrangement, some +scientists have drawn the conclusion that the Moon's air and water have +been attracted to that portion of her surface which is always invisible +to the inhabitants of the Earth. + +The convexity of her outline, this bulging prominence of her surface, +however, did not last long. The travellers were getting too near to +notice it. They were beginning to survey the Moon as balloonists survey +the Earth. The Projectile was now moving with great rapidity--with +nothing like its initial velocity, but still eight or nine times faster +than an express train. Its line of movement, however, being oblique +instead of direct, was so deceptive as to induce Ardan to flatter +himself that they might still reach the lunar surface. He could never +persuade himself to believe that they should get so near their aim and +still miss it. No; nothing might, could, would or should induce him to +believe it, he repeated again and again. But Barbican's pitiless logic +left him no reply. + +"No, dear friend, no. We can reach the Moon only by a fall, and we don't +fall. Centripetal force keeps us at least for a while under the lunar +influence, but centrifugal force drives us away irresistibly." + +These words were uttered in a tone that killed Ardan's last and fondest +hope. + + * * * * * + +The portion of the Moon they were now approaching was her northern +hemisphere, found usually in the lower part of lunar maps. The lens of a +telescope, as is well known, gives only the inverted image of the +object; therefore, when an upright image is required, an additional +glass must be used. But as every additional glass is an additional +obstruction to the light, the object glass of a Lunar telescope is +employed without a corrector; light is thereby saved, and in viewing the +Moon, as in viewing a map, it evidently makes very little difference +whether we see her inverted or not. Maps of the Moon therefore, being +drawn from the image formed by the telescope, show the north in the +lower part, and _vice versa_. Of this kind was the _Mappa +Selenographica_, by Beer and Maedler, so often previously alluded to and +now carefully consulted by Barbican. The northern hemisphere, towards +which they were now rapidly approaching, presented a strong contrast +with the southern, by its vast plains and great depressions, checkered +here and there by very remarkable isolated mountains.[A] + +At midnight the Moon was full. This was the precise moment at which the +travellers would have landed had not that unlucky bolide drawn them off +the track. The Moon was therefore strictly up to time, arriving at the +instant rigidly determined by the Cambridge Observatory. She occupied +the exact point, to a mathematical nicety, where our 28th parallel +crossed the perigee. An observer posted in the bottom of the Columbiad +at Stony Hill, would have found himself at this moment precisely under +the Moon. The axis of the enormous gun, continued upwards vertically, +would have struck the orb of night exactly in her centre. + +It is hardly necessary to tell our readers that, during this memorable +night of the 5th and 6th of December, the travellers had no desire to +close their eyes. Could they do so, even if they had desired? No! All +their faculties, thoughts, and desires, were concentrated in one single +word: "Look!" Representatives of the Earth, and of all humanity past and +present, they felt that it was with their eyes that the race of man +contemplated the lunar regions and penetrated the secrets of our +satellite! A certain indescribable emotion therefore, combined with an +undefined sense of responsibility, held possession of their hearts, as +they moved silently from window to window. + +Their observations, recorded by Barbican, were vigorously remade, +revised, and re-determined, by the others. To make them, they had +telescopes which they now began to employ with great advantage. To +regulate and investigate them, they had the best maps of the day. + +Whilst occupied in this silent work, they could not help throwing a +short retrospective glance on the former Observers of the Moon. + +The first of these was Galileo. His slight telescope magnified only +thirty times, still, in the spots flecking the lunar surface, like the +eyes checkering a peacock's tail, he was the first to discover mountains +and even to measure their heights. These, considering the difficulties +under which he labored, were wonderfully accurate, but unfortunately he +made no map embodying his observations. + +A few years afterwards, Hevel of Dantzic, (1611-1688) a Polish +astronomer--more generally known as Hevelius, his works being all +written in Latin--undertook to correct Galileo's measurements. But as +his method could be strictly accurate only twice a month--the periods of +the first and second quadratures--his rectifications could be hardly +called successful. + +Still it is to the labors of this eminent astronomer, carried on +uninterruptedly for fifty years in his own observatory, that we owe the +first map of the Moon. It was published in 1647 under the name of +_Selenographia_. He represented the circular mountains by open spots +somewhat round in shape, and by shaded figures he indicated the vast +plains, or, as he called them, the _seas_, that occupied so much of her +surface. These he designated by names taken from our Earth. His map +shows you a _Mount Sinai_ the midst of an _Arabia_, an _AEtna_ in the +centre of a _Sicily_, _Alps_, _Apennines_, _Carpathians_, a +_Mediterranean_, a _Palus Maeolis_, a _Pontus Euxinus_, and a _Caspian +Sea_. But these names seem to have been given capriciously and at +random, for they never recall any resemblance existing between +themselves and their namesakes on our globe. In the wide open spot, for +instance, connected on the south with vast continents and terminating in +a point, it would be no easy matter to recognize the reversed image of +the _Indian Peninsula_, the _Bay of Bengal_, and _Cochin China_. +Naturally, therefore, these names were nearly all soon dropped; but +another system of nomenclature, proposed by an astronomer better +acquainted with the human heart, met with a success that has lasted to +the present day. + +This was Father Riccioli, a Jesuit, and (1598-1671) a contemporary of +Hevelius. In his _Astronomia Reformata_, (1665), he published a rough +and incorrect map of the Moon, compiled from observations made by +Grimaldi of Ferrara; but in designating the mountains, he named them +after eminent astronomers, and this idea of his has been carefully +carried out by map makers of later times. + +A third map of the Moon was published at Rome in 1666 by Dominico +Cassini of Nice (1625-1712), the famous discoverer of Saturn's +satellites. Though somewhat incorrect regarding measurements, it was +superior to Riccioli's in execution, and for a long time it was +considered a standard work. Copies of this map are still to be found, +but Cassini's original copper-plate, preserved for a long time at the +_Imprimerie Royale_ in Paris, was at last sold to a brazier, by no less +a personage than the Director of the establishment himself, who, +according to Arago, wanted to get rid of what he considered useless +lumber! + +La Hire (1640-1718), professor of astronomy in the _College de France_, +and an accomplished draughtsman, drew a map of the Moon which was +thirteen feet in diameter. This map could be seen long afterwards in the +library of St. Genevieve, Paris, but it was never engraved. + +About 1760, Mayer, a famous German astronomer and the director of the +observatory of Goettingen, began the publication of a magnificent map of +the Moon, drawn after lunar measurements all rigorously verified by +himself. Unfortunately his death in 1762 interrupted a work which would +have surpassed in accuracy every previous effort of the kind. + +Next appears Schroeter of Erfurt (1745-1816), a fine observer (he first +discovered the Lunar _Rills_), but a poor draughtsman: his maps are +therefore of little value. Lohrman of Dresden published in 1838 an +excellent map of the Moon, 15 inches in diameter, accompanied by +descriptive text and several charts of particular portions on a larger +scale. + +But this and all other maps were thrown completely into the shade by +Beer and Maedler's famous _Mappa Selenographica_, so often alluded to in +the course of this work. This map, projected orthographically--that is, +one in which all the rays proceeding from the surface to the eye are +supposed to be parallel to each other--gives a reproduction of the lunar +disc exactly as it appears. The representation of the mountains and +plains is therefore correct only in the central portion; elsewhere, +north, south, east, or west, the features, being foreshortened, are +crowded together, and cannot be compared in measurement with those in +the centre. It is more than three feet square; for convenient reference +it is divided into four parts, each having a very full index; in short, +this map is in all respects a master piece of lunar cartography.[B] + +After Beer and Maedler, we should allude to Julius Schmitt's (of Athens) +excellent selenographic reliefs: to Doctor Draper's, and to Father +Secchi's successful application of photography to lunar representation; +to De La Rue's (of London) magnificent stereographs of the Moon, to be +had at every optician's; to the clear and correct map prepared by +Lecouturier and Chapuis in 1860; to the many beautiful pictures of the +Moon in various phases of illumination obtained by the Messrs. Bond of +Harvard University; to Rutherford's (of New York) unparalleled lunar +photographs; and finally to Nasmyth and Carpenter's wonderful work on +the Moon, illustrated by photographs of her surface in detail, prepared +from models at which they had been laboring for more than a quarter of +the century. + +Of all these maps, pictures, and projections, Barbican had provided +himself with only two--Beer and Maedler's in German, and Lecouturier and +Chapuis' in French. These he considered quite sufficient for all +purposes, and certainly they considerably simplified his labors as an +observer. + +His best optical instruments were several excellent marine telescopes, +manufactured especially under his direction. Magnifying the object a +hundred times, on the surface of the Earth they would have brought the +Moon to within a distance of somewhat less than 2400 miles. But at the +point to which our travellers had arrived towards three o'clock in the +morning, and which could hardly be more than 12 or 1300 miles from the +Moon, these telescopes, ranging through a medium disturbed by no +atmosphere, easily brought the lunar surface to within less than 13 +miles' distance from the eyes of our adventurers. + +Therefore they should now see objects in the Moon as clearly as people +can see the opposite bank of a river that is about 12 miles wide. + +[Footnote A: In our Map of the Moon, prepared expressly for this work, +we have so far improved on Beer and Maedler as to give her surface as it +appears to the naked eye: that is, the north is in the north; only we +must always remember that the west is and must be on the _right hand_.] + +[Footnote B: In our Map the _Mappa Selenographica_ is copied as closely +and as fully as is necessary for understanding the details of the story. +For further information the reader is referred to Nasmyth's late +magnificent work: the MOON.] + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +FACT AND FANCY. + + +"Have you ever seen the Moon?" said a teacher ironically one day in +class to one of his pupils. + +"No, sir;" was the pert reply; "but I think I can safely say I've heard +it spoken about." + +Though saying what he considered a smart thing, the pupil was probably +perfectly right. Like the immense majority of his fellow beings, he had +looked at the Moon, heard her talked of, written poetry about her, but, +in the strict sense of the term, he had probably never seen her--that +is--scanned her, examined her, surveyed her, inspected her, reconnoitred +her--even with an opera glass! Not one in a thousand, not one in ten +thousand, has ever examined even the map of our only Satellite. To guard +our beloved and intelligent reader against this reproach, we have +prepared an excellent reduction of Beer and Maedler's _Mappa_, on which, +for the better understanding of what is to follow, we hope he will +occasionally cast a gracious eye. + +When you look at any map of the Moon, you are struck first of all with +one peculiarity. Contrary to the arrangement prevailing in Mars and on +our Earth, the continents occupy principally the southern hemisphere of +the lunar orb. Then these continents are far from presenting such sharp +and regular outlines as distinguish the Indian Peninsula, Africa, and +South America. On the contrary, their coasts, angular, jagged, and +deeply indented, abound in bays and peninsulas. They remind you of the +coast of Norway, or of the islands in the Sound, where the land seems to +be cut up into endless divisions. If navigation ever existed on the +Moon's surface, it must have been of a singularly difficult and +dangerous nature, and we can scarcely say which of the two should be +more pitied--the sailors who had to steer through these dangerous and +complicated passes, or the map-makers who had to designate them on their +charts. + +You will also remark that the southern pole of the Moon is much more +_continental_ than the northern. Around the latter, there exists only a +slight fringe of lands separated from the other continents by vast +"seas." This word "seas"--a term employed by the first lunar map +constructors--is still retained to designate those vast depressions on +the Moon's surface, once perhaps covered with water, though they are now +only enormous plains. In the south, the continents cover nearly the +whole hemisphere. It is therefore possible that the Selenites have +planted their flag on at least one of their poles, whereas the Parrys +and Franklins of England, the Kanes and the Wilkeses of America, the +Dumont d'Urvilles and the Lamberts of France, have so far met with +obstacles completely insurmountable, while in search of those unknown +points of our terrestrial globe. + +The islands--the next feature on the Moon's surface--are exceedingly +numerous. Generally oblong or circular in shape and almost as regular in +outline as if drawn with a compass, they form vast archipelagoes like +the famous group lying between Greece and Asia Minor, which mythology +has made the scene of her earliest and most charming legends. As we gaze +at them, the names of Naxos, Tenedos, Milo, and Carpathos rise up before +our mind's eye, and we begin looking around for the Trojan fleet and +Jason's Argo. This, at least, was Ardan's idea, and at first his eyes +would see nothing on the map but a Grecian archipelago. But his +companions, sound practical men, and therefore totally devoid of +sentiment, were reminded by these rugged coasts of the beetling cliffs +of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; so that, where the Frenchman saw the +tracks of ancient heroes, the Americans saw only commodious shipping +points and favorable sites for trading posts--all, of course, in the +purest interest of lunar commerce and industry. + +To end our hasty sketch of the continental portion of the Moon, we must +say a few words regarding her orthography or mountain systems. With a +fair telescope you can distinguish very readily her mountain chains, her +isolated mountains, her circuses or ring formations, and her rills, +cracks and radiating streaks. The character of the whole lunar relief is +comprised in these divisions. It is a surface prodigiously reticulated, +upheaved and depressed, apparently without the slightest order or +system. It is a vast Switzerland, an enormous Norway, where everything +is the result of direct plutonic action. This surface, so rugged, craggy +and wrinkled, seems to be the result of successive contractions of the +crust, at an early period of the planet's existence. The examination of +the lunar disc is therefore highly favorable for the study of the great +geological phenomena of our own globe. As certain astronomers have +remarked, the Moon's surface, though older than the Earth's, has +remained younger. That is, it has undergone less change. No water has +broken through its rugged elevations, filled up its scowling cavities, +and by incessant action tended continuously to the production of a +general level. No atmosphere, by its disintegrating, decomposing +influence has softened off the rugged features of the plutonic +mountains. Volcanic action alone, unaffected by either aqueous or +atmospheric forces, can here be seen in all its glory. In other words +the Moon looks now as our Earth did endless ages ago, when "she was void +and empty and when darkness sat upon the face of the deep;" eons of ages +ago, long before the tides of the ocean and the winds of the atmosphere +had begun to strew her rough surface with sand and clay, rock and coal, +forest and meadow, gradually preparing it, according to the laws of our +beneficent Creator, to be at last the pleasant though the temporary +abode of Man! + +Having wandered over vast continents, your eye is attracted by the +"seas" of dimensions still vaster. Not only their shape, situation, and +look, remind us of our own oceans, but, again like them, they occupy +the greater part of the Moon's surface. The "seas," or, more correctly, +plains, excited our travellers' curiosity to a very high degree, and +they set themselves at once to examine their nature. + +The astronomer who first gave names to those "seas" in all probability +was a Frenchman. Hevelius, however, respected them, even Riccioli did +not disturb them, and so they have come down to us. Ardan laughed +heartily at the fancies which they called up, and said the whole thing +reminded him of one of those "maps of matrimony" that he had once seen +or read of in the works of Scudery or Cyrano de Bergerac. + +"However," he added, "I must say that this map has much more reality in +it than could be found in the sentimental maps of the 17th century. In +fact, I have no difficulty whatever in calling it the _Map of Life!_ +very neatly divided into two parts, the east and the west, the masculine +and the feminine. The women on the right, and the men on the left!" + +At such observations, Ardan's companions only shrugged their shoulders. +A map of the Moon in their eyes was a map of the Moon, no more, no less; +their romantic friend might view it as he pleased. Nevertheless, their +romantic friend was not altogether wrong. Judge a little for yourselves. + +What is the first "sea" you find in the hemisphere on the left? The +_Mare Imbrium_ or the Rainy Sea, a fit emblem of our human life, beaten +by many a pitiless storm. In a corresponding part of the southern +hemisphere you see _Mare Nubium_, the Cloudy Sea, in which our poor +human reason so often gets befogged. Close to this lies _Mare Humorum_, +the Sea of Humors, where we sail about, the sport of each fitful breeze, +"everything by starts and nothing long." Around all, embracing all, lies +_Oceanus Procellarum_, the Ocean of Tempests, where, engaged in one +continuous struggle with the gusty whirlwinds, excited by our own +passions or those of others, so few of us escape shipwreck. And, when +disgusted by the difficulties of life, its deceptions, its treacheries +and all the other miseries "that flesh is heir to," where do we too +often fly to avoid them? To the _Sinus Iridium_ or the _Sinus Roris_, +that is Rainbow Gulf and Dewy Gulf whose glittering lights, alas! give +forth no real illumination to guide our stumbling feet, whose sun-tipped +pinnacles have less substance than a dream, whose enchanting waters all +evaporate before we can lift a cup-full to our parched lips! Showers, +storms, fogs, rainbows--is not the whole mortal life of man comprised in +these four words? + +Now turn to the hemisphere on the right, the women's side, and you also +discover "seas," more numerous indeed, but of smaller dimensions and +with gentler names, as more befitting the feminine temperament. First +comes _Mare Serenitatis_, the Sea of Serenity, so expressive of the +calm, tranquil soul of an innocent maiden. Near it is _Lacus Somniorum_, +the Lake of Dreams, in which she loves to gaze at her gilded and rosy +future. In the southern division is seen _Mare Nectaris_, the Sea of +Nectar, over whose soft heaving billows she is gently wafted by Love's +caressing winds, "Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm." Not far +off is _Mare Fecunditatis_, the Sea of Fertility, in which she becomes +the happy mother of rejoicing children. A little north is _Mare +Crisium_, the Sea of Crises where her life and happiness are sometimes +exposed to sudden, and unexpected dangers which fortunately, however, +seldom end fatally. Far to the left, near the men's side, is _Mare +Vaporum_, the Sea of Vapors, into which, though it is rather small, and +full of sunken rocks, she sometimes allows herself to wander, moody, and +pouting, and not exactly knowing where she wants to go or what she wants +to do. Between the two last expands the great _Mare Tranquillitatis_, +the Sea of Tranquillity, into whose quiet depths are at last absorbed +all her simulated passions, all her futile aspirations, all her +unglutted desires, and whose unruffled waters are gliding on forever in +noiseless current towards _Lacus Mortis_, the Lake of Death, whose misty +shores + + "In ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods are girt." + +So at least Ardan mused as he stooped over Beer and Maedler's map. Did +not these strange successive names somewhat justify his flights of +fancy? Surely they had a wonderful variety of meaning. Was it by +accident or by forethought deep that the two hemispheres of the Moon had +been thus so strangely divided, yet, as man to woman, though divided +still united, and thus forming even in the cold regions of space a +perfect image of our terrestrial existence? Who can say that our +romantic French friend was altogether wrong in thus explaining the +astute fancies of the old astronomers? + +His companions, however, it need hardly be said, never saw the "seas" in +that light. They looked on them not with sentimental but with +geographical eyes. They studied this new world and tried to get it by +heart, working at it like a school boy at his lessons. They began by +measuring its angles and diameters. + +To their practical, common sense vision _Mare Nubium_, the Cloudy Sea, +was an immense depression of the surface, sprinkled here and there with +a few circular mountains. Covering a great portion of that part of the +southern hemisphere which lies east of the centre, it occupied a space +of about 270 thousand square miles, its central point lying in 15 deg. south +latitude and 20 deg. east longitude. Northeast from this lay _Oceanus +Procellarum_, the Ocean of Tempests, the most extensive of all the +plains on the lunar disc, embracing a surface of about half a million of +square miles, its centre being in 10 deg. north and 45 deg. east. From its bosom +those wonderful mountains _Kepler_ and _Aristarchus_ lifted their vast +ramparts glittering with innumerable streaks radiating in all +directions. + +To the north, in the direction of _Mare Frigoris_, extends _Mare +Imbrium_, the Sea of Rains, its central point in 35 deg. north and 20 deg. +east. It is somewhat circular in shape, and it covers a space of about +300 thousand square miles. South of _Oceanus Procellarum_ and separated +from _Mare Nubium_ by a goodly number of ring mountains, lies the little +basin of _Mare Humorum_, the Sea of Humors, containing only about 66 +thousand square miles, its central point having a latitude of 25 deg. south +and a longitude of 40 deg. east. + +On the shores of these great seas three "Gulfs" are easily found: _Sinus +Aestuum_, the Gulf of the Tides, northeast of the centre; _Sinus +Iridium_, the Gulf of the Rainbows, northeast of the _Mare Imbrium_; and +_Sinus Roris_, the Dewy Gulf, a little further northeast. All seem to be +small plains enclosed between chains of lofty mountains. + +The western hemisphere, dedicated to the ladies, according to Ardan, and +therefore naturally more capricious, was remarkable for "seas" of +smaller dimensions, but much more numerous. These were principally: +_Mare Serenitatis_, the Sea of Serenity, 25 deg. north and 20 deg. west, +comprising a surface of about 130 thousand square miles; _Mare Crisium_, +the Sea of Crises, a round, well defined, dark depression towards the +northwestern edge, 17 deg. north 55 deg. west, embracing a surface of 60 +thousand square miles, a regular Caspian Sea in fact, only that the +plateau in which it lies buried is surrounded by a girdle of much higher +mountains. Then towards the equator, with a latitude of 5 deg. north and a +longitude of 25 deg. west, appears _Mare Tranquillitatis_, the Sea of +Tranquillity, occupying about 180 thousand square miles. This +communicates on the south with _Mare Nectaris_, the Sea of Nectar, +embracing an extent of about 42 thousand square miles, with a mean +latitude of 15 deg. south and a longitude of 35 deg. west. Southwest from _Mare +Tranquillitatis_, lies _Mare Fecunditatis_, the Sea of Fertility, the +greatest in this hemisphere, as it occupies an extent of more than 300 +thousand square miles, its latitude being 3 deg. south and its longitude 50 deg. +west. For away to the north, on the borders of the _Mare Frigoris_, or +Icy Sea, is seen the small _Mare Humboldtianum_, or Humboldt Sea, with a +surface of about 10 thousand square miles. Corresponding to this in the +southern hemisphere lies the _Mare Australe_, or South Sea, whose +surface, as it extends along the western rim, is rather difficult to +calculate. Finally, right in the centre of the lunar disc, where the +equator intersects the first meridian, can be seen _Sinus Medii_, the +Central Gulf, the common property therefore of all the hemispheres, the +northern and southern, as well as of the eastern and western. + +Into these great divisions the surface of our satellite resolved itself +before the eyes of Barbican and M'Nicholl. Adding up the various +measurements, they found that the surface of her visible hemisphere was +about 7-1/2 millions of square miles, of which about the two thirds +comprised the volcanoes, the mountain chains, the rings, the islands--in +short, the land portion of the lunar surface; the other third comprised +the "seas," the "lakes," the "marshes," the "bays" or "gulfs," and the +other divisions usually assigned to water. + +To all this deeply interesting information, though the fruit of +observation the closest, aided and confirmed by calculation the +profoundest, Ardan listened with the utmost indifference. In fact, even +his French politeness could not suppress two or three decided yawns, +which of course the mathematicians were too absorbed to notice. + +In their enthusiasm they tried to make him understand that though the +Moon is 13-1/2 times smaller than our Earth, she can show more than 50 +thousand craters, which astronomers have already counted and designated +by specific names. + +"To conclude this portion of our investigation therefore," cried +Barbican, clearing his throat, and occupying Aldan's right ear,--"the +Moon's surface is a honey combed, perforated, punctured--" + +"A fistulous, a rugose, salebrous,--" cut in the Captain, close on the +left. + +--"And highly cribriform superficies--" cried Barbican. + +--"A sieve, a riddle, a colander--" shouted the Captain. + +--"A skimming dish, a buckwheat cake, a lump of green cheese--" went on +Barbican--. + +--In fact, there is no knowing how far they would have proceeded with +their designations, comparisons, and scientific expressions, had not +Ardan, driven to extremities by Barbican's last profanity, suddenly +jumped up, broken away from his companions, and clapped a forcible +extinguisher on their eloquence by putting his hands on their lips and +keeping them there awhile. Then striking a grand attitude, he looked +towards the Moon and burst out in accents of thrilling indignation: + +"Pardon, O beautiful Diana of the Ephesians! Pardon, O Phoebe, thou +pearl-faced goddess of night beloved of Greece! O Isis, thou sympathetic +queen of Nile-washed cities! O Astarte, thou favorite deity of the +Syrian hills! O Artemis, thou symbolical daughter of Jupiter and Latona, +that is of light and darkness! O brilliant sister of the radiant Apollo! +enshrined in the enchanting strains of Virgil and Homer, which I only +half learned at college, and therefore unfortunately forget just now! +Otherwise what pleasure I should have had in hurling them at the heads +of Barbican, M'Nicholl, and every other barbarous iconoclast of the +nineteenth century!--" + +Here he stopped short, for two reasons: first he was out of breath; +secondly, he saw that the irrepressible scientists had been too busy +making observations of their own to hear a single word of what he had +uttered, and were probably totally unconscious that he had spoken at +all. In a few seconds his breath came back in full blast, but the idea +of talking when only deaf men were listening was so disconcerting as to +leave him actually unable to get off another syllable. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE LUNAR MOUNTAINS. + + +I am rather inclined to believe myself that not one word of Ardan's +rhapsody had been ever heard by Barbican or M'Nicholl. Long before he +had spoken his last words, they had once more become mute as statues, +and now were both eagerly watching, pencil in hand, spyglass to eye, the +northern lunar hemisphere towards which they were rapidly but indirectly +approaching. They had fully made up their minds by this time that they +were leaving far behind them the central point which they would have +probably reached half an hour ago if they had not been shunted off their +course by that inopportune bolide. + +About half past twelve o'clock, Barbican broke the dead silence by +saying that after a careful calculation they were now only about 875 +miles from the Moon's surface, a distance two hundred miles less in +length than the lunar radius, and which was still to be diminished as +they advanced further north. They were at that moment ten degrees north +of the equator, almost directly over the ridge lying between the _Mare +Serenitatis_ and the _Mare Tranquillitatis_. From this latitude all the +way up to the north pole the travellers enjoyed a most satisfactory view +of the Moon in all directions and under the most favorable conditions. +By means of their spyglasses, magnifying a hundred times, they cut down +this distance of 875 miles to about 9. The great telescope of the Rocky +Mountains, by its enormous magnifying power of 48,000, brought the Moon, +it is true, within a distance of 5 miles, or nearly twice as near; but +this advantage of nearness was considerably more than counterbalanced by +a want of clearness, resulting from the haziness and refractiveness of +the terrestrial atmosphere, not to mention those fatal defects in the +reflector that the art of man has not yet succeeded in remedying. +Accordingly, our travellers, armed with excellent telescopes--of just +power enough to be no injury to clearness,--and posted on unequalled +vantage ground, began already to distinguish certain details that had +probably never been noticed before by terrestrial observers. Even Ardan, +by this time quite recovered from his fit of sentiment and probably +infected a little by the scientific enthusiasm of his companions, began +to observe and note and observe and note, alternately, with all the +_sangfroid_ of a veteran astronomer. + +"Friends," said Barbican, again interrupting a silence that had lasted +perhaps ten minutes, "whither we are going I can't say; if we shall ever +revisit the Earth, I can't tell. Still, it is our duty so to act in all +respects as if these labors of ours were one day to be of service to our +fellow-creatures. Let us keep our souls free from every distraction. We +are now astronomers. We see now what no mortal eye has ever gazed on +before. This Projectile is simply a work room of the great Cambridge +Observatory lifted into space. Let us take observations!" + +With these words, he set to work with a renewed ardor, in which his +companions fully participated. The consequence was that they soon had +several of the outline maps covered with the best sketches they could +make of the Moon's various aspects thus presented under such favorable +circumstances. They could now remark not only that they were passing the +tenth degree of north latitude, but that the Projectile followed almost +directly the twentieth degree of east longitude. + +"One thing always puzzled me when examining maps of the Moon," observed +Ardan, "and I can't say that I see it yet as clearly as if I had thought +over the matter. It is this. I could understand, when looking through a +lens at an object, why we get only its reversed image--a simple law of +optics explains _that_. Therefore, in a map of the Moon, as the bottom +means the north and the top the south, why does not the right mean the +west and the left the east? I suppose I could have made this out by a +little thought, but thinking, that is reflection, not being my forte, it +is the last thing I ever care to do. Barbican, throw me a word or two on +the subject." + +"I can see what troubles you," answered Barbican, "but I can also see +that one moment's reflection would have put an end to your perplexity. +On ordinary maps of the Earth's surface when the north is the top, the +right hand must be the east, the left hand the west, and so on. That is +simply because we look _down_ from _above_. And such a map seen through +a lens will appear reversed in all respects. But in looking at the Moon, +that is _up_ from _down_, we change our position so far that our right +hand points west and our left east. Consequently, in our reversed map, +though the north becomes south, the right remains east, and--" + +"Enough said! I see it at a glance! Thank you, Barbican. Why did not +they make you a professor of astronomy? Your hint will save me a world +of trouble."[C] + +Aided by the _Mappa Selenographica_, the travellers could easily +recognize the different portions of the Moon over which they were now +moving. An occasional glance at our reduction of this map, given as a +frontispiece, will enable the gentle reader to follow the travellers on +the line in which they moved and to understand the remarks and +observations in which they occasionally indulged. + +"Where are we now?" asked Ardan. + +"Over the northern shores of the _Mare Nubium_," replied Barbican. "But +we are still too far off to see with any certainty what they are like. +What is the _Mare_ itself? A sea, according to the early astronomers? a +plain of solid sand, according to later authority? or an immense forest, +according to De la Rue of London, so far the Moon's most successful +photographer? This gentleman's authority, Ardan, would have given you +decided support in your famous dispute with the Captain at the meeting +near Tampa, for he says very decidedly that the Moon has an atmosphere, +very low to be sure but very dense. This, however, we must find out for +ourselves; and in the meantime let us affirm nothing until we have good +grounds for positive assertion." + +_Mare Nubium_, though not very clearly outlined on the maps, is easily +recognized by lying directly east of the regions about the centre. It +would appear as if this vast plain were sprinkled with immense lava +blocks shot forth from the great volcanoes on the right, _Ptolemaeus_, +_Alphonse_, _Alpetragius_ and _Arzachel_. But the Projectile advanced so +rapidly that these mountains soon disappeared, and the travellers were +not long before they could distinguish the great peaks that closed the +"Sea" on its northern boundary. Here a radiating mountain showed a +summit so dazzling with the reflection of the solar rays that Ardan +could not help crying out: + +"It looks like one of the carbon points of an electric light projected +on a screen! What do you call it, Barbican?" + +"_Copernicus_," replied the President. "Let us examine old +_Copernicus_!" + +This grand crater is deservedly considered one of the greatest of the +lunar wonders. It lifts its giant ramparts to upwards of 12,000 feet +above the level of the lunar surface. Being quite visible from the Earth +and well situated for observation, it is a favorite object for +astronomical study; this is particularly the case during the phase +existing between Last Quarter and the New Moon, when its vast shadows, +projected boldly from the east towards the west, allow its prodigious +dimensions to be measured. + +After _Tycho_, which is situated in the southern hemisphere, +_Copernicus_ forms the most important radiating mountain in the lunar +disc. It looms up, single and isolated, like a gigantic light-house, on +the peninsula separating _Mare Nubium_ from _Oceanus Procellarum_ on one +side and from _Mare Imbrium_ on the other; thus illuminating with its +splendid radiation three "Seas" at a time. The wonderful complexity of +its bright streaks diverging on all sides from its centre presented a +scene alike splendid and unique. These streaks, the travellers thought, +could be traced further north than in any other direction: they fancied +they could detect them even in the _Mare Imbrium_, but this of course +might be owing to the point from which they made their observations. At +one o'clock in the morning, the Projectile, flying through space, was +exactly over this magnificent mountain. + +In spite of the brilliant sunlight that was blazing around them, the +travellers could easily recognize the peculiar features of _Copernicus_. +It belongs to those ring mountains of the first class called Circuses. +Like _Kepler_ and _Aristarchus_, who rule over _Oceanus Procellarum_, +_Copernicus_, when viewed through our telescopes, sometimes glistens so +brightly through the ashy light of the Moon that it has been frequently +taken for a volcano in full activity. Whatever it may have been once, +however, it is certainly nothing more now than, like all the other +mountains on the visible side of the Moon, an extinct volcano, only with +a crater of such exceeding grandeur and sublimity as to throw utterly +into the shade everything like it on our Earth. The crater of Etna is at +most little more than a mile across. The crater of _Copernicus_ has a +diameter of at least 50 miles. Within it, the travellers could easily +discover by their glasses an immense number of terraced ridges, probably +landslips, alternating with stratifications resulting from successive +eruptions. Here and there, but particularly in the southern side, they +caught glimpses of shadows of such intense blackness, projected across +the plateau and lying there like pitch spots, that they could not tell +them from yawning chasms of incalculable depth. Outside the crater the +shadows were almost as deep, whilst on the plains all around, +particularly in the west, so many small craters could be detected that +the eye in vain attempted to count them. + +"Many circular mountains of this kind," observed Barbican, "can be seen +on the lunar surface, but _Copernicus_, though not one of the greatest, +is one of the most remarkable on account of those diverging streaks of +bright light that you see radiating from its summit. By looking +steadily into its crater, you can see more cones than mortal eye ever +lit on before. They are so numerous as to render the interior plateau +quite rugged, and were formerly so many openings giving vent to fire and +volcanic matter. A curious and very common arrangement of this internal +plateau of lunar craters is its lying at a lower level than the external +plains, quite the contrary to a terrestrial crater, which generally has +its bottom much higher than the level of the surrounding country. It +follows therefore that the deep lying curve of the bottom of these ring +mountains would give a sphere with a diameter somewhat smaller than the +Moon's." + +"What can be the cause of this peculiarity?" asked M'Nicholl. + +"I can't tell;" answered Barbican, "but, as a conjecture, I should say +that it is probably to the comparatively smaller area of the Moon and +the more violent character of her volcanic action that the extremely +rugged character of her surface is mainly due." + +"Why, it's the _Campi Phlegraei_ or the Fire Fields of Naples over +again!" cried Ardan suddenly. "There's _Monte Barbaro_, there's the +_Solfatara_, there is the crater of _Astroni_, and there is the _Monte +Nuovo_, as plain as the hand on my body!" + +"The great resemblance between the region you speak of and the general +surface of the Moon has been often remarked;" observed Barbican, "but +it is even still more striking in the neighborhood of _Theophilus_ on +the borders of _Mare Nectaris_." + +"That's _Mare Nectaris_, the gray spot over there on the southwest, +isn't it?" asked M'Nicholl; "is there any likelihood of our getting a +better view of it?" + +"Not the slightest," answered Barbican, "unless we go round the Moon and +return this way, like a satellite describing its orbit." + +By this time they had arrived at a point vertical to the mountain +centre. _Copernicus's_ vast ramparts formed a perfect circle or rather a +pair of concentric circles. All around the mountain extended a dark +grayish plain of savage aspect, on which the peak shadows projected +themselves in sharp relief. In the gloomy bottom of the crater, whose +dimensions are vast enough to swallow Mont Blanc body and bones, could +be distinguished a magnificent group of cones, at least half a mile in +height and glittering like piles of crystal. Towards the north several +breaches could be seen in the ramparts, due probably to a caving in of +immense masses accumulated on the summit of the precipitous walls. + +As already observed, the surrounding plains were dotted with numberless +craters mostly of small dimensions, except _Gay Lussac_ on the north, +whose crater was about 12 miles in diameter. Towards the southwest and +the immediate east, the plain appeared to be very flat, no protuberance, +no prominence of any kind lifting itself above the general dead level. +Towards the north, on the contrary, as far as where the peninsula +jutted on _Oceanus Procellarum_, the plain looked like a sea of lava +wildly lashed for a while by a furious hurricane and then, when its +waves and breakers and driving ridges were at their wildest, suddenly +frozen into solidity. Over this rugged, rumpled, wrinkled surface and in +all directions, ran the wonderful streaks whose radiating point appeared +to be the summit of _Copernicus_. Many of them appeared to be ten miles +wide and hundreds of miles in length. + +The travellers disputed for some time on the origin of these strange +radii, but could hardly be said to have arrived at any conclusion more +satisfactory than that already reached by some terrestrial observers. + +To M'Nicholl's question: + +"Why can't these streaks be simply prolonged mountain crests reflecting +the sun's rays more vividly by their superior altitude and comparative +smoothness?" + +Barbican readily replied: + +"These streaks _can't_ be mountain crests, because, if they were, under +certain conditions of solar illumination they should project +_shadows_--a thing which they have never been known to do under any +circumstances whatever. In fact, it is only during the period of the +full Moon that these streaks are seen at all; as soon as the sun's rays +become oblique, they disappear altogether--a proof that their appearance +is due altogether to peculiar advantages in their surface for the +reflection of light." + +"Dear boys, will you allow me to give my little guess on the subject?" +asked Ardan. + +His companions were profuse in expressing their desire to hear it. + +"Well then," he resumed, "seeing that these bright streaks invariably +start from a certain point to radiate in all directions, why not suppose +them to be streams of lava issuing from the crater and flowing down the +mountain side until they cooled?" + +"Such a supposition or something like it has been put forth by +Herschel," replied Barbican; "but your own sense will convince you that +it is quite untenable when you consider that lava, however hot and +liquid it may be at the commencement of its journey, cannot flow on for +hundreds of miles, up hills, across ravines, and over plains, all the +time in streams of almost exactly equal width." + +"That theory of yours holds no more water than mine, Ardan," observed +M'Nicholl. + +"Correct, Captain," replied the Frenchman; "Barbican has a trick of +knocking the bottom out of every weaker vessel. But let us hear what he +has to say on the subject himself. What is your theory. Barbican?" + +"My theory," said Barbican, "is pretty much the same as that lately +presented by an English astronomer, Nasmyth, who has devoted much study +and reflection to lunar matters. Of course, I only formulate my theory, +I don't affirm it. These streaks are cracks, made in the Moon's surface +by cooling or by shrinkage, through which volcanic matter has been +forced up by internal pressure. The sinking ice of a frozen lake, when +meeting with some sharp pointed rock, cracks in a radiating manner: +every one of its fissures then admits the water, which immediately +spreads laterally over the ice pretty much as the lava spreads itself +over the lunar surface. This theory accounts for the radiating nature of +the streaks, their great and nearly equal thickness, their immense +length, their inability to cast a shadow, and their invisibility at any +time except at or near the Full Moon. Still it is nothing but a theory, +and I don't deny that serious objections may be brought against it." + +"Do you know, dear boys," cried Ardan, led off as usual by the slightest +fancy, "do you know what I am thinking of when I look down on the great +rugged plains spread out beneath us?" + +"I can't say, I'm sure," replied Barbican, somewhat piqued at the little +attention he had secured for his theory. + +"Well, what are you thinking of?" asked M'Nicholl. + +"Spillikins!" answered Ardan triumphantly. + +"Spillikins?" cried his companions, somewhat surprised. + +"Yes, Spillikins! These rocks, these blocks, these peaks, these streaks, +these cones, these cracks, these ramparts, these escarpments,--what are +they but a set of spillikins, though I acknowledge on a grand scale? I +wish I had a little hook to pull them one by one!" + +[Illustration: AN IMMENSE BATTLEFIELD.] + +"Oh, do be serious, Ardan!" cried Barbican, a little impatiently. + +"Certainly," replied Ardan. "Let us be serious, Captain, since +seriousness best befits the subject in hand. What do you think of +another comparison? Does not this plain look like an immense battle +field piled with the bleaching bones of myriads who had slaughtered each +other to a man at the bidding of some mighty Caesar? What do you think +of that lofty comparison, hey?" + +"It is quite on a par with the other," muttered Barbican. + +"He's hard to please, Captain," continued Ardan, "but let us try him +again! Does not this plain look like--?" + +"My worthy friend," interrupted Barbican, quietly, but in a tone to +discourage further discussion, "what you think the plain _looks like_ is +of very slight import, as long as you know no more than a child what it +really _is_!" + +"Bravo, Barbican! well put!" cried the irrepressible Frenchman. "Shall I +ever realize the absurdity of my entering into an argument with a +scientist!" + +But this time the Projectile, though advancing northward with a pretty +uniform velocity, had neither gained nor lost in its nearness to the +lunar disc. Each moment altering the character of the fleeting landscape +beneath them, the travellers, as may well be imagined, never thought of +taking an instant's repose. At about half past one, looking to their +right on the west, they saw the summits of another mountain; Barbican, +consulting his map, recognized _Eratosthenes_. + +This was a ring mountain, about 33 miles in diameter, having, like +_Copernicus_, a crater of immense profundity containing central cones. +Whilst they were directing their glasses towards its gloomy depths, +Barbican mentioned to his friends Kepler's strange idea regarding the +formation of these ring mountains. "They must have been constructed," he +said, "by mortal hands." + +"With what object?" asked the Captain. + +"A very natural one," answered Barbican. "The Selenites must have +undertaken the immense labor of digging these enormous pits at places of +refuge in which they could protect themselves against the fierce solar +rays that beat against them for 15 days in succession!" + +"Not a bad idea, that of the Selenites!" exclaimed Ardan. + +"An absurd idea!" cried M'Nicholl. "But probably Kepler never knew the +real dimensions of these craters. Barbican knows the trouble and time +required to dig a well in Stony Hill only nine hundred feet deep. To dig +out a single lunar crater would take hundreds and hundreds of years, and +even then they should be giants who would attempt it!" + +"Why so?" asked Ardan. "In the Moon, where gravity is six times less +than on the Earth, the labor of the Selenites can't be compared with +that of men like us." + +"But suppose a Selenite to be six times smaller than a man like us!" +urged M'Nicholl. + +"And suppose a Selenite never had an existence at all!" interposed +Barbican with his usual success in putting an end to the argument. "But +never mind the Selenites now. Observe _Eratosthenes_ as long as you have +the opportunity." + +"Which will not be very long," said M'Nicholl. "He is already sinking +out of view too far to the right to be carefully observed." + +"What are those peaks beyond him?" asked Ardan. + +"The _Apennines_," answered Barbican; "and those on the left are the +_Carpathians_." + +"I have seen very few mountain chains or ranges in the Moon," remarked +Ardan, after some minutes' observation. + +"Mountains chains are not numerous in the Moon," replied Barbican, "and +in that respect her oreographic system presents a decided contrast with +that of the Earth. With us the ranges are many, the craters few; in the +Moon the ranges are few and the craters innumerable." + +Barbican might have spoken of another curious feature regarding the +mountain ranges: namely, that they are chiefly confined to the northern +hemisphere, where the craters are fewest and the "seas" the most +extensive. + +For the benefit of those interested, and to be done at once with this +part of the subject, we give in the following little table a list of the +chief lunar mountain chains, with their latitude, and respective +heights in English feet. + + _Name._ _Degrees of Latitude._ _Height._ + + { _Altai Mountains_ 17 deg. to 28 13,000ft. +Southern { _Cordilleras_ 10 to 20 12,000 +Hemisphere. { _Pyrenees_ 8 to 18 12,000 + { _Riphean_ 5 to 10 2,600 + + { _Haemus_ 10 to 20 6,300 + { _Carpathian_ 15 to 19 6,000 + { _Apennines_ 14 to 27 18,000 +Northern { _Taurus_ 25 to 34 8,500 +Hemisphere. { _Hercynian_ 17 to 29 3,400 + { _Caucasus_ 33 to 40 17,000 + { _Alps_ 42 to 30 10,000 + +Of these different chains, the most important is that of the +_Apennines_, about 450 miles long, a length, however, far inferior to +that of many of the great mountain ranges of our globe. They skirt the +western shores of the _Mare Imbrium_, over which they rise in immense +cliffs, 18 or 20 thousand feet in height, steep as a wall and casting +over the plain intensely black shadows at least 90 miles long. Of Mt. +_Huyghens_, the highest in the group, the travellers were just barely +able to distinguish the sharp angular summit in the far west. To the +east, however, the _Carpathians_, extending from the 18th to 30th +degrees of east longitude, lay directly under their eyes and could be +examined in all the peculiarities of their distribution. + +Barbican proposed a hypothesis regarding the formation of those +mountains, which his companions thought at least as good as any other. +Looking carefully over the _Carpathians_ and catching occasional +glimpses of semi-circular formations and half domes, he concluded that +the chain must have formerly been a succession of vast craters. Then had +come some mighty internal discharge, or rather the subsidence to which +_Mare Imbrium_ is due, for it immediately broke off or swallowed up one +half of those mountains, leaving the other half steep as a wall on one +side and sloping gently on the other to the level of the surrounding +plains. The _Carpathians_ were therefore pretty nearly in the same +condition as the crater mountains _Ptolemy_, _Alpetragius_ and +_Arzachel_ would find themselves in, if some terrible cataclysm, by +tearing away their eastern ramparts, had turned them into a chain of +mountains whose towering cliffs would nod threateningly over the western +shores of _Mare Nubium_. The mean height of the _Carpathians_ is about +6,000 feet, the altitude of certain points in the Pyrenees such as the +_Port of Pineda_, or _Roland's Breach_, in the shadow of _Mont Perdu_. +The northern slopes of the _Carpathians_ sink rapidly towards the shores +of the vast _Mare Imbrium_. + +Towards two o'clock in the morning, Barbican calculated the Projectile +to be on the 20th northern parallel, and therefore almost immediately +over the little ring mountain called _Pytheas_, about 4600 feet in +height. The distance of the travellers from the Moon at this point +could not be more than about 750 miles, reduced to about 7 by means of +their excellent telescopes. + +_Mare Imbrium_, the Sea of Rains here revealed itself in all its +vastness to the eyes of the travellers, though it must be acknowledged +that the immense depression so called, did not afford them a very clear +idea regarding its exact boundaries. Right ahead of them rose _Lambert_ +about a mile in height; and further on, more to the left, in the +direction of _Oceanus Procellarum_, _Euler_ revealed itself by its +glittering radiations. This mountain, of about the same height as +_Lambert_, had been the object of very interesting calculations on the +part of Schroeter of Erfurt. This keen observer, desirous of inquiring +into the probable origin of the lunar mountains, had proposed to himself +the following question: Does the volume of the crater appear to be equal +to that of the surrounding ramparts? His calculations showing him that +this was generally the case, he naturally concluded that these ramparts +must therefore have been the product of a single eruption, for +successive eruptions of volcanic matter would have disturbed this +correlation. _Euler_ alone, he found, to be an exception to this general +law, as the volume of its crater appeared to be twice as great as that +of the mass surrounding it. It must therefore have been formed by +several eruptions in succession, but in that case what had become of the +ejected matter? + +Theories of this nature and all manner of scientific questions were, of +course, perfectly permissible to terrestrial astronomers laboring under +the disadvantage of imperfect instruments. But Barbican could not think +of wasting his time in any speculation of the kind, and now, seeing that +his Projectile perceptibly approached the lunar disc, though he +despaired of ever reaching it, he was more sanguine than ever of being +soon able to discover positively and unquestionably some of the secrets +of its formation. + +[Footnote C: We must again remind our readers that, in our map, though +every thing is set down as it appears to the eye not as it is reversed +by the telescope, still, for the reason made so clear by Barbican, the +right hand side must be the west and the left the east.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +LUNAR LANDSCAPES + + +At half past two in the morning of December 6th, the travellers crossed +the 30th northern parallel, at a distance from the lunar surface of 625 +miles, reduced to about 6 by their spy-glasses. Barbican could not yet +see the least probability of their landing at any point of the disc. The +velocity of the Projectile was decidedly slow, but for that reason +extremely puzzling. Barbican could not account for it. At such a +proximity to the Moon, the velocity, one would think, should be very +great indeed to be able to counteract the lunar attraction. Why did it +not fall? Barbican could not tell; his companions were equally in the +dark. Ardan said he gave it up. Besides they had no time to spend in +investigating it. The lunar panorama was unrolling all its splendors +beneath them, and they could not bear to lose one of its slightest +details. + +The lunar disc being brought within a distance of about six miles by the +spy-glasses, it is a fair question to ask, what _could_ an aeronaut at +such an elevation from our Earth discover on its surface? At present +that question can hardly be answered, the most remarkable balloon +ascensions never having passed an altitude of five miles under +circumstances favorable for observers. Here, however, is an account, +carefully transcribed from notes taken on the spot, of what Barbican and +his companions _did_ see from their peculiar post of observation. + +Varieties of color, in the first place, appeared here and there upon the +disc. Selenographers are not quite agreed as to the nature of these +colors. Not that such colors are without variety or too faint to be +easily distinguished. Schmidt of Athens even says that if our oceans on +earth were all evaporated, an observer in the Moon would hardly find the +seas and continents of our globe even so well outlined as those of the +Moon are to the eye of a terrestrial observer. According to him, the +shade of color distinguishing those vast plains known as "seas" is a +dark gray dashed with green and brown,--a color presented also by a few +of the great craters. + +This opinion of Schmidt's, shared by Beer and Maedler, Barbican's +observations now convinced him to be far better founded than that of +certain astronomers who admit of no color at all being visible on the +Moon's surface but gray. In certain spots the greenish tint was quite +decided, particularly in _Mare Serenitatis_ and _Mare Humorum,_ the very +localities where Schmidt had most noticed it. Barbican also remarked +that several large craters, of the class that had no interior cones, +reflected a kind of bluish tinge, somewhat like that given forth by a +freshly polished steel plate. These tints, he now saw enough to convince +him, proceeded really from the lunar surface, and were not due, as +certain astronomers asserted, either to the imperfections of the +spy-glasses, or to the interference of the terrestrial atmosphere. His +singular opportunity for correct observation allowed him to entertain no +doubt whatever on the subject. Hampered by no atmosphere, he was free +from all liability to optical illusion. Satisfied therefore as to the +reality of these tints, he considered such knowledge a positive gain to +science. But that greenish tint--to what was it due? To a dense tropical +vegetation maintained by a low atmosphere, a mile or so in thickness? +Possibly. But this was another question that could not be answered at +present. + +Further on he could detect here and there traces of a decidedly ruddy +tint. Such a shade he knew had been already detected in the _Palus +Somnii_, near _Mare Crisium_, and in the circular area of _Lichtenberg_, +near the _Hercynian Mountains_, on the eastern edge of the Moon. To what +cause was this tint to be attributed? To the actual color of the surface +itself? Or to that of the lava covering it here and there? Or to the +color resulting from the mixture of other colors seen at a distance too +great to allow of their being distinguished separately? Impossible to +tell. + +Barbican and his companions succeeded no better at a new problem that +soon engaged their undivided attention. It deserves some detail. + +Having passed _Lambert_, being just over _Timocharis_, all were +attentively gazing at the magnificent crater of _Archimedes_ with a +diameter of 52 miles across and ramparts more than 5000 feet in height, +when Ardan startled his companions by suddenly exclaiming: + +"Hello! Cultivated fields as I am a living man!" + +"What do you mean by your cultivated fields?" asked M'Nicholl sourly, +wiping his glasses and shrugging his shoulders. + +"Certainly cultivated fields!" replied Ardan. "Don't you see the +furrows? They're certainly plain enough. They are white too from +glistening in the sun, but they are quite different from the radiating +streaks of _Copernicus_. Why, their sides are perfectly parallel!" + +"Where are those furrows?" asked M'Nicholl, putting his glasses to his +eye and adjusting the focus. + +"You can see them in all directions," answered Ardan; "but two are +particularly visible: one running north from _Archimedes_, the other +south towards the _Apennines_." + +M'Nicholl's face, as he gazed, gradually assumed a grin which soon +developed into a snicker, if not a positive laugh, as he observed to +Ardan: + +"Your Selenites must be Brobdignagians, their oxen Leviathans, and their +ploughs bigger than Marston's famous cannon, if these are furrows!" + +"How's that, Barbican?" asked Ardan doubtfully, but unwilling to submit +to M'Nicholl. + +"They're not furrows, dear friend," said Barbican, "and can't be, +either, simply on account of their immense size. They are what the +German astronomers called _Rillen_; the French, _rainures_, and the +English, _grooves_, _canals_, _clefts_, _cracks_, _chasms_, or +_fissures_." + +"You have a good stock of names for them anyhow," observed Ardan, "if +that does any good." + +"The number of names given them," answered Barbican, "shows how little +is really known about them. They have been observed in all the level +portion of the Moon's surface. Small as they appear to us, a little +calculation must convince you that they are in some places hundreds of +miles in length, a mile in width and probably in many points several +miles in depth. Their width and depth, however, vary, though their +sides, so far as observed, are always rigorously parallel. Let us take a +good look at them." + +Putting the glass to his eye, Barbican examined the clefts for some time +with close attention. He saw that their banks were sharp edged and +extremely steep. In many places they were of such geometrical regularity +that he readily excused Gruithuysen's idea of deeming them to be +gigantic earthworks thrown up by the Selenite engineers. Some of them +were as straight as if laid out with a line, others were curved a little +here and there, though still maintaining the strict parallelism of their +sides. These crossed each other; those entered craters and came out at +the other side. Here, they furrowed annular plateaus, such as +_Posidonius_ or _Petavius_. There, they wrinkled whole seas, for +instance, _Mare Serenitatis_. + +These curious peculiarities of the lunar surface had interested the +astronomic mind to a very high degree at their first discovery, and have +proved to be very perplexing problems ever since. The first observers do +not seem to have noticed them. Neither Hevelius, nor Cassini, nor La +Hire, nor Herschel, makes a single remark regarding their nature. + +It was Schroeter, in 1789, who called the attention of scientists to +them for the first time. He had only 11 to show, but Lohrmann soon +recorded 75 more. Pastorff, Gruithuysen, and particularly Beer and +Maedler were still more successful, but Julius Schmidt, the famous +astronomer of Athens, has raised their number up to 425, and has even +published their names in a catalogue. But counting them is one thing, +determining their nature is another. They are not fortifications, +certainly: and cannot be ancient beds of dried up rivers, for two very +good and sufficient reasons: first, water, even under the most favorable +circumstances on the Moon's surface, could have never ploughed up such +vast channels; secondly, these chasms often traverse lofty craters +through and through, like an immense railroad cutting. + +At these details, Ardan's imagination became unusually excited and of +course it was not without some result. It even happened that he hit on +an idea that had already suggested itself to Schmidt of Athens. + +"Why not consider them," he asked, "to be the simple phenomena of +vegetation?" + +"What do you mean?" asked Barbican. + +"Rows of sugar cane?" suggested M'Nicholl with a snicker. + +"Not exactly, my worthy Captain," answered Ardan quietly, "though you +were perhaps nearer to the mark than you expected. I don't mean exactly +rows of sugar cane, but I do mean vast avenues of trees--poplars, for +instance--planted regularly on each side of a great high road." + +"Still harping on vegetation!" said the Captain. "Ardan, what a splendid +historian was spoiled in you! The less you know about your facts, the +readier you are to account for them." + +"_Ma foi_," said Ardan simply, "I do only what the greatest of your +scientific men do--that is, guess. There is this difference however +between us--I call my guesses, guesses, mere conjecture;--they dignify +theirs as profound theories or as astounding discoveries!" + +"Often the case, friend Ardan, too often the case," said Barbican. + +"In the question under consideration, however," continued the Frenchman, +"my conjecture has this advantage over some others: it explains why +these rills appear and seem to disappear at regular intervals." + +"Let us hear the explanation," said the Captain. + +"They become invisible when the trees lose their leaves, and they +reappear when they resume them." + +"His explanation is not without ingenuity," observed Barbican to +M'Nicholl, "but, my dear friend," turning to Ardan, "it is hardly +admissible." + +"Probably not," said Ardan, "but why not?" + +"Because as the Sun is nearly always vertical to the lunar equator, the +Moon can have no change of seasons worth mentioning; therefore her +vegetation can present none of the phenomena that you speak of." + +This was perfectly true. The slight obliquity of the Moon's axis, only +1-1/2 deg., keeps the Sun in the same altitude the whole year around. In the +equatorial regions he is always vertical, and in the polar he is never +higher than the horizon. Therefore, there can be no change of seasons; +according to the latitude, it is a perpetual winter, spring, summer, or +autumn the whole year round. This state of things is almost precisely +similar to that which prevails in Jupiter, who also stands nearly +upright in his orbit, the inclination of his axis being only about 3 deg.. + +But how to account for the _grooves_? A very hard nut to crack. They +must certainly be a later formation than the craters and the rings, for +they are often found breaking right through the circular ramparts. +Probably the latest of all lunar features, the results of the last +geological epochs, they are due altogether to expansion or shrinkage +acting on a large scale and brought about by the great forces of nature, +operating after a manner altogether unknown on our earth. Such at least +was Barbican's idea. + +"My friends," he quietly observed, "without meaning to put forward any +pretentious claims to originality, but by simply turning to account some +advantages that have never before befallen contemplative mortal eye, why +not construct a little hypothesis of our own regarding the nature of +these grooves and the causes that gave them birth? Look at that great +chasm just below us, somewhat to the right. It is at least fifty or +sixty miles long and runs along the base of the _Apennines_ in a line +almost perfectly straight. Does not its parallelism with the mountain +chain suggest a causative relation? See that other mighty _rill_, at +least a hundred and fifty miles long, starting directly north of it and +pursuing so true a course that it cleaves _Archimedes_ almost cleanly +into two. The nearer it lies to the mountain, as you perceive, the +greater its width; as it recedes in either direction it grows narrower. +Does not everything point out to one great cause of their origin? They +are simple crevasses, like those so often noticed on Alpine glaciers, +only that these tremendous cracks in the surface are produced by the +shrinkage of the crust consequent on cooling. Can we point out some +analogies to this on the Earth? Certainly. The defile of the Jordan, +terminating in the awful depression of the Dead Sea, no doubt occurs to +you on the moment. But the _Yosemite Valley_, as I saw it ten years ago, +is an apter comparison. There I stood on the brink of a tremendous chasm +with perpendicular walls, a mile in width, a mile in depth and eight +miles in length. Judge if I was astounded! But how should we feel it, +when travelling on the lunar surface, we should suddenly find ourselves +on the brink of a yawning chasm two miles wide, fifty miles long, and so +fathomless in sheer vertical depth as to leave its black profundities +absolutely invisible in spite of the dazzling sunlight!" + +"I feel my flesh already crawling even in the anticipation!" cried +Ardan. + +"I shan't regret it much if we never get to the Moon," growled +M'Nicholl; "I never hankered after it anyhow!" + +By this time the Projectile had reached the fortieth degree of lunar +latitude, and could hardly be further than five hundred miles from the +surface, a distance reduced to about 5 miles by the travellers' glasses. +Away to their left appeared _Helicon_, a ring mountain about 1600 feet +high; and still further to the left the eye could catch a glimpse of the +cliffs enclosing a semi-elliptical portion of _Mare Imbrium_, called the +_Sinus Iridium_, or Bay of the Rainbows. + +In order to allow astronomers to make complete observations on the lunar +surface, the terrestrial atmosphere should possess a transparency +seventy times greater than its present power of transmission. But in the +void through which the Projectile was now floating, no fluid whatever +interposed between the eye of the observer and the object observed. +Besides, the travellers now found themselves at a distance that had +never before been reached by the most powerful telescopes, including +even Lord Rosse's and the great instrument on the Rocky Mountains. +Barbican was therefore in a condition singularly favorable to resolve +the great question concerning the Moon's inhabitableness. Nevertheless, +the solution still escaped him. He could discover nothing around him but +a dreary waste of immense plains, and towards the north, beneath him, +bare mountains of the aridest character. + +Not the slightest vestige of man's work could be detected over the vast +expanse. Not the slightest sign of a ruin spoke of his ever having been +there. Nothing betrayed the slightest trace of the development of animal +life, even in an inferior degree. No movement. Not the least glimpse of +vegetation. Of the three great kingdoms that hold dominion on the +surface of the globe, the mineral, the vegetable and the animal, one +alone was represented on the lunar sphere: the mineral, the whole +mineral, and nothing but the mineral. + +"Why!" exclaimed Ardan, with a disconcerted look, after a long and +searching examination, "I can't find anybody. Everything is as +motionless as a street in Pompeii at 4 o'clock in the morning!" + +[Illustration: THE SOLUTION STILL ESCAPED HIM.] + +"Good comparison, friend Ardan;" observed M'Nicholl. "Lava, slag, +volcanic eminences, vitreous matter glistening like ice, piles of +scoria, pitch black shadows, dazzling streaks, like rivers of light +breaking over jagged rocks--these are now beneath my eye--these alone I +can detect--not a man--not an animal--not a tree. The great American +Desert is a land of milk and honey in comparison with the joyless orb +over which we are now moving. However, even yet we can predicate +nothing positive. The atmosphere may have taken refuge in the depths of +the chasms, in the interior of the craters, or even on the opposite side +of the Moon, for all we know!" + +"Still we must remember," observed Barbican, "that even the sharpest eye +cannot detect a man at a distance greater than four miles and a-half, +and our glasses have not yet brought us nearer than five." + +"Which means to say," observed Ardan, "that though we can't see the +Selenites, they can see our Projectile!" + +But matters had not improved much when, towards four o'clock in the +morning, the travellers found themselves on the 50th parallel, and at a +distance of only about 375 miles from the lunar surface. Still no trace +of the least movement, or even of the lowest form of life. + +"What peaked mountain is that which we have just passed on our right?" +asked Ardan. "It is quite remarkable, standing as it does in almost +solitary grandeur in the barren plain." + +"That is _Pico_," answered Barbican. "It is at least 8000 feet high and +is well known to terrestrial astronomers as well by its peculiar shadow +as on account of its comparative isolation. See the collection of +perfectly formed little craters nestling around its base." + +"Barbican," asked M'Nicholl suddenly, "what peak is that which lies +almost directly south of _Pico_? I see it plainly, but I can't find it +on my map." + +"I have remarked that pyramidal peak myself," replied Barbican; "but I +can assure you that so far it has received no name as yet, although it +is likely enough to have been distinguished by the terrestrial +astronomers. It can't be less than 4000 feet in height." + +"I propose we called it _Barbican_!" cried Ardan enthusiastically. + +"Agreed!" answered M'Nicholl, "unless we can find a higher one." + +"We must be before-hand with Schmidt of Athens!" exclaimed Ardan. "He +will leave nothing unnamed that his telescope can catch a glimpse of." + +"Passed unanimously!" cried M'Nicholl. + +"And officially recorded!" added the Frenchman, making the proper entry +on his map. + +"_Salve, Mt. Barbican!_" then cried both gentlemen, rising and taking +off their hats respectfully to the distant peak. + +"Look to the west!" interrupted Barbican, watching, as usual, while his +companions were talking, and probably perfectly unconscious of what they +were saying; "directly to the west! Now tell me what you see!" + +"I see a vast valley!" answered M'Nicholl. + +"Straight as an arrow!" added Ardan. + +"Running through lofty mountains!" cried M'Nicholl. + +"Cut through with a pair of saws and scooped out with a chisel!" cried +Ardan. + +"See the shadows of those peaks!" cried M'Nicholl catching fire at the +sight. "Black, long, and sharp as if cast by cathedral spires!" + +"Oh! ye crags and peaks!" burst forth Ardan; "how I should like to catch +even a faint echo of the chorus you could chant, if a wild storm roared +over your beetling summits! The pine forests of Norwegian mountains +howling in midwinter would not be an accordeon in comparison!" + +"Wonderful instance of subsidence on a grand scale!" exclaimed the +Captain, hastily relapsing into science. + +"Not at all!" cried the Frenchman, still true to his colors; "no +subsidence there! A comet simply came too close and left its mark as it +flew past." + +"Fanciful exclamations, dear friends," observed Barbican; "but I'm not +surprised at your excitement. Yonder is the famous _Valley of the Alps_, +a standing enigma to all selenographers. How it could have been formed, +no one can tell. Even wilder guesses than yours, Ardan, have been +hazarded on the subject. All we can state positively at present +regarding this wonderful formation, is what I have just recorded in my +note-book: the _Valley of the Alps_ is about 5 mile wide and 70 or 80 +long: it is remarkably flat and free from _debris_, though the mountains +on each side rise like walls to the height of at least 10,000 +feet.--Over the whole surface of our Earth I know of no natural +phenomenon that can be at all compared with it." + +"Another wonder almost in front of us!" cried Ardan. "I see a vast lake +black as pitch and round as a crater; it is surrounded by such lofty +mountains that their shadows reach clear across, rendering the interior +quite invisible!" + +"That's _Plato_;" said M'Nicholl; "I know it well; it's the darkest spot +on the Moon: many a night I gazed at it from my little observatory in +Broad Street, Philadelphia." + +"Right, Captain," said Barbican; "the crater _Plato_, is, indeed, +generally considered the blackest spot on the Moon, but I am inclined to +consider the spots _Grimaldi_ and _Riccioli_ on the extreme eastern edge +to be somewhat darker. If you take my glass, Ardan, which is of somewhat +greater power than yours, you will distinctly see the bottom of the +crater. The reflective power of its plateau probably proceeds from the +exceedingly great number of small craters that you can detect there." + +"I think I see something like them now," said Ardan. "But I am sorry the +Projectile's course will not give us a vertical view." + +"Can't be helped!" said Barbican; "we must go where it takes us. The day +may come when man can steer the projectile or the balloon in which he is +shut up, in any way he pleases, but that day has not come yet!" + +Towards five in the morning, the northern limit of _Mare Imbrium_ was +finally passed, and _Mare Frigoris_ spread its frost-colored plains +far to the right and left. On the east the travellers could easily see +the ring-mountain _Condamine_, about 4000 feet high, while a little +ahead on the right they could plainly distinguish _Fontenelle_ with an +altitude nearly twice as great. _Mare Frigoris_ was soon passed, and the +whole lunar surface beneath the travellers, as far as they could see in +all directions, now bristled with mountains, crags, and peaks. Indeed, +at the 70th parallel the "Seas" or plains seem to have come to an end. +The spy-glasses now brought the surface to within about three miles, a +distance less than that between the hotel at Chamouni and the summit of +Mont Blanc. To the left, they had no difficulty in distinguishing the +ramparts of _Philolaus_, about 12,000 feet high, but though the crater +had a diameter of nearly thirty miles, the black shadows prevented the +slightest sign of its interior from being seen. The Sun was now sinking +very low, and the illuminated surface of the Moon was reduced to a +narrow rim. + +By this time, too, the bird's eye view to which the observations had so +far principally confined, decidedly altered its character. They could +now look back at the lunar mountains that they had been just sailing +over--a view somewhat like that enjoyed by a tourist standing on the +summit of Mt. St. Gothard as he sees the sun setting behind the peaks of +the Bernese Oberland. The lunar landscapes however, though seen under +these new and ever varying conditions, "hardly gained much by the +change," according to Ardan's expression. On the contrary, they looked, +if possible, more dreary and inhospitable than before. + +The Moon having no atmosphere, the benefit of this gaseous envelope in +softening off and nicely shading the approaches of light and darkness, +heat and cold, is never felt on her surface. There, no twilight ever +softly ushers in the brilliant sun, or sweetly heralds the near approach +of night's dark shadow. Night follows day, and day night, with the +startling suddenness of a match struck or a lamp extinguished in a +cavern. Nor can it present any gradual transition from either extreme of +temperature. Hot jumps to cold, and cold jumps to hot. A moment after a +glacial midnight, it is a roasting noon. Without an instant's warning +the temperature falls from 212 deg. Fahrenheit to the icy winter of +interstellar space. The surface is all dazzling glare, or pitchy gloom. +Wherever the direct rays of the sun do not fall, darkness reigns +supreme. What we call diffused light on Earth, the grateful result of +refraction, the luminous matter held in suspension by the air, the +mother of our dawns and our dusks, of our blushing mornings and our dewy +eyes, of our shades, our penumbras, our tints and all the other magical +effects of _chiaro-oscuro_--this diffused light has absolutely no +existence on the surface of the Moon. Nothing is there to break the +inexorable contrast between intense white and intense black. At mid-day, +let a Selenite shade his eyes and look at the sky: it will appear to him +as black as pitch, while the stars still sparkle before him as vividly +as they do to us on the coldest and darkest night in winter. + +From this you can judge of the impression made on our travellers by +those strange lunar landscapes. Even their decided novelty and very +strange character produced any thing but a pleasing effect on the organs +of sight. With all their enthusiasm, the travellers felt their eyes "get +out of gear," as Ardan said, like those of a man blind from his birth +and suddenly restored to sight. They could not adjust them so as to be +able to realize the different plains of vision. All things seemed in a +heap. Foreground and background were indistinguishably commingled. No +painter could ever transfer a lunar landscape to his canvas. + +"Landscape," Ardan said; "what do you mean by a landscape? Can you call +a bottle of ink intensely black, spilled over a sheet of paper intensely +white, a landscape?" + +At the eightieth degree, when the Projectile was hardly 100 miles +distant from the Moon, the aspect of things underwent no improvement. On +the contrary, the nearer the travellers approached the lunar surface, +the drearier, the more inhospitable, and the more _unearthly_, +everything seem to look. Still when five o'clock in the morning brought +our travellers to within 50 miles of _Mount Gioja_--which their +spy-glasses rendered as visible as if it was only about half a mile off, +Ardan could not control himself. + +"Why, we're there" he exclaimed; "we can touch her with our hands! Open +the windows and let me out! Don't mind letting me go by myself. It is +not very inviting quarters I admit. But as we are come to the jumping +off place, I want to see the whole thing through. Open the lower window +and let me out. I can take care of myself!" + +"That's what's more than any other man can do," said M'Nicholl drily, +"who wants to take a jump of 50 miles!" + +"Better not try it, friend Ardan," said Barbican grimly: "think of +Satellite! The Moon is no more attainable by your body than by our +Projectile. You are far more comfortable in here than when floating +about in empty space like a bolide." + +Ardan, unwilling to quarrel with his companions, appeared to give in; +but he secretly consoled himself by a hope which he had been +entertaining for some time, and which now looked like assuming the +appearance of a certainty. The Projectile had been lately approaching +the Moon's surface so rapidly that it at last seemed actually impossible +not to finally touch it somewhere in the neighborhood of the north pole, +whose dazzling ridges now presented themselves in sharp and strong +relief against the black sky. Therefore he kept silent, but quietly +bided his time. + +The Projectile moved on, evidently getting nearer and nearer to the +lunar surface. The Moon now appeared to the travellers as she does to us +towards the beginning of her Second Quarter, that is as a bright +crescent instead of a hemisphere. On one side, glaring dazzling light; +on the other, cavernous pitchy darkness. The line separating both was +broken into a thousand bits of protuberances and concavities, dented, +notched, and jagged. + +At six o'clock the travellers found themselves exactly over the north +pole. They were quietly gazing at the rapidly shifting features of the +wondrous view unrolling itself beneath them, and were silently wondering +what was to come next, when, suddenly, the Projectile passed the +dividing line. The Sun and Moon instantly vanished from view. The next +moment, without the slightest warning the travellers found themselves +plunged in an ocean of the most appalling darkness! + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +A NIGHT OF FIFTEEN DAYS. + + +The Projectile being not quite 30 miles from the Moon's north pole when +the startling phenomenon, recorded in our last chapter, took place, a +few seconds were quite sufficient to launch it at once from the +brightest day into the unknown realms of night. The transition was so +abrupt, so unexpected, without the slightest shading off, from dazzling +effulgence to Cimmerian gloom, that the Moon seemed to have been +suddenly extinguished like a lamp when the gas is turned off. + +"Where's the Moon?" cried Ardan in amazement. + +"It appears as if she had been wiped out of creation!" cried M'Nicholl. + +Barbican said nothing, but observed carefully. Not a particle, however, +could he see of the disc that had glittered so resplendently before his +eyes a few moments ago. Not a shadow, not a gleam, not the slightest +vestige could he trace of its existence. The darkness being profound, +the dazzling splendor of the stars only gave a deeper blackness to the +pitchy sky. No wonder. The travellers found themselves now in a night +that had plenty of time not only to become black itself, but to steep +everything connected with it in palpable blackness. This was the night +354-1/4 hours long, during which the invisible face of the Moon is +turned away from the Sun. In this black darkness the Projectile now +fully participated. Having plunged into the Moon's shadow, it was as +effectually cut off from the action of the solar rays as was every point +on the invisible lunar surface itself. + +The travellers being no longer able to see each other, it was proposed +to light the gas, though such an unexpected demand on a commodity at +once so scarce and so valuable was certainly disquieting. The gas, it +will be remembered, had been intended for heating alone, not +illumination, of which both Sun and Moon had promised a never ending +supply. But here both Sun and Moon, in a single instant vanished from +before their eyes and left them in Stygian darkness. + +"It's all the Sun's fault!" cried Ardan, angrily trying to throw the +blame on something, and, like every angry man in such circumstances, +bound to be rather nonsensical. + +"Put the saddle on the right horse, Ardan," said M'Nicholl +patronizingly, always delighted at an opportunity of counting a point +off the Frenchman. "You mean it's all the Moon's fault, don't you, in +setting herself like a screen between us and the Sun?" + +"No, I don't!" cried Ardan, not at all soothed by his friend's +patronizing tone, and sticking like a man to his first assertion right +or wrong. "I know what I say! It will be all the Sun's fault if we use +up our gas!" + +"Nonsense!" said M'Nicholl. "It's the Moon, who by her interposition has +cut off the Sun's light." + +"The Sun had no business to allow it to be cut off," said Ardan, still +angry and therefore decidedly loose in his assertions. + +Before M'Nicholl could reply, Barbican interposed, and his even voice +was soon heard pouring balm on the troubled waters. + +"Dear friends," he observed, "a little reflection on either side would +convince you that our present situation is neither the Moon's fault nor +the Sun's fault. If anything is to be blamed for it, it is our +Projectile which, instead of rigidly following its allotted course, has +awkwardly contrived to deviate from it. However, strict justice must +acquit even the Projectile. It only obeyed a great law of nature in +shifting its course as soon as it came within the sphere of that +inopportune bolide's influence." + +"All right!" said Ardan, as usual in the best of humor after Barbican +had laid down the law. "I have no doubt it is exactly as you say; and, +now that all is settled, suppose we take breakfast. After such a hard +night spent in work, a little refreshment would not be out of place!" + +Such a proposition being too reasonable even for M'Nicholl to oppose, +Ardan turned on the gas, and had everything ready for the meal in a few +minutes. But, this time, breakfast was consumed in absolute silence. No +toasts were offered, no hurrahs were uttered. A painful uneasiness had +seized the hearts of the daring travellers. The darkness into which +they were so suddenly plunged, told decidedly on their spirits. They +felt almost as if they had been suddenly deprived of their sight. That +thick, dismal savage blackness, which Victor Hugo's pen is so fond of +occasionally revelling in, surrounded them on all sides and crushed them +like an iron shroud. + +It was felt worse than ever when, breakfast being over, Ardan carefully +turned off the gas, and everything within the Projectile was as dark as +without. However, though they could not see each other's faces, they +could hear each other's voices, and therefore they soon began to talk. +The most natural subject of conversation was this terrible night 354 +hours long, which the laws of nature have imposed on the Lunar +inhabitants. Barbican undertook to give his friends some explanation +regarding the cause of the startling phenomenon, and the consequences +resulting from it. + +"Yes, startling is the word for it," observed Barbican, replying to a +remark of Ardan's; "and still more so when we reflect that not only are +both lunar hemispheres deprived, by turns, of sun light for nearly 15 +days, but that also the particular hemisphere over which we are at this +moment floating is all that long night completely deprived of +earth-light. In other words, it is only one side of the Moon's disc that +ever receives any light from the Earth. From nearly every portion of one +side of the Moon, the Earth is always as completely absent as the Sun is +from us at midnight. Suppose an analogous case existed on the Earth; +suppose, for instance, that neither in Europe, Asia or North America +was the Moon ever visible--that, in fact, it was to be seen only at our +antipodes. With what astonishment should we contemplate her for the +first time on our arrival in Australia or New Zealand!" + +"Every man of us would pack off to Australia to see her!" cried Ardan. + +"Yes," said M'Nicholl sententiously; "for a visit to the South Sea a +Turk would willingly forego Mecca; and a Bostonian would prefer Sidney +even to Paris." + +"Well," resumed Barbican, "this interesting marvel is reserved for the +Selenite that inhabits the side of the Moon which is always turned away +from our globe." + +"And which," added the Captain, "we should have had the unspeakable +satisfaction of contemplating if we had only arrived at the period when +the Sun and the Earth are not at the same side of the Moon--that is, 15 +days sooner or later than now." + +"For my part, however," continued Barbican, not heeding these +interruptions, "I must confess that, notwithstanding the magnificent +splendor of the spectacle when viewed for the first time by the Selenite +who inhabits the dark side of the Moon, I should prefer to be a resident +on the illuminated side. The former, when his long, blazing, roasting, +dazzling day is over, has a night 354 hours long, whose darkness, like +that, just now surrounding us, is ever unrelieved save by the cold +cheerless rays of the stars. But the latter has hardly seen his fiery +sun sinking on one horizon when he beholds rising on the opposite one an +orb, milder, paler, and colder indeed than the Sun, but fully as large +as thirteen of our full Moons, and therefore shedding thirteen times as +much light. This would be our Earth. It would pass through all its +phases too, exactly like our Satellite. The Selenites would have their +New Earth, Full Earth, and Last Quarter. At midnight, grandly +illuminated, it would shine with the greatest glory. But that is almost +as much as can be said for it. Its futile heat would but poorly +compensate for its superior radiance. All the calorie accumulated in the +lunar soil during the 354 hours day would have by this time radiated +completely into space. An intensity of cold would prevail, in comparison +to which a Greenland winter is tropical. The temperature of interstellar +space, 250 deg. below zero, would be reached. Our Selenite, heartily tired +of the cold pale Earth, would gladly see her sink towards the horizon, +waning as she sank, till at last she appeared no more than half full. +Then suddenly a faint rim of the solar orb reveals itself on the edge of +the opposite sky. Slowly, more than 14 times more slowly than with us, +does the Sun lift himself above the lunar horizon. In half an hour, only +half his disc is revealed, but that is more than enough to flood the +lunar landscape with a dazzling intensity of light, of which we have no +counterpart on Earth. No atmosphere refracts it, no hazy screen softens +it, no enveloping vapor absorbs it, no obstructing medium colors it. It +breaks on the eye, harsh, white, dazzling, blinding, like the electric +light seen a few yards off. As the hours wear away, the more blasting +becomes the glare; and the higher he rises in the black sky, but slowly, +slowly. It takes him seven of our days to reach the meridian. By that +time the heat has increased from an arctic temperature to double the +boiling water point, from 250 deg. below zero to 500 deg. above it, or the point +at which tin melts. Subjected to these extremes, the glassy rocks crack, +shiver and crumble away; enormous land slides occur; peaks topple over; +and tons of debris, crashing down the mountains, are swallowed up +forever in the yawing chasms of the bottomless craters." + +"Bravo!" cried Ardan, clapping his hands softly: "our President is +sublime! He reminds me of the overture of _Guillaume Tell_!" + +"Souvenir de Marston!" growled M'Nicholl. + +"These phenomena," continued Barbican, heedless of interruption and his +voice betraying a slight glow of excitement, "these phenomena going on +without interruption from month to month, from year to year, from age to +age, from _eon_ to _eon_, have finally convinced me that--what?" he +asked his hearers, interrupting himself suddenly. + +--"That the existence at the present time--" answered M'Nicholl. + +--"Of either animal or vegetable life--" interrupted Ardan. + +--"In the Moon is hardly possible!" cried both in one voice. + +"Besides?" asked Barbican: "even if there _is_ any life--?" + +--"That to live on the dark side would be much more inconvenient than on +the light side!" cried M'Nicholl promptly. + +--"That there is no choice between them!" cried Ardan just as ready. +"For my part, I should think a residence on Mt. Erebus or in Grinnell +Land a terrestrial paradise in comparison to either. The _Earth shine_ +might illuminate the light side of the Moon a little during the long +night, but for any practical advantage towards heat or life, it would be +perfectly useless!" + +"But there is another serious difference between the two sides," said +Barbican, "in addition to those enumerated. The dark side is actually +more troubled with excessive variations of temperature than the light +one." + +"That assertion of our worthy President," interrupted Ardan, "with all +possible respect for his superior knowledge, I am disposed to question." + +"It's as clear as day!" said Barbican. + +"As clear as mud, you mean, Mr. President;" interrupted Ardan, "the +temperature of the light side is excited by two objects at the same +time, the Earth and the Sun, whereas--" + +--"I beg your pardon, Ardan--" said Barbican. + +--"Granted, dear boy--granted with the utmost pleasure!" interrupted the +Frenchman. + +"I shall probably have to direct my observations altogether to you, +Captain," continued Barbican; "friend Michael interrupts me so often +that I'm afraid he can hardly understand my remarks." + +"I always admired your candor, Barbican," said Ardan; "it's a noble +quality, a grand quality!" + +"Don't mention it," replied Barbican, turning towards M'Nicholl, still +in the dark, and addressing him exclusively; "You see, my dear Captain, +the period at which the Moon's invisible side receives at once its light +and heat is exactly the period of her _conjunction_, that is to say, +when she is lying between the Earth and the Sun. In comparison therefore +with the place which she had occupied at her _opposition_, or when her +visible side was fully illuminated, she is nearer to the Sun by double +her distance from the Earth, or nearly 480 thousand miles. Therefore, my +dear Captain, you can see how when the invisible side of the Moon is +turned towards the Sun, she is nearly half a million of miles nearer to +him than she had been before. Therefore, her heat should be so much the +greater." + +"I see it at a glance," said the Captain. + +"Whereas--" continued Barbican. + +"One moment!" cried Ardan. + +"Another interruption!" exclaimed Barbican; "What is the meaning of it, +Sir?" + +"I ask my honorable friend the privilege of the floor for one moment," +cried Ardan. + +"What for?" + +"To continue the explanation." + +"Why so?" + +"To show that I can understand as well as interrupt!" + +"You have the floor!" exclaimed Barbican, in a voice no longer showing +any traces of ill humor. + +"I expected no less from the honorable gentleman's well known courtesy," +replied Ardan. Then changing his manner and imitating to the life +Barbican's voice, articulation, and gestures, he continued: "Whereas, +you see, my dear Captain, the period at which the Moon's visible side +receives at once its light and heat, is exactly the period of her +_opposition_, that is to say, when she is lying on one side of the Earth +and the Sun at the other. In comparison therefore with the point which +she had occupied in _conjunction_, or when her invisible side was fully +illuminated, she is farther from the Sun by double her distance from the +Earth, or nearly 480,000 miles. Therefore, my dear Captain, you can +readily see how when the Moon's invisible side is turned _from_ the Sun, +she is nearly half a million miles further from him than she had been +before. Therefore her heat should be so much the less." + +"Well done, friend Ardan!" cried Barbican, clapping his hands with +pleasure. "Yes, Captain, he understood it as well as either of us the +whole time. Intelligence, not indifference, caused him to interrupt. +Wonderful fellow!" + +"That's the kind of a man I am!" replied Ardan, not without some degree +of complacency. Then he added simply: "Barbican, my friend, if I +understand your explanations so readily, attribute it all to their +astonishing lucidity. If I have any faculity, it is that of being able +to scent common sense at the first glimmer. Your sentences are so +steeped in it that I catch their full meaning long before you end +them--hence my apparent inattention. But we're not yet done with the +visible face of the Moon: it seems to me you have not yet enumerated all +the advantages in which it surpasses the other side." + +"Another of these advantages," continued Barbican, "is that it is from +the visible side alone that eclipses of the Sun can be seen. This is +self-evident, the interposition of the Earth being possible only between +this visible face and the Sun. Furthermore, such eclipses of the Sun +would be of a far more imposing character than anything of the kind to +be witnessed from our Earth. This is chiefly for two reasons: first, +when we, terrestrians, see the Sun eclipsed, we notice that, the discs +of the two orbs being of about the same apparent size, one cannot hide +the other except for a short time; second, as the two bodies are moving +in opposite directions, the total duration of the eclipse, even under +the most favorable circumstances, can't last longer than 7 minutes. +Whereas to a Selenite who sees the Earth eclipse the Sun, not only does +the Earth's disc appear four times larger than the Sun's, but also, as +his day is 14 times longer than ours, the two heavenly bodies must +remain several hours in contact. Besides, notwithstanding the apparent +superiority of the Earth's disc, the refracting power of the atmosphere +will never allow the Sun to be eclipsed altogether. Even when completely +screened by the Earth, he would form a beautiful circle around her of +yellow, red, and crimson light, in which she would appear to float like +a vast sphere of jet in a glowing sea of gold, rubies, sparkling +carbuncles and garnets." + +"It seems to me," said M'Nicholl, "that, taking everything into +consideration, the invisible side has been rather shabbily treated." + +"I know I should not stay there very long," said Ardan; "the desire of +seeing such a splendid sight as that eclipse would be enough to bring me +to the visible side as soon as possible." + +"Yes, I have no doubt of that, friend Michael," pursued Barbican; "but +to see the eclipse it would not be necessary to quit the dark hemisphere +altogether. You are, of course, aware that in consequence of her +librations, or noddings, or wobblings, the Moon presents to the eyes of +the Earth a little more than the exact half of her disc. She has two +motions, one on her path around the Earth, and the other a shifting +around on her own axis by which she endeavors to keep the same side +always turned towards our sphere. This she cannot always do, as while +one motion, the latter, is strictly uniform, the other being eccentric, +sometimes accelerating her and sometimes retarding, she has not time to +shift herself around completely and with perfect correspondence of +movement. At her perigee, for instance, she moves forward quicker than +she can shift, so that we detect a portion of her western border before +she has time to conceal it. Similarly, at her apogee, when her rate of +motion is comparatively slow, she shifts a little too quickly for her +velocity, and therefore cannot help revealing a certain portion of her +eastern border. She shows altogether about 8 degrees of the dark side, +about 4 at the east and 4 at the west, so that, out of her 360 degrees, +about 188, in other words, a little more than 57 per cent., about 4/7 of +the entire surface, becomes visible to human eyes. Consequently a +Selenite could catch an occasional glimpse of our Earth, without +altogether quitting the dark side." + +"No matter for that!" cried Ardan; "if we ever become Selenites we must +inhabit the visible side. My weak point is light, and that I must have +when it can be got." + +"Unless, as perhaps in this case, you might be paying too dear for it," +observed M'Nicholl. "How would you like to pay for your light by the +loss of the atmosphere, which, according to some philosophers, is piled +away on the dark side?" + +"Ah! In that case I should consider a little before committing myself," +replied Ardan, "I should like to hear your opinion regarding such a +notion, Barbican. Hey! Do your hear? Have astronomers any valid reasons +for supposing the atmosphere to have fled to the dark side of the Moon?" + +"Defer that question till some other time, Ardan," whispered M'Nicholl; +"Barbican is just now thinking out something that interests him far more +deeply than any empty speculation of astronomers. If you are near the +window, look out through it towards the Moon. Can you see anything?" + +"I can feel the window with my hand; but for all I can see, I might as +well be over head and ears in a hogshead of ink." + +The two friends kept up a desultory conversation, but Barbican did not +hear them. One fact, in particular, troubled him, and he sought in vain +to account for it. Having come so near the Moon--about 30 miles--why had +not the Projectile gone all the way? Had its velocity been very great, +the tendency to fall could certainly be counteracted. But the velocity +being undeniably very moderate, how explain such a decided resistance to +Lunar attraction? Had the Projectile come within the sphere of some +strange unknown influence? Did the neighborhood of some mysterious body +retain it firmly imbedded in ether? That it would never reach the Moon, +was now beyond all doubt; but where was it going? Nearer to her or +further off? Or was it rushing resistlessly into infinity on the wings +of that pitchy night? Who could tell, know, calculate--who could even +guess, amid the horror of this gloomy blackness? Questions, like these, +left Barbican no rest; in vain he tried to grapple with them; he felt +like a child before them, baffled and almost despairing. + +In fact, what could be more tantalizing? Just outside their windows, +only a few leagues off, perhaps only a few miles, lay the radiant planet +of the night, but in every respect as far off from the eyes of himself +and his companions as if she was hiding at the other side of Jupiter! +And to their ears she was no nearer. Earthquakes of the old Titanic type +might at that very moment be upheaving her surface with resistless +force, crashing mountain against mountain as fiercely as wave meets wave +around the storm-lashed cliffs of Cape Horn. But not the faintest far +off murmur even of such a mighty tumult could break the dead brooding +silence that surrounded the travellers. Nay, the Moon, realizing the +weird fancy of the Arabian poet, who calls her a "giant stiffening into +granite, but struggling madly against his doom," might shriek, in a +spasm of agony, loudly enough to be heard in Sirius. But our travellers +could not hear it. Their ears no sound could now reach. They could no +more detect the rending of a continent than the falling of a feather. +Air, the propagator and transmitter of sound, was absent from her +surface. Her cries, her struggles, her groans, were all smothered +beneath the impenetrable tomb of eternal silence! + +These were some of the fanciful ideas by which Ardan tried to amuse his +companions in the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. His efforts, +however well meant, were not successful. M'Nicholl's growls were more +savage than usual, and even Barbican's patience was decidedly giving +way. The loss of the other face they could have easily borne--with most +of its details they had been already familiar. But, no, it must be the +dark face that now escaped their observation! The very one that for +numberless reasons they were actually dying to see! They looked out of +the windows once more at the black Moon beneath them. + +There it lay below them, a round black spot, hiding the sweet faces of +the stars, but otherwise no more distinguishable by the travellers than +if they were lying in the depths of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. And +just think. Only fifteen days before, that dark face had been splendidly +illuminated by the solar beams, every crater lustrous, every peak +sparkling, every streak glistening under the vertical ray. In fifteen +days later, a day light the most brilliant would have replaced a +midnight the most Cimmerian. But in fifteen days later, where would the +Projectile be? In what direction would it have been drawn by the forces +innumerable of attractions incalculable? To such a question as this, +even Ardan would reply only by an ominous shake of the head. + +We know already that our travellers, as well as astronomers generally, +judging from that portion of the dark side occasionally revealed by the +Moon's librations, were _pretty certain_ that there is no great +difference between her two sides, as far as regards their physical +constitutions. This portion, about the seventh part, shows plains and +mountains, circles and craters, all of precisely the same nature as +those already laid down on the chart. Judging therefore from analogy, +the other three-sevenths are, in all probability a world in every +respect exactly like the visible face--that is, arid, desert, dead. But +our travellers also knew that _pretty certain_ is far from _quite +certain_, and that arguing merely from analogy may enable you to give a +good guess, but can never lead you to an undoubted conclusion. What if +the atmosphere had really withdrawn to this dark face? And if air, why +not water? Would not this be enough to infuse life into the whole +continent? Why should not vegetation flourish on its plains, fish in its +seas, animals in its forests, and man in every one of its zones that +were capable of sustaining life? To these interesting questions, what a +satisfaction it would be to be able to answer positively one way or +another! For thousands of difficult problems a mere glimpse at this +hemisphere would be enough to furnish a satisfactory reply. How glorious +it would be to contemplate a realm on which the eye of man has never yet +rested! + +Great, therefore, as you may readily conceive, was the depression of our +travellers' spirits, as they pursued their way, enveloped in a veil of +darkness the most profound. Still even then Ardan, as usual, formed +somewhat of an exception. Finding it impossible to see a particle of the +Lunar surface, he gave it up for good, and tried to console himself by +gazing at the stars, which now fairly blazed in the spangled heavens. +And certainly never before had astronomer enjoyed an opportunity for +gazing at the heavenly bodies under such peculiar advantages. How Fraye +of Paris, Chacornac of Lyons, and Father Secchi of Rome would have +envied him! + +For, candidly and truly speaking, never before had mortal eye revelled +on such a scene of starry splendor. The black sky sparkled with lustrous +fires, like the ceiling of a vast hall of ebony encrusted with flashing +diamonds. Ardan's eye could take in the whole extent in an easy sweep +from the _Southern Cross_ to the _Little Bear_, thus embracing within +one glance not only the two polar stars of the present day, but also +_Campus_ and _Vega_, which, by reason of the _precession of the +Equinoxes_, are to be our polar stars 12,000 years hence. His +imagination, as if intoxicated, reeled wildly through these sublime +infinitudes and got lost in them. He forgot all about himself and all +about his companions. He forgot even the strangeness of the fate that +had sent them wandering through these forbidden regions, like a +bewildered comet that had lost its way. With what a soft sweet light +every star glowed! No matter what its magnitude, the stream that flowed +from it looked calm and holy. No twinkling, no scintillation, no +nictitation, disturbed their pure and lambent gleam. No atmosphere here +interposed its layers of humidity or of unequal density to interrupt the +stately majesty of their effulgence. The longer he gazed upon them, the +more absorbing became their attraction. He felt that they were great +kindly eyes looking down even yet with benevolence and protection on +himself and his companions now driving wildly through space, and lost +in the pathless depths of the black ocean of infinity! + +He soon became aware that his friends, following his example, had +interested themselves in gazing at the stars, and were now just as +absorbed as himself in the contemplation of the transcendent spectacle. +For a long time all three continued to feast their eyes on all the +glories of the starry firmament; but, strange to say, the part that +seemed to possess the strangest and weirdest fascination for their +wandering glances was the spot where the vast disc of the Moon showed +like an enormous round hole, black and soundless, and apparently deep +enough to permit a glance into the darkest mysteries of the infinite. + +A disagreeable sensation, however, against which they had been for some +time struggling, at last put an end to their contemplations, and +compelled them to think of themselves. This was nothing less than a +pretty sharp cold, at first somewhat endurable, but which soon covered +the inside surface of the window panes with a thick coating of ice. The +fact was that, the Sun's direct rays having no longer an opportunity of +warming up the Projectile, the latter began to lose rapidly by radiation +whatever heat it had stored away within its walls. The consequence was a +very decided falling of the thermometer, and so thick a condensation of +the internal moisture on the window glasses as to soon render all +external observations extremely difficult, if not actually impossible. + +The Captain, as the oldest man in the party, claimed the privilege of +saying he could stand it no longer. Striking a light, he consulted the +thermometer and cried out: + +"Seventeen degrees below zero, centigrade! that is certainly low enough +to make an old fellow like me feel rather chilly!" + +"Just one degree and a half above zero, Fahrenheit!" observed Barbican; +"I really had no idea that it was so cold." + +His teeth actually chattered so much that he could hardly articulate; +still he, as well as the others, disliked to entrench on their short +supply of gas. + +"One feature of our journey that I particularly admire," said Ardan, +trying to laugh with freezing lips, "is that we can't complain of +monotony. At one time we are frying with the heat and blinded with the +light, like Indians caught on a burning prairie; at another, we are +freezing in the pitchy darkness of a hyperborean winter, like Sir John +Franklin's merry men in the Bay of Boothia. _Madame La Nature_, you +don't forget your devotees; on the contrary, you overwhelm us with your +attentions!" + +"Our external temperature may be reckoned at how much?" asked the +Captain, making a desperate effort to keep up the conversation. + +"The temperature outside our Projectile must be precisely the same as +that of interstellar space in general," answered Barbican. + +"Is not this precisely the moment then," interposed Ardan, quickly, +"for making an experiment which we could never have made as long as we +were in the sunshine?" + +"That's so!" exclaimed Barbican; "now or never! I'm glad you thought of +it, Ardan. We are just now in the position to find out the temperature +of space by actual experiment, and so see whose calculations are right, +Fourier's or Pouillet's." + +"Let's see," asked Ardan, "who was Fourier, and who was Pouillet?" + +"Baron Fourier, of the French Academy, wrote a famous treatise on +_Heat_, which I remember reading twenty years ago in Penington's book +store," promptly responded the Captain; "Pouillet was an eminent +professor of Physics at the Sorbonne, where he died, last year, I +think." + +"Thank you, Captain," said Ardan; "the cold does not injure your memory, +though it is decidedly on the advance. See how thick the ice is already +on the window panes! Let it only keep on and we shall soon have our +breaths falling around us in flakes of snow." + +"Let us prepare a thermometer," said Barbican, who had already set +himself to work in a business-like manner. + +A thermometer of the usual kind, as may be readily supposed, would be of +no use whatever in the experiment that was now about to be made. In an +ordinary thermometer Mercury freezes hard when exposed to a temperature +of 40 deg. below zero. But Barbican had provided himself with a _Minimum_, +_self-recording_ thermometer, of a peculiar nature, invented by +Wolferdin, a friend of Arago's, which could correctly register +exceedingly low degrees of temperature. Before beginning the experiment, +this instrument was tested by comparison with one of the usual kind, and +then Barbican hesitated a few moments regarding the best means of +employing it. + +"How shall we start this experiment?" asked the Captain. + +"Nothing simpler," answered Ardan, always ready to reply; "you just open +your windows, and fling out your thermometer. It follows your +Projectile, as a calf follows her mother. In a quarter of an hour you +put out your hand--" + +"Put out your hand!" interrupted Barbican. + +"Put out your hand--" continued Ardan, quietly. + +"You do nothing of the kind," again interrupted Barbican; "that is, +unless you prefer, instead of a hand, to pull back a frozen stump, +shapeless, colorless and lifeless!" + +"I prefer a hand," said Ardan, surprised and interested. + +"Yes," continued Barbican, "the instant your hand left the Projectile, +it would experience the same terrible sensations as is produced by +cauterizing it with an iron bar white hot. For heat, whether rushing +rapidly out of our bodies or rapidly entering them, is identically the +same force and does the same amount of damage. Besides I am by no means +certain that we are still followed by the objects that we flung out of +the Projectile." + +"Why not?" asked M'Nicholl; "we saw them all outside not long ago." + +"But we can't see them outside now," answered Barbican; "that may be +accounted for, I know, by the darkness, but it may be also by the fact +of their not being there at all. In a case like this, we can't rely on +uncertainties. Therefore, to make sure of not losing our thermometer, we +shall fasten it with a string and easily pull it in whenever we like." + +This advice being adopted, the window was opened quickly, and the +instrument was thrown out at once by M'Nicholl, who held it fastened by +a short stout cord so that it could be pulled in immediately. The window +had hardly been open for longer than a second, yet that second had been +enough to admit a terrible icy chill into the interior of the +Projectile. + +"Ten thousand ice-bergs!" cried Ardan, shivering all over; "it's cold +enough to freeze a white bear!" + +Barbican waited quietly for half an hour; that time he considered quite +long enough to enable the instrument to acquire the temperature of the +interstellar space. Then he gave the signal, and it was instantly pulled +in. + +It took him a few moments to calculate the quantity of mercury that had +escaped into the little diaphragm attached to the lower part of the +instrument; then he said: + +"A hundred and forty degrees, centigrade, below zero!" + +[Illustration: IT'S COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE A WHITE BEAR.] + +"Two hundred and twenty degrees, Fahrenheit, below zero!" cried +M'Nicholl; "no wonder that we should feel a little chilly!" + +"Pouillet is right, then," said Barbican, "and Fourier wrong." + +"Another victory for Sorbonne over the Academy!" cried Ardan. "_Vive la +Sorbonne!_ Not that I'm a bit proud of finding myself in the midst of a +temperature so very _distingue_--though it is more than three times +colder than Hayes ever felt it at Humboldt Glacier or Nevenoff at +Yakoutsk. If Madame the Moon becomes as cold as this every time that her +surface is withdrawn from the sunlight for fourteen days, I don't think, +boys, that her hospitality is much to hanker after!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +GLIMPSES AT THE INVISIBLE. + + +In spite of the dreadful condition in which the three friends now found +themselves, and the still more dreadful future that awaited them, it +must be acknowledged that Ardan bravely kept up his spirits. And his +companions were just as cheerful. Their philosophy was quite simple and +perfectly intelligible. What they could bear, they bore without +murmuring. When it became unbearable, they only complained, if +complaining would do any good. Imprisoned in an iron shroud, flying +through profound darkness into the infinite abysses of space, nearly a +quarter million of miles distant from all human aid, freezing with the +icy cold, their little stock not only of gas but of _air_ rapidly +running lower and lower, a near future of the most impenetrable +obscurity looming up before them, they never once thought of wasting +time in asking such useless questions as where they were going, or what +fate was about to befall them. Knowing that no good could possibly +result from inaction or despair, they carefully kept their wits about +them, making their experiments and recording their observations as +calmly and as deliberately as if they were working at home in the quiet +retirement of their own cabinets. + +Any other course of action, however, would have been perfectly absurd +on their part, and this no one knew better than themselves. Even if +desirous to act otherwise, what could they have done? As powerless over +the Projectile as a baby over a locomotive, they could neither clap +brakes to its movement nor switch off its direction. A sailor can turn +his ship's head at pleasure; an aeronaut has little trouble, by means of +his ballast and his throttle-valve, in giving a vertical movement to his +balloon. But nothing of this kind could our travellers attempt. No helm, +or ballast, or throttle-valve could avail them now. Nothing in the world +could be done to prevent things from following their own course to the +bitter end. + +If these three men would permit themselves to hazard an expression at +all on the subject, which they didn't, each could have done it by his +own favorite motto, so admirably expressive of his individual nature. +"_Donnez tete baissee!_" (Go it baldheaded!) showed Ardan's +uncalculating impetuosity and his Celtic blood. "_Fata quocunque +vocant!_" (To its logical consequence!) revealed Barbican's +imperturbable stoicism, culture hardening rather than loosening the +original British phlegm. Whilst M'Nicholl's "Screw down the valve and +let her rip!" betrayed at once his unconquerable Yankee coolness and his +old experiences as a Western steamboat captain. + +Where were they now, at eight o'clock in the morning of the day called +in America the sixth of December? Near the Moon, very certainly; near +enough, in fact, for them to perceive easily in the dark the great round +screen which she formed between themselves and the Projectile on one +side, and the Earth, Sun, and stars on the other. But as to the exact +distance at which she lay from them--they had no possible means of +calculating it. The Projectile, impelled and maintained by forces +inexplicable and even incomprehensible, had come within less than thirty +miles from the Moon's north pole. But during those two hours of +immersion in the dark shadow, had this distance been increased or +diminished? There was evidently no stand-point whereby to estimate +either the Projectile's direction or its velocity. Perhaps, moving +rapidly away from the Moon, it would be soon out of her shadow +altogether. Perhaps, on the contrary, gradually approaching her surface, +it might come into contact at any moment with some sharp invisible peak +of the Lunar mountains--a catastrophe sure to put a sudden end to the +trip, and the travellers too. + +An excited discussion on this subject soon sprang up, in which all +naturally took part. Ardan's imagination as usual getting the better of +his reason, he maintained very warmly that the Projectile, caught and +retained by the Moon's attraction, could not help falling on her +surface, just as an aerolite cannot help falling on our Earth. + +"Softly, dear boy, softly," replied Barbican; "aerolites _can_ help +falling on the Earth, and the proof is, that few of them _do_ fall--most +of them don't. Therefore, even granting that we had already assumed the +nature of an aerolite, it does not necessarily follow that we should +fall on the Moon." + +"But," objected Ardan, "if we approach only near enough, I don't see how +we can help--" + +"You don't see, it may be," said Barbican, "but you can see, if you only +reflect a moment. Have you not often seen the November meteors, for +instance, streaking the skies, thousands at a time?" + +"Yes; on several occasions I was so fortunate." + +"Well, did you ever see any of them strike the Earth's surface?" asked +Barbican. + +"I can't say I ever did," was the candid reply, "but--" + +"Well, these shooting stars," continued Barbican, "or rather these +wandering particles of matter, shine only from being inflamed by the +friction of the atmosphere. Therefore they can never be at a greater +distance from the Earth than 30 or 40 miles at furthest, and yet they +seldom fall on it. So with our Projectile. It may go very close to the +Moon without falling into it." + +"But our roving Projectile must pull up somewhere in the long run," +replied Ardan, "and I should like to know where that somewhere can be, +if not in the Moon." + +"Softly again, dear boy," said Barbican; "how do you know that our +Projectile must pull up somewhere?" + +"It's self-evident," replied Ardan; "it can't keep moving for ever." + +"Whether it can or it can't depends altogether on which one of two +mathematical curves it has followed in describing its course. According +to the velocity with which it was endowed at a certain moment, it must +follow either the one or the other; but this velocity I do not consider +myself just now able to calculate." + +"Exactly so," chimed in M'Nicholl; "it must describe and keep on +describing either a parabola or a hyperbola." + +"Precisely," said Barbican; "at a certain velocity it would take a +parabolic curve; with a velocity considerably greater it should describe +a hyperbolic curve." + +"I always did like nice corpulent words," said Ardan, trying to laugh; +"bloated and unwieldy, they express in a neat handy way exactly what you +mean. Of course, I know all about the high--high--those high curves, and +those low curves. No matter. Explain them to me all the same. Consider +me most deplorably ignorant on the nature of these curves." + +"Well," said the Captain, a little bumptiously, "a parabola is a curve +of the second order, formed by the intersection of a cone by a plane +parallel to one of its sides." + +"You don't say so!" cried Ardan, with mouth agape. "Do tell!" + +"It is pretty nearly the path taken by a shell shot from a mortar." + +"Well now!" observed Ardan, apparently much surprised; "who'd have +thought it? Now for the high--high--bully old curve!" + +"The hyperbola," continued the Captain, not minding Ardan's antics, "the +hyperbola is a curve of the second order, formed from the intersection +of a cone by a plane parallel to its axis, or rather parallel to its two +_generatrices_, constituting two separate branches, extending +indefinitely in both directions." + +"Oh, what an accomplished scientist I'm going to turn out, if only left +long enough at your feet, illustrious _maestro_!" cried Ardan, with +effusion. "Only figure it to yourselves, boys; before the Captain's +lucid explanations, I fully expected to hear something about the high +curves and the low curves in the back of an Ancient Thomas! Oh, Michael, +Michael, why didn't you know the Captain earlier?" + +But the Captain was now too deeply interested in a hot discussion with +Barbican to notice that the Frenchman was only funning him. Which of the +two curves had been the one most probably taken by the Projectile? +Barbican maintained it was the parabolic; M'Nicholl insisted that it was +the hyperbolic. Their tempers were not improved by the severe cold, and +both became rather excited in the dispute. They drew so many lines on +the table, and crossed them so often with others, that nothing was left +at last but a great blot. They covered bits of paper with _x_'s and +_y_'s, which they read out like so many classic passages, shouting them, +declaiming them, drawing attention to the strong points by gesticulation +so forcible and voice so loud that neither of the disputants could hear +a word that the other said. Possibly the very great difference in +temperature between the external air in contact with their skin and the +blood coursing through their veins, had given rise to magnetic currents +as potential in their effects as a superabundant supply of oxygen. At +all events, the language they soon began to employ in the enforcement of +their arguments fairly made the Frenchman's hair stand on end. + +"You probably forget the important difference between a _directrix_ and +an _axis_," hotly observed Barbican. + +"I know what an _abscissa_ is, any how!" cried the Captain. "Can you say +as much?" + +"Did you ever understand what is meant by a _double ordinate_?" asked +Barbican, trying to keep cool. + +"More than you ever did about a _transverse_ and a _conjugate!_" replied +the Captain, with much asperity. + +"Any one not convinced at a glance that this _eccentricity_ is equal to +_unity_, must be blind as a bat!" exclaimed Barbican, fast losing his +ordinary urbanity. + +"_Less_ than _unity_, you mean! If you want spectacles, here are mine!" +shouted the Captain, angrily tearing them off and offering them to his +adversary. + +"Dear boys!" interposed Ardan-- + +--"The _eccentricity_ is _equal_ to _unity_!" cried Barbican. + +--"The _eccentricity_ is _less_ than _unity_!" screamed M'Nicholl. + +"Talking of eccentricity--" put in Ardan. + +--"Therefore it's a _parabola_, and must be!" cried Barbican, +triumphantly. + +--"Therefore it's _hyperbola_ and nothing shorter!" was the Captain's +quite as confident reply. + +"For gracious sake!--" resumed Ardan. + +"Then produce your _asymptote_!" exclaimed Barbican, with an angry +sneer. + +"Let us see the _symmetrical point_!" roared the Captain, quite +savagely. + +"Dear boys! old fellows!--" cried Ardan, as loud as his lungs would let +him. + +"It's useless to argue with a Mississippi steamboat Captain," ejaculated +Barbican; "he never gives in till he blows up!" + +"Never try to convince a Yankee schoolmaster," replied M'Nicholl; "he +has one book by heart and don't believe in any other!" + +"Here, friend Michael, get me a cord, won't you? It's the only way to +convince him!" cried Barbican, hastily turning to the Frenchman. + +"Hand me over that ruler, Ardan!" yelled the Captain. "The heavy one! +It's the only way now left to bring him to reason!" + +"Look here, Barbican and M'Nicholl!" cried Ardan, at last making himself +heard, and keeping a tight hold both on the cord and the ruler. "This +thing has gone far enough! Come. Stop your talk, and answer me a few +questions. What do you want of this cord, Barbican?" + +"To describe a parabolic curve!" + +"And what are you going to do with the ruler, M'Nicholl!" + +"To help draw a true hyperbola!" + +"Promise me, Barbican, that you're not going to lasso the Captain!" + +"Lasso the Captain! Ha! ha! ha!" + +"You promise, M'Nicholl, that you're not going to brain the President!" + +"I brain the President! Ho! ho! ho!" + +"I want merely to convince him that it is a parabola!" + +"I only want to make it clear as day that it is hyperbola!" + +"Does it make any real difference whether it is one or the other?" +yelled Ardan. + +"The greatest possible difference--in the Eye of Science." + +"A radical and incontrovertible difference--in the Eye of Science!" + +"Oh! Hang the Eye of Science--will either curve take us to the Moon?" + +"No!" + +"Will either take us back to the Earth?" + +"No!" + +"Will either take us anywhere that you know of?" + +"No!" + +"Why not?" + +"Because they are both _open_ curves, and therefore can never end!" + +"Is it of the slightest possible importance which of the two curves +controls the Projectile?" + +"Not the slightest--except in the Eye of Science!" + +"Then let the Eye of Science and her parabolas and hyperbolas, and +conjugates, and asymptotes, and the rest of the confounded nonsensical +farrago, all go to pot! What's the use of bothering your heads about +them here! Have you not enough to trouble you otherwise? A nice pair of +scientists you are? 'Stanislow' scientists, probably. Do _real_ +scientists lose their tempers for a trifle? Am I ever to see my ideal of +a true scientific man in the flesh? Barbican came very near realizing my +idea perfectly; but I see that Science just has as little effect as +Culture in driving the Old Adam out of us! The idea of the only +simpleton in the lot having to lecture the others on propriety of +deportment! I thought they were going to tear each other's eyes out! Ha! +Ha! Ha! It's _impayable_! Give me that cord, Michael! Hand me the heavy +ruler, Ardan! It's the only way to bring him to reason! Ho! Ho! Ho! It's +too good! I shall never get over it!" and he laughed till his sides +ached and his cheeks streamed. + +His laughter was so contagious, and his merriment so genuine, that there +was really no resisting it, and the next few minutes witnessed nothing +but laughing, and handshaking and rib-punching in the Projectile--though +Heaven knows there was very little for the poor fellows to be merry +about. As they could neither reach the Moon nor return to the Earth, +what _was_ to befall them? The immediate outlook was the very reverse of +exhilarating. If they did not die of hunger, if they did not die of +thirst, the reason would simply be that, in a few days, as soon as their +gas was exhausted, they would die for want of air, unless indeed the icy +cold had killed them beforehand! + +By this time, in fact, the temperature had become so exceedingly cold +that a further encroachment on their little stock of gas could be put +off no longer. The light, of course, they could manage to do without; +but a little heat was absolutely necessary to prevent them from freezing +to death. Fortunately, however, the caloric developed by the Reiset and +Regnault process for purifying the air, raised the internal temperature +of the Projectile a little, so that, with an expenditure of gas much +less than they had expected, our travellers were able to maintain it at +a degree capable of sustaining human life. + +By this time, also, all observations through the windows had become +exceedingly difficult. The internal moisture condensed so thick and +congealed so hard on the glass that nothing short of continued friction +could keep up its transparency. But this friction, however laborious +they might regard it at other times, they thought very little of just +now, when observation had become far more interesting and important than +ever. + +If the Moon had any atmosphere, our travellers were near enough now to +strike any meteor that might be rushing through it. If the Projectile +itself were floating in it, as was possible, would not such a good +conductor of sound convey to their ears the reflexion of some lunar +echo, the roar of some storm raging among the mountains, the rattling of +some plunging avalanche, or the detonations of some eructating volcano? +And suppose some lunar Etna or Vesuvius was flashing out its fires, was +it not even possible that their eye could catch a glimpse of the lurid +gleam? One or two facts of this kind, well attested, would singularly +elucidate the vexatious question of a lunar atmosphere, which is still +so far from being decided. Full of such thoughts and intensely +interested in them, Barbican, M'Nicholl and Ardan, patient as +astronomers at a transit of Venus, watched steadily at their windows, +and allowed nothing worth noticing to escape their searching gaze. + +Ardan's patience first gave out. He showed it by an observation natural +enough, for that matter, to a mind unaccustomed to long stretches of +careful thought: + +"This darkness is absolutely killing! If we ever take this trip again, +it must be about the time of the New Moon!" + +"There I agree with you, Ardan," observed the Captain. "That would be +just the time to start. The Moon herself, I grant, would be lost in the +solar rays and therefore invisible all the time of our trip, but in +compensation, we should have the Full Earth in full view. Besides--and +this is your chief point, no doubt, Ardan--if we should happen to be +drawn round the Moon, just as we are at the present moment, we should +enjoy the inestimable advantage of beholding her invisible side +magnificently illuminated!" + +"My idea exactly, Captain," said Ardan. "What is your opinion on this +point, Barbican?" + +"My opinion is as follows:" answered Barbican, gravely. "If we ever +repeat this journey, we shall start precisely at the same time and under +precisely the same circumstances. You forget that our only object is to +reach the Moon. Now suppose we had really landed there, as we expected +to do yesterday, would it not have been much more agreeable to behold +the lunar continents enjoying the full light of day than to find them +plunged in the dismal obscurity of night? Would not our first +installation of discovery have been under circumstances decidedly +extremely favorable? Your silence shows that you agree with me. As to +the invisible side, once landed, we should have the power to visit it +when we pleased, and therefore we could always choose whatever time +would best suit our purpose. Therefore, if we wanted to land in the +Moon, the period of the Full Moon was the best period to select. The +period was well chosen, the time was well calculated, the force was well +applied, the Projectile was well aimed, but missing our way spoiled +everything." + +"That's sound logic, no doubt," said Ardan; "still I can't help thinking +that all for want of a little light we are losing, probably forever, a +splendid opportunity of seeing the Moon's invisible side. How about the +other planets, Barbican? Do you think that their inhabitants are as +ignorant regarding their satellites as we are regarding ours?" + +"On that subject," observed M'Nicholl, "I could venture an answer +myself, though, of course, without pretending to speak dogmatically on +any such open question. The satellites of the other planets, by their +comparative proximity, must be much easier to study than our Moon. The +Saturnians, the Uranians, the Jovians, cannot have had very serious +difficulty in effecting some communication with their satellites. +Jupiter's four moons, for instance, though on an average actually 2-1/2 +times farther from their planet's centre than the Moon is from us, are +comparatively four times nearer to him on account of his radius being +eleven times greater than the Earth's. With Saturn's eight moons, the +case is almost precisely similar. Their average distance is nearly three +times greater than that of our Moon; but as Saturn's diameter is about 9 +times greater than the Earth's, his bodyguards are really between 3 and +4 times nearer to their principal than ours is to us. As to Uranus, his +first satellite, _Ariel_, half as far from him as our Moon is from the +Earth, is comparatively, though not actually, eight times nearer." + +"Therefore," said Barbican, now taking up the subject, "an experiment +analogous to ours, starting from either of these three planets, would +have encountered fewer difficulties. But the whole question resolves +itself into this. _If_ the Jovians and the rest have been able to quit +their planets, they have probably succeeded in discovering the invisible +sides of their satellites. But if they have _not_ been able to do so, +why, they're not a bit wiser than ourselves--But what's the matter with +the Projectile? It's certainly shifting!" + +Shifting it certainly was. While the path it described as it swung +blindly through the darkness, could not be laid down by any chart for +want of a starting point, Barbican and his companions soon became aware +of a decided modification of its relative position with regard to the +Moon's surface. Instead of its side, as heretofore, it now presented its +base to the Moon's disc, and its axis had become rigidly vertical to the +lunar horizon. Of this new feature in their journey, Barbican had +assured himself by the most undoubted proof towards four o'clock in the +morning. What was the cause? Gravity, of course. The heavier portion of +the Projectile gravitated towards the Moon's centre exactly as if they +were falling towards her surface. + +But _were_ they falling? Were they at last, contrary to all +expectations, about to reach the goal that they had been so ardently +wishing for? No! A sight-point, just discovered by M'Nicholl, very soon +convinced Barbican that the Projectile was as far as ever from +approaching the Moon, but was moving around it in a curve pretty near +concentric. + +M'Nicholl's discovery, a luminous gleam flickering on the distant verge +of the black disc, at once engrossed the complete attention of our +travellers and set them to divining its course. It could not possibly be +confounded with a star. Its glare was reddish, like that of a distant +furnace on a dark night; it kept steadily increasing in size and +brightness, thus showing beyond a doubt how the Projectile was +moving--in the direction of the luminous point, and _not_ vertically +falling towards the Moon's surface. + +"It's a volcano!" cried the Captain, in great excitement; "a volcano in +full blast! An outlet of the Moon's internal fires! Therefore she can't +be a burnt out cinder!" + +"It certainly looks like a volcano," replied Barbican, carefully +investigating this new and puzzling phenomenon with his night-glass. "If +it is not one, in fact, what can it be?" + +"To maintain combustion," commenced Ardan syllogistically and +sententiously, "air is necessary. An undoubted case of combustion lies +before us. Therefore, this part of the Moon _must_ have an atmosphere!" + +"Perhaps so," observed Barbican, "but not necessarily so. The volcano, +by decomposing certain substances, gunpowder for instance, may be able +to furnish its own oxygen, and thus explode in a vacuum. That blaze, in +fact, seems to me to possess the intensity and the blinding glare of +objects burning in pure oxygen. Let us therefore be not over hasty in +jumping at the conclusion of the existence of a lunar atmosphere." + +This fire mountain was situated, according to the most plausible +conjecture, somewhere in the neighborhood of the 45th degree, south +latitude, of the Moon's invisible side. For a little while the +travellers indulged the fond hope that they were directly approaching +it, but, to their great disappointment, the path described by the +Projectile lay in a different direction. Its nature therefore they had +no opportunity of ascertaining. It began to disappear behind the dark +horizon within less than half an hour after the time that M'Nicholl had +signalled it. Still, the fact of the uncontested existence of such a +phenomenon was a grand one, and of considerable importance in +selenographic investigations. It proved that heat had not altogether +disappeared from the lunar world; and the existence of heat once +settled, who can say positively that the vegetable kingdom and even the +animal kingdom have not likewise resisted so far every influence tending +to destroy them? If terrestrial astronomers could only be convinced, by +undoubted evidence, of the existence of this active volcano on the +Moon's surface, they would certainly admit of very considerable +modifications in the present doubts regarding her inhabitability. + +Thoughts of this kind continued to occupy the minds of our travellers +even for some time after the little spark of light had been extinguished +in the black gloom. But they said very little; even Ardan was silent, +and continued to look out of the window. Barbican surrendered himself up +to a reverie regarding the mysterious destinies of the lunar world. Was +its present condition a foreshadowing of what our Earth is to become? +M'Nicholl, too, was lost in speculation. Was the Moon older or younger +than the Earth in the order of Creation? Had she ever been a beautiful +world of life, and color, and magnificent variety? If so, had her +inhabitants-- + +Great Mercy, what a cry from Ardan! It sounded human, so seldom do we +hear a shriek so expressive at once of surprise and horror and even +terror! It brought back his startled companions to their senses in a +second. Nor did they ask him for the cause of his alarm. It was only too +clear. Right in their very path, a blazing ball of fire had suddenly +risen up before their eyes, the pitchy darkness all round it rendering +its glare still more blinding. Its phosphoric coruscation filled the +Projectile with white streams of lurid light, tinging the contents with +a pallor indescribably ghastly. The travellers' faces in particular, +gleamed with that peculiar livid and cadaverous tinge, blue and yellow, +which magicians so readily produce by burning table salt in alcohol. + +"_Sacre!_" cried Ardan who always spoke his own language when much +excited. "What a pair of beauties you are! Say, Barbican! What +thundering thing is coming at us now?" + +"Another bolide," answered Barbican, his eye as calm as ever, though a +faint tremor was quite perceptible in his voice. + +"A bolide? Burning _in vacuo_? You are joking!" + +"I was never more in earnest," was the President's quiet reply, as he +looked through his closed fingers. + +He knew exactly what he was saying. The dazzling glitter did not deceive +_him_. Such a meteor seen from the Earth could not appear much brighter +than the Full Moon, but here in the midst of the black ether and +unsoftened by the veil of the atmosphere, it was absolutely blinding. +These wandering bodies carry in themselves the principle of their +incandescence. Oxygen is by no means necessary for their combustion. +Some of them indeed often take fire as they rush through the layers of +our atmosphere, and generally burn out before they strike the Earth. But +others, on the contrary, and the greater number too, follow a track +through space far more distant from the Earth than the fifty miles +supposed to limit our atmosphere. In October, 1844, one of these meteors +had appeared in the sky at an altitude calculated to be at least 320 +miles; and in August, 1841, another had vanished when it had reached the +height of 450 miles. A few even of those seen from the Earth must have +been several miles in diameter. The velocity with which some of them +have been calculated to move, from east to west, in a direction contrary +to that of the Earth, is astounding enough to exceed belief--about fifty +miles in a second. Our Earth does not move quite 20 miles in a second, +though it goes a thousand times quicker than the fastest locomotive. + +[Illustration: THEY COULD UTTER NO WORD.] + +Barbican calculated like lightning that the present object of their +alarm was only about 250 miles distant from them, and could not be +less than a mile and a quarter in diameter. It was coming on at the rate +of more than a mile a second or about 75 miles a minute. It lay right in +the path of the Projectile, and in a very few seconds indeed a terrible +collision was inevitable. The enormous rate at which it grew in size, +showed the terrible velocity at which it was approaching. + +You can hardly imagine the situation of our poor travellers at the sight +of this frightful apparition. I shall certainly not attempt to describe +it. In spite of their singular courage, wonderful coolness, +extraordinary fortitude, they were now breathless, motionless, almost +helpless; their muscles were tightened to their utmost tension; their +eyes stared out of their sockets; their faces were petrified with +horror. No wonder. Their Projectile, whose course they were powerless as +children to guide, was making straight for this fiery mass, whose glare +in a few seconds had become more blinding than the open vent of a +reverberating furnace. Their own Projectile was carrying them headlong +into a bottomless abyss of fire! + +Still, even in this moment of horror, their presence of mind, or at +least their consciousness, never abandoned them. Barbican had grasped +each of his friends by the hand, and all three tried as well as they +could to watch through half-closed eyelids the white-hot asteroid's +rapid approach. They could utter no word, they could breathe no prayer. +They gave themselves up for lost--in the agony of terror that partially +interrupted the ordinary functions of their brains, this was absolutely +all they could do! Hardly three minutes had elapsed since Ardan had +caught the first glimpse of it--three ages of agony! Now it was on them! +In a second--in less than a second, the terrible fireball had burst like +a shell! Thousands of glittering fragments were flying around them in +all directions--but with no more noise than is made by so many light +flakes of thistle-down floating about some warm afternoon in summer. The +blinding, blasting steely white glare of the explosion almost bereft the +travellers of the use of their eyesight forever, but no more report +reached their ears than if it had taken place at the bottom of the Gulf +of Mexico. In an atmosphere like ours, such a crash would have burst the +ear-membranes of ten thousand elephants! + +In the middle of the commotion another loud cry was suddenly heard. It +was the Captain who called this time. His companions rushed to his +window and all looked out together in the same direction. + +What a sight met their eyes! What pen can describe it? What pencil can +reproduce the magnificence of its coloring? It was a Vesuvius at his +best and wildest, at the moment just after the old cone has fallen in. +Millions of luminous fragments streaked the sky with their blazing +fires. All sizes and shapes of light, all colors and shades of colors, +were inextricably mingled together. Irradiations in gold, scintillations +in crimson, splendors in emerald, lucidities in ultramarine--a dazzling +girandola of every tint and of every hue. Of the enormous fireball, an +instant ago such an object of dread, nothing now remained but these +glittering pieces, shooting about in all directions, each one an +asteroid in its turn. Some flew out straight and gleaming like a steel +sword; others rushed here and there irregularly like chips struck off a +red-hot rock; and others left long trails of glittering cosmical dust +behind them like the nebulous tail of Donati's comet. + +These incandescent blocks crossed each other, struck each other, crushed +each other into still smaller fragments, one of which, grazing the +Projectile, jarred it so violently that the very window at which the +travellers were standing, was cracked by the shock. Our friends felt, in +fact, as if they were the objective point at which endless volleys of +blazing shells were aimed, any of them powerful enough, if it only hit +them fair, to make as short work of the Projectile as you could of an +egg-shell. They had many hairbreadth escapes, but fortunately the +cracking of the glass proved to be the only serious damage of which they +could complain. + +This extraordinary illumination lasted altogether only a few seconds; +every one of its details was of a most singular and exciting nature--but +one of its greatest wonders was yet to come. The ether, saturated with +luminous matter, developed an intensity of blazing brightness unequalled +by the lime light, the magnesium light, the electric light, or any other +dazzling source of illumination with which we are acquainted on earth. +It flashed out of these asteroids in all directions, and downwards, of +course, as well as elsewhere. At one particular instant, it was so very +vivid that Ardan, who happened to be looking downwards, cried out, as if +in transport: + +"Oh!! The Moon! Visible at last!" + +And the three companions, thrilling with indescribable emotion, shot a +hasty glance through the openings of the coruscating field beneath them. +Did they really catch a glimpse of the mysterious invisible disc that +the eye of man had never before lit upon? For a second or so they gazed +with enraptured fascination at all they could see. What did they see, +what could they see at a distance so uncertain that Barbican has never +been able even to guess at it? Not much. Ardan was reminded of the night +he had stood on the battlements of Dover Castle, a few years before, +when the fitful flashes of a thunder storm gave him occasional and very +uncertain glimpses of the French coast at the opposite side of the +strait. Misty strips long and narrow, extending over one portion of the +disc--probably cloud-scuds sustained by a highly rarefied +atmosphere--permitted only a very dreamy idea of lofty mountains +stretching beneath them in shapeless proportions, of smaller reliefs, +circuses, yawning craters, and the other capricious, sponge-like +formations so common on the visible side. Elsewhere the watchers became +aware for an instant of immense spaces, certainly not arid plains, but +seas, real oceans, vast and calm, reflecting from their placid depths +the dazzling fireworks of the weird and wildly flashing meteors. +Farther on, but very darkly as if behind a screen, shadowy continents +revealed themselves, their surfaces flecked with black cloudy masses, +probably great forests, with here and there a-- + +Nothing more! In less than a second the illumination had come to an end, +involving everything in the Moon's direction once more in pitchy +darkness. + +But had the impression made on the travellers' eyes been a mere vision +or the result of a reality? an optical delusion or the shadow of a solid +fact? Could an observation so rapid, so fleeting, so superficial, be +really regarded as a genuine scientific affirmation? Could such a feeble +glimmer of the invisible disc justify them in pronouncing a decided +opinion on the inhabitability of the Moon? To such questions as these, +rising spontaneously and simultaneously in the minds of our travellers, +they could not reply at the moment; they could not reply to them long +afterwards; even to this day they can give them no satisfactory answer. +All they could do at the moment, they did. To every sight and sound they +kept their eyes and ears open, and, by observing the most perfect +silence, they sought to render their impressions too vivid to admit of +deception. + +There was now, however, nothing to be heard, and very little more to be +seen. The few coruscations that flashed over the sky, gradually became +fewer and dimmer; the asteroids sought paths further and further apart, +and finally disappeared altogether. The ether resumed its original +blackness. The stars, eclipsed for a moment, blazed out again on the +firmament, and the invisible disc, that had flashed into view for an +instant, once more relapsed forever into the impenetrable depths of +night. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. + + +Exceedingly narrow and exceedingly fortunate had been the escape of the +Projectile. And from a danger too the most unlikely and the most +unexpected. Who would have ever dreamed of even the possibility of such +an encounter? And was all danger over? The sight of one of these erratic +bolides certainly justified the gravest apprehensions of our travellers +regarding the existence of others. Worse than the sunken reefs of the +Southern Seas or the snags of the Mississippi, how could the Projectile +be expected to avoid them? Drifting along blindly through the boundless +ethereal ocean, _her_ inmates, even if they saw the danger, were totally +powerless to turn her aside. Like a ship without a rudder, like a +runaway horse, like a collapsed balloon, like an iceberg in an Atlantic +storm, like a boat in the Niagara rapids, she moved on sullenly, +recklessly, mechanically, mayhap into the very jaws of the most +frightful danger, the bright intelligences within no more able to modify +her motions even by a finger's breadth than they were able to affect +Mercury's movements around the Sun. + +But did our friends complain of the new perils now looming up before +them? They never thought of such a thing. On the contrary, they only +considered themselves (after the lapse of a few minutes to calm their +nerves) extremely lucky in having witnessed this fresh glory of +exuberant nature, this transcendent display of fireworks which not only +cast into absolute insignificance anything of the kind they had ever +seen on Earth, but had actually enabled them by its dazzling +illumination to gaze for a second or two at the Moon's mysterious +invisible disc. This glorious momentary glance, worth a whole lifetime +of ordinary existence, had revealed to mortal ken her continents, her +oceans, her forests. But did it also convince them of the existence of +an atmosphere on her surface whose vivifying molecules would render +_life_ possible? This question they had again to leave unanswered--it +will hardly ever be answered in a way quite satisfactory to human +curiosity. Still, infinite was their satisfaction at having hovered even +for an instant on the very verge of such a great problem's solution. + +It was now half-past three in the afternoon. The Projectile still +pursued its curving but otherwise unknown path over the Moon's invisible +face. Had this path been disturbed by that dangerous meteor? There was +every reason to fear so--though, disturbance or no disturbance, the +curve it described should still be one strictly in accordance with the +laws of Mechanical Philosophy. Whether it was a parabola or a hyperbola, +however, or whether it was disturbed or not, made very little difference +as, in any case, the Projectile was bound to quit pretty soon the cone +of the shadow, at a point directly opposite to where it had entered it. +This cone could not possibly be of very great extent, considering the +very slight ratio borne by the Moon's diameter when compared with the +Sun's. Still, to all appearances, the Projectile seemed to be quite as +deeply immersed in the shadow as ever, and there was apparently not the +slightest sign of such a state of things coming soon to an end. At what +rate was the Projectile now moving? Hard to say, but certainly not +slowly, certainly rapidly enough to be out of the shadow by this time, +if describing a curve rigidly parabolic. Was the curve therefore _not_ +parabolic? Another puzzling problem and sadly bewildering to poor +Barbican, who had now almost lost his reason by attempting to clear up +questions that were proving altogether too profound for his overworked +brains. + +Not that he ever thought of taking rest. Not that his companions thought +of taking rest. Far from it. With senses as high-strung as ever, they +still watched carefully for every new fact, every unexpected incident +that might throw some light on the sidereal investigations. Even their +dinner, or what was called so, consisted of only a few bits of bread and +meat, distributed by Ardan at five o'clock, and swallowed mechanically. +They did not even turn on the gas full head to see what they were +eating; each man stood solidly at his window, the glass of which they +had enough to do in keeping free from the rapidly condensing moisture. + +At about half-past five, however, M'Nicholl, who had been gazing for +some time with his telescope in a particular direction, called the +attention of his companions to some bright specks of light barely +discernible in that part of the horizon towards which the Projectile was +evidently moving. His words were hardly uttered when his companions +announced the same discovery. They could soon all see the glittering +specks not only becoming more and more numerous, but also gradually +assuming the shape of an extremely slender, but extremely brilliant +crescent. Rapidly more brilliant and more decided in shape the profile +gradually grew, till it soon resembled the first faint sketch of the New +Moon that we catch of evenings in the western sky, or rather the first +glimpse we get of her limb as it slowly moves out of eclipse. But it was +inconceivably brighter than either, and was furthermore strangely +relieved by the pitchy blackness both of sky and Moon. In fact, it soon +became so brilliant as to dispel in a moment all doubt as to its +particular nature. No meteor could present such a perfect shape; no +volcano, such dazzling splendor. + +"The Sun!" cried Barbican. + +"The Sun?" asked M'Nicholl and Ardan in some astonishment. + +"Yes, dear friends; it is the Sun himself that you now see; these +summits that you behold him gilding are the mountains that lie on the +Moon's southern rim. We are rapidly nearing her south pole." + +"After doubling her north pole!" cried Ardan; "why, we must be +circumnavigating her!" + +"Exactly; sailing all around her." + +"Hurrah! Then we're all right at last! There's nothing more to fear from +your hyperbolas or parabolas or any other of your open curves!" + +"Nothing more, certainly, from an open curve, but every thing from a +closed one." + +"A closed curve! What is it called? And what is the trouble?" + +"An eclipse it is called; and the trouble is that, instead of flying off +into the boundless regions of space, our Projectile will probably +describe an elliptical orbit around the Moon--" + +--"What!" cried M'Nicholl, in amazement, "and be her satellite for +ever!" + +"All right and proper," said Ardan; "why shouldn't she have one of her +own?" + +"Only, my dear friend," said Barbican to Ardan, "this change of curve +involves no change in the doom of the Projectile. We are as infallibly +lost by an ellipse as by a parabola." + +"Well, there was one thing I never could reconcile myself to in the +whole arrangement," replied Ardan cheerfully; "and that was destruction +by an open curve. Safe from that, I could say, 'Fate, do your worst!' +Besides, I don't believe in the infallibility of your ellipsic. It may +prove just as unreliable as the hyperbola. And it is no harm to hope +that it may!" + +From present appearances there was very little to justify Ardan's hope. +Barbican's theory of the elliptic orbit was unfortunately too well +grounded to allow a single reasonable doubt to be expressed regarding +the Projectile's fate. It was to gravitate for ever around the Moon--a +sub-satellite. It was a new born individual in the astral universe, a +microcosm, a little world in itself, containing, however, only three +inhabitants and even these destined to perish pretty soon for want of +air. Our travellers, therefore, had no particular reason for rejoicing +over the new destiny reserved for the Projectile in obedience to the +inexorable laws of the centripetal and centrifugal forces. They were +soon, it is true, to have the opportunity of beholding once more the +illuminated face of the Moon. They might even live long enough to catch +a last glimpse of the distant Earth bathed in the glory of the solar +rays. They might even have strength enough left to be able to chant one +solemn final eternal adieu to their dear old Mother World, upon whose +features their mortal eyes should never again rest in love and longing! +Then, what was their Projectile to become? An inert, lifeless, extinct +mass, not a particle better than the most defunct asteroid that wanders +blindly through the fields of ether. A gloomy fate to look forward to. +Yet, instead of grieving over the inevitable, our bold travellers +actually felt thrilled with delight at the prospect of even a momentary +deliverance from those gloomy depths of darkness and of once more +finding themselves, even if only for a few hours, in the cheerful +precincts illuminated by the genial light of the blessed Sun! + +The ring of light, in the meantime, becoming brighter and brighter, +Barbican was not long in discovering and pointing out to his companions +the different mountains that lay around the Moon's south pole. + +"There is _Leibnitz_ on your right," said he, "and on your left you can +easily see the peaks of _Doerfel_. Belonging rather to the Moon's dark +side than to her Earth side, they are visible to terrestrial astronomers +only when she is in her highest northern latitudes. Those faint peaks +beyond them that you can catch with such difficulty must be those of +_Newton_ and _Curtius_." + +"How in the world can you tell?" asked Ardan. + +"They are the highest mountains in the circumpolar regions," replied +Barbican. "They have been measured with the greatest care; _Newton_ is +23,000 feet high." + +"More or less!" laughed Ardan. "What Delphic oracle says so?" + +"Dear friend," replied Barbican quietly, "the visible mountains of the +Moon have been measured so carefully and so accurately that I should +hardly hesitate in affirming their altitude to be as well known as that +of Mont Blanc, or, at least, as those of the chief peaks in the +Himalayahs or the Rocky Mountain Range." + +"I should like to know how people set about it," observed Ardan +incredulously. + +"There are several well known methods of approaching this problem," +replied Barbican; "and as these methods, though founded on different +principles, bring us constantly to the same result, we may pretty +safely conclude that our calculations are right. We have no time, just +now to draw diagrams, but, if I express myself clearly, you will no +doubt easily catch the general principle." + +"Go ahead!" answered Ardan. "Anything but Algebra." + +"We want no Algebra now," said Barbican, "It can't enable us to find +principles, though it certainly enables us to apply them. Well. The Sun +at a certain altitude shines on one side of a mountain and flings a +shadow on the other. The length of this shadow is easily found by means +of a telescope, whose object glass is provided with a micrometer. This +consists simply of two parallel spider threads, one of which is +stationary and the other movable. The Moon's real diameter being known +and occupying a certain space on the object glass, the exact space +occupied by the shadow can be easily ascertained by means of the movable +thread. This space, compared with the Moon's space, will give us the +length of the shadow. Now, as under the same circumstances a certain +height can cast only a certain shadow, of course a knowledge of the one +must give you that of the other, and _vice versa_. This method, stated +roughly, was that followed by Galileo, and, in our own day, by Beer and +Maedler, with extraordinary success." + +"I certainly see some sense in this method," said Ardan, "if they took +extraordinary pains to observe correctly. The least carelessness would +set them wrong, not only by feet but by miles. We have time enough, +however, to listen to another method before we get into the full blaze +of the glorious old Sol." + +"The other method," interrupted M'Nicholl laying down his telescope to +rest his eyes, and now joining in the conversation to give himself +something to do, "is called that of the _tangent rays_. A solar ray, +barely passing the edge of the Moon's surface, is caught on the peak of +a mountain the rest of which lies in shadow. The distance between this +starry peak and the line separating the light from the darkness, we +measure carefully by means of our telescope. Then--" + +"I see it at a glance!" interrupted Ardan with lighting eye; "the ray, +being a tangent, of course makes right angles with the radius, which is +known: consequently we have two sides and one angle--quite enough to +find the other parts of the triangle. Very ingenious--but now, that I +think of it--is not this method absolutely impracticable for every +mountain except those in the immediate neighborhood of the light and +shadow line?" + +"That's a defect easily remedied by patience," explained Barbican--the +Captain, who did not like being interrupted, having withdrawn to his +telescope--"As this line is continually changing, in course of time all +the mountains must come near it. A third method--to measure the mountain +profile directly by means of the micrometer--is evidently applicable +only to altitudes lying exactly on the lunar rim." + +"That is clear enough," said Ardan, "and another point is also very +clear. In Full Moon no measurement is possible. When no shadows are +made, none can be measured. Measurements, right or wrong, are possible +only when the solar rays strike the Moon's surface obliquely with regard +to the observer. Am I right, Signor Barbicani, maestro illustrissimo?" + +"Perfectly right," replied Barbican. "You are an apt pupil." + +"Say that again," said Ardan. "I want Mac to hear it." + +Barbican humored him by repeating the observation, but M'Nicholl would +only notice it by a grunt of doubtful meaning. + +"Was Galileo tolerably successful in his calculations?" asked Ardan, +resuming the conversation. + +Before answering this question, Barbican unrolled the map of the Moon, +which a faint light like that of day-break now enabled him to examine. +He then went on: "Galileo was wonderfully successful--considering that +the telescope which he employed was a poor instrument of his own +construction, magnifying only thirty times. He gave the lunar mountains +a height of about 26,000 feet--an altitude cut down by Hevelius, but +almost doubled by Riccioli. Herschel was the first to come pretty close +to the truth, but Beer and Maedler, whose _Mappa Selenographica_ now +lies before us, have left really nothing more to be done for lunar +astronomy--except, of course, to pay a personal visit to the +Moon--which we have tried to do, but I fear with a very poor prospect of +success." + +"Cheer up! cheer up!" cried Ardan. "It's not all over yet by long odds. +Who can say what is still in store for us? Another bolide may shunt us +off our ellipse and even send us to the Moon's surface." + +Then seeing Barbican shake his head ominously and his countenance become +more and more depressed, this true friend tried to brighten him up a bit +by feigning to take deep interest in a subject that to him was +absolutely the driest in the world. + +"Meer and Baedler--I mean Beer and Maedler," he went on, "must have +measured at least forty or fifty mountains to their satisfaction." + +"Forty or fifty!" exclaimed Barbican. "They measured no fewer than a +thousand and ninety-five lunar mountains and crater summits with a +perfect success. Six of these reach an altitude of upwards of 18,000 +feet, and twenty-two are more than 15,000 feet high." + +"Which is the highest in the lot?" asked Ardan, keenly relishing +Barbican's earnestness. + +"_Doerfel_ in the southern hemisphere, the peak of which I have just +pointed out, is the highest of the lunar mountains so far measured," +replied Barbican. "It is nearly 25,000 feet high." + +"Indeed! Five thousand feet lower than Mount Everest--still for a lunar +mountain, it is quite a respectable altitude." + +"Respectable! Why it's an enormous altitude, my dear friend, if you +compare it with the Moon's diameter. The Earth's diameter being more +than 3-1/2 times greater than the Moon's, if the Earth's mountains bore +the same ratio to those of the Moon, Everest should be more than sixteen +miles high, whereas it is not quite six." + +"How do the general heights of the Himalayahs compare with those of the +highest lunar mountains?" asked Ardan, wondering what would be his next +question. + +"Fifteen peaks in the eastern or higher division of the Himalayahs, are +higher than the loftiest lunar peaks," replied Barbican. "Even in the +western, or lower section of the Himalayahs, some of the peaks exceed +_Doerfel_." + +"Which are the chief lunar mountains that exceed Mont Blanc in +altitude?" asked Ardan, bravely suppressing a yawn. + +"The following dozen, ranged, if my memory does not fail me, in the +exact order of their respective heights;" replied Barbican, never +wearied in answering such questions: "_Newton_, _Curtius_, _Casatus_, +_Rheita_, _Short_, _Huyghens_, _Biancanus_, _Tycho_, _Kircher_, +_Clavius_, _Endymion_, and _Catharina_." + +"Now those not quite up to Mont Blanc?" asked Ardan, hardly knowing what +to say. + +"Here they are, about half a dozen of them: _Moretus_, _Theophilus_, +_Harpalus_, _Eratosthenes_, _Werner_, and _Piccolomini_," answered +Barbican as ready as a schoolboy reciting his lesson, and pointing them +out on the map as quickly as a compositor distributing his type. + +"The next in rank?" asked Ardan, astounded at his friend's wonderful +memory. + +"The next in rank," replied Barbican promptly, "are those about the size +of the Matterhorn, that is to say about 2-3/4 miles in height. They are +_Macrobius_, _Delambre_, and _Conon_. Come," he added, seeing Ardan +hesitating and at a loss what other question to ask, "don't you want to +know what lunar mountains are about the same height as the Peak of +Teneriffe? or as AEtna? or as Mount Washington? You need not be afraid of +puzzling me. I studied up the subject thoroughly, and therefore know all +about it." + +"Oh! I could listen to you with delight all day long!" cried Ardan, +enthusiastically, though with some embarrassment, for he felt a twinge +of conscience in acting so falsely towards his beloved friend. "The fact +is," he went on, "such a rational conversation as the present, on such +an absorbing subject, with such a perfect master--" + +"The Sun!" cried M'Nicholl starting up and cheering. "He's cleared the +disc completely, and he's now himself again! Long life to him! Hurrah!" + +"Hurrah!" cried the others quite as enthusiastically (Ardan did not seem +a bit desirous to finish his sentence). + +They tossed their maps aside and hastened to the window. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +TYCHO. + + +It was now exactly six o'clock in the evening. The Sun, completely clear +of all contact with the lunar disc, steeped the whole Projectile in his +golden rays. The travellers, vertically over the Moon's south pole, +were, as Barbican soon ascertained, about 30 miles distant from it, the +exact distance they had been from the north pole--a proof that the +elliptic curve still maintained itself with mathematical rigor. + +For some time, the travellers' whole attention was concentrated on the +glorious Sun. His light was inexpressibly cheering; and his heat, soon +penetrating the walls of the Projectile, infused a new and sweet life +into their chilled and exhausted frames. The ice rapidly disappeared, +and the windows soon resumed their former perfect transparency. + +"Oh! how good the pleasant sunlight is!" cried the Captain, sinking on a +seat in a quiet ecstasy of enjoyment. "How I pity Ardan's poor friends +the Selenites during that night so long and so icy! How impatient they +must be to see the Sun back again!" + +"Yes," said Ardan, also sitting down the better to bask in the vivifying +rays, "his light no doubt brings them to life and keeps them alive. +Without light or heat during all that dreary winter, they must freeze +stiff like the frogs or become torpid like the bears. I can't imagine +how they could get through it otherwise." + +"I'm glad _we're_ through it anyhow," observed M'Nicholl. "I may at once +acknowledge that I felt perfectly miserable as long as it lasted. I can +now easily understand how the combined cold and darkness killed Doctor +Kane's Esquimaux dogs. It was near killing me. I was so miserable that +at last I could neither talk myself nor bear to hear others talk." + +"My own case exactly," said Barbican--"that is," he added hastily, +correcting himself, "I tried to talk because I found Ardan so +interested, but in spite of all we said, and saw, and had to think of, +Byron's terrible dream would continually rise up before me: + + "The bright Sun was extinguished, and the Stars + Wandered all darkling in the eternal space, + Rayless and pathless, and the icy Earth + Swung blind and blackening in the Moonless air. + Morn came and went, and came and brought no day! + And men forgot their passions in the dread + Of this their desolation, and all hearts + Were chilled into a selfish prayer for _light_!" + +As he pronounced these words in accents at once monotonous and +melancholy, Ardan, fully appreciative, quietly gesticulated in perfect +cadence with the rhythm. Then the three men remained completely silent +for several minutes. Buried in recollection, or lost in thought, or +magnetized by the bright Sun, they seemed to be half asleep while +steeping their limbs in his vitalizing beams. + +Barbican was the first to dissolve the reverie by jumping up. His sharp +eye had noticed that the base of the Projectile, instead of keeping +rigidly perpendicular to the lunar surface, turned away a little, so as +to render the elliptical orbit somewhat elongated. This he made his +companions immediately observe, and also called their attention to the +fact that from this point they could easily have seen the Earth had it +been Full, but that now, drowned in the Sun's beams, it was quite +invisible. A more attractive spectacle, however, soon engaged their +undivided attention--that of the Moon's southern regions, now brought +within about the third of a mile by their telescopes. Immediately +resuming their posts by the windows, they carefully noted every feature +presented by the fantastic panorama that stretched itself out in endless +lengths beneath their wondering eyes. + +[Illustration: THEY SEEMED HALF ASLEEP.] + +Mount _Leibnitz_ and Mount _Doerfel_ form two separate groups developed +in the regions of the extreme south. The first extends westwardly from +the pole to the 84th parallel; the second, on the southeastern border, +starting from the pole, reaches the neighborhood of the 65th. In the +entangled valleys of their clustered peaks, appeared the dazzling sheets +of white, noted by Father Secchi, but their peculiar nature Barbican +could now examine with a greater prospect of certainty than the +illustrious Roman astronomer had ever enjoyed. + +"They're beds of snow," he said at last in a decided tone. + +"Snow!" exclaimed M'Nicholl. + +"Yes, snow, or rather glaciers heavily coated with glittering ice. See +how vividly they reflect the Sun's rays. Consolidated beds of lava could +never shine with such dazzling uniformity. Therefore there must be both +water and air on the Moon's surface. Not much--perhaps very little if +you insist on it--but the fact that there is some can now no longer be +questioned." + +This assertion of Barbican's, made so positively by a man who never +decided unless when thoroughly convinced, was a great triumph for Ardan, +who, as the gracious reader doubtless remembers, had had a famous +dispute with M'Nicholl on that very subject at Tampa.[D] His eyes +brightened and a smile of pleasure played around his lips, but, with a +great effort at self-restraint, he kept perfectly silent and would not +permit himself even to look in the direction of the Captain. As for +M'Nicholl, he was apparently too much absorbed in _Doerfel_ and +_Leibnitz_ to mind anything else. + +These mountains rose from plains of moderate extent, bounded by an +indefinite succession of walled hollows and ring ramparts. They are the +only chains met in this region of ridge-brimmed craters and circles; +distinguished by no particular feature, they project a few pointed peaks +here and there, some of which exceed four miles and a half in height. +This altitude, however, foreshortened as it was by the vertical position +of the Projectile, could not be noticed just then, even if correct +observation had been permitted by the dazzling surface. + +Once more again before the travellers' eyes the Moon's disc revealed +itself in all the old familiar features so characteristic of lunar +landscapes--no blending of tones, no softening of colors, no graduation +of shadows, every line glaring in white or black by reason of the total +absence of refracted light. And yet the wonderfully peculiar character +of this desolate world imparted to it a weird attraction as strangely +fascinating as ever. + +Over this chaotic region the travellers were now sweeping, as if borne +on the wings of a storm; the peaks defiled beneath them; the yawning +chasms revealed their ruin-strewn floors; the fissured cracks untwisted +themselves; the ramparts showed all their sides; the mysterious holes +presented their impenetrable depths; the clustered mountain summits and +rings rapidly decomposed themselves: but in a moment again all had +become more inextricably entangled than ever. Everything appeared to be +the finished handiwork of volcanic agency, in the utmost purity and +highest perfection. None of the mollifying effects of air or water could +here be noticed. No smooth-capped mountains, no gently winding river +channels, no vast prairie-lands of deposited sediment, no traces of +vegetation, no signs of agriculture, no vestiges of a great city. +Nothing but vast beds of glistering lava, now rough like immense piles +of scoriae and clinker, now smooth like crystal mirrors, and reflecting +the Sun's rays with the same intolerable glare. Not the faintest speck +of life. A world absolutely and completely dead, fixed, still, +motionless--save when a gigantic land-slide, breaking off the vertical +wall of a crater, plunged down into the soundless depths, with all the +fury too of a crashing avalanche, with all the speed of a Niagara, but, +in the total absence of atmosphere, noiseless as a feather, as a snow +flake, as a grain of impalpable dust. + +Careful observations, taken by Barbican and repeated by his companions, +soon satisfied them that the ridgy outline of the mountains on the +Moon's border, though perhaps due to different forces from those acting +in the centre, still presented a character generally uniform. The same +bulwark-surrounded hollows, the same abrupt projections of surface. Yet +a different arrangement, as Barbican pointed out to his companions, +might be naturally expected. In the central portion of the disc, the +Moon's crust, before solidification, must have been subjected to two +attractions--that of the Moon herself and that of the Earth--acting, +however, in contrary directions and therefore, in a certain sense, +serving to neutralize each other. Towards the border of her disc, on the +contrary, the terrestrial attraction, having acted in a direction +perpendicular to that of the lunar, should have exerted greater power, +and therefore given a different shape to the general contour. But no +remarkable difference had so far been perceived by terrestrial +observers; and none could now be detected by our travellers. Therefore +the Moon must have found in herself alone the principle of her shape and +of her superficial development--that is, she owed nothing to external +influences. "Arago was perfectly right, therefore," concluded Barbican, +"in the remarkable opinion to which he gave expression thirty years ago: + +'No external action whatever has contributed to the formation of the +Moon's diversified surface.'" + +"But don't you think, Barbican," asked the Captain, "that every force, +internal or external, that might modify the Moon's shape, has ceased +long ago?" + +"I am rather inclined to that opinion," said Barbican; "it is not, +however, a new one. Descartes maintained that as the Earth is an extinct +Sun, so is the Moon an extinct Earth. My own opinion at present is that +the Moon is now the image of death, but I can't say if she has ever been +the abode of life." + +"The abode of life!" cried Ardan, who had great repugnance in accepting +the idea that the Moon was no better than a heap of cinders and ashes; +"why, look there! If those are not as neat a set of the ruins of an +abandoned city as ever I saw, I should like to know what they are!" + +[Illustration: ONCE MORE THE PIPES OF AN AQUEDUCT.] + +He pointed to some very remarkable rocky formations in the +neighborhood of _Short_, a ring mountain rising to an altitude +considerably higher than that of Mont Blanc. Even Barbican and M'Nicholl +could detect some regularity and semblance of order in the arrangement +of these rocks, but this, of course, they looked on as a mere freak of +nature, like the Lurlei Rock, the Giant's Causeway, or the Old Man of +the Franconia Mountains. Ardan, however, would not accept such an easy +mode of getting rid of a difficulty. + +"See the ruins on that bluff," he exclaimed; "those steep sides must +have been washed by a great river in the prehistoric times. That was the +fortress. Farther down lay the city. There are the dismantled ramparts; +why, there's the very coping of a portico still intact! Don't you see +three broken pillars lying beside their pedestals? There! a little to +the left of those arches that evidently once bore the pipes of an +aqueduct! You don't see them? Well, look a little to the right, and +there is something that you can see! As I'm a living man I have no +difficulty in discerning the gigantic butments of a great bridge that +formerly spanned that immense river!" + +Did he really see all this? To this day he affirms stoutly that he did, +and even greater wonders besides. His companions, however, without +denying that he had good grounds for his assertion on this subject or +questioning the general accuracy of his observations, content themselves +with saying that the reason why they had failed to discover the +wonderful city, was that Ardan's telescope was of a strange and +peculiar construction. Being somewhat short-sighted, he had had it +manufactured expressly for his own use, but it was of such singular +power that his companions could not use it without hurting their eyes. + +But, whether the ruins were real or not, the moments were evidently too +precious to be lost in idle discussion. The great city of the Selenites +soon disappeared on the remote horizon, and, what was of far greater +importance, the distance of the Projectile from the Moon's disc began to +increase so sensibly that the smaller details of the surface were soon +lost in a confused mass, and it was only the lofty heights, the wide +craters, the great ring mountains, and the vast plains that still +continued to give sharp, distinctive outlines. + +A little to their left, the travellers could now plainly distinguish one +of the most remarkable of the Moon's craters, _Newton_, so well known to +all lunar astronomers. Its ramparts, forming a perfect circle, rise to +such a height, at least 22,000 feet, as to seem insurmountable. + +"You can, no doubt, notice for yourselves," said Barbican, "that the +external height of this mountain is far from being equal to the depth of +its crater. The enormous pit, in fact, seems to be a soundless sea of +pitchy black, the bottom of which the Sun's rays have never reached. +There, as Humboldt says, reigns eternal darkness, so absolute that +Earth-shine or even Sunlight is never able to dispel it. Had Michael's +friends the old mythologists ever known anything about it, they would +doubtless have made it the entrance to the infernal regions. On the +whole surface of our Earth, there is no mountain even remotely +resembling it. It is a perfect type of the lunar crater. Like most of +them, it shows that the peculiar formation of the Moon's surface is due, +first, to the cooling of the lunar crust; secondly, to the cracking from +internal pressure; and, thirdly, to the violent volcanic action in +consequence. This must have been of a far fiercer nature than it has +ever been with us. The matter was ejected to a vast height till great +mountains were formed; and still the action went on, until at last the +floor of the crater sank to a depth far lower than the level of the +external plain." + +"You may be right," said Ardan by way of reply; "as for me, I'm looking +out for another city. But I'm sorry to say that our Projectile is +increasing its distance so fast that, even if one lay at my feet at this +moment, I doubt very much if I could see it a bit better than either you +or the Captain." + +_Newton_ was soon passed, and the Projectile followed a course that took +it directly over the ring mountain _Moretus_. A little to the west the +travellers could easily distinguish the summits of _Blancanus_, 7,000 +feet high, and, towards seven o'clock in the evening, they were +approaching the neighborhood of _Clavius_. + +This walled-plain, one of the most remarkable on the Moon, lies 55 deg. S. +by 15 deg. E. Its height is estimated at 16,000 feet, but it is considered +to be about a hundred and fifty miles in diameter. Of this vast crater, +the travellers now at a distance of 250 miles, reduced to 2-1/2 by their +telescopes, had a magnificent bird's-eye view. + +"Our terrestrial volcanoes," said Barbican, "as you can now readily +judge for yourselves, are no more than molehills when compared with +those of the Moon. Measure the old craters formed by the early eruptions +of Vesuvius and AEtna, and you will find them little more than three +miles in diameter. The crater of Cantal in central France is only about +six miles in width; the famous valley in Ceylon, called the _Crater_, +though not at all due to volcanic action, is 44 miles across and is +considered to be the greatest in the world. But even this is very little +in comparison to the diameter of _Clavius_ lying beneath us at the +present moment." + +"How much is its diameter?" asked the Captain. + +"At least one hundred and forty-two miles," replied Barbican; "it is +probably the greatest in the Moon, but many others measure more than a +hundred miles across." + +"Dear boys," said Ardan, half to himself, half to the others, "only +imagine the delicious state of things on the surface of the gentle Moon +when these craters, brimming over with hissing lava, were vomiting +forth, all at the same time, showers of melted stones, clouds of +blinding smoke, and sheets of blasting flame! What an intensely +overpowering spectacle was here presented once, but now, how are the +mighty fallen! Our Moon, as at present beheld, seems to be nothing more +than the skinny spectre left after a brilliant display of fireworks, +when the spluttering crackers, the glittering wheels, the hissing +serpents, the revolving suns, and the dazzling stars, are all 'played +out', and nothing remains to tell of the gorgeous spectacle but a few +blackened sticks and half a dozen half burned bits of pasteboard. I +should like to hear one of you trying to explain the cause, the reason, +the principle, the philosophy of such tremendous cataclysms!" + +Barbican's only reply was a series of nods, for in truth he had not +heard a single word of Ardan's philosophic explosion. His ears were with +his eyes, and these were obstinately bent on the gigantic ramparts of +_Clavius_, formed of concentric mountain ridges, which were actually +leagues in depth. On the floor of the vast cavity, could be seen +hundreds of smaller craters, mottling it like a skimming dish, and +pierced here and there by sharp peaks, one of which could hardly be less +than 15,000 feet high. + +All around, the plain was desolate in the extreme. You could not +conceive how anything could be barrener than these serrated outlines, or +gloomier than these shattered mountains--until you looked at the plain +that encircled them. Ardan hardly exaggerated when he called it the +scene of a battle fought thousands of years ago but still white with the +hideous bones of overthrown peaks, slaughtered mountains and mutilated +precipices! + + "Hills amid the air encountered hills, + Hurled to and fro in jaculation dire," + +murmured M'Nicholl, who could quote you Milton quite as readily as the +Bible. + +"This must have been the spot," muttered Barbican to himself, "where the +brittle shell of the cooling sphere, being thicker than usual, offered +greater resistance to an eruption of the red-hot nucleus. Hence these +piled up buttresses, and these orderless heaps of consolidated lava and +ejected scoriae." + +The Projectile advanced, but the scene of desolation seemed to remain +unchanged. Craters, ring mountains, pitted plateaus dotted with +shapeless wrecks, succeeded each other without interruption. For level +plain, for dark "sea," for smooth plateau, the eye here sought in vain. +It was a Swiss Greenland, an Icelandic Norway, a Sahara of shattered +crust studded with countless hills of glassy lava. + +At last, in the very centre of this blistered region, right too at its +very culmination, the travellers came on the brightest and most +remarkable mountain of the Moon. In the dazzling _Tycho_ they found it +an easy matter to recognize the famous lunar point, which the world will +for ever designate by the name of the distinguished astronomer of +Denmark. + +This brilliant luminosity of the southern hemisphere, no one that ever +gazes at the Full Moon in a cloudless sky, can help noticing. Ardan, who +had always particularly admired it, now hailed it as an old friend, and +almost exhausted breath, imagination and vocabulary in the epithets with +which he greeted this cynosure of the lunar mountains. + +"Hail!" he cried, "thou blazing focus of glittering streaks, thou +coruscating nucleus of irradiation, thou starting point of rays +divergent, thou egress of meteoric flashes! Hub of the silver wheel that +ever rolls in silent majesty over the starry plains of Night! Paragon of +jewels enchased in a carcanet of dazzling brilliants! Eye of the +universe, beaming with heavenly resplendescence! + +"Who shall say what thou art? Diana's nimbus? The golden clasp of her +floating robes? The blazing head of the great bolt that rivets the lunar +hemispheres in union inseverable? Or cans't thou have been some errant +bolide, which missing its way, butted blindly against the lunar face, +and there stuck fast, like a Minie ball mashed against a cast-iron +target? Alas! nobody knows. Not even Barbican is able to penetrate thy +mystery. But one thing _I_ know. Thy dazzling glare so sore my eyes hath +made that longer on thy light to gaze I do not dare. Captain, have you +any smoked glass?" + +In spite of this anti-climax, Ardan's companions could hardly consider +his utterings either as ridiculous or over enthusiastic. They could +easily excuse his excitement on the subject. And so could we, if we only +remember that _Tycho_, though nearly a quarter of a million miles +distant, is such a luminous point on the lunar disc, that almost any +moonlit night it can be easily perceived by the unaided terrestrial eye. +What then must have been its splendor in the eyes of our travellers +whose telescopes brought it actually four thousand times nearer! No +wonder that with smoked glasses, they endeavored to soften off its +effulgent glare! Then in hushed silence, or at most uttering at +intervals a few interjections expressive of their intense admiration, +they remained for some time completely engrossed in the overwhelming +spectacle. For the time being, every sentiment, impression, thought, +feeling on their part, was concentrated in the eye, just as at other +times under violent excitement every throb of our life is concentrated +in the heart. + +_Tycho_ belongs to the system of lunar craters that is called +_radiating_, like _Aristarchus_ or _Copernicus_, which had been already +seen and highly admired by our travellers at their first approach to the +Moon. But it is decidedly the most remarkable and conspicuous of them +all. It occupies the great focus of disruption, whence it sends out +great streaks thousands of miles in length; and it gives the most +unmistakable evidence of the terribly eruptive nature of those forces +that once shattered the Moon's solidified shell in this portion of the +lunar surface. + +Situated in the southern latitude of 43 deg. by an eastern longitude of 12 deg., +_Tycho's_ crater, somewhat elliptical in shape, is 54 miles in diameter +and upwards of 16,000 feet in depth. Its lofty ramparts are buttressed +by other mountains, Mont Blancs in size, all grouped around it, and all +streaked with the great divergent fissures that radiate from it as a +centre. + +Of what this incomparable mountain really is, with all these lines of +projections converging towards it and with all these prominent points +of relief protruding within its crater, photography has, so far, been +able to give us only a very unsatisfactory idea. The reason too is very +simple: it is only at Full Moon that _Tycho_ reveals himself in all his +splendor. The shadows therefore vanishing, the perspective +foreshortenings disappear and the views become little better than a dead +blank. This is the more to be regretted as this wonderful region is well +worthy of being represented with the greatest possible photographic +accuracy. It is a vast agglomeration of holes, craters, ring formations, +a complicated intersection of crests--in short, a distracting volcanic +network flung over the blistered soil. The ebullitions of the central +eruption still evidently preserve their original form. As they first +appeared, so they lie. Crystallizing as they cooled, they have +stereotyped in imperishable characters the aspect formerly presented by +the whole Moon's surface under the influences of recent plutonic +upheaval. + +Our travellers were far more fortunate than the photographers. The +distance separating them from the peaks of _Tycho's_ concentric terraces +was not so considerable as to conceal the principal details from a very +satisfactory view. They could easily distinguish the annular ramparts of +the external circumvallation, the mountains buttressing the gigantic +walls internally as well as externally, the vast esplanades descending +irregularly and abruptly to the sunken plains all around. They could +even detect a difference of a few hundred feet in altitude in favor of +the western or right hand side over the eastern. They could also see +that these dividing ridges were actually inaccessible and completely +unsurmountable, at least by ordinary terrestrian efforts. No system of +castrametation ever devised by Polybius or Vauban could bear the +slightest comparison with such vast fortifications, A city built on the +floor of the circular cavity could be no more reached by the outside +Lunarians than if it had been built in the planet Mars. + +This idea set Ardan off again. "Yes," said he, "such a city would be at +once completely inaccessible, and still not inconveniently situated in a +plateau full of aspects decidedly picturesque. Even in the depths of +this immense crater, Nature, as you can see, has left no flat and empty +void. You can easily trace its special oreography, its various mountain +systems which turn it into a regular world on a small scale. Notice its +cones, its central hills, its valleys, its substructures already cut and +dry and therefore quietly prepared to receive the masterpieces of +Selenite architecture. Down there to the left is a lovely spot for a +Saint Peter's; to the right, a magnificent site for a Forum; here a +Louvre could be built capable of entrancing Michael Angelo himself; +there a citadel could be raised to which even Gibraltar would be a +molehill! In the middle rises a sharp peak which can hardly be less than +a mile in height--a grand pedestal for the statue of some Selenite +Vincent de Paul or George Washington. And around them all is a mighty +mountain-ring at least 3 miles high, but which, to an eye looking from +the centre of our vast city, could not appear to be more than five or +six hundred feet. Enormous circus, where mighty Rome herself in her +palmiest days, though increased tenfold, would have no reason to +complain for want of room!" + +He stopped for a few seconds, perhaps to take breath, and then resumed: + +"Oh what an abode of serene happiness could be constructed within this +shadow-fringed ring of the mighty mountains! O blessed refuge, +unassailable by aught of human ills! What a calm unruffled life could be +enjoyed within thy hallowed precincts, even by those cynics, those +haters of humanity, those disgusted reconstructors of society, those +misanthropes and misogynists old and young, who are continually writing +whining verses in odd corners of the newspapers!" + +"Right at last, Ardan, my boy!" cried M'Nicholl, quietly rubbing the +glass of his spectacles; "I should like to see the whole lot of them +carted in there without a moment's delay!" + +"It couldn't hold the half of them!" observed Barbican drily. + +[Footnote D: BALTIMORE GUN CLUB, pp. 295 _et seq._] + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +PUZZLING QUESTIONS. + + +It was not until the Projectile had passed a little beyond _Tycho's_ +immense concavity that Barbican and his friends had a good opportunity +for observing the brilliant streaks sent so wonderfully flying in all +directions from this celebrated mountain as a common centre. They +examined them for some time with the closest attention. + +What could be the nature of this radiating aureola? By what geological +phenomena could this blazing coma have been possibly produced? Such +questions were the most natural things in the world for Barbican and his +companions to propound to themselves, as indeed they have been to every +astronomer from the beginning of time, and probably will be to the end. + +What _did_ they see? What you can see, what anybody can see on a clear +night when the Moon is full--only our friends had all the advantages of +a closer view. From _Tycho_, as a focus, radiated in all directions, as +from the head of a peeled orange, more than a hundred luminous streaks +or channels, edges raised, middle depressed--or perhaps _vice versa_, +owing to an optical illusion--some at least twelve miles wide, some +fully thirty. In certain directions they ran for a distance of at least +six hundred miles, and seemed--especially towards the west, northwest, +and north--to cover half the southern hemisphere. One of these flashes +extended as far as _Neander_ on the 40th meridian; another, curving +around so as to furrow the _Mare Nectaris_, came to an end on the chain +of the _Pyrenees_, after a course of perhaps a little more than seven +hundred miles. On the east, some of them barred with luminous network +the _Mare Nubium_ and even the _Mare Humorum_. + +The most puzzling feature of these glittering streaks was that they ran +their course directly onward, apparently neither obstructed by valley, +crater, or mountain ridge however high. They all started, as said +before, from one common focus, _Tycho's_ crater. From this they +certainly all seemed to emanate. Could they be rivers of lava once +vomited from that centre by resistless volcanic agency and afterwards +crystallized into glassy rock? This idea of Herschel's, Barbican had no +hesitation in qualifying as exceedingly absurd. Rivers running in +perfectly straight lines, across plains, and _up_ as well as _down_ +mountains! + +"Other astronomers," he continued, "have looked on these streaks as a +peculiar kind of _moraines_, that is, long lines of erratic blocks +belched forth with mighty power at the period of _Tycho's_ own +upheaval." + +"How do you like that theory, Barbican," asked the Captain. + +"It's not a particle better than Herschel's," was the reply; "no +volcanic action could project rocks to a distance of six or seven +hundred miles, not to talk of laying them down so regularly that we +can't detect a break in them." + +"Happy thought!" cried Ardan suddenly; "it seems to me that I can tell +the cause of these radiating streaks!" + +"Let us hear it," said Barbican. + +"Certainly," was Ardan's reply; "these streaks are all only the parts of +what we call a 'star,' as made by a stone striking ice; or by a ball, a +pane of glass." + +"Not bad," smiled Barbican approvingly; "only where is the hand that +flung the stone or threw the ball?" + +"The hand is hardly necessary," replied Ardan, by no means disconcerted; +"but as for the ball, what do you say to a comet?" + +Here M'Nicholl laughed so loud that Ardan was seriously irritated. +However, before he could say anything cutting enough to make the Captain +mind his manners, Barbican had quickly resumed: + +"Dear friend, let the comets alone, I beg of you; the old astronomers +fled to them on all occasions and made them explain every difficulty--" + +--"The comets were all used up long ago--" interrupted M'Nicholl. + +--"Yes," went on Barbican, as serenely as a judge, "comets, they said, +had fallen on the surface in meteoric showers and crushed in the crater +cavities; comets had dried up the water; comets had whisked off the +atmosphere; comets had done everything. All pure assumption! In your +case, however, friend Michael, no comet whatever is necessary. The shock +that gave rise to your great 'star' may have come from the interior +rather than the exterior. A violent contraction of the lunar crust in +the process of cooling may have given birth to your gigantic 'star' +formation." + +"I accept the amendment," said Ardan, now in the best of humor and +looking triumphantly at M'Nicholl. + +"An English scientist," continued Barbican, "Nasmyth by name, is +decidedly of your opinion, especially ever since a little experiment of +his own has confirmed him in it. He filled a glass globe with water, +hermetically sealed it, and then plunged it into a hot bath. The +enclosed water, expanding at a greater rate than the glass, burst the +latter, but, in doing so, it made a vast number of cracks all diverging +in every direction from the focus of disruption. Something like this he +conceives to have taken place around _Tycho_. As the crust cooled, it +cracked. The lava from the interior, oozing out, spread itself on both +sides of the cracks. This certainly explains pretty satisfactorily why +those flat glistening streaks are of much greater width than the +fissures through which the lava had at first made its way to the +surface." + +"Well done for an Englishman!" cried Ardan in great spirits. + +"He's no Englishman," said M'Nicholl, glad to have an opportunity of +coming off with some credit. "He is the famous Scotch engineer who +invented the steam hammer, the steam ram, and discovered the 'willow +leaves' in the Sun's disc." + +"Better and better," said Ardan--"but, powers of Vulcan! What makes it +so hot? I'm actually roasting!" + +This observation was hardly necessary to make his companions conscious +that by this time they felt extremely uncomfortable. The heat had become +quite oppressive. Between the natural caloric of the Sun and the +reflected caloric of the Moon, the Projectile was fast turning into a +regular bake oven. This transition from intense cold to intense heat was +already about quite as much as they could bear. + +"What shall we do, Barbican?" asked Ardan, seeing that for some time no +one else appeared inclined to say a word. + +"Nothing, at least yet awhile, friend Ardan," replied Barbican, "I have +been watching the thermometer carefully for the last few minutes, and, +though we are at present at 38 deg. centigrade, or 100 deg. Fahrenheit, I have +noticed that the mercury is slowly falling. You can also easily remark +for yourself that the floor of the Projectile is turning away more and +more from the lunar surface. From this I conclude quite confidently, and +I see that the Captain agrees with me, that all danger of death from +intense heat, though decidedly alarming ten minutes ago, is over for the +present and, for some time at least, it may be dismissed from further +consideration." + +"I'm not very sorry for it," said Ardan cheerfully; "neither to be +baked like a pie in an oven nor roasted like a fat goose before a fire +is the kind of death I should like to die of." + +"Yet from such a death you would suffer no more than your friends the +Selenites are exposed to every day of their lives," said the Captain, +evidently determined on getting up an argument. + +"I understand the full bearing of your allusion, my dear Captain," +replied Ardan quickly, but not at all in a tone showing that he was +disposed to second M'Nicholl's expectations. + +He was, in fact, fast losing all his old habits of positivism. Latterly +he had seen much, but he had reflected more. The deeper he had +reflected, the more inclined he had become to accept the conclusion that +the less he knew. Hence he had decided that if M'Nicholl wanted an +argument it should not be with him. All speculative disputes he should +henceforth avoid; he would listen with pleasure to all that could be +urged on each side; he might even skirmish a little here and there as +the spirit moved him; but a regular pitched battle on a subject purely +speculative he was fully determined never again to enter into. + +"Yes, dear Captain," he continued, "that pointed arrow of yours has by +no means missed its mark, but I can't deny that my faith is beginning to +be what you call a little 'shaky' in the existence of my friends the +Selenites. However, I should like to have your square opinion on the +matter. Barbican's also. We have witnessed many strange lunar phenomena +lately, closer and clearer than mortal eye ever rested on them before. +Has what we have seen confirmed any theory of yours or confounded any +hypothesis? Have you seen enough to induce you to adopt decided +conclusions? I will put the question formally. Do you, or do you not, +think that the Moon resembles the Earth in being the abode of animals +and intelligent beings? Come, answer, _messieurs_. Yes, or no?" + +"I think we can answer your question categorically," replied Barbican, +"if you modify its form a little." + +"Put the question any way you please," said Ardan; "only you answer it! +I'm not particular about the form." + +"Good," said Barbican; "the question, being a double one, demands a +double answer. First: _Is the Moon inhabitable?_ Second: _Has the Moon +ever been inhabited?_" + +"That's the way to go about it," said the Captain. "Now then, Ardan, +what do _you_ say to the first question? Yes, or no?" + +"I really can't say anything," replied Ardan. "In the presence of such +distinguished scientists, I'm only a listener, a 'mere looker on in +Vienna' as the Divine Williams has it. However, for the sake of +argument, suppose I reply in the affirmative, and say that _the Moon is +inhabitable_." + +"If you do, I shall most unhesitatingly contradict you," said Barbican, +feeling just then in splendid humor for carrying on an argument, not, of +course, for the sake of contradicting or conquering or crushing or +showing off or for any other vulgar weakness of lower minds, but for the +noble and indeed the only motive that should impel a philosopher--that +of _enlightening_ and _convincing_, "In taking the negative side, +however, or saying that the Moon is not inhabitable, I shall not be +satisfied with merely negative arguments. Many words, however, are not +required. Look at her present condition: her atmosphere dwindled away to +the lowest ebb; her 'seas' dried up or very nearly so; her waters +reduced to next to nothing; her vegetation, if existing at all, existing +only on the scantiest scale; her transitions from intense heat to +intense cold, as we ourselves can testify, sudden in the extreme; her +nights and her days each nearly 360 hours long. With all this positively +against her and nothing at all that we know of positively for her, I +have very little hesitation in saying that the Moon appears to me to be +absolutely uninhabitable. She seems to me not only unpropitious to the +development of the animal kingdom but actually incapable of sustaining +life at all--that is, in the sense that we usually attach to such a +term." + +"That saving clause is well introduced, friend Barbican," said +M'Nicholl, who, seeing no chance of demolishing Ardan, had not yet made +up his mind as to having another little bout with the President. "For +surely you would not venture to assert that the Moon is uninhabitable by +a race of beings having an organization different from ours?" + +"That question too, Captain," replied Barbican, "though a much more +difficult one, I shall try to answer. First, however, let us see, +Captain, if we agree on some fundamental points. How do we detect the +existence of life? Is it not by _movement_? Is not _motion_ its result, +no matter what may be its organization?" + +"Well," said the Captain in a drawling way, "I guess we may grant that." + +"Then, dear friends," resumed Barbican, "I must remind you that, though +we have had the privilege of observing the lunar continents at a +distance of not more than one-third of a mile, we have never yet caught +sight of the first thing moving on her surface. The presence of +humanity, even of the lowest type, would have revealed itself in some +form or other, by boundaries, by buildings, even by ruins. Now what +_have_ we seen? Everywhere and always, the geological works of _nature_; +nowhere and never, the orderly labors of _man_. Therefore, if any +representatives of animal life exist in the Moon, they must have taken +refuge in those bottomless abysses where our eyes were unable to track +them. And even this I can't admit. They could not always remain in these +cavities. If there is any atmosphere at all in the Moon, it must be +found in her immense low-lying plains. Over those plains her inhabitants +must have often passed, and on those plains they must in some way or +other have left some mark, some trace, some vestige of their existence, +were it even only a road. But you both know well that nowhere are any +such traces visible: therefore, they don't exist; therefore, no lunar +inhabitants exist--except, of course, such a race of beings, if we can +imagine any such, as could exist without revealing their existence by +_movement_." + +"That is to say," broke in Ardan, to give what he conceived a sharper +point to Barbican's cogent arguments, "such a race of beings as could +exist without existing!" + +"Precisely," said Barbican: "Life without movement, and no life at all, +are equivalent expressions." + +"Captain," said Ardan, with all the gravity he could assume, "have you +anything more to say before the Moderator of our little Debating Society +gives his opinion on the arguments regarding the question before the +house?" + +"No more at present," said the Captain, biding his time. + +"Then," resumed Ardan, rising with much dignity, "the Committee on Lunar +Explorations, appointed by the Honorable Baltimore Gun Club, solemnly +assembled in the Projectile belonging to the aforesaid learned and +respectable Society, having carefully weighed all the arguments advanced +on each side of the question, and having also carefully considered all +the new facts bearing on the case that have lately come under the +personal notice of said Committee, unanimously decides negatively on the +question now before the chair for investigation--namely, 'Is the Moon +inhabitable?' Barbican, as chairman of the Committee, I empower you to +duly record our solemn decision--_No, the Moon is not inhabitable_." + +Barbican, opening his note-book, made the proper entry among the minutes +of the meeting of December 6th. + +"Now then, gentlemen," continued Ardan, "if you are ready for the second +question, the necessary complement of the first, we may as well approach +it at once. I propound it for discussion in the following form: _Has the +Moon ever been inhabited?_ Captain, the Committee would be delighted to +hear your remarks on the subject." + +"Gentlemen," began the Captain in reply, "I had formed my opinion +regarding the ancient inhabitability of our Satellite long before I ever +dreamed of testing my theory by anything like our present journey. I +will now add that all our observations, so far made, have only served to +confirm me in my opinion. I now venture to assert, not only with every +kind of probability in my favor but also on what I consider most +excellent arguments, that the Moon was once inhabited by a race of +beings possessing an organization similar to our own, that she once +produced animals anatomically resembling our terrestrial animals, and +that all these living organizations, human and animal, have had their +day, that that day vanished ages and ages ago, and that, consequently, +_Life_, extinguished forever, can never again reveal its existence there +under any form." + +"Is the Chair," asked Ardan, "to infer from the honorable gentleman's +observations that he considers the Moon to be a world much older than +the Earth?" + +"Not exactly that," replied the Captain without hesitation; "I rather +mean to say that the Moon is a world that grew old more rapidly than the +Earth; that it came to maturity earlier; that it ripened quicker, and +was stricken with old age sooner. Owing to the difference of the volumes +of the two worlds, the organizing forces of matter must have been +comparatively much more violent in the interior of the Moon than in the +interior of the Earth. The present condition of its surface, as we see +it lying there beneath us at this moment, places this assertion beyond +all possibility of doubt. Wrinkled, pitted, knotted, furrowed, scarred, +nothing that we can show on Earth resembles it. Moon and Earth were +called into existence by the Creator probably at the same period of +time. In the first stages of their existence, they do not seem to have +been anything better than masses of gas. Acted upon by various forces +and various influences, all of course directed by an omnipotent +intelligence, these gases by degrees became liquid, and the liquids grew +condensed into solids until solidity could retain its shape. But the two +heavenly bodies, though starting at the same time, developed at a very +different ratio. Most undoubtedly, our globe was still gaseous or at +most only liquid, at the period when the Moon, already hardened by +cooling, began to become inhabitable." + +"_Most undoubtedly_ is good!" observed Ardan admiringly. + +"At this period," continued the learned Captain, "an atmosphere +surrounded her. The waters, shut in by this gaseous envelope, could no +longer evaporate. Under the combined influences of air, water, light, +and solar heat as well as internal heat, vegetation began to overspread +the continents by this time ready to receive it, and most undoubtedly--I +mean--a--incontestably--it was at this epoch that _life_ manifested +itself on the lunar surface. I say _incontestably_ advisedly, for Nature +never exhausts herself in producing useless things, and therefore a +world, so wonderfully inhabitable, _must_ of necessity have had +inhabitants." + +"I like _of necessity_ too," said Ardan, who could never keep still; "I +always did, when I felt my arguments to be what you call a little +shaky." + +"But, my dear Captain," here observed Barbican, "have you taken into +consideration some of the peculiarities of our Satellite which are +decidedly opposed to the development of vegetable and animal existence? +Those nights and days, for instance, 354 hours long?" + +"I have considered them all," answered the brave Captain. "Days and +nights of such an enormous length would at the present time, I grant, +give rise to variations in temperature altogether intolerable to any +ordinary organization. But things were quite different in the era +alluded to. At that time, the atmosphere enveloped the Moon in a gaseous +mantle, and the vapors took the shape of clouds. By the screen thus +formed by the hand of nature, the heat of the solar rays was tempered +and the nocturnal radiation retarded. Light too, as well as heat, could +be modified, tempered, and _genialized_ if I may use the expression, by +the air. This produced a healthy counterpoise of forces, which, now that +the atmosphere has completely disappeared, of course exists no longer. +Besides--friend Ardan, you will excuse me for telling you something new, +something that will surprise you--" + +--"Surprise me, my dear boy, fire away surprising me!" cried Ardan. "I +like dearly to be surprised. All I regret is that you scientists have +surprised me so much already that I shall never have a good, hearty, +genuine surprise again!" + +--"I am most firmly convinced," continued the Captain, hardly waiting +for Ardan to finish, "that, at the period of the Moon's occupancy by +living creatures, her days and nights were by no means 354 hours long." + +"Well! if anything could surprise me," said Ardan quickly, "such an +assertion as that most certainly would. On what does the honorable +gentleman base his _most firm conviction_?" + +"We know," replied the Captain, "that the reason of the Moon's present +long day and night is the exact equality of the periods of her rotation +on her axis and of her revolution around the Earth. When she has turned +once around the Earth, she has turned once around herself. Consequently, +her back is turned to the Sun during one-half of the month; and her face +during the other half. Now, I don't believe that this state of things +existed at the period referred to." + +"The gentleman does not believe!" exclaimed Ardan. "The Chair must be +excused for reminding the honorable gentleman that it can not accept his +incredulity as a sound and valid argument. These two movements have +certainly equal periods now; why not always?" + +"For the simple reason that this equality of periods is due altogether +to the influence of terrestrial attraction," replied the ready Captain. +"This attraction at present, I grant, is so great that it actually +disables the Moon from revolving on herself; consequently she must +always keep the same face turned towards the Earth. But who can assert +that this attraction was powerful enough to exert the same influence at +the epoch when the Earth herself was only a fluid substance? In fact, +who can even assert that the Moon has always been the Earth's +satellite?" + +"Ah, who indeed?" exclaimed Ardan. "And who can assert that the Moon did +not exist long before the Earth was called into being at all? In fact, +who can assert that the Earth itself is not a great piece broken off the +Moon? Nothing like asking absurd questions! I've often found them +passing for the best kind of arguments!" + +"Friend Ardan," interposed Barbican, who noticed that the Captain was a +little too disconcerted to give a ready reply; "Friend Ardan, I must say +you are not quite wrong in showing how certain methods of reasoning, +legitimate enough in themselves, may be easily abused by being carried +too far. I think, however, that the Captain might maintain his position +without having recourse to speculations altogether too gigantic for +ordinary intellect. By simply admitting the insufficiency of the +primordeal attraction to preserve a perfect balance between the +movements of the lunar rotation and revolution, we can easily see how +the nights and days could once succeed each other on the Moon exactly as +they do at present on the Earth." + +"Nothing can be clearer!" resumed the brave Captain, once more rushing +to the charge. "Besides, even without this alternation of days and +nights, life on the lunar surface was quite possible." + +"Of course it was possible," said Ardan; "everything is possible except +what contradicts itself. It is possible too that every possibility is a +fact; therefore, it _is_ a fact. However," he added, not wishing to +press the Captain's weak points too closely, "let all these logical +niceties pass for the present. Now that you have established the +existence of your humanity in the Moon, the Chair would respectfully ask +how it has all so completely disappeared?" + +"It disappeared completely thousands, perhaps millions, of years ago," +replied the unabashed Captain. "It perished from the physical +impossibility of living any longer in a world where the atmosphere had +become by degrees too rare to be able to perform its functions as the +great resuscitating medium of dependent existences. What took place on +the Moon is only what is to take place some day or other on the Earth, +when it is sufficiently cooled off." + +"Cooled off?" + +"Yes," replied the Captain as confidently and with as little hesitation +as if he was explaining some of the details of his great machine-shop in +Philadelphia; "You see, according as the internal fire near the surface +was extinguished or was withdrawn towards the centre, the lunar shell +naturally cooled off. The logical consequences, of course, then +gradually took place: extinction of organized beings; and then +extinction of vegetation. The atmosphere, in the meantime, became +thinner and thinner--partly drawn off with the water evaporated by the +terrestrial attraction, and partly sinking with the solid water into the +crust-cracks caused by cooling. With the disappearance of air capable of +respiration, and of water capable of motion, the Moon, of course, became +uninhabitable. From that day it became the abode of death, as completely +as it is at the present moment." + +"That is the fate in store for our Earth?" + +"In all probability." + +"And when is it to befall us?" + +"Just as soon as the crust becomes cold enough to be uninhabitable." + +"Perhaps your philosophership has taken the trouble to calculate how +many years it will take our unfortunate _Terra Mater_ to cool off?" + +"Well; I have." + +"And you can rely on your figures?" + +"Implicitly." + +"Why not tell it at once then to a fellow that's dying of impatience to +know all about it? Captain, the Chair considers you one of the most +tantalizing creatures in existence!" + +"If you only listen, you will hear," replied M'Nicholl quietly. "By +careful observations, extended through a series of many years, men have +been able to discover the average loss of temperature endured by the +Earth in a century. Taking this as the ground work of their +calculations, they have ascertained that our Earth shall become an +uninhabitable planet in about--" + +"Don't cut her life too short! Be merciful!" cried Ardan in a pleading +tone half in earnest. "Come, a good long day, your Honor! A good long +day!" + +"The planet that we call the Earth," continued the Captain, as grave as +a judge, "will become uninhabitable to human beings, after a lapse of +400 thousand years from the present time." + +"Hurrah!" cried Ardan, much relieved. "_Vive la Science!_ Henceforward, +what miscreant will persist in saying that the Savants are good for +nothing? Proudly pointing to this calculation, can't they exclaim to all +defamers: 'Silence, croakers! Our services are invaluable! Haven't we +insured the Earth for 400 thousand years?' Again I say _vive la +Science!_" + +"Ardan," began the Captain with some asperity, "the foundations on +which Science has raised--" + +"I'm half converted already," interrupted Ardan in a cheery tone; "I do +really believe that Science is not altogether unmitigated homebogue! +_Vive_--" + +--"But what has all this to do with the question under discussion?" +interrupted Barbican, desirous to keep his friends from losing their +tempers in idle disputation. + +"True!" said Ardan. "The Chair, thankful for being called to order, +would respectfully remind the house that the question before it is: _Has +the Moon been inhabited?_ Affirmative has been heard. Negative is called +on to reply. Mr. Barbican has the _parole_." + +But Mr. Barbican was unwilling just then to enter too deeply into such +an exceedingly difficult subject. "The probabilities," he contented +himself with saying, "would appear to be in favor of the Captain's +speculations. But we must never forget that they _are_ +speculations--nothing more. Not the slightest evidence has yet been +produced that the Moon is anything else than 'a dead and useless waste +of extinct volcanoes.' No signs of cities, no signs of buildings, not +even of ruins, none of anything that could be reasonably ascribed to the +labors of intelligent creatures. No sign of change of any kind has been +established. As for the agreement between the Moon's rotation and her +revolution, which compels her to keep the same face constantly turned +towards the Earth, we don't know that it has not existed from the +beginning. As for what is called the effect of volcanic agency upon her +surface, we don't know that her peculiar blistered appearance may not +have been brought about altogether by the bubbling and spitting that +blisters molten iron when cooling and contracting. Some close observers +have even ventured to account for her craters by saying they were due to +pelting showers of meteoric rain. Then again as to her atmosphere--why +should she have lost her atmosphere? Why should it sink into craters? +Atmosphere is gas, great in volume, small in matter; where would there +be room for it? Solidified by the intense cold? Possibly in the night +time. But would not the heat of the long day be great enough to thaw it +back again? The same trouble attends the alleged disappearance of the +water. Swallowed up in the cavernous cracks, it is said. But why are +there cracks? Cooling is not always attended by cracking. Water cools +without cracking; cannon balls cool without cracking. Too much stress +has been laid on the great difference between the _nucleus_ and the +_crust_: it is really impossible to say where one ends and the other +begins. In fact, no theory explains satisfactorily anything regarding +the present state of the Moon's surface. In fact, from the day that +Galileo compared her clustering craters to 'eyes on a peacock's tail' to +the present time, we must acknowledge that we know nothing more than we +can actually see, not one particle more of the Moon's history than our +telescopes reveal to our corporal eyes!" + +"In the lucid opinion of the honorable and learned gentleman who spoke +last," said Ardan, "the Chair is compelled to concur. Therefore, as to +the second question before the house for deliberation, _Has the Moon +been ever inhabited?_ the Chair gets out of its difficulty, as a Scotch +jury does when it has not evidence enough either way, by returning a +solemn verdict of _Not Proven!_" + +"And with this conclusion," said Barbican, hastily rising, "of a subject +on which, to tell the truth, we are unable as yet to throw any light +worth speaking of, let us be satisfied for the present. Another question +of greater moment to us just now is: where are we? It seems to me that +we are increasing our distance from the Moon very decidedly and very +rapidly." + +It was easy to see that he was quite right in this observation. The +Projectile, still following a northerly course and therefore approaching +the lunar equator, was certainly getting farther and farther from the +Moon. Even at 30 deg. S., only ten degrees farther north than the latitude +of _Tycho_, the travellers had considerable difficulty, comparatively, +in observing the details of _Pitatus_, a walled mountain on the south +shores of the _Mare Nubium_. In the "sea" itself, over which they now +floated, they could see very little, but far to the left, on the 20th +parallel, they could discern the vast crater of _Bullialdus_, 9,000 +feet deep. On the right, they had just caught a glimpse of _Purbach_, a +depressed valley almost square in shape with a round crater in the +centre, when Ardan suddenly cried out: + +"A Railroad!" + +And, sure enough, right under them, a little northeast of _Purbach_, the +travellers easily distinguished a long line straight and black, really +not unlike a railroad cutting through a low hilly country. + +This, Barbican explained, was of course no railway, but a steep cliff, +at least 1,000 feet high, casting a very deep shadow, and probably the +result of the caving in of the surface on the eastern edge. + +Then they saw the immense crater of _Arzachel_ and in its midst a cone +mountain shining with dazzling splendor. A little north of this, they +could detect the outlines of another crater, _Alphonse_, at least 70 +miles in diameter. Close to it they could easily distinguish the immense +crater or, as some observers call it, Ramparted Plain, _Ptolemy_, so +well known to lunar astronomers, occupying, as it does, such a favorable +position near the centre of the Moon, and having a diameter fully, in +one direction at least, 120 miles long. + +The travellers were now in about the same latitude as that at which they +had at first approached the Moon, and it was here that they began most +unquestionably to leave her. They looked and looked, readjusting their +glasses, but the details were becoming more and more difficult to catch. +The reliefs grew more and more blurred and the outlines dimmer and +dimmer. Even the great mountain profiles began to fade away, the +dazzling colors to grow duller, the jet black shadows greyer, and the +general effect mistier. + +At last, the distance had become so great that, of this lunar world so +wonderful, so fantastic, so weird, so mysterious, our travellers by +degrees lost even the consciousness, and their sensations, lately so +vivid, grew fainter and fainter, until finally they resembled those of a +man who is suddenly awakened from a peculiarly strange and impressive +dream. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +IN EVERY FIGHT, THE IMPOSSIBLE WINS. + + +No matter what we have been accustomed to, it is sad to bid it farewell +forever. The glimpse of the Moon's wondrous world imparted to Barbican +and his companions had been, like that of the Promised Land to Moses on +Mount Pisgah, only a distant and a dark one, yet it was with +inexpressibly mournful eyes that, silent and thoughtful, they now +watched her fading away slowly from their view, the conviction +impressing itself deeper and deeper in their souls that, slight as their +acquaintance had been, it was never to be renewed again. All doubt on +the subject was removed by the position gradually, but decidedly, +assumed by the Projectile. Its base was turning away slowly and steadily +from the Moon, and pointing surely and unmistakably towards the Earth. + +Barbican had been long carefully noticing this modification, but without +being able to explain it. That the Projectile should withdraw a long +distance from the Moon and still be her satellite, he could understand; +but, being her satellite, why not present towards her its heaviest +segment, as the Moon does towards the Earth? That was the point which he +could not readily clear up. + +By carefully noting its path, he thought he could see that the +Projectile, though now decidedly leaving the Moon, still followed a +curve exactly analogous to that by which it had approached her. It must +therefore be describing a very elongated ellipse, which might possibly +extend even to the neutral point where the lunar and terrestrial +attractions were mutually overcome. + +With this surmise of Barbican's, his companions appeared rather disposed +to agree, though, of course, it gave rise to new questions. + +"Suppose we reach this dead point," asked Ardan; "what then is to become +of us?" + +"Can't tell!" was Barbican's unsatisfactory reply. + +"But you can form a few hypotheses?" + +"Yes, two!" + +"Let us have them." + +"The velocity will be either sufficient to carry us past the dead point, +or it will not: sufficient, we shall keep on, just as we are now, +gravitating forever around the Moon--" + +--"Hypothesis number two will have at least one point in its favor," +interrupted as usual the incorrigible Ardan; "it can't be worse than +hypothesis number one!" + +--"Insufficient," continued Barbican, laying down the law, "we shall +rest forever motionless on the dead point of the mutually neutralizing +attractions." + +"A pleasant prospect!" observed Ardan: "from the worst possible to no +better! Isn't it, Barbican?" + +"Nothing to say," was Barbican's only reply. + +"Have you nothing to say either, Captain?" asked Ardan, beginning to be +a little vexed at the apparent apathy of his companions. + +"Nothing whatever," replied M'Nicholl, giving point to his words by a +despairing shake of his head. + +"You don't mean surely that we're going to sit here, like bumps on a +log, doing nothing until it will be too late to attempt anything?" + +"Nothing whatever can be done," said Barbican gloomily. "It is vain to +struggle against the impossible." + +"Impossible! Where did you get that word? I thought the American +schoolboys had cut it out of their dictionaries!" + +"That must have been since my time," said Barbican smiling grimly. + +"It still sticks in a few old copies anyhow," drawled M'Nicholl drily, +as he carefully wiped his glasses. + +"Well! it has no business _here_!" said Ardan. "What! A pair of live +Yankees and a Frenchman, of the nineteenth century too, recoil before an +old fashioned word that hardly scared our grandfathers!" + +"What can we do?" + +"Correct the movement that's now running away with us!" + +"Correct it?" + +"Certainly, correct it! or modify it! or clap brakes on it! or take +some advantage of it that will be in our favor! What matters the exact +term so you comprehend me?" + +"Easy talking!" + +"As easy doing!" + +"Doing what? Doing how?" + +"The what, and the how, is your business, not mine! What kind of an +artillery man is he who can't master his bullets? The gunner who cannot +command his own gun should be rammed into it head foremost himself and +blown from its mouth! A nice pair of savants _you_ are! There you sit as +helpless as a couple of babies, after having inveigled me--" + +"Inveigled!!" cried Barbican and M'Nicholl starting to their feet in an +instant; "WHAT!!!" + +"Come, come!" went on Ardan, not giving his indignant friends time to +utter a syllable; "I don't want any recrimination! I'm not the one to +complain! I'll even let up a little if you consider the expression too +strong! I'll even withdraw it altogether, and assert that the trip +delights me! that the Projectile is a thing after my own heart! that I +was never in better spirits than at the present moment! I don't +complain, I only appeal to your own good sense, and call upon you with +all my voice to do everything possible, so that we may go _somewhere_, +since it appears we can't get to the Moon!" + +"But that's exactly what we want to do ourselves, friend Ardan," said +Barbican, endeavoring to give an example of calmness to the impatient +M'Nicholl; "the only trouble is that we have not the means to do it." + +"Can't we modify the Projectile's movement?" + +"No." + +"Nor diminish its velocity?" + +"No." + +"Not even by lightening it, as a heavily laden ship is lightened, by +throwing cargo overboard?" + +"What can we throw overboard? We have no ballast like balloon-men." + +"I should like to know," interrupted M'Nicholl, "what would be the good +of throwing anything at all overboard. Any one with a particle of common +sense in his head, can see that the lightened Projectile should only +move the quicker!" + +"Slower, you mean," said Ardan. + +"Quicker, I mean," replied the Captain. + +"Neither quicker nor slower, dear friends," interposed Barbican, +desirous to stop a quarrel; "we are floating, you know, in an absolute +void, where specific gravity never counts." + +"Well then, my friends," said Ardan in a resigned tone that he evidently +endeavored to render calm, "since the worst is come to the worst, there +is but one thing left for us to do!" + +"What's that?" said the Captain, getting ready to combat some new piece +of nonsense. + +"To take our breakfast!" said the Frenchman curtly. + +It was a resource he had often fallen back on in difficult +conjunctures. Nor did it fail him now. + +Though it was not a project that claimed to affect either the velocity +or the direction of the Projectile, still, as it was eminently +practicable and not only unattended by no inconvenience on the one hand +but evidently fraught with many advantages on the other, it met with +decided and instantaneous success. It was rather an early hour for +breakfast, two o'clock in the morning, yet the meal was keenly relished. +Ardan served it up in charming style and crowned the dessert with a few +bottles of a wine especially selected for the occasion from his own +private stock. It was a _Tokay Imperial_ of 1863, the genuine _Essenz_, +from Prince Esterhazy's own wine cellar, and the best brain stimulant +and brain clearer in the world, as every connoisseur knows. + +It was near four o'clock in the morning when our travellers, now well +fortified physically and morally, once more resumed their observations +with renewed courage and determination, and with a system of recording +really perfect in its arrangements. + +Around the Projectile, they could still see floating most of the objects +that had been dropped out of the window. This convinced them that, +during their revolution around the Moon, they had not passed through any +atmosphere; had anything of the kind been encountered, it would have +revealed its presence by its retarding effect on the different objects +that now followed close in the wake of the Projectile. One or two that +were missing had been probably struck and carried off by a fragment of +the exploded bolide. + +Of the Earth nothing as yet could be seen. She was only one day Old, +having been New the previous evening, and two days were still to elapse +before her crescent would be sufficiently cleared of the solar rays to +be capable of performing her ordinary duty of serving as a time-piece +for the Selenites. For, as the reflecting reader need hardly be +reminded, since she rotates with perfect regularity on her axis, she can +make such rotations visible to the Selenites by bringing some particular +point on her surface once every twenty-four hours directly over the same +lunar meridian. + +Towards the Moon, the view though far less distinct, was still almost as +dazzling as ever. The radiant Queen of Night still glittered in all her +splendor in the midst of the starry host, whose pure white light seemed +to borrow only additional purity and silvery whiteness from the gorgeous +contrast. On her disc, the "seas" were already beginning to assume the +ashy tint so well known to us on Earth, but the rest of her surface +sparkled with all its former radiation, _Tycho_ glowing like a sun in +the midst of the general resplendescence. + +Barbican attempted in vain to obtain even a tolerable approximation of +the velocity at which the Projectile was now moving. He had to content +himself with the knowledge that it was diminishing at a uniform rate--of +which indeed a little reflection on a well known law of Dynamics readily +convinced him. He had not much difficulty even in explaining the matter +to his friends. + +"Once admitting," said he, "the Projectile to describe an orbit round +the Moon, that orbit must of necessity be an ellipse. Every moving body +circulating regularly around another, describes an ellipse. Science has +proved this incontestably. The satellites describe ellipses around the +planets, the planets around the Sun, the Sun himself describes an +ellipse around the unknown star that serves as a pivot for our whole +solar system. How can our Baltimore Gun Club Projectile then escape the +universal law? + +"Now what is the consequence of this law? If the orbit were a _circle_, +the satellite would always preserve the same distance from its primary, +and its velocity should therefore be constant. But the orbit being an +_ellipse_, and the attracting body always occupying one of the foci, the +satellite must evidently lie nearer to this focus in one part of its +orbit than in another. The Earth when nearest to the Sun, is in her +_perihelion_; when most distant, in her _aphelion_. The Moon, with +regard to the Earth, is similarly in her _perigee_, and her _apogee_. +Analogous expressions denoting the relations of the Projectile towards +the Moon, would be _periselene_ and _aposelene_. At its _aposelene_ the +Projectile's velocity would have reached its minimum; at +the _periselene_, its maximum. As it is to the former point that we are +now moving, clearly the velocity must keep on diminishing until that +point is reached. Then, _if it does not die out altogether_, it must +spring up again, and even accelerate as it reapproaches the Moon. Now +the great trouble is this: If the _Aposelenetic_ point should coincide +with the point of lunar attraction, our velocity must certainly become +_nil_, and the Projectile must remain relatively motionless forever!" + +"What do you mean by 'relatively motionless'?" asked M'Nicholl, who was +carefully studying the situation. + +"I mean, of course, not absolutely motionless," answered Barbican; +"absolute immobility is, as you are well aware, altogether impossible, +but motionless with regard to the Earth and the--" + +"By Mahomet's jackass!" interrupted Ardan hastily, "I must say we're a +precious set of _imbeciles_!" + +"I don't deny it, dear friend," said Barbican quietly, notwithstanding +the unceremonious interruption; "but why do you say so just now?" + +"Because though we are possessed of the power of retarding the velocity +that takes us from the Moon, we have never thought of employing it!" + +"What do you mean?" + +"Do you forget the rockets?" + +"It's a fact!" cried M'Nicholl. "How have we forgotten them?" + +"I'm sure I can't tell," answered Barbican, "unless, perhaps, because we +had too many other things to think about. Your thought, my dear friend, +is a most happy one, and, of course, we shall utilize it." + +"When? How soon?" + +"At the first favorable opportunity, not sooner. For you can see for +yourselves, dear friends," he went on explaining, "that with the present +obliquity of the Projectile with regard to the lunar disc, a discharge +of our rockets would be more likely to send us away from the Moon than +towards her. Of course, you are both still desirous of reaching the +Moon?" + +"Most emphatically so!" + +"Then by reserving our rockets for the last chance, we may possibly get +there after all. In consequence of some force, to me utterly +inexplicable, the Projectile still seems disposed to turn its base +towards the Earth. In fact, it is likely enough that at the neutral +point its cone will point vertically to the Moon. That being the moment +when its velocity will most probably be _nil_, it will also be the +moment for us to discharge our rockets, and the possibility is that we +may force a direct fall on the lunar disc." + +"Good!" cried Ardan, clapping hands. + +"Why didn't we execute this grand manoeuvre the first time we reached +the neutral point?" asked M'Nicholl a little crustily. + +"It would be useless," answered Barbican; "the Projectile's velocity at +that time, as you no doubt remember, not only did not need rockets, but +was actually too great to be affected by them." + +"True!" chimed in Ardan; "a wind of four miles an hour is very little +use to a steamer going ten." + +"That assertion," cried M'Nicholl, "I am rather dis--" + +--"Dear friends," interposed Barbican, his pale face beaming and his +clear voice ringing with the new excitement; "let us just now waste no +time in mere words. We have one more chance, perhaps a great one. Let us +not throw it away! We have been on the brink of despair--" + +--"Beyond it!" cried Ardan. + +--"But I now begin to see a possibility, nay, a very decided +probability, of our being able to attain the great end at last!" + +"Bravo!" cried Ardan. + +"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl. + +"Yes! my brave boys!" cried Barbican as enthusiastically as his +companions; "all's not over yet by a long shot!" + +What had brought about this great revulsion in the spirits of our bold +adventurers? The breakfast? Prince Esterhazy's Tokay? The latter, most +probably. What had become of the resolutions they had discussed so ably +and passed so decidedly a few hours before? _Was the Moon inhabited? No! +Was the Moon habitable? No!_ Yet in the face of all this--or rather as +coolly as if such subjects had never been alluded to--here were the +reckless scientists actually thinking of nothing but how to work heaven +and earth in order to get there! + +One question more remained to be answered before they played their last +trump, namely: "At what precise moment would the Projectile reach the +neutral point?" + +To this Barbican had very little trouble in finding an answer. The time +spent in proceeding from the south pole to the dead point being +evidently equal to the time previously spent in proceeding from the dead +point to the north pole--to ascertain the former, he had only to +calculate the latter. This was easily done. To refer to his notes, to +check off the different rates of velocity at which they had readied the +different parallels, and to turn these rates into time, required only a +very few minutes careful calculation. The Projectile then was to reach +the point of neutral attraction at one o'clock in the morning of +December 8th. At the present time, it was five o'clock in the morning of +the 7th; therefore, if nothing unforeseen should occur in the meantime, +their great and final effort was to be made about twenty hours later. + +The rockets, so often alluded to as an idea of Ardan's and already fully +described, had been originally provided to break the violence of the +Projectile's fall on the lunar surface; but now the dauntless travellers +were about to employ them for a purpose precisely the reverse. In any +case, having been put in proper order for immediate use, nothing more +now remained to be done till the moment should come for firing them off. + +"Now then, friends," said M'Nicholl, rubbing his eyes but hardly able to +keep them open, "I'm not over fond of talking, but this time I think I +may offer a slight proposition." + +"We shall be most happy to entertain it, my dear Captain," said +Barbican. + +[Illustration: ARDAN GAZED ON THE PAIR.] + +"I propose we lie down and take a good nap." + +"Good gracious!" protested Ardan; "What next?" + +"We have not had a blessed wink for forty hours," continued the Captain; +"a little sleep would recuperate us wonderfully." + +"No sleep now!" exclaimed Ardan. + +"Every man to his taste!" said M'Nicholl; "mine at present is certainly +to turn in!" and suiting the action to the word, he coiled himself on +the sofa, and in a few minutes his deep regular breathing showed his +slumber to be as tranquil as an infant's. + +Barbican looked at him in a kindly way, but only for a very short time; +his eyes grew so filmy that he could not keep them open any longer. "The +Captain," he said, "may not be without his little faults, but for good +practical sense he is worth a ship-load like you and me, Ardan. By Jove, +I'm going to imitate him, and, friend Michael, you might do worse!" + +In a short time he was as unconscious as the Captain. + +Ardan gazed on the pair for a few minutes, and then began to feel quite +lonely. Even his animals were fast asleep. He tried to look out, but +observing without having anybody to listen to your observations, is dull +work. He looked again at the sleeping pair, and then he gave in. + +"It can't be denied," he muttered, slowly nodding his head, "that even +your practical men sometimes stumble on a good idea." + +Then curling up his long legs, and folding his arms under his head, his +restless brain was soon forming fantastic shapes for itself in the +mysterious land of dreams. + +But his slumbers were too much disturbed to last long. After an uneasy, +restless, unrefreshing attempt at repose, he sat up at about half-past +seven o'clock, and began stretching himself, when he found his +companions already awake and discussing the situation in whispers. + +The Projectile, they were remarking, was still pursuing its way from the +Moon, and turning its conical point more and more in her direction. This +latter phenomenon, though as puzzling as ever, Barbican regarded with +decided pleasure: the more directly the conical summit pointed to the +Moon at the exact moment, the more directly towards her surface would +the rockets communicate their reactionary motion. + +Nearly seventeen hours, however, were still to elapse before that +moment, that all important moment, would arrive. + +The time began to drag. The excitement produced by the Moon's vicinity +had died out. Our travellers, though as daring and as confident as ever, +could not help feeling a certain sinking of heart at the approach of the +moment for deciding either alternative of their doom in this +world--their fall to the Moon, or their eternal imprisonment in a +changeless orbit. Barbican and M'Nicholl tried to kill time by revising +their calculations and putting their notes in order; Ardan, by +feverishly walking back and forth from window to window, and stopping +for a second or two to throw a nervous glance at the cold, silent and +impassive Moon. + +Now and then reminiscences of our lower world would flit across their +brains. Visions of the famous Gun Club rose up before them the oftenest, +with their dear friend Marston always the central figure. What was his +bustling, honest, good-natured, impetuous heart at now? Most probably he +was standing bravely at his post on the Rocky Mountains, his eye glued +to the great Telescope, his whole soul peering through its tube. Had he +seen the Projectile before it vanished behind the Moon's north pole? +Could he have caught a glimpse of it at its reappearance? If so, could +he have concluded it to be the satellite of a satellite! Could Belfast +have announced to the world such a startling piece of intelligence? Was +that all the Earth was ever to know of their great enterprise? What were +the speculations of the Scientific World upon the subject? etc., etc. + +In listless questions and desultory conversation of this kind the day +slowly wore away, without the occurrence of any incident whatever to +relieve its weary monotony. Midnight arrived, December the seventh was +dead. As Ardan said: "_Le Sept Decembre est mort; vive le Huit!_" In one +hour more, the neutral point would be reached. At what velocity was the +Projectile now moving? Barbican could not exactly tell, but he felt +quite certain that no serious error had slipped into his calculations. +At one o'clock that night, _nil_ the velocity was to be, and _nil_ it +would be! + +Another phenomenon, in any case, was to mark the arrival of the exact +moment. At the dead point, the two attractions, terrestrial and lunar, +would again exactly counterbalance each other. For a few seconds, +objects would no longer possess the slightest weight. This curious +circumstance, which had so much surprised and amused the travellers at +its first occurrence, was now to appear again as soon as the conditions +should become identical. During these few seconds then would come the +moment for striking the decisive blow. + +They could soon notice the gradual approach of this important instant. +Objects began to weigh sensibly lighter. The conical point of the +Projectile had become almost directly under the centre of the lunar +surface. This gladdened the hearts of the bold adventurers. The recoil +of the rockets losing none of its power by oblique action, the chances +pronounced decidedly in their favor. Now, only supposing the +Projectile's velocity to be absolutely annihilated at the dead point, +the slightest force directing it towards the Moon would be _certain_ to +cause it finally to fall on her surface. + +Supposing!--but supposing the contrary! + +--Even these brave adventurers had not the courage to suppose the +contrary! + +"Five minutes to one o'clock," said M'Nicholl, his eyes never quitting +his watch. + +"Ready?" asked Barbican of Ardan. + +"Ay, ay, sir!" was Ardan's reply, as he made sure that the electric +apparatus to discharge the rockets was in perfect working order. + +"Wait till I give the word," said Barbican, pulling out his chronometer. + +The moment was now evidently close at hand. The objects lying around had +no weight. The travellers felt their bodies to be as buoyant as a +hydrogen balloon. Barbican let go his chronometer, but it kept its place +as firmly in empty space before his eyes as if it had been nailed to the +wall! + +"One o'clock!" cried Barbican in a solemn tone. + +Ardan instantly touched the discharging key of the little electric +battery. A dull, dead, distant report was immediately heard, +communicated probably by the vibration of the Projectile to the internal +air. But Ardan saw through the window a long thin flash, which vanished +in a second. At the same moment, the three friends became +instantaneously conscious of a slight shock experienced by the +Projectile. + +They looked at each other, speechless, breathless, for about as long as +it would take you to count five: the silence so intense that they could +easily hear the pulsation of their hearts. Ardan was the first to break +it. + +"Are we falling or are we not?" he asked in a loud whisper. + +"We're not!" answered M'Nicholl, also hardly speaking above his breath. +"The base of the Projectile is still turned away as far as ever from the +Moon!" + +Barbican, who had been looking out of the window, now turned hastily +towards his companions. His face frightened them. He was deadly pale; +his eyes stared, and his lips were painfully contracted. + +"We _are_ falling!" he shrieked huskily. + +"Towards the Moon?" exclaimed his companions. + +"No!" was the terrible reply. "Towards the Earth!" + +"_Sacre!_" cried Ardan, as usually letting off his excitement in French. + +"Fire and fury!" cried M'Nicholl, completely startled out of his +habitual _sang froid_. + +"Thunder and lightning!" swore the usually serene Barbican, now +completely stunned by the blow. "I had never expected this!" + +Ardan was the first to recover from the deadening shock: his levity came +to his relief. + +"First impressions are always right," he muttered philosophically. "The +moment I set eyes on the confounded thing, it reminded me of the +Bastille; it is now proving its likeness to a worse place: easy enough +to get into, but no redemption out of it!" + +There was no longer any doubt possible on the subject. The terrible fall +had begun. The Projectile had retained velocity enough not only to carry +it beyond the dead point, but it was even able to completely overcome +the feeble resistance offered by the rockets. It was all clear now. The +same velocity that had carried the Projectile beyond the neutral point +on its way to the Moon, was still swaying it on its return to the Earth. +A well known law of motion required that, in the path which it was now +about to describe, _it should repass, on its return through all the +points through which it had already passed during its departure_. + +No wonder that our friends were struck almost senseless when the fearful +fall they were now about to encounter, flashed upon them in all its +horror. They were to fall a clear distance of nearly 200 thousand miles! +To lighten or counteract such a descent, the most powerful springs, +checks, rockets, screens, deadeners, even if the whole Earth were +engaged in their construction--would produce no more effect than so many +spiderwebs. According to a simple law in Ballistics, _the Projectile was +to strike the Earth with a velocity equal to that by which it had been +animated when issuing from the mouth of the Columbiad_--a velocity of at +least seven miles a second! + +To have even a faint idea of this enormous velocity, let us make a +little comparison. A body falling from the summit of a steeple a hundred +and fifty feet high, dashes against the pavement with a velocity of +fifty five miles an hour. Falling from the summit of St. Peter's, it +strikes the earth at the rate of 300 miles an hour, or five times +quicker than the rapidest express train. Falling from the neutral +point, the Projectile should strike the Earth with a velocity of more +than 25,000 miles an hour! + +"We are lost!" said M'Nicholl gloomily, his philosophy yielding to +despair. + +"One consolation, boys!" cried Ardan, genial to the last. "We shall die +together!" + +"If we die," said Barbican calmly, but with a kind of suppressed +enthusiasm, "it will be only to remove to a more extended sphere of our +investigations. In the other world, we can pursue our inquiries under +far more favorable auspices. There the wonders of our great Creator, +clothed in brighter light, shall be brought within a shorter range. We +shall require no machine, nor projectile, nor material contrivance of +any kind to be enabled to contemplate them in all their grandeur and to +appreciate them fully and intelligently. Our souls, enlightened by the +emanations of the Eternal Wisdom, shall revel forever in the blessed +rays of Eternal Knowledge!" + +"A grand view to take of it, dear friend Barbican;" replied Ardan, "and +a consoling one too. The privilege of roaming at will through God's +great universe should make ample amends for missing the Moon!" + +M'Nicholl fixed his eyes on Barbican admiringly, feebly muttering with +hardly moving lips: + +"Grit to the marrow! Grit to the marrow!" + +Barbican, head bowed in reverence, arms folded across his breast, meekly +and uncomplainingly uttered with sublime resignation: + +"Thy will be done!" + +"Amen!" answered his companions, in a loud and fervent whisper. + + * * * * * + +They were soon falling through the boundless regions of space with +inconceivable rapidity! + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +OFF THE PACIFIC COAST. + + +"Well, Lieutenant, how goes the sounding?" + +"Pretty lively, Captain; we're nearly through;" replied the Lieutenant. +"But it's a tremendous depth so near land. We can't be more than 250 +miles from the California coast." + +"The depression certainly is far deeper than I had expected," observed +Captain Bloomsbury. "We have probably lit on a submarine valley +channelled out by the Japanese Current." + +"The Japanese Current, Captain?" + +"Certainly; that branch of it which breaks on the western shores of +North America and then flows southeast towards the Isthmus of Panama." + +"That may account for it, Captain," replied young Brownson; "at least, I +hope it does, for then we may expect the valley to get shallower as we +leave the land. So far, there's no sign of a Telegraphic Plateau in this +quarter of the globe." + +"Probably not, Brownson. How is the line now?" + +"We have paid out 3500 fathoms already, Captain, but, judging from the +rate the reel goes at, we are still some distance from bottom." + +As he spoke, he pointed to a tall derrick temporarily rigged up at the +stern of the vessel for the purpose of working the sounding apparatus, +and surrounded by a group of busy men. Through a block pulley strongly +lashed to the derrick, a stout cord of the best Italian hemp, wound off +a large reel placed amidships, was now running rapidly and with a slight +whirring noise. + +"I hope it's not the 'cup-lead' you are using, Brownson?" said the +Captain, after a few minutes observation. + +"Oh no, Captain, certainly not," replied the Lieutenant. "It's only +Brooke's apparatus that is of any use in such depths." + +"Clever fellow that Brooke," observed the Captain; "served with him +under Maury. His detachment of the weight is really the starting point +for every new improvement in sounding gear. The English, the French, and +even our own, are nothing but modifications of that fundamental +principle. Exceedingly clever fellow!" + +"Bottom!" sang out one of the men standing near the derrick and watching +the operations. + +The Captain and the Lieutenant immediately advanced to question him. + +"What's the depth, Coleman?" asked the Lieutenant. + +"21,762 feet," was the prompt reply, which Brownson immediately +inscribed in his note-book, handing a duplicate to the Captain. + +"All right, Lieutenant," observed the Captain, after a moment's +inspection of the figures. "While I enter it in the log, you haul the +line aboard. To do so, I need hardly remind you, is a task involving +care and patience. In spite of all our gallant little donkey engine can +do, it's a six hours job at least. Meanwhile, the Chief Engineer had +better give orders for firing up, so that we may be ready to start as +soon as you're through. It's now close on to four bells, and with your +permission I shall turn in. Let me be called at three. Good night!" + +"Goodnight, Captain!" replied Brownson, who spent the next two hours +pacing backward and forward on the quarter deck, watching the hauling in +of the sounding line, and occasionally casting a glance towards all +quarters of the sky. + +It was a glorious night. The innumerable stars glittered with the +brilliancy of the purest gems. The ship, hove to in order to take the +soundings, swung gently on the faintly heaving ocean breast. You felt +you were in a tropical clime, for, though no breath fanned your cheek, +your senses easily detected the delicious odor of a distant garden of +sweet roses. The sea sparkled with phosphorescence. Not a sound was +heard except the panting of the hard-worked little donkey-engine and the +whirr of the line as it came up taut and dripping from the ocean depths. +The lamp, hanging from the mast, threw a bright glare on deck, +presenting the strongest contrast with the black shadows, firm and +motionless as marble. The 11th day of December was now near its last +hour. + +The steamer was the _Susquehanna_, a screw, of the United States Navy, +4,000 in tonnage, and carrying 20 guns. She had been detached to take +soundings between the Pacific coast and the Sandwich Islands, the +initiatory movement towards laying down an Ocean Cable, which the +_Pacific Cable Company_ contemplated finally extending to China. She lay +just now a few hundred miles directly south of San Diego, an old Spanish +town in southwestern California, and the point which is expected to be +the terminus of the great _Texas and Pacific Railroad_. + +The Captain, John Bloomsbury by name, but better known as 'High-Low +Jack' from his great love of that game--the only one he was ever known +to play--was a near relation of our old friend Colonel Bloomsbury of the +Baltimore Gun Club. Of a good Kentucky family, and educated at +Annapolis, he had passed his meridian without ever being heard of, when +suddenly the news that he had run the gauntlet in a little gunboat past +the terrible batteries of Island Number Ten, amidst a perfect storm of +shell, grape and canister discharged at less than a hundred yards +distance, burst on the American nation on the sixth of April, 1862, and +inscribed his name at once in deep characters on the list of the giants +of the Great War. But war had never been his vocation. With the return +of peace, he had sought and obtained employment on the Western Coast +Survey, where every thing he did he looked on as a labor of love. The +Sounding Expedition he had particularly coveted, and, once entered upon +it, he discharged his duties with characteristic energy. + +He could not have had more favorable weather than the present for a +successful performance of the nice and delicate investigations of +sounding. His vessel had even been fortunate enough to have lain +altogether out of the track of the terrible wind storm already alluded +to, which, starting from somewhere southwest of the Sierra Madre, had +swept away every vestige of mist from the summits of the Rocky Mountains +and, by revealing the Moon in all her splendor, had enabled Belfast to +send the famous despatch announcing that he had seen the Projectile. +Every feature of the expedition was, in fact, advancing so favorably +that the Captain expected to be able, in a month or two, to submit to +the _P.C. Company_ a most satisfactory report of his labors. + +Cyrus W. Field, the life and soul of the whole enterprise, flushed with +honors still in full bloom (the Atlantic Telegraph Cable having been +just laid), could congratulate himself with good reason on having found +a treasure in the Captain. High-Low Jack was the congenial spirit by +whose active and intelligent aid he promised himself the pleasure of +seeing before long the whole Pacific Ocean covered with a vast +reticulation of electric cables. The practical part, therefore, being in +such safe hands, Mr. Field could remain with a quiet conscience in +Washington, New York or London, seeing after the financial part of the +grand undertaking, worthy of the Nineteenth Century, worthy of the Great +Republic, and eminently worthy of the illustrious CYRUS W. himself! + +As already mentioned, the _Susquehanna_ lay a few hundred miles south +of San Diego, or, to be more accurate, in 27 deg. 7' North Latitude and 118 deg. +37' West Longitude (Greenwich). + +It was now a little past midnight. The Moon, in her last quarter, was +just beginning to peep over the eastern horizon. Lieutenant Brownson, +leaving the quarter deck, had gone to the forecastle, where he found a +crowd of officers talking together earnestly and directing their glasses +towards her disc. Even here, out on the ocean, the Queen of the night, +was as great an object of attraction as on the North American Continent +generally, where, that very night and that very hour, at least 40 +million pairs of eyes were anxiously gazing at her. Apparently forgetful +that even the very best of their glasses could no more see the +Projectile than angulate Sirius, the officers held them fast to their +eyes for five minutes at a time, and then took them away only to talk +with remarkable fluency on what they had not discovered. + +"Any sign of them yet, gentlemen?" asked Brownson gaily as he joined the +group. "It's now pretty near time for them to put in an appearance. +They're gone ten days I should think." + +"They're there, Lieutenant! not a doubt of it!" cried a young midshipman, +fresh from Annapolis, and of course "throughly posted" in the latest +revelations of Astronomy. "I feel as certain of their being there as I +am of our being here on the forecastle of the _Susquehanna_!" + +"I must agree with you of course, Mr. Midshipman," replied Brownson +with a slight smile; "I have no grounds whatever for contradicting you." + +"Neither have I," observed another officer, the surgeon of the vessel. +"The Projectile was to have reached the Moon when at her full, which was +at midnight on the 5th. To-day was the 11th. This gives them six days of +clear light--time enough in all conscience not only to land safely but +to install themselves quite comfortably in their new home. In fact, I +see them there already--" + +"In my mind's eye, Horatio!" laughed one of the group. "Though the Doc +wears glasses, he can see more than any ten men on board." + +--"Already"--pursued the Doctor, heedless of the interruption. "_Scene_, +a stony valley near a Selenite stream; the Projectile on the right, half +buried in volcanic _scoriae_, but apparently not much the worse for the +wear; ring mountains, craters, sharp peaks, etc. all around; old MAC +discovered taking observations with his levelling staff; BARBICAN +perched on the summit of a sharp pointed rock, writing up his note-book; +ARDAN, eye-glass on nose, hat under arm, legs apart, puffing at his +_Imperador_, like a--" + +[Illustration: MAC DISCOVERED TAKING OBSERVATIONS.] + +--"A locomotive!" interrupted the young Midshipman, his excitable +imagination so far getting the better of him as to make him forget his +manners. He had just finished Locke's famous MOON HOAX, and his brain +was still full of its pictures. "In the background," he went on, "can be +seen thousands of _Vespertiliones-Homines_ or _Man-Bats_, in all the +various attitudes of curiosity, alarm, or consternation; some of them +peeping around the rocks, some fluttering from peak to peak, all +gibbering a language more or less resembling the notes of birds. _Enter_ +LUNATICO, King of the Selenites--" + +"Excuse us, Mr. Midshipman," interrupted Brownson with an easy smile, +"Locke's authority may have great weight among the young Middies at +Annapolis, but it does not rank very high at present in the estimation +of practical scientists." This rebuff administered to the conceited +little Midshipman, a rebuff which the Doctor particularly relished, +Brownson continued: "Gentlemen, we certainly know nothing whatever +regarding our friends' fate; guessing gives no information. How we ever +are to hear from the Moon until we are connected with it by a lunar +cable, I can't even imagine. The probability is that we shall never--" + +"Excuse me, Lieutenant," interrupted the unrebuffed little Midshipman; +"Can't Barbican write?" + +A shout of derisive comments greeted this question. + +"Certainly he can write, and send his letter by the Pony Express!" cried +one. + +"A Postal Card would be cheaper!" cried another. + +"The _New York Herald_ will send a reporter after it!" was the +exclamation of a third. + +"Keep cool, just keep cool, gentlemen," persisted the little Midshipman, +not in the least abashed by the uproarious hilarity excited by his +remarks. "I asked if Barbican couldn't write. In that question I see +nothing whatever to laugh at. Can't a man write without being obliged to +send his letters?" + +"This is all nonsense," said the Doctor. "What's the use of a man +writing to you if he can't send you what he writes?" + +"What's the use of his sending it to you if he can have it read without +that trouble?" answered the little Midshipman in a confident tone. "Is +there not a telescope at Long's Peak? Doesn't it bring the Moon within a +few miles of the Rocky Mountains, and enable us to see on her surface, +objects as small as nine feet in diameter? Well! What's to prevent +Barbican and his friends from constructing a gigantic alphabet? If they +write words of even a few hundred yards and sentences a mile or two +long, what is to prevent us from reading them? Catch the idea now, eh?" + +They did catch the idea, and heartily applauded the little Middy for his +smartness. Even the Doctor saw a certain kind of merit in it, and +Brownson acknowledged it to be quite feasible. In fact, expanding on it, +the Lieutenant assured his hearers that, by means of large parabolic +reflectors, luminous groups of rays could be dispatched from the Earth, +of sufficient brightness to establish direct communication even with +Venus or Mars, where these rays would be quite as visible as the planet +Neptune is from the Earth. He even added that those brilliant points of +light, which have been quite frequently observed in Mars and Venus, are +perhaps signals made to the Earth by the inhabitants of these planets. +He concluded, however, by observing that, though we might by these means +succeed in obtaining news from the Moon, we could not possibly send any +intelligence back in return, unless indeed the Selenites had at their +disposal optical instruments at least as good as ours. + +All agreed that this was very true, and, as is generally the case when +one keeps all the talk to himself, the conversation now assumed so +serious a turn that for some time it was hardly worth recording. + +At last the Chief Engineer, excited by some remark that had been made, +observed with much earnestness: + +"You may say what you please, gentlemen, but I would willingly give my +last dollar to know what has become of those brave men! Have they done +anything? Have they seen anything? I hope they have. But I should dearly +like to know. Ever so little success would warrant a repetition of the +great experiment. The Columbiad is still to the good in Florida, as it +will be for many a long day. There are millions of men to day as curious +as I am upon the subject. Therefore it will be only a question of mere +powder and bullets if a cargo of visitors is not sent to the Moon every +time she passes our zenith. + +"Marston would be one of the first of them," observed Brownson, lighting +his cigar. + +"Oh, he would have plenty of company!" cried the Midshipman. "I should +be delighted to go if he'd only take me." + +"No doubt you would, Mr. Midshipman," said Brownson, "the wise men, you +know, are not all dead yet." + +"Nor the fools either, Lieutenant," growled old Frisby, the fourth +officer, getting tired of the conversation. + +"There is no question at all about it," observed another; "every time a +Projectile started, it would take off as many as it could carry." + +"I wish it would only start often enough to improve the breed!" growled +old Frisby. + +"I have no doubt whatever," added the Chief Engineer, "that the thing +would get so fashionable at last that half the inhabitants of the Earth +would take a trip to the Moon." + +"I should limit that privilege strictly to some of our friends in +Washington," said old Frisby, whose temper had been soured probably by a +neglect to recognize his long services; "and most of them I should by +all means insist on sending to the Moon. Every month I would ram a whole +raft of them into the Columbiad, with a charge under them strong enough +to blow them all to the--But--Hey!--what in creation's that?" + +[Illustration: FOR A SECOND ONLY DID THEY CATCH ITS FLASH.] + +Whilst the officer was speaking, his companions had suddenly caught a +sound in the air which reminded them immediately of the whistling scream +of a Lancaster shell. At first they thought the steam was escaping +somewhere, but, looking upwards, they saw that the strange noise +proceeded from a ball of dazzling brightness, directly over their heads, +and evidently falling towards them with tremendous velocity. Too +frightened to say a word, they could only see that in its light the +whole ship blazed like fireworks, and the whole sea glittered like a +silver lake. Quicker than tongue can utter, or mind can conceive, it +flashed before their eyes for a second, an enormous bolide set on fire +by friction with the atmosphere, and gleaming in its white heat like a +stream of molten iron gushing straight from the furnace. For a second +only did they catch its flash before their eyes; then striking the +bowsprit of the vessel, which it shivered into a thousand pieces, it +vanished in the sea in an instant with a hiss, a scream, and a roar, all +equally indescribable. For some time the utmost confusion reigned on +deck. With eyes too dazzled to see, ears still ringing with the +frightful combination of unearthly sounds, faces splashed with floods of +sea water, and noses stifled with clouds of scalding steam, the crew of +the _Susquehanna_ could hardly realize that their marvellous escape by a +few feet from instant and certain destruction was an accomplished fact, +not a frightful dream. They were still engaged in trying to open their +eyes and to get the hot water out of their ears, when they suddenly +heard the trumpet voice of Captain Bloomsbury crying, as he stood half +dressed on the head of the cabin stairs: + +"What's up, gentlemen? In heaven's name, what's up?" + +The little Midshipman had been knocked flat by the concussion and +stunned by the uproar. But before any body else could reply, his voice +was heard, clear and sharp, piercing the din like an arrow: + +"It's THEY, Captain! Didn't I tell you so?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +NEWS FOR MARSTON! + + +In a few minutes, consciousness had restored order on board the +_Susquehanna_, but the excitement was as great as ever. They had escaped +by a hairsbreadth the terrible fate of being both burned and drowned +without a moment's warning, without a single soul being left alive to +tell the fatal tale; but on this neither officer nor man appeared to +bestow the slightest thought. They were wholly engrossed with the +terrible catastrophe that had befallen the famous adventurers. What was +the loss of the _Susquehanna_ and all it contained, in comparison to the +loss experienced by the world at large in the terrible tragic +_denouement_ just witnessed? The worst had now come to the worst. At +last the long agony was over forever. Those three gallant men, who had +not only conceived but had actually executed the grandest and most +daring enterprise of ancient or modern times, had paid by the most +fearful of deaths, for their sublime devotion to science and their +unselfish desire to extend the bounds of human knowledge! Before such a +reflection as this, all other considerations were at once reduced to +proportions of the most absolute insignificance. + +But was the death of the adventurers so very certain after all? Hope is +hard to kill. Consciousness had brought reflection, reflection doubt, +and doubt had resuscitated hope. + +"It's they!" had exclaimed the little Midshipman, and the cry had +thrilled every heart on board as with an electric shock. Everybody had +instantly understood it. Everybody had felt it to be true. Nothing could +be more certain than that the meteor which had just flashed before their +eyes was the famous projectile of the Baltimore Gun Club. Nothing could +be truer than that it contained the three world renowned men and that it +now lay in the black depths of the Pacific Ocean. + +But here opinions began to diverge. Some courageous breasts soon refused +to accept the prevalent idea. + +"They're killed by the shock!" cried the crowd. + +"Killed?" exclaimed the hopeful ones; "Not a bit of it! The water here +is deep enough to break a fall twice as great." + +"They're smothered for want of air!" exclaimed the crowd. + +"Their stock may not be run out yet!" was the ready reply. "Their air +apparatus is still on hand." + +"They're burned to a cinder!" shrieked the crowd. + +"They had not time to be burned!" answered the Band of Hope. "The +Projectile did not get hot till it reached the atmosphere, through which +it tore in a few seconds." + +"If they're neither burned nor smothered nor killed by the shock, +they're sure to be drowned!" persisted the crowd, with redoubled +lamentations. + +"Fish 'em up first!" cried the Hopeful Band. "Come! Let's lose no time! +Let's fish 'em up at once!" + +The cries of Hope prevailed. The unanimous opinion of a council of the +officers hastily summoned together by the Captain was to go to work and +fish up the Projectile with the least possible delay. But was such an +operation possible? asked a doubter. Yes! was the overwhelming reply; +difficult, no doubt, but still quite possible. Certainly, however, such +an attempt was not immediately possible as the _Susquehanna_ had no +machinery strong enough or suitable enough for a piece of work involving +such a nicety of detailed operations, not to speak of its exceeding +difficulty. The next unanimous decision, therefore, was to start the +vessel at once for the nearest port, whence they could instantly +telegraph the Projectile's arrival to the Baltimore Gun Club. + +But what _was_ the nearest port? A serious question, to answer which in +a satisfactory manner the Captain had to carefully examine his sailing +charts. The neighboring shores of the California Peninsula, low and +sandy, were absolutely destitute of good harbors. San Diego, about a +day's sail directly north, possessed an excellent harbor, but, not yet +having telegraphic communication with the rest of the Union, it was of +course not to be thought of. San Pedro Bay was too open to be approached +in winter. The Santa Barbara Channel was liable to the same objection, +not to mention the trouble often caused by kelp and wintry fogs. The bay +of San Luis Obispo was still worse in every respect; having no islands +to act as a breakwater, landing there in winter was often impossible. +The harbor of the picturesque old town of Monterey was safe enough, but +some uncertainty regarding sure telegraphic communications with San +Francisco, decided the council not to venture it. Half Moon Bay, a +little to the north, would be just as risky, and in moments like the +present when every minute was worth a day, no risk involving the +slightest loss of time could be ventured. + +Evidently, therefore, the most advisable plan was to sail directly for +the bay of San Francisco, the Golden Gate, the finest harbor on the +Pacific Coast and one of the safest in the world. Here telegraphic +communication with all parts of the Union was assured beyond a doubt. +San Francisco, about 750 miles distant, the _Susquehanna_ could probably +make in three days; with a little increased pressure, possibly in two +days and a-half. The sooner then she started, the better. + +The fires were soon in full blast. The vessel could get under weigh at +once. In fact, nothing delayed immediate departure but the consideration +that two miles of sounding line were still to be hauled up from the +ocean depths. Rut the Captain, after a moment's thought, unwilling that +any more time should be lost, determined to cut it. Then marking its +position by fastening its end to a buoy, he could haul it up at his +leisure on his return. + +"Besides," said he, "the buoy will show us the precise spot where the +Projectile fell." + +"As for that, Captain," observed Brownson, "the exact spot has been +carefully recorded already: 27 deg. 7' north latitude by 41 deg. 37' west +longitude, reckoning from the meridian of Washington." + +"All right, Lieutenant," said the Captain curtly. "Cut the line!" + +A large cone-shaped metal buoy, strengthened still further by a couple +of stout spars to which it was securely lashed, was soon rigged up on +deck, whence, being hoisted overboard, the whole apparatus was carefully +lowered to the surface of the sea. By means of a ring in the small end +of the buoy, the latter was then solidly attached to the part of the +sounding line that still remained in the water, and all possible +precautions were taken to diminish the danger of friction, caused by the +contrary currents, tidal waves, and the ordinary heaving swells of +ocean. + +It was now a little after three o'clock in the morning. The Chief +Engineer announced everything to be in perfect readiness for starting. +The Captain gave the signal, directing the pilot to steer straight for +San Francisco, north-north by west. The waters under the stern began to +boil and foam; the ship very soon felt and yielded to the power that +animated her; and in a few minutes she was making at least twelve knots +an hour. Her sailing powers were somewhat higher than this, but it was +necessary to be careful in the neighborhood of such a dangerous coast as +that of California. + +Seven hundred and fifty miles of smooth waters presented no very +difficult task to a fast traveller like the _Susquehanna_, yet it was +not till two days and a-half afterwards that she sighted the Golden +Gate. As usual, the coast was foggy; neither Point Lobos nor Point +Boneta could be seen. But Captain Bloomsbury, well acquainted with every +portion of this coast, ran as close along the southern shore as he +dared, the fog-gun at Point Boneta safely directing his course. Here +expecting to be able to gain a few hours time by signalling to the outer +telegraph station on Point Lobos, he had caused to be painted on a sail +in large black letters: "THE MOONMEN ARE BACK!" but the officers in +attendance, though their fog-horn could be easily heard--the distance +not being quite two miles--were unfortunately not able to see it. +Perhaps they did see it, but feared a hoax. + +Giving the Fort Point a good wide berth, the _Susquehanna_ found the fog +gradually clearing away, and by half-past three the passengers, looking +under it, enjoyed the glorious view of the Contra Costa mountains east +of San Francisco, which had obtained for this entrance the famous and +well deserved appellation of the Golden Gate. In another half hour, they +had doubled Black Point, and were lying safely at anchor between the +islands of Alcatraz and Yerba Buena. In less than five minutes +afterwards the Captain was quickly lowered into his gig, and eight stout +pairs of arms were pulling him rapidly to shore. + +The usual crowd of idlers had collected that evening on the summit of +Telegraph Hill to enjoy the magnificent view, which for variety, extent, +beauty and grandeur, is probably unsurpassed on earth. Of course, the +inevitable reporter, hot after an item, was not absent. The +_Susquehanna_ had hardly crossed the bar, when they caught sight of her. +A government vessel entering the bay at full speed, is something to look +at even in San Francisco. Even during the war, it would be considered +rather unusual. But they soon remarked that her bowsprit was completely +broken off. _Very_ unusual. Something decidedly is the matter. See! The +vessel is hardly anchored when the Captain leaves her and makes for +Megg's Wharf at North Point as hard as ever his men can pull! Something +_must_ be the matter--and down the steep hill they all rush as fast as +ever their legs can carry them to the landing at Megg's Wharf. + +The Captain could hardly force his way through the dense throng, but he +made no attempt whatever to gratify their ill dissembled curiosity. + +"Carriage!" he cried, in a voice seldom heard outside the din of battle. + +In a moment seventeen able-bodied cabmen were trying to tear him limb +from limb. + +"To the telegraph office! Like lightning!" were his stifled mutterings, +as he struggled in the arms of the Irish giant who had at last +succeeded in securing him. + +"To the telegraph office!" cried most of the crowd, running after him +like fox hounds, but the more knowing ones immediately began questioning +the boatmen in the Captain's gig. These honest fellows, nothing loth to +tell all that they knew and more that they invented, soon had the +satisfaction of finding themselves the centrepoint of a wonder stricken +audience, greedily swallowing up every item of the extraordinary news +and still hungrily gaping for more. + +By this time, however, an important dispatch was flying east, bearing +four different addresses: To the Secretary of the U.S. Navy, Washington; +To Colonel Joseph Wilcox, Vice-President _pro tem._, Baltimore Gun Club, +Md; To J.T. Marston, Esq. Long's Peak, Grand County, Colorado; and To +Professor Wenlock, Sub-Director of the Cambridge Observatory, Mass. + +This dispatch read as follows: + + "In latitude twenty-seven degrees seven minutes north and longitude + forty-one degrees thirty-seven minutes west shortly after one + o'clock on the morning of twelfth instant Columbiad Projectile fell + in Pacific--send instructions-- + + BLOOMSBURY, + + _Captain_, SUSQUEHANNA." + +In five minutes more all San Francisco had the news. An hour later, the +newspaper boys were shrieking it through the great cities of the +States. Before bed-time every man, woman, and child in the country had +heard it and gone into ecstasies over it. Owing to the difference in +longitude, the people of Europe could not hear it till after midnight. +But next morning the astounding issue of the great American enterprise +fell on them like a thunder clap. + +We must, of course, decline all attempts at describing the effects of +this most unexpected intelligence on the world at large. + +The Secretary of the Navy immediately telegraphed directions to the +_Susquehanna_ to keep a full head of steam up night and day so as to be +ready to give instant execution to orders received at any moment. + +The Observatory authorities at Cambridge held a special meeting that +very evening, where, with all the serene calmness so characteristic of +learned societies, they discussed the scientific points of the question +in all its bearings. But, before committing themselves to any decided +opinion, they unanimously resolved to wait for the development of +further details. + +At the rooms of the Gun Club in Baltimore there was a terrible time. The +kind reader no doubt remembers the nature of the dispatch sent one day +previously by Professor Belfast from the Long's Peak observatory, +announcing that the Projectile had been seen but that it had become the +Moon's satellite, destined to revolve around her forever and ever till +time should be no more. The reader is also kindly aware by this time +that such dispatch was not supported by the slightest foundations in +fact. The learned Professor, in a moment of temporary cerebral +excitation, to which even the greatest scientist is just as liable as +the rest of us, had taken some little meteor or, still more probably, +some little fly-speck in the telescope for the Projectile. The worst of +it was that he had not only boldly proclaimed his alleged discovery to +the world at large but he had even explained all about it with the well +known easy pomposity that "Science" sometimes ventures to assume. The +consequences of all this may be readily guessed. The Baltimore Gun Club +had split up immediately into two violently opposed parties. Those +gentlemen who regularly conned the scientific magazines, took every word +of the learned Professor's dispatch for gospel--or rather for something +of far higher value, and more strictly in accordance with the highly +advanced scientific developments of the day. But the others, who never +read anything but the daily papers and who could not bear the idea of +losing Barbican, laughed the whole thing to scorn. Belfast, they said, +had seen as much of the Projectile as he had of the "Open Polar Sea," +and the rest of the dispatch was mere twaddle, though asserted with all +the sternness of a religious dogma and enveloped in the usual scientific +slang. + +The meeting held in the Club House, 24 Monument Square, Baltimore, on +the evening of the 13th, had been therefore disorderly in the highest +degree. Long before the appointed hour, the great hall was densely +packed and the greatest uproar prevailed. Vice-President Wilcox took the +chair, and all was comparatively quiet until Colonel Bloomsbury, the +Honorary Secretary in Marston's absence, commenced to read Belfast's +dispatch. Then the scene, according to the account given in the next +day's _Sun_, from whose columns we condense our report, actually +"beggared description." Roars, yells, cheers, counter-cheers, clappings, +hissings, stampings, squallings, whistlings, barkings, mewings, cock +crowings, all of the most fearful and demoniacal character, turned the +immense hall into a regular pandemonium. In vain did President Wilcox +fire off his detonating bell, with a report on ordinary occasions as +loud as the roar of a small piece of ordnance. In the dreadful noise +then prevailing it was no more heard than the fizz of a lucifer match. + +Some cries, however, made themselves occasionally heard in the pauses of +the din. "Read! Read!" "Dry up!" "Sit down!" "Give him an egg!" "Fair +play!" "Hurrah for Barbican!" "Down with his enemies!" "Free Speech!" +"Belfast won't bite you!" "He'd like to bite Barbican, but his teeth +aren't sharp enough!" "Barbican's a martyr to science, let's hear his +fate!" "Martyr be hanged; the Old Man is to the good yet!" "Belfast is +the grandest name in Science!" "Groans for the grandest name!" (Awful +groans.) "Three cheers for Old Man Barbican!" (The exceptional strength +alone of the walls saved the building, from being blown out by an +explosion in which at least 5,000 pairs of lungs participated.) + +"Three cheers for M'Nicholl and the Frenchman!" This was followed by +another burst of cheering so hearty, vigorous and long continued that +the scientific party, or _Belfasters_ as they were now called, seeing +that further prolongation of the meet was perfectly useless, moved to +adjourn. It was carried unanimously. President Wilcox left the chair, +the meeting broke up in the wildest disorder--the scientists rather +crest fallen, but the Barbican men quite jubilant for having been so +successful in preventing the reading of that detested dispatch. + +Little sleeping was done that night in Baltimore, and less business next +day. Even in the public schools so little work was done by the children +that S.T. Wallace, Esq., President of the Education Board, advised an +anticipation of the usual Christmas recess by a week. Every one talked +of the Projectile; nothing was heard at the corners but discussions +regarding its probable fate. All Baltimore was immediately rent into two +parties, the _Belfasters_ and the _Barbicanites_. The latter was the +most enthusiastic and noisy, the former decidedly the most numerous and +influential. + +Science, or rather pseudo-science, always exerts a mysterious attraction +of an exceedingly powerful nature over the generality--that is, the more +ignorant portion of the human race. Assert the most absurd nonsense, +call it a scientific truth, and back it up with strange words which, +like _potentiality_, etc., sound as if they had a meaning but in +reality have none, and nine out of every ten men who read your book will +believe you. Acquire a remarkable name in one branch of human knowledge, +and presto! you are infallible in all. Who can contradict you, if you +only wrap up your assertions in specious phrases that not one man in a +million attempts to ascertain the real meaning of? We like so much to be +saved the trouble of thinking, that it is far easier and more +comfortable to be led than to contradict, to fall in quietly with the +great flock of sheep that jump blindly after their leader than to remain +apart, making one's self ridiculous by foolishly attempting to argue. +Real argument, in fact, is very difficult, for several reasons: first, +you must understand your subject _well_, which is hardly likely; +secondly, your opponent must also understand it well, which is even less +likely; thirdly, you must listen patiently to his arguments, which is +still less likely; and fourthly, he must listen to yours, the least +likely of all. If a quack advertises a panacea for all human ills at a +dollar a bottle, a hundred will buy the bottle, for one that will try +how many are killed by it. What would the investigator gain by charging +the quack with murder? Nobody would believe him, because nobody would +take the trouble to follow his arguments. His adversary, first in the +field, had gained the popular ear, and remained the unassailable master +of the situation. Our love of "Science" rests upon our admiration of +intellect, only unfortunately the intellect is too often that of other +people, not our own. + +The very sound of Belfast's phrases, for instance, "satellite," "lunar +attraction," "immutable path of its orbit," etc, convinced the greater +part of the "intelligent" community that he who used them so flippantly +must be an exceedingly great man. Therefore, he had completely proved +his case. Therefore, the great majority of the ladies and gentlemen that +regularly attend the scientific lectures of the Peabody Institute, +pronounced Barbican's fate and that of his companions to be sealed. Next +morning's newspapers contained lengthy obituary notices of the Great +Balloon-attics as the witty man of the _New York Herald_ phrased it, +some of which might be considered quite complimentary. These, all +industriously copied into the evening papers, the people were carefully +reading over again, some with honest regret, some deriving a great moral +lesson from an attempt exceedingly reprehensible in every point of view, +but most, we are sorry to acknowledge, with a feeling of ill concealed +pleasure. Had not they always said how it was to end? Was there anything +more absurd ever conceived? Scientific men too! Hang such science! If +you want a real scientific man, no wind bag, no sham, take Belfast! _He_ +knows what he's talking about! No taking _him_ in! Didn't he by means of +the Monster Telescope, see the Projectile, as large as life, whirling +round and round the Moon? Anyway, what else could have happened? Wasn't +it what anybody's common sense expected? Don't you remember a +conversation we had with you one day? etc., etc. + +The _Barbicanites_ were very doleful, but they never though of giving +in. They would die sooner. When pressed for a scientific reply to a +scientific argument, they denied that there was any argument to reply +to. What! Had not Belfast seen the Projectile? No! Was not the Great +Telescope then good for anything? Yes, but not for everything! Did not +Belfast know his business? No! Did they mean to say that he had seen +nothing at all? Well, not exactly that, but those scientific gentlemen +can seldom be trusted; in their rage for discovery, they make a mountain +out of a molehill, or, what is worse, they start a theory and then +distort facts to support it. Answers of this kind either led directly to +a fight, or the _Belfasters_ moved away thoroughly disgusted with the +ignorance of their opponents, who could not see a chain of reasoning as +bright as the noonday sun. + +Things were in this feverish state on the evening of the 14th, when, all +at once, Bloomsbury's dispatch arrived in Baltimore. I need not say that +it dropped like a spark in a keg of gun powder. The first question all +asked was: Is it genuine or bogus? real or got up by the stockbrokers? +But a few flashes backwards and forwards over the wires soon settled +that point. The stunning effects of the new blow were hardly over when +the _Barbicanites_ began to perceive that the wonderful intelligence was +decidedly in their favor. Was it not a distinct contradiction of the +whole story told by their opponents? If Barbican and his friends were +lying at the bottom of the Pacific, they were certainly not +circumgyrating around the Moon. If it was the Projectile that had broken +off the bowsprit of the _Susquehanna_, it could not certainly be the +Projectile that Belfast had seen only the day previous doing the duty +of a satellite. Did not the truth of one incident render the other an +absolute impossibility? If Bloomsbury was right, was not Belfast an ass? +Hurrah! + +The new revelation did not improve poor Barbican's fate a bit--no matter +for that! Did not the _party_ gain by it? What would the _Belfasters_ +say now? Would not they hold down their heads in confusion and disgrace? + +The _Belfasters_, with a versatility highly creditable to human nature, +did nothing of the kind. Rapidly adopting the very line of tactics they +had just been so severely censuring, they simply denied the whole thing. +What! the truth of the Bloomsbury dispatch? Yes, every word of it! Had +not Bloomsbury seen the Projectile? No! Were not his eyes good for +anything? Yes, but not for everything! Did not the Captain know his +business? No! Did they mean to say that the bowsprit of the +_Susquehanna_ had not been broken off? Well, not exactly that, but those +naval gentlemen are not always to be trusted; after a pleasant little +supper, they often see the wrong light-house, or, what is worse, in +their desire to shield their negligence from censure, they dodge the +blame by trying to show that the accident was unavoidable. The +_Susquehanna's_ bowsprit had been snapped off, in all probability, by +some sudden squall, or, what was still more likely, some little aerolite +had struck it and frightened the crew into fits. When answers of this +kind did not lead to blows, the case was an exceptional one indeed. The +contestants were so numerous and so excited that the police at last +began to think of letting them fight it out without any interference. +Marshal O'Kane, though ably assisted by his 12 officers and 500 +patrolmen, had a terrible time of it. The most respectable men in +Baltimore, with eyes blackened, noses bleeding, and collars torn, saw +the inside of a prison that night for the first time in all their lives. +Men that even the Great War had left the warmest of friends, now abused +each other like fishwomen. The prison could not hold the half of those +arrested. They were all, however, discharged next morning, for the +simple reason that the Mayor and the aldermen had been themselves +engaged in so many pugilistic combats during the night that they were +altogether disabled from attending to their magisterial duties next day. + +Our readers, however, may be quite assured that, even in the wildest +whirl of the tremendous excitement around them, all the members of the +Baltimore Gun Club did not lose their heads. In spite of the determined +opposition of the _Belfasters_ who would not allow the Bloomsbury +dispatch to be read at the special meeting called that evening, a few +succeeded in adjourning to a committee-room, where Joseph Wilcox, Esq., +presiding, our old friends Colonel Bloomsbury, Major Elphinstone, Tom +Hunter, Billsby the brave, General Morgan, Chief Engineer John Murphy, +and about as many more as were sufficient to form a quorum, declared +themselves to be in regular session, and proceeded quietly to debate on +the nature of Captain Bloomsbury's dispatch. + +Was it of a nature to justify immediate action or not? Decided +unanimously in the affirmative. Why so? Because, whether actually true +or untrue, the incident it announced was not impossible. Had it indeed +announced the Projectile to have fallen in California or in South +America, there would have been good valid reasons to question its +accuracy. But by taking into consideration the Moon's distance, and the +time elapsed between the moment of the start and that of the presumed +fall (about 10 days), and also the Earth's revolution in the meantime, +it was soon calculated that the point at which the Projectile should +strike our globe, if it struck it at all, would be somewhere about 27 deg. +north latitude, and 42 deg. west longitude--the very identical spot given in +the Captain's dispatch! This certainly was a strong point in its favor, +especially as there was positively nothing valid whatever to urge +against it. + +A decided resolution was therefore immediately taken. Everything that +man could do was to be done at once, in order to fish up their brave +associates from the depths of the Pacific. That very night, in fact, +whilst the streets of Baltimore were still resounding with the yells of +contending _Belfasters_ and _Barbicanites_, a committee of four, Morgan, +Hunter, Murphy, and Elphinstone, were speeding over the Alleghanies in a +special train, placed at their disposal by the _Baltimore and Ohio +Railroad Company_, and fast enough to land them in Chicago pretty early +on the following evening. + +Here a fresh locomotive and a Pullman car taking charge of them, they +were whirled off to Omaha, reaching that busy locality at about supper +time on the evening of December 16th. The Pacific Train, as it was +called though at that time running no further west than Julesburg, +instead of waiting for the regular hour of starting, fired up that very +night, and was soon pulling the famous Baltimore Club men up the slopes +of the Nebraska at the rate of forty miles an hour. They were awakened +before light next morning by the guard, who told them that Julesburg, +which they were just entering, was the last point so far reached by the +rails. But their regret at this circumstance was most unexpectedly and +joyfully interrupted by finding their hands warmly clasped and their +names cheerily cried out by their old and beloved friend, J.T. Marston, +the illustrious Secretary of the Baltimore Gun Club. + +At the close of the first volume of our entertaining and veracious +history, we left this most devoted friend and admirer of Barbican +established firmly at his post on the summit of Long's Peak, beside the +Great Telescope, watching the skies, night and day, for some traces of +his departed friends. There, as the gracious Reader will also remember, +he had come a little too late to catch that sight of the Projectile +which Belfast had at first reported so confidently, but of which the +Professor by degrees had begun to entertain the most serious doubts. + +In these doubts, however, Marston, strange to say, would not permit +himself for one moment to share. Belfast might shake his head as much as +he pleased; he, Marston, was no fickle reed to be shaken by every wind; +he firmly believed the Projectile to be there before him, actually in +sight, if he could only see it. All the long night of the 13th, and even +for several hours of the 14th, he never quitted the telescope for a +single instant. The midnight sky was in magnificent order; not a speck +dimmed its azure of an intensely dark tint. The stars blazed out like +fires; the Moon refused none of her secrets to the scientists who were +gazing at her so intently that night from the platform on the summit of +Long's Peak. But no black spot crawling over her resplendent surface +rewarded their eager gaze. Marston indeed would occasionally utter a +joyful cry announcing some discovery, but in a moment after he was +confessing with groans that it was all a false alarm. Towards morning, +Belfast gave up in despair and went to take a sleep; but no sleep for +Marston. Though he was now quite alone, the assistants having also +retired, he kept on talking incessantly to himself, expressing the most +unbounded confidence in the safety of his friends, and the absolute +certainty of their return. It was not until some hours after the Sun +had risen and the Moon had disappeared behind the snowy peaks of the +west, that he at last withdrew his weary eye from the glass through +which every image formed by the great reflector was to be viewed. The +countenance he turned on Belfast, who had now come back, was rueful in +the extreme. It was the image of grief and despair. + +"Did you see nothing whatever during the night, Professor?" he asked of +Belfast, though he knew very well the answer he was to get. + +"Nothing whatever." + +"But you saw them once, didn't you?" + +"Them! Who?" + +"Our friends." + +"Oh! the Projectile--well--I think I must have made some oversight." + +"Don't say that! Did not Mr. M'Connell see it also?" + +"No. He only wrote out what I dictated." + +"Why, you must have seen it! I have seen it myself!" + +"You shall never see it again! It's shot off into space." + +"You're as wrong now as you thought you were right yesterday." + +"I'm sorry to say I was wrong yesterday; but I have every reason to +believe I'm right to-day." + +"We shall see! Wait till to-night!" + +"To-night! Too late! As far as the Projectile is concerned, night is now +no better than day." + +The learned Professor was quite right, but in a way which he did not +exactly expect. That very evening, after a weary day, apparently a month +long, during which Marston sought in vain for a few hours' repose, just +as all hands, well wrapped up in warm furs, were getting ready to assume +their posts once more near the mouth of the gigantic Telescope, Mr. +M'Connell hastily presented himself with a dispatch for Belfast. + +The Professor was listlessly breaking the envelope, when he uttered a +sharp cry of surprise. + +"Hey!" cried Marston quickly. "What's up now?" + +"Oh!! The Pro--pro--projectile!!" + +"What of it? What? Oh what?? Speak!!" + +"IT'S BACK!!" + +Marston uttered a wild yell of mingled horror, surprise, and joy, jumped +a little into the air, and then fell flat and motionless on the +platform. Had Belfast shot him with a ten pound weight, right between +the two eyes, he could not have knocked him flatter or stiffer. Having +neither slept all night, nor eaten all day, the poor fellow's system had +become so weak that such unexpected news was really more than he could +bear. Besides, as one of the Cambridge men of the party, a young medical +student, remarked: the thin, cold air of these high mountains was +extremely enervating. + +The astronomers, all exceedingly alarmed, did what they could to recover +their friend from his fit, but it was nearly ten minutes before they had +the satisfaction of seeing his limbs moving with a slight quiver and +his breast beginning to heave. At last the color came back to his face +and his eyes opened. He stared around for a few seconds at his friends, +evidently unconscious, but his senses were not long in returning. + +"Say!" he uttered at last in a faint voice. + +"Well!" replied Belfast. + +"Where is that infernal Pro--pro--jectile?" + +"In the Pacific Ocean." + +"What??" + +He was on his feet in an instant. + +"Say that again!" + +"In the Pacific Ocean." + +"Hurrah! All right! Old Barbican's not made into mincemeat yet! No, +sirree! Let's start!" + +"Where for?" + +"San Francisco!" + +"When?" + +"This instant!" + +"In the dark?" + +"We shall soon have the light of the Moon! Curse her! it's the least she +can do after all the trouble she has given us!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND. + + +Leaving M'Connell and a few other Cambridge men to take charge of the +Great Telescope, Marston and Belfast in little more than an hour after +the receipt of the exciting dispatch, were scudding down the slopes of +Long's Peak by the only possible route--the inclined railroad. This +mode of travelling, however, highly satisfactory as far as it went, +ceased altogether at the mountain foot, at the point where the Dale +River formed a junction with Cache la Poudre Creek. But Marston, having +already mapped out the whole journey with some care and forethought, was +ready for almost every emergency. Instinctively feeling that the first +act of the Baltimore Gun Club would be to send a Committee to San +Francisco to investigate matters, he had determined to meet this +deputation on the route, and his only trouble now was to determine at +what point he would be most likely to catch them. His great start, he +knew perfectly well, could not put him more than a day in advance of +them: they having the advantage of a railroad nearly all the way, whilst +himself and Belfast could not help losing much time in struggling +through ravines, canyons, mountain precipices, and densely tangled +forests, not to mention the possibility of a brush or two with prowling +Indians, before they could strike the line of the Pacific Railroad, +along which he knew the Club men to be approaching. After a few hours +rest at La Porte, a little settlement lately started in the valley, +early in the morning they took the stage that passed through from Denver +to Cheyenne, a town at that time hardly a year old but already +flourishing, with a busy population of several thousand inhabitants. + +Losing not a moment at Cheyenne, where they arrived much sooner than +they had anticipated, they took places in Wells, Fargo and Co.'s +_Overland Stage Mail_ bound east, and were soon flying towards Julesburg +at the rate of twelve miles an hour. Here Marston was anxious to meet +the Club men, as at this point the Pacific Railroad divided into two +branches--one bearing north, the other south of the Great Salt Lake +--and he feared they might take the wrong one. + +But he arrived in Julesburg fully 10 hours before the Committee, so that +himself and Belfast had not only ample time to rest a little after their +rapid flight from Long's Peak, but also to make every possible +preparation for the terrible journey of more than fifteen hundred miles +that still lay before them. + +This journey, undertaken at a most unseasonable period of the year, and +over one of the most terrible deserts in the world, would require a +volume for itself. Constantly presenting the sharpest points of contrast +between the most savage features of wild barbaric nature on the one +hand, and the most touching traits of the sweetest humanity on the +other, the story of our Club men's adventures, if only well told, could +hardly fail to be highly interesting. But instead of a volume, we can +give it only a chapter, and that a short one. + +From Julesburg, the last station on the eastern end of the Pacific +Railroad, to Cisco, the last station on its western end, the distance is +probably about fifteen hundred miles, about as far as Constantinople is +from London, or Moscow from Paris. This enormous stretch of country had +to be travelled all the way by, at the best, a six horse stage tearing +along night and day at a uniform rate, road or no road, of ten miles an +hour. But this was the least of the trouble. Bands of hostile Indians +were a constant source of watchfulness and trouble, against which even a +most liberal stock of rifles and revolvers were not always a +reassurance. Whirlwinds of dust often overwhelmed the travellers so +completely that they could hardly tell day from night, whilst blasts of +icy chill, sweeping down from the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains, +often made them imagine themselves in the midst of the horrors of an +Arctic winter. + +The predominant scenery gave no pleasure to the eye or exhilaration to +the mind. It was of the dreariest description. Days and days passed with +hardly a house to be seen, or a tree or a blade of grass. I might even +add, or a mountain or a river, for the one was too often a heap of +agglomerated sand and clay cut into unsightly chasms by the rain, and +the other generally degenerated into a mere stagnant swamp, its +shallowness and dryness increasing regularly with its length. The only +houses were log ranches, called Relays, hardly visible in their sandy +surroundings, and separate from each other by a mean distance of ten +miles. The only trees were either stunted cedars, so far apart, as to be +often denominated Lone Trees; and, besides wormwood, the only plant was +the sage plant, about two feet high, gray, dry, crisp, and emitting a +sharp pungent odor by no means pleasant. + +In fact, Barbican and his companions had seen nothing drearier or +savager in the dreariest and savagest of lunar landscapes than the +scenes occasionally presented to Marston and his friends in their +headlong journey on the track of the great Pacific Railroad. Here, +bowlders, high, square, straight and plumb as an immense hotel, blocked +up your way; there, lay an endless level, flat as the palm of your hand, +over which your eye might roam in vain in search of something green like +a meadow, yellow like a cornfield, or black like ploughed ground--a mere +boundless waste of dirty white from the stunted wormwood, often rendered +misty with the clouds of smarting alkali dust. + +Occasionally, however, this savage scenery decidedly changed its +character. Now, a lovely glen would smile before our travellers, +traversed by tinkling streams, waving with sweet grasses, dotted with +little groves, alive with hares, antelopes, and even elks, but +apparently never yet trodden by the foot of man. Now, our Club men felt +like travelling on clouds, as they careered along the great plateau +west of the Black Hills, fully 8,000 feet above the level of the sea, +though even there the grass was as green and fresh as if it grew in some +sequestered valley of Pennsylvania. Again, + + "In this untravelled world whose margin fades + For ever and for ever as they moved," + +they would find themselves in an immense, tawny, treeless plain, +outlined by mountains so distant as to resemble fantastic cloud piles. +Here for days they would have to skirt the coasts of a Lake, vast, +unruffled, unrippled, apparently of metallic consistency, from whose +sapphire depths rose pyramidal islands to a height of fully three +thousand feet above the surface. + +In a few days all would change. No more sand wastes, salt water flats, +or clouds of blinding alkali dust. The travellers' road, at the foot of +black precipitous cliffs, would wind along the brink of a roaring +torrent, whose devious course would lead them into the heart of the +Sierras, where misty peaks solemnly sentinelled the nestling vales still +smiling in genial summer verdure. Across these they were often whirled +through immense forests of varied character, here dense enough to +obscure the track, there swaying in the sweet sunlight and vocal with +joyous birds of bright and gorgeous plumage. Then tropical vegetation +would completely hide the trail, crystal lakes would obstruct it, +cascades shooting down from perpendicular rocks would obliterate it, +mountain passes barricaded by basaltic columns would render it +uncertain, and on one occasion it was completely covered up by a fall of +snow to a depth of more than twenty feet. + +But nothing could oppose serious delay to our travellers. Their motto +was ever "onward!" and what they lost in one hour by some mishap they +endeavored to recover on the next by redoubled speed. They felt that +they would be no friends of Barbican's if they were discouraged by +impossibilities. Besides, what would have been real impossibilities at +another time, several concurrent circumstances now rendered +comparatively easy. + +The surveys, the gradings, the cuttings, and the other preliminary +labors in the great Pacific Railroad, gave them incalculable aid. +Horses, help, carriages, provisions were always in abundance. Their +object being well known, they had the best wishes of every hand on the +road. People remained up for them all hours of the night, no matter at +what station they were expected. The warmest and most comfortable of +meals were always ready for them, for which no charge would be taken on +any account. In Utah, a deputation of Mormons galloped alongside them +for forty miles to help them over some points of the road that had been +often found difficult. The season was the finest known for many years. +In short, as an old Californian said as he saw them shooting over the +rickety bridge that crossed the Bear River at Corinne: "they had +everything in their favor--_luck_ as well as _pluck_!" + +The rate at which they performed this terrible ride across the +Continent and the progress they made each day, some readers may consider +worthy of a few more items for the sake of future reference. Discarding +the ordinary overland mail stage as altogether too slow for their +purpose, they hired at Julesburg a strong, well built carriage, large +enough to hold them all comfortably; but this they had to replace twice +before they came to their journey's end. Their team always consisted of +the best six horses that could be found, and their driver was the famous +Hank Monk of California, who, happening to be in Julesburg about that +time, volunteered to see them safely landed in Cisco on the summit of +the Sierra Nevada. They were enabled to change horses as near as +possible every hour, by telegraphing ahead in the morning, during the +day, and often far into the hours of night. + +Starting from Julesburg early in the morning of the 17th, their first +resting place for a few hours at night was Granite Canyon, twenty miles +west of Cheyenne, and just at the foot of the pass over the Black Hills. +On the 18th, night-fall found them entering St. Mary's, at the further +end of the pass between Rattle Snake Hills and Elk Mountain. It was +after 5 o'clock and already dark on the 19th, when the travellers, +hurrying with all speed through the gloomy gorge of slate formation +leading to the banks of the Green River, found the ford too deep to be +ventured before morning. The 20th was a clear cold day very favorable +for brisk locomotion, and the bright sun had not quite disappeared +behind the Wahsatch Mountains when the Club men, having crossed the +Bear River, began to leave the lofty plateau of the Rocky Mountains by +the great inclined plane marked by the lines of the Echo and the Weber +Rivers on their way to the valley of the Great American Desert. + +Quitting Castle Rock early on the morning of the 21st, they soon came in +sight of the Great Salt Lake, along the northern shores of which they +sped all day, taking shelter after night-fall at Terrace, in a miserable +log cabin surrounded by piles of drifting sand. The 22d was a terrible +day. The sand was blinding, the alkali dust choking, the ride for five +or six hours was up considerable grade; still they had accomplished +their 150 miles before resting for the night at Elko, even at this +period a flourishing little village on the banks of the Humboldt. After +another smothering ride on the 23d, they rested, at Winnemucca, another +flourishing village, situated at the precise point in the desert where +the Little Humboldt joins Humboldt River, without, however, making the +channel fuller or wider. The 24th was decidedly the hardest day, their +course lying through the worst part of the terrible Nevada desert. But a +glimpse of the Sierras looming in the western horizon gave them courage +and strength enough to reach Wadsworth, at their foot, a little before +midnight. Our travellers had now but one day's journey more to make +before reaching the railroad at Cisco, but, this being a very steep +ascent nearly all the way up, each mile cost almost twice as much time +and exertion. + +At last, late in the evening of Christmas Day, amidst the most +enthusiastic cheers of all the inhabitants of Cisco, who welcomed them +with a splendid pine brand procession, Marston and his friends, +thoroughly used up, feet swelled, limbs bruised, bones aching, stomachs +seasick, eyes bleared, ears ringing, and brains on fire for want of +rest, took their places in the State Car waiting for them, and started +without a moment's delay for Sacramento, about a hundred miles distant. +How delicious was the change to our poor travellers! Washed, refreshed, +and lying at full length on luxurious sofas, their sensations, as the +locomotive spun them down the ringing grooves of the steep Sierras, can +be more easily imagined than described. They were all fast asleep when +the train entered Sacramento, but the Mayor and the other city +authorities who had waited up to receive them, had them carried +carefully, so as not to disturb their slumbers, on board the _Yo +Semite_, a fine steamer belonging to the California Navigation Company, +which landed them safely at San Francisco about noon on the 26th, after +accomplishing the extraordinary winter journey of 1500 miles over land +in little more than nine days, only about 200 miles being done by steam. + +Half-past two P.M. found our travellers bathed, dressed, shaved, dined, +and ready to receive company in the grand parlor of the _Occidental +Hotel_. Captain Bloomsbury was the first to call. + +Marston hobbled eagerly towards him and asked: + +"What have you done towards fishing them up, Captain?" + +"A good deal, Mr. Marston; indeed almost everything is ready." + +"Is that really the case, Captain?" asked all, very agreeably surprised. + +"Yes, gentlemen, I am most happy to state that I am quite in earnest." + +"Can we start to-morrow?" asked General Morgan. "We have not a moment to +spare, you know." + +"We can start at noon to-morrow at latest," replied the Captain, "if the +foundry men do a little extra work to-night." + +"We must start this very day, Captain Bloomsbury," cried Marston +resolutely; "Barbican has been lying two weeks and thirteen hours in the +depths of the Pacific! If he is still alive, no thanks to Marston! He +must by this time have given me up! The grappling irons must be got on +board at once, Captain, and let us start this evening!" + +At half-past four that very evening, a shot from the Fort and a lowering +of the Stars and Stripes from its flagstaff saluted the _Susquehanna_, +as she steamed proudly out of the Golden Gate at the lively rate of +fifteen knots an hour. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE CLUB MEN GO A FISHING. + + +Captain Bloomsbury was perfectly right when he said that almost +everything was ready for the commencement of the great work which the +Club men had to accomplish. Considering how much was required, this was +certainly saying a great deal; but here also, as on many other +occasions, fortune had singularly favored the Club men. + +San Francisco Bay, as everybody knows, though one of the finest and +safest harbors in the world, is not without some danger from hidden +rocks. One of these in particular, the Anita Rock as it was called, +lying right in mid channel, had become so notorious for the wrecks of +which it was the cause, that, after much time spent in the consideration +of the subject, the authorities had at last determined to blow it up. +This undertaking having been very satisfactorily accomplished by means +of _dynamite_ or giant powder, another improvement in the harbor had +been also undertaken with great success. The wrecks of many vessels lay +scattered here and there pretty numerously, some, like that of the +_Flying Dragon_, in spots so shallow that they could be easily seen at +low water, but others sunk at least twenty fathoms deep, like that of +the _Caroline_, which had gone down in 1851, not far from Blossom Rock, +with a treasure on board of 20,000 ounces of gold. The attempt to clear +away these wrecks had also turned out very well; even sufficient +treasure had been recovered to repay all the expense, though the +preparations for the purpose by the contractors, M'Gowan and Co. had +been made on the most extensive scale, and in accordance with the latest +improvements in the apparatus for submarine operations. + +Buoys, made of huge canvas sacks, coated with India rubber, and guarded +by a net work of strong cordage, had been manufactured and provided by +the _New York Submarine Company_. These buoys, when inflated and working +in pairs, had a lifting capacity of 30 tons a pair. Reservoirs of air, +provided with powerful compression pumps, always accompanied the buoys. +To attach the latter, in a collapsed condition, with strong chains to +the sides of the vessels which were to be lifted, a diving apparatus was +necessary. This also the _New York Company_ had provided, and it was so +perfect in its way that, by means of peculiar appliances of easy +management, the diver could walk about on the bottom, take his own +bearings, ascend to the surface at pleasure, and open his helmet without +assistance. A few sets likewise of Rouquayrol and Denayrouze's famous +submarine armor had been provided. These would prove of invaluable +advantage in all operations performed at great sea depths, as its +distinctive feature, "the regulator," could maintain, what is not done +by any other diving armor, a constant equality of pressure on the lungs +between the external and the internal air. + +But perhaps the most useful article of all was a new form of diving bell +called the _Nautilus_, a kind of submarine boat, capable of lateral as +well as vertical movement at the will of its occupants. Constructed with +double sides, the intervening chambers could be filled either with water +or air according as descent or ascent was required. A proper supply of +water enabled the machine to descend to depths impossible to be reached +otherwise; this water could then be expelled by an ingenious +contrivance, which, replacing it with air, enabled the diver to rise +towards the surface as fast as he pleased. + +All these and many other portions of the submarine apparatus which had +been employed that very year for clearing the channel, lifting the +wrecks and recovering the treasure, lay now at San Francisco, unused +fortunately on account of the season of the year, and therefore they +could be readily obtained for the asking. They had even been generously +offered to Captain Bloomsbury, who, in obedience to a telegram from +Washington, had kept his crew busily employed for nearly two weeks +night and day in transferring them all safely on board the +_Susquehanna_. + +Marston was the first to make a careful inspection of every article +intended for the operation. + +"Do you consider these buoys powerful enough to lift the Projectile, +Captain?" he asked next morning, as the vessel was briskly heading +southward, at a distance of ten or twelve miles from the coast on their +left. + +"You can easily calculate that problem yourself, Mr. Marston," replied +the Captain. "It presents no difficulty. The Projectile weighs about 20 +thousand pounds, or 10 tons?" + +"Correct!" + +"Well, a pair of these buoys when inflated can raise a weight of 30 +tons." + +"So far so good. But how do you propose attaching them to the +Projectile?" + +"We simply let them descend in a state of collapse; the diver, going +down with them, will have no difficulty in making a fast connection. As +soon as they are inflated the Projectile will come up like a cork." + +"Can the divers readily reach such depths?" + +"That remains to be seen Mr. Marston." + +"Captain," said Morgan, now joining the party, "you are a worthy member +of our Gun Club. You have done wonders. Heaven grant it may not be all +in vain! Who knows if our poor friends are still alive?" + +"Hush!" cried Marston quickly. "Have more sense than to ask such +questions. Is Barbican alive! Am _I_ alive? They're all alive, I tell +you, only we must be quick about reaching them before the air gives out. +That's what's the matter! Air! Provisions, water--abundance! But +air--oh! that's their weak point! Quick, Captain, quick--They're +throwing the reel--I must see her rate!" So saying, he hurried off to +the stern, followed by General Morgan. Chief Engineer Murphy and the +Captain of the _Susquehanna_ were thus left for awhile together. + +These two men had a long talk on the object of their journey and the +likelihood of anything satisfactory being accomplished. The man of the +sea candidly acknowledged his apprehensions. He had done everything in +his power towards collecting suitable machinery for fishing up the +Projectile, but he had done it all, he said, more as a matter of duty +than because he believed that any good could result from it; in fact, he +never expected to see the bold adventurers again either living or dead. +Murphy, who well understood not only what machinery was capable of +effecting, but also what it would surely fail in, at first expressed the +greatest confidence in the prosperous issue of the undertaking. But when +he learned, as he now did for the first time, that the ocean bed on +which the Projectile was lying could be hardly less than 20,000 feet +below the surface, he assumed a countenance as grave as the Captain's, +and at once confessed that, unless their usual luck stood by them, his +poor friends had not the slightest possible chance of ever being fished +up from the depths of the Pacific. + +The conversation maintained among the officers and the others on board +the _Susquehanna_, was pretty much of the same nature. It is almost +needless to say that all heads--except Belfast's, whose scientific mind +rejected the Projectile theory with the most serene contempt--were +filled with the same idea, all hearts throbbed with the same emotion. +Wouldn't it be glorious to fish them up alive and well? What were they +doing just now? Doing? _Doing!_ Their bodies most probably were lying in +a shapeless pile on the floor of the Projectile, like a heap of clothes, +the uppermost man being the last smothered; or perhaps floating about in +the water inside the Projectile, like dead gold fish in an aquarium; or +perhaps burned to a cinder, like papers in a "champion" safe after a +great fire; or, who knows? perhaps at that very moment the poor fellows +were making their last and almost superhuman struggles to burst their +watery prison and ascend once more into the cheerful regions of light +and air! Alas! How vain must such puny efforts prove! Plunged into ocean +depths of three or four miles beneath the surface, subjected to an +inconceivable pressure of millions and millions of tons of sea water, +their metallic shroud was utterly unassailable from within, and utterly +unapproachable from without! + +Early on the morning of December 29th, the Captain calculating from his +log that they must now be very near the spot where they had witnessed +the extraordinary phenomenon, the _Susquehanna_ hove to. Having to wait +till noon to find his exact position, he ordered the steamer to take a +short circular course of a few hours' duration, in hope of sighting the +buoy. But though at least a hundred telescopes scanned the calm ocean +breast for many miles in all directions, it was nowhere to be seen. + +Precisely at noon, aided by his officers and in the presence of +Marston, Belfast, and the Gun Club Committee, the Captain took his +observations. After a moment or two of the most profound interest, it +was a great gratification to all to learn that the _Susquehanna_ was on +the right parallel, and only about 15 miles west of the precise spot +where the Projectile had disappeared beneath the waves. The steamer +started at once in the direction indicated, and a minute or two before +one o'clock the Captain said they were "there." No sign of the buoy +could yet be seen in any direction; it had probably been drifted +southward by the Mexican coast current which slowly glides along these +shores from December to April. + +"At last!" cried Marston, with a sigh of great relief. + +"Shall we commence at once?" asked the Captain. + +"Without losing the twenty thousandth part of a second!" answered +Marston; "life or death depends upon our dispatch!" + +The _Susquehanna_ again hove to, and this time all possible precautions +were taken to keep her in a state of perfect immobility--an operation +easily accomplished in these pacific latitudes, where cloud and wind and +water are often as motionless as if all life had died out of the world. +In fact, as the boats were quietly lowered, preparatory for beginning +the operations, the mirror like calmness of sea, sky, and ship so +impressed the Doctor, who was of a poetical turn of mind, that he could +not help exclaiming to the little Midshipman, who was standing nearest: + +"Coleridge realized, with variations: + + The breeze drops down, the sail drops down, + All's still as still can be; + If we speak, it is only to break + The silence of the sea. + Still are the clouds, still are the shrouds, + No life, no breath, no motion; + Idle are all as a painted ship + Upon a painted ocean!" + +Chief Engineer Murphy now took command. Before letting down the buoys, +the first thing evidently to be done was to find out, if possible, the +precise point where the Projectile lay. For this purpose, the Nautilus +was clearly the only part of the machinery that could be employed with +advantage. Its chambers were accordingly soon filled with water, its air +reservoirs were also soon completely charged, and the Nautilus itself, +suspended by chains from the end of a yard, lay quietly on the ocean +surface, its manhole on the top remaining open for the reception of +those who were willing to encounter the dangers that awaited it in the +fearful depths of the Pacific. Every one looking on was well aware that, +after a few hundred feet below the surface, the pressure would grow more +and more enormous, until at last it became quite doubtful if any line +could bear the tremendous strain. It was even possible that at a certain +depth the walls of the Nautilus might be crushed in like an eggshell, +and the whole machine made as flat as two leaves of paper pasted +together. + +Perfectly conscious of the nature of the tremendous risk they were about +to run, Marston, Morgan, and Murphy quietly bade their friends a short +farewell and were lowered into the manhole. The Nautilus having room +enough for four, Belfast had been expected to be of the party but, +feeling a little sea sick, the Professor backed out at the last moment, +to the great joy of Mr. Watkins, the famous reporter of the _N.Y. +Herald_, who was immediately allowed to take his place. + +Every provision against immediate danger had been made. By means of +preconcerted signals, the inmates could have themselves drawn up, let +down, or carried laterally in whatever direction they pleased. By +barometers and other instruments they could readily ascertain the +pressure of the air and water, also how far they had descended and at +what rate they were moving. The Captain, from his bridge, carefully +superintended every detail of the operation. All signals he insisted on +attending to himself personally, transmitting them instantly by his bell +to the engineer below. The whole power of the steam engine had been +brought to bear on the windlass; the chains could withstand an enormous +strain. The wheels had been carefully oiled and tested beforehand; the +signalling apparatus had been subjected to the rigidest examination; and +every portion of the machinery had been proved to be in admirable +working order. + +The chances of immediate and unforeseen danger, it is true, had been +somewhat diminished by all these precautions. The risk, nevertheless, +was fearful. The slightest accident or even carelessness might easily +lead to the most disastrous consequence. + +Five minutes after two o'clock, the manhole being closed, the lamps lit, +and everything pronounced all right, the signal for the descent was +given, and the Nautilus immediately disappeared beneath the waters. A +double anxiety now possessed all on board the _Susquehanna_: the +prisoners in the Nautilus were in danger as well as the prisoners in the +Projectile. Marston and his friends, however, were anything but +disquieted on their own account, and, pencil in hand and noses flattened +on the glass plates, they examined carefully everything they could see +in the liquid masses through which they were descending. + +For the first five hundred feet, the descent was accomplished with +little trouble. The Nautilus sank rather slowly, at a uniform rate of a +foot to the second. It had not been two minutes under water when the +light of day completely disappeared. But for this the occupants were +fully prepared, having provided themselves with powerful lamps, whose +brilliant light, radiating from polished reflectors, gave them an +opportunity of seeing clearly around it for a distance of eight or ten +feet in all directions. Owing to the superlatively excellent +construction of the Nautilus, also on account of the _scaphanders_, or +suits of diving armor, with which Marston and his friends had clothed +themselves, the disagreeable sensations to which divers are ordinarily +exposed, were hardly felt at all in the beginning of the descent. + +Marston was about to congratulate his companions on the favorable +auspices inaugurating their trip, when Murphy, consulting the +instrument, discovered to his great surprise that the Nautilus was not +making its time. In reply to their signal "faster!" the downward +movement increased a little, but it soon relaxed again. Instead of less +than two minutes, as at the beginning, it now took twelve minutes to +make a hundred feet. They had gone only seven hundred feet in +thirty-seven minutes. In spite of repeated signalling, their progress +during the next hour was even still more alarming, one hundred feet +taking exactly 59 minutes. To shorten detail, it required two hours more +to make another hundred feet; and then the Nautilus, after taking ten +minutes to crawl an inch further, came to a perfect stand still. The +pressure of the water had evidently now become too enormous to allow +further descent. + +The Clubmen's distress was very great; Marston's, in particular, was +indescribable. In vain, catching at straws, he signalled "eastwards!" +"westwards!" "northwards!" or "southwards!" the Nautilus moved readily +every way but downwards. + +"Oh! what shall we do?" he cried in despair; "Barbican, must we really +give you up though separated from us by the short distance of only a few +miles?" + +At last, nothing better being to be done, the unwilling signal "heave +upwards!" was given, and the hauling up commenced. It was done very +slowly, and with the greatest care. A sudden jerk might snap the chains; +an incautious twist might put a kink on the air tube; besides, it was +well known that the sudden removal of heavy pressure resulting from +rapid ascent, is attended by very disagreeable sensations, which have +sometimes even proved fatal. + +It was near midnight when the Clubmen were lifted out of the manhole. +Their faces were pale, their eyes bloodshot, their figures stooped. Even +the _Herald_ Reporter seemed to have got enough of exploring. But +Marston was as confident as ever, and tried to be as brisk. + +He had hardly swallowed the refreshment so positively enjoined in the +circumstances, when he abruptly addressed the Captain: + +"What's the weight of your heaviest cannon balls?" + +"Thirty pounds, Mr. Marston." + +"Can't you attach thirty of them to the Nautilus and sink us again?" + +"Certainly, Mr. Marston, if you wish it. It shall be the first thing +done to-morrow." + +"To-night, Captain! At once! Barbican has not an instant to lose." + +"At once then be it, Mr. Marston. Just as you say." + +The new sinkers were soon attached to the Nautilus, which disappeared +once more with all its former occupants inside, except the _Herald_ +Reporter, who had fallen asleep over his notes, or at least seemed to +be. He had probably made up his mind as to the likelihood of the +Nautilus ever getting back again. + +The second descent was quicker than the first, but just as futile. At +1152 feet, the Nautilus positively refused to go a single inch further. +Marston looked like a man in a stupor. He made no objection to the +signal given by the others to return; he even helped to cut the ropes by +which the cannon balls had been attached. Not a single word was spoken +by the party, as they slowly rose to the surface. Marston seemed to be +struggling against despair. For the first time, the impossibility of the +great enterprise seemed to dawn upon him. He and his friends had +undertaken a great fight with the mighty Ocean, which now played with +them as a giant with a pigmy. To reach the bottom was evidently +completely out of their power; and what was infinitely worse, there was +nothing to be gained by reaching it. The Projectile was not on the +bottom; it could not even have got to the bottom. Marston said it all in +a few words to the Captain, as the Clubmen stepped on deck a few hours +later: + +"Barbican is floating midway in the depths of the Pacific, like Mahomet +in his coffin!" + +Blindly yielding, however, to the melancholy hope that is born of +despair, Marston and his friends renewed the search next day, the 30th, +but they were all too worn out with watching and excitement to be able +to continue it longer than a few hours. After a night's rest, it was +renewed the day following, the 31st, with some vigor, and a good part of +the ocean lying between Guadalupe and Benito islands was carefully +investigated to a depth of seven or eight hundred feet. No traces +whatever of the Projectile. Several California steamers, plying between +San Francisco and Panama, passed the _Susquehanna_ within hailing +distance. But to every question, the invariable reply one melancholy +burden bore: + +"No luck!" + +All hands were now in despair. Marston could neither eat nor drink. He +never even spoke the whole day, except on two occasions. Once, when +somebody heard him muttering: + +"He's now seventeen days in the ocean!" + +The second time he spoke, the words seemed to be forced out of him. +Belfast admitted, for the sake of argument, that the Projectile had +fallen into the ocean, but he strongly denounced the absurd idea of its +occupants being still alive. "Under such circumstances," went on the +learned Professor, "further prolongation of vital energy would be simply +impossible. Want of air, want of food, want of courage--" + +"No, sir!" interrupted Marston quite savagely. "Want of air, of meat, of +drink, as much as you like! But when you speak of Barbican's want of +courage, you don't know what you are talking about! No holy martyr ever +died at the stake with a loftier courage than my noble friend +Barbican!" + +That night he asked the Captain if he would not sail down as far as Cape +San Lucas. Bloomsbury saw that further search was all labor lost, but he +respected such heroic grief too highly to give a positive refusal. He +consented to devote the following day, New Year's, to an exploring +expedition as far as Magdalena Bay, making the most diligent inquiries +in all directions. + +But New Year's was just as barren of results as any of its predecessors, +and, a little before sunset, Captain Bloomsbury, regardless of further +entreaties and unwilling to risk further delay, gave orders to 'bout +ship and return to San Francisco. + +The _Susquehanna_ was slowly turning around in obedience to her wheel, +as if reluctant to abandon forever a search in which humanity at large +was interested, when the look-out man, stationed in the forecastle, +suddenly sang out: + +"A buoy to the nor'east, not far from shore!" + +All telescopes were instantly turned in the direction indicated. The +buoy, or whatever object it was, could be readily distinguished. It +certainly did look like one of those buoys used to mark out the channel +that ships follow when entering a harbor. But as the vessel slowly +approached it, a small flag, flapping in the dying wind--a strange +feature in a buoy--was seen to surmount its cone, which a nearer +approach showed to be emerging four or five feet from the water. And for +a buoy too it was exceedingly bright and shiny, reflecting the red rays +of the setting sun as strongly as if its surface was crystal or polished +metal! + +"Call Mr. Marston on deck at once!" cried the Captain, his voice +betraying unwonted excitement as he put the glass again to his eye. + +Marston, thoroughly worn out by his incessant anxiety during the day, +had been just carried below by his friends, and they were now trying to +make him take a little refreshment and repose. But the Captain's order +brought them all on deck like a flash. + +They found the whole crew gazing in one direction, and, though speaking +in little more than whispers, evidently in a state of extraordinary +excitement. + +What could all this mean? Was there any ground for hope? The thought +sent a pang of delight through Marston's wildly beating heart that +almost choked him. + +The Captain beckoned to the Club men to take a place on the bridge +beside himself. They instantly obeyed, all quietly yielding them a +passage. + +The vessel was now only about a quarter of a mile distant from the +object and therefore near enough to allow it to be distinguished without +the aid of a glass. + +What! The flag bore the well known Stars and Stripes! + +An electric shudder of glad surprise shot through the assembled crowd. +They still spoke, however, in whispers, hardly daring to utter their +thoughts aloud. + +The silence was suddenly startled by a howl of mingled ecstasy and rage +from Marston. + +He would have fallen off the bridge, had not the others held him firmly. +Then he burst into a laugh loud and long, and quite as formidable as his +howl. + +Then he tore away from his friends, and began beating himself over the +head. + +"Oh!" he cried in accents between a yell and a groan, "what chuckleheads +we are! What numskulls! What jackasses! What double-treble-barrelled +gibbering idiots!" Then he fell to beating himself over the head again. + +"What's the matter, Marston, for heaven's sake!" cried his friends, +vainly trying to hold him. + +"Speak for yourself!" cried others, Belfast among the number. + +"No exception, Belfast! You're as bad as the rest of us! We're all a set +of unmitigated, demoralized, dog-goned old lunatics! Ha! Ha! Ha!" + +"Speak plainly, Marston! Tell us what you mean!" + +"I mean," roared the terrible Secretary, "that we are no better than a +lot of cabbage heads, dead beats, and frauds, calling ourselves +scientists! O Barbican, how you must blush for us! If we were +schoolboys, we should all be skinned alive for our ignorance! Do you +forget, you herd of ignoramuses, that the Projectile weighs only ten +tons?" + +"We don't forget it! We know it well! What of it?" + +"This of it: it can't sink in water without displacing its own volume +in water; its own volume in water weighs thirty tons! Consequently, it +can't sink; more consequently, it hasn't sunk; and, most consequently, +there it is before us, bobbing up and down all the time under our very +noses! O Barbican, how can we ever venture to look at you straight in +the face again!" + +Marston's extravagant manner of showing it did not prevent him from +being perfectly right. With all their knowledge of physics, not a single +one of those scientific gentlemen had remembered the great fundamental +law that governs sinking or floating bodies. Thanks to its slight +specific gravity, the Projectile, after reaching unknown depths of ocean +through the terrific momentum of its fall, had been at last arrested in +its course and even obliged to return to the surface. + +By this time, all the passengers of the _Susquehanna_ could easily +recognize the object of such weary longings and desperate searches, +floating quietly a short distance before them in the last rays of the +declining day! + +The boats were out in an instant. Marston and his friends took the +Captain's gig. The rowers pulled with a will towards the rapidly nearing +Projectile. What did it contain? The living or the dead? The living +certainly! as Marston whispered to those around him; otherwise how could +they have ever run up that flag? + +The boats approached in perfect silence, all hearts throbbing with the +intensity of newly awakened hope, all eyes eagerly watching for some +sign to confirm it. No part of the windows appeared over the water, but +the trap hole had been thrown open, and through it came the pole that +bore the American flag. Marston made for the trap hole and, as it was +only a few feet above the surface, he had no difficulty in looking in. + +At that moment, a joyful shout of triumph rose from the interior, and +the whole boat's crew heard a dry drawling voice with a nasal twang +exclaiming: + +"Queen! How is that for high?" + +It was instantly answered by another voice, shriller, louder, quicker, +more joyous and triumphant in tone, but slightly tinged with a foreign +accent: + +"King! My brave Mac! How is that for high?" + +The deep, clear, calm voice that spoke next thrilled the listeners +outside with an emotion that we shall not attempt to portray. Except +that their ears could detect in it the faintest possible emotion of +triumph, it was in all respects as cool, resolute, and self-possessed as +ever: + +"Ace! Dear friends, how is that for high?" + +They were quietly enjoying a little game of High-Low-Jack! + +[Illustration: HOW IS THAT FOR HIGH?] + +How they must have been startled by the wild cheers that suddenly rang +around their ocean-prison! How madly were these cheers re-echoed from +the decks of the _Susquehanna_! Who can describe the welcome that +greeted these long lost, long beloved, long despaired of Sons of Earth, +now so suddenly and unexpectedly rescued from destruction, and +restored once more to the wonderstricken eyes of admiring humanity? Who +can describe the scenes of joy and exuberant happiness, and deep felt +gratitude, and roaring rollicking merriment, that were witnessed on +board the steamer that night and during the next three days! + +As for Marston, it need hardly be said that he was simply ecstatic, but +it may interest both the psychologist and the philologist to learn that +the expression _How is that for high?_ struck him at once as with a kind +of frenzy. It became immediately such a favorite tongue morsel of his +that ever since he has been employing it on all occasions, appropriate +or otherwise. Thanks to his exertions in its behalf all over the +country, the phrase is now the most popular of the day, well known and +relished in every part of the Union. If we can judge from its present +hold on the popular ear it will continue to live and flourish for many a +long day to come; it may even be accepted as the popular expression of +triumph in those dim, distant, future years when the memory not only of +the wonderful occasion of its formation but also of the illustrious men +themselves who originated it, has been consigned forever to the dark +tomb of oblivion! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +FAREWELL TO THE BALTIMORE GUN CLUB. + + +The intense interest of our extraordinary but most veracious history +having reached its culmination at the end of the last chapter, our +absorbing chronicle might with every propriety have been then and there +concluded; but we can't part from our gracious and most indulgent reader +before giving him a few more details which may be instructive perhaps, +if not amusing. + +No doubt he kindly remembers the world-wide sympathy with which our +three famous travellers had started on their memorable trip to the Moon. +If so, he may be able to form some idea of the enthusiasm universally +excited by the news of their safe return. Would not the millions of +spectators that had thronged Florida to witness their departure, now +rush to the other extremity of the Union to welcome them back? Could +those innumerable Europeans, Africans and Asiatics, who had visited the +United States simply to have a look at M'Nicholl, Ardan and Barbican, +ever think of quitting the country without having seen those wonderful +men again? Certainly not! Nay, more--the reception and the welcome that +those heroes would everywhere be greeted with, should be on a scale +fully commensurate with the grandeur of their own gigantic enterprise. +The Sons of Earth who had fearlessly quitted this terrestrial globe and +who had succeeded in returning after accomplishing a journey +inconceivably wonderful, well deserved to be received with every +extremity of pride, pomp and glorious circumstance that the world is +capable of displaying. + +To catch a glimpse of these demi-gods, to hear the sound of their +voices, perhaps even to touch their hands--these were the only emotions +with which the great heart of the country at large was now throbbing. + +To gratify this natural yearning of humanity, to afford not only to +every foreigner but to every native in the land an opportunity of +beholding the three heroes who had reflected such indelible glory on the +American name, and to do it all in a manner eminently worthy of the +great American Nation, instantly became the desire of the American +People. + +To desire a thing, and to have it, are synonymous terms with the great +people of the American Republic. + +A little thinking simplified the matter considerably: as all the people +could not go to the heroes, the heroes should go to all the people. + +So decided, so done. + +It was nearly two months before Barbican and his friends could get back +to Baltimore. The winter travelling over the Rocky Mountains had been +very difficult on account of the heavy snows, and, even when they found +themselves in the level country, though they tried to travel as +privately as possible, and for the present positively declined all +public receptions, they were compelled to spend some time in the houses +of the warm friends near whom they passed in the course of their long +journey. + +The rough notes of their Moon adventures--the only ones that they could +furnish just then--circulating like wild fire and devoured with +universal avidity, only imparted a keener whet to the public desire to +feast their eyes on such men. These notes were telegraphed free to every +newspaper in the country, but the longest and best account of the +"_Journey to the Moon_" appeared in the columns of the _New York +Herald_, owing to the fact that Watkins the reporter had had the +adventurers all to himself during the whole of the three days' trip of +the _Susquehanna_ back to San Francisco. In a week after their return, +every man, woman, and child in the United States knew by heart some of +the main facts and incidents in the famous journey; but, of course, it +is needless to say that they knew nothing at all about the finer points +and the highly interesting minor details of the astounding story. These +are now all laid before the highly favored reader for the first time. I +presume it is unnecessary to add that they are worthy of his most +implicit confidence, having been industriously and conscientiously +compiled from the daily journals of the three travellers, revised, +corrected, and digested very carefully by Barbican himself. + +It was, of course, too early at this period for the critics to pass a +decided opinion on the nature of the information furnished by our +travellers. Besides, the Moon is an exceedingly difficult subject. Very +few newspaper men in the country are capable of offering a single +opinion regarding her that is worth reading. This is probably also the +reason why half-scientists talk so much dogmatic nonsense about her. + +Enough, however, had appeared in the notes to warrant the general +opinion that Barbican's explorations had set at rest forever several pet +theories lately started regarding the nature of our satellite. He and +his friends had seen her with their own eyes, and under such favorable +circumstances as to be altogether exceptional. Regarding her formation, +her origin, her inhabitability, they could easily tell what system +_should_ be rejected and what _might_ be admitted. Her past, her +present, and her future, had been alike laid bare before their eyes. How +can you object to the positive assertion of a conscientious man who has +passed within a few hundred miles of _Tycho_, the culminating point in +the strangest of all the strange systems of lunar oreography? What reply +can you make to a man who has sounded the dark abysses of the _Plato_ +crater? How can you dare to contradict those men whom the vicissitudes +of their daring journey had swept over the dark, Invisible Face of the +Moon, never before revealed to human eye? It was now confessedly the +privilege and the right of these men to set limits to that selenographic +science which had till now been making itself so very busy in +reconstructing the lunar world. They could now say, authoritatively, +like Cuvier lecturing over a fossil skeleton: "Once the Moon was this, a +habitable world, and inhabitable long before our Earth! And now the Moon +is that, an uninhabitable world, and uninhabitable ages and ages ago!" + +We must not even dream of undertaking a description of the grand _fete_ +by which the return of the illustrious members of the Gun Club was to be +adequately celebrated, and the natural curiosity of their countrymen to +see them was to be reasonably gratified. It was one worthy in every way +of its recipients, worthy of the Gun Club, worthy of the Great Republic, +and, best of all, every man, woman, and child in the United States could +take part in it. It required at least three months to prepare it: but +this was not to be regretted as its leading idea could not be properly +carried out during the severe colds of winter. + +All the great railroads of the Union had been closely united by +temporary rails, a uniform gauge had been everywhere adopted, and every +other necessary arrangement had been made to enable a splendid palace +car, expressly manufactured for the occasion by Pullman himself, to +visit every chief point in the United States without ever breaking +connection. Through the principal street in each city, or streets if one +was not large enough, rails had been laid so as to admit the passage of +the triumphal car. In many cities, as a precaution against unfavorable +weather, these streets had been arched over with glass, thus becoming +grand arcades, many of which have been allowed to remain so to the +present day. The houses lining these streets, hung with tapestry, +decorated with flowers, waving with banners, were all to be illuminated +at night time in a style at once both the most brilliant and the most +tasteful. On the sidewalks, tables had been laid, often miles and miles +long, at the public expense; these were to be covered with every kind of +eatables, exquisitely cooked, in the greatest profusion, and free to +everyone for twelve hours before the arrival of the illustrious guests +and also for twelve hours after their departure. The idea mainly aimed +at was that, at the grand national banquet about to take place, every +inhabitant of the United States, without exception, could consider +Barbican and his companions as his own particular guests for the time +being, thus giving them a welcome the heartiest and most unanimous that +the world has ever yet witnessed. + +Evergreens were to deck the lamp-posts; triumphal arches to span the +streets; fountains, squirting _eau de cologne_, to perfume and cool the +air; bands, stationed at proper intervals, to play the most inspiring +music; and boys and girls from public and private schools, dressed in +picturesque attire, to sing songs of joy and glory. The people, seated +at the banquetting tables, were to rise and cheer and toast the heroes +as they passed; the military companies, in splendid uniforms, were to +salute them with presented arms; while the bells pealed from the church +towers, the great guns roared from the armories, _feux de joie_ +resounded from the ships in the harbor, until the day's wildest whirl of +excitement was continued far into the night by a general illumination +and a surpassing display of fireworks. Right in the very heart of the +city, the slowly moving triumphal car was always to halt long enough to +allow the Club men to join the cheering citizens at their meal, which +was to be breakfast, dinner or supper according to that part of the day +at which the halt was made. + +The number of champagne bottles drunk on these occasions, or of the +speeches made, or of the jokes told, or of the toasts offered, or of the +hands shaken, of course, I cannot now weary my kind reader by detailing, +though I have the whole account lying before me in black and white, +written out day by day in Barbican's own bold hand. Yet I should like to +give a few extracts from this wonderful journal. It is a perfect model +of accuracy and system. Whether detailing his own doings or those of the +innumerable people he met, Caesar himself never wrote anything more +lucid or more pointed. But nothing sets the extraordinary nature of this +great man in a better light than the firm, commanding, masterly +character of the handwriting in which these records are made. The +elegant penmanship all through might easily pass for copper plate +engraving--except on one page, dated "_Boston, after dinner_," where, +candor compels me to acknowledge, the "Solid Men" appear to have +succeeded in rendering his iron nerves the least bit wabbly. + +The palace car had been so constructed that, by turning a few cranks and +pulling out a few bolts, it was transformed at once into a highly +decorated and extremely comfortable open barouche. Marston took the seat +usually occupied by the driver: Ardan and M'Nicholl sat immediately +under him, face to face with Barbican, who, in order that everyone might +be able to distinguish him, was to keep all the back seat for himself, +the post of honor. + +On Monday morning, the fifth of May, a month generally the pleasantest +in the United States, the grand national banquet commenced in Baltimore, +and lasted twenty-four hours. The Gun Club insisted on paying all the +expenses of the day, and the city compromised by being allowed to +celebrate in whatever way it pleased the reception of the Club men on +their return. + +They started on their trip that same day in the midst of one of the +grandest ovations possible to conceive. They stopped for a little while +at Wilmington, but they took dinner in Philadelphia, where the splendor +of Broad Street (at present the finest boulevard in the world, being 113 +feet wide and five miles long) can be more easily alluded to than even +partially described. + +The house fronts glittered with flowers, flags, pictures, tapestries, +and other decorations; the chimneys and roofs swarmed with men and boys +cheerfully risking their necks every moment to get one glance at the +"Moon men"; every window was a brilliant bouquet of beautiful ladies +waving their scented handkerchiefs and showering their sweetest smiles; +the elevated tables on the sidewalks, groaning with an abundance of +excellent and varied food, were lined with men, women, and children, +who, however occupied in eating and drinking, never forgot to salute the +heroes, cheering them lustily as they slowly moved along; the spacious +street itself, just paved from end to end with smooth Belgian blocks, +was a living moving panorama of soldiers, temperance men, free masons, +and other societies, radiant in gorgeous uniforms, brilliant in flashing +banners, and simply perfect in the rhythmic cadence of their tread, +wings of delicious music seeming to bear them onward in their proud and +stately march. + +A vast awning, spanning the street from ridge to ridge, had been so +prepared and arranged that, in case of rain or too strong a glare from +the summer sun, it could be opened out wholly or partially in the space +of a very few minutes. There was not, however, the slightest occasion +for using it, the weather being exceedingly fine, almost paradisiacal, +as Marston loved to phrase it. + +[Illustration: THEIR ARRIVAL WAS WELCOMED WITH EQUAL _FURORE_.] + +The "Moon men" supped and spent the night in New York, where they were +received with even greater enthusiasm than at Philadelphia. But no +detailed description can be given of their majestic progress from city +to city through all portions of the mighty Republic. It is enough to say +that they visited every important town from Portland to San Francisco, +from Salt Lake City to New Orleans, from Mobile to Charleston, and from +Saint Louis to Baltimore; that, in every section of the great country, +preparations for their reception were equally as enthusiastic, their +arrival was welcomed with equal _furore_, and their departure +accompanied with an equal amount of affectionate and touching sympathy. + +The _New York Herald_ reporter, Mr. Watkins, followed them closely +everywhere in a palace car of his own, and kept the public fully +enlightened regarding every incident worth regarding along the route, +almost as soon as it happened. He was enabled to do this by means of a +portable telegraphic machine of new and most ingenious construction. +Though its motive power was electricity, it could dispense with the +ordinary instruments and even with wires altogether, yet it managed to +transmit messages to most parts of the world with an accuracy that, +considering how seldom it failed, is almost miraculous. The principle +actuating it, though guessed at by many shrewd scientists, is still a +profound secret and will probably remain so for some time longer, the +_Herald_ having purchased the right to its sole and exclusive use for +fifteen years, at an enormous cost. + +Who shall say that the apotheosis of our three heroes was not worthy of +them, or that, had they lived in the old prehistoric times, they would +not have taken the loftiest places among the demi-gods? + +As the tremendous whirl of excitement began slowly to die away, the +more thoughtful heads of the Great Republic began asking each other a +few questions: + +Can this wonderful journey, unprecedented in the annals of wonderful +journeys, ever lead to any practical result? + +Shall we ever live to see direct communication established with the +Moon? + +Will any Air Line of space navigation ever undertake to start a system +of locomotion between the different members of the solar system? + +Have we any reasonable grounds for ever expecting to see trains running +between planet and planet, as from Mars to Jupiter and, possibly +afterwards, from star to star, as from Polaris to Sirius? + +Even to-day these are exceedingly puzzling questions, and, with all our +much vaunted scientific progress, such as "no fellow can make out." But +if we only reflect a moment on the audacious go-a-headiveness of the +Yankee branch of the Anglo Saxon race, we shall easily conclude that the +American people will never rest quietly until they have pushed to its +last result and to every logical consequence the astounding step so +daringly conceived and so wonderfully carried out by their great +countryman Barbican. + +In fact, within a very few months after the return of the Club men from +the Continental Banquet, as it was called in the papers, the country was +flooded by a number of little books, like Insurance pamphlets, thrust +into every letter box and pushed under every door, announcing the +formation of a new company called _The Grand Interstellar Communication +Society_. The Capital was to be 100 million dollars, at a thousand +dollars a share: J.P. BARBICAN, ESQ., P.G.C. was to be President; +Colonel JOSHUA D. M'NICHOLL, Vice-President; Hon. J.T. MARSTON, +Secretary; Chevalier MICHAEL ARDAN, General Manager; JOHN MURPHY, ESQ., +Chief Engineer; H. PHILLIPS COLEMAN, ESQ. (Philadelphia lawyer), Legal +Adviser; and the Astrological Adviser was to be Professor HENRY of +Washington. (Belfast's blunder had injured him so much in public +estimation, his former partisans having become his most merciless +revilers, that it was considered advisable to omit his name altogether +even in the list of the Directors.) + +From the very beginning, the moneyed public looked on the G.I.C.S, with +decided favor, and its shares were bought up pretty freely. Conducted on +strictly honorable principles, keeping carefully aloof from all such +damaging connection as the _Credit Mobilier_, and having its books +always thrown open for public inspection, its reputation even to-day is +excellent and continually improving in the popular estimation. Holding +out no utopian inducements to catch the unwary, and making no wheedling +promises to blind the guileless, it states its great objects with all +their great advantages, without at the same time suppressing its +enormous and perhaps insuperable difficulties. People know exactly what +to think of it, and, whether it ever meets with perfect success or +proves a complete failure, no one in the country will ever think of +casting a slur on the bright name of its peerless President, J.P. +Barbican. + +For a few years this great man devoted every faculty of his mind to the +furthering of the Company's objects. But in the midst of his labors, the +rapid approach of the CENTENNIAL surprised him. After a long and careful +consultation on the subject, the Directors and Stockholders of the +G.I.C.S. advised him to suspend all further labors in their behalf for a +few years, in order that he might be freer to devote the full energies +of his giant intellect towards celebrating the first hundredth +anniversary of his country's Independence--as all true Americans would +wish to see it celebrated--in a manner every way worthy of the GREAT +REPUBLIC OF THE WEST! + +Obeying orders instantly and with the single-idea'd, unselfish +enthusiasm of his nature, he threw himself at once heart and soul into +the great enterprise. Though possessing no official prominence--this he +absolutely insists upon--he is well known to be the great fountain head +whence emanate all the life, order, dispatch, simplicity, economy, and +wonderful harmony which, so far, have so eminently characterized the +magnificent project. With all operations for raising the necessary +funds--further than by giving some sound practical advice--he positively +refused to connect himself (this may be the reason why subscriptions to +the Centennial stock are so slow in coming in), but in the proper +apportionment of expenses and the strict surveillance of the mechanical, +engineering, and architectural departments, his services have proved +invaluable. His experience in the vast operations at Stony Hill has +given him great skill in the difficult art of managing men. His voice is +seldom heard at the meetings, but when it is, people seem to take a +pleasure in readily submitting to its dictates. + +In wet weather or dry, in hot weather or cold, he may still be seen +every day at Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, leisurely strolling from +building to building, picking his steps quietly through the bustling +crowds of busy workmen, never speaking a word, not even to Marston his +faithful shadow, often pencilling something in his pocket book, stopping +occasionally to look apparently nowhere, but never, you may be sure, +allowing a single detail in the restless panorama around him to escape +the piercing shaft of his eagle glance. + +He is evidently determined on rendering the great CENTENNIAL of his +country a still greater and more wonderful success than even his own +world-famous and never to be forgotten JOURNEY through the boundless +fields of ether, and ALL AROUND THE MOON! + +END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of All Around the Moon, by Jules Verne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL AROUND THE MOON *** + +***** This file should be named 16457.txt or 16457.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/4/5/16457/ + +Produced by Afra Ullah, Taavi Kalju and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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