tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3152422246996798562011-04-21T17:04:29.369-07:00GAURAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00515865503470793753noreply@blogger.comBlogger81100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-315242224699679856.post-10106233357622089762008-04-18T04:08:00.001-07:002008-04-18T04:10:52.617-07:00BLA BLA<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/315242224699679856-1010623335762208976?l=famebooks.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>GAURAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00515865503470793753noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-315242224699679856.post-2686829437430236902008-04-18T04:08:00.000-07:002008-04-18T04:10:41.415-07:00BLA BLA<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/315242224699679856-268682943743023690?l=famebooks.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>GAURAVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00515865503470793753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-315242224699679856.post-24961894353176012602007-06-26T03:38:00.000-07:002007-06-26T03:43:21.721-07:00ALL<br /><br />AROUND THE MOON<br /><br />FROM THE FRENCH OF<br /><br />JULES VERNE<br /><br />AUTHOR OF "FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON", "TO THE SUN!" AND "OFF ON A<br />COMET!"<br /><br />BY<br /><br />EDWARD ROTH<br /><br />ILLUSTRATED<br /><br />PHILADELPHIA<br />DAVID MCKAY, PUBLISHER<br />23 SOUTH NINTH STREET<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CONTENTS.<br /><br /> PRELIMINARY<br /><br /> I. FROM 10 P.M. TO 10. 46' 40''<br /><br /> II. THE FIRST HALF HOUR<br /><br /> III. THEY MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME AND FEEL QUITE COMFORTABLE<br /><br /> IV. FOR THE CORNELL GIRLS<br /><br /> V. THE COLDS OF SPACE<br /><br /> VI. INSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATION<br /><br /> VII. A HIGH OLD TIME<br /><br /> VIII. THE NEUTRAL POINT<br /><br /> IX. A LITTLE OFF THE TRACK<br /><br /> X. THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON<br /><br /> XI. FACT AND FANCY<br /><br /> XII. A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE LUNAR MOUNTAINS<br /><br /> XIII. LUNAR LANDSCAPES<br /><br /> XIV. A NIGHT OF FIFTEEN DAYS<br /><br /> XV. GLIMPSES AT THE INVISIBLE<br /><br /> XVI. THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE<br /><br /> XVII. TYCHO<br /><br />XVIII. PUZZLING QUESTIONS<br /><br /> XIX. IN EVERY FIGHT, THE IMPOSSIBLE WINS<br /><br /> XX. OFF THE PACIFIC COAST<br /><br /> XXI. NEWS FOR MARSTON!<br /><br /> XXII. ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND<br /><br />XXIII. THE CLUB MEN GO A FISHING<br /><br /> XXIV. FAREWELL TO THE BALTIMORE GUN CLUB<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.<br /><br /> 1. HIS FIRST CARE WAS TO TURN ON THE GAS<br /><br /> 2. DIANA AND SATELLITE<br /><br /> 3. HE HELPED ARDAN TO LIFT BARBICAN<br /><br /> 4. MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER<br /><br /> 5. THEY DRANK TO THE SPEEDY UNION OF THE EARTH AND HER SATELLITE<br /><br /> 6. DON'T I THOUGH? MY HEAD IS SPLITTING WITH IT!<br /><br /> 7. POOR SATELLITE WAS DROPPED OUT<br /><br /> 8. THE BODY OF THE DOG THROWN OUT YESTERDAY<br /><br /> 9. A DEMONIACAL HULLABALOO<br /><br />10. THE OXYGEN! HE CRIED<br /><br />11. A GROUP _a la Jardin Mabille_<br /><br />12. AN IMMENSE BATTLE-FIELD PILED WITH BLEACHING BONES<br /><br />13. NEVERTHELESS THE SOLUTION ESCAPED HIM<br /><br />14. IT'S COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE A WHITE BEAR<br /><br />15. THEY COULD UTTER NO WORD, THEY COULD BREATHE NO PRAYER<br /><br />16. THEY SEEMED HALF ASLEEP IN HIS VITALIZING BEAMS<br /><br />17. THESE ARCHES EVIDENTLY ONCE BORE THE PIPES OF AN AQUEDUCT<br /><br />18. ARDAN GAZED AT THE PAIR FOR A FEW MINUTES<br /><br />19. OLD MAC DISCOVERED TAKING OBSERVATIONS<br /><br />20. FOR A SECOND ONLY DID THEY CATCH ITS FLASH<br /><br />21. HOW IS THAT FOR HIGH?<br /><br />22. EVERYWHERE THEIR DEPARTURE WAS ACCOMPANIED WITH THE MOST TOUCHING<br /> SYMPATHY<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />PRELIMINARY CHAPTER,<br /><br />RESUMING THE FIRST PART OF THE WORK AND SERVING AS AN INTRODUCTION TO<br />THE SECOND.<br /><br /><br />A few years ago the world was suddenly astounded by hearing of an<br />experiment of a most novel and daring nature, altogether unprecedented<br />in the annals of science. The BALTIMORE GUN CLUB, a society of<br />artillerymen started in America during the great Civil War, had<br />conceived the idea of nothing less than establishing direct<br />communication with the Moon by means of a projectile! President<br />Barbican, the originator of the enterprise, was strongly encouraged in<br />its feasibility by the astronomers of Cambridge Observatory, and took<br />upon himself to provide all the means necessary to secure its success.<br />Having realized by means of a public subscription the sum of nearly five<br />and a half millions of dollars, he immediately set himself to work at<br />the necessary gigantic labors.<br /><br />In accordance with the Cambridge men's note, the cannon intended to<br />discharge the projectile was to be planted in some country not further<br />than 28 deg. north or south from the equator, so that it might be aimed<br />vertically at the Moon in the zenith. The bullet was to be animated with<br />an initial velocity of 12,000 yards to the second. It was to be fired<br />off on the night of December 1st, at thirteen minutes and twenty seconds<br />before eleven o'clock, precisely. Four days afterwards it was to hit the<br />Moon, at the very moment that she reached her _perigee_, that is to say,<br />her nearest point to the Earth, about 228,000 miles distant.<br /><br />The leading members of the Club, namely President Barbican, Secretary<br />Marston, Major Elphinstone and General Morgan, forming the executive<br />committee, held several meetings to discuss the shape and material of<br />the bullet, the nature and position of the cannon, and the quantity and<br />quality of the powder. The decision soon arrived at was as follows:<br />1st--The bullet was to be a hollow aluminium shell, its diameter nine<br />feet, its walls a foot in thickness, and its weight 19,250 pounds;<br />2nd--The cannon was to be a columbiad 900 feet in length, a well of that<br />depth forming the vertical mould in which it was to be cast, and<br />3rd--The powder was to be 400 thousand pounds of gun cotton, which, by<br />developing more than 200 thousand millions of cubic feet of gas under<br />the projectile, would easily send it as far as our satellite.<br /><br />These questions settled, Barbican, aided by Murphy, the Chief Engineer<br />of the Cold Spring Iron Works, selected a spot in Florida, near the 27th<br />degree north latitude, called Stony Hill, where after the performance of<br />many wonderful feats in mining engineering, the Columbiad was<br />successfully cast.<br /><br />Things had reached this state when an incident occurred which excited<br />the general interest a hundred fold.<br /><br />A Frenchman from Paris, Michel Ardan by name, eccentric, but keen and<br />shrewd as well as daring, demanded, by the Atlantic telegraph,<br />permission to be enclosed in the bullet so that he might be carried to<br />the Moon, where he was curious to make certain investigations. Received<br />in America with great enthusiasm, Ardan held a great meeting,<br />triumphantly carried his point, reconciled Barbican to his mortal foe, a<br />certain Captain M'Nicholl, and even, by way of clinching the<br />reconciliation, induced both the newly made friends to join him in his<br />contemplated trip to the Moon.<br /><br />The bullet, so modified as to become a hollow conical cylinder with<br />plenty of room inside, was further provided with powerful water-springs<br />and readily-ruptured partitions below the floor, intended to deaden the<br />dreadful concussion sure to accompany the start. It was supplied with<br />provisions for a year, water for a few months, and gas for nearly two<br />weeks. A self-acting apparatus, of ingenious construction, kept the<br />confined atmosphere sweet and healthy by manufacturing pure oxygen and<br />absorbing carbonic acid. Finally, the Gun Club had constructed, at<br />enormous expense, a gigantic telescope, which, from the summit of Long's<br />Peak, could pursue the Projectile as it winged its way through the<br />regions of space. Everything at last was ready.<br /><br />On December 1st, at the appointed moment, in the midst of an immense<br />concourse of spectators, the departure took place, and, for the first<br />time in the world's history, three human beings quitted our terrestrial<br />globe with some possibility in their favor of finally reaching a point<br />of destination in the inter-planetary spaces. They expected to<br />accomplish their journey in 97 hours, 13 minutes and 20 seconds,<br />consequently reaching the Lunar surface precisely at midnight on<br />December 5-6, the exact moment when the Moon would be full.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the instantaneous explosion of such a vast quantity of<br />gun-cotton, by giving rise to a violent commotion in the atmosphere,<br />generated so much vapor and mist as to render the Moon invisible for<br />several nights to the innumerable watchers in the Western Hemisphere,<br />who vainly tried to catch sight of her.<br /><br />In the meantime, J.T. Marston, the Secretary of the Gun Club, and a most<br />devoted friend of Barbican's, had started for Long's Peak, Colorado, on<br />the summit of which the immense telescope, already alluded to, had been<br />erected; it was of the reflecting kind, and possessed power sufficient<br />to bring the Moon within a distance of five miles. While Marston was<br />prosecuting his long journey with all possible speed, Professor<br />Belfast, who had charge of the telescope, was endeavoring to catch a<br />glimpse of the Projectile, but for a long time with no success. The<br />hazy, cloudy weather lasted for more than a week, to the great disgust<br />of the public at large. People even began to fear that further<br />observation would have to be deferred to the 3d of the following month,<br />January, as during the latter half of December the waning Moon could not<br />possibly give light enough to render the Projectile visible.<br /><br />At last, however, to the unbounded satisfaction of all, a violent<br />tempest suddenly cleared the sky, and on the 13th of December, shortly<br />after midnight, the Moon, verging towards her last quarter, revealed<br />herself sharp and bright on the dark background of the starry firmament.<br /><br />That same morning, a few hours before Marston's arrival at the summit of<br />Long's Peak, a very remarkable telegram had been dispatched by Professor<br />Belfast to the Smithsonian Institute, Washington. It announced:<br /><br />That on December 13th, at 2 o'clock in the morning, the Projectile shot<br />from Stony Hill had been perceived by Professor Belfast and his<br />assistants; that, deflected a little from its course by some unknown<br />cause, it had not reached its mark, though it had approached near enough<br />to be affected by the Lunar attraction; and that, its rectilineal motion<br />having become circular, it should henceforth continue to describe a<br />regular orbit around the Moon, of which in fact it had become the<br />Satellite. The dispatch went on further to state:<br /><br />That the _elements_ of the new heavenly body had not yet been<br />calculated, as at least three different observations, taken at different<br />times, were necessary to determine them. The distance of the Projectile<br />from the Lunar surface, however, might be set down roughly at roughly<br />2833 miles.<br /><br />The dispatch concluded with the following hypotheses, positively<br />pronounced to be the only two possible: Either, 1, The Lunar attraction<br />would finally prevail, in which case the travellers would reach their<br />destination; or 2, The Projectile, kept whirling forever in an immutable<br />orbit, would go on revolving around the Moon till time should be no<br />more.<br /><br />In either alternative, what should be the lot of the daring adventurers?<br />They had, it is true, abundant provisions to last them for some time,<br />but even supposing that they did reach the Moon and thereby completely<br />establish the practicability of their daring enterprise, how were they<br />ever to get back? _Could_ they ever get back? or ever even be heard<br />from? Questions of this nature, freely discussed by the ablest pens of<br />the day, kept the public mind in a very restless and excited condition.<br /><br />We must be pardoned here for making a little remark which, however,<br />astronomers and other scientific men of sanguine temperament would do<br />well to ponder over. An observer cannot be too cautious in announcing to<br />the public his discovery when it is of a nature purely speculative.<br />Nobody is obliged to discover a planet, or a comet, or even a satellite,<br />but, before announcing to the world that you have made such a discovery,<br />first make sure that such is really the fact. Because, you know, should<br />it afterwards come out that you have done nothing of the kind, you make<br />yourself a butt for the stupid jokes of the lowest newspaper scribblers.<br />Belfast had never thought of this. Impelled by his irrepressible rage<br />for discovery--the _furor inveniendi_ ascribed to all astronomers by<br />Aurelius Priscus--he had therefore been guilty of an indiscretion highly<br />un-scientific when his famous telegram, launched to the world at large<br />from the summit of the Rocky Mountains, pronounced so dogmatically on<br />the only possible issues of the great enterprise.<br /><br />The truth was that his telegram contained _two_ very important errors:<br />1. Error of _observation_, as facts afterwards proved; the Projectile<br />_was_ not seen on the 13th and _could_ not have been on that day, so<br />that the little black spot which Belfast professed to have seen was most<br />certainly not the Projectile; 2. Error of _theory_ regarding the final<br />fate of the Projectile, since to make it become the Moon's satellite was<br />flying in the face of one of the great fundamental laws of Theoretical<br />Mechanics.<br /><br />Only one, therefore, the first, of the hypotheses so positively<br />announced, was capable of realization. The travellers--that is to say if<br />they still lived--might so combine and unite their own efforts with<br />those of the Lunar attraction as actually to succeed at last in reaching<br />the Moon's surface.<br /><br />Now the travellers, those daring but cool-headed men who knew very well<br />what they were about, _did_ still live, they _had_ survived the<br />frightful concussion of the start, and it is to the faithful record of<br />their wonderful trip in the bullet-car, with all its singular and<br />dramatic details, that the present volume is devoted. The story may<br />destroy many illusions, prejudices and conjectures; but it will at least<br />give correct ideas of the strange incidents to which such an enterprise<br />is exposed, and it will certainly bring out in strong colors the effects<br />of Barbican's scientific conceptions, M'Nicholl's mechanical resources,<br />and Ardan's daring, eccentric, but brilliant and effective combinations.<br /><br />Besides, it will show that J.T. Marston, their faithful friend and a man<br />every way worthy of the friendship of such men, was only losing his time<br />while mirroring the Moon in the speculum of the gigantic telescope on<br />that lofty peak of the mountains.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER I.<br /><br />FROM 10 P.M. TO 10 46' 40''.<br /><br /><br />The moment that the great clock belonging to the works at Stony Hill had<br />struck ten, Barbican, Ardan and M'Nicholl began to take their last<br />farewells of the numerous friends surrounding them. The two dogs<br />intended to accompany them had been already deposited in the Projectile.<br />The three travellers approached the mouth of the enormous cannon, seated<br />themselves in the flying car, and once more took leave for the last time<br />of the vast throng standing in silence around them. The windlass<br />creaked, the car started, and the three daring men disappeared in the<br />yawning gulf.<br /><br />The trap-hole giving them ready access to the interior of the<br />Projectile, the car soon came back empty; the great windlass was<br />presently rolled away; the tackle and scaffolding were removed, and in a<br />short space of time the great mouth of the Columbiad was completely rid<br />of all obstructions.<br /><br />M'Nicholl took upon himself to fasten the door of the trap on the inside<br />by means of a powerful combination of screws and bolts of his own<br />invention. He also covered up very carefully the glass lights with<br />strong iron plates of extreme solidity and tightly fitting joints.<br /><br />Ardan's first care was to turn on the gas, which he found burning rather<br />low; but he lit no more than one burner, being desirous to economize as<br />much as possible their store of light and heat, which, as he well knew,<br />could not at the very utmost last them longer than a few weeks.<br /><br />Under the cheerful blaze, the interior of the Projectile looked like a<br />comfortable little chamber, with its circular sofa, nicely padded walls,<br />and dome shaped ceiling.<br /><br />All the articles that it contained, arms, instruments, utensils, etc.,<br />were solidly fastened to the projections of the wadding, so as to<br />sustain the least injury possible from the first terrible shock. In<br />fact, all precautions possible, humanly speaking, had been taken to<br />counteract this, the first, and possibly one of the very greatest<br />dangers to which the courageous adventurers would be exposed.<br /><br />Ardan expressed himself to be quite pleased with the appearance of<br />things in general.<br /><br />"It's a prison, to be sure," said he "but not one of your ordinary<br />prisons that always keep in the one spot. For my part, as long as I can<br />have the privilege of looking out of the window, I am willing to lease<br />it for a hundred years. Ah! Barbican, that brings out one of your stony<br />smiles. You think our lease may last longer than that! Our tenement may<br />become our coffin, eh? Be it so. I prefer it anyway to Mahomet's; it may<br />indeed float in the air, but it won't be motionless as a milestone!"<br /><br />[Illustration: TURN ON THE GAS.]<br /><br />Barbican, having made sure by personal inspection that everything was in<br />perfect order, consulted his chronometer, which he had carefully set a<br />short time before with Chief Engineer Murphy's, who had been charged to<br />fire off the Projectile.<br /><br />"Friends," he said, "it is now twenty minutes past ten. At 10 46' 40'',<br />precisely, Murphy will send the electric current into the gun-cotton. We<br />have, therefore, twenty-six minutes more to remain on earth."<br /><br />"Twenty-six minutes and twenty seconds," observed Captain M'Nicholl, who<br />always aimed at mathematical precision.<br /><br />"Twenty-six minutes!" cried Ardan, gaily. "An age, a cycle, according to<br />the use you make of them. In twenty-six minutes how much can be done!<br />The weightiest questions of warfare, politics, morality, can be<br />discussed, even decided, in twenty-six minutes. Twenty-six minutes well<br />spent are infinitely more valuable than twenty-six lifetimes wasted! A<br />few seconds even, employed by a Pascal, or a Newton, or a Barbican, or<br />any other profoundly intellectual being<br /><br /> Whose thoughts wander through eternity--"<br /><br />"As mad as Marston! Every bit!" muttered the Captain, half audibly.<br /><br />"What do you conclude from this rigmarole of yours?" interrupted<br />Barbican.<br /><br />"I conclude that we have twenty-six good minutes still left--"<br /><br />"Only twenty-four minutes, ten seconds," interrupted the Captain, watch<br />in hand.<br /><br />"Well, twenty-four minutes, Captain," Ardan went on; "now even in<br />twenty-four minutes, I maintain--"<br /><br />"Ardan," interrupted Barbican, "after a very little while we shall have<br />plenty of time for philosophical disputations. Just now let us think of<br />something far more pressing."<br /><br />"More pressing! what do you mean? are we not fully prepared?"<br /><br />"Yes, fully prepared, as far at least as we have been able to foresee.<br />But we may still, I think, possibly increase the number of precautions<br />to be taken against the terrible shock that we are so soon to<br />experience."<br /><br />"What? Have you any doubts whatever of the effectiveness of your<br />brilliant and extremely original idea? Don't you think that the layers<br />of water, regularly disposed in easily-ruptured partitions beneath this<br />floor, will afford us sufficient protection by their elasticity?"<br /><br />"I hope so, indeed, my dear friend, but I am by no means confident."<br /><br />"He hopes! He is by no means confident! Listen to that, Mac! Pretty time<br />to tell us so! Let me out of here!"<br /><br />"Too late!" observed the Captain quietly. "The trap-hole alone would<br />take ten or fifteen minutes to open."<br /><br />"Oh then I suppose I must make the best of it," said Ardan, laughing.<br />"All aboard, gentlemen! The train starts in twenty minutes!"<br /><br />"In nineteen minutes and eighteen seconds," said the Captain, who never<br />took his eye off the chronometer.<br /><br />The three travellers looked at each other for a little while, during<br />which even Ardan appeared to become serious. After another careful<br />glance at the several objects lying around them, Barbican said, quietly:<br /><br />"Everything is in its place, except ourselves. What we have now to do is<br />to decide on the position we must take in order to neutralize the shock<br />as much as possible. We must be particularly careful to guard against a<br />rush of blood to the head."<br /><br />"Correct!" said the Captain.<br /><br />"Suppose we stood on our heads, like the circus tumblers!" cried Ardan,<br />ready to suit the action to the word.<br /><br />"Better than that," said Barbican; "we can lie on our side. Keep clearly<br />in mind, dear friends, that at the instant of departure it makes very<br />little difference to us whether we are inside the bullet or in front of<br />it. There is, no doubt, _some_ difference," he added, seeing the great<br />eyes made by his friends, "but it is exceedingly little."<br /><br />"Thank heaven for the _some_!" interrupted Ardan, fervently.<br /><br />"Don't you approve of my suggestion, Captain?" asked Barbican.<br /><br />"Certainly," was the hasty reply. "That is to say, absolutely.<br />Seventeen minutes twenty-seven seconds!"<br /><br />"Mac isn't a human being at all!" cried Ardan, admiringly. "He is a<br />repeating chronometer, horizontal escapement, London-made lever, capped,<br />jewelled,--"<br /><br />His companions let him run on while they busied themselves in making<br />their last arrangements, with the greatest coolness and most systematic<br />method. In fact, I don't think of anything just now to compare them to<br />except a couple of old travellers who, having to pass the night in the<br />train, are trying to make themselves as comfortable as possible for<br />their long journey. In your profound astonishment, you may naturally ask<br />me of what strange material can the hearts of these Americans be made,<br />who can view without the slightest semblance of a flutter the approach<br />of the most appalling dangers? In your curiosity I fully participate,<br />but, I'm sorry to say, I can't gratify it. It is one of those things<br />that I could never find out.<br /><br />Three mattresses, thick and well wadded, spread on the disc forming the<br />false bottom of the Projectile, were arranged in lines whose parallelism<br />was simply perfect. But Ardan would never think of occupying his until<br />the very last moment. Walking up and down, with the restless nervousness<br />of a wild beast in a cage, he kept up a continuous fire of talk; at one<br />moment with his friends, at another with the dogs, addressing the latter<br />by the euphonious and suggestive names of Diana and Satellite.<br /><br />[Illustration: DIANA AND SATELLITE.]<br /><br />"Ho, pets!" he would exclaim as he patted them gently, "you must not<br />forget the noble part you are to play up there. You must be models of<br />canine deportment. The eyes of the whole Selenitic world will be upon<br />you. You are the standard bearers of your race. From you they will<br />receive their first impression regarding its merits. Let it be a<br />favorable one. Compel those Selenites to acknowledge, in spite of<br />themselves, that the terrestrial race of canines is far superior to that<br />of the very best Moon dog among them!"<br /><br />"Dogs in the Moon!" sneered M'Nicholl, "I like that!"<br /><br />"Plenty of dogs!" cried Ardan, "and horses too, and cows, and sheep, and<br />no end of chickens!"<br /><br />"A hundred dollars to one there isn't a single chicken within the whole<br />Lunar realm, not excluding even the invisible side!" cried the Captain,<br />in an authoritative tone, but never taking his eye off the chronometer.<br /><br />"I take that bet, my son," coolly replied Ardan, shaking the Captain's<br />hand by way of ratifying the wager; "and this reminds me, by the way,<br />Mac, that you have lost three bets already, to the pretty little tune of<br />six thousand dollars."<br /><br />"And paid them, too!" cried the captain, monotonously; "ten, thirty-six,<br />six!"<br /><br />"Yes, and in a quarter of an hour you will have to pay nine thousand<br />dollars more; four thousand because the Columbiad will not burst, and<br />five thousand because the Projectile will rise more than six miles from<br />the Earth."<br /><br />"I have the money ready," answered the Captain, touching his breeches<br />pocket. "When I lose I pay. Not sooner. Ten, thirty-eight, ten!"<br /><br />"Captain, you're a man of method, if there ever was one. I think,<br />however, that you made a mistake in your wagers."<br /><br />"How so?" asked the Captain listlessly, his eye still on the dial.<br /><br />"Because, by Jove, if you win there will be no more of you left to take<br />the money than there will be of Barbican to pay it!"<br /><br />"Friend Ardan," quietly observed Barbican, "my stakes are deposited in<br />the _Wall Street Bank_, of New York, with orders to pay them over to the<br />Captain's heirs, in case the Captain himself should fail to put in an<br />appearance at the proper time."<br /><br />"Oh! you rhinoceroses, you pachyderms, you granite men!" cried Ardan,<br />gasping with surprise; "you machines with iron heads, and iron hearts! I<br />may admire you, but I'm blessed if I understand you!"<br /><br />"Ten, forty-two, ten!" repeated M'Nicholl, as mechanically as if it was<br />the chronometer itself that spoke.<br /><br />"Four minutes and a half more," said Barbican.<br /><br />"Oh! four and a half little minutes!" went on Ardan. "Only think of it!<br />We are shut up in a bullet that lies in the chamber of a cannon nine<br />hundred feet long. Underneath this bullet is piled a charge of 400<br />thousand pounds of gun-cotton, equivalent to 1600 thousand pounds of<br />ordinary gunpowder! And at this very instant our friend Murphy,<br />chronometer in hand, eye on dial, finger on discharger, is counting the<br />last seconds and getting ready to launch us into the limitless regions<br />of planetary--"<br /><br />"Ardan, dear friend," interrupted Barbican, in a grave tone, "a serious<br />moment is now at hand. Let us meet it with some interior recollection.<br />Give me your hands, my dear friends."<br /><br />"Certainly," said Ardan, with tears in his voice, and already at the<br />other extreme of his apparent levity.<br /><br />The three brave men united in one last, silent, but warm and impulsively<br />affectionate pressure.<br /><br />"And now, great God, our Creator, protect us! In Thee we trust!" prayed<br />Barbican, the others joining him with folded hands and bowed heads.<br /><br />"Ten, forty-six!" whispered the Captain, as he and Ardan quietly took<br />their places on the mattresses.<br /><br />Only forty seconds more!<br /><br />Barbican rapidly extinguishes the gas and lies down beside his<br />companions.<br /><br />The deathlike silence now reigning in the Projectile is interrupted only<br />by the sharp ticking of the chronometer as it beats the seconds.<br /><br />Suddenly, a dreadful shock is felt, and the Projectile, shot up by the<br />instantaneous development of 200,000 millions of cubic feet of gas, is<br />flying into space with inconceivable rapidity!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER II.<br /><br />THE FIRST HALF HOUR.<br /><br /><br />What had taken place within the Projectile? What effect had been<br />produced by the frightful concussion? Had Barbican's ingenuity been<br />attended with a fortunate result? Had the shock been sufficiently<br />deadened by the springs, the buffers, the water layers, and the<br />partitions so readily ruptured? Had their combined effect succeeded in<br />counteracting the tremendous violence of a velocity of 12,000 yards a<br />second, actually sufficient to carry them from London to New York in six<br />minutes? These, and a hundred other questions of a similar nature were<br />asked that night by the millions who had been watching the explosion<br />from the base of Stony Hill. Themselves they forgot altogether for the<br />moment; they forgot everything in their absorbing anxiety regarding the<br />fate of the daring travellers. Had one among them, our friend Marston,<br />for instance, been favored with a glimpse at the interior of the<br />projectile, what would he have seen?<br /><br />Nothing at all at first, on account of the darkness; except that the<br />walls had solidly resisted the frightful shock. Not a crack, nor a bend,<br />nor a dent could be perceived; not even the slightest injury had the<br />admirably constructed piece of mechanical workmanship endured. It had<br />not yielded an inch to the enormous pressure, and, far from melting and<br />falling back to earth, as had been so seriously apprehended, in showers<br />of blazing aluminium, it was still as strong in every respect as it had<br />been on the very day that it left the Cold Spring Iron Works, glittering<br />like a silver dollar.<br /><br />Of real damage there was actually none, and even the disorder into which<br />things had been thrown in the interior by the violent shock was<br />comparatively slight. A few small objects lying around loose had been<br />furiously hurled against the ceiling, but the others appeared not to<br />have suffered the slightest injury. The straps that fastened them up<br />were unfrayed, and the fixtures that held them down were uncracked.<br /><br />The partitions beneath the disc having been ruptured, and the water<br />having escaped, the false floor had been dashed with tremendous violence<br />against the bottom of the Projectile, and on this disc at this moment<br />three human bodies could be seen lying perfectly still and motionless.<br /><br />Were they three corpses? Had the Projectile suddenly become a great<br />metallic coffin bearing its ghastly contents through the air with the<br />rapidity of a lightning flash?<br /><br />In a very few minutes after the shock, one of the bodies stirred a<br />little, the arms moved, the eyes opened, the head rose and tried to look<br />around; finally, with some difficulty, the body managed to get on its<br />knees. It was the Frenchman! He held his head tightly squeezed between<br />his hands for some time as if to keep it from splitting. Then he felt<br />himself rapidly all over, cleared his throat with a vigorous "hem!"<br />listened to the sound critically for an instant, and then said to<br />himself in a relieved tone, but in his native tongue:<br /><br />"One man all right! Call the roll for the others!"<br /><br />He tried to rise, but the effort was too great for his strength. He fell<br />back again, his brain swimming, his eyes bursting, his head splitting.<br />His state very much resembled that of a young man waking up in the<br />morning after his first tremendous "spree."<br /><br />"Br--rr!" he muttered to himself, still talking French; "this reminds me<br />of one of my wild nights long ago in the _Quartier Latin_, only<br />decidedly more so!"<br /><br />Lying quietly on his back for a while, he could soon feel that the<br />circulation of his blood, so suddenly and violently arrested by the<br />terrific shock, was gradually recovering its regular flow; his heart<br />grew more normal in its action; his head became clearer, and the pain<br />less distracting.<br /><br />"Time to call that roll," he at last exclaimed in a voice with some<br />pretensions to firmness; "Barbican! MacNicholl!"<br /><br />He listens anxiously for a reply. None comes. A snow-wrapt grave at<br />midnight is not more silent. In vain does he try to catch even the<br />faintest sound of breathing, though he listens intently enough to hear<br />the beating of their hearts; but he hears only his own.<br /><br />"Call that roll again!" he mutters in a voice far less assured than<br />before; "Barbican! MacNicholl!"<br /><br />The same fearful unearthly stillness.<br /><br />"The thing is getting decidedly monotonous!" he exclaimed, still<br />speaking French. Then rapidly recovering his consciousness as the full<br />horror of the situation began to break on his mind, he went on muttering<br />audibly: "Have they really hopped the twig? Bah! Fudge! what has not<br />been able to knock the life out of one little Frenchman can't have<br />killed two Americans! They're all right! But first and foremost, let us<br />enlighten the situation!"<br /><br />So saying, he contrived without much difficulty to get on his feet.<br />Balancing himself then for a moment, he began groping about for the gas.<br />But he stopped suddenly.<br /><br />"Hold on a minute!" he cried; "before lighting this match, let us see if<br />the gas has been escaping. Setting fire to a mixture of air and hydrogen<br />would make a pretty how-do-you-do! Such an explosion would infallibly<br />burst the Projectile, which so far seems all right, though I'm blest if<br />I can tell whether we're moving or not."<br /><br />He began sniffing and smelling to discover if possible the odor of<br />escaped gas. He could not detect the slightest sign of anything of the<br />kind. This gave him great courage. He knew of course that his senses<br />were not yet in good order, still he thought he might trust them so far<br />as to be certain that the gas had not escaped and that consequently all<br />the other receptacles were uninjured.<br /><br />At the touch of the match, the gas burst into light and burned with a<br />steady flame. Ardan immediately bent anxiously over the prostrate bodies<br />of his friends. They lay on each other like inert masses, M'Nicholl<br />stretched across Barbican.<br /><br />Ardan first lifted up the Captain, laid him on the sofa, opened his<br />clenched hands, rubbed them, and slapped the palms vigorously. Then he<br />went all over the body carefully, kneading it, rubbing it, and gently<br />patting it. In such intelligent efforts to restore suspended<br />circulation, he seemed perfectly at home, and after a few minutes his<br />patience was rewarded by seeing the Captain's pallid face gradually<br />recover its natural color, and by feeling his heart gradually beat with<br />a firm pulsation.<br /><br />At last M'Nicholl opened his eyes, stared at Ardan for an instant,<br />pressed his hand, looked around searchingly and anxiously, and at last<br />whispered in a faint voice:<br /><br />"How's Barbican?"<br /><br />"Barbican is all right, Captain," answered Ardan quietly, but still<br />speaking French. "I'll attend to him in a jiffy. He had to wait for his<br />turn. I began with you because you were the top man. We'll see in a<br />minute what we can do for dear old Barby (_ce cher Barbican_)!"<br /><br />In less than thirty seconds more, the Captain not only was able to sit<br />up himself, but he even insisted on helping Ardan to lift Barbican,<br />and deposit him gently on the sofa.<br /><br />[Illustration: HELPED ARDAN TO LIFT BARBICAN.]<br /><br />The poor President had evidently suffered more from the concussion than<br />either of his companions. As they took off his coat they were at first<br />terribly shocked at the sight of a great patch of blood staining his<br />shirt bosom, but they were inexpressibly relieved at finding that it<br />proceeded from a slight contusion of the shoulder, little more than skin<br />deep.<br /><br />Every approved operation that Ardan had performed for the Captain, both<br />now repeated for Barbican, but for a long time with nothing like a<br />favorable result.<br /><br />Ardan at first tried to encourage the Captain by whispers of a lively<br />and hopeful nature, but not yet understanding why M'Nicholl did not<br />deign to make a single reply, he grew reserved by degrees and at last<br />would not speak a single word. He worked at Barbican, however, just as<br />before.<br /><br />M'Nicholl interrupted himself every moment to lay his ear on the breast<br />of the unconscious man. At first he had shaken his head quite<br />despondingly, but by degrees he found himself more and more encouraged<br />to persist.<br /><br />"He breathes!" he whispered at last.<br /><br />"Yes, he has been breathing for some time," replied Ardan, quietly,<br />still unconsciously speaking French. "A little more rubbing and pulling<br />and pounding will make him as spry as a young grasshopper."<br /><br />They worked at him, in fact, so vigorously, intelligently and<br />perseveringly, that, after what they considered a long hour's labor,<br />they had the delight of seeing the pale face assume a healthy hue, the<br />inert limbs give signs of returning animation, and the breathing become<br />strong and regular.<br /><br />At last, Barbican suddenly opened his eyes, started into an upright<br />position on the sofa, took his friends by the hands, and, in a voice<br />showing complete consciousness, demanded eagerly:<br /><br />"Ardan, M'Nicholl, are we moving?"<br /><br />His friends looked at each other, a little amused, but more perplexed.<br />In their anxiety regarding their own and their friend's recovery, they<br />had never thought of asking such a question. His words recalled them at<br />once to a full sense of their situation.<br /><br />"Moving? Blessed if I can tell!" said Ardan, still speaking French.<br /><br />"We may be lying fifty feet deep in a Florida marsh, for all I know,"<br />observed M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Or, likely as not, in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico," suggested<br />Ardan, still in French.<br /><br />"Suppose we find out," observed Barbican, jumping up to try, his voice<br />as clear and his step as firm as ever.<br /><br />But trying is one thing, and finding out another. Having no means of<br />comparing themselves with external objects, they could not possibly tell<br />whether they were moving, or at an absolute stand-still. Though our<br />Earth is whirling us continually around the Sun at the tremendous speed<br />of 500 miles a minute, its inhabitants are totally unconscious of the<br />slightest motion. It was the same with our travellers. Through their own<br />personal consciousness they could tell absolutely nothing. Were they<br />shooting through space like a meteor? They could not tell. Had they<br />fallen back and buried themselves deep in the sandy soil of Florida, or,<br />still more likely, hundreds of fathoms deep beneath the waters of the<br />Gulf of Mexico? They could not form the slightest idea.<br /><br />Listening evidently could do no good. The profound silence proved<br />nothing. The padded walls of the Projectile were too thick to admit any<br />sound whether of wind, water, or human beings. Barbican, however, was<br />soon struck forcibly by one circumstance. He felt himself to be very<br />uncomfortably warm, and his friend's faces looked very hot and flushed.<br />Hastily removing the cover that protected the thermometer, he closely<br />inspected it, and in an instant uttered a joyous exclamation.<br /><br />"Hurrah!" he cried. "We're moving! There's no mistake about it. The<br />thermometer marks 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Such a stifling heat could not<br />come from the gas. It comes from the exterior walls of our projectile,<br />which atmospheric friction must have made almost red hot. But this heat<br />must soon diminish, because we are already far beyond the regions of the<br />atmosphere, so that instead of smothering we shall be shortly in danger<br />of freezing."<br /><br />"What?" asked Ardan, much bewildered. "We are already far beyond the<br />limits of the terrestrial atmosphere! Why do you think so?"<br /><br />M'Nicholl was still too much flustered to venture a word.<br /><br />"If you want me to answer your question satisfactorily, my dear Ardan,"<br />replied Barbican, with a quiet smile, "you will have the kindness to put<br />your questions in English."<br /><br />"What do you mean, Barbican!" asked Ardan, hardly believing his ears.<br /><br />"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl, in the tone of a man who has suddenly made a<br />welcome but most unexpected discovery.<br /><br />"I don't know exactly how it is with the Captain," continued Barbican,<br />with the utmost tranquillity, "but for my part the study of the<br />languages never was my strong point, and though I always admired the<br />French, and even understood it pretty well, I never could converse in it<br />without giving myself more trouble than I always find it convenient to<br />assume."<br /><br />"You don't mean to say that I have been talking French to you all this<br />time!" cried Ardan, horror-stricken.<br /><br />"The most elegant French I ever heard, backed by the purest Parisian<br />accent," replied Barbican, highly amused; "Don't you think so, Captain?"<br />he added, turning to M'Nicholl, whose countenance still showed the most<br />comical traces of bewilderment.<br /><br />"Well, I swan to man!" cried the Captain, who always swore a little<br />when his feelings got beyond his control; "Ardan, the Boss has got the<br />rig on both of us this time, but rough as it is on you it is a darned<br />sight more so on me. Be hanged if I did not think you were talking<br />English the whole time, and I put the whole blame for not understanding<br />you on the disordered state of my brain!"<br /><br />Ardan only stared, and scratched his head, but Barbican actually--no,<br />not _laughed_, that serene nature could not _laugh_. His cast-iron<br />features puckered into a smile of the richest drollery, and his eyes<br />twinkled with the wickedest fun; but no undignified giggle escaped the<br />portal of those majestic lips.<br /><br />"It _sounds_ like French, I'd say to myself," continued the Captain,<br />"but I _know_ it's English, and by and by, when this whirring goes out<br />of my head, I shall easily understand it."<br /><br />Ardan now looked as if he was beginning to see the joke.<br /><br />"The most puzzling part of the thing to me," went on M'Nicholl, giving<br />his experience with the utmost gravity, "was why English sounded so like<br />_French_. If it was simple incomprehensible gibberish, I could readily<br />blame the state of my ears for it. But the idea that my bothered ears<br />could turn a mere confused, muzzled, buzzing reverberation into a sweet,<br />harmonious, articulate, though unintelligible, human language, made me<br />sure that I was fast becoming crazy, if I was not so already."<br /><br />"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Ardan, laughing till the tears came. "Now I<br />understand why the poor Captain made me no reply all the time, and<br />looked at me with such a hapless woe-begone expression of countenance.<br />The fact is, Barbican, that shock was too much both for M'Nicholl and<br />myself. You are the only man among us whose head is fire-proof,<br />blast-proof, and powder-proof. I really believe a burglar would have<br />greater difficulty in blowing your head-piece open than in bursting one<br />of those famous American safes your papers make such a fuss about. A<br />wonderful head, the Boss's, isn't it M'Nicholl?"<br /><br />"Yes," said the Captain, as slowly as if every word were a gem of the<br />profoundest thought, "the Boss has a fearful and a wonderful head!"<br /><br />"But now to business!" cried the versatile Ardan, "Why do you think,<br />Barbican, that we are at present beyond the limits of the terrestrial<br />atmosphere?"<br /><br />"For a very simple reason," said Barbican, pointing to the chronometer;<br />"it is now more than seven minutes after 11. We must, therefore, have<br />been in motion more than twenty minutes. Consequently, unless our<br />initial velocity has been very much diminished by the friction, we must<br />have long before this completely cleared the fifty miles of atmosphere<br />enveloping the earth."<br /><br />"Correct," said the Captain, cool as a cucumber, because once more in<br />complete possession of all his senses; "but how much do you think the<br />initial velocity to have been diminished by the friction?"<br /><br />"By a third, according to my calculations," replied Barbican, "which I<br />think are right. Supposing our initial velocity, therefore, to have been<br />12,000 yards per second, by the time we quitted the atmosphere it must<br />have been reduced to 8,000 yards per second. At that rate, we must have<br />gone by this time--"<br /><br />"Then, Mac, my boy, you've lost your two bets!" interrupted Ardan. "The<br />Columbiad has not burst, four thousand dollars; the Projectile has risen<br />at least six miles, five thousand dollars; come, Captain, bleed!"<br /><br />"Let me first be sure we're right," said the Captain, quietly. "I don't<br />deny, you see, that friend Barbican's arguments are quite right, and,<br />therefore, that I have lost my nine thousand dollars. But there is<br />another view of the case possible, which might annul the bet."<br /><br />"What other view?" asked Barbican, quickly.<br /><br />"Suppose," said the Captain, very drily, "that the powder had not<br />caught, and that we were still lying quietly at the bottom of the<br />Columbiad!"<br /><br />"By Jove!" laughed Ardan, "there's an idea truly worthy of my own<br />nondescript brain! We must surely have changed heads during that<br />concussion! No matter, there is some sense left in us yet. Come now,<br />Captain, consider a little, if you can. Weren't we both half-killed by<br />the shock? Didn't I rescue you from certain death with these two hands?<br />Don't you see Barbican's shoulder still bleeding by the violence of the<br />shock?"<br /><br />"Correct, friend Michael, correct in every particular," replied the<br />Captain, "But one little question."<br /><br />"Out with it!"<br /><br />"Friend Michael, you say we're moving?"<br /><br />"Yes."<br /><br />"In consequence of the explosion?"<br /><br />"Certainly!"<br /><br />"Which must have been attended with a tremendous report?"<br /><br />"Of course!"<br /><br />"Did you hear that report, friend Michael?"<br /><br />"N--o," replied Ardan, a little disconcerted at the question. "Well, no;<br />I can't say that I did hear any report."<br /><br />"Did you, friend Barbican?"<br /><br />"No," replied Barbican, promptly. "I heard no report whatever."<br /><br />His answer was ready, but his look was quite as disconcerted as Ardan's.<br /><br />"Well, friend Barbican and friend Michael," said the Captain, very drily<br />as he leered wickedly at both, "put that and that together and tell me<br />what you make of it."<br /><br />"It's a fact!" exclaimed Barbican, puzzled, but not bewildered. "Why did<br />we not hear that report?"<br /><br />"Too hard for me," said Ardan. "Give it up!"<br /><br />The three friends gazed at each other for a while with countenances<br />expressive of much perplexity. Barbican appeared to be the least<br />self-possessed of the party. It was a complete turning of the tables<br />from the state of things a few moments ago. The problem was certainly<br />simple enough, but for that very reason the more inexplicable. If they<br />were moving the explosion must have taken place; but if the explosion<br />had taken place, why had they not heard the report?<br /><br />Barbican's decision soon put an end to speculation.<br /><br />"Conjecture being useless," said he, "let us have recourse to facts.<br />First, let us see where we are. Drop the deadlights!"<br /><br />This operation, simple enough in itself and being immediately undertaken<br />by the whole three, was easily accomplished. The screws fastening the<br />bolts by which the external plates of the deadlights were solidly<br />pinned, readily yielded to the pressure of a powerful wrench. The bolts<br />were then driven outwards, and the holes which had contained them were<br />immediately filled with solid plugs of India rubber. The bolts once<br />driven out, the external plates dropped by their own weight, turning on<br />a hinge, like portholes, and the strong plate-glass forming the light<br />immediately showed itself. A second light exactly similar, could be<br />cleared away on the opposite side of the Projectile; a third, on the<br />summit of the dome, and a fourth, in the centre of the bottom. The<br />travellers could thus take observations in four different directions,<br />having an opportunity of gazing at the firmament through the side<br />lights, and at the Earth and the Moon through the lower and the upper<br />lights of the Projectile.<br /><br />Ardan and the Captain had commenced examining the floor, previous to<br />operating on the bottom light. But Barbican was the first to get through<br />his work at one of the side lights, and M'Nicholl and Ardan soon heard<br />him shouting:<br /><br />"No, my friends!" he exclaimed, in tones of decided emotion; "we have<br />_not_ fallen back to Earth; nor are we lying in the bottom of the Gulf<br />of Mexico. No! We are driving through space! Look at the stars<br />glittering all around! Brighter, but smaller than we have ever seen them<br />before! We have left the Earth and the Earth's atmosphere far behind<br />us!"<br /><br />"Hurrah! Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl and Ardan, feeling as if electric<br />shocks were coursing through them, though they could see nothing,<br />looking down from the side light, but the blackest and profoundest<br />obscurity.<br /><br />Barbican soon convinced them that this pitchy blackness proved that they<br />were not, and could not be, reposing on the surface of the Earth, where<br />at that moment, everything was illuminated by the bright moonlight; also<br />that they had passed the different layers of the atmosphere, where the<br />diffused and refracted rays would be also sure to reveal themselves<br />through the lights of the Projectile. They were, therefore, certainly<br />moving. No doubt was longer possible.<br /><br />"It's a fact!" observed the Captain, now quite convinced. "Then I've<br />lost!"<br /><br />"Let me congratulate you!" cried Ardan, shaking his hand.<br /><br />"Here is your nine thousand dollars, friend Barbican," said the Captain,<br />taking a roll of greenbacks of high denomination out of his<br />porte-monnaie.<br /><br />"You want a receipt, don't you, Captain?" asked Barbican, counting the<br />money.<br /><br />"Yes, I should prefer one, if it is not too much trouble," answered<br />M'Nicholl; "it saves dispute."<br /><br />Coolly and mechanically, as if seated at his desk, in his office,<br />Barbican opened his memorandum book, wrote a receipt on a blank page,<br />dated, signed and sealed it, and then handed it to the Captain, who put<br />it away carefully among the other papers of his portfolio.<br /><br />Ardan, taking off his hat, made a profound bow to both of his<br />companions, without saying a word. Such formality, under such<br />extraordinary circumstances, actually paralysed his tongue for the<br />moment. No wonder that he could not understand those Americans. Even<br />Indians would have surprised him by an exhibition of such stoicism.<br />After indulging in silent wonder for a minute or two, he joined his<br />companions who were now busy looking out at the starry sky.<br /><br />"Where is the Moon?" he asked. "How is it that we cannot see her?"<br /><br />"The fact of our not seeing her," answered Barbican, "gives me very<br />great satisfaction in one respect; it shows that our Projectile was shot<br />so rapidly out of the Columbiad that it had not time to be impressed<br />with the slightest revolving motion--for us a most fortunate matter. As<br />for the rest--see, there is _Cassiopeia_, a little to the left is<br />_Andromeda_, further down is the great square of _Pegasus_, and to the<br />southwest _Fomalhaut_ can be easily seen swallowing the _Cascade_. All<br />this shows we are looking west and consequently cannot see the Moon,<br />which is approaching the zenith from the east. Open the other light--But<br />hold on! Look here! What can this be?"<br /><br />The three travellers, looking westwardly in the direction of _Alpherat_,<br />saw a brilliant object rapidly approaching them. At a distance, it<br />looked like a dusky moon, but the side turned towards the Earth blazed<br />with a bright light, which every moment became more intense. It came<br />towards them with prodigious velocity and, what was worse, its path lay<br />so directly in the course of the Projectile that a collision seemed<br />inevitable. As it moved onward, from west to east, they could easily see<br />that it rotated on its axis, like all heavenly bodies; in fact, it<br />somewhat resembled a Moon on a small scale, describing its regular orbit<br />around the Earth.<br /><br />"_Mille tonerres!_" cried Ardan, greatly excited; "what is that? Can it<br />be another projectile?" M'Nicholl, wiping his spectacles, looked again,<br />but made no reply. Barbican looked puzzled and uneasy. A collision was<br />quite possible, and the results, even if not frightful in the highest<br />degree, must be extremely deplorable. The Projectile, if not absolutely<br />dashed to pieces, would be diverted from its own course and dragged<br />along in a new one in obedience to the irresistible attraction of this<br />furious asteroid.<br /><br />Barbican fully realized that either alternative involved the complete<br />failure of their enterprise. He kept perfectly still, but, never losing<br />his presence of mind, he curiously looked on the approaching object with<br />a gladiatorial eye, as if seeking to detect some unguarded point in his<br />terrible adversary. The Captain was equally silent; he looked like a man<br />who had fully made up his mind to regard every possible contingency with<br />the most stoical indifference. But Ardan's tongue, more fluent than<br />ever, rattled away incessantly.<br /><br />"Look! Look!" he exclaimed, in tones so perfectly expressive of his<br />rapidly alternating feelings as to render the medium of words totally<br />unnecessary. "How rapidly the cursed thing is nearing us! Plague take<br />your ugly phiz, the more I know you, the less I like you! Every second<br />she doubles in size! Come, Madame Projectile! Stir your stumps a little<br />livelier, old lady! He's making for you as straight as an arrow! We're<br />going right in his way, or he's coming in ours, I can't say which. It's<br />taking a mean advantage of us either way. As for ourselves--what can<br />_we_ do! Before such a monster as that we are as helpless as three men<br />in a little skiff shooting down the rapids to the brink of Niagara! Now<br />for it!"<br /><br />Nearer and nearer it came, but without noise, without sparks, without a<br />trail, though its lower part was brighter than ever. Its path lying<br />little above them, the nearer it came the more the collision seemed<br />inevitable. Imagine yourself caught on a narrow railroad bridge at<br />midnight with an express train approaching at full speed, its reflector<br />already dazzling you with its light, the roar of the cars rattling in<br />your ears, and you may conceive the feelings of the travellers. At last<br />it was so near that the travellers started back in affright, with eyes<br />shut, hair on end, and fully believing their last hour had come. Even<br />then Ardan had his _mot_.<br /><br />"We can neither switch off, down brakes, nor clap on more steam! Hard<br />luck!"<br /><br />In an instant all was over. The velocity of the Projectile was<br />fortunately great enough to carry it barely above the dangerous point;<br />and in a flash the terrible bolide disappeared rapidly several hundred<br />yards beneath the affrighted travellers.<br /><br />"Good bye! And may you never come back!" cried Ardan, hardly able to<br />breathe. "It's perfectly outrageous! Not room enough in infinite space<br />to let an unpretending bullet like ours move about a little without<br />incurring the risk of being run over by such a monster as that! What is<br />it anyhow? Do you know, Barbican?"<br /><br />"I do," was the reply.<br /><br />"Of course, you do! What is it that he don't know? Eh, Captain?"<br /><br />"It is a simple bolide, but one of such enormous dimensions that the<br />Earth's attraction has made it a satellite."<br /><br />"What!" cried Ardan, "another satellite besides the Moon? I hope there<br />are no more of them!"<br /><br />"They are pretty numerous," replied Barbican; "but they are so small and<br />they move with such enormous velocity that they are very seldom seen.<br />Petit, the Director of the Observatory of Toulouse, who these last years<br />has devoted much time and care to the observation of bolides, has<br />calculated that the very one we have just encountered moves with such<br />astonishing swiftness that it accomplishes its revolution around the<br />Earth in about 3 hours and 20 minutes!"<br /><br />"Whew!" whistled Ardan, "where should we be now if it had struck us!"<br /><br />"You don't mean to say, Barbican," observed M'Nicholl, "that Petit has<br />seen this very one?"<br /><br />"So it appears," replied Barbican.<br /><br />"And do all astronomers admit its existence?" asked the Captain.<br /><br />"Well, some of them have their doubts," replied Barbican--<br /><br />"If the unbelievers had been here a minute or two ago," interrupted<br />Ardan, "they would never express a doubt again."<br /><br />"If Petit's calculation is right," continued Barbican, "I can even form<br />a very good idea as to our distance from the Earth."<br /><br />"It seems to me Barbican can do what he pleases here or elsewhere,"<br />observed Ardan to the Captain.<br /><br />"Let us see, Barbican," asked M'Nicholl; "where has Petit's calculation<br />placed us?"<br /><br />"The bolide's distance being known," replied Barbican, "at the moment we<br />met it we were a little more than 5 thousand miles from the Earth's<br />surface."<br /><br />"Five thousand miles already!" cried Ardan, "why we have only just<br />started!"<br /><br />"Let us see about that," quietly observed the Captain, looking at his<br />chronometer, and calculating with his pencil. "It is now 10 minutes past<br />eleven; we have therefore been 23 minutes on the road. Supposing our<br />initial velocity of 10,000 yards or nearly seven miles a second, to have<br />been kept up, we should by this time be about 9,000 miles from the<br />Earth; but by allowing for friction and gravity, we can hardly be more<br />than 5,500 miles. Yes, friend Barbican, Petit does not seem to be very<br />wrong in his calculations."<br /><br />But Barbican hardly heard the observation. He had not yet answered the<br />puzzling question that had already presented itself to them for<br />solution; and until he had done so he could not attend to anything else.<br /><br />"That's all very well and good, Captain," he replied in an absorbed<br />manner, "but we have not yet been able to account for a very strange<br />phenomenon. Why didn't we hear the report?"<br /><br />No one replying, the conversation came to a stand-still, and Barbican,<br />still absorbed in his reflections, began clearing the second light of<br />its external shutter. In a few minutes the plate dropped, and the Moon<br />beams, flowing in, filled the interior of the Projectile with her<br />brilliant light. The Captain immediately put out the gas, from motives<br />of economy as well as because its glare somewhat interfered with the<br />observation of the interplanetary regions.<br /><br />The Lunar disc struck the travellers as glittering with a splendor and<br />purity of light that they had never witnessed before. The beams, no<br />longer strained through the misty atmosphere of the Earth, streamed<br />copiously in through the glass and coated the interior walls of the<br />Projectile with a brilliant silvery plating. The intense blackness of<br />the sky enhanced the dazzling radiance of the Moon. Even the stars<br />blazed with a new and unequalled splendor, and, in the absence of a<br />refracting atmosphere, they flamed as bright in the close proximity of<br />the Moon as in any other part of the sky.<br /><br />You can easily conceive the interest with which these bold travellers<br />gazed on the Starry Queen, the final object of their daring journey. She<br />was now insensibly approaching the zenith, the mathematical point which<br />she was to reach four days later. They presented their telescopes, but<br />her mountains, plains, craters and general characteristics hardly came<br />out a particle more sharply than if they had been viewed from the Earth.<br />Still, her light, unobstructed by air or vapor, shimmered with a lustre<br />actually transplendent. Her disc shone like a mirror of polished<br />platins. The travellers remained for some time absorbed in the silent<br />contemplation of the glorious scene.<br /><br />"How they're gazing at her this very moment from Stony Hill!" said the<br />Captain at last to break the silence.<br /><br />"By Jove!" cried Ardan; "It's true! Captain you're right. We were near<br />forgetting our dear old Mother, the Earth. What ungrateful children! Let<br />me feast my eyes once more on the blessed old creature!"<br /><br />Barbican, to satisfy his companion's desire, immediately commenced to<br />clear away the disc which covered the floor of the Projectile and<br />prevented them from getting at the lower light. This disc, though it had<br />been dashed to the bottom of the Projectile with great violence, was<br />still as strong as ever, and, being made in compartments fastened by<br />screws, to dismount it was no easy matter. Barbican, however, with the<br />help of the others, soon had it all taken apart, and put away the pieces<br />carefully, to serve again in case of need. A round hole about a foot and<br />a half in diameter appeared, bored through the floor of the Projectile.<br />It was closed by a circular pane of plate-glass, which was about six<br />inches thick, fastened by a ring of copper. Below, on the outside, the<br />glass was protected by an aluminium plate, kept in its place by strong<br />bolts and nuts. The latter being unscrewed, the bolts slipped out by<br />their own weight, the shutter fell, and a new communication was<br />established between the interior and the exterior.<br /><br />Ardan knelt down, applied his eye to the light, and tried to look out.<br />At first everything was quite dark and gloomy.<br /><br />"I see no Earth!" he exclaimed at last.<br /><br />"Don't you see a fine ribbon of light?" asked Barbican, "right beneath<br />us? A thin, pale, silvery crescent?"<br /><br />"Of course I do. Can that be the Earth?"<br /><br />"_Terra Mater_ herself, friend Ardan. That fine fillet of light, now<br />hardly visible on her eastern border, will disappear altogether as soon<br />as the Moon is full. Then, lying as she will be between the Sun and the<br />Moon, her illuminated face will be turned away from us altogether, and<br />for several days she will be involved in impenetrable darkness."<br /><br />"And that's the Earth!" repeated Ardan, hardly able to believe his eyes,<br />as he continued to gaze on the slight thread of silvery white light,<br />somewhat resembling the appearance of the "Young May Moon" a few hours<br />after sunset.<br /><br />Barbican's explanation was quite correct. The Earth, in reference to the<br />Moon or the Projectile, was in her last phase, or octant as it is<br />called, and showed a sharp-horned, attenuated, but brilliant crescent<br />strongly relieved by the black background of the sky. Its light,<br />rendered a little bluish by the density of the atmospheric envelopes,<br />was not quite as brilliant as the Moon's. But the Earth's crescent,<br />compared to the Lunar, was of dimensions much greater, being fully 4<br />times larger. You would have called it a vast, beautiful, but very thin<br />bow extending over the sky. A few points, brighter than the rest,<br />particularly in its concave part, revealed the presence of lofty<br />mountains, probably the Himalayahs. But they disappeared every now and<br />then under thick vapory spots, which are never seen on the Lunar disc.<br />They were the thin concentric cloud rings that surround the terrestrial<br />sphere.<br /><br />However, the travellers' eyes were soon able to trace the rest of the<br />Earth's surface not only with facility, but even to follow its outline<br />with absolute delight. This was in consequence of two different<br />phenomena, one of which they could easily account for; but the other<br />they could not explain without Barbican's assistance. No wonder. Never<br />before had mortal eye beheld such a sight. Let us take each in its turn.<br /><br />We all know that the ashy light by means of which we perceive what is<br />called the _Old Moon in the Young Moon's arms_ is due to the<br />Earth-shine, or the reflection of the solar rays from the Earth to the<br />Moon. By a phenomenon exactly identical, the travellers could now see<br />that portion of the Earth's surface which was unillumined by the Sun;<br />only, as, in consequence of the different areas of the respective<br />surfaces, the _Earthlight_ is thirteen times more intense than the<br />_Moonlight_, the dark portion of the Earth's disc appeared considerably<br />more adumbrated than the _Old Moon_.<br /><br />But the other phenomenon had burst on them so suddenly that they<br />uttered a cry loud enough to wake up Barbican from his problem. They had<br />discovered a true starry ring! Around the Earth's outline, a ring, of<br />internally well defined thickness, but somewhat hazy on the outside,<br />could easily be traced by its surpassing brilliancy. Neither the<br />_Pleiades_, the _Northern Crown_, the _Magellanic Clouds_ nor the great<br />nebulas of _Orion_, or of _Argo_, no sparkling cluster, no corona, no<br />group of glittering star-dust that the travellers had ever gazed at,<br />presented such attractions as the diamond ring they now saw encompassing<br />the Earth, just as the brass meridian encompasses a terrestrial globe.<br />The resplendency of its light enchanted them, its pure softness<br />delighted them, its perfect regularity astonished them. What was it?<br />they asked Barbican. In a few words he explained it. The beautiful<br />luminous ring was simply an optical illusion, produced by the refraction<br />of the terrestrial atmosphere. All the stars in the neighborhood of the<br />Earth, and many actually behind it, had their rays refracted, diffused,<br />radiated, and finally converged to a focus by the atmosphere, as if by a<br />double convex lens of gigantic power.<br /><br />Whilst the travellers were profoundly absorbed in the contemplation of<br />this wondrous sight, a sparkling shower of shooting stars suddenly<br />flashed over the Earth's dark surface, making it for a moment as bright<br />as the external ring. Hundreds of bolides, catching fire from contact<br />with the atmosphere, streaked the darkness with their luminous trails,<br />overspreading it occasionally with sheets of electric flame. The Earth<br />was just then in her perihelion, and we all know that the months of<br />November and December are so highly favorable to the appearance of these<br />meteoric showers that at the famous display of November, 1866,<br />astronomers counted as many as 8,000 between midnight and four o'clock.<br /><br />Barbican explained the whole matter in a few words. The Earth, when<br />nearest to the sun, occasionally plunges into a group of countless<br />meteors travelling like comets, in eccentric orbits around the grand<br />centre of our solar system. The atmosphere strikes the rapidly moving<br />bodies with such violence as to set them on fire and render them visible<br />to us in beautiful star showers. But to this simple explanation of the<br />famous November meteors Ardan would not listen. He preferred believing<br />that Mother Earth, feeling that her three daring children were still<br />looking at her, though five thousand miles away, shot off her best<br />rocket-signals to show that she still thought of them and would never<br />let them out of her watchful eye.<br /><br />For hours they continued to gaze with indescribable interest on the<br />faintly luminous mass so easily distinguishable among the other heavenly<br />bodies. Jupiter blazed on their right, Mars flashed his ruddy light on<br />their left, Saturn with his rings looked like a round white spot on a<br />black wall; even Venus they could see almost directly under them, easily<br />recognizing her by her soft, sweetly scintillant light. But no planet or<br />constellation possessed any attraction for the travellers, as long as<br />their eyes could trace that shadowy, crescent-edged, diamond-girdled,<br />meteor-furrowed spheroid, the theatre of their existence, the home of so<br />many undying desires, the mysterious cradle of their race!<br /><br />Meantime the Projectile cleaved its way upwards, rapidly, unswervingly,<br />though with a gradually retarding velocity. As the Earth sensibly grew<br />darker, and the travellers' eyes grew dimmer, an irresistible somnolency<br />slowly stole over their weary frames. The extraordinary excitement they<br />had gone through during the last four or five hours, was naturally<br />followed by a profound reaction.<br /><br />"Captain, you're nodding," said Ardan at last, after a longer silence<br />than usual; "the fact is, Barbican is the only wake man of the party,<br />because he is puzzling over his problem. _Dum vivimus vivamus_! As we<br />are asleep let us be asleep!"<br /><br />So saying he threw himself on the mattress, and his companions<br />immediately followed the example.<br /><br />They had been lying hardly a quarter of an hour, when Barbican started<br />up with a cry so loud and sudden as instantly to awaken his companions.<br /><br />The bright moonlight showed them the President sitting up in his bed,<br />his eye blazing, his arms waving, as he shouted in a tone reminding them<br />of the day they had found him in St. Helena wood.<br /><br />"_Eureka!_ I've got it! I know it!"<br /><br />"What have you got?" cried Ardan, bouncing up and seizing him by the<br />right hand.<br /><br />"What do you know?" cried the Captain, stretching over and seizing him<br />by the left.<br /><br />"The reason why we did not hear the report!"<br /><br />"Well, why did not we hear it!" asked both rapidly in the same breath.<br /><br />"Because we were shot up 30 times faster than sound can travel!"<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER III.<br /><br />THEY MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME AND FEEL QUITE COMFORTABLE.<br /><br /><br />This curious explanation given, and its soundness immediately<br />recognized, the three friends were soon fast wrapped in the arms of<br />Morpheus. Where in fact could they have found a spot more favorable for<br />undisturbed repose? On land, where the dwellings, whether in populous<br />city or lonely country, continually experience every shock that thrills<br />the Earth's crust? At sea, where between waves or winds or paddles or<br />screws or machinery, everything is tremor, quiver or jar? In the air,<br />where the balloon is incessantly twirling, oscillating, on account of<br />the ever varying strata of different densities, and even occasionally<br />threatening to spill you out? The Projectile alone, floating grandly<br />through the absolute void, in the midst of the profoundest silence,<br />could offer to its inmates the possibility of enjoying slumber the most<br />complete, repose the most profound.<br /><br />There is no telling how long our three daring travellers would have<br />continued to enjoy their sleep, if it had not been suddenly terminated<br />by an unexpected noise about seven o'clock in the morning of December<br />2nd, eight hours after their departure.<br /><br />This noise was most decidedly of barking.<br /><br />"The dogs! It's the dogs!" cried Ardan, springing up at a bound.<br /><br />"They must be hungry!" observed the Captain.<br /><br />"We have forgotten the poor creatures!" cried Barbican.<br /><br />"Where can they have gone to?" asked Ardan, looking for them in all<br />directions.<br /><br />At last they found one of them hiding under the sofa. Thunderstruck and<br />perfectly bewildered by the terrible shock, the poor animal had kept<br />close in its hiding place, never daring to utter a sound, until at last<br />the pangs of hunger had proved too strong even for its fright.<br /><br />They readily recognized the amiable Diana, but they could not allure the<br />shivering, whining animal from her retreat without a good deal of<br />coaxing. Ardan talked to her in his most honeyed and seductive accents,<br />while trying to pull her out by the neck.<br /><br />"Come out to your friends, charming Diana," he went on, "come out, my<br />beauty, destined for a lofty niche in the temple of canine glory! Come<br />out, worthy scion of a race deemed worthy by the Egyptians to be a<br />companion of the great god, Anubis, by the Christians, to be a friend of<br />the good Saint Roch! Come out and partake of a glory before which the<br />stars of Montargis and of St. Bernard shall henceforward pale their<br />ineffectual fire! Come out, my lady, and let me think o'er the countless<br />multiplication of thy species, so that, while sailing through the<br />interplanetary spaces, we may indulge in endless flights of fancy on<br />the number and variety of thy descendants who will ere long render the<br />Selenitic atmosphere vocal with canine ululation!"<br /><br />[Illustration: MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER.]<br /><br />Diana, whether flattered or not, allowed herself to be dragged out,<br />still uttering short, plaintive whines. A hasty examination satisfying<br />her friends that she was more frightened than hurt and more hungry than<br />either, they continued their search for her companion.<br /><br />"Satellite! Satellite! Step this way, sir!" cried Ardan. But no<br />Satellite appeared and, what was worse, not the slightest sound indicated<br />his presence. At last he was discovered on a ledge in the upper portion<br />of the Projectile, whither he had been shot by the terrible concussion.<br />Less fortunate than his female companion, the poor fellow had received a<br />frightful shock and his life was evidently in great danger.<br /><br />"The acclimatization project looks shaky!" cried Ardan, handing the<br />animal very carefully and tenderly to the others. Poor Satellite's head<br />had been crushed against the roof, but, though recovery seemed hopeless,<br />they laid the body on a soft cushion, and soon had the satisfaction of<br />hearing it give vent to a slight sigh.<br /><br />"Good!" said Ardan, "while there's life there's hope. You must not die<br />yet, old boy. We shall nurse you. We know our duty and shall not shirk<br />the responsibility. I should rather lose the right arm off my body than<br />be the cause of your death, poor Satellite! Try a little water?"<br /><br />The suffering creature swallowed the cool draught with evident avidity,<br />then sunk into a deep slumber.<br /><br />The friends, sitting around and having nothing more to do, looked out of<br />the window and began once more to watch the Earth and the Moon with<br />great attention. The glittering crescent of the Earth was evidently<br />narrower than it had been the preceding evening, but its volume was<br />still enormous when compared to the Lunar crescent, which was now<br />rapidly assuming the proportions of a perfect circle.<br /><br />"By Jove," suddenly exclaimed Ardan, "why didn't we start at the moment<br />of Full Earth?--that is when our globe and the Sun were in opposition?"<br /><br />"Why _should_ we!" growled M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Because in that case we should be now looking at the great continents<br />and the great seas in a new light--the former glittering under the solar<br />rays, the latter darker and somewhat shaded, as we see them on certain<br />maps. How I should like to get a glimpse at those poles of the Earth, on<br />which the eye of man has never yet lighted!"<br /><br />"True," replied Barbican, "but if the Earth had been Full, the Moon<br />would have been New, that is to say, invisible to us on account of solar<br />irradiation. Of the two it is much preferable to be able to keep the<br />point of arrival in view rather than the point of departure."<br /><br />"You're right, Barbican," observed the Captain; "besides, once we're in<br />the Moon, the long Lunar night will give us plenty of time to gaze our<br />full at yonder great celestial body, our former home, and still<br />swarming with our fellow beings."<br /><br />"Our fellow beings no longer, dear boy!" cried Ardan. "We inhabit a new<br />world peopled by ourselves alone, the Projectile! Ardan is Barbican's<br />fellow being, and Barbican M'Nicholl's. Beyond us, outside us, humanity<br />ends, and we are now the only inhabitants of this microcosm, and so we<br />shall continue till the moment when we become Selenites pure and<br />simple."<br /><br />"Which shall be in about eighty-eight hours from now," replied the<br />Captain.<br /><br />"Which is as much as to say--?" asked Ardan.<br /><br />"That it is half past eight," replied M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"My regular hour for breakfast," exclaimed Ardan, "and I don't see the<br />shadow of a reason for changing it now."<br /><br />The proposition was most acceptable, especially to the Captain, who<br />frequently boasted that, whether on land or water, on mountain summits<br />or in the depths of mines, he had never missed a meal in all his life.<br />In escaping from the Earth, our travellers felt that they had by no<br />means escaped from the laws of humanity, and their stomachs now called<br />on them lustily to fill the aching void. Ardan, as a Frenchman, claimed<br />the post of chief cook, an important office, but his companions yielded<br />it with alacrity. The gas furnished the requisite heat, and the<br />provision chest supplied the materials for their first repast. They<br />commenced with three plates of excellent soup, extracted from _Liebig's_<br />precious tablets, prepared from the best beef that ever roamed over the<br />Pampas.<br /><br />To this succeeded several tenderloin beefsteaks, which, though reduced<br />to a small bulk by the hydraulic engines of the _American Dessicating<br />Company_, were pronounced to be fully as tender, juicy and savory as if<br />they had just left the gridiron of a London Club House. Ardan even swore<br />that they were "bleeding," and the others were too busy to contradict<br />him.<br /><br />Preserved vegetables of various kinds, "fresher than nature," according<br />to Ardan, gave an agreeable variety to the entertainment, and these were<br />followed by several cups of magnificent tea, unanimously allowed to be<br />the best they had ever tasted. It was an odoriferous young hyson<br />gathered that very year, and presented to the Emperor of Russia by the<br />famous rebel chief Yakub Kushbegi, and of which Alexander had expressed<br />himself as very happy in being able to send a few boxes to his friend,<br />the distinguished President of the Baltimore Gun Club. To crown the<br />meal, Ardan unearthed an exquisite bottle of _Chambertin_, and, in<br />glasses sparkling with the richest juice of the _Cote d'or,_ the<br />travellers drank to the speedy union of the Earth and her satellite.<br /><br />And, as if his work among the generous vineyards of Burgundy had not<br />been enough to show his interest in the matter, even the Sun wished to<br />join the party. Precisely at this moment, the Projectile beginning to<br />leave the conical shadow cast by the Earth, the rays of the glorious<br />King of Day struck its lower surface, not obliquely, but<br />perpendicularly, on account of the slight obliquity of the Moon's orbit<br />with that of the Earth.<br /><br />[Illustration: TO THE UNION OF THE EARTH AND HER SATELLITE.]<br /><br />"The Sun," cried Ardan.<br /><br />"Of course," said Barbican, looking at his watch, "he's exactly up to<br />time."<br /><br />"How is it that we see him only through the bottom light of our<br />Projectile?" asked Ardan.<br /><br />"A moment's reflection must tell you," replied Barbican, "that when we<br />started last night, the Sun was almost directly below us; therefore, as<br />we continue to move in a straight line, he must still be in our rear."<br /><br />"That's clear enough," said the Captain, "but another consideration, I'm<br />free to say, rather perplexes me. Since our Earth lies between us and<br />the Sun, why don't we see the sunlight forming a great ring around the<br />globe, in other words, instead of the full Sun that we plainly see there<br />below, why do we not witness an annular eclipse?"<br /><br />"Your cool, clear head has not yet quite recovered from the shock, my<br />dear Captain;" replied Barbican, with a smile. "For two reasons we can't<br />see the ring eclipse: on account of the angle the Moon's orbit makes<br />with the Earth, the three bodies are not at present in a direct line;<br />we, therefore, see the Sun a little to the west of the earth; secondly,<br />even if they were exactly in a straight line, we should still be far<br />from the point whence an annular eclipse would be visible."<br /><br />"That's true," said Ardan; "the cone of the Earth's shadow must extend<br />far beyond the Moon."<br /><br />"Nearly four times as far," said Barbican; "still, as the Moon's orbit<br />and the Earth's do not lie in exactly the same plane, a Lunar eclipse<br />can occur only when the nodes coincide with the period of the Full Moon,<br />which is generally twice, never more than three times in a year. If we<br />had started about four days before the occurrence of a Lunar eclipse, we<br />should travel all the time in the dark. This would have been obnoxious<br />for many reasons."<br /><br />"One, for instance?"<br /><br />"An evident one is that, though at the present moment we are moving<br />through a vacuum, our Projectile, steeped in the solar rays, revels in<br />their light and heat. Hence great saving in gas, an important point in<br />our household economy."<br /><br />In effect, the solar rays, tempered by no genial medium like our<br />atmosphere, soon began to glare and glow with such intensity, that the<br />Projectile under their influence, felt like suddenly passing from winter<br />to summer. Between the Moon overhead and the Sun beneath it was actually<br />inundated with fiery rays.<br /><br />"One feels good here," cried the Captain, rubbing his hands.<br /><br />"A little too good," cried Ardan. "It's already like a hot-house. With a<br />little garden clay, I could raise you a splendid crop of peas in<br />twenty-four hours. I hope in heaven the walls of our Projectile won't<br />melt like wax!"<br /><br />"Don't be alarmed, dear friend," observed Barbican, quietly. "The<br />Projectile has seen the worst as far as heat is concerned; when tearing<br />through the atmosphere, she endured a temperature with which what she is<br />liable to at present stands no comparison. In fact, I should not be<br />astonished if, in the eyes of our friends at Stony Hill, it had<br />resembled for a moment or two a red-hot meteor."<br /><br />"Poor Marston must have looked on us as roasted alive!" observed Ardan.<br /><br />"What could have saved us I'm sure I can't tell," replied Barbican. "I<br />must acknowledge that against such a danger, I had made no provision<br />whatever."<br /><br />"I knew all about it," said the Captain, "and on the strength of it, I<br />had laid my fifth wager."<br /><br />"Probably," laughed Ardan, "there was not time enough to get grilled in:<br />I have heard of men who dipped their fingers into molten iron with<br />impunity."<br /><br />Whilst Ardan and the Captain were arguing the point, Barbican began<br />busying himself in making everything as comfortable as if, instead of a<br />four days' journey, one of four years was contemplated. The reader, no<br />doubt, remembers that the floor of the Projectile contained about 50<br />square feet; that the chamber was nine feet high; that space was<br />economized as much as possible, nothing but the most absolute<br />necessities being admitted, of which each was kept strictly in its own<br />place; therefore, the travellers had room enough to move around in with<br />a certain liberty. The thick glass window in the floor was quite as<br />solid as any other part of it; but the Sun, streaming in from below,<br />lit up the Projectile strangely, producing some very singular and<br />startling effects of light appearing to come in by the wrong way.<br /><br />The first thing now to be done was to see after the water cask and the<br />provision chest. They were not injured in the slightest respect, thanks<br />to the means taken to counteract the shock. The provisions were in good<br />condition, and abundant enough to supply the travellers for a whole<br />year--Barbican having taken care to be on the safe side, in case the<br />Projectile might land in a deserted region of the Moon. As for the water<br />and the other liquors, the travellers had enough only for two months.<br />Relying on the latest observations of astronomers, they had convinced<br />themselves that the Moon's atmosphere, being heavy, dense and thick in<br />the deep valleys, springs and streams of water could hardly fail to show<br />themselves there. During the journey, therefore, and for the first year<br />of their installation on the Lunar continent, the daring travellers<br />would be pretty safe from all danger of hunger or thirst.<br /><br />The air supply proved also to be quite satisfactory. The _Reiset_ and<br />_Regnault_ apparatus for producing oxygen contained a supply of chlorate<br />of potash sufficient for two months. As the productive material had to<br />be maintained at a temperature of between 7 and 8 hundred degrees Fahr.,<br />a steady consumption of gas was required; but here too the supply far<br />exceeded the demand. The whole arrangement worked charmingly, requiring<br />only an odd glance now and then. The high temperature changing the<br />chlorate into a chloride, the oxygen was disengaged gradually but<br />abundantly, every eighteen pounds of chlorate of potash, furnishing the<br />seven pounds of oxygen necessary for the daily consumption of the<br />inmates of the Projectile.<br /><br />Still--as the reader need hardly be reminded--it was not sufficient to<br />renew the exhausted oxygen; the complete purification of the air<br />required the absorption of the carbonic acid, exhaled from the lungs.<br />For nearly 12 hours the atmosphere had been gradually becoming more and<br />more charged with this deleterious gas, produced from the combustion of<br />the blood by the inspired oxygen. The Captain soon saw this, by noticing<br />with what difficulty Diana was panting. She even appeared to be<br />smothering, for the carbonic acid--as in the famous _Grotto del Cane_ on<br />the banks of Lake Agnano, near Naples--was collecting like water on the<br />floor of the Projectile, on account of its great specific gravity. It<br />already threatened the poor dog's life, though not yet endangering that<br />of her masters. The Captain, seeing this state of things, hastily laid<br />on the floor one or two cups containing caustic potash and water, and<br />stirred the mixture gently: this substance, having a powerful affinity<br />for carbonic acid, greedily absorbed it, and after a few moments the air<br />was completely purified.<br /><br />The others had begun by this time to check off the state of the<br />instruments. The thermometer and the barometer were all right, except<br />one self-recorder of which the glass had got broken. An excellent<br />aneroid barometer, taken safe and sound out of its wadded box, was<br />carefully hung on a hook in the wall. It marked not only the pressure of<br />the air in the Projectile, but also the quantity of the watery vapor<br />that it contained. The needle, oscillating a little beyond thirty,<br />pointed pretty steadily at "_Fair_."<br /><br />The mariner's compasses were also found to be quite free from injury. It<br />is, of course, hardly necessary to say that the needles pointed in no<br />particular direction, the magnetic pole of the Earth being unable at<br />such a distance to exercise any appreciable influence on them. But when<br />brought to the Moon, it was expected that these compasses, once more<br />subjected to the influence of the current, would attest certain<br />phenomena. In any case, it would be interesting to verify if the Earth<br />and her satellite were similarly affected by the magnetic forces.<br /><br />A hypsometer, or instrument for ascertaining the heights of the Lunar<br />mountains by the barometric pressure under which water boils, a sextant<br />to measure the altitude of the Sun, a theodolite for taking horizontal<br />or vertical angles, telescopes, of indispensable necessity when the<br />travellers should approach the Moon,--all these instruments, carefully<br />examined, were found to be still in perfect working order,<br />notwithstanding the violence of the terrible shock at the start.<br /><br />As to the picks, spades, and other tools that had been carefully<br />selected by the Captain; also the bags of various kinds of grain and<br />the bundles of various kinds of shrubs, which Ardan expected to<br />transplant to the Lunar plains--they were all still safe in their places<br />around the upper corners of the Projectile.<br /><br />Some other articles were also up there which evidently possessed great<br />interest for the Frenchman. What they were nobody else seemed to know,<br />and he seemed to be in no hurry to tell. Every now and then, he would<br />climb up, by means of iron pins fixed in the wall, to inspect his<br />treasures; whatever they were, he arranged them and rearranged them with<br />evident pleasure, and as he rapidly passed a careful hand through<br />certain mysterious boxes, he joyfully sang in the falsest possible of<br />false voices the lively piece from _Nicolo_:<br /><br /> _Le temps est beau, la route est belle,<br /> La promenade est un plaisir_.<br /><br /> {The day is bright, our hearts are light.}<br /> {How sweet to rove through wood and dell.}<br /><br />or the well known air in _Mignon_:<br /><br /> _Legeres hirondelles,<br /> Oiseaux benis de Dieu,<br /> Ouvrez-ouvrez vos ailes,<br /> Envolez-vous! adieu!_<br /><br /> {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!}<br /><br />Barbican was much gratified to find that his rockets and other fireworks<br />had not received the least injury. He relied upon them for the<br />performance of a very important service as soon as the Projectile,<br />having passed the point of neutral attraction between the Earth and the<br />Moon, would begin to fall with accelerated velocity towards the Lunar<br />surface. This descent, though--thanks to the respective volumes of the<br />attracting bodies--six times less rapid than it would have been on the<br />surface of the Earth, would still be violent enough to dash the<br />Projectile into a thousand pieces. But Barbican confidently expected by<br />means of his powerful rockets to offer very considerable obstruction to<br />the violence of this fall, if not to counteract its terrible effects<br />altogether.<br /><br />The inspection having thus given general satisfaction, the travellers<br />once more set themselves to watching external space through the lights<br />in the sides and the floor of the Projectile.<br /><br />Everything still appeared to be in the same state as before. Nothing was<br />changed. The vast arch of the celestial dome glittered with stars, and<br />constellations blazed with a light clear and pure enough to throw an<br />astronomer into an ecstasy of admiration. Below them shone the Sun, like<br />the mouth of a white-hot furnace, his dazzling disc defined sharply on<br />the pitch-black back-ground of the sky. Above them the Moon, reflecting<br />back his rays from her glowing surface, appeared to stand motionless in<br />the midst of the starry host.<br /><br />A little to the east of the Sun, they could see a pretty large dark<br />spot, like a hole in the sky, the broad silver fringe on one edge fading<br />off into a faint glimmering mist on the other--it was the Earth. Here<br />and there in all directions, nebulous masses gleamed like large flakes<br />of star dust, in which, from nadir to zenith, the eye could trace<br />without a break that vast ring of impalpable star powder, the famous<br />_Milky Way_, through the midst of which the beams of our glorious Sun<br />struggle with the dusky pallor of a star of only the fourth magnitude.<br /><br />Our observers were never weary of gazing on this magnificent and novel<br />spectacle, of the grandeur of which, it is hardly necessary to say, no<br />description can give an adequate idea. What profound reflections it<br />suggested to their understandings! What vivid emotions it enkindled in<br />their imaginations! Barbican, desirous of commenting the story of the<br />journey while still influenced by these inspiring impressions, noted<br />carefully hour by hour every fact that signalized the beginning of his<br />enterprise. He wrote out his notes very carefully and systematically,<br />his round full hand, as business-like as ever, never betraying the<br />slightest emotion.<br /><br />The Captain was quite as busy, but in a different way. Pulling out his<br />tablets, he reviewed his calculations regarding the motion of<br />projectiles, their velocities, ranges and paths, their retardations and<br />their accelerations, jotting down the figures with a rapidity wonderful<br />to behold. Ardan neither wrote nor calculated, but kept up an incessant<br />fire of small talk, now with Barbican, who hardly ever answered him,<br />now with M'Nicholl, who never heard him, occasionally with Diana, who<br />never understood him, but oftenest with himself, because, as he said, he<br />liked not only to talk to a sensible man but also to hear what a<br />sensible man had to say. He never stood still for a moment, but kept<br />"bobbing around" with the effervescent briskness of a bee, at one time<br />roosting at the top of the ladder, at another peering through the floor<br />light, now to the right, then to the left, always humming scraps from<br />the _Opera Bouffe_, but never changing the air. In the small space which<br />was then a whole world to the travellers, he represented to the life the<br />animation and loquacity of the French, and I need hardly say he played<br />his part to perfection.<br /><br />The eventful day, or, to speak more correctly, the space of twelve hours<br />which with us forms a day, ended for our travellers with an abundant<br />supper, exquisitely cooked. It was highly enjoyed.<br /><br />No incident had yet occurred of a nature calculated to shake their<br />confidence. Apprehending none therefore, full of hope rather and already<br />certain of success, they were soon lost in a peaceful slumber, whilst<br />the Projectile, moving rapidly, though with a velocity uniformly<br />retarding, still cleaved its way through the pathless regions of the<br />empyrean.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER IV.<br /><br />A CHAPTER FOR THE CORNELL GIRLS.<br /><br /><br />No incident worth recording occurred during the night, if night indeed<br />it could be called. In reality there was now no night or even day in the<br />Projectile, or rather, strictly speaking, it was always _night_ on the<br />upper end of the bullet, and always _day_ on the lower. Whenever,<br />therefore, the words _night_ and _day_ occur in our story, the reader<br />will readily understand them as referring to those spaces of time that<br />are so called in our Earthly almanacs, and were so measured by the<br />travellers' chronometers.<br /><br />The repose of our friends must indeed have been undisturbed, if absolute<br />freedom from sound or jar of any kind could secure tranquillity. In<br />spite of its immense velocity, the Projectile still seemed to be<br />perfectly motionless. Not the slightest sign of movement could be<br />detected. Change of locality, though ever so rapid, can never reveal<br />itself to our senses when it takes place in a vacuum, or when the<br />enveloping atmosphere travels at the same rate as the moving body.<br />Though we are incessantly whirled around the Sun at the rate of about<br />seventy thousand miles an hour, which of us is conscious of the<br />slightest motion? In such a case, as far as sensation is concerned,<br />motion and repose are absolutely identical. Neither has any effect one<br />way or another on a material body. Is such a body in motion? It remains<br />in motion until some obstacle stops it. Is it at rest? It remains at<br />rest until some superior force compels it to change its position. This<br />indifference of bodies to motion or rest is what physicists call<br />_inertia_.<br /><br />Barbican and his companions, therefore, shut up in the Projectile, could<br />readily imagine themselves to be completely motionless. Had they been<br />outside, the effect would have been precisely the same. No rush of air,<br />no jarring sensation would betray the slightest movement. But for the<br />sight of the Moon gradually growing larger above them, and of the Earth<br />gradually growing smaller beneath them, they could safely swear that<br />they were fast anchored in an ocean of deathlike immobility.<br /><br />Towards the morning of next day (December 3), they were awakened by a<br />joyful, but quite unexpected sound.<br /><br />"Cock-a-doodle! doo!" accompanied by a decided flapping of wings.<br /><br />The Frenchman, on his feet in one instant and on the top of the ladder<br />in another, attempted to shut the lid of a half open box, speaking in an<br />angry but suppressed voice:<br /><br />"Stop this hullabaloo, won't you? Do you want me to fail in my great<br />combination!"<br /><br />"Hello?" cried Barbican and M'Nicholl, starting up and rubbing their<br />eyes.<br /><br />"What noise was that?" asked Barbican.<br /><br />"Seems to me I heard the crowing of a cock," observed the Captain.<br /><br />"I never thought your ears could be so easily deceived, Captain," cried<br />Ardan, quickly, "Let us try it again," and, flapping his ribs with his<br />arms, he gave vent to a crow so loud and natural that the lustiest<br />chanticleer that ever saluted the orb of day might be proud of it.<br /><br />The Captain roared right out, and even Barbican snickered, but as they<br />saw that their companion evidently wanted to conceal something, they<br />immediately assumed straight faces and pretended to think no more about<br />the matter.<br /><br />"Barbican," said Ardan, coming down the ladder and evidently anxious to<br />change the conversation, "have you any idea of what I was thinking about<br />all night?"<br /><br />"Not the slightest."<br /><br />"I was thinking of the promptness of the reply you received last year<br />from the authorities of Cambridge University, when you asked them about<br />the feasibility of sending a bullet to the Moon. You know very well by<br />this time what a perfect ignoramus I am in Mathematics. I own I have<br />been often puzzled when thinking on what grounds they could form such a<br />positive opinion, in a case where I am certain that the calculation must<br />be an exceedingly delicate matter."<br /><br />"The feasibility, you mean to say," replied Barbican, "not exactly of<br />sending a bullet to the Moon, but of sending it to the neutral point<br />between the Earth and the Moon, which lies at about nine-tenths of the<br />journey, where the two attractions counteract each other. Because that<br />point once passed, the Projectile would reach the Moon's surface by<br />virtue of its own weight."<br /><br />"Well, reaching that neutral point be it;" replied Ardan, "but, once<br />more, I should like to know how they have been able to come at the<br />necessary initial velocity of 12,000 yards a second?"<br /><br />"Nothing simpler," answered Barbican.<br /><br />"Could you have done it yourself?" asked the Frenchman.<br /><br />"Without the slightest difficulty. The Captain and myself could have<br />readily solved the problem, only the reply from the University saved us<br />the trouble."<br /><br />"Well, Barbican, dear boy," observed Ardan, "all I've got to say is, you<br />might chop the head off my body, beginning with my feet, before you<br />could make me go through such a calculation."<br /><br />"Simply because you don't understand Algebra," replied Barbican,<br />quietly.<br /><br />"Oh! that's all very well!" cried Ardan, with an ironical smile. "You<br />great _x+y_ men think you settle everything by uttering the word<br />_Algebra_!"<br /><br />"Ardan," asked Barbican, "do you think people could beat iron without a<br />hammer, or turn up furrows without a plough?"<br /><br />"Hardly."<br /><br />"Well, Algebra is an instrument or utensil just as much as a hammer or a<br />plough, and a very good instrument too if you know how to make use of<br />it."<br /><br />"You're in earnest?"<br /><br />"Quite so."<br /><br />"And you can handle the instrument right before my eyes?"<br /><br />"Certainly, if it interests you so much."<br /><br />"You can show me how they got at the initial velocity of our<br />Projectile?"<br /><br />"With the greatest pleasure. By taking into proper consideration all the<br />elements of the problem, viz.: (1) the distance between the centres of<br />the Earth and the Moon, (2) the Earth's radius, (3) its volume, and (4)<br />the Moon's volume, I can easily calculate what must be the initial<br />velocity, and that too by a very simple formula."<br /><br />"Let us have the formula."<br /><br />"In one moment; only I can't give you the curve really described by the<br />Projectile as it moves between the Earth and the Moon; this is to be<br />obtained by allowing for their combined movement around the Sun. I will<br />consider the Earth and the Sun to be motionless, that being sufficient<br />for our present purpose."<br /><br />"Why so?"<br /><br />"Because to give you that exact curve would be to solve a point in the<br />'Problem of the Three Bodies,' which Integral Calculus has not yet<br />reached."<br /><br />"What!" cried Ardan, in a mocking tone, "is there really anything that<br />Mathematics can't do?"<br /><br />"Yes," said Barbican, "there is still a great deal that Mathematics<br />can't even attempt."<br /><br />"So far, so good;" resumed Ardan. "Now then what is this Integral<br />Calculus of yours?"<br /><br />"It is a branch of Mathematics that has for its object the summation of<br />a certain infinite series of indefinitely small terms: but for the<br />solution of which, we must generally know the function of which a given<br />function is the differential coefficient. In other words," continued<br />Barbican, "in it we return from the differential coefficient, to the<br />function from which it was deduced."<br /><br />"Clear as mud!" cried Ardan, with a hearty laugh.<br /><br />"Now then, let me have a bit of paper and a pencil," added Barbican,<br />"and in half an hour you shall have your formula; meantime you can<br />easily find something interesting to do."<br /><br />In a few seconds Barbican was profoundly absorbed in his problem, while<br />M'Nicholl was watching out of the window, and Ardan was busily employed<br />in preparing breakfast.<br /><br />The morning meal was not quite ready, when Barbican, raising his head,<br />showed Ardan a page covered with algebraic signs at the end of which<br />stood the following formula:--<br /><br /> 1 2 2 r m' r r<br />--- (v' - v ) = gr {--- - 1 + --- (----- - -----) }<br /> 2 x m d - x d - r<br /><br />"Which means?" asked Ardan.<br /><br />"It means," said the Captain, now taking part in the discussion, "that<br />the half of _v_ prime squared minus _v_ squared equals _gr_ multiplied<br />by _r_ over _x_ minus one plus _m_ prime over _m_ multiplied by _r_ over<br />_d_ minus _x_ minus _r_ over _d_ minus _r_ ... that is--"<br /><br />"That is," interrupted Ardan, in a roar of laughter, "_x_ stradlegs on<br />_y_, making for _z_ and jumping over _p_! Do _you_ mean to say you<br />understand the terrible jargon, Captain?"<br /><br />"Nothing is clearer, Ardan."<br /><br />"You too, Captain! Then of course I must give in gracefully, and declare<br />that the sun at noon-day is not more palpably evident than the sense of<br />Barbican's formula."<br /><br />"You asked for Algebra, you know," observed Barbican.<br /><br />"Rock crystal is nothing to it!"<br /><br />"The fact is, Barbican," said the Captain, who had been looking over the<br />paper, "you have worked the thing out very well. You have the integral<br />equation of the living forces, and I have no doubt it will give us the<br />result sought for."<br /><br />"Yes, but I should like to understand it, you know," cried Ardan: "I<br />would give ten years of the Captain's life to understand it!"<br /><br />"Listen then," said Barbican. "Half of _v_ prime squared less _v_<br />squared, is the formula giving us the half variation of the living<br />force."<br /><br />"Mac pretends he understands all that!"<br /><br />"You need not be a _Solomon_ to do it," said the Captain. "All these<br />signs that you appear to consider so cabalistic form a language the<br />clearest, the shortest, and the most logical, for all those who can read<br />it."<br /><br />"You pretend, Captain, that, by means of these hieroglyphics, far more<br />incomprehensible than the sacred Ibis of the Egyptians, you can<br />discover the velocity at which the Projectile should start?"<br /><br />"Most undoubtedly," replied the Captain, "and, by the same formula I can<br />even tell you the rate of our velocity at any particular point of our<br />journey."<br /><br />"You can?"<br /><br />"I can."<br /><br />"Then you're just as deep a one as our President."<br /><br />"No, Ardan; not at all. The really difficult part of the question<br />Barbican has done. That is, to make out such an equation as takes into<br />account all the conditions of the problem. After that, it's a simple<br />affair of Arithmetic, requiring only a knowledge of the four rules to<br />work it out."<br /><br />"Very simple," observed Ardan, who always got muddled at any kind of a<br />difficult sum in addition.<br /><br />"Captain," said Barbican, "_you_ could have found the formulas too, if<br />you tried."<br /><br />"I don't know about that," was the Captain's reply, "but I do know that<br />this formula is wonderfully come at."<br /><br />"Now, Ardan, listen a moment," said Barbican, "and you will see what<br />sense there is in all these letters."<br /><br />"I listen," sighed Ardan with the resignation of a martyr.<br /><br />"_d_ is the distance from the centre of the Earth to the centre of the<br />Moon, for it is from the centres that we must calculate the<br />attractions."<br /><br />"That I comprehend."<br /><br />"_r_ is the radius of the Earth."<br /><br />"That I comprehend."<br /><br />"_m_ is the mass or volume of the Earth; _m_ prime that of the Moon. We<br />must take the mass of the two attracting bodies into consideration,<br />since attraction is in direct proportion to their masses."<br /><br />"That I comprehend."<br /><br />"_g_ is the gravity or the velocity acquired at the end of a second by a<br />body falling towards the centre of the Earth. Clear?"<br /><br />"That I comprehend."<br /><br />"Now I represent by _x_ the varying distance that separates the<br />Projectile from the centre of the Earth, and by _v_ prime its velocity<br />at that distance."<br /><br />"That I comprehend."<br /><br />"Finally, _v_ is its velocity when quitting our atmosphere."<br /><br />"Yes," chimed in the Captain, "it is for this point, you see, that the<br />velocity had to be calculated, because we know already that the initial<br />velocity is exactly the three halves of the velocity when the Projectile<br />quits the atmosphere."<br /><br />"That I don't comprehend," cried the Frenchman, energetically.<br /><br />"It's simple enough, however," said Barbican.<br /><br />"Not so simple as a simpleton," replied the Frenchman.<br /><br />"The Captain merely means," said Barbican, "that at the instant the<br />Projectile quitted the terrestrial atmosphere it had already lost a<br />third of its initial velocity."<br /><br />"So much as a third?"<br /><br />"Yes, by friction against the atmospheric layers: the quicker its<br />motion, the greater resistance it encountered."<br /><br />"That of course I admit, but your _v_ squared and your _v_ prime squared<br />rattle in my head like nails in a box!"<br /><br />"The usual effect of Algebra on one who is a stranger to it; to finish<br />you, our next step is to express numerically the value of these several<br />symbols. Now some of them are already known, and some are to be<br />calculated."<br /><br />"Hand the latter over to me," said the Captain.<br /><br />"First," continued Barbican: "_r_, the Earth's radius is, in the<br />latitude of Florida, about 3,921 miles. _d_, the distance from the<br />centre of the Earth to the centre of the Moon is 56 terrestrial radii,<br />which the Captain calculates to be...?"<br /><br />"To be," cried M'Nicholl working rapidly with his pencil, "219,572<br />miles, the moment the Moon is in her _perigee_, or nearest point to the<br />Earth."<br /><br />"Very well," continued Barbican. "Now _m_ prime over _m_, that is the<br />ratio of the Moon's mass to that of the Earth is about the 1/81. _g_<br />gravity being at Florida about 32-1/4 feet, of course _g_ x _r_ must<br />be--how much, Captain?"<br /><br />"38,465 miles," replied M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Now then?" asked Ardan.<br /><br />[Illustration: MY HEAD IS SPLITTING WITH IT.]<br /><br />"Now then," replied Barbican, "the expression having numerical values, I<br />am trying to find _v_, that is to say, the initial velocity which the<br />Projectile must possess in order to reach the point where the two<br />attractions neutralize each other. Here the velocity being null, _v_<br />prime becomes zero, and _x_ the required distance of this neutral point<br />must be represented by the nine-tenths of _d_, the distance between the<br />two centres."<br /><br />"I have a vague kind of idea that it must be so," said Ardan.<br /><br />"I shall, therefore, have the following result;" continued Barbican,<br />figuring up; "_x_ being nine-tenths of _d_, and _v_ prime being zero, my<br />formula becomes:--<br /><br /> 2 10 r 1 10 r r<br />v = gr {1 - ----- - ---- (----- - -----) }<br /> d 81 d d - r "<br /><br />The Captain read it off rapidly.<br /><br />"Right! that's correct!" he cried.<br /><br />"You think so?" asked Barbican.<br /><br />"As true as Euclid!" exclaimed M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Wonderful fellows," murmured the Frenchman, smiling with admiration.<br /><br />"You understand now, Ardan, don't you?" asked Barbican.<br /><br />"Don't I though?" exclaimed Ardan, "why my head is splitting with it!"<br /><br />"Therefore," continued Barbican,<br /><br />" 2 10 r 1 10 r r<br />2v = 2gr {1 - ----- - ---- (----- - -----) }<br /> d 81 d d - r "<br /><br />"And now," exclaimed M'Nicholl, sharpening his pencil; "in order to<br />obtain the velocity of the Projectile when leaving the atmosphere, we<br />have only to make a slight calculation."<br /><br />The Captain, who before clerking on a Mississippi steamboat had been<br />professor of Mathematics in an Indiana university, felt quite at home at<br />the work. He rained figures from his pencil with a velocity that would<br />have made Marston stare. Page after page was filled with his<br />multiplications and divisions, while Barbican looked quietly on, and<br />Ardan impatiently stroked his head and ears to keep down a rising<br />head-ache.<br /><br />"Well?" at last asked Barbican, seeing the Captain stop and throw a<br />somewhat hasty glance over his work.<br /><br />"Well," answered M'Nicholl slowly but confidently, "the calculation is<br />made, I think correctly; and _v_, that is, the velocity of the<br />Projectile when quitting the atmosphere, sufficient to carry it to the<br />neutral point, should be at least ..."<br /><br />"How much?" asked Barbican, eagerly.<br /><br />"Should be at least 11,972 yards the first second."<br /><br />"What!" cried Barbican, jumping off his seat. "How much did you say?"<br /><br />"11,972 yards the first second it quits the atmosphere."<br /><br />"Oh, malediction!" cried Barbican, with a gesture of terrible despair.<br /><br />"What's the matter?" asked Ardan, very much surprised.<br /><br />"Enough is the matter!" answered Barbican excitedly. "This velocity<br />having been diminished by a third, our initial velocity should have been<br />at least ..."<br /><br />"17,958 yards the first second!" cried M'Nicholl, rapidly flourishing<br />his pencil.<br /><br />"But the Cambridge Observatory having declared that 12,000 yards the<br />first second were sufficient, our Projectile started with no greater<br />velocity!"<br /><br />"Well?" asked M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Well, such a velocity will never do!"<br /><br />"How??" }<br />"How!!" } cried the Captain and Ardan in one voice.<br /><br />"We can never reach the neutral point!"<br /><br />"Thunder and lightning"<br /><br />"Fire and Fury!"<br /><br />"We can't get even halfway!"<br /><br />"Heaven and Earth!"<br /><br />"_Mille noms d'un boulet!_" cried Ardan, wildly gesticulating.<br /><br />"And we shall fall back to the Earth!"<br /><br />"Oh!"<br /><br />"Ah!"<br /><br />They could say no more. This fearful revelation took them like a stroke<br />of apoplexy.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER V.<br /><br />THE COLDS OF SPACE.<br /><br /><br />How could they imagine that the Observatory men had committed such a<br />blunder? Barbican would not believe it possible. He made the Captain go<br />over his calculation again and again; but no flaw was to be found in it.<br />He himself carefully examined it, figure after figure, but he could find<br />nothing wrong. They both took up the formula and subjected it to the<br />strongest tests; but it was invulnerable. There was no denying the fact.<br />The Cambridge professors had undoubtedly blundered in saying that an<br />initial velocity of 12,000 yards a second would be enough to carry them<br />to the neutral point. A velocity of nearly 18,000 yards would be the<br />very lowest required for such a purpose. They had simply forgotten to<br />allow a third for friction.<br /><br />The three friends kept profound silence for some time. Breakfast now was<br />the last thing thought of. Barbican, with teeth grating, fingers<br />clutching, and eye-brows closely contracting, gazed grimly through the<br />window. The Captain, as a last resource, once more examined his<br />calculations, earnestly hoping to find a figure wrong. Ardan could<br />neither sit, stand nor lie still for a second, though he tried all<br />three. His silence, of course, did not last long.<br /><br />"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed bitterly. "Precious scientific men! Villainous<br />old hombogues! The whole set not worth a straw! I hope to gracious,<br />since we must fall, that we shall drop down plumb on Cambridge<br />Observatory, and not leave a single one of the miserable old women,<br />called professors, alive in the premises!"<br /><br />A certain expression in Ardan's angry exclamation had struck the Captain<br />like a shot, and set his temples throbbing violently.<br /><br />"_Must_ fall!" he exclaimed, starting up suddenly. "Let us see about<br />that! It is now seven o'clock in the morning. We must have, therefore,<br />been at least thirty-two hours on the road, and more than half of our<br />passage is already made. If we are going to fall at all, we must be<br />falling now! I'm certain we're not, but, Barbican, you have to find it<br />out!"<br /><br />Barbican caught the idea like lightning, and, seizing a compass, he<br />began through the floor window to measure the visual angle of the<br />distant Earth. The apparent immobility of the Projectile allowed him to<br />do this with great exactness. Then laying aside the instrument, and<br />wiping off the thick drops of sweat that bedewed his forehead, he began<br />jotting down some figures on a piece of paper. The Captain looked on<br />with keen interest; he knew very well that Barbican was calculating<br />their distance from the Earth by the apparent measure of the terrestrial<br />diameter, and he eyed him anxiously.<br /><br />Pretty soon his friends saw a color stealing into Barbican's pale face,<br />and a triumphant light glittering in his eye.<br /><br />"No, my brave boys!" he exclaimed at last throwing down his pencil,<br />"we're not falling! Far from it, we are at present more than 150<br />thousand miles from the Earth!"<br /><br />"Hurrah!" }<br />"Bravo!" } cried M'Nicholl and Ardan, in a breath.<br /><br />"We have passed the point where we should have stopped if we had had no<br />more initial velocity than the Cambridge men allowed us!"<br /><br />"Hurrah! hurrah!"<br /><br />"Bravo, Bravissimo!"<br /><br />"And we're still going up!"<br /><br />"Glory, glory, hallelujah!" sang M'Nicholl, in the highest excitement.<br /><br />"_Vive ce cher Barbican!_" cried Ardan, bursting into French as usual<br />whenever his feelings had the better of him.<br /><br />"Of course we're marching on!" continued M'Nicholl, "and I know the<br />reason why, too. Those 400,000 pounds of gun-cotton gave us greater<br />initial velocity than we had expected!"<br /><br />"You're right, Captain!" added Barbican; "besides, you must not forget<br />that, by getting rid of the water, the Projectile was relieved of<br />considerable weight!"<br /><br />"Correct again!" cried the Captain. "I had not thought of that!"<br /><br />"Therefore, my brave boys," continued Barbican, with some excitement;<br />"away with melancholy! We're all right!"<br /><br />"Yes; everything is lovely and the goose hangs high!" cried the Captain,<br />who on grand occasions was not above a little slang.<br /><br />"Talking of goose reminds me of breakfast," cried Ardan; "I assure you,<br />my fright has not taken away my appetite!"<br /><br />"Yes," continued Barbican. "Captain, you're quite right. Our initial<br />velocity very fortunately was much greater than what our Cambridge<br />friends had calculated for us!"<br /><br />"Hang our Cambridge friends and their calculations!" cried Ardan, with<br />some asperity; "as usual with your scientific men they've more brass<br />than brains! If we're not now bed-fellows with the oysters in the Gulf<br />of Mexico, no thanks to our kind Cambridge friends. But talking of<br />oysters, let me remind you again that breakfast is ready."<br /><br />The meal was a most joyous one. They ate much, they talked more, but<br />they laughed most. The little incident of Algebra had certainly very<br />much enlivened the situation.<br /><br />"Now, my boys," Ardan went on, "all things thus turning out quite<br />comfortable, I would just ask you why we should not succeed? We are<br />fairly started. No breakers ahead that I can see. No rock on our road.<br />It is freer than the ships on the raging ocean, aye, freer than the<br />balloons in the blustering air. But the ship arrives at her destination;<br />the balloon, borne on the wings of the wind, rises to as high an<br />altitude as can be endured; why then should not our Projectile reach the<br />Moon?"<br /><br />"It _will_ reach the Moon!" nodded Barbican.<br /><br />"We shall reach the Moon or know for what!" cried M'Nicholl,<br />enthusiastically.<br /><br />"The great American nation must not be disappointed!" continued Ardan.<br />"They are the only people on Earth capable of originating such an<br />enterprise! They are the only people capable of producing a Barbican!"<br /><br />"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"That point settled," continued the Frenchman, "another question comes<br />up to which I have not yet called your attention. When we get to the<br />Moon, what shall we do there? How are we going to amuse ourselves? I'm<br />afraid our life there will be awfully slow!"<br /><br />His companions emphatically disclaimed the possibility of such a thing.<br /><br />"You may deny it, but I know better, and knowing better, I have laid in<br />my stores accordingly. You have but to choose. I possess a varied<br />assortment. Chess, draughts, cards, dominoes--everything in fact, but a<br />billiard table?"<br /><br />"What!" exclaimed Barbican; "cumbered yourself with such gimcracks?"<br /><br />"Such gimcracks are not only good to amuse ourselves with, but are<br />eminently calculated also to win us the friendship of the Selenites."<br /><br />"Friend Michael," said Barbican, "if the Moon is inhabited at all, her<br />inhabitants must have appeared several thousand years before the advent<br />of Man on our Earth, for there seems to be very little doubt that Luna<br />is considerably older than Terra in her present state. Therefore,<br />Selenites, if their brain is organized like our own, must have by this<br />time invented all that we are possessed of, and even much which we are<br />still to invent in the course of ages. The probability is that, instead<br />of their learning from us, we shall have much to learn from them."<br /><br />"What!" asked Ardan, "you think they have artists like Phidias, Michael<br />Angelo and Raphael?"<br /><br />"Certainly."<br /><br />"And poets like Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakspeare, Goethe and Hugo?"<br /><br />"Not a doubt of it."<br /><br />"And philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Bacon, Kant?"<br /><br />"Why not?"<br /><br />"And scientists like Euclid, Archimedes, Copernicus, Newton, Pascal?"<br /><br />"I should think so."<br /><br />"And famous actors, and singers, and composers, and--and photographers?"<br /><br />"I could almost swear to it."<br /><br />"Then, dear boy, since they have gone ahead as far as we and even<br />farther, why have not those great Selenites tried to start a<br />communication with the Earth? Why have they not fired a projectile from<br />the regions lunar to the regions terrestrial?"<br /><br />"Who says they have not done so?" asked Barbican, coolly.<br /><br />"Attempting such a communication," observed the Captain, "would<br />certainly be much easier for them than for us, principally for two<br />reasons. First, attraction on the Moon's surface being six times less<br />than on the Earth's, a projectile could be sent off more rapidly;<br />second, because, as this projectile need be sent only 24 instead of 240<br />thousand miles, they could do it with a quantity of powder ten times<br />less than what we should require for the same purpose."<br /><br />"Then I ask again," said the Frenchman; "why haven't they made such an<br />attempt?"<br /><br />"And I reply again," answered Barbican. "How do you know that they have<br />not made such an attempt?"<br /><br />"Made it? When?"<br /><br />"Thousands of years ago, before the invention of writing, before even<br />the appearance of Man on the Earth."<br /><br />"But the bullet?" asked Ardan, triumphantly; "Where's the bullet?<br />Produce the bullet!"<br /><br />"Friend Michael," answered Barbican, with a quiet smile, "you appear to<br />forget that the 5/6 of the surface of our Earth is water. 5 to 1,<br />therefore, that the bullet is more likely to be lying this moment at the<br />bottom of the Atlantic or the Pacific than anywhere else on the surface<br />of our globe. Besides, it may have sunk into some weak point of the<br />surface, at the early epoch when the crust of the Earth had not acquired<br />sufficient solidity."<br /><br />"Captain," said Ardan, turning with a smile to M'Nicholl; "no use in<br />trying to catch Barby; slippery as an eel, he has an answer for<br />everything. Still I have a theory on the subject myself, which I think<br />it no harm to ventilate. It is this: The Selenites have never sent us<br />any projectile at all, simply because they had no gunpowder: being older<br />and wiser than we, they were never such fools as to invent any.--But,<br />what's that? Diana howling for her breakfast! Good! Like genuine<br />scientific men, while squabbling over nonsense, we let the poor animals<br />die of hunger. Excuse us, Diana; it is not the first time the little<br />suffer from the senseless disputes of the great."<br /><br />So saying he laid before the animal a very toothsome pie, and<br />contemplated with evident pleasure her very successful efforts towards<br />its hasty and complete disappearance.<br /><br />"Looking at Diana," he went on, "makes me almost wish we had made a<br />Noah's Ark of our Projectile by introducing into it a pair of all the<br />domestic animals!"<br /><br />"Not room enough," observed Barbican.<br /><br />"No doubt," remarked the Captain, "the ox, the cow, the horse, the goat,<br />all the ruminating animals would be very useful in the Lunar continent.<br />But we couldn't turn our Projectile into a stable, you know."<br /><br />"Still, we might have made room for a pair of poor little donkeys!"<br />observed Ardan; "how I love the poor beasts. Fellow feeling, you will<br />say. No doubt, but there really is no animal I pity more. They are the<br />most ill-treated brutes in all creation. They are not only banged during<br />life; they are banged worse after death!"<br /><br />"Hey! How do you make that out?" asked his companions, surprised.<br /><br />"Because we make their skins into drum heads!" replied Ardan, with an<br />air, as if answering a conundrum.<br /><br />Barbican and M'Nicholl could hardly help laughing at the absurd reply of<br />their lively companion, but their hilarity was soon stopped by the<br />expression his face assumed as he bent over Satellite's body, where it<br />lay stretched on the sofa.<br /><br />"What's the matter now?" asked Barbican.<br /><br />"Satellite's attack is over," replied Ardan.<br /><br />"Good!" said M'Nicholl, misunderstanding him.<br /><br />"Yes, I suppose it is good for the poor fellow," observed Ardan, in<br />melancholy accents. "Life with one's skull broken is hardly an enviable<br />possession. Our grand acclimatization project is knocked sky high, in<br />more senses than one!"<br /><br />There was no doubt of the poor dog's death. The expression of Ardan's<br />countenance, as he looked at his friends, was of a very rueful order.<br /><br />"Well," said the practical Barbican, "there's no help for that now; the<br />next thing to be done is to get rid of the body. We can't keep it here<br />with us forty-eight hours longer."<br /><br />"Of course not," replied the Captain, "nor need we; our lights, being<br />provided with hinges, can be lifted back. What is to prevent us from<br />opening one of them, and flinging the body out through it!"<br /><br />The President of the Gun Club reflected a few minutes; then he spoke:<br /><br />"Yes, it can be done; but we must take the most careful precautions."<br /><br />"Why so?" asked Ardan.<br /><br />"For two simple reasons;" replied Barbican; "the first refers to the air<br />enclosed in the Projectile, and of which we must be very careful to lose<br />only the least possible quantity."<br /><br />"But as we manufacture air ourselves!" objected Ardan.<br /><br />"We manufacture air only partly, friend Michael," replied Barbican. "We<br />manufacture only oxygen; we can't supply nitrogen--By the bye, Ardan,<br />won't you watch the apparatus carefully every now and then to see that<br />the oxygen is not generated too freely. Very serious consequences would<br />attend an immoderate supply of oxygen--No, we can't manufacture<br />nitrogen, which is so absolutely necessary for our air and which might<br />escape readily through the open windows."<br /><br />"What! the few seconds we should require for flinging out poor<br />Satellite?"<br /><br />"A very few seconds indeed they should be," said Barbican, very gravely.<br /><br />"Your second reason?" asked Ardan.<br /><br />"The second reason is, that we must not allow the external cold, which<br />must be exceedingly great, to penetrate into our Projectile and freeze<br />us alive."<br /><br />"But the Sun, you know--"<br /><br />"Yes, the Sun heats our Projectile, but it does not heat the vacuum<br />through which we are now floating. Where there is no air there can<br />neither be heat nor light; just as wherever the rays of the Sun do not<br />arrive directly, it must be both cold and dark. The temperature around<br />us, if there be anything that can be called temperature, is produced<br />solely by stellar radiation. I need not say how low that is in the<br />scale, or that it would be the temperature to which our Earth should<br />fall, if the Sun were suddenly extinguished."<br /><br />"Little fear of that for a few more million years," said M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Who can tell?" asked Ardan. "Besides, even admitting that the Sun will<br />not soon be extinguished, what is to prevent the Earth from shooting<br />away from him?"<br /><br />"Let friend Michael speak," said Barbican, with a smile, to the Captain;<br />"we may learn something."<br /><br />"Certainly you may," continued the Frenchman, "if you have room for<br />anything new. Were we not struck by a comet's tail in 1861?"<br /><br />"So it was said, anyhow," observed the Captain. "I well remember what<br />nonsense there was in the papers about the 'phosphorescent auroral<br />glare.'"<br /><br />"Well," continued the Frenchman, "suppose the comet of 1861 influenced<br />the Earth by an attraction superior to the Sun's. What would be the<br />consequence? Would not the Earth follow the attracting body, become its<br />satellite, and thus at last be dragged off to such a distance that the<br />Sun's rays could no longer excite heat on her surface?"<br /><br />"Well, that might possibly occur," said Barbican slowly, "but even then<br />I question if the consequences would be so terrible as you seem to<br />apprehend."<br /><br />"Why not?"<br /><br />"Because the cold and the heat might still manage to be nearly equalized<br />on our globe. It has been calculated that, had the Earth been carried<br />off by the comet of '61, when arrived at her greatest distance, she<br />would have experienced a temperature hardly sixteen times greater than<br />the heat we receive from the Moon, which, as everybody knows, produces<br />no appreciable effect, even when concentrated to a focus by the most<br />powerful lenses."<br /><br />"Well then," exclaimed Ardan, "at such a temperature--"<br /><br />"Wait a moment," replied Barbican. "Have you never heard of the<br />principle of compensation? Listen to another calculation. Had the Earth<br />been dragged along with the comet, it has been calculated that at her<br />perihelion, or nearest point to the Sun, she would have to endure a heat<br />28,000 times greater than our mean summer temperature. But this heat,<br />fully capable of turning the rocks into glass and the oceans into vapor,<br />before proceeding to such extremity, must have first formed a thick<br />interposing ring of clouds, and thus considerably modified the excessive<br />temperature. Therefore, between the extreme cold of the aphelion and the<br />excessive heat of the perihelion, by the great law of compensation, it<br />is probable that the mean temperature would be tolerably endurable."<br /><br />"At how many degrees is the temperature of the interplanetary space<br />estimated?" asked M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Some time ago," replied Barbican, "this temperature was considered to<br />be very low indeed--millions and millions of degrees below zero. But<br />Fourrier of Auxerre, a distinguished member of the _Academie des<br />Sciences_, whose _Memoires_ on the temperature of the Planetary spaces<br />appeared about 1827, reduced these figures to considerably diminished<br />proportions. According to his careful estimation, the temperature of<br />space is not much lower than 70 or 80 degrees Fahr. below zero."<br /><br />"No more?" asked Ardan.<br /><br />"No more," answered Barbican, "though I must acknowledge we have only<br />his word for it, as the _Memoire_ in which he had recorded all the<br />elements of that important determination, has been lost somewhere, and<br />is no longer to be found."<br /><br />"I don't attach the slightest importance to his, or to any man's words,<br />unless they are sustained by reliable evidence," exclaimed M'Nicholl.<br />"Besides, if I'm not very much mistaken, Pouillet--another countryman of<br />yours, Ardan, and an Academician as well as Fourrier--esteems the<br />temperature of interplanetary spaces to be at least 256 deg. Fahr. below<br />zero. This we can easily verify for ourselves this moment by actual<br />experiment."<br /><br />"Not just now exactly," observed Barbican, "for the solar rays,<br />striking our Projectile directly, would give us a very elevated instead<br />of a very low temperature. But once arrived at the Moon, during those<br />nights fifteen days long, which each of her faces experiences<br />alternately, we shall have plenty of time to make an experiment with<br />every condition in our favor. To be sure, our Satellite is at present<br />moving in a vacuum."<br /><br />"A vacuum?" asked Ardan; "a perfect vacuum?"<br /><br />"Well, a perfect vacuum as far as air is concerned."<br /><br />"But is the air replaced by nothing?"<br /><br />"Oh yes," replied Barbican. "By ether."<br /><br />"Ah, ether! and what, pray, is ether?"<br /><br />"Ether, friend Michael, is an elastic gas consisting of imponderable<br />atoms, which, as we are told by works on molecular physics, are, in<br />proportion to their size, as far apart as the celestial bodies are from<br />each other in space. This distance is less than the 1/3000000 x 1/1000',<br />or the one trillionth of a foot. The vibrations of the molecules of this<br />ether produce the sensations of light and heat, by making 430 trillions<br />of undulations per second, each undulation being hardly more than the<br />one ten-millionth of an inch in width."<br /><br />"Trillions per second! ten-millionths of an inch in width!" cried Ardan.<br />"These oscillations have been very neatly counted and ticketed, and<br />checked off! Ah, friend Barbican," continued the Frenchman, shaking his<br />head, "these numbers are just tremendous guesses, frightening the ear<br />but revealing nothing to the intelligence."<br /><br />"To get ideas, however, we must calculate--"<br /><br />"No, no!" interrupted Ardan: "not calculate, but compare. A trillion<br />tells you nothing--Comparison, everything. For instance, you say, the<br />volume of _Uranus_ is 76 times greater than the Earth's; _Saturn's_ 900<br />times greater; _Jupiter's_ 1300 times greater; the Sun's 1300 thousand<br />times greater--You may tell me all that till I'm tired hearing it, and I<br />shall still be almost as ignorant as ever. For my part I prefer to be<br />told one of those simple comparisons that I find in the old almanacs:<br />The Sun is a globe two feet in diameter; _Jupiter_, a good sized orange;<br />_Saturn_, a smaller orange; _Neptune_, a plum; _Uranus_, a good sized<br />cherry; the Earth, a pea; _Venus_, also a pea but somewhat smaller;<br />_Mars_, a large pin's head; _Mercury_, a mustard seed; _Juno_,<br />_Ceres_, _Vesta_, _Pallas_, and the other asteroids so many grains<br />of sand. Be told something like that, and you have got at least the tail<br />of an idea!"<br /><br />This learned burst of Ardan's had the natural effect of making his<br />hearers forget what they had been arguing about, and they therefore<br />proceeded at once to dispose of Satellite's body. It was a simple matter<br />enough--no more than to fling it out of the Projectile into space, just<br />as the sailors get rid of a dead body by throwing it into the sea. Only<br />in this operation they had to act, as Barbican recommended, with the<br />utmost care and dispatch, so as to lose as little as possible of the<br />internal air, which, by its great elasticity, would violently strive to<br />escape. The bolts of the floor-light, which was more than a foot in<br />diameter, were carefully unscrewed, while Ardan, a good deal affected,<br />prepared to launch his dog's body into space. The glass, worked by a<br />powerful lever which enabled it to overcome the pressure of the enclosed<br />air, turned quickly on its hinges, and poor Satellite was dropped out.<br />The whole operation was so well managed that very little air escaped,<br />and ever afterwards Barbican employed the same means to rid the<br />Projectile of all the litter and other useless matter by which it was<br />occasionally encumbered.<br /><br />The evening of this third of December wore away without further<br />incident. As soon as Barbican had announced that the Projectile was<br />still winging its way, though with retarded velocity, towards the lunar<br />disc, the travellers quietly retired to rest.<br /><br />[Illustration: POOR SATELLITE WAS DROPPED OUT.]<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER VI.<br /><br />INSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATION.<br /><br /><br />On the fourth of December, the Projectile chronometers marked five<br />o'clock in the morning, just as the travellers woke up from a pleasant<br />slumber. They had now been 54 hours on their journey. As to lapse of<br />_time_, they had passed not much more than half of the number of hours<br />during which their trip was to last; but, as to lapse of _space_, they<br />had already accomplished very nearly the seven-tenths of their passage.<br />This difference between time and distance was due to the regular<br />retardation of their velocity.<br /><br />They looked at the earth through the floor-light, but it was little more<br />than visible--a black spot drowned in the solar rays. No longer any sign<br />of a crescent, no longer any sign of ashy light. Next day, towards<br />midnight, the Earth was to be _new_, at the precise moment when the Moon<br />was to be _full_. Overhead, they could see the Queen of Night coming<br />nearer and nearer to the line followed by the Projectile, and evidently<br />approaching the point where both should meet at the appointed moment.<br />All around, the black vault of heaven was dotted with luminous points<br />which seemed to move somewhat, though, of course, in their extreme<br />distance their relative size underwent no change. The Sun and the stars<br />looked exactly as they had appeared when observed from the Earth. The<br />Moon indeed had become considerably enlarged in size, but the<br />travellers' telescopes were still too weak to enable them to make any<br />important observation regarding the nature of her surface, or that might<br />determine her topographical or geological features.<br /><br />Naturally, therefore, the time slipped away in endless conversation. The<br />Moon, of course, was the chief topic. Each one contributed his share of<br />peculiar information, or peculiar ignorance, as the case might be.<br />Barbican and M'Nicholl always treated the subject gravely, as became<br />learned scientists, but Ardan preferred to look on things with the eye<br />of fancy. The Projectile, its situation, its direction, the incidents<br />possible to occur, the precautions necessary to take in order to break<br />the fall on the Moon's surface--these and many other subjects furnished<br />endless food for constant debate and inexhaustible conjectures.<br /><br />For instance, at breakfast that morning, a question of Ardan's regarding<br />the Projectile drew from Barbican an answer curious enough to be<br />reported.<br /><br />"Suppose, on the night that we were shot up from Stony Hill," said<br />Ardan, "suppose the Projectile had encountered some obstacle powerful<br />enough to stop it--what would be the consequence of the sudden halt?"<br /><br />"But," replied Barbican, "I don't understand what obstacle it could have<br />met powerful enough to stop it."<br /><br />"Suppose some obstacle, for the sake of argument," said Ardan.<br /><br />"Suppose what can't be supposed," replied the matter-of-fact Barbican,<br />"what cannot possibly be supposed, unless indeed the original impulse<br />proved too weak. In that case, the velocity would have decreased by<br />degrees, but the Projectile itself would not have suddenly stopped."<br /><br />"Suppose it had struck against some body in space."<br /><br />"What body, for instance?"<br /><br />"Well, that enormous bolide which we met."<br /><br />"Oh!" hastily observed the Captain, "the Projectile would have been<br />dashed into a thousand pieces and we along with it."<br /><br />"Better than that," observed Barbican; "we should have been burned<br />alive."<br /><br />"Burned alive!" laughed Ardan. "What a pity we missed so interesting an<br />experiment! How I should have liked to find out how it felt!"<br /><br />"You would not have much time to record your observations, friend<br />Michael, I assure you," observed Barbican. "The case is plain enough.<br />Heat and motion are convertible terms. What do we mean by heating water?<br />Simply giving increased, in fact, violent motion to its molecules."<br /><br />"Well!" exclaimed the Frenchman, "that's an ingenious theory any how!"<br /><br />"Not only ingenious but correct, my dear friend, for it completely<br />explains all the phenomena of caloric. Heat is nothing but molecular<br />movement, the violent oscillation of the particles of a body. When you<br />apply the brakes to the train, the train stops. But what has become of<br />its motion? It turns into heat and makes the brakes hot. Why do people<br />grease the axles? To hinder them from getting too hot, which they<br />assuredly would become if friction was allowed to obstruct the motion.<br />You understand, don't you?"<br /><br />"Don't I though?" replied Ardan, apparently in earnest. "Let me show you<br />how thoroughly. When I have been running hard and long, I feel myself<br />perspiring like a bull and hot as a furnace. Why am I then forced to<br />stop? Simply because my motion has been transformed into heat! Of<br />course, I understand all about it!"<br /><br />Barbican smiled a moment at this comical illustration of his theory and<br />then went on:<br /><br />"Accordingly, in case of a collision it would have been all over<br />instantly with our Projectile. You have seen what becomes of the bullet<br />that strikes the iron target. It is flattened out of all shape;<br />sometimes it is even melted into a thin film. Its motion has been turned<br />into heat. Therefore, I maintain that if our Projectile had struck that<br />bolide, its velocity, suddenly checked, would have given rise to a heat<br />capable of completely volatilizing it in less than a second."<br /><br />"Not a doubt of it!" said the Captain. "President," he added after a<br />moment, "haven't they calculated what would be the result, if the Earth<br />were suddenly brought to a stand-still in her journey, through her<br />orbit?"<br /><br />"It has been calculated," answered Barbican, "that in such a case so<br />much heat would be developed as would instantly reduce her to vapor."<br /><br />"Hm!" exclaimed Ardan; "a remarkably simple way for putting an end to<br />the world!"<br /><br />"And supposing the Earth to fall into the Sun?" asked the Captain.<br /><br />"Such a fall," answered Barbican, "according to the calculations of<br />Tyndall and Thomson, would develop an amount of heat equal to that<br />produced by sixteen hundred globes of burning coal, each globe equal in<br />size to the earth itself. Furthermore such a fall would supply the Sun<br />with at least as much heat as he expends in a hundred years!"<br /><br />"A hundred years! Good! Nothing like accuracy!" cried Ardan. "Such<br />infallible calculators as Messrs. Tyndall and Thomson I can easily<br />excuse for any airs they may give themselves. They must be of an order<br />much higher than that of ordinary mortals like us!"<br /><br />"I would not answer myself for the accuracy of such intricate problems,"<br />quietly observed Barbican; "but there is no doubt whatever regarding one<br />fact: motion suddenly interrupted always develops heat. And this has<br />given rise to another theory regarding the maintenance of the Sun's<br />temperature at a constant point. An incessant rain of bolides falling on<br />his surface compensates sufficiently for the heat that he is<br />continually giving forth. It has been calculated--"<br /><br />"Good Lord deliver us!" cried Ardan, putting his hands to his ears:<br />"here comes Tyndall and Thomson again!"<br /><br />--"It has been calculated," continued Barbican, not heeding the<br />interruption, "that the shock of every bolide drawn to the Sun's surface<br />by gravity, must produce there an amount of heat equal to that of the<br />combustion of four thousand blocks of coal, each the same size as the<br />falling bolide."<br /><br />"I'll wager another cent that our bold savants calculated the heat of<br />the Sun himself," cried Ardan, with an incredulous laugh.<br /><br />"That is precisely what they have done," answered Barbican referring to<br />his memorandum book; "the heat emitted by the Sun," he continued, "is<br />exactly that which would be produced by the combustion of a layer of<br />coal enveloping the Sun's surface, like an atmosphere, 17 miles in<br />thickness."<br /><br />"Well done! and such heat would be capable of--?"<br /><br />"Of melting in an hour a stratum of ice 2400 feet thick, or, according<br />to another calculation, of raising a globe of ice-cold water, 3 times<br />the size of our Earth, to the boiling point in an hour."<br /><br />"Why not calculate the exact fraction of a second it would take to cook<br />a couple of eggs?" laughed Ardan. "I should as soon believe in one<br />calculation as in the other.--But--by the by--why does not such extreme<br />heat cook us all up like so many beefsteaks?"<br /><br />"For two very good and sufficient reasons," answered Barbican. "In the<br />first place, the terrestrial atmosphere absorbs the 4/10 of the solar<br />heat. In the second, the quantity of solar heat intercepted by the Earth<br />is only about the two billionth part of all that is radiated."<br /><br />"How fortunate to have such a handy thing as an atmosphere around us,"<br />cried the Frenchman; "it not only enables us to breathe, but it actually<br />keeps us from sizzling up like griskins."<br /><br />"Yes," said the Captain, "but unfortunately we can't say so much for the<br />Moon."<br /><br />"Oh pshaw!" cried Ardan, always full of confidence. "It's all right<br />there too! The Moon is either inhabited or she is not. If she is, the<br />inhabitants must breathe. If she is not, there must be oxygen enough<br />left for we, us and co., even if we should have to go after it to the<br />bottom of the ravines, where, by its gravity, it must have accumulated!<br />So much the better! we shall not have to climb those thundering<br />mountains!"<br /><br />So saying, he jumped up and began to gaze with considerable interest on<br />the lunar disc, which just then was glittering with dazzling brightness.<br /><br />"By Jove!" he exclaimed at length; "it must be pretty hot up there!"<br /><br />"I should think so," observed the Captain; "especially when you remember<br />that the day up there lasts 360 hours!"<br /><br />"Yes," observed Barbican, "but remember on the other hand that the<br />nights are just as long, and, as the heat escapes by radiation, the mean<br />temperature cannot be much greater than that of interplanetary space."<br /><br />"A high old place for living in!" cried Ardan. "No matter! I wish we<br />were there now! Wouldn't it be jolly, dear boys, to have old Mother<br />Earth for our Moon, to see her always on our sky, never rising, never<br />setting, never undergoing any change except from New Earth to Last<br />Quarter! Would not it be fun to trace the shape of our great Oceans and<br />Continents, and to say: 'there is the Mediterranean! there is China!<br />there is the gulf of Mexico! there is the white line of the Rocky<br />Mountains where old Marston is watching for us with his big telescope!'<br />Then we should see every line, and brightness, and shadow fade away by<br />degrees, as she came nearer and nearer to the Sun, until at last she sat<br />completely lost in his dazzling rays! But--by the way--Barbican, are<br />there any eclipses in the Moon?"<br /><br />"O yes; solar eclipses" replied Barbican, "must always occur whenever<br />the centres of the three heavenly bodies are in the same line, the Earth<br />occupying the middle place. However, such eclipses must always be<br />annular, as the Earth, projected like a screen on the solar disc, allows<br />more than half of the Sun to be still visible."<br /><br />"How is that?" asked M'Nicholl, "no total eclipses in the Moon? Surely<br />the cone of the Earth's shadow must extend far enough to envelop her<br />surface?"<br /><br />"It does reach her, in one sense," replied Barbican, "but it does not in<br />another. Remember the great refraction of the solar rays that must be<br />produced by the Earth's atmosphere. It is easy to show that this<br />refraction prevents the Sun from ever being totally invisible. See<br />here!" he continued, pulling out his tablets, "Let _a_ represent the<br />horizontal parallax, and _b_ the half of the Sun's apparent diameter--"<br /><br />"Ouch!" cried the Frenchman, making a wry face, "here comes Mr. _x_<br />square riding to the mischief on a pair of double zeros again! Talk<br />English, or Yankee, or Dutch, or Greek, and I'm your man! Even a little<br />Arabic I can digest! But hang me, if I can endure your Algebra!"<br /><br />"Well then, talking Yankee," replied Barbican with a smile, "the mean<br />distance of the Moon from the Earth being sixty terrestrial radii, the<br />length of the conic shadow, in consequence of atmospheric refraction, is<br />reduced to less than forty-two radii. Consequently, at the moment of an<br />eclipse, the Moon is far beyond the reach of the real shadow, so that<br />she can see not only the border rays of the Sun, but even those<br />proceeding from his very centre."<br /><br />"Oh then," cried Ardan with a loud laugh, "we have an eclipse of the Sun<br />at the moment when the Sun is quite visible! Isn't that very like a<br />bull, Mr. Philosopher Barbican?"<br /><br />"Yet it is perfectly true notwithstanding," answered Barbican. "At such<br />a moment the Sun is not eclipsed, because we can see him: and then again<br />he is eclipsed because we see him only by means of a few of his rays,<br />and even these have lost nearly all their brightness in their passage<br />through the terrestrial atmosphere!"<br /><br />"Barbican is right, friend Michael," observed the Captain slowly: "the<br />same phenomenon occurs on earth every morning at sunrise, when<br />refraction shows us<br /><br /> '_the Sun new ris'n<br /> Looking through the horizontal misty air,<br /> Shorn of his beams._'"<br /><br />"He must be right," said Ardan, who, to do him justice, though quick at<br />seeing a reason, was quicker to acknowledge its justice: "yes, he must<br />be right, because I begin to understand at last very clearly what he<br />really meant. However, we can judge for ourselves when we get<br />there.--But, apropos of nothing, tell me, Barbican, what do you think of<br />the Moon being an ancient comet, which had come so far within the sphere<br />of the Earth's attraction as to be kept there and turned into a<br />satellite?"<br /><br />"Well, that _is_ an original idea!" said Barbican with a smile.<br /><br />"My ideas generally are of that category," observed Ardan with an<br />affectation of dry pomposity.<br /><br />"Not this time, however, friend Michael," observed M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Oh! I'm a plagiarist, am I?" asked the Frenchman, pretending to be<br />irritated.<br /><br />"Well, something very like it," observed M'Nicholl quietly. "Apollonius<br />Rhodius, as I read one evening in the Philadelphia Library, speaks of<br />the Arcadians of Greece having a tradition that their ancestors were so<br />ancient that they inhabited the Earth long before the Moon had ever<br />become our satellite. They therefore called them [Greek: _Proselenoi_]<br />or _Ante-lunarians_. Now starting with some such wild notion as this,<br />certain scientists have looked on the Moon as an ancient comet brought<br />close enough to the Earth to be retained in its orbit by terrestrial<br />attraction."<br /><br />"Why may not there be something plausible in such a hypothesis?" asked<br />Ardan with some curiosity.<br /><br />"There is nothing whatever in it," replied Barbican decidedly: "a simple<br />proof is the fact that the Moon does not retain the slightest trace of<br />the vaporous envelope by which comets are always surrounded."<br /><br />"Lost her tail you mean," said Ardan. "Pooh! Easy to account for that!<br />It might have got cut off by coming too close to the Sun!"<br /><br />"It might, friend Michael, but an amputation by such means is not very<br />likely."<br /><br />"No? Why not?"<br /><br />"Because--because--By Jove, I can't say, because I don't know," cried<br />Barbican with a quiet smile on his countenance.<br /><br />"Oh what a lot of volumes," cried Ardan, "could be made out of what we<br />don't know!"<br /><br />"At present, for instance," observed M'Nicholl, "I don't know what<br />o'clock it is."<br /><br />"Three o'clock!" said Barbican, glancing at his chronometer.<br /><br />"No!" cried Ardan in surprise. "Bless us! How rapidly the time passes<br />when we are engaged in scientific conversation! Ouf! I'm getting<br />decidedly too learned! I feel as if I had swallowed a library!"<br /><br />"I feel," observed M'Nicholl, "as if I had been listening to a lecture<br />on Astronomy in the _Star_ course."<br /><br />"Better stir around a little more," said the Frenchman; "fatigue of body<br />is the best antidote to such severe mental labor as ours. I'll run up<br />the ladder a bit." So saying, he paid another visit to the upper portion<br />of the Projectile and remained there awhile whistling _Malbrouk_, whilst<br />his companions amused themselves in looking through the floor window.<br /><br />Ardan was coming down the ladder, when his whistling was cut short by a<br />sudden exclamation of surprise.<br /><br />"What's the matter?" asked Barbican quickly, as he looked up and saw the<br />Frenchman pointing to something outside the Projectile.<br /><br />Approaching the window, Barbican saw with much surprise a sort of<br />flattened bag floating in space and only a few yards off. It seemed<br />perfectly motionless, and, consequently, the travellers knew that it<br />must be animated by the same ascensional movement as themselves.<br /><br />"What on earth can such a consarn be, Barbican?" asked Ardan, who every<br />now and then liked to ventilate his stock of American slang. "Is it one<br />of those particles of meteoric matter you were speaking of just now,<br />caught within the sphere of our Projectile's attraction and accompanying<br />us to the Moon?"<br /><br />"What I am surprised at," observed the Captain, "is that though the<br />specific gravity of that body is far inferior to that of our Projectile,<br />it moves with exactly the same velocity."<br /><br />"Captain," said Barbican, after a moment's reflection, "I know no more<br />what that object is than you do, but I can understand very well why it<br />keeps abreast with the Projectile."<br /><br />"Very well then, why?"<br /><br />"Because, my dear Captain, we are moving through a vacuum, and because<br />all bodies fall or move--the same thing--with equal velocity through a<br />vacuum, no matter what may be their shape or their specific gravity. It<br />is the air alone that makes a difference of weight. Produce an<br />artificial vacuum in a glass tube and you will see that all objects<br />whatever falling through, whether bits of feather or grains of shot,<br />move with precisely the same rapidity. Up here, in space, like cause and<br />like effect."<br /><br />"Correct," assented M'Nicholl. "Everything therefore that we shall throw<br />out of the Projectile is bound to accompany us to the Moon."<br /><br />"Well, we _were_ smart!" cried Ardan suddenly.<br /><br />"How so, friend Michael?" asked Barbican.<br /><br />"Why not have packed the Projectile with ever so many useful objects,<br />books, instruments, tools, et cetera, and fling them out into space once<br />we were fairly started! They would have all followed us safely! Nothing<br />would have been lost! And--now I think on it--why not fling ourselves<br />out through the window? Shouldn't we be as safe out there as that<br />bolide? What fun it would be to feel ourselves sustained and upborne in<br />the ether, more highly favored even than the birds, who must keep on<br />flapping their wings continually to prevent themselves from falling!"<br /><br />"Very true, my dear boy," observed Barbican; "but how could we breathe?"<br /><br />"It's a fact," exclaimed the Frenchman. "Hang the air for spoiling our<br />fun! So we must remain shut up in our Projectile?"<br /><br />"Not a doubt of it!"<br /><br />--"Oh Thunder!" roared Ardan, suddenly striking his forehead.<br /><br />"What ails you?" asked the Captain, somewhat surprised.<br /><br />"Now I know what that bolide of ours is! Why didn't we think of it<br />before? It is no asteroid! It is no particle of meteoric matter! Nor is<br />it a piece of a shattered planet!"<br /><br />"What is it then?" asked both of his companions in one voice.<br /><br />[Illustration: SATELLITE'S BODY FLYING THROUGH SPACE.]<br /><br />"It is nothing more or less than the body of the dog that we threw out<br />yesterday!"<br /><br />So in fact it was. That shapeless, unrecognizable mass, melted,<br />expunged, flat as a bladder under an unexhausted receiver, drained of<br />its air, was poor Satellite's body, flying like a rocket through space,<br />and rising higher and higher in close company with the rapidly ascending<br />Projectile!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER VII.<br /><br />A HIGH OLD TIME.<br /><br /><br />A new phenomenon, therefore, strange but logical, startling but<br />admitting of easy explanation, was now presented to their view,<br />affording a fresh subject for lively discussion. Not that they disputed<br />much about it. They soon agreed on a principle from which they readily<br />deducted the following general law: _Every object thrown out of the<br />Projectile should partake of the Projectile's motion: it should<br />therefore follow the same path, and never cease to move until the<br />Projectile itself came to a stand-still._<br /><br />But, in sober truth, they were at anything but a loss of subjects of<br />warm discussion. As the end of their journey began to approach, their<br />senses became keener and their sensations vivider. Steeled against<br />surprise, they looked for the unexpected, the strange, the startling;<br />and the only thing at which they would have wondered would be to be five<br />minutes without having something new to wonder at. Their excited<br />imaginations flew far ahead of the Projectile, whose velocity, by the<br />way, began to be retarded very decidedly by this time, though, of<br />course, the travellers had as yet no means to become aware of it. The<br />Moon's size on the sky was meantime getting larger and larger; her<br />apparent distance was growing shorter and shorter, until at last they<br />could almost imagine that by putting their hands out they could nearly<br />touch her.<br /><br />Next morning, December 5th, all were up and dressed at a very early<br />hour. This was to be the last day of their journey, if all calculations<br />were correct. That very night, at 12 o'clock, within nineteen hours at<br />furthest, at the very moment of Full Moon, they were to reach her<br />resplendent surface. At that hour was to be completed the most<br />extraordinary journey ever undertaken by man in ancient or modern times.<br />Naturally enough, therefore, they found themselves unable to sleep after<br />four o'clock in the morning; peering upwards through the windows now<br />visibly glittering under the rays of the Moon, they spent some very<br />exciting hours in gazing at her slowly enlarging disc, and shouting at<br />her with confident and joyful hurrahs.<br /><br />The majestic Queen of the Stars had now risen so high in the spangled<br />heavens that she could hardly rise higher. In a few degrees more she<br />would reach the exact point of space where her junction with the<br />Projectile was to be effected. According to his own observations,<br />Barbican calculated that they should strike her in the northern<br />hemisphere, where her plains, or _seas_ as they are called, are immense,<br />and her mountains are comparatively rare. This, of course, would be so<br />much the more favorable, if, as was to be apprehended, the lunar<br />atmosphere was confined exclusively to the low lands.<br /><br />"Besides," as Ardan observed, "a plain is a more suitable landing place<br />than a mountain. A Selenite deposited on the top of Mount Everest or<br />even on Mont Blanc, could hardly be considered, in strict language, to<br />have arrived on Earth."<br /><br />"Not to talk," added M'Nicholl, "of the comfort of the thing! When you<br />land on a plain, there you are. When you land on a peak or on a steep<br />mountain side, where are you? Tumbling over an embankment with the train<br />going forty miles an hour, would be nothing to it."<br /><br />"Therefore, Captain Barbican," cried the Frenchman, "as we should like<br />to appear before the Selenites in full skins, please land us in the snug<br />though unromantic North. We shall have time enough to break our necks in<br />the South."<br /><br />Barbican made no reply to his companions, because a new reflection had<br />begun to trouble him, to talk about which would have done no good. There<br />was certainly something wrong. The Projectile was evidently heading<br />towards the northern hemisphere of the Moon. What did this prove?<br />Clearly, a deviation resulting from some cause. The bullet, lodged,<br />aimed, and fired with the most careful mathematical precision, had been<br />calculated to reach the very centre of the Moon's disc. Clearly it was<br />not going to the centre now. What could have produced the deviation?<br />This Barbican could not tell; nor could he even determine its extent,<br />having no points of sight by which to make his observations. For the<br />present he tried to console himself with the hope that the deviation of<br />the Projectile would be followed by no worse consequence than carrying<br />them towards the northern border of the Moon, where for several reasons<br />it would be comparatively easier to alight. Carefully avoiding,<br />therefore, the use of any expression which might needlessly alarm his<br />companions, he continued to observe the Moon as carefully as he could,<br />hoping every moment to find some grounds for believing that the<br />deviation from the centre was only a slight one. He almost shuddered at<br />the thought of what would be their situation, if the bullet, missing its<br />aim, should pass the Moon, and plunge into the interplanetary space<br />beyond it.<br /><br />As he continued to gaze, the Moon, instead of presenting the usual<br />flatness of her disc, began decidedly to show a surface somewhat convex.<br />Had the Sun been shining on her obliquely, the shadows would have<br />certainly thrown the great mountains into strong relief. The eye could<br />then bury itself deep in the yawning chasms of the craters, and easily<br />follow the cracks, streaks, and ridges which stripe, flecker, and bar<br />the immensity of her plains. But for the present all relief was lost in<br />the dazzling glare. The Captain could hardly distinguish even those dark<br />spots that impart to the full Moon some resemblance to the human face.<br /><br />"Face!" cried Ardan: "well, a very fanciful eye may detect a face,<br />though, for the sake of Apollo's beauteous sister, I regret to say, a<br />terribly pockmarked one!"<br /><br />The travellers, now evidently approaching the end of their journey,<br />observed the rapidly increasing world above them with newer and greater<br />curiosity every moment. Their fancies enkindled at the sight of the new<br />and strange scenes dimly presented to their view. In imagination they<br />climbed to the summit of this lofty peak. They let themselves down to<br />the abyss of that yawning crater. Here they imagined they saw vast seas<br />hardly kept in their basins by a rarefied atmosphere; there they thought<br />they could trace mighty rivers bearing to vast oceans the tribute of the<br />snowy mountains. In the first promptings of their eager curiosity, they<br />peered greedily into her cavernous depths, and almost expected, amidst<br />the deathlike hush of inaudible nature, to surprise some sound from the<br />mystic orb floating up there in eternal silence through a boundless<br />ocean of never ending vacuum.<br /><br />This last day of their journey left their memories stored with thrilling<br />recollections. They took careful note of the slightest details. As they<br />neared their destination, they felt themselves invaded by a vague,<br />undefined restlessness. But this restlessness would have given way to<br />decided uneasiness, if they had known at what a slow rate they were<br />travelling. They would have surely concluded that their present velocity<br />would never be able to take them as far as the neutral point, not to<br />talk of passing it. The reason of such considerable retardation was,<br />that by this time the Projectile had reached such a great distance from<br />the Earth that it had hardly any weight. But even this weight, such as<br />it was, was to be diminished still further, and finally, to vanish<br />altogether as soon as the bullet reached the neutral point, where the<br />two attractions, terrestrial and lunar, should counteract each other<br />with new and surprising effects.<br /><br />Notwithstanding the absorbing nature of his observations, Ardan never<br />forgot to prepare breakfast with his usual punctuality. It was eaten<br />readily and relished heartily. Nothing could be more exquisite than his<br />calf's foot jelly liquefied and prepared by gas heat, except perhaps his<br />meat biscuits of preserved Texas beef and Southdown mutton. A bottle of<br />Chateau Yquem and another of Clos de Vougeot, both of superlative<br />excellence in quality and flavor, crowned the repast. Their vicinity to<br />the Moon and their incessant glancing at her surface did not prevent the<br />travellers from touching each other's glasses merrily and often. Ardan<br />took occasion to remark that the lunar vineyards--if any existed--must<br />be magnificent, considering the intense solar heat they continually<br />experienced. Not that he counted on them too confidently, for he told<br />his friends that to provide for the worst he had supplied himself with a<br />few cases of the best vintages of Medoc and the Cote d'Or, of which the<br />bottles, then under discussion, might be taken as very favorable<br />specimens.<br /><br />The Reiset and Regnault apparatus for purifying the air worked<br />splendidly, and maintained the atmosphere in a perfectly sanitary<br />condition. Not an atom of carbonic acid could resist the caustic potash;<br />and as for the oxygen, according to M'Nicholl's expression, "it was A<br />prime number one!"<br /><br />The small quantity of watery vapor enclosed in the Projectile did no<br />more harm than serving to temper the dryness of the air: many a splendid<br />_salon_ in New York, London, or Paris, and many an auditorium, even of<br />theatre, opera house or Academy of Music, could be considered its<br />inferior in what concerned its hygienic condition.<br /><br />To keep it in perfect working order, the apparatus should be carefully<br />attended to. This, Ardan looked on as his own peculiar occupation. He<br />was never tired regulating the tubes, trying the taps, and testing the<br />heat of the gas by the pyrometer. So far everything had worked<br />satisfactorily, and the travellers, following the example of their<br />friend Marston on a previous occasion, began to get so stout that their<br />own mothers would not know them in another month, should their<br />imprisonment last so long. Ardan said they all looked so sleek and<br />thriving that he was reminded forcibly of a nice lot of pigs fattening<br />in a pen for a country fair. But how long was this good fortune of<br />theirs going to last?<br /><br />Whenever they took their eyes off the Moon, they could not help noticing<br />that they were still attended outside by the spectre of Satellite's<br />corpse and by the other refuse of the Projectile. An occasional<br />melancholy howl also attested Diana's recognition of her companion's<br />unhappy fate. The travellers saw with surprise that these waifs still<br />seemed perfectly motionless in space, and kept their respective<br />distances apart as mathematically as if they had been fastened with<br />nails to a stone wall.<br /><br />"I tell you what, dear boys;" observed Ardan, commenting on this curious<br />phenomenon; "if the concussion had been a little too violent for one of<br />us that night, his survivors would have been seriously embarrassed in<br />trying to get rid of his remains. With no earth to cover him up, no sea<br />to plunge him into, his corpse would never disappear from view, but<br />would pursue us day and night, grim and ghastly like an avenging ghost!"<br /><br />"Ugh!" said the Captain, shuddering at the idea.<br /><br />"But, by the bye, Barbican!" cried the Frenchman, dropping the subject<br />with his usual abruptness; "you have forgotten something else! Why<br />didn't you bring a scaphander and an air pump? I could then venture out<br />of the Projectile as readily and as safely as the diver leaves his boat<br />and walks about on the bottom of the river! What fun to float in the<br />midst of that mysterious ether! to steep myself, aye, actually to revel<br />in the pure rays of the glorious sun! I should have ventured out on the<br />very point of the Projectile, and there I should have danced and<br />postured and kicked and bobbed and capered in a style that Taglioni<br />never dreamed of!"<br /><br />"Shouldn't I like to see you!" cried the Captain grimly, smiling at the<br />idea.<br /><br />"You would not see him long!" observed Barbican quietly. "The air<br />confined in his body, freed from external pressure, would burst him like<br />a shell, or like a balloon that suddenly rises to too great a height in<br />the air! A scaphander would have been a fatal gift. Don't regret its<br />absence, friend Michael; never forget this axiom: _As long as we are<br />floating in empty space, the only spot where safety is possible is<br />inside the Projectile!_"<br /><br />The words "possible" and "impossible" always grated on Ardan's ears. If<br />he had been a lexicographer, he would have rigidly excluded them from<br />his dictionary, both as meaningless and useless. He was preparing an<br />answer for Barbican, when he was cut out by a sudden observation from<br />M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"See here, friends!" cried the Captain; "this going to the Moon is all<br />very well, but how shall we get back?"<br /><br />His listeners looked at each other with a surprised and perplexed air.<br />The question, though a very natural one, now appeared to have presented<br />itself to their consideration absolutely for the first time.<br /><br />"What do you mean by such a question, Captain?" asked Barbican in a<br />grave judicial tone.<br /><br />"Mac, my boy," said Ardan seriously, "don't it strike you as a little<br />out of order to ask how you are to return when you have not got there<br />yet?"<br /><br />"I don't ask the question with any idea of backing out," observed the<br />Captain quietly; "as a matter of purely scientific inquiry, I repeat my<br />question: how are we to return?"<br /><br />"I don't know," replied Barbican promptly.<br /><br />"For my part," said Ardan; "if I had known how to get back, I should<br />have never come at all!"<br /><br />"Well! of all the answers!" said the Captain, lifting his hands and<br />shaking his head.<br /><br />"The best under the circumstances;" observed Barbican; "and I shall<br />further observe that such a question as yours at present is both useless<br />and uncalled for. On some future occasion, when we shall consider it<br />advisable to return, the question will be in order, and we shall discuss<br />it with all the attention it deserves. Though the Columbiad is at Stony<br />Hill, the Projectile will still be in the Moon."<br /><br />"Much we shall gain by that! A bullet without a gun!"<br /><br />"The gun we can make and the powder too!" replied Barbican confidently.<br />"Metal and sulphur and charcoal and saltpetre are likely enough to be<br />present in sufficient quantities beneath the Moon's surface. Besides, to<br />return is a problem of comparatively easy solution: we should have to<br />overcome the lunar attraction only--a slight matter--the rest of the<br />business would be readily done by gravity."<br /><br />"Enough said on the subject!" exclaimed Ardan curtly; "how to get back<br />is indefinitely postponed! How to communicate with our friends on the<br />Earth, is another matter, and, as it seems to me, an extremely easy<br />one."<br /><br />"Let us hear the very easy means by which you propose to communicate<br />with our friends on Earth," asked the Captain, with a sneer, for he was<br />by this time a little out of humor.<br /><br />"By means of bolides ejected from the lunar volcanoes," replied the<br />Frenchman without an instant's hesitation.<br /><br />"Well said, friend Ardan," exclaimed Barbican. "I am quite disposed to<br />acknowledge the feasibility of your plan. Laplace has calculated that a<br />force five times greater than that of an ordinary cannon would be<br />sufficient to send a bolide from the Moon to the Earth. Now there is no<br />cannon that can vie in force with even the smallest volcano."<br /><br />"Hurrah!" cried Ardan, delighted at his success; "just imagine the<br />pleasure of sending our letters postage free! But--oh! what a splendid<br />idea!--Dolts that we were for not thinking of it sooner!"<br /><br />"Let us have the splendid idea!" cried the Captain, with some of his old<br />acrimony.<br /><br />"Why didn't we fasten a wire to the Projectile?" asked Ardan,<br />triumphantly, "It would have enabled us to exchange telegrams with the<br />Earth!"<br /><br />"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the Captain, rapidly recovering his good humor;<br />"decidedly the best joke of the season! Ha! ha! ha! Of course you have<br />calculated the weight of a wire 240 thousand miles long?"<br /><br />"No matter about its weight!" cried the Frenchman impetuously; "we<br />should have laughed at its weight! We could have tripled the charge of<br />the Columbiad; we could have quadrupled it!--aye, quintupled it, if<br />necessary!" he added in tones evidently increasing in loudness and<br />violence.<br /><br />"Yes, friend Michael," observed Barbican; "but there is a slight and<br />unfortunately a fatal defect in your project. The Earth, by its<br />rotation, would have wrapped our wire around herself, like thread around<br />a spool, and dragged us back almost with the speed of lightning!"<br /><br />"By the Nine gods of Porsena!" cried Ardan, "something is wrong with my<br />head to-day! My brain is out of joint, and I am making as nice a mess of<br />things as my friend Marston was ever capable of! By the bye--talking of<br />Marston--if we never return to the Earth, what is to prevent him from<br />following us to the Moon?"<br /><br />"Nothing!" replied Barbican; "he is a faithful friend and a reliable<br />comrade. Besides, what is easier? Is not the Columbiad still at Stony<br />Hill? Cannot gun-cotton be readily manufactured on any occasion? Will<br />not the Moon again pass through the zenith of Florida? Eighteen years<br />from now, will she not occupy exactly the same spot that she does<br />to-day?"<br /><br />"Certainly!" cried Ardan, with increasing enthusiasm, "Marston will<br />come! and Elphinstone of the torpedo! and the gallant Bloomsbury, and<br />Billsby the brave, and all our friends of the Baltimore Gun Club! And we<br />shall receive them with all the honors! And then we shall establish<br />projectile trains between the Earth and the Moon! Hurrah for J.T.<br />Marston!"<br /><br />"Hurrah for Secretary Marston!" cried the Captain, with an enthusiasm<br />almost equal to Ardan's.<br /><br />"Hurrah for my dear friend Marston!" cried Barbican, hardly less<br />excited than his comrades.<br /><br />Our old acquaintance, Marston, of course could not have heard the joyous<br />acclamations that welcomed his name, but at that moment he certainly<br />must have felt his ears most unaccountably tingling. What was he doing<br />at the time? He was rattling along the banks of the Kansas River, as<br />fast as an express train could take him, on the road to Long's Peak,<br />where, by means of the great Telescope, he expected to find some traces<br />of the Projectile that contained his friends. He never forgot them for a<br />moment, but of course he little dreamed that his name at that very time<br />was exciting their vividest recollections and their warmest applause.<br /><br />In fact, their recollections were rather too vivid, and their applause<br />decidedly too warm. Was not the animation that prevailed among the<br />guests of the Projectile of a very unusual character, and was it not<br />becoming more and more violent every moment? Could the wine have caused<br />it? No; though not teetotallers, they never drank to excess. Could the<br />Moon's proximity, shedding her subtle, mysterious influence over their<br />nervous systems, have stimulated them to a degree that was threatening<br />to border on frenzy? Their faces were as red as if they were standing<br />before a hot fire; their breathing was loud, and their lungs heaved like<br />a smith's bellows; their eyes blazed like burning coals; their voices<br />sounded as loud and harsh as that of a stump speaker trying to make<br />himself heard by an inattentive or hostile crowd; their words popped<br />from their lips like corks from Champagne bottles; their gesticulating<br />became wilder and in fact more alarming--considering the little room<br />left in the Projectile for muscular displays of any kind.<br /><br />But the most extraordinary part of the whole phenomenon was that neither<br />of them, not even Barbican, had the slightest consciousness of any<br />strange or unusual ebullition of spirits either on his own part or on<br />that of the others.<br /><br />"See here, gentlemen!" said the Captain in a quick imperious manner--the<br />roughness of his old life on the Mississippi would still break out--"See<br />here, gentlemen! It seems I'm not to know if we are to return from the<br />Moon. Well!--Pass that for the present! But there is one thing I _must_<br />know!"<br /><br />"Hear! hear the Captain!" cried Barbican, stamping with his foot, like<br />an excited fencing master. "There is one thing he _must_ know!"<br /><br />"I want to know what we're going to do when we get there!"<br /><br />"He wants to know what we're going to do when we get there! A sensible<br />question! Answer it, Ardan!"<br /><br />"Answer it yourself, Barbican! You know more about the Moon than I do!<br />You know more about it than all the Nasmyths that ever lived!"<br /><br />"I'm blessed if I know anything at all about it!" cried Barbican, with a<br />joyous laugh. "Ha, ha, ha! The first eastern shore Marylander or any<br />other simpleton you meet in Baltimore, knows as much about the Moon as<br />I do! Why we're going there, I can't tell! What we're going to do when<br />we get there, can't tell either! Ardan knows all about it! He can tell!<br />He's taking us there!"<br /><br />"Certainly I can tell! should I have offered to take you there without a<br />good object in view?" cried Ardan, husky with continual roaring. "Answer<br />me that!"<br /><br />"No conundrums!" cried the Captain, in a voice sourer and rougher than<br />ever; "tell us if you can in plain English, what the demon we have come<br />here for!"<br /><br />"I'll tell you if I feel like it," cried Ardan, folding his arms with an<br />aspect of great dignity; "and I'll not tell you if I don't feel like<br />it!"<br /><br />"What's that?" cried Barbican. "You'll not give us an answer when we ask<br />you a reasonable question?"<br /><br />"Never!" cried Ardan, with great determination. "I'll never answer a<br />question reasonable or unreasonable, unless it is asked in a proper<br />manner!"<br /><br />"None of your French airs here!" exclaimed M'Nicholl, by this time<br />almost completely out of himself between anger and excitement. "I don't<br />know where I am; I don't know where I'm going; I don't know why I'm<br />going; _you_ know all about it, Ardan, or at least you think you do!<br />Well then, give me a plain answer to a plain question, or by the<br />Thirty-eight States of our glorious Union, I shall know what for!"<br /><br />"Listen, Ardan!" cried Barbican, grappling with the Frenchman, and with<br />some difficulty restraining him from flying at M'Nicholl's throat; "You<br />ought to tell him! It is only your duty! One day you found us both in<br />St. Helena woods, where we had no more idea of going to the Moon than of<br />sailing to the South Pole! There you twisted us both around your finger,<br />and induced us to follow you blindly on the most formidable journey ever<br />undertaken by man! And now you refuse to tell us what it was all for!"<br /><br />"I don't refuse, dear old Barbican! To you, at least, I can't refuse<br />anything!" cried Ardan, seizing his friend's hands and wringing them<br />violently. Then letting them go and suddenly starting back, "you wish to<br />know," he continued in resounding tones, "why we have followed out the<br />grandest idea that ever set a human brain on fire! Why we have<br />undertaken a journey that for length, danger, and novelty, for<br />fascinating, soul-stirring and delirious sensations, for all that can<br />attract man's burning heart, and satisfy the intensest cravings of his<br />intellect, far surpasses the vividest realities of Dante's passionate<br />dream! Well, I will tell you! It is to annex another World to the New<br />One! It is to take possession of the Moon in the name of the United<br />States of America! It is to add a thirty-ninth State to the glorious<br />Union! It is to colonize the lunar regions, to cultivate them, to people<br />them, to transport to them some of our wonders of art, science, and<br />industry! It is to civilize the Selenites, unless they are more<br />civilized already than we are ourselves! It is to make them all good<br />Republicans, if they are not so already!"<br /><br />"Provided, of course, that there are Selenites in existence!" sneered<br />the Captain, now sourer than ever, and in his unaccountable excitement<br />doubly irritating.<br /><br />"Who says there are no Selenites?" cried Ardan fiercely, with fists<br />clenched and brows contracted.<br /><br />"I do!" cried M'Nicholl stoutly; "I deny the existence of anything of<br />the kind, and I denounce every one that maintains any such whim as a<br />visionary, if not a fool!"<br /><br />Ardan's reply to this taunt was a desperate facer, which, however,<br />Barbican managed to stop while on its way towards the Captain's nose.<br />M'Nicholl, seeing himself struck at, immediately assumed such a posture<br />of defence as showed him to be no novice at the business. A battle<br />seemed unavoidable; but even at this trying moment Barbican showed<br />himself equal to the emergency.<br /><br />"Stop, you crazy fellows! you ninnyhammers! you overgrown babies!" he<br />exclaimed, seizing his companions by the collar, and violently swinging<br />them around with his vast strength until they stood back to back; "what<br />are you going to fight about? Suppose there are Lunarians in the Moon!<br />Is that a reason why there should be Lunatics in the Projectile! But,<br />Ardan, why do you insist on Lunarians? Are we so shiftless that we can't<br />do without them when we get to the Moon?"<br /><br />"I don't insist on them!" cried Ardan, who submitted to Barbican like a<br />child. "Hang the Lunarians! Certainly, we can do without them! What do I<br />care for them? Down with them!"<br /><br />"Yes, down with the Lunarians!" cried M'Nicholl as spitefully as if he<br />had even the slightest belief in their existence.<br /><br />"We shall take possession of the Moon ourselves!" cried Ardan.<br />"Lunarians or no Lunarians!"<br /><br />"We three shall constitute a Republic!" cried M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"I shall be the House!" cried Ardan.<br /><br />"And I the Senate!" answered the Captain.<br /><br />"And Barbican our first President!" shrieked the Frenchman.<br /><br />"Our first and last!" roared M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"No objections to a third term!" yelled Ardan.<br /><br />"He's welcome to any number of terms he pleases!" vociferated M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Hurrah for President Barbican of the Lunatic--I mean of the Lunar<br />Republic!" screamed Ardan.<br /><br />"Long may he wave, and may his shadow never grow less!" shouted Captain<br />M'Nicholl, his eyes almost out of their sockets.<br /><br />Then with voices reminding you of sand fiercely blown against the window<br />panes, the _President_ and the _Senate_ chanted the immortal _Yankee<br />Doodle_, whilst the _House_ delivered itself of the _Marseillaise_, in a<br />style which even the wildest Jacobins in Robespierre's day could hardly<br />have surpassed.<br /><br />But long before either song was ended, all three broke out into a<br />dance, wild, insensate, furious, delirious, paroxysmatical. No Orphic<br />festivals on Mount Cithaeron ever raged more wildly. No Bacchic revels<br />on Mount Parnassus were ever more corybantic. Diana, demented by the<br />maddening example, joined in the orgie, howling and barking frantically<br />in her turn, and wildly jumping as high as the ceiling of the<br />Projectile. Then came new accessions to the infernal din. Wings suddenly<br />began to flutter, cocks to crow, hens to cluck; and five or six<br />chickens, managing to escape out of their coop, flew backwards and<br />forwards blindly, with frightened screams, dashing against each other<br />and against the walls of the Projectile, and altogether getting up as<br />demoniacal a hullabaloo as could be made by ten thousand bats that you<br />suddenly disturbed in a cavern where they had slept through the winter.<br /><br />Then the three companions, no longer able to withstand the overpowering<br />influence of the mysterious force that mastered them, intoxicated, more<br />than drunk, burned by the air that scorched their organs of respiration,<br />dropped at last, and lay flat, motionless, senseless as dabs of clay, on<br />the floor of the Projectile.<br /><br />[Illustration: A DEMONIACAL HULLABALOO.]<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER VIII.<br /><br />THE NEUTRAL POINT.<br /><br /><br />What had taken place? Whence proceeded this strange intoxication whose<br />consequences might have proved so disastrous? A little forgetfulness on<br />Ardan's part had done the whole mischief, but fortunately M'Nicholl was<br />able to remedy it in time.<br /><br />After a regular fainting spell several minutes long, the Captain was the<br />first man to return to consciousness and the full recovery of his<br />intellectual faculties. His first feelings were far from pleasant. His<br />stomach gnawed him as if he had not eaten for a week, though he had<br />taken breakfast only a few hours before; his eyes were dim, his brain<br />throbbing, and his limbs shaking. In short, he presented every symptom<br />usually seen in a man dying of starvation. Picking himself up with much<br />care and difficulty, he roared out to Ardan for something to eat. Seeing<br />that the Frenchman was unable or unwilling to respond, he concluded to<br />help himself, by beginning first of all to prepare a little tea. To do<br />this, fire was necessary; so, to light his lamp, he struck a match.<br /><br />But what was his surprise at seeing the sulphur tip of the match blazing<br />with a light so bright and dazzling that his eyes could hardly bear it!<br />Touching it to the gas burner, a stream of light flashed forth equal in<br />its intensity to the flame of an electric lamp. Then he understood it<br />all in an instant. The dazzling glare, his maddened brain, his gnawing<br />stomach--all were now clear as the noon-day Sun.<br /><br />"The oxygen!" he cried, and, suddenly stooping down and examining the<br />tap of the air apparatus, he saw that it had been only half turned off.<br />Consequently the air was gradually getting more and more impregnated<br />with this powerful gas, colorless, odorless, tasteless, infinitely<br />precious, but, unless when strongly diluted with nitrogen, capable of<br />producing fatal disorders in the human system. Ardan, startled by<br />M'Nicholl's question about the means of returning from the Moon, had<br />turned the cock only half off.<br /><br />The Captain instantly stopped the escape of the oxygen, but not one<br />moment too soon. It had completely saturated the atmosphere. A few<br />minutes more and it would have killed the travellers, not like carbonic<br />acid, by smothering them, but by burning them up, as a strong draught<br />burns up the coals in a stove.<br /><br />[Illustration: "THE OXYGEN!" HE CRIED.]<br /><br />It took nearly an hour for the air to become pure enough to allow the<br />lungs their natural play. Slowly and by degrees, the travellers<br />recovered from their intoxication; they had actually to sleep off the<br />fumes of the oxygen as a drunkard has to sleep off the effects of his<br />brandy. When Ardan learned that he was responsible for the whole<br />trouble, do you think the information disconcerted him? Not a bit of it.<br />On the contrary, he was rather proud of having done something<br />startling, to break the monotony of the journey; and to put a little<br />life, as he said, into old Barbican and the grim Captain, so as to get a<br />little fun out of such grave philosophers.<br /><br />After laughing heartily at the comical figure cut by his two friends<br />capering like crazy students at the _Closerie des Lilas_, he went on<br />moralizing on the incident:<br /><br />"For my part, I'm not a bit sorry for having partaken of this fuddling<br />gas. It gives me an idea, dear boys. Would it not be worth some<br />enterprising fellow's while to establish a sanatorium provided with<br />oxygen chambers, where people of a debilitated state of health could<br />enjoy a few hours of intensely active existence! There's money in it, as<br />you Americans say. Just suppose balls or parties given in halls where<br />the air would be provided with an extra supply of this enrapturing gas!<br />Or, theatres where the atmosphere would be maintained in a highly<br />oxygenated condition. What passion, what fire in the actors! What<br />enthusiasm in the spectators! And, carrying the idea a little further,<br />if, instead of an assembly or an audience, we should oxygenize towns,<br />cities, a whole country--what activity would be infused into the whole<br />people! What new life would electrify a stagnant community! Out of an<br />old used-up nation we could perhaps make a bran-new one, and, for my<br />part, I know more than one state in old Europe where this oxygen<br />experiment might be attended with a decided advantage, or where, at all<br />events, it could do no harm!"<br /><br />The Frenchman spoke so glibly and gesticulated so earnestly that<br />M'Nicholl once more gravely examined the stop-cock; but Barbican damped<br />his enthusiasm by a single observation.<br /><br />"Friend Michael," said he, "your new and interesting idea we shall<br />discuss at a more favorable opportunity. At present we want to know<br />where all these cocks and hens have come from."<br /><br />"These cocks and hens?"<br /><br />"Yes."<br /><br />Ardan threw a glance of comical bewilderment on half a dozen or so of<br />splendid barn-yard fowls that were now beginning to recover from the<br />effects of the oxygen. For an instant he could not utter a word; then,<br />shrugging his shoulders, he muttered in a low voice:<br /><br />"Catastrophe prematurely exploded!"<br /><br />"What are you going to do with these chickens?" persisted Barbican.<br /><br />"Acclimatize them in the Moon, by Jove! what else?" was the ready reply.<br /><br />"Why conceal them then?"<br /><br />"A hoax, a poor hoax, dear President, which proves a miserable failure!<br />I intended to let them loose on the Lunar Continent at the first<br />favorable opportunity. I often had a good laugh to myself, thinking of<br />your astonishment and the Captain's at seeing a lot of American poultry<br />scratching for worms on a Lunar dunghill!"<br /><br />"Ah! wag, jester, incorrigible _farceur_!" cried Barbican with a smile;<br />"you want no nitrous oxide to put a bee in your bonnet! He is always as<br />bad as you and I were for a short time, M'Nicholl, under the laughing<br />gas! He's never had a sensible moment in his life!"<br /><br />"I can't say the same of you," replied Ardan; "you had at least one<br />sensible moment in all your lives, and that was about an hour ago!"<br /><br />Their incessant chattering did not prevent the friends from at once<br />repairing the disorder of the interior of the Projectile. Cocks and hens<br />were put back in their cages. But while doing so, the friends were<br />astonished to find that the birds, though good sized creatures, and now<br />pretty fat and plump, hardly felt heavier in their hands than if they<br />had been so many sparrows. This drew their interested attention to a new<br />phenomenon.<br /><br />From the moment they had left the Earth, their own weight, and that of<br />the Projectile and the objects therein contained, had been undergoing a<br />progressive diminution. They might never be able to ascertain this fact<br />with regard to the Projectile, but the moment was now rapidly<br />approaching when the loss of weight would become perfectly sensible,<br />both regarding themselves and the tools and instruments surrounding<br />them. Of course, it is quite clear, that this decrease could not be<br />indicated by an ordinary scales, as the weight to balance the object<br />would have lost precisely as much as the object itself. But a spring<br />balance, for instance, in which the tension of the coil is independent<br />of attraction, would have readily given the exact equivalent of the<br />loss.<br /><br />Attraction or weight, according to Newton's well known law, acting in<br />direct proportion to the mass of the attracting body and in inverse<br />proportion to the square of the distance, this consequence clearly<br />follows: Had the Earth been alone in space, or had the other heavenly<br />bodies been suddenly annihilated, the further from the Earth the<br />Projectile would be, the less weight it would have. However, it would<br />never _entirely_ lose its weight, as the terrestrial attraction would<br />have always made itself felt at no matter what distance. But as the<br />Earth is not the only celestial body possessing attraction, it is<br />evident that there may be a point in space where the respective<br />attractions may be entirely annihilated by mutual counteraction. Of this<br />phenomenon the present instance was a case in point. In a short time,<br />the Projectile and its contents would for a few moments be absolutely<br />and completely deprived of all weight whatsoever.<br /><br />The path described by the Projectile was evidently a line from the Earth<br />to the Moon averaging somewhat less than 240,000 miles in length.<br />According as the distance between the Projectile and the Earth was<br />increasing, the terrestrial attraction was diminishing in the ratio of<br />the square of the distance, and the lunar attraction was augmenting in<br />the same proportion.<br /><br />As before observed, the point was not now far off where, the two<br />attractions counteracting each other, the bullet would actually weigh<br />nothing at all. If the masses of the Earth and the Moon had been equal,<br />this should evidently be found half way between the two bodies. But by<br />making allowance for the difference of the respective masses, it was<br />easy to calculate that this point would be situated at the 9/10 of the<br />total distance, or, in round numbers, at something less than 216,000<br />miles from the Earth.<br /><br />At this point, a body that possessed no energy or principle of movement<br />within itself, would remain forever, relatively motionless, suspended<br />like Mahomet's coffin, being equally attracted by the two orbs and<br />nothing impelling it in one direction rather than in the other.<br /><br />Now the Projectile at this moment was nearing this point; if it reached<br />it, what would be the consequence?<br /><br />To this question three answers presented themselves, all possible under<br />the circumstances, but very different in their results.<br /><br />1. Suppose the Projectile to possess velocity enough to pass the neutral<br />point. In such case, it would undoubtedly proceed onward to the Moon,<br />being drawn thither by Lunar attraction.<br /><br />2. Suppose it lacked the requisite velocity for reaching the neutral<br />point. In such a case it would just as certainly fall back to the Earth,<br />in obedience to the law of Terrestrial attraction.<br /><br />3. Suppose it to be animated by just sufficient velocity to reach the<br />neutral point, but not to pass it. In that case, the Projectile would<br />remain forever in the same spot, perfectly motionless as far as regards<br />the Earth and the Moon, though of course following them both in their<br />annual orbits round the Sun.<br /><br />Such was now the state of things, which Barbican tried to explain to his<br />friends, who, it need hardly be said, listened to his remarks with the<br />most intense interest. How were they to know, they asked him, the<br />precise instant at which the Projectile would reach the neutral point?<br />That would be an easy matter, he assured them. It would be at the very<br />moment when both themselves and all the other objects contained in the<br />Projectile would be completely free from every operation of the law of<br />gravity; in other words, when everything would cease to have weight.<br /><br />This gradual diminution of the action of gravity, the travellers had<br />been for some time noticing, but they had not yet witnessed its total<br />cessation. But that very morning, about an hour before noon, as the<br />Captain was making some little experiment in Chemistry, he happened by<br />accident to overturn a glass full of water. What was his surprise at<br />seeing that neither the glass nor the water fell to the floor! Both<br />remained suspended in the air almost completely motionless.<br /><br />"The prettiest experiment I ever saw!" cried Ardan; "let us have more of<br />it!"<br /><br />And seizing the bottles, the arms, and the other objects in the<br />Projectile, he arranged them around each other in the air with some<br />regard to symmetry and proportion. The different articles, keeping<br />strictly each in its own place, formed a very attractive group wonderful<br />to behold. Diana, placed in the apex of the pyramid, would remind you of<br />those marvellous suspensions in the air performed by Houdin, Herman, and<br />a few other first class wizards. Only being kept in her place without<br />being hampered by invisible strings, the animal rather seemed to enjoy<br />the exhibition, though in all probability she was hardly conscious of<br />any thing unusual in her appearance.<br /><br />Our travellers had been fully prepared for such a phenomenon, yet it<br />struck them with as much surprise as if they had never uttered a<br />scientific reason to account for it. They saw that, no longer subject to<br />the ordinary laws of nature, they were now entering the realms of the<br />marvellous. They felt that their bodies were absolutely without weight.<br />Their arms, fully extended, no longer sought their sides. Their heads<br />oscillated unsteadily on their shoulders. Their feet no longer rested on<br />the floor. In their efforts to hold themselves straight, they looked<br />like drunken men trying to maintain the perpendicular. We have all read<br />stories of some men deprived of the power of reflecting light and of<br />others who could not cast a shadow. But here reality, no fantastic<br />story, showed you men who, through the counteraction of attractive<br />forces, could tell no difference between light substances and heavy<br />substances, and who absolutely had no weight whatever themselves!<br /><br />"Let us take graceful attitudes!" cried Ardan, "and imagine we are<br />playing _tableaux_! Let us, for instance, form a grand historical group<br />of the three great goddesses of the nineteenth century. Barbican will<br />represent Minerva or _Science_; the Captain, Bellona or _War_; while I,<br />as Madre Natura, the newly born goddess of _Progress_, floating<br />gracefully over you both, extend my hands so, fondly patronizing the<br />one, but grandly ordering off the other, to the regions of eternal<br />night! More on your toe, Captain! Your right foot a little higher! Look<br />at Barbican's admirable pose! Now then, prepare to receive orders for a<br />new tableau! Form group _a la Jardin Mabille!_ Presto! Change!"<br /><br />In an instant, our travellers, changing attitudes, formed the new group<br />with tolerable success. Even Barbican, who had been to Paris in his<br />youth, yielding for a moment to the humor of the thing, acted the _naif<br />Anglais_ to the life. The Captain was frisky enough to remind you of a<br />middle-aged Frenchman from the provinces, on a hasty visit to the<br />capital for a few days' fun. Ardan was in raptures.<br /><br />"Oh! if Raphael could only see us!" he exclaimed in a kind of ecstasy.<br />"He would paint such a picture as would throw all his other masterpieces<br />in the shade!"<br /><br />"Knock spots out of the best of them by fifty per cent!" cried the<br />Captain, gesticulating well enough _a l'etudiant_, but rather mixing his<br />metaphors.<br /><br />[Illustration: A GROUP _A LA JARDIN MABILLE_.]<br /><br />"He should be pretty quick in getting through the job," observed<br />Barbican, the first as usual to recover tranquillity. "As soon as the<br />Projectile will have passed the neutral point--in half an hour at<br />longest--lunar attraction will draw us to the Moon."<br /><br />"We shall have to crawl on the ceiling then like flies," said Ardan.<br /><br />"Not at all," said the Captain; "the Projectile, having its centre of<br />gravity very low, will turn upside down by degrees."<br /><br />"Upside down!" cried Ardan. "That will be a nice mess! everything<br />higgledy-piggledy!"<br /><br />"No danger, friend Michael," said M'Nicholl; "there shall be no disorder<br />whatever; nothing will quit its place; the movement of the Projectile<br />will be effected by such slow degrees as to be imperceptible."<br /><br />"Yes," added Barbican, "as soon as we shall have passed the neutral<br />point, the base of the Projectile, its heaviest part, will swing around<br />gradually until it faces the Moon. Before this phenomenon, however, can<br />take place, we must of course cross the line."<br /><br />"Cross the line!" cried the Frenchman; "then let us imitate the sailors<br />when they do the same thing in the Atlantic Ocean! Splice the main<br />brace!"<br /><br />A slight effort carried him sailing over to the side of the Projectile.<br />Opening a cupboard and taking out a bottle and a few glasses, he placed<br />them on a tray. Then setting the tray itself in the air as on a table in<br />front of his companions, he filled the glasses, passed them around, and,<br />in a lively speech interrupted with many a joyous hurrah, congratulated<br />his companions on their glorious achievement in being the first that<br />ever crossed the lunar line.<br /><br />This counteracting influence of the attractions lasted nearly an hour.<br />By that time the travellers could keep themselves on the floor without<br />much effort. Barbican also made his companions remark that the conical<br />point of the Projectile diverged a little from the direct line to the<br />Moon, while by an inverse movement, as they could notice through the<br />window of the floor, the base was gradually turning away from the Earth.<br />The Lunar attraction was evidently getting the better of the<br />Terrestrial. The fall towards the Moon, though still almost insensible,<br />was certainly beginning.<br /><br />It could not be more than the eightieth part of an inch in the first<br />second. But by degrees, as the attractive force would increase, the fall<br />would be more decided, and the Projectile, overbalanced by its base, and<br />presenting its cone to the Earth, would descend with accelerated<br />velocity to the Lunar surface. The object of their daring attempt would<br />then be successfully attained. No further obstacle, therefore, being<br />likely to stand in the way of the complete success of the enterprise,<br />the Captain and the Frenchman cordially shook hands with Barbican, all<br />kept congratulating each other on their good fortune as long as the<br />bottle lasted.<br /><br />They could not talk enough about the wonderful phenomenon lately<br />witnessed; the chief point, the neutralization of the law of gravity,<br />particularly, supplied them with an inexhaustible subject. The<br />Frenchman, as usual, as enthusiastic in his fancy, as he was fanciful in<br />his enthusiasm, got off some characteristic remarks.<br /><br />"What a fine thing it would be, my boys," he exclaimed, "if on Earth we<br />could be so fortunate as we have been here, and get rid of that weight<br />that keeps us down like lead, that rivets us to it like an adamantine<br />chain! Then should we prisoners become free! Adieu forever to all<br />weariness of arms or feet! At present, in order to fly over the surface<br />of the Earth by the simple exertion of our muscles or even to sustain<br />ourselves in the air, we require a muscular force fifty times greater<br />than we possess; but if attraction did not exist, the simplest act of<br />the will, our slightest whim even, would be sufficient to transport us<br />to whatever part of space we wished to visit."<br /><br />"Ardan, you had better invent something to kill attraction," observed<br />M'Nicholl drily; "you can do it if you try. Jackson and Morton have<br />killed pain by sulphuric ether. Suppose you try your hand on<br />attraction!"<br /><br />"It would be worth a trial!" cried Ardan, so full of his subject as not<br />to notice the Captain's jeering tone; "attraction once destroyed, there<br />is an end forever to all loads, packs and burdens! How the poor omnibus<br />horses would rejoice! Adieu forever to all cranes, derricks, capstans,<br />jack-screws, and even hotel-elevators! We could dispense with all<br />ladders, door steps, and even stair-cases!"<br /><br />"And with all houses too," interrupted Barbican; "or, at least, we<br />_should_ dispense with them because we could not have them. If there was<br />no weight, you could neither make a wall of bricks nor cover your house<br />with a roof. Even your hat would not stay on your head. The cars would<br />not stay on the railway nor the boats on the water. What do I say? We<br />could not have any water. Even the Ocean would leave its bed and float<br />away into space. Nay, the atmosphere itself would leave us, being<br />detained in its place by terrestrial attraction and by nothing else."<br /><br />"Too true, Mr. President," replied Ardan after a pause. "It's a fact. I<br />acknowledge the corn, as Marston says. But how you positive fellows do<br />knock holes into our pretty little creations of fancy!"<br /><br />"Don't feel so bad about it, Ardan;" observed M'Nicholl; "though there<br />may be no orb from which gravity is excluded altogether, we shall soon<br />land in one, where it is much less powerful than on the Earth."<br /><br />"You mean the Moon!"<br /><br />"Yes, the Moon. Her mass being 1/89 of the Earth's, her attractive power<br />should be in the same proportion; that is, a boy 10 years old, whose<br />weight on Earth is about 90 lbs., would weigh on the Moon only about 1<br />pound, if nothing else were to be taken into consideration. But when<br />standing on the surface of the Moon, he is relatively 4 times nearer to<br />the centre than when he is standing on the surface of the Earth. His<br />weight, therefore, having to be increased by the square of the distance,<br />must be sixteen times greater. Now 16 times 1/89 being less than 1/5, it<br />is clear that my weight of 150 pounds will be cut down to nearly 30 as<br />soon as we reach the Moon's surface."<br /><br />"And mine?" asked Ardan.<br /><br />"Yours will hardly reach 25 pounds, I should think," was the reply.<br /><br />"Shall my muscular strength diminish in the same proportion?" was the<br />next question.<br /><br />"On the contrary, it will be relatively so much the more increased that<br />you can take a stride 15 feet in width as easily as you can now take one<br />of ordinary length."<br /><br />"We shall be all Samsons, then, in the Moon!" cried Ardan.<br /><br />"Especially," replied M'Nicholl, "if the stature of the Selenites is in<br />proportion to the mass of their globe."<br /><br />"If so, what should be their height?"<br /><br />"A tall man would hardly be twelve inches in his boots!"<br /><br />"They must be veritable Lilliputians then!" cried Ardan; "and we are all<br />to be Gullivers! The old myth of the Giants realized! Perhaps the Titans<br />that played such famous parts in the prehistoric period of our Earth,<br />were adventurers like ourselves, casually arrived from some great<br />planet!"<br /><br />"Not from such planets as _Mercury_, _Venus_ or _Mars_ anyhow, friend<br />Michael," observed Barbican. "But the inhabitants of _Jupiter_,<br />_Saturn_, _Uranus,_ or _Neptune_, if they bear the same proportion to<br />their planet that we do ours, must certainly be regular Brobdignagians."<br /><br />"Let us keep severely away from all planets of the latter class then,"<br />said Ardan. "I never liked to play the part of Lilliputian myself. But<br />how about the Sun, Barbican? I always had a hankering after the Sun!"<br /><br />"The Sun's volume is about 1-1/3 million times greater than that of the<br />Earth, but his density being only about 1/4, the attraction on his<br />surface is hardly 30 times greater than that of our globe. Still, every<br />proportion observed, the inhabitants of the Sun can't be much less than<br />150 or 160 feet in height."<br /><br />"_Mille tonnerres!_" cried Ardan, "I should be there like Ulysses among<br />the Cyclops! I'll tell you what it is, Barbican; if we ever decide on<br />going to the Sun, we must provide ourselves before hand with a few of<br />your Rodman's Columbiads to frighten off the Solarians!"<br /><br />"Your Columbiads would not do great execution there," observed<br />M'Nicholl; "your bullet would be hardly out of the barrel when it would<br />drop to the surface like a heavy stone pushed off the wall of a house."<br /><br />"Oh! I like that!" laughed the incredulous Ardan.<br /><br />"A little calculation, however, shows the Captain's remark to be<br />perfectly just," said Barbican. "Rodman's ordinary 15 inch Columbiad<br />requires a charge of 100 pounds of mammoth powder to throw a ball of<br />500 pounds weight. What could such a charge do with a ball weighing 30<br />times as much or 15,000 pounds? Reflect on the enormous weight<br />everything must have on the surface of the Sun! Your hat, for instance,<br />would weigh 20 or 30 pounds. Your cigar nearly a pound. In short, your<br />own weight on the Sun's surface would be so great, more than two tons,<br />that if you ever fell you should never be able to pick yourself up<br />again!"<br /><br />"Yes," added the Captain, "and whenever you wanted to eat or drink you<br />should rig up a set of powerful machinery to hoist the eatables and<br />drinkables into your mouth."<br /><br />"Enough of the Sun to-day, boys!" cried Ardan, shrugging his shoulders;<br />"I don't contemplate going there at present. Let us be satisfied with<br />the Moon! There, at least, we shall be of some account!"<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER IX.<br /><br />A LITTLE OFF THE TRACK.<br /><br /><br />Barbican's mind was now completely at rest at least on one subject. The<br />original force of the discharge had been great enough to send the<br />Projectile beyond the neutral line. Therefore, there was no longer any<br />danger of its falling back to the Earth. Therefore, there was no longer<br />any danger of its resting eternally motionless on the point of the<br />counteracting attractions. The next subject to engage his attention was<br />the question: would the Projectile, under the influence of lunar<br />attraction, succeed in reaching its destination?<br /><br />The only way in which it _could_ succeed was by falling through a space<br />of nearly 24,000 miles and then striking the Moon's surface. A most<br />terrific fall! Even taking the lunar attraction to be only the one-sixth<br />of the Earth's, such a fall was simply bewildering to think of. The<br />greatest height to which a balloon ever ascended was seven miles<br />(Glaisher, 1862). Imagine a fall from even that distance! Then imagine a<br />fall from a height of four thousand miles!<br /><br />Yet it was for a fall of this appalling kind on the surface of the Moon<br />that the travellers had now to prepare themselves. Instead of avoiding<br />it, however, they eagerly desired it and would be very much<br />disappointed if they missed it. They had taken the best precautions they<br />could devise to guard against the terrific shock. These were mainly of<br />two kinds: one was intended to counteract as much as possible the<br />fearful results to be expected the instant the Projectile touched the<br />lunar surface; the other, to retard the velocity of the fall itself, and<br />thereby to render it less violent.<br /><br />The best arrangement of the first kind was certainly Barbican's<br />water-contrivance for counteracting the shock at starting, which has<br />been so fully described in our former volume. (See _Baltimore Gun Club_,<br />page 353.) But unfortunately it could be no longer employed. Even if the<br />partitions were in working order, the water--two thousand pounds in<br />weight had been required--was no longer to be had. The little still left<br />in the tanks was of no account for such a purpose. Besides, they had not<br />a single drop of the precious liquid to spare, for they were as yet<br />anything but sanguine regarding the facility of finding water on the<br />Moon's surface.<br /><br />Fortunately, however, as the gentle reader may remember, Barbican,<br />besides using water to break the concussion, had provided the movable<br />disc with stout pillars containing a strong buffing apparatus, intended<br />to protect it from striking the bottom too violently after the<br />destruction of the different partitions. These buffers were still good,<br />and, gravity being as yet almost imperceptible, to put them once more in<br />order and adjust them to the disc was not a difficult task.<br /><br />The travellers set to work at once and soon accomplished it. The<br />different pieces were put together readily--a mere matter of bolts and<br />screws, with plenty of tools to manage them. In a short time the<br />repaired disc rested on its steel buffers, like a table on its legs, or<br />rather like a sofa seat on its springs. The new arrangement was attended<br />with at least one disadvantage. The bottom light being covered up, a<br />convenient view of the Moon's surface could not be had as soon as they<br />should begin to fall in a perpendicular descent. This, however, was only<br />a slight matter, as the side lights would permit the adventurers to<br />enjoy quite as favorable a view of the vast regions of the Moon as is<br />afforded to balloon travellers when looking down on the Earth over the<br />sides of their car.<br /><br />The disc arrangement was completed in about an hour, but it was not till<br />past twelve o'clock before things were restored to their usual order.<br />Barbican then tried to make fresh observations regarding the inclination<br />of the Projectile; but to his very decided chagrin he found that it had<br />not yet turned over sufficiently to commence the perpendicular fall: on<br />the contrary, it even seemed to be following a curve rather parallel<br />with that of the lunar disc. The Queen of the Stars now glittered with a<br />light more dazzling than ever, whilst from an opposite part of the sky<br />the glorious King of Day flooded her with his fires.<br /><br />The situation began to look a little serious.<br /><br />"Shall we ever get there!" asked the Captain.<br /><br />"Let us be prepared for getting there, any how," was Barbican's dubious<br />reply.<br /><br />"You're a pretty pair of suspenders," said Ardan cheerily (he meant of<br />course doubting hesitators, but his fluent command of English sometimes<br />led him into such solecisms). "Certainly we shall get there--and perhaps<br />a little sooner than will be good for us."<br /><br />This reply sharply recalled Barbican to the task he had undertaken, and<br />he now went to work seriously, trying to combine arrangements to break<br />the fall. The reader may perhaps remember Ardan's reply to the Captain<br />on the day of the famous meeting in Tampa.<br /><br />"Your fall would be violent enough," the Captain had urged, "to splinter<br />you like glass into a thousand fragments."<br /><br />"And what shall prevent me," had been Ardan's ready reply, "from<br />breaking my fall by means of counteracting rockets suitably disposed,<br />and let off at the proper time?"<br /><br />The practical utility of this idea had at once impressed Barbican. It<br />could hardly be doubted that powerful rockets, fastened on the outside<br />to the bottom of the Projectile, could, when discharged, considerably<br />retard the velocity of the fall by their sturdy recoil. They could burn<br />in a vacuum by means of oxygen furnished by themselves, as powder burns<br />in the chamber of a gun, or as the volcanoes of the Moon continue their<br />action regardless of the absence of a lunar atmosphere.<br /><br />Barbican had therefore provided himself with rockets enclosed in strong<br />steel gun barrels, grooved on the outside so that they could be screwed<br />into corresponding holes already made with much care in the bottom of<br />the Projectile. They were just long enough, when flush with the floor<br />inside, to project outside by about six inches. They were twenty in<br />number, and formed two concentric circles around the dead light. Small<br />holes in the disc gave admission to the wires by which each of the<br />rockets was to be discharged externally by electricity. The whole effect<br />was therefore to be confined to the outside. The mixtures having been<br />already carefully deposited in each barrel, nothing further need be done<br />than to take away the metallic plugs which had been screwed into the<br />bottom of the Projectile, and replace them by the rockets, every one of<br />which was found to fit its grooved chamber with rigid exactness.<br /><br />This evidently should have been all done before the disc had been<br />finally laid on its springs. But as this had to be lifted up again in<br />order to reach the bottom of the Projectile, more work was to be done<br />than was strictly necessary. Though the labor was not very hard,<br />considering that gravity had as yet scarcely made itself felt, M'Nicholl<br />and Ardan were not sorry to have their little joke at Barbican's<br />expense. The Frenchman began humming<br /><br /> "_Aliquandoque bonus dormitat Homerus,_"<br /><br />to a tune from _Orphee aux Enfers_, and the Captain said something<br />about the Philadelphia Highway Commissioners who pave a street one day,<br />and tear it up the next to lay the gas pipes. But his friends' humor was<br />all lost on Barbican, who was so wrapped up in his work that he probably<br />never heard a word they said.<br /><br />Towards three o'clock every preparation was made, every possible<br />precaution taken, and now our bold adventurers had nothing more to do<br />than watch and wait.<br /><br />The Projectile was certainly approaching the Moon. It had by this time<br />turned over considerably under the influence of attraction, but its own<br />original motion still followed a decidedly oblique direction. The<br />consequence of these two forces might possibly be a tangent, line<br />approaching the edge of the Moon's disc. One thing was certain: the<br />Projectile had not yet commenced to fall directly towards her surface;<br />its base, in which its centre of gravity lay, was still turned away<br />considerably from the perpendicular.<br /><br />Barbican's countenance soon showed perplexity and even alarm. His<br />Projectile was proving intractable to the laws of gravitation. The<br />_unknown_ was opening out dimly before him, the great boundless unknown<br />of the starry plains. In his pride and confidence as a scientist, he had<br />flattered himself with having sounded the consequence of every possible<br />hypothesis regarding the Projectile's ultimate fate: the return to the<br />Earth; the arrival at the Moon; and the motionless dead stop at the<br />neutral point. But here, a new and incomprehensible fourth hypothesis,<br />big with the terrors of the mystic infinite, rose up before his<br />disturbed mind, like a grim and hollow ghost. After a few seconds,<br />however, he looked at it straight in the face without wincing. His<br />companions showed themselves just as firm. Whether it was science that<br />emboldened Barbican, his phlegmatic stoicism that propped up the<br />Captain, or his enthusiastic vivacity that cheered the irrepressible<br />Ardan, I cannot exactly say. But certainly they were all soon talking<br />over the matter as calmly as you or I would discuss the advisability of<br />taking a sail on the lake some beautiful evening in July.<br /><br />Their first remarks were decidedly peculiar and quite characteristic.<br />Other men would have asked themselves where the Projectile was taking<br />them to. Do you think such a question ever occurred to them? Not a bit<br />of it. They simply began asking each other what could have been the<br />cause of this new and strange state of things.<br /><br />"Off the track, it appears," observed Ardan. "How's that?"<br /><br />"My opinion is," answered the Captain, "that the Projectile was not<br />aimed true. Every possible precaution had been taken, I am well aware,<br />but we all know that an inch, a line, even the tenth part of a hair's<br />breadth wrong at the start would have sent us thousands of miles off our<br />course by this time."<br /><br />"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked Ardan.<br /><br />"I don't think there was any error at the start," was the confident<br />reply; "not even so much as a line! We took too many tests proving the<br />absolute perpendicularity of the Columbiad, to entertain the slightest<br />doubt on that subject. Its direction towards the zenith being<br />incontestable, I don't see why we should not reach the Moon when she<br />comes to the zenith."<br /><br />"Perhaps we're behind time," suggested Ardan.<br /><br />"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked the Captain. "You know<br />the Cambridge men said the journey had to be done in 97 hours 13 minutes<br />and 20 seconds. That's as much as to say that if we're not up to time we<br />shall miss the Moon."<br /><br />"Correct," said Barbican. "But we _can't_ be behind time. We started,<br />you know, on December 1st, at 13 minutes and 20 seconds before 11<br />o'clock, and we were to arrive four days later at midnight precisely.<br />To-day is December 5th Gentlemen, please examine your watches. It is now<br />half past three in the afternoon. Eight hours and a half are sufficient<br />to take us to our journey's end. Why should we not arrive there?"<br /><br />"How about being ahead of time?" asked the Captain.<br /><br />"Just so!" said Ardan. "You know we have discovered the initial velocity<br />to have been greater than was expected."<br /><br />"Not at all! not at all!" cried Barbican "A slight excess of velocity<br />would have done no harm whatever had the direction of the Projectile<br />been perfectly true. No. There must have been a digression. We must have<br />been switched off!"<br /><br />"Switched off? By what?" asked both his listeners in one breath.<br /><br />"I can't tell," said Barbican curtly.<br /><br />"Well!" said Ardan; "if Barbican can't tell, there is an end to all<br />further talk on the subject. We're switched off--that's enough for me.<br />What has done it? I don't care. Where are we going to? I don't care.<br />What is the use of pestering our brains about it? We shall soon find<br />out. We are floating around in space, and we shall end by hauling up<br />somewhere or other."<br /><br />But in this indifference Barbican was far from participating. Not that<br />he was not prepared to meet the future with a bold and manly heart. It<br />was his inability to answer his own question that rendered him uneasy.<br />What _had_ switched them off? He would have given worlds for an answer,<br />but his brain sorely puzzled sought one in vain.<br /><br />In the mean time, the Projectile continued to turn its side rather than<br />its base towards the Moon; that is, to assume a lateral rather than a<br />direct movement, and this movement was fully participated in by the<br />multitude of the objects that had been thrown outside. Barbican could<br />even convince himself by sighting several points on the lunar surface,<br />by this time hardly more than fifteen or eighteen thousand miles<br />distant, that the velocity of the Projectile instead of accelerating was<br />becoming more and more uniform. This was another proof that there was<br />no perpendicular fall. However, though the original impulsive force was<br />still superior to the Moon's attraction, the travellers were evidently<br />approaching the lunar disc, and there was every reason to hope that they<br />would at last reach a point where, the lunar attraction at last having<br />the best of it, a decided fall should be the result.<br /><br />The three friends, it need hardly be said, continued to make their<br />observations with redoubled interest, if redoubled interest were<br />possible. But with all their care they could as yet determine nothing<br />regarding the topographical details of our radiant satellite. Her<br />surface still reflected the solar rays too dazzlingly to show the relief<br />necessary for satisfactory observation.<br /><br />Our travellers kept steadily on the watch looking out of the side<br />lights, till eight o'clock in the evening, by which time the Moon had<br />grown so large in their eyes that she covered up fully half the sky. At<br />this time the Projectile itself must have looked like a streak of light,<br />reflecting, as it did, the Sun's brilliancy on the one side and the<br />Moon's splendor on the other.<br /><br />Barbican now took a careful observation and calculated that they could<br />not be much more than 2,000 miles from the object of their journey. The<br />velocity of the Projectile he calculated to be about 650 feet per second<br />or 450 miles an hour. They had therefore still plenty of time to reach<br />the Moon in about four hours. But though the bottom of the Projectile<br />continued to turn towards the lunar surface in obedience to the law of<br />centripetal force, the centrifugal force was still evidently strong<br />enough to change the path which it followed into some kind of curve, the<br />exact nature of which would be exceedingly difficult to calculate.<br /><br />The careful observations that Barbican continued to take did not however<br />prevent him from endeavoring to solve his difficult problem. What _had_<br />switched them off? The hours passed on, but brought no result. That the<br />adventurers were approaching the Moon was evident, but it was just as<br />evident that they should never reach her. The nearest point the<br />Projectile could ever possibly attain would only be the result of two<br />opposite forces, the attractive and the repulsive, which, as was now<br />clear, influenced its motion. Therefore, to land in the Moon was an<br />utter impossibility, and any such idea was to be given up at once and<br />for ever.<br /><br />"_Quand meme_! What of it!" cried Ardan; after some moments' silence.<br />"We're not to land in the Moon! Well! let us do the next best<br />thing--pass close enough to discover her secrets!"<br /><br />But M'Nicholl could not accept the situation so coolly. On the contrary,<br />he decidedly lost his temper, as is occasionally the case with even<br />phlegmatic men. He muttered an oath or two, but in a voice hardly loud<br />enough to reach Barbican's ear. At last, impatient of further restraint,<br />he burst out:<br /><br />"Who the deuce cares for her secrets? To the hangman with her secrets!<br />We started to land in the Moon! That's what's got to be done! That I<br />want or nothing! Confound the darned thing, I say, whatever it was,<br />whether on the Earth or off it, that shoved us off the track!"<br /><br />"On the Earth or off it!" cried Barbican, striking his head suddenly;<br />"now I see it! You're right, Captain! Confound the bolide that we met<br />the first night of our journey!"<br /><br />"Hey?" cried Ardan.<br /><br />"What do you mean?" asked M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"I mean," replied Barbican, with a voice now perfectly calm, and in a<br />tone of quiet conviction, "that our deviation is due altogether to that<br />wandering meteor."<br /><br />"Why, it did not even graze us!" cried Ardan.<br /><br />"No matter for that," replied Barbican. "Its mass, compared to ours, was<br />enormous, and its attraction was undoubtedly sufficiently great to<br />influence our deviation."<br /><br />"Hardly enough to be appreciable," urged M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Right again, Captain," observed Barbican. "But just remember an<br />observation of your own made this very afternoon: an inch, a line, even<br />the tenth part of a hair's breadth wrong at the beginning, in a journey<br />of 240 thousand miles, would be sufficient to make us miss the Moon!"<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER X.<br /><br />THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON.<br /><br /><br />Barbican's happy conjecture had probably hit the nail on the head. The<br />divergency even of a second may amount to millions of miles if you only<br />have your lines long enough. The Projectile had certainly gone off its<br />direct course; whatever the cause, the fact was undoubted. It was a<br />great pity. The daring attempt must end in a failure due altogether to a<br />fortuitous accident, against which no human foresight could have<br />possibly taken precaution. Unless in case of the occurrence of some<br />other most improbable accident, reaching the Moon was evidently now<br />impossible. To failure, therefore, our travellers had to make up their<br />minds.<br /><br />But was nothing to be gained by the trip? Though missing actual contact<br />with the Moon, might they not pass near enough to solve several problems<br />in physics and geology over which scientists had been for a long time<br />puzzling their brains in vain? Even this would be some compensation for<br />all their trouble, courage, and intelligence. As to what was to be their<br />own fate, to what doom were themselves to be reserved--they never<br />appeared to think of such a thing. They knew very well that in the midst<br />of those infinite solitudes they should soon find themselves without<br />air. The slight supply that kept them from smothering could not<br />possibly last more than five or six days longer. Five or six days! What<br />of that? _Quand meme_! as Ardan often exclaimed. Five or six days were<br />centuries to our bold adventurers! At present every second was a year in<br />events, and infinitely too precious to be squandered away in mere<br />preparations for possible contingencies. The Moon could never be<br />reached, but was it not possible that her surface could be carefully<br />observed? This they set themselves at once to find out.<br /><br />The distance now separating them from our Satellite they estimated at<br />about 400 miles. Therefore relatively to their power of discovering the<br />details of her disc, they were still farther off from the Moon than some<br />of our modern astronomers are to-day, when provided with their powerful<br />telescopes.<br /><br />We know, for example, that Lord Rosse's great telescope at Parsonstown,<br />possessing a power of magnifying 6000 times, brings the Moon to within<br />40 miles of us; not to speak of Barbican's great telescope on the summit<br />of Long's Peak, by which the Moon, magnified 48,000 times, was brought<br />within 5 miles of the Earth, where it therefore could reveal with<br />sufficient distinctness every object above 40 feet in diameter.<br /><br />Therefore our adventurers, though at such a comparatively small<br />distance, could not make out the topographical details of the Moon with<br />any satisfaction by their unaided vision. The eye indeed could easily<br />enough catch the rugged outline of these vast depressions improperly<br />called "Seas," but it could do very little more. Its powers of<br />adjustability seemed to fail before the strange and bewildering scene.<br />The prominence of the mountains vanished, not only through the<br />foreshortening, but also in the dazzling radiation produced by the<br />direct reflection of the solar rays. After a short time therefore,<br />completely foiled by the blinding glare, the eye turned itself<br />unwillingly away, as if from a furnace of molten silver.<br /><br />The spherical surface, however, had long since begun to reveal its<br />convexity. The Moon was gradually assuming the appearance of a gigantic<br />egg with the smaller end turned towards the Earth. In the earlier days<br />of her formation, while still in a state of mobility, she had been<br />probably a perfect sphere in shape, but, under the influence of<br />terrestrial gravity operating for uncounted ages, she was drawn at last<br />so much towards the centre of attraction as to resemble somewhat a<br />prolate spheriod. By becoming a satellite, she had lost the native<br />perfect regularity of her outline; her centre of gravity had shifted<br />from her real centre; and as a result of this arrangement, some<br />scientists have drawn the conclusion that the Moon's air and water have<br />been attracted to that portion of her surface which is always invisible<br />to the inhabitants of the Earth.<br /><br />The convexity of her outline, this bulging prominence of her surface,<br />however, did not last long. The travellers were getting too near to<br />notice it. They were beginning to survey the Moon as balloonists survey<br />the Earth. The Projectile was now moving with great rapidity--with<br />nothing like its initial velocity, but still eight or nine times faster<br />than an express train. Its line of movement, however, being oblique<br />instead of direct, was so deceptive as to induce Ardan to flatter<br />himself that they might still reach the lunar surface. He could never<br />persuade himself to believe that they should get so near their aim and<br />still miss it. No; nothing might, could, would or should induce him to<br />believe it, he repeated again and again. But Barbican's pitiless logic<br />left him no reply.<br /><br />"No, dear friend, no. We can reach the Moon only by a fall, and we don't<br />fall. Centripetal force keeps us at least for a while under the lunar<br />influence, but centrifugal force drives us away irresistibly."<br /><br />These words were uttered in a tone that killed Ardan's last and fondest<br />hope.<br /><br /> * * * * *<br /><br />The portion of the Moon they were now approaching was her northern<br />hemisphere, found usually in the lower part of lunar maps. The lens of a<br />telescope, as is well known, gives only the inverted image of the<br />object; therefore, when an upright image is required, an additional<br />glass must be used. But as every additional glass is an additional<br />obstruction to the light, the object glass of a Lunar telescope is<br />employed without a corrector; light is thereby saved, and in viewing the<br />Moon, as in viewing a map, it evidently makes very little difference<br />whether we see her inverted or not. Maps of the Moon therefore, being<br />drawn from the image formed by the telescope, show the north in the<br />lower part, and _vice versa_. Of this kind was the _Mappa<br />Selenographica_, by Beer and Maedler, so often previously alluded to and<br />now carefully consulted by Barbican. The northern hemisphere, towards<br />which they were now rapidly approaching, presented a strong contrast<br />with the southern, by its vast plains and great depressions, checkered<br />here and there by very remarkable isolated mountains.[A]<br /><br />At midnight the Moon was full. This was the precise moment at which the<br />travellers would have landed had not that unlucky bolide drawn them off<br />the track. The Moon was therefore strictly up to time, arriving at the<br />instant rigidly determined by the Cambridge Observatory. She occupied<br />the exact point, to a mathematical nicety, where our 28th parallel<br />crossed the perigee. An observer posted in the bottom of the Columbiad<br />at Stony Hill, would have found himself at this moment precisely under<br />the Moon. The axis of the enormous gun, continued upwards vertically,<br />would have struck the orb of night exactly in her centre.<br /><br />It is hardly necessary to tell our readers that, during this memorable<br />night of the 5th and 6th of December, the travellers had no desire to<br />close their eyes. Could they do so, even if they had desired? No! All<br />their faculties, thoughts, and desires, were concentrated in one single<br />word: "Look!" Representatives of the Earth, and of all humanity past and<br />present, they felt that it was with their eyes that the race of man<br />contemplated the lunar regions and penetrated the secrets of our<br />satellite! A certain indescribable emotion therefore, combined with an<br />undefined sense of responsibility, held possession of their hearts, as<br />they moved silently from window to window.<br /><br />Their observations, recorded by Barbican, were vigorously remade,<br />revised, and re-determined, by the others. To make them, they had<br />telescopes which they now began to employ with great advantage. To<br />regulate and investigate them, they had the best maps of the day.<br /><br />Whilst occupied in this silent work, they could not help throwing a<br />short retrospective glance on the former Observers of the Moon.<br /><br />The first of these was Galileo. His slight telescope magnified only<br />thirty times, still, in the spots flecking the lunar surface, like the<br />eyes checkering a peacock's tail, he was the first to discover mountains<br />and even to measure their heights. These, considering the difficulties<br />under which he labored, were wonderfully accurate, but unfortunately he<br />made no map embodying his observations.<br /><br />A few years afterwards, Hevel of Dantzic, (1611-1688) a Polish<br />astronomer--more generally known as Hevelius, his works being all<br />written in Latin--undertook to correct Galileo's measurements. But as<br />his method could be strictly accurate only twice a month--the periods of<br />the first and second quadratures--his rectifications could be hardly<br />called successful.<br /><br />Still it is to the labors of this eminent astronomer, carried on<br />uninterruptedly for fifty years in his own observatory, that we owe the<br />first map of the Moon. It was published in 1647 under the name of<br />_Selenographia_. He represented the circular mountains by open spots<br />somewhat round in shape, and by shaded figures he indicated the vast<br />plains, or, as he called them, the _seas_, that occupied so much of her<br />surface. These he designated by names taken from our Earth. His map<br />shows you a _Mount Sinai_ the midst of an _Arabia_, an _AEtna_ in the<br />centre of a _Sicily_, _Alps_, _Apennines_, _Carpathians_, a<br />_Mediterranean_, a _Palus Maeolis_, a _Pontus Euxinus_, and a _Caspian<br />Sea_. But these names seem to have been given capriciously and at<br />random, for they never recall any resemblance existing between<br />themselves and their namesakes on our globe. In the wide open spot, for<br />instance, connected on the south with vast continents and terminating in<br />a point, it would be no easy matter to recognize the reversed image of<br />the _Indian Peninsula_, the _Bay of Bengal_, and _Cochin China_.<br />Naturally, therefore, these names were nearly all soon dropped; but<br />another system of nomenclature, proposed by an astronomer better<br />acquainted with the human heart, met with a success that has lasted to<br />the present day.<br /><br />This was Father Riccioli, a Jesuit, and (1598-1671) a contemporary of<br />Hevelius. In his _Astronomia Reformata_, (1665), he published a rough<br />and incorrect map of the Moon, compiled from observations made by<br />Grimaldi of Ferrara; but in designating the mountains, he named them<br />after eminent astronomers, and this idea of his has been carefully<br />carried out by map makers of later times.<br /><br />A third map of the Moon was published at Rome in 1666 by Dominico<br />Cassini of Nice (1625-1712), the famous discoverer of Saturn's<br />satellites. Though somewhat incorrect regarding measurements, it was<br />superior to Riccioli's in execution, and for a long time it was<br />considered a standard work. Copies of this map are still to be found,<br />but Cassini's original copper-plate, preserved for a long time at the<br />_Imprimerie Royale_ in Paris, was at last sold to a brazier, by no less<br />a personage than the Director of the establishment himself, who,<br />according to Arago, wanted to get rid of what he considered useless<br />lumber!<br /><br />La Hire (1640-1718), professor of astronomy in the _College de France_,<br />and an accomplished draughtsman, drew a map of the Moon which was<br />thirteen feet in diameter. This map could be seen long afterwards in the<br />library of St. Genevieve, Paris, but it was never engraved.<br /><br />About 1760, Mayer, a famous German astronomer and the director of the<br />observatory of Goettingen, began the publication of a magnificent map of<br />the Moon, drawn after lunar measurements all rigorously verified by<br />himself. Unfortunately his death in 1762 interrupted a work which would<br />have surpassed in accuracy every previous effort of the kind.<br /><br />Next appears Schroeter of Erfurt (1745-1816), a fine observer (he first<br />discovered the Lunar _Rills_), but a poor draughtsman: his maps are<br />therefore of little value. Lohrman of Dresden published in 1838 an<br />excellent map of the Moon, 15 inches in diameter, accompanied by<br />descriptive text and several charts of particular portions on a larger<br />scale.<br /><br />But this and all other maps were thrown completely into the shade by<br />Beer and Maedler's famous _Mappa Selenographica_, so often alluded to in<br />the course of this work. This map, projected orthographically--that is,<br />one in which all the rays proceeding from the surface to the eye are<br />supposed to be parallel to each other--gives a reproduction of the lunar<br />disc exactly as it appears. The representation of the mountains and<br />plains is therefore correct only in the central portion; elsewhere,<br />north, south, east, or west, the features, being foreshortened, are<br />crowded together, and cannot be compared in measurement with those in<br />the centre. It is more than three feet square; for convenient reference<br />it is divided into four parts, each having a very full index; in short,<br />this map is in all respects a master piece of lunar cartography.[B]<br /><br />After Beer and Maedler, we should allude to Julius Schmitt's (of Athens)<br />excellent selenographic reliefs: to Doctor Draper's, and to Father<br />Secchi's successful application of photography to lunar representation;<br />to De La Rue's (of London) magnificent stereographs of the Moon, to be<br />had at every optician's; to the clear and correct map prepared by<br />Lecouturier and Chapuis in 1860; to the many beautiful pictures of the<br />Moon in various phases of illumination obtained by the Messrs. Bond of<br />Harvard University; to Rutherford's (of New York) unparalleled lunar<br />photographs; and finally to Nasmyth and Carpenter's wonderful work on<br />the Moon, illustrated by photographs of her surface in detail, prepared<br />from models at which they had been laboring for more than a quarter of<br />the century.<br /><br />Of all these maps, pictures, and projections, Barbican had provided<br />himself with only two--Beer and Maedler's in German, and Lecouturier and<br />Chapuis' in French. These he considered quite sufficient for all<br />purposes, and certainly they considerably simplified his labors as an<br />observer.<br /><br />His best optical instruments were several excellent marine telescopes,<br />manufactured especially under his direction. Magnifying the object a<br />hundred times, on the surface of the Earth they would have brought the<br />Moon to within a distance of somewhat less than 2400 miles. But at the<br />point to which our travellers had arrived towards three o'clock in the<br />morning, and which could hardly be more than 12 or 1300 miles from the<br />Moon, these telescopes, ranging through a medium disturbed by no<br />atmosphere, easily brought the lunar surface to within less than 13<br />miles' distance from the eyes of our adventurers.<br /><br />Therefore they should now see objects in the Moon as clearly as people<br />can see the opposite bank of a river that is about 12 miles wide.<br /><br />[Footnote A: In our Map of the Moon, prepared expressly for this work,<br />we have so far improved on Beer and Maedler as to give her surface as it<br />appears to the naked eye: that is, the north is in the north; only we<br />must always remember that the west is and must be on the _right hand_.]<br /><br />[Footnote B: In our Map the _Mappa Selenographica_ is copied as closely<br />and as fully as is necessary for understanding the details of the story.<br />For further information the reader is referred to Nasmyth's late<br />magnificent work: the MOON.]<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER XI.<br /><br />FACT AND FANCY.<br /><br /><br />"Have you ever seen the Moon?" said a teacher ironically one day in<br />class to one of his pupils.<br /><br />"No, sir;" was the pert reply; "but I think I can safely say I've heard<br />it spoken about."<br /><br />Though saying what he considered a smart thing, the pupil was probably<br />perfectly right. Like the immense majority of his fellow beings, he had<br />looked at the Moon, heard her talked of, written poetry about her, but,<br />in the strict sense of the term, he had probably never seen her--that<br />is--scanned her, examined her, surveyed her, inspected her, reconnoitred<br />her--even with an opera glass! Not one in a thousand, not one in ten<br />thousand, has ever examined even the map of our only Satellite. To guard<br />our beloved and intelligent reader against this reproach, we have<br />prepared an excellent reduction of Beer and Maedler's _Mappa_, on which,<br />for the better understanding of what is to follow, we hope he will<br />occasionally cast a gracious eye.<br /><br />When you look at any map of the Moon, you are struck first of all with<br />one peculiarity. Contrary to the arrangement prevailing in Mars and on<br />our Earth, the continents occupy principally the southern hemisphere of<br />the lunar orb. Then these continents are far from presenting such sharp<br />and regular outlines as distinguish the Indian Peninsula, Africa, and<br />South America. On the contrary, their coasts, angular, jagged, and<br />deeply indented, abound in bays and peninsulas. They remind you of the<br />coast of Norway, or of the islands in the Sound, where the land seems to<br />be cut up into endless divisions. If navigation ever existed on the<br />Moon's surface, it must have been of a singularly difficult and<br />dangerous nature, and we can scarcely say which of the two should be<br />more pitied--the sailors who had to steer through these dangerous and<br />complicated passes, or the map-makers who had to designate them on their<br />charts.<br /><br />You will also remark that the southern pole of the Moon is much more<br />_continental_ than the northern. Around the latter, there exists only a<br />slight fringe of lands separated from the other continents by vast<br />"seas." This word "seas"--a term employed by the first lunar map<br />constructors--is still retained to designate those vast depressions on<br />the Moon's surface, once perhaps covered with water, though they are now<br />only enormous plains. In the south, the continents cover nearly the<br />whole hemisphere. It is therefore possible that the Selenites have<br />planted their flag on at least one of their poles, whereas the Parrys<br />and Franklins of England, the Kanes and the Wilkeses of America, the<br />Dumont d'Urvilles and the Lamberts of France, have so far met with<br />obstacles completely insurmountable, while in search of those unknown<br />points of our terrestrial globe.<br /><br />The islands--the next feature on the Moon's surface--are exceedingly<br />numerous. Generally oblong or circular in shape and almost as regular in<br />outline as if drawn with a compass, they form vast archipelagoes like<br />the famous group lying between Greece and Asia Minor, which mythology<br />has made the scene of her earliest and most charming legends. As we gaze<br />at them, the names of Naxos, Tenedos, Milo, and Carpathos rise up before<br />our mind's eye, and we begin looking around for the Trojan fleet and<br />Jason's Argo. This, at least, was Ardan's idea, and at first his eyes<br />would see nothing on the map but a Grecian archipelago. But his<br />companions, sound practical men, and therefore totally devoid of<br />sentiment, were reminded by these rugged coasts of the beetling cliffs<br />of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; so that, where the Frenchman saw the<br />tracks of ancient heroes, the Americans saw only commodious shipping<br />points and favorable sites for trading posts--all, of course, in the<br />purest interest of lunar commerce and industry.<br /><br />To end our hasty sketch of the continental portion of the Moon, we must<br />say a few words regarding her orthography or mountain systems. With a<br />fair telescope you can distinguish very readily her mountain chains, her<br />isolated mountains, her circuses or ring formations, and her rills,<br />cracks and radiating streaks. The character of the whole lunar relief is<br />comprised in these divisions. It is a surface prodigiously reticulated,<br />upheaved and depressed, apparently without the slightest order or<br />system. It is a vast Switzerland, an enormous Norway, where everything<br />is the result of direct plutonic action. This surface, so rugged, craggy<br />and wrinkled, seems to be the result of successive contractions of the<br />crust, at an early period of the planet's existence. The examination of<br />the lunar disc is therefore highly favorable for the study of the great<br />geological phenomena of our own globe. As certain astronomers have<br />remarked, the Moon's surface, though older than the Earth's, has<br />remained younger. That is, it has undergone less change. No water has<br />broken through its rugged elevations, filled up its scowling cavities,<br />and by incessant action tended continuously to the production of a<br />general level. No atmosphere, by its disintegrating, decomposing<br />influence has softened off the rugged features of the plutonic<br />mountains. Volcanic action alone, unaffected by either aqueous or<br />atmospheric forces, can here be seen in all its glory. In other words<br />the Moon looks now as our Earth did endless ages ago, when "she was void<br />and empty and when darkness sat upon the face of the deep;" eons of ages<br />ago, long before the tides of the ocean and the winds of the atmosphere<br />had begun to strew her rough surface with sand and clay, rock and coal,<br />forest and meadow, gradually preparing it, according to the laws of our<br />beneficent Creator, to be at last the pleasant though the temporary<br />abode of Man!<br /><br />Having wandered over vast continents, your eye is attracted by the<br />"seas" of dimensions still vaster. Not only their shape, situation, and<br />look, remind us of our own oceans, but, again like them, they occupy<br />the greater part of the Moon's surface. The "seas," or, more correctly,<br />plains, excited our travellers' curiosity to a very high degree, and<br />they set themselves at once to examine their nature.<br /><br />The astronomer who first gave names to those "seas" in all probability<br />was a Frenchman. Hevelius, however, respected them, even Riccioli did<br />not disturb them, and so they have come down to us. Ardan laughed<br />heartily at the fancies which they called up, and said the whole thing<br />reminded him of one of those "maps of matrimony" that he had once seen<br />or read of in the works of Scudery or Cyrano de Bergerac.<br /><br />"However," he added, "I must say that this map has much more reality in<br />it than could be found in the sentimental maps of the 17th century. In<br />fact, I have no difficulty whatever in calling it the _Map of Life!_<br />very neatly divided into two parts, the east and the west, the masculine<br />and the feminine. The women on the right, and the men on the left!"<br /><br />At such observations, Ardan's companions only shrugged their shoulders.<br />A map of the Moon in their eyes was a map of the Moon, no more, no less;<br />their romantic friend might view it as he pleased. Nevertheless, their<br />romantic friend was not altogether wrong. Judge a little for yourselves.<br /><br />What is the first "sea" you find in the hemisphere on the left? The<br />_Mare Imbrium_ or the Rainy Sea, a fit emblem of our human life, beaten<br />by many a pitiless storm. In a corresponding part of the southern<br />hemisphere you see _Mare Nubium_, the Cloudy Sea, in which our poor<br />human reason so often gets befogged. Close to this lies _Mare Humorum_,<br />the Sea of Humors, where we sail about, the sport of each fitful breeze,<br />"everything by starts and nothing long." Around all, embracing all, lies<br />_Oceanus Procellarum_, the Ocean of Tempests, where, engaged in one<br />continuous struggle with the gusty whirlwinds, excited by our own<br />passions or those of others, so few of us escape shipwreck. And, when<br />disgusted by the difficulties of life, its deceptions, its treacheries<br />and all the other miseries "that flesh is heir to," where do we too<br />often fly to avoid them? To the _Sinus Iridium_ or the _Sinus Roris_,<br />that is Rainbow Gulf and Dewy Gulf whose glittering lights, alas! give<br />forth no real illumination to guide our stumbling feet, whose sun-tipped<br />pinnacles have less substance than a dream, whose enchanting waters all<br />evaporate before we can lift a cup-full to our parched lips! Showers,<br />storms, fogs, rainbows--is not the whole mortal life of man comprised in<br />these four words?<br /><br />Now turn to the hemisphere on the right, the women's side, and you also<br />discover "seas," more numerous indeed, but of smaller dimensions and<br />with gentler names, as more befitting the feminine temperament. First<br />comes _Mare Serenitatis_, the Sea of Serenity, so expressive of the<br />calm, tranquil soul of an innocent maiden. Near it is _Lacus Somniorum_,<br />the Lake of Dreams, in which she loves to gaze at her gilded and rosy<br />future. In the southern division is seen _Mare Nectaris_, the Sea of<br />Nectar, over whose soft heaving billows she is gently wafted by Love's<br />caressing winds, "Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm." Not far<br />off is _Mare Fecunditatis_, the Sea of Fertility, in which she becomes<br />the happy mother of rejoicing children. A little north is _Mare<br />Crisium_, the Sea of Crises where her life and happiness are sometimes<br />exposed to sudden, and unexpected dangers which fortunately, however,<br />seldom end fatally. Far to the left, near the men's side, is _Mare<br />Vaporum_, the Sea of Vapors, into which, though it is rather small, and<br />full of sunken rocks, she sometimes allows herself to wander, moody, and<br />pouting, and not exactly knowing where she wants to go or what she wants<br />to do. Between the two last expands the great _Mare Tranquillitatis_,<br />the Sea of Tranquillity, into whose quiet depths are at last absorbed<br />all her simulated passions, all her futile aspirations, all her<br />unglutted desires, and whose unruffled waters are gliding on forever in<br />noiseless current towards _Lacus Mortis_, the Lake of Death, whose misty<br />shores<br /><br /> "In ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods are girt."<br /><br />So at least Ardan mused as he stooped over Beer and Maedler's map. Did<br />not these strange successive names somewhat justify his flights of<br />fancy? Surely they had a wonderful variety of meaning. Was it by<br />accident or by forethought deep that the two hemispheres of the Moon had<br />been thus so strangely divided, yet, as man to woman, though divided<br />still united, and thus forming even in the cold regions of space a<br />perfect image of our terrestrial existence? Who can say that our<br />romantic French friend was altogether wrong in thus explaining the<br />astute fancies of the old astronomers?<br /><br />His companions, however, it need hardly be said, never saw the "seas" in<br />that light. They looked on them not with sentimental but with<br />geographical eyes. They studied this new world and tried to get it by<br />heart, working at it like a school boy at his lessons. They began by<br />measuring its angles and diameters.<br /><br />To their practical, common sense vision _Mare Nubium_, the Cloudy Sea,<br />was an immense depression of the surface, sprinkled here and there with<br />a few circular mountains. Covering a great portion of that part of the<br />southern hemisphere which lies east of the centre, it occupied a space<br />of about 270 thousand square miles, its central point lying in 15 deg. south<br />latitude and 20 deg. east longitude. Northeast from this lay _Oceanus<br />Procellarum_, the Ocean of Tempests, the most extensive of all the<br />plains on the lunar disc, embracing a surface of about half a million of<br />square miles, its centre being in 10 deg. north and 45 deg. east. From its bosom<br />those wonderful mountains _Kepler_ and _Aristarchus_ lifted their vast<br />ramparts glittering with innumerable streaks radiating in all<br />directions.<br /><br />To the north, in the direction of _Mare Frigoris_, extends _Mare<br />Imbrium_, the Sea of Rains, its central point in 35 deg. north and 20 deg.<br />east. It is somewhat circular in shape, and it covers a space of about<br />300 thousand square miles. South of _Oceanus Procellarum_ and separated<br />from _Mare Nubium_ by a goodly number of ring mountains, lies the little<br />basin of _Mare Humorum_, the Sea of Humors, containing only about 66<br />thousand square miles, its central point having a latitude of 25 deg. south<br />and a longitude of 40 deg. east.<br /><br />On the shores of these great seas three "Gulfs" are easily found: _Sinus<br />Aestuum_, the Gulf of the Tides, northeast of the centre; _Sinus<br />Iridium_, the Gulf of the Rainbows, northeast of the _Mare Imbrium_; and<br />_Sinus Roris_, the Dewy Gulf, a little further northeast. All seem to be<br />small plains enclosed between chains of lofty mountains.<br /><br />The western hemisphere, dedicated to the ladies, according to Ardan, and<br />therefore naturally more capricious, was remarkable for "seas" of<br />smaller dimensions, but much more numerous. These were principally:<br />_Mare Serenitatis_, the Sea of Serenity, 25 deg. north and 20 deg. west,<br />comprising a surface of about 130 thousand square miles; _Mare Crisium_,<br />the Sea of Crises, a round, well defined, dark depression towards the<br />northwestern edge, 17 deg. north 55 deg. west, embracing a surface of 60<br />thousand square miles, a regular Caspian Sea in fact, only that the<br />plateau in which it lies buried is surrounded by a girdle of much higher<br />mountains. Then towards the equator, with a latitude of 5 deg. north and a<br />longitude of 25 deg. west, appears _Mare Tranquillitatis_, the Sea of<br />Tranquillity, occupying about 180 thousand square miles. This<br />communicates on the south with _Mare Nectaris_, the Sea of Nectar,<br />embracing an extent of about 42 thousand square miles, with a mean<br />latitude of 15 deg. south and a longitude of 35 deg. west. Southwest from _Mare<br />Tranquillitatis_, lies _Mare Fecunditatis_, the Sea of Fertility, the<br />greatest in this hemisphere, as it occupies an extent of more than 300<br />thousand square miles, its latitude being 3 deg. south and its longitude 50 deg.<br />west. For away to the north, on the borders of the _Mare Frigoris_, or<br />Icy Sea, is seen the small _Mare Humboldtianum_, or Humboldt Sea, with a<br />surface of about 10 thousand square miles. Corresponding to this in the<br />southern hemisphere lies the _Mare Australe_, or South Sea, whose<br />surface, as it extends along the western rim, is rather difficult to<br />calculate. Finally, right in the centre of the lunar disc, where the<br />equator intersects the first meridian, can be seen _Sinus Medii_, the<br />Central Gulf, the common property therefore of all the hemispheres, the<br />northern and southern, as well as of the eastern and western.<br /><br />Into these great divisions the surface of our satellite resolved itself<br />before the eyes of Barbican and M'Nicholl. Adding up the various<br />measurements, they found that the surface of her visible hemisphere was<br />about 7-1/2 millions of square miles, of which about the two thirds<br />comprised the volcanoes, the mountain chains, the rings, the islands--in<br />short, the land portion of the lunar surface; the other third comprised<br />the "seas," the "lakes," the "marshes," the "bays" or "gulfs," and the<br />other divisions usually assigned to water.<br /><br />To all this deeply interesting information, though the fruit of<br />observation the closest, aided and confirmed by calculation the<br />profoundest, Ardan listened with the utmost indifference. In fact, even<br />his French politeness could not suppress two or three decided yawns,<br />which of course the mathematicians were too absorbed to notice.<br /><br />In their enthusiasm they tried to make him understand that though the<br />Moon is 13-1/2 times smaller than our Earth, she can show more than 50<br />thousand craters, which astronomers have already counted and designated<br />by specific names.<br /><br />"To conclude this portion of our investigation therefore," cried<br />Barbican, clearing his throat, and occupying Aldan's right ear,--"the<br />Moon's surface is a honey combed, perforated, punctured--"<br /><br />"A fistulous, a rugose, salebrous,--" cut in the Captain, close on the<br />left.<br /><br />--"And highly cribriform superficies--" cried Barbican.<br /><br />--"A sieve, a riddle, a colander--" shouted the Captain.<br /><br />--"A skimming dish, a buckwheat cake, a lump of green cheese--" went on<br />Barbican--.<br /><br />--In fact, there is no knowing how far they would have proceeded with<br />their designations, comparisons, and scientific expressions, had not<br />Ardan, driven to extremities by Barbican's last profanity, suddenly<br />jumped up, broken away from his companions, and clapped a forcible<br />extinguisher on their eloquence by putting his hands on their lips and<br />keeping them there awhile. Then striking a grand attitude, he looked<br />towards the Moon and burst out in accents of thrilling indignation:<br /><br />"Pardon, O beautiful Diana of the Ephesians! Pardon, O Phoebe, thou<br />pearl-faced goddess of night beloved of Greece! O Isis, thou sympathetic<br />queen of Nile-washed cities! O Astarte, thou favorite deity of the<br />Syrian hills! O Artemis, thou symbolical daughter of Jupiter and Latona,<br />that is of light and darkness! O brilliant sister of the radiant Apollo!<br />enshrined in the enchanting strains of Virgil and Homer, which I only<br />half learned at college, and therefore unfortunately forget just now!<br />Otherwise what pleasure I should have had in hurling them at the heads<br />of Barbican, M'Nicholl, and every other barbarous iconoclast of the<br />nineteenth century!--"<br /><br />Here he stopped short, for two reasons: first he was out of breath;<br />secondly, he saw that the irrepressible scientists had been too busy<br />making observations of their own to hear a single word of what he had<br />uttered, and were probably totally unconscious that he had spoken at<br />all. In a few seconds his breath came back in full blast, but the idea<br />of talking when only deaf men were listening was so disconcerting as to<br />leave him actually unable to get off another syllable.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER XII.<br /><br />A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE LUNAR MOUNTAINS.<br /><br /><br />I am rather inclined to believe myself that not one word of Ardan's<br />rhapsody had been ever heard by Barbican or M'Nicholl. Long before he<br />had spoken his last words, they had once more become mute as statues,<br />and now were both eagerly watching, pencil in hand, spyglass to eye, the<br />northern lunar hemisphere towards which they were rapidly but indirectly<br />approaching. They had fully made up their minds by this time that they<br />were leaving far behind them the central point which they would have<br />probably reached half an hour ago if they had not been shunted off their<br />course by that inopportune bolide.<br /><br />About half past twelve o'clock, Barbican broke the dead silence by<br />saying that after a careful calculation they were now only about 875<br />miles from the Moon's surface, a distance two hundred miles less in<br />length than the lunar radius, and which was still to be diminished as<br />they advanced further north. They were at that moment ten degrees north<br />of the equator, almost directly over the ridge lying between the _Mare<br />Serenitatis_ and the _Mare Tranquillitatis_. From this latitude all the<br />way up to the north pole the travellers enjoyed a most satisfactory view<br />of the Moon in all directions and under the most favorable conditions.<br />By means of their spyglasses, magnifying a hundred times, they cut down<br />this distance of 875 miles to about 9. The great telescope of the Rocky<br />Mountains, by its enormous magnifying power of 48,000, brought the Moon,<br />it is true, within a distance of 5 miles, or nearly twice as near; but<br />this advantage of nearness was considerably more than counterbalanced by<br />a want of clearness, resulting from the haziness and refractiveness of<br />the terrestrial atmosphere, not to mention those fatal defects in the<br />reflector that the art of man has not yet succeeded in remedying.<br />Accordingly, our travellers, armed with excellent telescopes--of just<br />power enough to be no injury to clearness,--and posted on unequalled<br />vantage ground, began already to distinguish certain details that had<br />probably never been noticed before by terrestrial observers. Even Ardan,<br />by this time quite recovered from his fit of sentiment and probably<br />infected a little by the scientific enthusiasm of his companions, began<br />to observe and note and observe and note, alternately, with all the<br />_sangfroid_ of a veteran astronomer.<br /><br />"Friends," said Barbican, again interrupting a silence that had lasted<br />perhaps ten minutes, "whither we are going I can't say; if we shall ever<br />revisit the Earth, I can't tell. Still, it is our duty so to act in all<br />respects as if these labors of ours were one day to be of service to our<br />fellow-creatures. Let us keep our souls free from every distraction. We<br />are now astronomers. We see now what no mortal eye has ever gazed on<br />before. This Projectile is simply a work room of the great Cambridge<br />Observatory lifted into space. Let us take observations!"<br /><br />With these words, he set to work with a renewed ardor, in which his<br />companions fully participated. The consequence was that they soon had<br />several of the outline maps covered with the best sketches they could<br />make of the Moon's various aspects thus presented under such favorable<br />circumstances. They could now remark not only that they were passing the<br />tenth degree of north latitude, but that the Projectile followed almost<br />directly the twentieth degree of east longitude.<br /><br />"One thing always puzzled me when examining maps of the Moon," observed<br />Ardan, "and I can't say that I see it yet as clearly as if I had thought<br />over the matter. It is this. I could understand, when looking through a<br />lens at an object, why we get only its reversed image--a simple law of<br />optics explains _that_. Therefore, in a map of the Moon, as the bottom<br />means the north and the top the south, why does not the right mean the<br />west and the left the east? I suppose I could have made this out by a<br />little thought, but thinking, that is reflection, not being my forte, it<br />is the last thing I ever care to do. Barbican, throw me a word or two on<br />the subject."<br /><br />"I can see what troubles you," answered Barbican, "but I can also see<br />that one moment's reflection would have put an end to your perplexity.<br />On ordinary maps of the Earth's surface when the north is the top, the<br />right hand must be the east, the left hand the west, and so on. That is<br />simply because we look _down_ from _above_. And such a map seen through<br />a lens will appear reversed in all respects. But in looking at the Moon,<br />that is _up_ from _down_, we change our position so far that our right<br />hand points west and our left east. Consequently, in our reversed map,<br />though the north becomes south, the right remains east, and--"<br /><br />"Enough said! I see it at a glance! Thank you, Barbican. Why did not<br />they make you a professor of astronomy? Your hint will save me a world<br />of trouble."[C]<br /><br />Aided by the _Mappa Selenographica_, the travellers could easily<br />recognize the different portions of the Moon over which they were now<br />moving. An occasional glance at our reduction of this map, given as a<br />frontispiece, will enable the gentle reader to follow the travellers on<br />the line in which they moved and to understand the remarks and<br />observations in which they occasionally indulged.<br /><br />"Where are we now?" asked Ardan.<br /><br />"Over the northern shores of the _Mare Nubium_," replied Barbican. "But<br />we are still too far off to see with any certainty what they are like.<br />What is the _Mare_ itself? A sea, according to the early astronomers? a<br />plain of solid sand, according to later authority? or an immense forest,<br />according to De la Rue of London, so far the Moon's most successful<br />photographer? This gentleman's authority, Ardan, would have given you<br />decided support in your famous dispute with the Captain at the meeting<br />near Tampa, for he says very decidedly that the Moon has an atmosphere,<br />very low to be sure but very dense. This, however, we must find out for<br />ourselves; and in the meantime let us affirm nothing until we have good<br />grounds for positive assertion."<br /><br />_Mare Nubium_, though not very clearly outlined on the maps, is easily<br />recognized by lying directly east of the regions about the centre. It<br />would appear as if this vast plain were sprinkled with immense lava<br />blocks shot forth from the great volcanoes on the right, _Ptolemaeus_,<br />_Alphonse_, _Alpetragius_ and _Arzachel_. But the Projectile advanced so<br />rapidly that these mountains soon disappeared, and the travellers were<br />not long before they could distinguish the great peaks that closed the<br />"Sea" on its northern boundary. Here a radiating mountain showed a<br />summit so dazzling with the reflection of the solar rays that Ardan<br />could not help crying out:<br /><br />"It looks like one of the carbon points of an electric light projected<br />on a screen! What do you call it, Barbican?"<br /><br />"_Copernicus_," replied the President. "Let us examine old<br />_Copernicus_!"<br /><br />This grand crater is deservedly considered one of the greatest of the<br />lunar wonders. It lifts its giant ramparts to upwards of 12,000 feet<br />above the level of the lunar surface. Being quite visible from the Earth<br />and well situated for observation, it is a favorite object for<br />astronomical study; this is particularly the case during the phase<br />existing between Last Quarter and the New Moon, when its vast shadows,<br />projected boldly from the east towards the west, allow its prodigious<br />dimensions to be measured.<br /><br />After _Tycho_, which is situated in the southern hemisphere,<br />_Copernicus_ forms the most important radiating mountain in the lunar<br />disc. It looms up, single and isolated, like a gigantic light-house, on<br />the peninsula separating _Mare Nubium_ from _Oceanus Procellarum_ on one<br />side and from _Mare Imbrium_ on the other; thus illuminating with its<br />splendid radiation three "Seas" at a time. The wonderful complexity of<br />its bright streaks diverging on all sides from its centre presented a<br />scene alike splendid and unique. These streaks, the travellers thought,<br />could be traced further north than in any other direction: they fancied<br />they could detect them even in the _Mare Imbrium_, but this of course<br />might be owing to the point from which they made their observations. At<br />one o'clock in the morning, the Projectile, flying through space, was<br />exactly over this magnificent mountain.<br /><br />In spite of the brilliant sunlight that was blazing around them, the<br />travellers could easily recognize the peculiar features of _Copernicus_.<br />It belongs to those ring mountains of the first class called Circuses.<br />Like _Kepler_ and _Aristarchus_, who rule over _Oceanus Procellarum_,<br />_Copernicus_, when viewed through our telescopes, sometimes glistens so<br />brightly through the ashy light of the Moon that it has been frequently<br />taken for a volcano in full activity. Whatever it may have been once,<br />however, it is certainly nothing more now than, like all the other<br />mountains on the visible side of the Moon, an extinct volcano, only with<br />a crater of such exceeding grandeur and sublimity as to throw utterly<br />into the shade everything like it on our Earth. The crater of Etna is at<br />most little more than a mile across. The crater of _Copernicus_ has a<br />diameter of at least 50 miles. Within it, the travellers could easily<br />discover by their glasses an immense number of terraced ridges, probably<br />landslips, alternating with stratifications resulting from successive<br />eruptions. Here and there, but particularly in the southern side, they<br />caught glimpses of shadows of such intense blackness, projected across<br />the plateau and lying there like pitch spots, that they could not tell<br />them from yawning chasms of incalculable depth. Outside the crater the<br />shadows were almost as deep, whilst on the plains all around,<br />particularly in the west, so many small craters could be detected that<br />the eye in vain attempted to count them.<br /><br />"Many circular mountains of this kind," observed Barbican, "can be seen<br />on the lunar surface, but _Copernicus_, though not one of the greatest,<br />is one of the most remarkable on account of those diverging streaks of<br />bright light that you see radiating from its summit. By looking<br />steadily into its crater, you can see more cones than mortal eye ever<br />lit on before. They are so numerous as to render the interior plateau<br />quite rugged, and were formerly so many openings giving vent to fire and<br />volcanic matter. A curious and very common arrangement of this internal<br />plateau of lunar craters is its lying at a lower level than the external<br />plains, quite the contrary to a terrestrial crater, which generally has<br />its bottom much higher than the level of the surrounding country. It<br />follows therefore that the deep lying curve of the bottom of these ring<br />mountains would give a sphere with a diameter somewhat smaller than the<br />Moon's."<br /><br />"What can be the cause of this peculiarity?" asked M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"I can't tell;" answered Barbican, "but, as a conjecture, I should say<br />that it is probably to the comparatively smaller area of the Moon and<br />the more violent character of her volcanic action that the extremely<br />rugged character of her surface is mainly due."<br /><br />"Why, it's the _Campi Phlegraei_ or the Fire Fields of Naples over<br />again!" cried Ardan suddenly. "There's _Monte Barbaro_, there's the<br />_Solfatara_, there is the crater of _Astroni_, and there is the _Monte<br />Nuovo_, as plain as the hand on my body!"<br /><br />"The great resemblance between the region you speak of and the general<br />surface of the Moon has been often remarked;" observed Barbican, "but<br />it is even still more striking in the neighborhood of _Theophilus_ on<br />the borders of _Mare Nectaris_."<br /><br />"That's _Mare Nectaris_, the gray spot over there on the southwest,<br />isn't it?" asked M'Nicholl; "is there any likelihood of our getting a<br />better view of it?"<br /><br />"Not the slightest," answered Barbican, "unless we go round the Moon and<br />return this way, like a satellite describing its orbit."<br /><br />By this time they had arrived at a point vertical to the mountain<br />centre. _Copernicus's_ vast ramparts formed a perfect circle or rather a<br />pair of concentric circles. All around the mountain extended a dark<br />grayish plain of savage aspect, on which the peak shadows projected<br />themselves in sharp relief. In the gloomy bottom of the crater, whose<br />dimensions are vast enough to swallow Mont Blanc body and bones, could<br />be distinguished a magnificent group of cones, at least half a mile in<br />height and glittering like piles of crystal. Towards the north several<br />breaches could be seen in the ramparts, due probably to a caving in of<br />immense masses accumulated on the summit of the precipitous walls.<br /><br />As already observed, the surrounding plains were dotted with numberless<br />craters mostly of small dimensions, except _Gay Lussac_ on the north,<br />whose crater was about 12 miles in diameter. Towards the southwest and<br />the immediate east, the plain appeared to be very flat, no protuberance,<br />no prominence of any kind lifting itself above the general dead level.<br />Towards the north, on the contrary, as far as where the peninsula<br />jutted on _Oceanus Procellarum_, the plain looked like a sea of lava<br />wildly lashed for a while by a furious hurricane and then, when its<br />waves and breakers and driving ridges were at their wildest, suddenly<br />frozen into solidity. Over this rugged, rumpled, wrinkled surface and in<br />all directions, ran the wonderful streaks whose radiating point appeared<br />to be the summit of _Copernicus_. Many of them appeared to be ten miles<br />wide and hundreds of miles in length.<br /><br />The travellers disputed for some time on the origin of these strange<br />radii, but could hardly be said to have arrived at any conclusion more<br />satisfactory than that already reached by some terrestrial observers.<br /><br />To M'Nicholl's question:<br /><br />"Why can't these streaks be simply prolonged mountain crests reflecting<br />the sun's rays more vividly by their superior altitude and comparative<br />smoothness?"<br /><br />Barbican readily replied:<br /><br />"These streaks _can't_ be mountain crests, because, if they were, under<br />certain conditions of solar illumination they should project<br />_shadows_--a thing which they have never been known to do under any<br />circumstances whatever. In fact, it is only during the period of the<br />full Moon that these streaks are seen at all; as soon as the sun's rays<br />become oblique, they disappear altogether--a proof that their appearance<br />is due altogether to peculiar advantages in their surface for the<br />reflection of light."<br /><br />"Dear boys, will you allow me to give my little guess on the subject?"<br />asked Ardan.<br /><br />His companions were profuse in expressing their desire to hear it.<br /><br />"Well then," he resumed, "seeing that these bright streaks invariably<br />start from a certain point to radiate in all directions, why not suppose<br />them to be streams of lava issuing from the crater and flowing down the<br />mountain side until they cooled?"<br /><br />"Such a supposition or something like it has been put forth by<br />Herschel," replied Barbican; "but your own sense will convince you that<br />it is quite untenable when you consider that lava, however hot and<br />liquid it may be at the commencement of its journey, cannot flow on for<br />hundreds of miles, up hills, across ravines, and over plains, all the<br />time in streams of almost exactly equal width."<br /><br />"That theory of yours holds no more water than mine, Ardan," observed<br />M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Correct, Captain," replied the Frenchman; "Barbican has a trick of<br />knocking the bottom out of every weaker vessel. But let us hear what he<br />has to say on the subject himself. What is your theory. Barbican?"<br /><br />"My theory," said Barbican, "is pretty much the same as that lately<br />presented by an English astronomer, Nasmyth, who has devoted much study<br />and reflection to lunar matters. Of course, I only formulate my theory,<br />I don't affirm it. These streaks are cracks, made in the Moon's surface<br />by cooling or by shrinkage, through which volcanic matter has been<br />forced up by internal pressure. The sinking ice of a frozen lake, when<br />meeting with some sharp pointed rock, cracks in a radiating manner:<br />every one of its fissures then admits the water, which immediately<br />spreads laterally over the ice pretty much as the lava spreads itself<br />over the lunar surface. This theory accounts for the radiating nature of<br />the streaks, their great and nearly equal thickness, their immense<br />length, their inability to cast a shadow, and their invisibility at any<br />time except at or near the Full Moon. Still it is nothing but a theory,<br />and I don't deny that serious objections may be brought against it."<br /><br />"Do you know, dear boys," cried Ardan, led off as usual by the slightest<br />fancy, "do you know what I am thinking of when I look down on the great<br />rugged plains spread out beneath us?"<br /><br />"I can't say, I'm sure," replied Barbican, somewhat piqued at the little<br />attention he had secured for his theory.<br /><br />"Well, what are you thinking of?" asked M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Spillikins!" answered Ardan triumphantly.<br /><br />"Spillikins?" cried his companions, somewhat surprised.<br /><br />"Yes, Spillikins! These rocks, these blocks, these peaks, these streaks,<br />these cones, these cracks, these ramparts, these escarpments,--what are<br />they but a set of spillikins, though I acknowledge on a grand scale? I<br />wish I had a little hook to pull them one by one!"<br /><br />[Illustration: AN IMMENSE BATTLEFIELD.]<br /><br />"Oh, do be serious, Ardan!" cried Barbican, a little impatiently.<br /><br />"Certainly," replied Ardan. "Let us be serious, Captain, since<br />seriousness best befits the subject in hand. What do you think of<br />another comparison? Does not this plain look like an immense battle<br />field piled with the bleaching bones of myriads who had slaughtered each<br />other to a man at the bidding of some mighty Caesar? What do you think<br />of that lofty comparison, hey?"<br /><br />"It is quite on a par with the other," muttered Barbican.<br /><br />"He's hard to please, Captain," continued Ardan, "but let us try him<br />again! Does not this plain look like--?"<br /><br />"My worthy friend," interrupted Barbican, quietly, but in a tone to<br />discourage further discussion, "what you think the plain _looks like_ is<br />of very slight import, as long as you know no more than a child what it<br />really _is_!"<br /><br />"Bravo, Barbican! well put!" cried the irrepressible Frenchman. "Shall I<br />ever realize the absurdity of my entering into an argument with a<br />scientist!"<br /><br />But this time the Projectile, though advancing northward with a pretty<br />uniform velocity, had neither gained nor lost in its nearness to the<br />lunar disc. Each moment altering the character of the fleeting landscape<br />beneath them, the travellers, as may well be imagined, never thought of<br />taking an instant's repose. At about half past one, looking to their<br />right on the west, they saw the summits of another mountain; Barbican,<br />consulting his map, recognized _Eratosthenes_.<br /><br />This was a ring mountain, about 33 miles in diameter, having, like<br />_Copernicus_, a crater of immense profundity containing central cones.<br />Whilst they were directing their glasses towards its gloomy depths,<br />Barbican mentioned to his friends Kepler's strange idea regarding the<br />formation of these ring mountains. "They must have been constructed," he<br />said, "by mortal hands."<br /><br />"With what object?" asked the Captain.<br /><br />"A very natural one," answered Barbican. "The Selenites must have<br />undertaken the immense labor of digging these enormous pits at places of<br />refuge in which they could protect themselves against the fierce solar<br />rays that beat against them for 15 days in succession!"<br /><br />"Not a bad idea, that of the Selenites!" exclaimed Ardan.<br /><br />"An absurd idea!" cried M'Nicholl. "But probably Kepler never knew the<br />real dimensions of these craters. Barbican knows the trouble and time<br />required to dig a well in Stony Hill only nine hundred feet deep. To dig<br />out a single lunar crater would take hundreds and hundreds of years, and<br />even then they should be giants who would attempt it!"<br /><br />"Why so?" asked Ardan. "In the Moon, where gravity is six times less<br />than on the Earth, the labor of the Selenites can't be compared with<br />that of men like us."<br /><br />"But suppose a Selenite to be six times smaller than a man like us!"<br />urged M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"And suppose a Selenite never had an existence at all!" interposed<br />Barbican with his usual success in putting an end to the argument. "But<br />never mind the Selenites now. Observe _Eratosthenes_ as long as you have<br />the opportunity."<br /><br />"Which will not be very long," said M'Nicholl. "He is already sinking<br />out of view too far to the right to be carefully observed."<br /><br />"What are those peaks beyond him?" asked Ardan.<br /><br />"The _Apennines_," answered Barbican; "and those on the left are the<br />_Carpathians_."<br /><br />"I have seen very few mountain chains or ranges in the Moon," remarked<br />Ardan, after some minutes' observation.<br /><br />"Mountains chains are not numerous in the Moon," replied Barbican, "and<br />in that respect her oreographic system presents a decided contrast with<br />that of the Earth. With us the ranges are many, the craters few; in the<br />Moon the ranges are few and the craters innumerable."<br /><br />Barbican might have spoken of another curious feature regarding the<br />mountain ranges: namely, that they are chiefly confined to the northern<br />hemisphere, where the craters are fewest and the "seas" the most<br />extensive.<br /><br />For the benefit of those interested, and to be done at once with this<br />part of the subject, we give in the following little table a list of the<br />chief lunar mountain chains, with their latitude, and respective<br />heights in English feet.<br /><br /> _Name._ _Degrees of Latitude._ _Height._<br /><br /> { _Altai Mountains_ 17 deg. to 28 13,000ft.<br />Southern { _Cordilleras_ 10 to 20 12,000<br />Hemisphere. { _Pyrenees_ 8 to 18 12,000<br /> { _Riphean_ 5 to 10 2,600<br /><br /> { _Haemus_ 10 to 20 6,300<br /> { _Carpathian_ 15 to 19 6,000<br /> { _Apennines_ 14 to 27 18,000<br />Northern { _Taurus_ 25 to 34 8,500<br />Hemisphere. { _Hercynian_ 17 to 29 3,400<br /> { _Caucasus_ 33 to 40 17,000<br /> { _Alps_ 42 to 30 10,000<br /><br />Of these different chains, the most important is that of the<br />_Apennines_, about 450 miles long, a length, however, far inferior to<br />that of many of the great mountain ranges of our globe. They skirt the<br />western shores of the _Mare Imbrium_, over which they rise in immense<br />cliffs, 18 or 20 thousand feet in height, steep as a wall and casting<br />over the plain intensely black shadows at least 90 miles long. Of Mt.<br />_Huyghens_, the highest in the group, the travellers were just barely<br />able to distinguish the sharp angular summit in the far west. To the<br />east, however, the _Carpathians_, extending from the 18th to 30th<br />degrees of east longitude, lay directly under their eyes and could be<br />examined in all the peculiarities of their distribution.<br /><br />Barbican proposed a hypothesis regarding the formation of those<br />mountains, which his companions thought at least as good as any other.<br />Looking carefully over the _Carpathians_ and catching occasional<br />glimpses of semi-circular formations and half domes, he concluded that<br />the chain must have formerly been a succession of vast craters. Then had<br />come some mighty internal discharge, or rather the subsidence to which<br />_Mare Imbrium_ is due, for it immediately broke off or swallowed up one<br />half of those mountains, leaving the other half steep as a wall on one<br />side and sloping gently on the other to the level of the surrounding<br />plains. The _Carpathians_ were therefore pretty nearly in the same<br />condition as the crater mountains _Ptolemy_, _Alpetragius_ and<br />_Arzachel_ would find themselves in, if some terrible cataclysm, by<br />tearing away their eastern ramparts, had turned them into a chain of<br />mountains whose towering cliffs would nod threateningly over the western<br />shores of _Mare Nubium_. The mean height of the _Carpathians_ is about<br />6,000 feet, the altitude of certain points in the Pyrenees such as the<br />_Port of Pineda_, or _Roland's Breach_, in the shadow of _Mont Perdu_.<br />The northern slopes of the _Carpathians_ sink rapidly towards the shores<br />of the vast _Mare Imbrium_.<br /><br />Towards two o'clock in the morning, Barbican calculated the Projectile<br />to be on the 20th northern parallel, and therefore almost immediately<br />over the little ring mountain called _Pytheas_, about 4600 feet in<br />height. The distance of the travellers from the Moon at this point<br />could not be more than about 750 miles, reduced to about 7 by means of<br />their excellent telescopes.<br /><br />_Mare Imbrium_, the Sea of Rains here revealed itself in all its<br />vastness to the eyes of the travellers, though it must be acknowledged<br />that the immense depression so called, did not afford them a very clear<br />idea regarding its exact boundaries. Right ahead of them rose _Lambert_<br />about a mile in height; and further on, more to the left, in the<br />direction of _Oceanus Procellarum_, _Euler_ revealed itself by its<br />glittering radiations. This mountain, of about the same height as<br />_Lambert_, had been the object of very interesting calculations on the<br />part of Schroeter of Erfurt. This keen observer, desirous of inquiring<br />into the probable origin of the lunar mountains, had proposed to himself<br />the following question: Does the volume of the crater appear to be equal<br />to that of the surrounding ramparts? His calculations showing him that<br />this was generally the case, he naturally concluded that these ramparts<br />must therefore have been the product of a single eruption, for<br />successive eruptions of volcanic matter would have disturbed this<br />correlation. _Euler_ alone, he found, to be an exception to this general<br />law, as the volume of its crater appeared to be twice as great as that<br />of the mass surrounding it. It must therefore have been formed by<br />several eruptions in succession, but in that case what had become of the<br />ejected matter?<br /><br />Theories of this nature and all manner of scientific questions were, of<br />course, perfectly permissible to terrestrial astronomers laboring under<br />the disadvantage of imperfect instruments. But Barbican could not think<br />of wasting his time in any speculation of the kind, and now, seeing that<br />his Projectile perceptibly approached the lunar disc, though he<br />despaired of ever reaching it, he was more sanguine than ever of being<br />soon able to discover positively and unquestionably some of the secrets<br />of its formation.<br /><br />[Footnote C: We must again remind our readers that, in our map, though<br />every thing is set down as it appears to the eye not as it is reversed<br />by the telescope, still, for the reason made so clear by Barbican, the<br />right hand side must be the west and the left the east.]<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER XIII.<br /><br />LUNAR LANDSCAPES<br /><br /><br />At half past two in the morning of December 6th, the travellers crossed<br />the 30th northern parallel, at a distance from the lunar surface of 625<br />miles, reduced to about 6 by their spy-glasses. Barbican could not yet<br />see the least probability of their landing at any point of the disc. The<br />velocity of the Projectile was decidedly slow, but for that reason<br />extremely puzzling. Barbican could not account for it. At such a<br />proximity to the Moon, the velocity, one would think, should be very<br />great indeed to be able to counteract the lunar attraction. Why did it<br />not fall? Barbican could not tell; his companions were equally in the<br />dark. Ardan said he gave it up. Besides they had no time to spend in<br />investigating it. The lunar panorama was unrolling all its splendors<br />beneath them, and they could not bear to lose one of its slightest<br />details.<br /><br />The lunar disc being brought within a distance of about six miles by the<br />spy-glasses, it is a fair question to ask, what _could_ an aeronaut at<br />such an elevation from our Earth discover on its surface? At present<br />that question can hardly be answered, the most remarkable balloon<br />ascensions never having passed an altitude of five miles under<br />circumstances favorable for observers. Here, however, is an account,<br />carefully transcribed from notes taken on the spot, of what Barbican and<br />his companions _did_ see from their peculiar post of observation.<br /><br />Varieties of color, in the first place, appeared here and there upon the<br />disc. Selenographers are not quite agreed as to the nature of these<br />colors. Not that such colors are without variety or too faint to be<br />easily distinguished. Schmidt of Athens even says that if our oceans on<br />earth were all evaporated, an observer in the Moon would hardly find the<br />seas and continents of our globe even so well outlined as those of the<br />Moon are to the eye of a terrestrial observer. According to him, the<br />shade of color distinguishing those vast plains known as "seas" is a<br />dark gray dashed with green and brown,--a color presented also by a few<br />of the great craters.<br /><br />This opinion of Schmidt's, shared by Beer and Maedler, Barbican's<br />observations now convinced him to be far better founded than that of<br />certain astronomers who admit of no color at all being visible on the<br />Moon's surface but gray. In certain spots the greenish tint was quite<br />decided, particularly in _Mare Serenitatis_ and _Mare Humorum,_ the very<br />localities where Schmidt had most noticed it. Barbican also remarked<br />that several large craters, of the class that had no interior cones,<br />reflected a kind of bluish tinge, somewhat like that given forth by a<br />freshly polished steel plate. These tints, he now saw enough to convince<br />him, proceeded really from the lunar surface, and were not due, as<br />certain astronomers asserted, either to the imperfections of the<br />spy-glasses, or to the interference of the terrestrial atmosphere. His<br />singular opportunity for correct observation allowed him to entertain no<br />doubt whatever on the subject. Hampered by no atmosphere, he was free<br />from all liability to optical illusion. Satisfied therefore as to the<br />reality of these tints, he considered such knowledge a positive gain to<br />science. But that greenish tint--to what was it due? To a dense tropical<br />vegetation maintained by a low atmosphere, a mile or so in thickness?<br />Possibly. But this was another question that could not be answered at<br />present.<br /><br />Further on he could detect here and there traces of a decidedly ruddy<br />tint. Such a shade he knew had been already detected in the _Palus<br />Somnii_, near _Mare Crisium_, and in the circular area of _Lichtenberg_,<br />near the _Hercynian Mountains_, on the eastern edge of the Moon. To what<br />cause was this tint to be attributed? To the actual color of the surface<br />itself? Or to that of the lava covering it here and there? Or to the<br />color resulting from the mixture of other colors seen at a distance too<br />great to allow of their being distinguished separately? Impossible to<br />tell.<br /><br />Barbican and his companions succeeded no better at a new problem that<br />soon engaged their undivided attention. It deserves some detail.<br /><br />Having passed _Lambert_, being just over _Timocharis_, all were<br />attentively gazing at the magnificent crater of _Archimedes_ with a<br />diameter of 52 miles across and ramparts more than 5000 feet in height,<br />when Ardan startled his companions by suddenly exclaiming:<br /><br />"Hello! Cultivated fields as I am a living man!"<br /><br />"What do you mean by your cultivated fields?" asked M'Nicholl sourly,<br />wiping his glasses and shrugging his shoulders.<br /><br />"Certainly cultivated fields!" replied Ardan. "Don't you see the<br />furrows? They're certainly plain enough. They are white too from<br />glistening in the sun, but they are quite different from the radiating<br />streaks of _Copernicus_. Why, their sides are perfectly parallel!"<br /><br />"Where are those furrows?" asked M'Nicholl, putting his glasses to his<br />eye and adjusting the focus.<br /><br />"You can see them in all directions," answered Ardan; "but two are<br />particularly visible: one running north from _Archimedes_, the other<br />south towards the _Apennines_."<br /><br />M'Nicholl's face, as he gazed, gradually assumed a grin which soon<br />developed into a snicker, if not a positive laugh, as he observed to<br />Ardan:<br /><br />"Your Selenites must be Brobdignagians, their oxen Leviathans, and their<br />ploughs bigger than Marston's famous cannon, if these are furrows!"<br /><br />"How's that, Barbican?" asked Ardan doubtfully, but unwilling to submit<br />to M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"They're not furrows, dear friend," said Barbican, "and can't be,<br />either, simply on account of their immense size. They are what the<br />German astronomers called _Rillen_; the French, _rainures_, and the<br />English, _grooves_, _canals_, _clefts_, _cracks_, _chasms_, or<br />_fissures_."<br /><br />"You have a good stock of names for them anyhow," observed Ardan, "if<br />that does any good."<br /><br />"The number of names given them," answered Barbican, "shows how little<br />is really known about them. They have been observed in all the level<br />portion of the Moon's surface. Small as they appear to us, a little<br />calculation must convince you that they are in some places hundreds of<br />miles in length, a mile in width and probably in many points several<br />miles in depth. Their width and depth, however, vary, though their<br />sides, so far as observed, are always rigorously parallel. Let us take a<br />good look at them."<br /><br />Putting the glass to his eye, Barbican examined the clefts for some time<br />with close attention. He saw that their banks were sharp edged and<br />extremely steep. In many places they were of such geometrical regularity<br />that he readily excused Gruithuysen's idea of deeming them to be<br />gigantic earthworks thrown up by the Selenite engineers. Some of them<br />were as straight as if laid out with a line, others were curved a little<br />here and there, though still maintaining the strict parallelism of their<br />sides. These crossed each other; those entered craters and came out at<br />the other side. Here, they furrowed annular plateaus, such as<br />_Posidonius_ or _Petavius_. There, they wrinkled whole seas, for<br />instance, _Mare Serenitatis_.<br /><br />These curious peculiarities of the lunar surface had interested the<br />astronomic mind to a very high degree at their first discovery, and have<br />proved to be very perplexing problems ever since. The first observers do<br />not seem to have noticed them. Neither Hevelius, nor Cassini, nor La<br />Hire, nor Herschel, makes a single remark regarding their nature.<br /><br />It was Schroeter, in 1789, who called the attention of scientists to<br />them for the first time. He had only 11 to show, but Lohrmann soon<br />recorded 75 more. Pastorff, Gruithuysen, and particularly Beer and<br />Maedler were still more successful, but Julius Schmidt, the famous<br />astronomer of Athens, has raised their number up to 425, and has even<br />published their names in a catalogue. But counting them is one thing,<br />determining their nature is another. They are not fortifications,<br />certainly: and cannot be ancient beds of dried up rivers, for two very<br />good and sufficient reasons: first, water, even under the most favorable<br />circumstances on the Moon's surface, could have never ploughed up such<br />vast channels; secondly, these chasms often traverse lofty craters<br />through and through, like an immense railroad cutting.<br /><br />At these details, Ardan's imagination became unusually excited and of<br />course it was not without some result. It even happened that he hit on<br />an idea that had already suggested itself to Schmidt of Athens.<br /><br />"Why not consider them," he asked, "to be the simple phenomena of<br />vegetation?"<br /><br />"What do you mean?" asked Barbican.<br /><br />"Rows of sugar cane?" suggested M'Nicholl with a snicker.<br /><br />"Not exactly, my worthy Captain," answered Ardan quietly, "though you<br />were perhaps nearer to the mark than you expected. I don't mean exactly<br />rows of sugar cane, but I do mean vast avenues of trees--poplars, for<br />instance--planted regularly on each side of a great high road."<br /><br />"Still harping on vegetation!" said the Captain. "Ardan, what a splendid<br />historian was spoiled in you! The less you know about your facts, the<br />readier you are to account for them."<br /><br />"_Ma foi_," said Ardan simply, "I do only what the greatest of your<br />scientific men do--that is, guess. There is this difference however<br />between us--I call my guesses, guesses, mere conjecture;--they dignify<br />theirs as profound theories or as astounding discoveries!"<br /><br />"Often the case, friend Ardan, too often the case," said Barbican.<br /><br />"In the question under consideration, however," continued the Frenchman,<br />"my conjecture has this advantage over some others: it explains why<br />these rills appear and seem to disappear at regular intervals."<br /><br />"Let us hear the explanation," said the Captain.<br /><br />"They become invisible when the trees lose their leaves, and they<br />reappear when they resume them."<br /><br />"His explanation is not without ingenuity," observed Barbican to<br />M'Nicholl, "but, my dear friend," turning to Ardan, "it is hardly<br />admissible."<br /><br />"Probably not," said Ardan, "but why not?"<br /><br />"Because as the Sun is nearly always vertical to the lunar equator, the<br />Moon can have no change of seasons worth mentioning; therefore her<br />vegetation can present none of the phenomena that you speak of."<br /><br />This was perfectly true. The slight obliquity of the Moon's axis, only<br />1-1/2 deg., keeps the Sun in the same altitude the whole year around. In the<br />equatorial regions he is always vertical, and in the polar he is never<br />higher than the horizon. Therefore, there can be no change of seasons;<br />according to the latitude, it is a perpetual winter, spring, summer, or<br />autumn the whole year round. This state of things is almost precisely<br />similar to that which prevails in Jupiter, who also stands nearly<br />upright in his orbit, the inclination of his axis being only about 3 deg..<br /><br />But how to account for the _grooves_? A very hard nut to crack. They<br />must certainly be a later formation than the craters and the rings, for<br />they are often found breaking right through the circular ramparts.<br />Probably the latest of all lunar features, the results of the last<br />geological epochs, they are due altogether to expansion or shrinkage<br />acting on a large scale and brought about by the great forces of nature,<br />operating after a manner altogether unknown on our earth. Such at least<br />was Barbican's idea.<br /><br />"My friends," he quietly observed, "without meaning to put forward any<br />pretentious claims to originality, but by simply turning to account some<br />advantages that have never before befallen contemplative mortal eye, why<br />not construct a little hypothesis of our own regarding the nature of<br />these grooves and the causes that gave them birth? Look at that great<br />chasm just below us, somewhat to the right. It is at least fifty or<br />sixty miles long and runs along the base of the _Apennines_ in a line<br />almost perfectly straight. Does not its parallelism with the mountain<br />chain suggest a causative relation? See that other mighty _rill_, at<br />least a hundred and fifty miles long, starting directly north of it and<br />pursuing so true a course that it cleaves _Archimedes_ almost cleanly<br />into two. The nearer it lies to the mountain, as you perceive, the<br />greater its width; as it recedes in either direction it grows narrower.<br />Does not everything point out to one great cause of their origin? They<br />are simple crevasses, like those so often noticed on Alpine glaciers,<br />only that these tremendous cracks in the surface are produced by the<br />shrinkage of the crust consequent on cooling. Can we point out some<br />analogies to this on the Earth? Certainly. The defile of the Jordan,<br />terminating in the awful depression of the Dead Sea, no doubt occurs to<br />you on the moment. But the _Yosemite Valley_, as I saw it ten years ago,<br />is an apter comparison. There I stood on the brink of a tremendous chasm<br />with perpendicular walls, a mile in width, a mile in depth and eight<br />miles in length. Judge if I was astounded! But how should we feel it,<br />when travelling on the lunar surface, we should suddenly find ourselves<br />on the brink of a yawning chasm two miles wide, fifty miles long, and so<br />fathomless in sheer vertical depth as to leave its black profundities<br />absolutely invisible in spite of the dazzling sunlight!"<br /><br />"I feel my flesh already crawling even in the anticipation!" cried<br />Ardan.<br /><br />"I shan't regret it much if we never get to the Moon," growled<br />M'Nicholl; "I never hankered after it anyhow!"<br /><br />By this time the Projectile had reached the fortieth degree of lunar<br />latitude, and could hardly be further than five hundred miles from the<br />surface, a distance reduced to about 5 miles by the travellers' glasses.<br />Away to their left appeared _Helicon_, a ring mountain about 1600 feet<br />high; and still further to the left the eye could catch a glimpse of the<br />cliffs enclosing a semi-elliptical portion of _Mare Imbrium_, called the<br />_Sinus Iridium_, or Bay of the Rainbows.<br /><br />In order to allow astronomers to make complete observations on the lunar<br />surface, the terrestrial atmosphere should possess a transparency<br />seventy times greater than its present power of transmission. But in the<br />void through which the Projectile was now floating, no fluid whatever<br />interposed between the eye of the observer and the object observed.<br />Besides, the travellers now found themselves at a distance that had<br />never before been reached by the most powerful telescopes, including<br />even Lord Rosse's and the great instrument on the Rocky Mountains.<br />Barbican was therefore in a condition singularly favorable to resolve<br />the great question concerning the Moon's inhabitableness. Nevertheless,<br />the solution still escaped him. He could discover nothing around him but<br />a dreary waste of immense plains, and towards the north, beneath him,<br />bare mountains of the aridest character.<br /><br />Not the slightest vestige of man's work could be detected over the vast<br />expanse. Not the slightest sign of a ruin spoke of his ever having been<br />there. Nothing betrayed the slightest trace of the development of animal<br />life, even in an inferior degree. No movement. Not the least glimpse of<br />vegetation. Of the three great kingdoms that hold dominion on the<br />surface of the globe, the mineral, the vegetable and the animal, one<br />alone was represented on the lunar sphere: the mineral, the whole<br />mineral, and nothing but the mineral.<br /><br />"Why!" exclaimed Ardan, with a disconcerted look, after a long and<br />searching examination, "I can't find anybody. Everything is as<br />motionless as a street in Pompeii at 4 o'clock in the morning!"<br /><br />[Illustration: THE SOLUTION STILL ESCAPED HIM.]<br /><br />"Good comparison, friend Ardan;" observed M'Nicholl. "Lava, slag,<br />volcanic eminences, vitreous matter glistening like ice, piles of<br />scoria, pitch black shadows, dazzling streaks, like rivers of light<br />breaking over jagged rocks--these are now beneath my eye--these alone I<br />can detect--not a man--not an animal--not a tree. The great American<br />Desert is a land of milk and honey in comparison with the joyless orb<br />over which we are now moving. However, even yet we can predicate<br />nothing positive. The atmosphere may have taken refuge in the depths of<br />the chasms, in the interior of the craters, or even on the opposite side<br />of the Moon, for all we know!"<br /><br />"Still we must remember," observed Barbican, "that even the sharpest eye<br />cannot detect a man at a distance greater than four miles and a-half,<br />and our glasses have not yet brought us nearer than five."<br /><br />"Which means to say," observed Ardan, "that though we can't see the<br />Selenites, they can see our Projectile!"<br /><br />But matters had not improved much when, towards four o'clock in the<br />morning, the travellers found themselves on the 50th parallel, and at a<br />distance of only about 375 miles from the lunar surface. Still no trace<br />of the least movement, or even of the lowest form of life.<br /><br />"What peaked mountain is that which we have just passed on our right?"<br />asked Ardan. "It is quite remarkable, standing as it does in almost<br />solitary grandeur in the barren plain."<br /><br />"That is _Pico_," answered Barbican. "It is at least 8000 feet high and<br />is well known to terrestrial astronomers as well by its peculiar shadow<br />as on account of its comparative isolation. See the collection of<br />perfectly formed little craters nestling around its base."<br /><br />"Barbican," asked M'Nicholl suddenly, "what peak is that which lies<br />almost directly south of _Pico_? I see it plainly, but I can't find it<br />on my map."<br /><br />"I have remarked that pyramidal peak myself," replied Barbican; "but I<br />can assure you that so far it has received no name as yet, although it<br />is likely enough to have been distinguished by the terrestrial<br />astronomers. It can't be less than 4000 feet in height."<br /><br />"I propose we called it _Barbican_!" cried Ardan enthusiastically.<br /><br />"Agreed!" answered M'Nicholl, "unless we can find a higher one."<br /><br />"We must be before-hand with Schmidt of Athens!" exclaimed Ardan. "He<br />will leave nothing unnamed that his telescope can catch a glimpse of."<br /><br />"Passed unanimously!" cried M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"And officially recorded!" added the Frenchman, making the proper entry<br />on his map.<br /><br />"_Salve, Mt. Barbican!_" then cried both gentlemen, rising and taking<br />off their hats respectfully to the distant peak.<br /><br />"Look to the west!" interrupted Barbican, watching, as usual, while his<br />companions were talking, and probably perfectly unconscious of what they<br />were saying; "directly to the west! Now tell me what you see!"<br /><br />"I see a vast valley!" answered M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Straight as an arrow!" added Ardan.<br /><br />"Running through lofty mountains!" cried M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Cut through with a pair of saws and scooped out with a chisel!" cried<br />Ardan.<br /><br />"See the shadows of those peaks!" cried M'Nicholl catching fire at the<br />sight. "Black, long, and sharp as if cast by cathedral spires!"<br /><br />"Oh! ye crags and peaks!" burst forth Ardan; "how I should like to catch<br />even a faint echo of the chorus you could chant, if a wild storm roared<br />over your beetling summits! The pine forests of Norwegian mountains<br />howling in midwinter would not be an accordeon in comparison!"<br /><br />"Wonderful instance of subsidence on a grand scale!" exclaimed the<br />Captain, hastily relapsing into science.<br /><br />"Not at all!" cried the Frenchman, still true to his colors; "no<br />subsidence there! A comet simply came too close and left its mark as it<br />flew past."<br /><br />"Fanciful exclamations, dear friends," observed Barbican; "but I'm not<br />surprised at your excitement. Yonder is the famous _Valley of the Alps_,<br />a standing enigma to all selenographers. How it could have been formed,<br />no one can tell. Even wilder guesses than yours, Ardan, have been<br />hazarded on the subject. All we can state positively at present<br />regarding this wonderful formation, is what I have just recorded in my<br />note-book: the _Valley of the Alps_ is about 5 mile wide and 70 or 80<br />long: it is remarkably flat and free from _debris_, though the mountains<br />on each side rise like walls to the height of at least 10,000<br />feet.--Over the whole surface of our Earth I know of no natural<br />phenomenon that can be at all compared with it."<br /><br />"Another wonder almost in front of us!" cried Ardan. "I see a vast lake<br />black as pitch and round as a crater; it is surrounded by such lofty<br />mountains that their shadows reach clear across, rendering the interior<br />quite invisible!"<br /><br />"That's _Plato_;" said M'Nicholl; "I know it well; it's the darkest spot<br />on the Moon: many a night I gazed at it from my little observatory in<br />Broad Street, Philadelphia."<br /><br />"Right, Captain," said Barbican; "the crater _Plato_, is, indeed,<br />generally considered the blackest spot on the Moon, but I am inclined to<br />consider the spots _Grimaldi_ and _Riccioli_ on the extreme eastern edge<br />to be somewhat darker. If you take my glass, Ardan, which is of somewhat<br />greater power than yours, you will distinctly see the bottom of the<br />crater. The reflective power of its plateau probably proceeds from the<br />exceedingly great number of small craters that you can detect there."<br /><br />"I think I see something like them now," said Ardan. "But I am sorry the<br />Projectile's course will not give us a vertical view."<br /><br />"Can't be helped!" said Barbican; "we must go where it takes us. The day<br />may come when man can steer the projectile or the balloon in which he is<br />shut up, in any way he pleases, but that day has not come yet!"<br /><br />Towards five in the morning, the northern limit of _Mare Imbrium_ was<br />finally passed, and _Mare Frigoris_ spread its frost-colored plains<br />far to the right and left. On the east the travellers could easily see<br />the ring-mountain _Condamine_, about 4000 feet high, while a little<br />ahead on the right they could plainly distinguish _Fontenelle_ with an<br />altitude nearly twice as great. _Mare Frigoris_ was soon passed, and the<br />whole lunar surface beneath the travellers, as far as they could see in<br />all directions, now bristled with mountains, crags, and peaks. Indeed,<br />at the 70th parallel the "Seas" or plains seem to have come to an end.<br />The spy-glasses now brought the surface to within about three miles, a<br />distance less than that between the hotel at Chamouni and the summit of<br />Mont Blanc. To the left, they had no difficulty in distinguishing the<br />ramparts of _Philolaus_, about 12,000 feet high, but though the crater<br />had a diameter of nearly thirty miles, the black shadows prevented the<br />slightest sign of its interior from being seen. The Sun was now sinking<br />very low, and the illuminated surface of the Moon was reduced to a<br />narrow rim.<br /><br />By this time, too, the bird's eye view to which the observations had so<br />far principally confined, decidedly altered its character. They could<br />now look back at the lunar mountains that they had been just sailing<br />over--a view somewhat like that enjoyed by a tourist standing on the<br />summit of Mt. St. Gothard as he sees the sun setting behind the peaks of<br />the Bernese Oberland. The lunar landscapes however, though seen under<br />these new and ever varying conditions, "hardly gained much by the<br />change," according to Ardan's expression. On the contrary, they looked,<br />if possible, more dreary and inhospitable than before.<br /><br />The Moon having no atmosphere, the benefit of this gaseous envelope in<br />softening off and nicely shading the approaches of light and darkness,<br />heat and cold, is never felt on her surface. There, no twilight ever<br />softly ushers in the brilliant sun, or sweetly heralds the near approach<br />of night's dark shadow. Night follows day, and day night, with the<br />startling suddenness of a match struck or a lamp extinguished in a<br />cavern. Nor can it present any gradual transition from either extreme of<br />temperature. Hot jumps to cold, and cold jumps to hot. A moment after a<br />glacial midnight, it is a roasting noon. Without an instant's warning<br />the temperature falls from 212 deg. Fahrenheit to the icy winter of<br />interstellar space. The surface is all dazzling glare, or pitchy gloom.<br />Wherever the direct rays of the sun do not fall, darkness reigns<br />supreme. What we call diffused light on Earth, the grateful result of<br />refraction, the luminous matter held in suspension by the air, the<br />mother of our dawns and our dusks, of our blushing mornings and our dewy<br />eyes, of our shades, our penumbras, our tints and all the other magical<br />effects of _chiaro-oscuro_--this diffused light has absolutely no<br />existence on the surface of the Moon. Nothing is there to break the<br />inexorable contrast between intense white and intense black. At mid-day,<br />let a Selenite shade his eyes and look at the sky: it will appear to him<br />as black as pitch, while the stars still sparkle before him as vividly<br />as they do to us on the coldest and darkest night in winter.<br /><br />From this you can judge of the impression made on our travellers by<br />those strange lunar landscapes. Even their decided novelty and very<br />strange character produced any thing but a pleasing effect on the organs<br />of sight. With all their enthusiasm, the travellers felt their eyes "get<br />out of gear," as Ardan said, like those of a man blind from his birth<br />and suddenly restored to sight. They could not adjust them so as to be<br />able to realize the different plains of vision. All things seemed in a<br />heap. Foreground and background were indistinguishably commingled. No<br />painter could ever transfer a lunar landscape to his canvas.<br /><br />"Landscape," Ardan said; "what do you mean by a landscape? Can you call<br />a bottle of ink intensely black, spilled over a sheet of paper intensely<br />white, a landscape?"<br /><br />At the eightieth degree, when the Projectile was hardly 100 miles<br />distant from the Moon, the aspect of things underwent no improvement. On<br />the contrary, the nearer the travellers approached the lunar surface,<br />the drearier, the more inhospitable, and the more _unearthly_,<br />everything seem to look. Still when five o'clock in the morning brought<br />our travellers to within 50 miles of _Mount Gioja_--which their<br />spy-glasses rendered as visible as if it was only about half a mile off,<br />Ardan could not control himself.<br /><br />"Why, we're there" he exclaimed; "we can touch her with our hands! Open<br />the windows and let me out! Don't mind letting me go by myself. It is<br />not very inviting quarters I admit. But as we are come to the jumping<br />off place, I want to see the whole thing through. Open the lower window<br />and let me out. I can take care of myself!"<br /><br />"That's what's more than any other man can do," said M'Nicholl drily,<br />"who wants to take a jump of 50 miles!"<br /><br />"Better not try it, friend Ardan," said Barbican grimly: "think of<br />Satellite! The Moon is no more attainable by your body than by our<br />Projectile. You are far more comfortable in here than when floating<br />about in empty space like a bolide."<br /><br />Ardan, unwilling to quarrel with his companions, appeared to give in;<br />but he secretly consoled himself by a hope which he had been<br />entertaining for some time, and which now looked like assuming the<br />appearance of a certainty. The Projectile had been lately approaching<br />the Moon's surface so rapidly that it at last seemed actually impossible<br />not to finally touch it somewhere in the neighborhood of the north pole,<br />whose dazzling ridges now presented themselves in sharp and strong<br />relief against the black sky. Therefore he kept silent, but quietly<br />bided his time.<br /><br />The Projectile moved on, evidently getting nearer and nearer to the<br />lunar surface. The Moon now appeared to the travellers as she does to us<br />towards the beginning of her Second Quarter, that is as a bright<br />crescent instead of a hemisphere. On one side, glaring dazzling light;<br />on the other, cavernous pitchy darkness. The line separating both was<br />broken into a thousand bits of protuberances and concavities, dented,<br />notched, and jagged.<br /><br />At six o'clock the travellers found themselves exactly over the north<br />pole. They were quietly gazing at the rapidly shifting features of the<br />wondrous view unrolling itself beneath them, and were silently wondering<br />what was to come next, when, suddenly, the Projectile passed the<br />dividing line. The Sun and Moon instantly vanished from view. The next<br />moment, without the slightest warning the travellers found themselves<br />plunged in an ocean of the most appalling darkness!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER XIV.<br /><br />A NIGHT OF FIFTEEN DAYS.<br /><br /><br />The Projectile being not quite 30 miles from the Moon's north pole when<br />the startling phenomenon, recorded in our last chapter, took place, a<br />few seconds were quite sufficient to launch it at once from the<br />brightest day into the unknown realms of night. The transition was so<br />abrupt, so unexpected, without the slightest shading off, from dazzling<br />effulgence to Cimmerian gloom, that the Moon seemed to have been<br />suddenly extinguished like a lamp when the gas is turned off.<br /><br />"Where's the Moon?" cried Ardan in amazement.<br /><br />"It appears as if she had been wiped out of creation!" cried M'Nicholl.<br /><br />Barbican said nothing, but observed carefully. Not a particle, however,<br />could he see of the disc that had glittered so resplendently before his<br />eyes a few moments ago. Not a shadow, not a gleam, not the slightest<br />vestige could he trace of its existence. The darkness being profound,<br />the dazzling splendor of the stars only gave a deeper blackness to the<br />pitchy sky. No wonder. The travellers found themselves now in a night<br />that had plenty of time not only to become black itself, but to steep<br />everything connected with it in palpable blackness. This was the night<br />354-1/4 hours long, during which the invisible face of the Moon is<br />turned away from the Sun. In this black darkness the Projectile now<br />fully participated. Having plunged into the Moon's shadow, it was as<br />effectually cut off from the action of the solar rays as was every point<br />on the invisible lunar surface itself.<br /><br />The travellers being no longer able to see each other, it was proposed<br />to light the gas, though such an unexpected demand on a commodity at<br />once so scarce and so valuable was certainly disquieting. The gas, it<br />will be remembered, had been intended for heating alone, not<br />illumination, of which both Sun and Moon had promised a never ending<br />supply. But here both Sun and Moon, in a single instant vanished from<br />before their eyes and left them in Stygian darkness.<br /><br />"It's all the Sun's fault!" cried Ardan, angrily trying to throw the<br />blame on something, and, like every angry man in such circumstances,<br />bound to be rather nonsensical.<br /><br />"Put the saddle on the right horse, Ardan," said M'Nicholl<br />patronizingly, always delighted at an opportunity of counting a point<br />off the Frenchman. "You mean it's all the Moon's fault, don't you, in<br />setting herself like a screen between us and the Sun?"<br /><br />"No, I don't!" cried Ardan, not at all soothed by his friend's<br />patronizing tone, and sticking like a man to his first assertion right<br />or wrong. "I know what I say! It will be all the Sun's fault if we use<br />up our gas!"<br /><br />"Nonsense!" said M'Nicholl. "It's the Moon, who by her interposition has<br />cut off the Sun's light."<br /><br />"The Sun had no business to allow it to be cut off," said Ardan, still<br />angry and therefore decidedly loose in his assertions.<br /><br />Before M'Nicholl could reply, Barbican interposed, and his even voice<br />was soon heard pouring balm on the troubled waters.<br /><br />"Dear friends," he observed, "a little reflection on either side would<br />convince you that our present situation is neither the Moon's fault nor<br />the Sun's fault. If anything is to be blamed for it, it is our<br />Projectile which, instead of rigidly following its allotted course, has<br />awkwardly contrived to deviate from it. However, strict justice must<br />acquit even the Projectile. It only obeyed a great law of nature in<br />shifting its course as soon as it came within the sphere of that<br />inopportune bolide's influence."<br /><br />"All right!" said Ardan, as usual in the best of humor after Barbican<br />had laid down the law. "I have no doubt it is exactly as you say; and,<br />now that all is settled, suppose we take breakfast. After such a hard<br />night spent in work, a little refreshment would not be out of place!"<br /><br />Such a proposition being too reasonable even for M'Nicholl to oppose,<br />Ardan turned on the gas, and had everything ready for the meal in a few<br />minutes. But, this time, breakfast was consumed in absolute silence. No<br />toasts were offered, no hurrahs were uttered. A painful uneasiness had<br />seized the hearts of the daring travellers. The darkness into which<br />they were so suddenly plunged, told decidedly on their spirits. They<br />felt almost as if they had been suddenly deprived of their sight. That<br />thick, dismal savage blackness, which Victor Hugo's pen is so fond of<br />occasionally revelling in, surrounded them on all sides and crushed them<br />like an iron shroud.<br /><br />It was felt worse than ever when, breakfast being over, Ardan carefully<br />turned off the gas, and everything within the Projectile was as dark as<br />without. However, though they could not see each other's faces, they<br />could hear each other's voices, and therefore they soon began to talk.<br />The most natural subject of conversation was this terrible night 354<br />hours long, which the laws of nature have imposed on the Lunar<br />inhabitants. Barbican undertook to give his friends some explanation<br />regarding the cause of the startling phenomenon, and the consequences<br />resulting from it.<br /><br />"Yes, startling is the word for it," observed Barbican, replying to a<br />remark of Ardan's; "and still more so when we reflect that not only are<br />both lunar hemispheres deprived, by turns, of sun light for nearly 15<br />days, but that also the particular hemisphere over which we are at this<br />moment floating is all that long night completely deprived of<br />earth-light. In other words, it is only one side of the Moon's disc that<br />ever receives any light from the Earth. From nearly every portion of one<br />side of the Moon, the Earth is always as completely absent as the Sun is<br />from us at midnight. Suppose an analogous case existed on the Earth;<br />suppose, for instance, that neither in Europe, Asia or North America<br />was the Moon ever visible--that, in fact, it was to be seen only at our<br />antipodes. With what astonishment should we contemplate her for the<br />first time on our arrival in Australia or New Zealand!"<br /><br />"Every man of us would pack off to Australia to see her!" cried Ardan.<br /><br />"Yes," said M'Nicholl sententiously; "for a visit to the South Sea a<br />Turk would willingly forego Mecca; and a Bostonian would prefer Sidney<br />even to Paris."<br /><br />"Well," resumed Barbican, "this interesting marvel is reserved for the<br />Selenite that inhabits the side of the Moon which is always turned away<br />from our globe."<br /><br />"And which," added the Captain, "we should have had the unspeakable<br />satisfaction of contemplating if we had only arrived at the period when<br />the Sun and the Earth are not at the same side of the Moon--that is, 15<br />days sooner or later than now."<br /><br />"For my part, however," continued Barbican, not heeding these<br />interruptions, "I must confess that, notwithstanding the magnificent<br />splendor of the spectacle when viewed for the first time by the Selenite<br />who inhabits the dark side of the Moon, I should prefer to be a resident<br />on the illuminated side. The former, when his long, blazing, roasting,<br />dazzling day is over, has a night 354 hours long, whose darkness, like<br />that, just now surrounding us, is ever unrelieved save by the cold<br />cheerless rays of the stars. But the latter has hardly seen his fiery<br />sun sinking on one horizon when he beholds rising on the opposite one an<br />orb, milder, paler, and colder indeed than the Sun, but fully as large<br />as thirteen of our full Moons, and therefore shedding thirteen times as<br />much light. This would be our Earth. It would pass through all its<br />phases too, exactly like our Satellite. The Selenites would have their<br />New Earth, Full Earth, and Last Quarter. At midnight, grandly<br />illuminated, it would shine with the greatest glory. But that is almost<br />as much as can be said for it. Its futile heat would but poorly<br />compensate for its superior radiance. All the calorie accumulated in the<br />lunar soil during the 354 hours day would have by this time radiated<br />completely into space. An intensity of cold would prevail, in comparison<br />to which a Greenland winter is tropical. The temperature of interstellar<br />space, 250 deg. below zero, would be reached. Our Selenite, heartily tired<br />of the cold pale Earth, would gladly see her sink towards the horizon,<br />waning as she sank, till at last she appeared no more than half full.<br />Then suddenly a faint rim of the solar orb reveals itself on the edge of<br />the opposite sky. Slowly, more than 14 times more slowly than with us,<br />does the Sun lift himself above the lunar horizon. In half an hour, only<br />half his disc is revealed, but that is more than enough to flood the<br />lunar landscape with a dazzling intensity of light, of which we have no<br />counterpart on Earth. No atmosphere refracts it, no hazy screen softens<br />it, no enveloping vapor absorbs it, no obstructing medium colors it. It<br />breaks on the eye, harsh, white, dazzling, blinding, like the electric<br />light seen a few yards off. As the hours wear away, the more blasting<br />becomes the glare; and the higher he rises in the black sky, but slowly,<br />slowly. It takes him seven of our days to reach the meridian. By that<br />time the heat has increased from an arctic temperature to double the<br />boiling water point, from 250 deg. below zero to 500 deg. above it, or the point<br />at which tin melts. Subjected to these extremes, the glassy rocks crack,<br />shiver and crumble away; enormous land slides occur; peaks topple over;<br />and tons of debris, crashing down the mountains, are swallowed up<br />forever in the yawing chasms of the bottomless craters."<br /><br />"Bravo!" cried Ardan, clapping his hands softly: "our President is<br />sublime! He reminds me of the overture of _Guillaume Tell_!"<br /><br />"Souvenir de Marston!" growled M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"These phenomena," continued Barbican, heedless of interruption and his<br />voice betraying a slight glow of excitement, "these phenomena going on<br />without interruption from month to month, from year to year, from age to<br />age, from _eon_ to _eon_, have finally convinced me that--what?" he<br />asked his hearers, interrupting himself suddenly.<br /><br />--"That the existence at the present time--" answered M'Nicholl.<br /><br />--"Of either animal or vegetable life--" interrupted Ardan.<br /><br />--"In the Moon is hardly possible!" cried both in one voice.<br /><br />"Besides?" asked Barbican: "even if there _is_ any life--?"<br /><br />--"That to live on the dark side would be much more inconvenient than on<br />the light side!" cried M'Nicholl promptly.<br /><br />--"That there is no choice between them!" cried Ardan just as ready.<br />"For my part, I should think a residence on Mt. Erebus or in Grinnell<br />Land a terrestrial paradise in comparison to either. The _Earth shine_<br />might illuminate the light side of the Moon a little during the long<br />night, but for any practical advantage towards heat or life, it would be<br />perfectly useless!"<br /><br />"But there is another serious difference between the two sides," said<br />Barbican, "in addition to those enumerated. The dark side is actually<br />more troubled with excessive variations of temperature than the light<br />one."<br /><br />"That assertion of our worthy President," interrupted Ardan, "with all<br />possible respect for his superior knowledge, I am disposed to question."<br /><br />"It's as clear as day!" said Barbican.<br /><br />"As clear as mud, you mean, Mr. President;" interrupted Ardan, "the<br />temperature of the light side is excited by two objects at the same<br />time, the Earth and the Sun, whereas--"<br /><br />--"I beg your pardon, Ardan--" said Barbican.<br /><br />--"Granted, dear boy--granted with the utmost pleasure!" interrupted the<br />Frenchman.<br /><br />"I shall probably have to direct my observations altogether to you,<br />Captain," continued Barbican; "friend Michael interrupts me so often<br />that I'm afraid he can hardly understand my remarks."<br /><br />"I always admired your candor, Barbican," said Ardan; "it's a noble<br />quality, a grand quality!"<br /><br />"Don't mention it," replied Barbican, turning towards M'Nicholl, still<br />in the dark, and addressing him exclusively; "You see, my dear Captain,<br />the period at which the Moon's invisible side receives at once its light<br />and heat is exactly the period of her _conjunction_, that is to say,<br />when she is lying between the Earth and the Sun. In comparison therefore<br />with the place which she had occupied at her _opposition_, or when her<br />visible side was fully illuminated, she is nearer to the Sun by double<br />her distance from the Earth, or nearly 480 thousand miles. Therefore, my<br />dear Captain, you can see how when the invisible side of the Moon is<br />turned towards the Sun, she is nearly half a million of miles nearer to<br />him than she had been before. Therefore, her heat should be so much the<br />greater."<br /><br />"I see it at a glance," said the Captain.<br /><br />"Whereas--" continued Barbican.<br /><br />"One moment!" cried Ardan.<br /><br />"Another interruption!" exclaimed Barbican; "What is the meaning of it,<br />Sir?"<br /><br />"I ask my honorable friend the privilege of the floor for one moment,"<br />cried Ardan.<br /><br />"What for?"<br /><br />"To continue the explanation."<br /><br />"Why so?"<br /><br />"To show that I can understand as well as interrupt!"<br /><br />"You have the floor!" exclaimed Barbican, in a voice no longer showing<br />any traces of ill humor.<br /><br />"I expected no less from the honorable gentleman's well known courtesy,"<br />replied Ardan. Then changing his manner and imitating to the life<br />Barbican's voice, articulation, and gestures, he continued: "Whereas,<br />you see, my dear Captain, the period at which the Moon's visible side<br />receives at once its light and heat, is exactly the period of her<br />_opposition_, that is to say, when she is lying on one side of the Earth<br />and the Sun at the other. In comparison therefore with the point which<br />she had occupied in _conjunction_, or when her invisible side was fully<br />illuminated, she is farther from the Sun by double her distance from the<br />Earth, or nearly 480,000 miles. Therefore, my dear Captain, you can<br />readily see how when the Moon's invisible side is turned _from_ the Sun,<br />she is nearly half a million miles further from him than she had been<br />before. Therefore her heat should be so much the less."<br /><br />"Well done, friend Ardan!" cried Barbican, clapping his hands with<br />pleasure. "Yes, Captain, he understood it as well as either of us the<br />whole time. Intelligence, not indifference, caused him to interrupt.<br />Wonderful fellow!"<br /><br />"That's the kind of a man I am!" replied Ardan, not without some degree<br />of complacency. Then he added simply: "Barbican, my friend, if I<br />understand your explanations so readily, attribute it all to their<br />astonishing lucidity. If I have any faculity, it is that of being able<br />to scent common sense at the first glimmer. Your sentences are so<br />steeped in it that I catch their full meaning long before you end<br />them--hence my apparent inattention. But we're not yet done with the<br />visible face of the Moon: it seems to me you have not yet enumerated all<br />the advantages in which it surpasses the other side."<br /><br />"Another of these advantages," continued Barbican, "is that it is from<br />the visible side alone that eclipses of the Sun can be seen. This is<br />self-evident, the interposition of the Earth being possible only between<br />this visible face and the Sun. Furthermore, such eclipses of the Sun<br />would be of a far more imposing character than anything of the kind to<br />be witnessed from our Earth. This is chiefly for two reasons: first,<br />when we, terrestrians, see the Sun eclipsed, we notice that, the discs<br />of the two orbs being of about the same apparent size, one cannot hide<br />the other except for a short time; second, as the two bodies are moving<br />in opposite directions, the total duration of the eclipse, even under<br />the most favorable circumstances, can't last longer than 7 minutes.<br />Whereas to a Selenite who sees the Earth eclipse the Sun, not only does<br />the Earth's disc appear four times larger than the Sun's, but also, as<br />his day is 14 times longer than ours, the two heavenly bodies must<br />remain several hours in contact. Besides, notwithstanding the apparent<br />superiority of the Earth's disc, the refracting power of the atmosphere<br />will never allow the Sun to be eclipsed altogether. Even when completely<br />screened by the Earth, he would form a beautiful circle around her of<br />yellow, red, and crimson light, in which she would appear to float like<br />a vast sphere of jet in a glowing sea of gold, rubies, sparkling<br />carbuncles and garnets."<br /><br />"It seems to me," said M'Nicholl, "that, taking everything into<br />consideration, the invisible side has been rather shabbily treated."<br /><br />"I know I should not stay there very long," said Ardan; "the desire of<br />seeing such a splendid sight as that eclipse would be enough to bring me<br />to the visible side as soon as possible."<br /><br />"Yes, I have no doubt of that, friend Michael," pursued Barbican; "but<br />to see the eclipse it would not be necessary to quit the dark hemisphere<br />altogether. You are, of course, aware that in consequence of her<br />librations, or noddings, or wobblings, the Moon presents to the eyes of<br />the Earth a little more than the exact half of her disc. She has two<br />motions, one on her path around the Earth, and the other a shifting<br />around on her own axis by which she endeavors to keep the same side<br />always turned towards our sphere. This she cannot always do, as while<br />one motion, the latter, is strictly uniform, the other being eccentric,<br />sometimes accelerating her and sometimes retarding, she has not time to<br />shift herself around completely and with perfect correspondence of<br />movement. At her perigee, for instance, she moves forward quicker than<br />she can shift, so that we detect a portion of her western border before<br />she has time to conceal it. Similarly, at her apogee, when her rate of<br />motion is comparatively slow, she shifts a little too quickly for her<br />velocity, and therefore cannot help revealing a certain portion of her<br />eastern border. She shows altogether about 8 degrees of the dark side,<br />about 4 at the east and 4 at the west, so that, out of her 360 degrees,<br />about 188, in other words, a little more than 57 per cent., about 4/7 of<br />the entire surface, becomes visible to human eyes. Consequently a<br />Selenite could catch an occasional glimpse of our Earth, without<br />altogether quitting the dark side."<br /><br />"No matter for that!" cried Ardan; "if we ever become Selenites we must<br />inhabit the visible side. My weak point is light, and that I must have<br />when it can be got."<br /><br />"Unless, as perhaps in this case, you might be paying too dear for it,"<br />observed M'Nicholl. "How would you like to pay for your light by the<br />loss of the atmosphere, which, according to some philosophers, is piled<br />away on the dark side?"<br /><br />"Ah! In that case I should consider a little before committing myself,"<br />replied Ardan, "I should like to hear your opinion regarding such a<br />notion, Barbican. Hey! Do your hear? Have astronomers any valid reasons<br />for supposing the atmosphere to have fled to the dark side of the Moon?"<br /><br />"Defer that question till some other time, Ardan," whispered M'Nicholl;<br />"Barbican is just now thinking out something that interests him far more<br />deeply than any empty speculation of astronomers. If you are near the<br />window, look out through it towards the Moon. Can you see anything?"<br /><br />"I can feel the window with my hand; but for all I can see, I might as<br />well be over head and ears in a hogshead of ink."<br /><br />The two friends kept up a desultory conversation, but Barbican did not<br />hear them. One fact, in particular, troubled him, and he sought in vain<br />to account for it. Having come so near the Moon--about 30 miles--why had<br />not the Projectile gone all the way? Had its velocity been very great,<br />the tendency to fall could certainly be counteracted. But the velocity<br />being undeniably very moderate, how explain such a decided resistance to<br />Lunar attraction? Had the Projectile come within the sphere of some<br />strange unknown influence? Did the neighborhood of some mysterious body<br />retain it firmly imbedded in ether? That it would never reach the Moon,<br />was now beyond all doubt; but where was it going? Nearer to her or<br />further off? Or was it rushing resistlessly into infinity on the wings<br />of that pitchy night? Who could tell, know, calculate--who could even<br />guess, amid the horror of this gloomy blackness? Questions, like these,<br />left Barbican no rest; in vain he tried to grapple with them; he felt<br />like a child before them, baffled and almost despairing.<br /><br />In fact, what could be more tantalizing? Just outside their windows,<br />only a few leagues off, perhaps only a few miles, lay the radiant planet<br />of the night, but in every respect as far off from the eyes of himself<br />and his companions as if she was hiding at the other side of Jupiter!<br />And to their ears she was no nearer. Earthquakes of the old Titanic type<br />might at that very moment be upheaving her surface with resistless<br />force, crashing mountain against mountain as fiercely as wave meets wave<br />around the storm-lashed cliffs of Cape Horn. But not the faintest far<br />off murmur even of such a mighty tumult could break the dead brooding<br />silence that surrounded the travellers. Nay, the Moon, realizing the<br />weird fancy of the Arabian poet, who calls her a "giant stiffening into<br />granite, but struggling madly against his doom," might shriek, in a<br />spasm of agony, loudly enough to be heard in Sirius. But our travellers<br />could not hear it. Their ears no sound could now reach. They could no<br />more detect the rending of a continent than the falling of a feather.<br />Air, the propagator and transmitter of sound, was absent from her<br />surface. Her cries, her struggles, her groans, were all smothered<br />beneath the impenetrable tomb of eternal silence!<br /><br />These were some of the fanciful ideas by which Ardan tried to amuse his<br />companions in the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. His efforts,<br />however well meant, were not successful. M'Nicholl's growls were more<br />savage than usual, and even Barbican's patience was decidedly giving<br />way. The loss of the other face they could have easily borne--with most<br />of its details they had been already familiar. But, no, it must be the<br />dark face that now escaped their observation! The very one that for<br />numberless reasons they were actually dying to see! They looked out of<br />the windows once more at the black Moon beneath them.<br /><br />There it lay below them, a round black spot, hiding the sweet faces of<br />the stars, but otherwise no more distinguishable by the travellers than<br />if they were lying in the depths of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. And<br />just think. Only fifteen days before, that dark face had been splendidly<br />illuminated by the solar beams, every crater lustrous, every peak<br />sparkling, every streak glistening under the vertical ray. In fifteen<br />days later, a day light the most brilliant would have replaced a<br />midnight the most Cimmerian. But in fifteen days later, where would the<br />Projectile be? In what direction would it have been drawn by the forces<br />innumerable of attractions incalculable? To such a question as this,<br />even Ardan would reply only by an ominous shake of the head.<br /><br />We know already that our travellers, as well as astronomers generally,<br />judging from that portion of the dark side occasionally revealed by the<br />Moon's librations, were _pretty certain_ that there is no great<br />difference between her two sides, as far as regards their physical<br />constitutions. This portion, about the seventh part, shows plains and<br />mountains, circles and craters, all of precisely the same nature as<br />those already laid down on the chart. Judging therefore from analogy,<br />the other three-sevenths are, in all probability a world in every<br />respect exactly like the visible face--that is, arid, desert, dead. But<br />our travellers also knew that _pretty certain_ is far from _quite<br />certain_, and that arguing merely from analogy may enable you to give a<br />good guess, but can never lead you to an undoubted conclusion. What if<br />the atmosphere had really withdrawn to this dark face? And if air, why<br />not water? Would not this be enough to infuse life into the whole<br />continent? Why should not vegetation flourish on its plains, fish in its<br />seas, animals in its forests, and man in every one of its zones that<br />were capable of sustaining life? To these interesting questions, what a<br />satisfaction it would be to be able to answer positively one way or<br />another! For thousands of difficult problems a mere glimpse at this<br />hemisphere would be enough to furnish a satisfactory reply. How glorious<br />it would be to contemplate a realm on which the eye of man has never yet<br />rested!<br /><br />Great, therefore, as you may readily conceive, was the depression of our<br />travellers' spirits, as they pursued their way, enveloped in a veil of<br />darkness the most profound. Still even then Ardan, as usual, formed<br />somewhat of an exception. Finding it impossible to see a particle of the<br />Lunar surface, he gave it up for good, and tried to console himself by<br />gazing at the stars, which now fairly blazed in the spangled heavens.<br />And certainly never before had astronomer enjoyed an opportunity for<br />gazing at the heavenly bodies under such peculiar advantages. How Fraye<br />of Paris, Chacornac of Lyons, and Father Secchi of Rome would have<br />envied him!<br /><br />For, candidly and truly speaking, never before had mortal eye revelled<br />on such a scene of starry splendor. The black sky sparkled with lustrous<br />fires, like the ceiling of a vast hall of ebony encrusted with flashing<br />diamonds. Ardan's eye could take in the whole extent in an easy sweep<br />from the _Southern Cross_ to the _Little Bear_, thus embracing within<br />one glance not only the two polar stars of the present day, but also<br />_Campus_ and _Vega_, which, by reason of the _precession of the<br />Equinoxes_, are to be our polar stars 12,000 years hence. His<br />imagination, as if intoxicated, reeled wildly through these sublime<br />infinitudes and got lost in them. He forgot all about himself and all<br />about his companions. He forgot even the strangeness of the fate that<br />had sent them wandering through these forbidden regions, like a<br />bewildered comet that had lost its way. With what a soft sweet light<br />every star glowed! No matter what its magnitude, the stream that flowed<br />from it looked calm and holy. No twinkling, no scintillation, no<br />nictitation, disturbed their pure and lambent gleam. No atmosphere here<br />interposed its layers of humidity or of unequal density to interrupt the<br />stately majesty of their effulgence. The longer he gazed upon them, the<br />more absorbing became their attraction. He felt that they were great<br />kindly eyes looking down even yet with benevolence and protection on<br />himself and his companions now driving wildly through space, and lost<br />in the pathless depths of the black ocean of infinity!<br /><br />He soon became aware that his friends, following his example, had<br />interested themselves in gazing at the stars, and were now just as<br />absorbed as himself in the contemplation of the transcendent spectacle.<br />For a long time all three continued to feast their eyes on all the<br />glories of the starry firmament; but, strange to say, the part that<br />seemed to possess the strangest and weirdest fascination for their<br />wandering glances was the spot where the vast disc of the Moon showed<br />like an enormous round hole, black and soundless, and apparently deep<br />enough to permit a glance into the darkest mysteries of the infinite.<br /><br />A disagreeable sensation, however, against which they had been for some<br />time struggling, at last put an end to their contemplations, and<br />compelled them to think of themselves. This was nothing less than a<br />pretty sharp cold, at first somewhat endurable, but which soon covered<br />the inside surface of the window panes with a thick coating of ice. The<br />fact was that, the Sun's direct rays having no longer an opportunity of<br />warming up the Projectile, the latter began to lose rapidly by radiation<br />whatever heat it had stored away within its walls. The consequence was a<br />very decided falling of the thermometer, and so thick a condensation of<br />the internal moisture on the window glasses as to soon render all<br />external observations extremely difficult, if not actually impossible.<br /><br />The Captain, as the oldest man in the party, claimed the privilege of<br />saying he could stand it no longer. Striking a light, he consulted the<br />thermometer and cried out:<br /><br />"Seventeen degrees below zero, centigrade! that is certainly low enough<br />to make an old fellow like me feel rather chilly!"<br /><br />"Just one degree and a half above zero, Fahrenheit!" observed Barbican;<br />"I really had no idea that it was so cold."<br /><br />His teeth actually chattered so much that he could hardly articulate;<br />still he, as well as the others, disliked to entrench on their short<br />supply of gas.<br /><br />"One feature of our journey that I particularly admire," said Ardan,<br />trying to laugh with freezing lips, "is that we can't complain of<br />monotony. At one time we are frying with the heat and blinded with the<br />light, like Indians caught on a burning prairie; at another, we are<br />freezing in the pitchy darkness of a hyperborean winter, like Sir John<br />Franklin's merry men in the Bay of Boothia. _Madame La Nature_, you<br />don't forget your devotees; on the contrary, you overwhelm us with your<br />attentions!"<br /><br />"Our external temperature may be reckoned at how much?" asked the<br />Captain, making a desperate effort to keep up the conversation.<br /><br />"The temperature outside our Projectile must be precisely the same as<br />that of interstellar space in general," answered Barbican.<br /><br />"Is not this precisely the moment then," interposed Ardan, quickly,<br />"for making an experiment which we could never have made as long as we<br />were in the sunshine?"<br /><br />"That's so!" exclaimed Barbican; "now or never! I'm glad you thought of<br />it, Ardan. We are just now in the position to find out the temperature<br />of space by actual experiment, and so see whose calculations are right,<br />Fourier's or Pouillet's."<br /><br />"Let's see," asked Ardan, "who was Fourier, and who was Pouillet?"<br /><br />"Baron Fourier, of the French Academy, wrote a famous treatise on<br />_Heat_, which I remember reading twenty years ago in Penington's book<br />store," promptly responded the Captain; "Pouillet was an eminent<br />professor of Physics at the Sorbonne, where he died, last year, I<br />think."<br /><br />"Thank you, Captain," said Ardan; "the cold does not injure your memory,<br />though it is decidedly on the advance. See how thick the ice is already<br />on the window panes! Let it only keep on and we shall soon have our<br />breaths falling around us in flakes of snow."<br /><br />"Let us prepare a thermometer," said Barbican, who had already set<br />himself to work in a business-like manner.<br /><br />A thermometer of the usual kind, as may be readily supposed, would be of<br />no use whatever in the experiment that was now about to be made. In an<br />ordinary thermometer Mercury freezes hard when exposed to a temperature<br />of 40 deg. below zero. But Barbican had provided himself with a _Minimum_,<br />_self-recording_ thermometer, of a peculiar nature, invented by<br />Wolferdin, a friend of Arago's, which could correctly register<br />exceedingly low degrees of temperature. Before beginning the experiment,<br />this instrument was tested by comparison with one of the usual kind, and<br />then Barbican hesitated a few moments regarding the best means of<br />employing it.<br /><br />"How shall we start this experiment?" asked the Captain.<br /><br />"Nothing simpler," answered Ardan, always ready to reply; "you just open<br />your windows, and fling out your thermometer. It follows your<br />Projectile, as a calf follows her mother. In a quarter of an hour you<br />put out your hand--"<br /><br />"Put out your hand!" interrupted Barbican.<br /><br />"Put out your hand--" continued Ardan, quietly.<br /><br />"You do nothing of the kind," again interrupted Barbican; "that is,<br />unless you prefer, instead of a hand, to pull back a frozen stump,<br />shapeless, colorless and lifeless!"<br /><br />"I prefer a hand," said Ardan, surprised and interested.<br /><br />"Yes," continued Barbican, "the instant your hand left the Projectile,<br />it would experience the same terrible sensations as is produced by<br />cauterizing it with an iron bar white hot. For heat, whether rushing<br />rapidly out of our bodies or rapidly entering them, is identically the<br />same force and does the same amount of damage. Besides I am by no means<br />certain that we are still followed by the objects that we flung out of<br />the Projectile."<br /><br />"Why not?" asked M'Nicholl; "we saw them all outside not long ago."<br /><br />"But we can't see them outside now," answered Barbican; "that may be<br />accounted for, I know, by the darkness, but it may be also by the fact<br />of their not being there at all. In a case like this, we can't rely on<br />uncertainties. Therefore, to make sure of not losing our thermometer, we<br />shall fasten it with a string and easily pull it in whenever we like."<br /><br />This advice being adopted, the window was opened quickly, and the<br />instrument was thrown out at once by M'Nicholl, who held it fastened by<br />a short stout cord so that it could be pulled in immediately. The window<br />had hardly been open for longer than a second, yet that second had been<br />enough to admit a terrible icy chill into the interior of the<br />Projectile.<br /><br />"Ten thousand ice-bergs!" cried Ardan, shivering all over; "it's cold<br />enough to freeze a white bear!"<br /><br />Barbican waited quietly for half an hour; that time he considered quite<br />long enough to enable the instrument to acquire the temperature of the<br />interstellar space. Then he gave the signal, and it was instantly pulled<br />in.<br /><br />It took him a few moments to calculate the quantity of mercury that had<br />escaped into the little diaphragm attached to the lower part of the<br />instrument; then he said:<br /><br />"A hundred and forty degrees, centigrade, below zero!"<br /><br />[Illustration: IT'S COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE A WHITE BEAR.]<br /><br />"Two hundred and twenty degrees, Fahrenheit, below zero!" cried<br />M'Nicholl; "no wonder that we should feel a little chilly!"<br /><br />"Pouillet is right, then," said Barbican, "and Fourier wrong."<br /><br />"Another victory for Sorbonne over the Academy!" cried Ardan. "_Vive la<br />Sorbonne!_ Not that I'm a bit proud of finding myself in the midst of a<br />temperature so very _distingue_--though it is more than three times<br />colder than Hayes ever felt it at Humboldt Glacier or Nevenoff at<br />Yakoutsk. If Madame the Moon becomes as cold as this every time that her<br />surface is withdrawn from the sunlight for fourteen days, I don't think,<br />boys, that her hospitality is much to hanker after!"<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER XV.<br /><br />GLIMPSES AT THE INVISIBLE.<br /><br /><br />In spite of the dreadful condition in which the three friends now found<br />themselves, and the still more dreadful future that awaited them, it<br />must be acknowledged that Ardan bravely kept up his spirits. And his<br />companions were just as cheerful. Their philosophy was quite simple and<br />perfectly intelligible. What they could bear, they bore without<br />murmuring. When it became unbearable, they only complained, if<br />complaining would do any good. Imprisoned in an iron shroud, flying<br />through profound darkness into the infinite abysses of space, nearly a<br />quarter million of miles distant from all human aid, freezing with the<br />icy cold, their little stock not only of gas but of _air_ rapidly<br />running lower and lower, a near future of the most impenetrable<br />obscurity looming up before them, they never once thought of wasting<br />time in asking such useless questions as where they were going, or what<br />fate was about to befall them. Knowing that no good could possibly<br />result from inaction or despair, they carefully kept their wits about<br />them, making their experiments and recording their observations as<br />calmly and as deliberately as if they were working at home in the quiet<br />retirement of their own cabinets.<br /><br />Any other course of action, however, would have been perfectly absurd<br />on their part, and this no one knew better than themselves. Even if<br />desirous to act otherwise, what could they have done? As powerless over<br />the Projectile as a baby over a locomotive, they could neither clap<br />brakes to its movement nor switch off its direction. A sailor can turn<br />his ship's head at pleasure; an aeronaut has little trouble, by means of<br />his ballast and his throttle-valve, in giving a vertical movement to his<br />balloon. But nothing of this kind could our travellers attempt. No helm,<br />or ballast, or throttle-valve could avail them now. Nothing in the world<br />could be done to prevent things from following their own course to the<br />bitter end.<br /><br />If these three men would permit themselves to hazard an expression at<br />all on the subject, which they didn't, each could have done it by his<br />own favorite motto, so admirably expressive of his individual nature.<br />"_Donnez tete baissee!_" (Go it baldheaded!) showed Ardan's<br />uncalculating impetuosity and his Celtic blood. "_Fata quocunque<br />vocant!_" (To its logical consequence!) revealed Barbican's<br />imperturbable stoicism, culture hardening rather than loosening the<br />original British phlegm. Whilst M'Nicholl's "Screw down the valve and<br />let her rip!" betrayed at once his unconquerable Yankee coolness and his<br />old experiences as a Western steamboat captain.<br /><br />Where were they now, at eight o'clock in the morning of the day called<br />in America the sixth of December? Near the Moon, very certainly; near<br />enough, in fact, for them to perceive easily in the dark the great round<br />screen which she formed between themselves and the Projectile on one<br />side, and the Earth, Sun, and stars on the other. But as to the exact<br />distance at which she lay from them--they had no possible means of<br />calculating it. The Projectile, impelled and maintained by forces<br />inexplicable and even incomprehensible, had come within less than thirty<br />miles from the Moon's north pole. But during those two hours of<br />immersion in the dark shadow, had this distance been increased or<br />diminished? There was evidently no stand-point whereby to estimate<br />either the Projectile's direction or its velocity. Perhaps, moving<br />rapidly away from the Moon, it would be soon out of her shadow<br />altogether. Perhaps, on the contrary, gradually approaching her surface,<br />it might come into contact at any moment with some sharp invisible peak<br />of the Lunar mountains--a catastrophe sure to put a sudden end to the<br />trip, and the travellers too.<br /><br />An excited discussion on this subject soon sprang up, in which all<br />naturally took part. Ardan's imagination as usual getting the better of<br />his reason, he maintained very warmly that the Projectile, caught and<br />retained by the Moon's attraction, could not help falling on her<br />surface, just as an aerolite cannot help falling on our Earth.<br /><br />"Softly, dear boy, softly," replied Barbican; "aerolites _can_ help<br />falling on the Earth, and the proof is, that few of them _do_ fall--most<br />of them don't. Therefore, even granting that we had already assumed the<br />nature of an aerolite, it does not necessarily follow that we should<br />fall on the Moon."<br /><br />"But," objected Ardan, "if we approach only near enough, I don't see how<br />we can help--"<br /><br />"You don't see, it may be," said Barbican, "but you can see, if you only<br />reflect a moment. Have you not often seen the November meteors, for<br />instance, streaking the skies, thousands at a time?"<br /><br />"Yes; on several occasions I was so fortunate."<br /><br />"Well, did you ever see any of them strike the Earth's surface?" asked<br />Barbican.<br /><br />"I can't say I ever did," was the candid reply, "but--"<br /><br />"Well, these shooting stars," continued Barbican, "or rather these<br />wandering particles of matter, shine only from being inflamed by the<br />friction of the atmosphere. Therefore they can never be at a greater<br />distance from the Earth than 30 or 40 miles at furthest, and yet they<br />seldom fall on it. So with our Projectile. It may go very close to the<br />Moon without falling into it."<br /><br />"But our roving Projectile must pull up somewhere in the long run,"<br />replied Ardan, "and I should like to know where that somewhere can be,<br />if not in the Moon."<br /><br />"Softly again, dear boy," said Barbican; "how do you know that our<br />Projectile must pull up somewhere?"<br /><br />"It's self-evident," replied Ardan; "it can't keep moving for ever."<br /><br />"Whether it can or it can't depends altogether on which one of two<br />mathematical curves it has followed in describing its course. According<br />to the velocity with which it was endowed at a certain moment, it must<br />follow either the one or the other; but this velocity I do not consider<br />myself just now able to calculate."<br /><br />"Exactly so," chimed in M'Nicholl; "it must describe and keep on<br />describing either a parabola or a hyperbola."<br /><br />"Precisely," said Barbican; "at a certain velocity it would take a<br />parabolic curve; with a velocity considerably greater it should describe<br />a hyperbolic curve."<br /><br />"I always did like nice corpulent words," said Ardan, trying to laugh;<br />"bloated and unwieldy, they express in a neat handy way exactly what you<br />mean. Of course, I know all about the high--high--those high curves, and<br />those low curves. No matter. Explain them to me all the same. Consider<br />me most deplorably ignorant on the nature of these curves."<br /><br />"Well," said the Captain, a little bumptiously, "a parabola is a curve<br />of the second order, formed by the intersection of a cone by a plane<br />parallel to one of its sides."<br /><br />"You don't say so!" cried Ardan, with mouth agape. "Do tell!"<br /><br />"It is pretty nearly the path taken by a shell shot from a mortar."<br /><br />"Well now!" observed Ardan, apparently much surprised; "who'd have<br />thought it? Now for the high--high--bully old curve!"<br /><br />"The hyperbola," continued the Captain, not minding Ardan's antics, "the<br />hyperbola is a curve of the second order, formed from the intersection<br />of a cone by a plane parallel to its axis, or rather parallel to its two<br />_generatrices_, constituting two separate branches, extending<br />indefinitely in both directions."<br /><br />"Oh, what an accomplished scientist I'm going to turn out, if only left<br />long enough at your feet, illustrious _maestro_!" cried Ardan, with<br />effusion. "Only figure it to yourselves, boys; before the Captain's<br />lucid explanations, I fully expected to hear something about the high<br />curves and the low curves in the back of an Ancient Thomas! Oh, Michael,<br />Michael, why didn't you know the Captain earlier?"<br /><br />But the Captain was now too deeply interested in a hot discussion with<br />Barbican to notice that the Frenchman was only funning him. Which of the<br />two curves had been the one most probably taken by the Projectile?<br />Barbican maintained it was the parabolic; M'Nicholl insisted that it was<br />the hyperbolic. Their tempers were not improved by the severe cold, and<br />both became rather excited in the dispute. They drew so many lines on<br />the table, and crossed them so often with others, that nothing was left<br />at last but a great blot. They covered bits of paper with _x_'s and<br />_y_'s, which they read out like so many classic passages, shouting them,<br />declaiming them, drawing attention to the strong points by gesticulation<br />so forcible and voice so loud that neither of the disputants could hear<br />a word that the other said. Possibly the very great difference in<br />temperature between the external air in contact with their skin and the<br />blood coursing through their veins, had given rise to magnetic currents<br />as potential in their effects as a superabundant supply of oxygen. At<br />all events, the language they soon began to employ in the enforcement of<br />their arguments fairly made the Frenchman's hair stand on end.<br /><br />"You probably forget the important difference between a _directrix_ and<br />an _axis_," hotly observed Barbican.<br /><br />"I know what an _abscissa_ is, any how!" cried the Captain. "Can you say<br />as much?"<br /><br />"Did you ever understand what is meant by a _double ordinate_?" asked<br />Barbican, trying to keep cool.<br /><br />"More than you ever did about a _transverse_ and a _conjugate!_" replied<br />the Captain, with much asperity.<br /><br />"Any one not convinced at a glance that this _eccentricity_ is equal to<br />_unity_, must be blind as a bat!" exclaimed Barbican, fast losing his<br />ordinary urbanity.<br /><br />"_Less_ than _unity_, you mean! If you want spectacles, here are mine!"<br />shouted the Captain, angrily tearing them off and offering them to his<br />adversary.<br /><br />"Dear boys!" interposed Ardan--<br /><br />--"The _eccentricity_ is _equal_ to _unity_!" cried Barbican.<br /><br />--"The _eccentricity_ is _less_ than _unity_!" screamed M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Talking of eccentricity--" put in Ardan.<br /><br />--"Therefore it's a _parabola_, and must be!" cried Barbican,<br />triumphantly.<br /><br />--"Therefore it's _hyperbola_ and nothing shorter!" was the Captain's<br />quite as confident reply.<br /><br />"For gracious sake!--" resumed Ardan.<br /><br />"Then produce your _asymptote_!" exclaimed Barbican, with an angry<br />sneer.<br /><br />"Let us see the _symmetrical point_!" roared the Captain, quite<br />savagely.<br /><br />"Dear boys! old fellows!--" cried Ardan, as loud as his lungs would let<br />him.<br /><br />"It's useless to argue with a Mississippi steamboat Captain," ejaculated<br />Barbican; "he never gives in till he blows up!"<br /><br />"Never try to convince a Yankee schoolmaster," replied M'Nicholl; "he<br />has one book by heart and don't believe in any other!"<br /><br />"Here, friend Michael, get me a cord, won't you? It's the only way to<br />convince him!" cried Barbican, hastily turning to the Frenchman.<br /><br />"Hand me over that ruler, Ardan!" yelled the Captain. "The heavy one!<br />It's the only way now left to bring him to reason!"<br /><br />"Look here, Barbican and M'Nicholl!" cried Ardan, at last making himself<br />heard, and keeping a tight hold both on the cord and the ruler. "This<br />thing has gone far enough! Come. Stop your talk, and answer me a few<br />questions. What do you want of this cord, Barbican?"<br /><br />"To describe a parabolic curve!"<br /><br />"And what are you going to do with the ruler, M'Nicholl!"<br /><br />"To help draw a true hyperbola!"<br /><br />"Promise me, Barbican, that you're not going to lasso the Captain!"<br /><br />"Lasso the Captain! Ha! ha! ha!"<br /><br />"You promise, M'Nicholl, that you're not going to brain the President!"<br /><br />"I brain the President! Ho! ho! ho!"<br /><br />"I want merely to convince him that it is a parabola!"<br /><br />"I only want to make it clear as day that it is hyperbola!"<br /><br />"Does it make any real difference whether it is one or the other?"<br />yelled Ardan.<br /><br />"The greatest possible difference--in the Eye of Science."<br /><br />"A radical and incontrovertible difference--in the Eye of Science!"<br /><br />"Oh! Hang the Eye of Science--will either curve take us to the Moon?"<br /><br />"No!"<br /><br />"Will either take us back to the Earth?"<br /><br />"No!"<br /><br />"Will either take us anywhere that you know of?"<br /><br />"No!"<br /><br />"Why not?"<br /><br />"Because they are both _open_ curves, and therefore can never end!"<br /><br />"Is it of the slightest possible importance which of the two curves<br />controls the Projectile?"<br /><br />"Not the slightest--except in the Eye of Science!"<br /><br />"Then let the Eye of Science and her parabolas and hyperbolas, and<br />conjugates, and asymptotes, and the rest of the confounded nonsensical<br />farrago, all go to pot! What's the use of bothering your heads about<br />them here! Have you not enough to trouble you otherwise? A nice pair of<br />scientists you are? 'Stanislow' scientists, probably. Do _real_<br />scientists lose their tempers for a trifle? Am I ever to see my ideal of<br />a true scientific man in the flesh? Barbican came very near realizing my<br />idea perfectly; but I see that Science just has as little effect as<br />Culture in driving the Old Adam out of us! The idea of the only<br />simpleton in the lot having to lecture the others on propriety of<br />deportment! I thought they were going to tear each other's eyes out! Ha!<br />Ha! Ha! It's _impayable_! Give me that cord, Michael! Hand me the heavy<br />ruler, Ardan! It's the only way to bring him to reason! Ho! Ho! Ho! It's<br />too good! I shall never get over it!" and he laughed till his sides<br />ached and his cheeks streamed.<br /><br />His laughter was so contagious, and his merriment so genuine, that there<br />was really no resisting it, and the next few minutes witnessed nothing<br />but laughing, and handshaking and rib-punching in the Projectile--though<br />Heaven knows there was very little for the poor fellows to be merry<br />about. As they could neither reach the Moon nor return to the Earth,<br />what _was_ to befall them? The immediate outlook was the very reverse of<br />exhilarating. If they did not die of hunger, if they did not die of<br />thirst, the reason would simply be that, in a few days, as soon as their<br />gas was exhausted, they would die for want of air, unless indeed the icy<br />cold had killed them beforehand!<br /><br />By this time, in fact, the temperature had become so exceedingly cold<br />that a further encroachment on their little stock of gas could be put<br />off no longer. The light, of course, they could manage to do without;<br />but a little heat was absolutely necessary to prevent them from freezing<br />to death. Fortunately, however, the caloric developed by the Reiset and<br />Regnault process for purifying the air, raised the internal temperature<br />of the Projectile a little, so that, with an expenditure of gas much<br />less than they had expected, our travellers were able to maintain it at<br />a degree capable of sustaining human life.<br /><br />By this time, also, all observations through the windows had become<br />exceedingly difficult. The internal moisture condensed so thick and<br />congealed so hard on the glass that nothing short of continued friction<br />could keep up its transparency. But this friction, however laborious<br />they might regard it at other times, they thought very little of just<br />now, when observation had become far more interesting and important than<br />ever.<br /><br />If the Moon had any atmosphere, our travellers were near enough now to<br />strike any meteor that might be rushing through it. If the Projectile<br />itself were floating in it, as was possible, would not such a good<br />conductor of sound convey to their ears the reflexion of some lunar<br />echo, the roar of some storm raging among the mountains, the rattling of<br />some plunging avalanche, or the detonations of some eructating volcano?<br />And suppose some lunar Etna or Vesuvius was flashing out its fires, was<br />it not even possible that their eye could catch a glimpse of the lurid<br />gleam? One or two facts of this kind, well attested, would singularly<br />elucidate the vexatious question of a lunar atmosphere, which is still<br />so far from being decided. Full of such thoughts and intensely<br />interested in them, Barbican, M'Nicholl and Ardan, patient as<br />astronomers at a transit of Venus, watched steadily at their windows,<br />and allowed nothing worth noticing to escape their searching gaze.<br /><br />Ardan's patience first gave out. He showed it by an observation natural<br />enough, for that matter, to a mind unaccustomed to long stretches of<br />careful thought:<br /><br />"This darkness is absolutely killing! If we ever take this trip again,<br />it must be about the time of the New Moon!"<br /><br />"There I agree with you, Ardan," observed the Captain. "That would be<br />just the time to start. The Moon herself, I grant, would be lost in the<br />solar rays and therefore invisible all the time of our trip, but in<br />compensation, we should have the Full Earth in full view. Besides--and<br />this is your chief point, no doubt, Ardan--if we should happen to be<br />drawn round the Moon, just as we are at the present moment, we should<br />enjoy the inestimable advantage of beholding her invisible side<br />magnificently illuminated!"<br /><br />"My idea exactly, Captain," said Ardan. "What is your opinion on this<br />point, Barbican?"<br /><br />"My opinion is as follows:" answered Barbican, gravely. "If we ever<br />repeat this journey, we shall start precisely at the same time and under<br />precisely the same circumstances. You forget that our only object is to<br />reach the Moon. Now suppose we had really landed there, as we expected<br />to do yesterday, would it not have been much more agreeable to behold<br />the lunar continents enjoying the full light of day than to find them<br />plunged in the dismal obscurity of night? Would not our first<br />installation of discovery have been under circumstances decidedly<br />extremely favorable? Your silence shows that you agree with me. As to<br />the invisible side, once landed, we should have the power to visit it<br />when we pleased, and therefore we could always choose whatever time<br />would best suit our purpose. Therefore, if we wanted to land in the<br />Moon, the period of the Full Moon was the best period to select. The<br />period was well chosen, the time was well calculated, the force was well<br />applied, the Projectile was well aimed, but missing our way spoiled<br />everything."<br /><br />"That's sound logic, no doubt," said Ardan; "still I can't help thinking<br />that all for want of a little light we are losing, probably forever, a<br />splendid opportunity of seeing the Moon's invisible side. How about the<br />other planets, Barbican? Do you think that their inhabitants are as<br />ignorant regarding their satellites as we are regarding ours?"<br /><br />"On that subject," observed M'Nicholl, "I could venture an answer<br />myself, though, of course, without pretending to speak dogmatically on<br />any such open question. The satellites of the other planets, by their<br />comparative proximity, must be much easier to study than our Moon. The<br />Saturnians, the Uranians, the Jovians, cannot have had very serious<br />difficulty in effecting some communication with their satellites.<br />Jupiter's four moons, for instance, though on an average actually 2-1/2<br />times farther from their planet's centre than the Moon is from us, are<br />comparatively four times nearer to him on account of his radius being<br />eleven times greater than the Earth's. With Saturn's eight moons, the<br />case is almost precisely similar. Their average distance is nearly three<br />times greater than that of our Moon; but as Saturn's diameter is about 9<br />times greater than the Earth's, his bodyguards are really between 3 and<br />4 times nearer to their principal than ours is to us. As to Uranus, his<br />first satellite, _Ariel_, half as far from him as our Moon is from the<br />Earth, is comparatively, though not actually, eight times nearer."<br /><br />"Therefore," said Barbican, now taking up the subject, "an experiment<br />analogous to ours, starting from either of these three planets, would<br />have encountered fewer difficulties. But the whole question resolves<br />itself into this. _If_ the Jovians and the rest have been able to quit<br />their planets, they have probably succeeded in discovering the invisible<br />sides of their satellites. But if they have _not_ been able to do so,<br />why, they're not a bit wiser than ourselves--But what's the matter with<br />the Projectile? It's certainly shifting!"<br /><br />Shifting it certainly was. While the path it described as it swung<br />blindly through the darkness, could not be laid down by any chart for<br />want of a starting point, Barbican and his companions soon became aware<br />of a decided modification of its relative position with regard to the<br />Moon's surface. Instead of its side, as heretofore, it now presented its<br />base to the Moon's disc, and its axis had become rigidly vertical to the<br />lunar horizon. Of this new feature in their journey, Barbican had<br />assured himself by the most undoubted proof towards four o'clock in the<br />morning. What was the cause? Gravity, of course. The heavier portion of<br />the Projectile gravitated towards the Moon's centre exactly as if they<br />were falling towards her surface.<br /><br />But _were_ they falling? Were they at last, contrary to all<br />expectations, about to reach the goal that they had been so ardently<br />wishing for? No! A sight-point, just discovered by M'Nicholl, very soon<br />convinced Barbican that the Projectile was as far as ever from<br />approaching the Moon, but was moving around it in a curve pretty near<br />concentric.<br /><br />M'Nicholl's discovery, a luminous gleam flickering on the distant verge<br />of the black disc, at once engrossed the complete attention of our<br />travellers and set them to divining its course. It could not possibly be<br />confounded with a star. Its glare was reddish, like that of a distant<br />furnace on a dark night; it kept steadily increasing in size and<br />brightness, thus showing beyond a doubt how the Projectile was<br />moving--in the direction of the luminous point, and _not_ vertically<br />falling towards the Moon's surface.<br /><br />"It's a volcano!" cried the Captain, in great excitement; "a volcano in<br />full blast! An outlet of the Moon's internal fires! Therefore she can't<br />be a burnt out cinder!"<br /><br />"It certainly looks like a volcano," replied Barbican, carefully<br />investigating this new and puzzling phenomenon with his night-glass. "If<br />it is not one, in fact, what can it be?"<br /><br />"To maintain combustion," commenced Ardan syllogistically and<br />sententiously, "air is necessary. An undoubted case of combustion lies<br />before us. Therefore, this part of the Moon _must_ have an atmosphere!"<br /><br />"Perhaps so," observed Barbican, "but not necessarily so. The volcano,<br />by decomposing certain substances, gunpowder for instance, may be able<br />to furnish its own oxygen, and thus explode in a vacuum. That blaze, in<br />fact, seems to me to possess the intensity and the blinding glare of<br />objects burning in pure oxygen. Let us therefore be not over hasty in<br />jumping at the conclusion of the existence of a lunar atmosphere."<br /><br />This fire mountain was situated, according to the most plausible<br />conjecture, somewhere in the neighborhood of the 45th degree, south<br />latitude, of the Moon's invisible side. For a little while the<br />travellers indulged the fond hope that they were directly approaching<br />it, but, to their great disappointment, the path described by the<br />Projectile lay in a different direction. Its nature therefore they had<br />no opportunity of ascertaining. It began to disappear behind the dark<br />horizon within less than half an hour after the time that M'Nicholl had<br />signalled it. Still, the fact of the uncontested existence of such a<br />phenomenon was a grand one, and of considerable importance in<br />selenographic investigations. It proved that heat had not altogether<br />disappeared from the lunar world; and the existence of heat once<br />settled, who can say positively that the vegetable kingdom and even the<br />animal kingdom have not likewise resisted so far every influence tending<br />to destroy them? If terrestrial astronomers could only be convinced, by<br />undoubted evidence, of the existence of this active volcano on the<br />Moon's surface, they would certainly admit of very considerable<br />modifications in the present doubts regarding her inhabitability.<br /><br />Thoughts of this kind continued to occupy the minds of our travellers<br />even for some time after the little spark of light had been extinguished<br />in the black gloom. But they said very little; even Ardan was silent,<br />and continued to look out of the window. Barbican surrendered himself up<br />to a reverie regarding the mysterious destinies of the lunar world. Was<br />its present condition a foreshadowing of what our Earth is to become?<br />M'Nicholl, too, was lost in speculation. Was the Moon older or younger<br />than the Earth in the order of Creation? Had she ever been a beautiful<br />world of life, and color, and magnificent variety? If so, had her<br />inhabitants--<br /><br />Great Mercy, what a cry from Ardan! It sounded human, so seldom do we<br />hear a shriek so expressive at once of surprise and horror and even<br />terror! It brought back his startled companions to their senses in a<br />second. Nor did they ask him for the cause of his alarm. It was only too<br />clear. Right in their very path, a blazing ball of fire had suddenly<br />risen up before their eyes, the pitchy darkness all round it rendering<br />its glare still more blinding. Its phosphoric coruscation filled the<br />Projectile with white streams of lurid light, tinging the contents with<br />a pallor indescribably ghastly. The travellers' faces in particular,<br />gleamed with that peculiar livid and cadaverous tinge, blue and yellow,<br />which magicians so readily produce by burning table salt in alcohol.<br /><br />"_Sacre!_" cried Ardan who always spoke his own language when much<br />excited. "What a pair of beauties you are! Say, Barbican! What<br />thundering thing is coming at us now?"<br /><br />"Another bolide," answered Barbican, his eye as calm as ever, though a<br />faint tremor was quite perceptible in his voice.<br /><br />"A bolide? Burning _in vacuo_? You are joking!"<br /><br />"I was never more in earnest," was the President's quiet reply, as he<br />looked through his closed fingers.<br /><br />He knew exactly what he was saying. The dazzling glitter did not deceive<br />_him_. Such a meteor seen from the Earth could not appear much brighter<br />than the Full Moon, but here in the midst of the black ether and<br />unsoftened by the veil of the atmosphere, it was absolutely blinding.<br />These wandering bodies carry in themselves the principle of their<br />incandescence. Oxygen is by no means necessary for their combustion.<br />Some of them indeed often take fire as they rush through the layers of<br />our atmosphere, and generally burn out before they strike the Earth. But<br />others, on the contrary, and the greater number too, follow a track<br />through space far more distant from the Earth than the fifty miles<br />supposed to limit our atmosphere. In October, 1844, one of these meteors<br />had appeared in the sky at an altitude calculated to be at least 320<br />miles; and in August, 1841, another had vanished when it had reached the<br />height of 450 miles. A few even of those seen from the Earth must have<br />been several miles in diameter. The velocity with which some of them<br />have been calculated to move, from east to west, in a direction contrary<br />to that of the Earth, is astounding enough to exceed belief--about fifty<br />miles in a second. Our Earth does not move quite 20 miles in a second,<br />though it goes a thousand times quicker than the fastest locomotive.<br /><br />[Illustration: THEY COULD UTTER NO WORD.]<br /><br />Barbican calculated like lightning that the present object of their<br />alarm was only about 250 miles distant from them, and could not be<br />less than a mile and a quarter in diameter. It was coming on at the rate<br />of more than a mile a second or about 75 miles a minute. It lay right in<br />the path of the Projectile, and in a very few seconds indeed a terrible<br />collision was inevitable. The enormous rate at which it grew in size,<br />showed the terrible velocity at which it was approaching.<br /><br />You can hardly imagine the situation of our poor travellers at the sight<br />of this frightful apparition. I shall certainly not attempt to describe<br />it. In spite of their singular courage, wonderful coolness,<br />extraordinary fortitude, they were now breathless, motionless, almost<br />helpless; their muscles were tightened to their utmost tension; their<br />eyes stared out of their sockets; their faces were petrified with<br />horror. No wonder. Their Projectile, whose course they were powerless as<br />children to guide, was making straight for this fiery mass, whose glare<br />in a few seconds had become more blinding than the open vent of a<br />reverberating furnace. Their own Projectile was carrying them headlong<br />into a bottomless abyss of fire!<br /><br />Still, even in this moment of horror, their presence of mind, or at<br />least their consciousness, never abandoned them. Barbican had grasped<br />each of his friends by the hand, and all three tried as well as they<br />could to watch through half-closed eyelids the white-hot asteroid's<br />rapid approach. They could utter no word, they could breathe no prayer.<br />They gave themselves up for lost--in the agony of terror that partially<br />interrupted the ordinary functions of their brains, this was absolutely<br />all they could do! Hardly three minutes had elapsed since Ardan had<br />caught the first glimpse of it--three ages of agony! Now it was on them!<br />In a second--in less than a second, the terrible fireball had burst like<br />a shell! Thousands of glittering fragments were flying around them in<br />all directions--but with no more noise than is made by so many light<br />flakes of thistle-down floating about some warm afternoon in summer. The<br />blinding, blasting steely white glare of the explosion almost bereft the<br />travellers of the use of their eyesight forever, but no more report<br />reached their ears than if it had taken place at the bottom of the Gulf<br />of Mexico. In an atmosphere like ours, such a crash would have burst the<br />ear-membranes of ten thousand elephants!<br /><br />In the middle of the commotion another loud cry was suddenly heard. It<br />was the Captain who called this time. His companions rushed to his<br />window and all looked out together in the same direction.<br /><br />What a sight met their eyes! What pen can describe it? What pencil can<br />reproduce the magnificence of its coloring? It was a Vesuvius at his<br />best and wildest, at the moment just after the old cone has fallen in.<br />Millions of luminous fragments streaked the sky with their blazing<br />fires. All sizes and shapes of light, all colors and shades of colors,<br />were inextricably mingled together. Irradiations in gold, scintillations<br />in crimson, splendors in emerald, lucidities in ultramarine--a dazzling<br />girandola of every tint and of every hue. Of the enormous fireball, an<br />instant ago such an object of dread, nothing now remained but these<br />glittering pieces, shooting about in all directions, each one an<br />asteroid in its turn. Some flew out straight and gleaming like a steel<br />sword; others rushed here and there irregularly like chips struck off a<br />red-hot rock; and others left long trails of glittering cosmical dust<br />behind them like the nebulous tail of Donati's comet.<br /><br />These incandescent blocks crossed each other, struck each other, crushed<br />each other into still smaller fragments, one of which, grazing the<br />Projectile, jarred it so violently that the very window at which the<br />travellers were standing, was cracked by the shock. Our friends felt, in<br />fact, as if they were the objective point at which endless volleys of<br />blazing shells were aimed, any of them powerful enough, if it only hit<br />them fair, to make as short work of the Projectile as you could of an<br />egg-shell. They had many hairbreadth escapes, but fortunately the<br />cracking of the glass proved to be the only serious damage of which they<br />could complain.<br /><br />This extraordinary illumination lasted altogether only a few seconds;<br />every one of its details was of a most singular and exciting nature--but<br />one of its greatest wonders was yet to come. The ether, saturated with<br />luminous matter, developed an intensity of blazing brightness unequalled<br />by the lime light, the magnesium light, the electric light, or any other<br />dazzling source of illumination with which we are acquainted on earth.<br />It flashed out of these asteroids in all directions, and downwards, of<br />course, as well as elsewhere. At one particular instant, it was so very<br />vivid that Ardan, who happened to be looking downwards, cried out, as if<br />in transport:<br /><br />"Oh!! The Moon! Visible at last!"<br /><br />And the three companions, thrilling with indescribable emotion, shot a<br />hasty glance through the openings of the coruscating field beneath them.<br />Did they really catch a glimpse of the mysterious invisible disc that<br />the eye of man had never before lit upon? For a second or so they gazed<br />with enraptured fascination at all they could see. What did they see,<br />what could they see at a distance so uncertain that Barbican has never<br />been able even to guess at it? Not much. Ardan was reminded of the night<br />he had stood on the battlements of Dover Castle, a few years before,<br />when the fitful flashes of a thunder storm gave him occasional and very<br />uncertain glimpses of the French coast at the opposite side of the<br />strait. Misty strips long and narrow, extending over one portion of the<br />disc--probably cloud-scuds sustained by a highly rarefied<br />atmosphere--permitted only a very dreamy idea of lofty mountains<br />stretching beneath them in shapeless proportions, of smaller reliefs,<br />circuses, yawning craters, and the other capricious, sponge-like<br />formations so common on the visible side. Elsewhere the watchers became<br />aware for an instant of immense spaces, certainly not arid plains, but<br />seas, real oceans, vast and calm, reflecting from their placid depths<br />the dazzling fireworks of the weird and wildly flashing meteors.<br />Farther on, but very darkly as if behind a screen, shadowy continents<br />revealed themselves, their surfaces flecked with black cloudy masses,<br />probably great forests, with here and there a--<br /><br />Nothing more! In less than a second the illumination had come to an end,<br />involving everything in the Moon's direction once more in pitchy<br />darkness.<br /><br />But had the impression made on the travellers' eyes been a mere vision<br />or the result of a reality? an optical delusion or the shadow of a solid<br />fact? Could an observation so rapid, so fleeting, so superficial, be<br />really regarded as a genuine scientific affirmation? Could such a feeble<br />glimmer of the invisible disc justify them in pronouncing a decided<br />opinion on the inhabitability of the Moon? To such questions as these,<br />rising spontaneously and simultaneously in the minds of our travellers,<br />they could not reply at the moment; they could not reply to them long<br />afterwards; even to this day they can give them no satisfactory answer.<br />All they could do at the moment, they did. To every sight and sound they<br />kept their eyes and ears open, and, by observing the most perfect<br />silence, they sought to render their impressions too vivid to admit of<br />deception.<br /><br />There was now, however, nothing to be heard, and very little more to be<br />seen. The few coruscations that flashed over the sky, gradually became<br />fewer and dimmer; the asteroids sought paths further and further apart,<br />and finally disappeared altogether. The ether resumed its original<br />blackness. The stars, eclipsed for a moment, blazed out again on the<br />firmament, and the invisible disc, that had flashed into view for an<br />instant, once more relapsed forever into the impenetrable depths of<br />night.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER XVI.<br /><br />THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.<br /><br /><br />Exceedingly narrow and exceedingly fortunate had been the escape of the<br />Projectile. And from a danger too the most unlikely and the most<br />unexpected. Who would have ever dreamed of even the possibility of such<br />an encounter? And was all danger over? The sight of one of these erratic<br />bolides certainly justified the gravest apprehensions of our travellers<br />regarding the existence of others. Worse than the sunken reefs of the<br />Southern Seas or the snags of the Mississippi, how could the Projectile<br />be expected to avoid them? Drifting along blindly through the boundless<br />ethereal ocean, _her_ inmates, even if they saw the danger, were totally<br />powerless to turn her aside. Like a ship without a rudder, like a<br />runaway horse, like a collapsed balloon, like an iceberg in an Atlantic<br />storm, like a boat in the Niagara rapids, she moved on sullenly,<br />recklessly, mechanically, mayhap into the very jaws of the most<br />frightful danger, the bright intelligences within no more able to modify<br />her motions even by a finger's breadth than they were able to affect<br />Mercury's movements around the Sun.<br /><br />But did our friends complain of the new perils now looming up before<br />them? They never thought of such a thing. On the contrary, they only<br />considered themselves (after the lapse of a few minutes to calm their<br />nerves) extremely lucky in having witnessed this fresh glory of<br />exuberant nature, this transcendent display of fireworks which not only<br />cast into absolute insignificance anything of the kind they had ever<br />seen on Earth, but had actually enabled them by its dazzling<br />illumination to gaze for a second or two at the Moon's mysterious<br />invisible disc. This glorious momentary glance, worth a whole lifetime<br />of ordinary existence, had revealed to mortal ken her continents, her<br />oceans, her forests. But did it also convince them of the existence of<br />an atmosphere on her surface whose vivifying molecules would render<br />_life_ possible? This question they had again to leave unanswered--it<br />will hardly ever be answered in a way quite satisfactory to human<br />curiosity. Still, infinite was their satisfaction at having hovered even<br />for an instant on the very verge of such a great problem's solution.<br /><br />It was now half-past three in the afternoon. The Projectile still<br />pursued its curving but otherwise unknown path over the Moon's invisible<br />face. Had this path been disturbed by that dangerous meteor? There was<br />every reason to fear so--though, disturbance or no disturbance, the<br />curve it described should still be one strictly in accordance with the<br />laws of Mechanical Philosophy. Whether it was a parabola or a hyperbola,<br />however, or whether it was disturbed or not, made very little difference<br />as, in any case, the Projectile was bound to quit pretty soon the cone<br />of the shadow, at a point directly opposite to where it had entered it.<br />This cone could not possibly be of very great extent, considering the<br />very slight ratio borne by the Moon's diameter when compared with the<br />Sun's. Still, to all appearances, the Projectile seemed to be quite as<br />deeply immersed in the shadow as ever, and there was apparently not the<br />slightest sign of such a state of things coming soon to an end. At what<br />rate was the Projectile now moving? Hard to say, but certainly not<br />slowly, certainly rapidly enough to be out of the shadow by this time,<br />if describing a curve rigidly parabolic. Was the curve therefore _not_<br />parabolic? Another puzzling problem and sadly bewildering to poor<br />Barbican, who had now almost lost his reason by attempting to clear up<br />questions that were proving altogether too profound for his overworked<br />brains.<br /><br />Not that he ever thought of taking rest. Not that his companions thought<br />of taking rest. Far from it. With senses as high-strung as ever, they<br />still watched carefully for every new fact, every unexpected incident<br />that might throw some light on the sidereal investigations. Even their<br />dinner, or what was called so, consisted of only a few bits of bread and<br />meat, distributed by Ardan at five o'clock, and swallowed mechanically.<br />They did not even turn on the gas full head to see what they were<br />eating; each man stood solidly at his window, the glass of which they<br />had enough to do in keeping free from the rapidly condensing moisture.<br /><br />At about half-past five, however, M'Nicholl, who had been gazing for<br />some time with his telescope in a particular direction, called the<br />attention of his companions to some bright specks of light barely<br />discernible in that part of the horizon towards which the Projectile was<br />evidently moving. His words were hardly uttered when his companions<br />announced the same discovery. They could soon all see the glittering<br />specks not only becoming more and more numerous, but also gradually<br />assuming the shape of an extremely slender, but extremely brilliant<br />crescent. Rapidly more brilliant and more decided in shape the profile<br />gradually grew, till it soon resembled the first faint sketch of the New<br />Moon that we catch of evenings in the western sky, or rather the first<br />glimpse we get of her limb as it slowly moves out of eclipse. But it was<br />inconceivably brighter than either, and was furthermore strangely<br />relieved by the pitchy blackness both of sky and Moon. In fact, it soon<br />became so brilliant as to dispel in a moment all doubt as to its<br />particular nature. No meteor could present such a perfect shape; no<br />volcano, such dazzling splendor.<br /><br />"The Sun!" cried Barbican.<br /><br />"The Sun?" asked M'Nicholl and Ardan in some astonishment.<br /><br />"Yes, dear friends; it is the Sun himself that you now see; these<br />summits that you behold him gilding are the mountains that lie on the<br />Moon's southern rim. We are rapidly nearing her south pole."<br /><br />"After doubling her north pole!" cried Ardan; "why, we must be<br />circumnavigating her!"<br /><br />"Exactly; sailing all around her."<br /><br />"Hurrah! Then we're all right at last! There's nothing more to fear from<br />your hyperbolas or parabolas or any other of your open curves!"<br /><br />"Nothing more, certainly, from an open curve, but every thing from a<br />closed one."<br /><br />"A closed curve! What is it called? And what is the trouble?"<br /><br />"An eclipse it is called; and the trouble is that, instead of flying off<br />into the boundless regions of space, our Projectile will probably<br />describe an elliptical orbit around the Moon--"<br /><br />--"What!" cried M'Nicholl, in amazement, "and be her satellite for<br />ever!"<br /><br />"All right and proper," said Ardan; "why shouldn't she have one of her<br />own?"<br /><br />"Only, my dear friend," said Barbican to Ardan, "this change of curve<br />involves no change in the doom of the Projectile. We are as infallibly<br />lost by an ellipse as by a parabola."<br /><br />"Well, there was one thing I never could reconcile myself to in the<br />whole arrangement," replied Ardan cheerfully; "and that was destruction<br />by an open curve. Safe from that, I could say, 'Fate, do your worst!'<br />Besides, I don't believe in the infallibility of your ellipsic. It may<br />prove just as unreliable as the hyperbola. And it is no harm to hope<br />that it may!"<br /><br />From present appearances there was very little to justify Ardan's hope.<br />Barbican's theory of the elliptic orbit was unfortunately too well<br />grounded to allow a single reasonable doubt to be expressed regarding<br />the Projectile's fate. It was to gravitate for ever around the Moon--a<br />sub-satellite. It was a new born individual in the astral universe, a<br />microcosm, a little world in itself, containing, however, only three<br />inhabitants and even these destined to perish pretty soon for want of<br />air. Our travellers, therefore, had no particular reason for rejoicing<br />over the new destiny reserved for the Projectile in obedience to the<br />inexorable laws of the centripetal and centrifugal forces. They were<br />soon, it is true, to have the opportunity of beholding once more the<br />illuminated face of the Moon. They might even live long enough to catch<br />a last glimpse of the distant Earth bathed in the glory of the solar<br />rays. They might even have strength enough left to be able to chant one<br />solemn final eternal adieu to their dear old Mother World, upon whose<br />features their mortal eyes should never again rest in love and longing!<br />Then, what was their Projectile to become? An inert, lifeless, extinct<br />mass, not a particle better than the most defunct asteroid that wanders<br />blindly through the fields of ether. A gloomy fate to look forward to.<br />Yet, instead of grieving over the inevitable, our bold travellers<br />actually felt thrilled with delight at the prospect of even a momentary<br />deliverance from those gloomy depths of darkness and of once more<br />finding themselves, even if only for a few hours, in the cheerful<br />precincts illuminated by the genial light of the blessed Sun!<br /><br />The ring of light, in the meantime, becoming brighter and brighter,<br />Barbican was not long in discovering and pointing out to his companions<br />the different mountains that lay around the Moon's south pole.<br /><br />"There is _Leibnitz_ on your right," said he, "and on your left you can<br />easily see the peaks of _Doerfel_. Belonging rather to the Moon's dark<br />side than to her Earth side, they are visible to terrestrial astronomers<br />only when she is in her highest northern latitudes. Those faint peaks<br />beyond them that you can catch with such difficulty must be those of<br />_Newton_ and _Curtius_."<br /><br />"How in the world can you tell?" asked Ardan.<br /><br />"They are the highest mountains in the circumpolar regions," replied<br />Barbican. "They have been measured with the greatest care; _Newton_ is<br />23,000 feet high."<br /><br />"More or less!" laughed Ardan. "What Delphic oracle says so?"<br /><br />"Dear friend," replied Barbican quietly, "the visible mountains of the<br />Moon have been measured so carefully and so accurately that I should<br />hardly hesitate in affirming their altitude to be as well known as that<br />of Mont Blanc, or, at least, as those of the chief peaks in the<br />Himalayahs or the Rocky Mountain Range."<br /><br />"I should like to know how people set about it," observed Ardan<br />incredulously.<br /><br />"There are several well known methods of approaching this problem,"<br />replied Barbican; "and as these methods, though founded on different<br />principles, bring us constantly to the same result, we may pretty<br />safely conclude that our calculations are right. We have no time, just<br />now to draw diagrams, but, if I express myself clearly, you will no<br />doubt easily catch the general principle."<br /><br />"Go ahead!" answered Ardan. "Anything but Algebra."<br /><br />"We want no Algebra now," said Barbican, "It can't enable us to find<br />principles, though it certainly enables us to apply them. Well. The Sun<br />at a certain altitude shines on one side of a mountain and flings a<br />shadow on the other. The length of this shadow is easily found by means<br />of a telescope, whose object glass is provided with a micrometer. This<br />consists simply of two parallel spider threads, one of which is<br />stationary and the other movable. The Moon's real diameter being known<br />and occupying a certain space on the object glass, the exact space<br />occupied by the shadow can be easily ascertained by means of the movable<br />thread. This space, compared with the Moon's space, will give us the<br />length of the shadow. Now, as under the same circumstances a certain<br />height can cast only a certain shadow, of course a knowledge of the one<br />must give you that of the other, and _vice versa_. This method, stated<br />roughly, was that followed by Galileo, and, in our own day, by Beer and<br />Maedler, with extraordinary success."<br /><br />"I certainly see some sense in this method," said Ardan, "if they took<br />extraordinary pains to observe correctly. The least carelessness would<br />set them wrong, not only by feet but by miles. We have time enough,<br />however, to listen to another method before we get into the full blaze<br />of the glorious old Sol."<br /><br />"The other method," interrupted M'Nicholl laying down his telescope to<br />rest his eyes, and now joining in the conversation to give himself<br />something to do, "is called that of the _tangent rays_. A solar ray,<br />barely passing the edge of the Moon's surface, is caught on the peak of<br />a mountain the rest of which lies in shadow. The distance between this<br />starry peak and the line separating the light from the darkness, we<br />measure carefully by means of our telescope. Then--"<br /><br />"I see it at a glance!" interrupted Ardan with lighting eye; "the ray,<br />being a tangent, of course makes right angles with the radius, which is<br />known: consequently we have two sides and one angle--quite enough to<br />find the other parts of the triangle. Very ingenious--but now, that I<br />think of it--is not this method absolutely impracticable for every<br />mountain except those in the immediate neighborhood of the light and<br />shadow line?"<br /><br />"That's a defect easily remedied by patience," explained Barbican--the<br />Captain, who did not like being interrupted, having withdrawn to his<br />telescope--"As this line is continually changing, in course of time all<br />the mountains must come near it. A third method--to measure the mountain<br />profile directly by means of the micrometer--is evidently applicable<br />only to altitudes lying exactly on the lunar rim."<br /><br />"That is clear enough," said Ardan, "and another point is also very<br />clear. In Full Moon no measurement is possible. When no shadows are<br />made, none can be measured. Measurements, right or wrong, are possible<br />only when the solar rays strike the Moon's surface obliquely with regard<br />to the observer. Am I right, Signor Barbicani, maestro illustrissimo?"<br /><br />"Perfectly right," replied Barbican. "You are an apt pupil."<br /><br />"Say that again," said Ardan. "I want Mac to hear it."<br /><br />Barbican humored him by repeating the observation, but M'Nicholl would<br />only notice it by a grunt of doubtful meaning.<br /><br />"Was Galileo tolerably successful in his calculations?" asked Ardan,<br />resuming the conversation.<br /><br />Before answering this question, Barbican unrolled the map of the Moon,<br />which a faint light like that of day-break now enabled him to examine.<br />He then went on: "Galileo was wonderfully successful--considering that<br />the telescope which he employed was a poor instrument of his own<br />construction, magnifying only thirty times. He gave the lunar mountains<br />a height of about 26,000 feet--an altitude cut down by Hevelius, but<br />almost doubled by Riccioli. Herschel was the first to come pretty close<br />to the truth, but Beer and Maedler, whose _Mappa Selenographica_ now<br />lies before us, have left really nothing more to be done for lunar<br />astronomy--except, of course, to pay a personal visit to the<br />Moon--which we have tried to do, but I fear with a very poor prospect of<br />success."<br /><br />"Cheer up! cheer up!" cried Ardan. "It's not all over yet by long odds.<br />Who can say what is still in store for us? Another bolide may shunt us<br />off our ellipse and even send us to the Moon's surface."<br /><br />Then seeing Barbican shake his head ominously and his countenance become<br />more and more depressed, this true friend tried to brighten him up a bit<br />by feigning to take deep interest in a subject that to him was<br />absolutely the driest in the world.<br /><br />"Meer and Baedler--I mean Beer and Maedler," he went on, "must have<br />measured at least forty or fifty mountains to their satisfaction."<br /><br />"Forty or fifty!" exclaimed Barbican. "They measured no fewer than a<br />thousand and ninety-five lunar mountains and crater summits with a<br />perfect success. Six of these reach an altitude of upwards of 18,000<br />feet, and twenty-two are more than 15,000 feet high."<br /><br />"Which is the highest in the lot?" asked Ardan, keenly relishing<br />Barbican's earnestness.<br /><br />"_Doerfel_ in the southern hemisphere, the peak of which I have just<br />pointed out, is the highest of the lunar mountains so far measured,"<br />replied Barbican. "It is nearly 25,000 feet high."<br /><br />"Indeed! Five thousand feet lower than Mount Everest--still for a lunar<br />mountain, it is quite a respectable altitude."<br /><br />"Respectable! Why it's an enormous altitude, my dear friend, if you<br />compare it with the Moon's diameter. The Earth's diameter being more<br />than 3-1/2 times greater than the Moon's, if the Earth's mountains bore<br />the same ratio to those of the Moon, Everest should be more than sixteen<br />miles high, whereas it is not quite six."<br /><br />"How do the general heights of the Himalayahs compare with those of the<br />highest lunar mountains?" asked Ardan, wondering what would be his next<br />question.<br /><br />"Fifteen peaks in the eastern or higher division of the Himalayahs, are<br />higher than the loftiest lunar peaks," replied Barbican. "Even in the<br />western, or lower section of the Himalayahs, some of the peaks exceed<br />_Doerfel_."<br /><br />"Which are the chief lunar mountains that exceed Mont Blanc in<br />altitude?" asked Ardan, bravely suppressing a yawn.<br /><br />"The following dozen, ranged, if my memory does not fail me, in the<br />exact order of their respective heights;" replied Barbican, never<br />wearied in answering such questions: "_Newton_, _Curtius_, _Casatus_,<br />_Rheita_, _Short_, _Huyghens_, _Biancanus_, _Tycho_, _Kircher_,<br />_Clavius_, _Endymion_, and _Catharina_."<br /><br />"Now those not quite up to Mont Blanc?" asked Ardan, hardly knowing what<br />to say.<br /><br />"Here they are, about half a dozen of them: _Moretus_, _Theophilus_,<br />_Harpalus_, _Eratosthenes_, _Werner_, and _Piccolomini_," answered<br />Barbican as ready as a schoolboy reciting his lesson, and pointing them<br />out on the map as quickly as a compositor distributing his type.<br /><br />"The next in rank?" asked Ardan, astounded at his friend's wonderful<br />memory.<br /><br />"The next in rank," replied Barbican promptly, "are those about the size<br />of the Matterhorn, that is to say about 2-3/4 miles in height. They are<br />_Macrobius_, _Delambre_, and _Conon_. Come," he added, seeing Ardan<br />hesitating and at a loss what other question to ask, "don't you want to<br />know what lunar mountains are about the same height as the Peak of<br />Teneriffe? or as AEtna? or as Mount Washington? You need not be afraid of<br />puzzling me. I studied up the subject thoroughly, and therefore know all<br />about it."<br /><br />"Oh! I could listen to you with delight all day long!" cried Ardan,<br />enthusiastically, though with some embarrassment, for he felt a twinge<br />of conscience in acting so falsely towards his beloved friend. "The fact<br />is," he went on, "such a rational conversation as the present, on such<br />an absorbing subject, with such a perfect master--"<br /><br />"The Sun!" cried M'Nicholl starting up and cheering. "He's cleared the<br />disc completely, and he's now himself again! Long life to him! Hurrah!"<br /><br />"Hurrah!" cried the others quite as enthusiastically (Ardan did not seem<br />a bit desirous to finish his sentence).<br /><br />They tossed their maps aside and hastened to the window.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER XVII.<br /><br />TYCHO.<br /><br /><br />It was now exactly six o'clock in the evening. The Sun, completely clear<br />of all contact with the lunar disc, steeped the whole Projectile in his<br />golden rays. The travellers, vertically over the Moon's south pole,<br />were, as Barbican soon ascertained, about 30 miles distant from it, the<br />exact distance they had been from the north pole--a proof that the<br />elliptic curve still maintained itself with mathematical rigor.<br /><br />For some time, the travellers' whole attention was concentrated on the<br />glorious Sun. His light was inexpressibly cheering; and his heat, soon<br />penetrating the walls of the Projectile, infused a new and sweet life<br />into their chilled and exhausted frames. The ice rapidly disappeared,<br />and the windows soon resumed their former perfect transparency.<br /><br />"Oh! how good the pleasant sunlight is!" cried the Captain, sinking on a<br />seat in a quiet ecstasy of enjoyment. "How I pity Ardan's poor friends<br />the Selenites during that night so long and so icy! How impatient they<br />must be to see the Sun back again!"<br /><br />"Yes," said Ardan, also sitting down the better to bask in the vivifying<br />rays, "his light no doubt brings them to life and keeps them alive.<br />Without light or heat during all that dreary winter, they must freeze<br />stiff like the frogs or become torpid like the bears. I can't imagine<br />how they could get through it otherwise."<br /><br />"I'm glad _we're_ through it anyhow," observed M'Nicholl. "I may at once<br />acknowledge that I felt perfectly miserable as long as it lasted. I can<br />now easily understand how the combined cold and darkness killed Doctor<br />Kane's Esquimaux dogs. It was near killing me. I was so miserable that<br />at last I could neither talk myself nor bear to hear others talk."<br /><br />"My own case exactly," said Barbican--"that is," he added hastily,<br />correcting himself, "I tried to talk because I found Ardan so<br />interested, but in spite of all we said, and saw, and had to think of,<br />Byron's terrible dream would continually rise up before me:<br /><br /> "The bright Sun was extinguished, and the Stars<br /> Wandered all darkling in the eternal space,<br /> Rayless and pathless, and the icy Earth<br /> Swung blind and blackening in the Moonless air.<br /> Morn came and went, and came and brought no day!<br /> And men forgot their passions in the dread<br /> Of this their desolation, and all hearts<br /> Were chilled into a selfish prayer for _light_!"<br /><br />As he pronounced these words in accents at once monotonous and<br />melancholy, Ardan, fully appreciative, quietly gesticulated in perfect<br />cadence with the rhythm. Then the three men remained completely silent<br />for several minutes. Buried in recollection, or lost in thought, or<br />magnetized by the bright Sun, they seemed to be half asleep while<br />steeping their limbs in his vitalizing beams.<br /><br />Barbican was the first to dissolve the reverie by jumping up. His sharp<br />eye had noticed that the base of the Projectile, instead of keeping<br />rigidly perpendicular to the lunar surface, turned away a little, so as<br />to render the elliptical orbit somewhat elongated. This he made his<br />companions immediately observe, and also called their attention to the<br />fact that from this point they could easily have seen the Earth had it<br />been Full, but that now, drowned in the Sun's beams, it was quite<br />invisible. A more attractive spectacle, however, soon engaged their<br />undivided attention--that of the Moon's southern regions, now brought<br />within about the third of a mile by their telescopes. Immediately<br />resuming their posts by the windows, they carefully noted every feature<br />presented by the fantastic panorama that stretched itself out in endless<br />lengths beneath their wondering eyes.<br /><br />[Illustration: THEY SEEMED HALF ASLEEP.]<br /><br />Mount _Leibnitz_ and Mount _Doerfel_ form two separate groups developed<br />in the regions of the extreme south. The first extends westwardly from<br />the pole to the 84th parallel; the second, on the southeastern border,<br />starting from the pole, reaches the neighborhood of the 65th. In the<br />entangled valleys of their clustered peaks, appeared the dazzling sheets<br />of white, noted by Father Secchi, but their peculiar nature Barbican<br />could now examine with a greater prospect of certainty than the<br />illustrious Roman astronomer had ever enjoyed.<br /><br />"They're beds of snow," he said at last in a decided tone.<br /><br />"Snow!" exclaimed M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"Yes, snow, or rather glaciers heavily coated with glittering ice. See<br />how vividly they reflect the Sun's rays. Consolidated beds of lava could<br />never shine with such dazzling uniformity. Therefore there must be both<br />water and air on the Moon's surface. Not much--perhaps very little if<br />you insist on it--but the fact that there is some can now no longer be<br />questioned."<br /><br />This assertion of Barbican's, made so positively by a man who never<br />decided unless when thoroughly convinced, was a great triumph for Ardan,<br />who, as the gracious reader doubtless remembers, had had a famous<br />dispute with M'Nicholl on that very subject at Tampa.[D] His eyes<br />brightened and a smile of pleasure played around his lips, but, with a<br />great effort at self-restraint, he kept perfectly silent and would not<br />permit himself even to look in the direction of the Captain. As for<br />M'Nicholl, he was apparently too much absorbed in _Doerfel_ and<br />_Leibnitz_ to mind anything else.<br /><br />These mountains rose from plains of moderate extent, bounded by an<br />indefinite succession of walled hollows and ring ramparts. They are the<br />only chains met in this region of ridge-brimmed craters and circles;<br />distinguished by no particular feature, they project a few pointed peaks<br />here and there, some of which exceed four miles and a half in height.<br />This altitude, however, foreshortened as it was by the vertical position<br />of the Projectile, could not be noticed just then, even if correct<br />observation had been permitted by the dazzling surface.<br /><br />Once more again before the travellers' eyes the Moon's disc revealed<br />itself in all the old familiar features so characteristic of lunar<br />landscapes--no blending of tones, no softening of colors, no graduation<br />of shadows, every line glaring in white or black by reason of the total<br />absence of refracted light. And yet the wonderfully peculiar character<br />of this desolate world imparted to it a weird attraction as strangely<br />fascinating as ever.<br /><br />Over this chaotic region the travellers were now sweeping, as if borne<br />on the wings of a storm; the peaks defiled beneath them; the yawning<br />chasms revealed their ruin-strewn floors; the fissured cracks untwisted<br />themselves; the ramparts showed all their sides; the mysterious holes<br />presented their impenetrable depths; the clustered mountain summits and<br />rings rapidly decomposed themselves: but in a moment again all had<br />become more inextricably entangled than ever. Everything appeared to be<br />the finished handiwork of volcanic agency, in the utmost purity and<br />highest perfection. None of the mollifying effects of air or water could<br />here be noticed. No smooth-capped mountains, no gently winding river<br />channels, no vast prairie-lands of deposited sediment, no traces of<br />vegetation, no signs of agriculture, no vestiges of a great city.<br />Nothing but vast beds of glistering lava, now rough like immense piles<br />of scoriae and clinker, now smooth like crystal mirrors, and reflecting<br />the Sun's rays with the same intolerable glare. Not the faintest speck<br />of life. A world absolutely and completely dead, fixed, still,<br />motionless--save when a gigantic land-slide, breaking off the vertical<br />wall of a crater, plunged down into the soundless depths, with all the<br />fury too of a crashing avalanche, with all the speed of a Niagara, but,<br />in the total absence of atmosphere, noiseless as a feather, as a snow<br />flake, as a grain of impalpable dust.<br /><br />Careful observations, taken by Barbican and repeated by his companions,<br />soon satisfied them that the ridgy outline of the mountains on the<br />Moon's border, though perhaps due to different forces from those acting<br />in the centre, still presented a character generally uniform. The same<br />bulwark-surrounded hollows, the same abrupt projections of surface. Yet<br />a different arrangement, as Barbican pointed out to his companions,<br />might be naturally expected. In the central portion of the disc, the<br />Moon's crust, before solidification, must have been subjected to two<br />attractions--that of the Moon herself and that of the Earth--acting,<br />however, in contrary directions and therefore, in a certain sense,<br />serving to neutralize each other. Towards the border of her disc, on the<br />contrary, the terrestrial attraction, having acted in a direction<br />perpendicular to that of the lunar, should have exerted greater power,<br />and therefore given a different shape to the general contour. But no<br />remarkable difference had so far been perceived by terrestrial<br />observers; and none could now be detected by our travellers. Therefore<br />the Moon must have found in herself alone the principle of her shape and<br />of her superficial development--that is, she owed nothing to external<br />influences. "Arago was perfectly right, therefore," concluded Barbican,<br />"in the remarkable opinion to which he gave expression thirty years ago:<br /><br />'No external action whatever has contributed to the formation of the<br />Moon's diversified surface.'"<br /><br />"But don't you think, Barbican," asked the Captain, "that every force,<br />internal or external, that might modify the Moon's shape, has ceased<br />long ago?"<br /><br />"I am rather inclined to that opinion," said Barbican; "it is not,<br />however, a new one. Descartes maintained that as the Earth is an extinct<br />Sun, so is the Moon an extinct Earth. My own opinion at present is that<br />the Moon is now the image of death, but I can't say if she has ever been<br />the abode of life."<br /><br />"The abode of life!" cried Ardan, who had great repugnance in accepting<br />the idea that the Moon was no better than a heap of cinders and ashes;<br />"why, look there! If those are not as neat a set of the ruins of an<br />abandoned city as ever I saw, I should like to know what they are!"<br /><br />[Illustration: ONCE MORE THE PIPES OF AN AQUEDUCT.]<br /><br />He pointed to some very remarkable rocky formations in the<br />neighborhood of _Short_, a ring mountain rising to an altitude<br />considerably higher than that of Mont Blanc. Even Barbican and M'Nicholl<br />could detect some regularity and semblance of order in the arrangement<br />of these rocks, but this, of course, they looked on as a mere freak of<br />nature, like the Lurlei Rock, the Giant's Causeway, or the Old Man of<br />the Franconia Mountains. Ardan, however, would not accept such an easy<br />mode of getting rid of a difficulty.<br /><br />"See the ruins on that bluff," he exclaimed; "those steep sides must<br />have been washed by a great river in the prehistoric times. That was the<br />fortress. Farther down lay the city. There are the dismantled ramparts;<br />why, there's the very coping of a portico still intact! Don't you see<br />three broken pillars lying beside their pedestals? There! a little to<br />the left of those arches that evidently once bore the pipes of an<br />aqueduct! You don't see them? Well, look a little to the right, and<br />there is something that you can see! As I'm a living man I have no<br />difficulty in discerning the gigantic butments of a great bridge that<br />formerly spanned that immense river!"<br /><br />Did he really see all this? To this day he affirms stoutly that he did,<br />and even greater wonders besides. His companions, however, without<br />denying that he had good grounds for his assertion on this subject or<br />questioning the general accuracy of his observations, content themselves<br />with saying that the reason why they had failed to discover the<br />wonderful city, was that Ardan's telescope was of a strange and<br />peculiar construction. Being somewhat short-sighted, he had had it<br />manufactured expressly for his own use, but it was of such singular<br />power that his companions could not use it without hurting their eyes.<br /><br />But, whether the ruins were real or not, the moments were evidently too<br />precious to be lost in idle discussion. The great city of the Selenites<br />soon disappeared on the remote horizon, and, what was of far greater<br />importance, the distance of the Projectile from the Moon's disc began to<br />increase so sensibly that the smaller details of the surface were soon<br />lost in a confused mass, and it was only the lofty heights, the wide<br />craters, the great ring mountains, and the vast plains that still<br />continued to give sharp, distinctive outlines.<br /><br />A little to their left, the travellers could now plainly distinguish one<br />of the most remarkable of the Moon's craters, _Newton_, so well known to<br />all lunar astronomers. Its ramparts, forming a perfect circle, rise to<br />such a height, at least 22,000 feet, as to seem insurmountable.<br /><br />"You can, no doubt, notice for yourselves," said Barbican, "that the<br />external height of this mountain is far from being equal to the depth of<br />its crater. The enormous pit, in fact, seems to be a soundless sea of<br />pitchy black, the bottom of which the Sun's rays have never reached.<br />There, as Humboldt says, reigns eternal darkness, so absolute that<br />Earth-shine or even Sunlight is never able to dispel it. Had Michael's<br />friends the old mythologists ever known anything about it, they would<br />doubtless have made it the entrance to the infernal regions. On the<br />whole surface of our Earth, there is no mountain even remotely<br />resembling it. It is a perfect type of the lunar crater. Like most of<br />them, it shows that the peculiar formation of the Moon's surface is due,<br />first, to the cooling of the lunar crust; secondly, to the cracking from<br />internal pressure; and, thirdly, to the violent volcanic action in<br />consequence. This must have been of a far fiercer nature than it has<br />ever been with us. The matter was ejected to a vast height till great<br />mountains were formed; and still the action went on, until at last the<br />floor of the crater sank to a depth far lower than the level of the<br />external plain."<br /><br />"You may be right," said Ardan by way of reply; "as for me, I'm looking<br />out for another city. But I'm sorry to say that our Projectile is<br />increasing its distance so fast that, even if one lay at my feet at this<br />moment, I doubt very much if I could see it a bit better than either you<br />or the Captain."<br /><br />_Newton_ was soon passed, and the Projectile followed a course that took<br />it directly over the ring mountain _Moretus_. A little to the west the<br />travellers could easily distinguish the summits of _Blancanus_, 7,000<br />feet high, and, towards seven o'clock in the evening, they were<br />approaching the neighborhood of _Clavius_.<br /><br />This walled-plain, one of the most remarkable on the Moon, lies 55 deg. S.<br />by 15 deg. E. Its height is estimated at 16,000 feet, but it is considered<br />to be about a hundred and fifty miles in diameter. Of this vast crater,<br />the travellers now at a distance of 250 miles, reduced to 2-1/2 by their<br />telescopes, had a magnificent bird's-eye view.<br /><br />"Our terrestrial volcanoes," said Barbican, "as you can now readily<br />judge for yourselves, are no more than molehills when compared with<br />those of the Moon. Measure the old craters formed by the early eruptions<br />of Vesuvius and AEtna, and you will find them little more than three<br />miles in diameter. The crater of Cantal in central France is only about<br />six miles in width; the famous valley in Ceylon, called the _Crater_,<br />though not at all due to volcanic action, is 44 miles across and is<br />considered to be the greatest in the world. But even this is very little<br />in comparison to the diameter of _Clavius_ lying beneath us at the<br />present moment."<br /><br />"How much is its diameter?" asked the Captain.<br /><br />"At least one hundred and forty-two miles," replied Barbican; "it is<br />probably the greatest in the Moon, but many others measure more than a<br />hundred miles across."<br /><br />"Dear boys," said Ardan, half to himself, half to the others, "only<br />imagine the delicious state of things on the surface of the gentle Moon<br />when these craters, brimming over with hissing lava, were vomiting<br />forth, all at the same time, showers of melted stones, clouds of<br />blinding smoke, and sheets of blasting flame! What an intensely<br />overpowering spectacle was here presented once, but now, how are the<br />mighty fallen! Our Moon, as at present beheld, seems to be nothing more<br />than the skinny spectre left after a brilliant display of fireworks,<br />when the spluttering crackers, the glittering wheels, the hissing<br />serpents, the revolving suns, and the dazzling stars, are all 'played<br />out', and nothing remains to tell of the gorgeous spectacle but a few<br />blackened sticks and half a dozen half burned bits of pasteboard. I<br />should like to hear one of you trying to explain the cause, the reason,<br />the principle, the philosophy of such tremendous cataclysms!"<br /><br />Barbican's only reply was a series of nods, for in truth he had not<br />heard a single word of Ardan's philosophic explosion. His ears were with<br />his eyes, and these were obstinately bent on the gigantic ramparts of<br />_Clavius_, formed of concentric mountain ridges, which were actually<br />leagues in depth. On the floor of the vast cavity, could be seen<br />hundreds of smaller craters, mottling it like a skimming dish, and<br />pierced here and there by sharp peaks, one of which could hardly be less<br />than 15,000 feet high.<br /><br />All around, the plain was desolate in the extreme. You could not<br />conceive how anything could be barrener than these serrated outlines, or<br />gloomier than these shattered mountains--until you looked at the plain<br />that encircled them. Ardan hardly exaggerated when he called it the<br />scene of a battle fought thousands of years ago but still white with the<br />hideous bones of overthrown peaks, slaughtered mountains and mutilated<br />precipices!<br /><br /> "Hills amid the air encountered hills,<br /> Hurled to and fro in jaculation dire,"<br /><br />murmured M'Nicholl, who could quote you Milton quite as readily as the<br />Bible.<br /><br />"This must have been the spot," muttered Barbican to himself, "where the<br />brittle shell of the cooling sphere, being thicker than usual, offered<br />greater resistance to an eruption of the red-hot nucleus. Hence these<br />piled up buttresses, and these orderless heaps of consolidated lava and<br />ejected scoriae."<br /><br />The Projectile advanced, but the scene of desolation seemed to remain<br />unchanged. Craters, ring mountains, pitted plateaus dotted with<br />shapeless wrecks, succeeded each other without interruption. For level<br />plain, for dark "sea," for smooth plateau, the eye here sought in vain.<br />It was a Swiss Greenland, an Icelandic Norway, a Sahara of shattered<br />crust studded with countless hills of glassy lava.<br /><br />At last, in the very centre of this blistered region, right too at its<br />very culmination, the travellers came on the brightest and most<br />remarkable mountain of the Moon. In the dazzling _Tycho_ they found it<br />an easy matter to recognize the famous lunar point, which the world will<br />for ever designate by the name of the distinguished astronomer of<br />Denmark.<br /><br />This brilliant luminosity of the southern hemisphere, no one that ever<br />gazes at the Full Moon in a cloudless sky, can help noticing. Ardan, who<br />had always particularly admired it, now hailed it as an old friend, and<br />almost exhausted breath, imagination and vocabulary in the epithets with<br />which he greeted this cynosure of the lunar mountains.<br /><br />"Hail!" he cried, "thou blazing focus of glittering streaks, thou<br />coruscating nucleus of irradiation, thou starting point of rays<br />divergent, thou egress of meteoric flashes! Hub of the silver wheel that<br />ever rolls in silent majesty over the starry plains of Night! Paragon of<br />jewels enchased in a carcanet of dazzling brilliants! Eye of the<br />universe, beaming with heavenly resplendescence!<br /><br />"Who shall say what thou art? Diana's nimbus? The golden clasp of her<br />floating robes? The blazing head of the great bolt that rivets the lunar<br />hemispheres in union inseverable? Or cans't thou have been some errant<br />bolide, which missing its way, butted blindly against the lunar face,<br />and there stuck fast, like a Minie ball mashed against a cast-iron<br />target? Alas! nobody knows. Not even Barbican is able to penetrate thy<br />mystery. But one thing _I_ know. Thy dazzling glare so sore my eyes hath<br />made that longer on thy light to gaze I do not dare. Captain, have you<br />any smoked glass?"<br /><br />In spite of this anti-climax, Ardan's companions could hardly consider<br />his utterings either as ridiculous or over enthusiastic. They could<br />easily excuse his excitement on the subject. And so could we, if we only<br />remember that _Tycho_, though nearly a quarter of a million miles<br />distant, is such a luminous point on the lunar disc, that almost any<br />moonlit night it can be easily perceived by the unaided terrestrial eye.<br />What then must have been its splendor in the eyes of our travellers<br />whose telescopes brought it actually four thousand times nearer! No<br />wonder that with smoked glasses, they endeavored to soften off its<br />effulgent glare! Then in hushed silence, or at most uttering at<br />intervals a few interjections expressive of their intense admiration,<br />they remained for some time completely engrossed in the overwhelming<br />spectacle. For the time being, every sentiment, impression, thought,<br />feeling on their part, was concentrated in the eye, just as at other<br />times under violent excitement every throb of our life is concentrated<br />in the heart.<br /><br />_Tycho_ belongs to the system of lunar craters that is called<br />_radiating_, like _Aristarchus_ or _Copernicus_, which had been already<br />seen and highly admired by our travellers at their first approach to the<br />Moon. But it is decidedly the most remarkable and conspicuous of them<br />all. It occupies the great focus of disruption, whence it sends out<br />great streaks thousands of miles in length; and it gives the most<br />unmistakable evidence of the terribly eruptive nature of those forces<br />that once shattered the Moon's solidified shell in this portion of the<br />lunar surface.<br /><br />Situated in the southern latitude of 43 deg. by an eastern longitude of 12 deg.,<br />_Tycho's_ crater, somewhat elliptical in shape, is 54 miles in diameter<br />and upwards of 16,000 feet in depth. Its lofty ramparts are buttressed<br />by other mountains, Mont Blancs in size, all grouped around it, and all<br />streaked with the great divergent fissures that radiate from it as a<br />centre.<br /><br />Of what this incomparable mountain really is, with all these lines of<br />projections converging towards it and with all these prominent points<br />of relief protruding within its crater, photography has, so far, been<br />able to give us only a very unsatisfactory idea. The reason too is very<br />simple: it is only at Full Moon that _Tycho_ reveals himself in all his<br />splendor. The shadows therefore vanishing, the perspective<br />foreshortenings disappear and the views become little better than a dead<br />blank. This is the more to be regretted as this wonderful region is well<br />worthy of being represented with the greatest possible photographic<br />accuracy. It is a vast agglomeration of holes, craters, ring formations,<br />a complicated intersection of crests--in short, a distracting volcanic<br />network flung over the blistered soil. The ebullitions of the central<br />eruption still evidently preserve their original form. As they first<br />appeared, so they lie. Crystallizing as they cooled, they have<br />stereotyped in imperishable characters the aspect formerly presented by<br />the whole Moon's surface under the influences of recent plutonic<br />upheaval.<br /><br />Our travellers were far more fortunate than the photographers. The<br />distance separating them from the peaks of _Tycho's_ concentric terraces<br />was not so considerable as to conceal the principal details from a very<br />satisfactory view. They could easily distinguish the annular ramparts of<br />the external circumvallation, the mountains buttressing the gigantic<br />walls internally as well as externally, the vast esplanades descending<br />irregularly and abruptly to the sunken plains all around. They could<br />even detect a difference of a few hundred feet in altitude in favor of<br />the western or right hand side over the eastern. They could also see<br />that these dividing ridges were actually inaccessible and completely<br />unsurmountable, at least by ordinary terrestrian efforts. No system of<br />castrametation ever devised by Polybius or Vauban could bear the<br />slightest comparison with such vast fortifications, A city built on the<br />floor of the circular cavity could be no more reached by the outside<br />Lunarians than if it had been built in the planet Mars.<br /><br />This idea set Ardan off again. "Yes," said he, "such a city would be at<br />once completely inaccessible, and still not inconveniently situated in a<br />plateau full of aspects decidedly picturesque. Even in the depths of<br />this immense crater, Nature, as you can see, has left no flat and empty<br />void. You can easily trace its special oreography, its various mountain<br />systems which turn it into a regular world on a small scale. Notice its<br />cones, its central hills, its valleys, its substructures already cut and<br />dry and therefore quietly prepared to receive the masterpieces of<br />Selenite architecture. Down there to the left is a lovely spot for a<br />Saint Peter's; to the right, a magnificent site for a Forum; here a<br />Louvre could be built capable of entrancing Michael Angelo himself;<br />there a citadel could be raised to which even Gibraltar would be a<br />molehill! In the middle rises a sharp peak which can hardly be less than<br />a mile in height--a grand pedestal for the statue of some Selenite<br />Vincent de Paul or George Washington. And around them all is a mighty<br />mountain-ring at least 3 miles high, but which, to an eye looking from<br />the centre of our vast city, could not appear to be more than five or<br />six hundred feet. Enormous circus, where mighty Rome herself in her<br />palmiest days, though increased tenfold, would have no reason to<br />complain for want of room!"<br /><br />He stopped for a few seconds, perhaps to take breath, and then resumed:<br /><br />"Oh what an abode of serene happiness could be constructed within this<br />shadow-fringed ring of the mighty mountains! O blessed refuge,<br />unassailable by aught of human ills! What a calm unruffled life could be<br />enjoyed within thy hallowed precincts, even by those cynics, those<br />haters of humanity, those disgusted reconstructors of society, those<br />misanthropes and misogynists old and young, who are continually writing<br />whining verses in odd corners of the newspapers!"<br /><br />"Right at last, Ardan, my boy!" cried M'Nicholl, quietly rubbing the<br />glass of his spectacles; "I should like to see the whole lot of them<br />carted in there without a moment's delay!"<br /><br />"It couldn't hold the half of them!" observed Barbican drily.<br /><br />[Footnote D: BALTIMORE GUN CLUB, pp. 295 _et seq._]<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />CHAPTER XVIII.<br /><br />PUZZLING QUESTIONS.<br /><br /><br />It was not until the Projectile had passed a little beyond _Tycho's_<br />immense concavity that Barbican and his friends had a good opportunity<br />for observing the brilliant streaks sent so wonderfully flying in all<br />directions from this celebrated mountain as a common centre. They<br />examined them for some time with the closest attention.<br /><br />What could be the nature of this radiating aureola? By what geological<br />phenomena could this blazing coma have been possibly produced? Such<br />questions were the most natural things in the world for Barbican and his<br />companions to propound to themselves, as indeed they have been to every<br />astronomer from the beginning of time, and probably will be to the end.<br /><br />What _did_ they see? What you can see, what anybody can see on a clear<br />night when the Moon is full--only our friends had all the advantages of<br />a closer view. From _Tycho_, as a focus, radiated in all directions, as<br />from the head of a peeled orange, more than a hundred luminous streaks<br />or channels, edges raised, middle depressed--or perhaps _vice versa_,<br />owing to an optical illusion--some at least twelve miles wide, some<br />fully thirty. In certain directions they ran for a distance of at least<br />six hundred miles, and seemed--especially towards the west, northwest,<br />and north--to cover half the southern hemisphere. One of these flashes<br />extended as far as _Neander_ on the 40th meridian; another, curving<br />around so as to furrow the _Mare Nectaris_, came to an end on the chain<br />of the _Pyrenees_, after a course of perhaps a little more than seven<br />hundred miles. On the east, some of them barred with luminous network<br />the _Mare Nubium_ and even the _Mare Humorum_.<br /><br />The most puzzling feature of these glittering streaks was that they ran<br />their course directly onward, apparently neither obstructed by valley,<br />crater, or mountain ridge however high. They all started, as said<br />before, from one common focus, _Tycho's_ crater. From this they<br />certainly all seemed to emanate. Could they be rivers of lava once<br />vomited from that centre by resistless volcanic agency and afterwards<br />crystallized into glassy rock? This idea of Herschel's, Barbican had no<br />hesitation in qualifying as exceedingly absurd. Rivers running in<br />perfectly straight lines, across plains, and _up_ as well as _down_<br />mountains!<br /><br />"Other astronomers," he continued, "have looked on these streaks as a<br />peculiar kind of _moraines_, that is, long lines of erratic blocks<br />belched forth with mighty power at the period of _Tycho's_ own<br />upheaval."<br /><br />"How do you like that theory, Barbican," asked the Captain.<br /><br />"It's not a particle better than Herschel's," was the reply; "no<br />volcanic action could project rocks to a distance of six or seven<br />hundred miles, not to talk of laying them down so regularly that we<br />can't detect a break in them."<br /><br />"Happy thought!" cried Ardan suddenly; "it seems to me that I can tell<br />the cause of these radiating streaks!"<br /><br />"Let us hear it," said Barbican.<br /><br />"Certainly," was Ardan's reply; "these streaks are all only the parts of<br />what we call a 'star,' as made by a stone striking ice; or by a ball, a<br />pane of glass."<br /><br />"Not bad," smiled Barbican approvingly; "only where is the hand that<br />flung the stone or threw the ball?"<br /><br />"The hand is hardly necessary," replied Ardan, by no means disconcerted;<br />"but as for the ball, what do you say to a comet?"<br /><br />Here M'Nicholl laughed so loud that Ardan was seriously irritated.<br />However, before he could say anything cutting enough to make the Captain<br />mind his manners, Barbican had quickly resumed:<br /><br />"Dear friend, let the comets alone, I beg of you; the old astronomers<br />fled to them on all occasions and made them explain every difficulty--"<br /><br />--"The comets were all used up long ago--" interrupted M'Nicholl.<br /><br />--"Yes," went on Barbican, as serenely as a judge, "comets, they said,<br />had fallen on the surface in meteoric showers and crushed in the crater<br />cavities; comets had dried up the water; comets had whisked off the<br />atmosphere; comets had done everything. All pure assumption! In your<br />case, however, friend Michael, no comet whatever is necessary. The shock<br />that gave rise to your great 'star' may have come from the interior<br />rather than the exterior. A violent contraction of the lunar crust in<br />the process of cooling may have given birth to your gigantic 'star'<br />formation."<br /><br />"I accept the amendment," said Ardan, now in the best of humor and<br />looking triumphantly at M'Nicholl.<br /><br />"An English scientist," continued Barbican, "Nasmyth by name, is<br />decidedly of your opinion, especially ever since a little experiment of<br />his own has confirmed him in it. He filled a glass globe with water,<br />hermetically sealed it, and then plunged it into a hot bath. The<br />enclosed water, expanding at a greater rate than the glass, burst the<br />latter, but, in doing so, it made a vast number of cracks all diverging<br />in every direction from the focus of disruption. Something like this he<br />conceives to have taken place around _Tycho_. As the crust cooled, it<br />cracked. The lava from the interior, oozing out, spread itself on both<br />sides of the cracks. This certainly explains pretty satisfactorily why<br />those flat glistening streaks are of much greater width than the<br />fissures through which the lava had at first made its way to the<br />surface."<br /><br />"Well done for an Englishman!" cried Ardan in great spirits.<br /><br />"He's no Englishman," said M'Nicholl, glad to have an opportunity of<br />coming off with some credit. "He is the famous Scotch engineer who<br />invented the steam hammer, the steam ram, and discovered the 'willow<br />leaves' in the Sun's disc."<br /><br />"Better and better," said Ardan--"but, powers of Vulcan! What makes it<br />so hot? I'm actually roasting!"<br /><br />This observation was hardly necessary to make his companions conscious<br />that by this time they felt extremely uncomfortable. The heat had become<br />quite oppressive. Between the natural caloric of the Sun and the<br />reflected caloric of the Moon, the Projectile was fast turning into a<br />regular bake oven. This transition from intense cold to intense heat was<br />already about quite as much as they could bear.<br /><br />"What shall we do, Barbican?" asked Ardan, seeing that for some time no<br />one else appeared inclined to say a word.<br /><br />"Nothing, at least yet awhile, friend Ardan," replied Barbican, "I have<br />been watching the thermometer carefully for the last few minutes, and,<br />though we are at present at 38 deg. centigrade, or 100 deg. Fahrenheit, I have<br />noticed that the mercury is slowly falling. You can also easily remark<br />for yourself that the floor of the Projectile is turning away more and<br />more from the lunar surface. From this I conclude quite confidently, and<br />I see that the Captain agrees with me, that all danger of death from<br />intense heat, though decidedly alarming ten minutes ago, is over for the<br />present and, for some time at least, it may be dismissed from further<br />consideration."<br /><br />"I'm not very sorry for it," said Ardan cheerfully; "neither to be<br />baked like a pie in an oven nor roasted like a fat goose before a fire<br />is the kind of death I should like to die of."<br /><br />"Yet from such a death you would suffer no more than your friends the<br />Selenites are exposed to every day of their lives," said the Captain,<br />evidently determined on getting up an argument.<br /><br />"I understand the full bearing of your allusion, my dear Captain,"<br />replied Ardan quickly, but not at all in a tone showing that he was<br />disposed to second M'Nicholl's expectations.<br /><br />He was, in fact, fast losing all his old habits of positivism. Latterly<br />he had seen much, but he had reflected more. The deeper he had<br />reflected, the more inclined he had become to accept the conclusion that<br />the less he knew. Hence he had decided that if M'Nicholl wanted an<br />argument it should not be with him. All speculative disputes he should<br />henceforth avoid; he would listen with pleasure to all that could be<br />urged on each side; he might even skirmish a little here and there as<br />the spirit moved him; but a regular pitched battle on a subject purely<br />speculative he was fully determined never again to enter into.<br /><br />"Yes, dear Captain," he continued, "that pointed arrow of yours has by<br />no means missed its mark, but I can't deny that my faith is beginning to<br />be what you call a little 'shaky' in the existence of my friends the<br />Selenites. However, I should like to have your square opinion on the<br />matter. Barbican's also. We have witnessed many strange lunar phenomena<br />lately, closer and clearer than mortal eye ever rested on them before.<br />Has what we have seen confirmed any theory of yours or confounded any<br />hypothesis? Have you seen enough to induce you to adopt decided<br />conclusions? I will put the question formally. Do you, or do you not,<br />think that the Moon resembles the Earth in being the abode of animals<br />and intelligent beings? Come, answer, _messieurs_. Yes, or no?"<br /><br />"I think we can answer your question categorically," replied Barbican,<br />"if you modify its form a little."<br /><br />"Put the question any way you please," said Ardan; "only you answer it!<br />I'm not particular about the form."<br /><br />"Good," said Barbican; "the question, being a double one, demands a<br />double answer. First: _Is the Moon inhabitable?_ Second: _Has the Moon<br />ever been inhabited?_"<br /><br />"That's the way to go about it," said the Captain. "Now then, Ardan,<br />what do _you_ say to the first question? Yes, or no?"<br /><br />"I really can't say anything," replied Ardan. "In the presence of such<br />distinguished scientists, I'm only a listener, a 'mere looker on in<br />Vienna' as the Divine Williams has it. However, for the sake of<br />argument, suppose I reply in the affirmative, and say that _the Moon is<br />inhabitable_."<br /><br />"If you do, I shall most unhesitatingly contradict you," said Barbican,<br />feeling just then in splendid humor for carrying on an argument, not, of<br />course, for the sake of contradicting or conquering or crushing or<br />showing off or for any other vulgar weakness of lower minds, but for the<br />noble and indeed the only motive that should impel a philosopher--that<br />of _enlightening_ and _convincing_, "In taking the negative side,<br />however, or saying that the Moon is not inhabitable, I shall not be<br />satisfied with merely negative arguments. Many words, however, are not<br />required. Look at her present condition: her atmosphere dwindled away to<br />the lowest ebb; her 'seas' dried up or very nearly so; her waters<br />reduced to next to nothing; her vegetation, if existing at all, existing<br />only on the scantiest scale; her transitions from intense heat to<br />intense cold, as we ourselves can testify, sudden in the extreme; her<br />nights and her days each nearly 360 hours long. With all this positively<br />against her and nothing at all that we know of positively for her, I<br />have very little hesitation in saying that the Moon appears to me to be<br />absolutely uninhabitable. She seems to me not only unpropitious to the<br />development of the animal kingdom but actually incapable of sustaining<br />life at all--that is, in the sense that we usually attach to such a<br />term."<br /><br />"That saving clause is well introduced, friend Barbican," said<br />M'Nicholl, who, seeing no chance of demolishing Ardan, had not yet made<br />up his mind as to having another little bout with the President. "For<br />surely you would not venture to assert that the Moon is uninhabitable by<br />a race of beings having an organization different from ours?"<br /><br />"That question too, Captain," replied Barbican, "though a much more<br />difficult one, I shall try to answer. First, however, let us see,<br />Captain, if we agree on some fundamental points. How do we detect the<br />existence of life? Is it not by _movement_? Is not _motion_ its result,<br />no matter what may be its organization?"<br /><br />"Well," said the Captain in a drawling way, "I guess we may grant that."<br /><br />"Then, dear friends," resumed Barbican, "I must remind you that, though<br />we have had the privilege of observing the lunar continents at a<br />distance of not more than one-third of a mile, we have never yet caught<br />sight of the first thing moving on her surface. The presence of<br />humanity, even of the lowest type, would have revealed itself in some<br />form or other, by boundaries, by buildings, even by ruins. Now what<br />_have_ we seen? Everywhere and always, the geological works of _nature_;<br />nowhere and never, the orderly labors of _man_. Therefore, if any<br />representatives of animal life exist in the Moon, they must have taken<br />refuge in those bottomless abysses where our eyes were unable to track<br />them. And even this I can't admit. They could not always remain in these<br />cavities. If there is any atmosphere at all in the Moon, it must be<br />found in her immense low-lying plains. Over those plains her inhabitants<br />must have often passed, and on those plains they must in some way or<br />other have left some mark, some trace, some vestige of their existence,<br />were it even only a road. But you both know well that nowhere are any<br />such traces visible: therefore, they don't exist; therefore, no lunar<br />inhabitants exist--except, of course, such a race of beings, if we can<br />imagine any such, as could exist without revealing their existence by<br />_movement_."<br /><br />"That is to say," broke in Ardan, to give what he conceived a sharper<br />point to Barbican's cogent arguments, "such a race of beings as could<br />exist without existing!"<br /><br />"Precisely," said Barbican: "Life without movement, and no life at all,<br />are equivalent expressions."<br /><br />"Captain," said Ardan, with all the gravity he could assume, "have you&l